Just to inject some simple humor into the recent posts.
In completely unrelated news, musicians Rafael Gazzi and Paul Sonnenberg asked if they could use youtube footage assembled by my good pal Ryan Cordell (aka
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rufusthered ) for their new music video. It's a nice mellow song "about the feelings of longing and hope experienced by an expatriate in a new country," which is something the good Mr. Cordell is well versed in. Check it out.At the end, you can almost hear the "maaro maaro sooar ko, chamdi nocho pee lo khoon" chant from Temple of Doom. Or, you know, they jam the theme song from Jurassic Park.
He also told me that part of what he enjoys about it is how serious people get when they're playing. "Some of the fans think it means something," I remember him telling me. "Like it's a big political statement."
"But it kind of is, isn't it?" I asked.
His grin looked cherub-like.
Some of the people at the concerts are in on the gag, some of them are completely oblivious to it (I don't know how they could be oblivious to it, honestly).
Has anyone read any of Simon R. Green's Nightside books? I'm reading the first one now, about 100 pages into it, and I have to admit I'm a little bit smitten by it. I'm thinking Jim Butcher fans would really like it (he actually blurbed the book I'm reading) and it does for me what I was hoping the Dresden Files would. Imagine the middle brother of John Constantine Hellblazer and Fox Mulder and you'll get Nightside's John Taylor. Nightside is like Gaiman's London Below, a dark, gothic fantasy world with all kinds of creepiness, humor, and danger; Taylor is the P.I. for hire who doesn't solve things, he finds things, and he lets us ride shotgun while he takes us on a tour of the dark landscape in search of his latest job. My one complaint is that the characters seem to feel the need to remind us often that that's just how it is "in the Nightside," but the rest of it is so much pulpy fun, I'm fine with it.
Finally, local SoCal punk band Pennywise has a new album out, Reason to Believe, and for the next couple of weeks you can download it from their myspace account for free. This isn't necessarily an endorsement. I like some punk music quite a bit, and I was in HS when Pennywise first started getting big (although they were one of those bands that really shunned "getting big"). I confess, aside from "Bro Hymn," I never really got them. But I grabbed the new album to give them another chance. It's okay, for a free album, but I'm not sure it changes my opinion of them. Has anyone else heard it? What do you think?
This is my preface: the best album I bought in 2007 wasn't a new release -- it was actually an album close to a decade old by a Chamberlain called The Moon My Saddle. I first heard it several years ago in my brother-in-law's car, driving toward Santa Cruz and have been looking for a copy of it ever since (Will's copy was a recorded tape). I finally found it at the beginning of this year, and it's even better than I remembered it. David Moore's world-weary vocals are reminiscent of Springsteen, and he's written some heart-breaking lyrics that might make the Boss envious. Every track on this album is great. "Stars in the Streetlight" is probably the most beautiful love song I've heard since U2's "One. " There's also some fierce never-say-die songs for the artist in me like "Until the Day Burns Down" and "Try for Thunder." Really, every track on this album is great, but the other stand outs are "Lonesome Song," "Crush You," "Good Enough," and "Mountain of a Heart."
Honestly, I don't know how Chamberlain didn't "make it" big. Fortunately, you can now check this album out on Amazon and itunes and a bunch of other places.
Usually, I dig soundtracks with a bunch of different bands, more in the vein of Almost Famous, Pulp Fiction, and Garden State. I like the variety and it's hard to get one artist to do all of that. But this one rocks. What soundtracks hit you?
- Music:Eddie Vedder -- Hard Sun
Bruce Springsteen and Ben Harper released to of my favorite albums last year and now they're putting out brand new albums this year. Do they ever rest?
Bruce Springsteen has a new album coming out in a couple weeks and right now he's giving away his single "Radio Nowhere" on itunes for free this week.
I'm a huge Springsteen junkie. I love his wounded, worn-out voice, how it sounds like he knows he's really shouldn't be a rock 'n roll star but he just loves music so much he has to wail it out anyway. I love it when he goes all introspective with albums like "the Ghost of Tom Joad," "Nebraska," or "Devil's and Dust," and I love it when he rocks out with the E Street Band on albums like "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "Born in the USA," and "the Rising," or just completely dashes your expectations with last year's "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions." Magic, the new album, is with the E Street band, so it looks like it's going to be another rollicking rock album.
