Tag: music

the san francisco bay guardian published a pretty nifty interview with damon albarn last week. read it here.

In case you haven’t heard, BLUR’s new cd is AMAZING.

their bassist is pretty damn hot too. here’s a pic from coachella (i still need to post those pics.. doh!).

no damon albarn pics to post just yet.. maybe eventually. =)

jer and i were playing tennis today, and our conversation revolved around the topic of Semisonic’s last CD, “All About Chemistry.” That CD, if you haven’t heard it, is a debacle of catastrophic proportions. Gone was the Semisonic of such terrific albums as “The Great Divide” and “Feeling