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals also have a new album out called Lifeline. I'm having a hard time explaining the goodness I've heard from this album...there are videos here (Fools for a Lonesome Train, scroll down)and here (In the Colors) if you want to check it out. I do know Harper's told fans he and the band will be dressing up a bit more for the new tour, so I'm expecting something very classy.
The only problem with the Harper is that I'm sworn not to buy anything for myself since my birthday's right around the corner (Springsteen would trump this, as would a new U2 or a new Gaiman book, but his album's coming out of my birthday). I'm not as massive of a fan of Harper's, so I might wait. Maybe.
- Music:Bruce Springsteen -- Radio Nowhere
It's actually kind of cute, I guess and I can deal with something like that. Also on the up-and-up, I finished transferring all my music from the old computer to the new one last night. Tonight, I'll put all the podcasts on there, too (at least the ones I want to keep -- there's no sense in keeping old episodes of the Lost podcast with Jay and Jack, not that I can see at least).
In preparation for the kids coming over, Emma gave me a bunch of cds to put on my ipod and make a playlist for Claire's party. Now I have Mickey's Splashdance and far more Raffi on my ipod than I ever could've wanted. Thankfully, there's also U2, Elizabeth Mitchell, natlie Merchant, Gogol Bordello, They Might Be Giants, and Bruce Springsteen on the playlist, too.
My mom is not getting a playlist.
Seriously though, I can't believe Claire is almost two. She was just born.
First thing's first: Is Baby 81 as good as Howl? No. Not even close.
Bummer. Is it any good at all? Yeah, it's pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.
Howl for me was an amazing record. I liked BRMC before I heard that album but I fell head-over-heels for Howl. They sounded like drunken preachers who discovered rock and roll and started singing sexy gospel songs. They had a good sound before, but Howl was a reinvention, and I loved them for it. And to be honest, I don't think they could've done a better album than Howl. That was a tough one to follow.
Now, they've gone back to their original sound which isn't necessarily a bad thing. More electric, still with that blues rock influence. There's some very good songs on the album: "Took Out a Loan" is vintage BRMC. "Weapons of Choice," their first single from the album, is a song that's really grown on me. But my personal favorites are "Not What You Wanted" (a good song for driving around with the windows rolled down), "666 Conducer" (a second-cousing of "Sympathy for the Devil"), and "All You Do Is Talk" (sounds like it could've been cut from "Joshua Tree" wood). All three of these have a similiar feel to Howl for me and if the whole album sounded like that, I'd be thrilled. But it doesn't, so I'm just pretty happy. "Windows," "Berlin," and "Am I Only" (which also feels like a Howl song) are pretty good, too. The other songs will vary with mileage.
I certainly wouldn't recommend for someone like
avocadovpx to buy this album, but I might suggest some of the above songs to him.Has anybody else listened to the album (or even Howl) yet? What'd you think?
- Music:BRMC -- Baby 81
Has anyone heard anything about Baby 81? Anything?
- Music:Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Last week was probably one of the busiest weeks of my life in recent years. Monday, I had my local writer's group. Tuesday was Claire's music lesson. Wednesday was the Library Reading, Thursday was Daddy and Claire night (Em went out to dinner with some friends), Friday I spent a good chunk of the day blitzing friends about "Last Respects" publication and then Emma and I went to see Switchfoot in concert. That's right, Switchfoot.
I haven't been to a concert for years -- U2's Elevation tour was the last one. My, how concert's had changed. Somebody at my work told me that they now use cell phones instead of zippo lighters when the ballads are rolling. I thought they were joking. No joke. People hold cellphones up instead of lighters. That's one of those rare moments when I actually feel old.
I had no idea that there were Switchfoot afficianados but one sat behind us. There was a mixed crowd there -- a lot of younger people, a few older people, and a surprising amount of kids who were not yet teens. Copeland, the opening band, didn't do much for me. More interesting was the older dude sitting on the aisle who kept yelling at people standing in front of him, blocking the stage, to get out of the way. That poor guy -- he must've run himself hoarse by the end of the night.
Switchfoot was a lot of fun. I liked these guys before I saw them in concert -- they're a rare breed of band that are christian but outside of the Christian record label -- they don't fling religion around in their songs like it's an accessory, you can tell it's deeper than that. That said, I wasn't nuts about them. I liked their last two albums a lot, but before that I kind of thought they had a mixed bag catalogue-wise. What I like most about them is that they aren't afraid of the disallusionment in America, but at the same time they don't want to cop to the disallusionment either. Onstage, these guys rocked. Jon Foreman, the lead-singer, gave bear hugs to both a fan and a the guy who brought out one of his guitars. He also had a great dialogue with the crowd and really made everyone there feel like they were a part of his journey. And it was great to see songs like "Meant to Live," "Oh! Gravity.," "We are One Tonight," "Yesterdays" choked both Emma and I up, and "the Shadow Proves the Sunshine" live.
Yeah, I liked Switchfoot before I saw them in concert, but right now I'm just about drunk on them -- I love them so much.
- Music:Switchfoot -- Oh! Gravity.
I am so tired today I nearly fell asleep at my desk. I don't think that's ever happened to me before. I stayed up later than I meant to last night, and considered (briefly) staying up even later to watch an episode of BSG that arrived from Netflix. But I ended up being a good boy and getting up at 4 instead.
On the plus side, tonight is my mother-in-law's birthday. She's opted that we all get together for an early dinner at what happens to be my favorite Mexican restaurant ever (they also serve very very good margaritas). Perhaps it's time to put on the Gipsy Kings.
- Music:Somewhere between Damien Rice and the Gipsy Kings
Cold War Kids, who I named on my favorite albums of the year list, has their song Hang Me Out to Dry as the itunes free single of the week spot. It's a good song (although there's several others on the album I like even better) and it captures the band's distinct, different sound.
- Music:Cold War Kids
I love making lists. Rest assured, you who don't love them as I do, this might be the last one I make for a while. I could do a movies list, but since I've only seen like 5 new movies this year, I might have to put that one off.
I'm not a music critic but I do like to listen and what you have here are the albums I've been listening to the most this year. Let me know what you think and give me a shout if there's something you think I should listen to! I'm always looking for new music.
It's no secret that I'm a HUGE U2 fan -- they're hands down my favorite band ever. I love the diversity of their music: how their earlier stuff had a punk edge (Boy - War), then they went for a stripped down road-trip rock and roll sound (Joshua Tree) only to re-invent themselves with a raw harshness (Achtung, Baby is perhaps my favorite album of all time), got a little electronic with Pop, then went back to basics with All That You Can't Leave Behind and (sorta with) How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. But most of all I love the spiritual angst that lingers in many of their songs.
However, I was somewhat disappointed when I heard U2 were putting out yet another greatest hits album. I mean, they already gave us two, splitting their career. Why re-release a third? After picking up the cd/dvd combo the other day, I'm still not quite sure. It's kind of weird for me to write a mixed U2 review, not because any of the songs are bad -- they're not. Don't get me wrong: most of your favorites are here (Beautiful Day, With or Without You, Mysterious Ways, Desire, Sunday Bloody Sunday). But there's not a lot that's new (something that made the last two "best of" cds so good were the b-side discs) and there's also a lot that's missing, too. There's nothing from their first two albums, nothing from Pop or Zooropa (though some might consider this a good thing -- I don't). There's also some good cuts missing from Achtung, Baby, War, and The Unforgettable Fire. Bummer.
The two additional songs on this cd are good, though. I hadn't heard The Saints are Coming before (the track done with Green Day in the wake of Hurricane Katrina) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, feeling like it ended way too soon and hitting the replay button, wanting more. The other song, Window in the Skies, could almost be a gospel song much like I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For with a post-Vertigo electric rock. Both of these songs hit that spiritual angst button for me I love so much about the band. The book that came with my set has some beautiful photos in it (haven't had a chance to watch the concert footage, though) but really, unless you're a die-hard U2 fan, you'd probably be better off ordering the additional two tracks off itunes (for $1.98) and passing on the rest of it (and even if you are a die hard, you probably won't be completely satisfied). Me? I'll probably spend more time listening to their previous "Best of" cds and the two new songs.
- Mood:Not Getting It
- Music:U2 18 Singles
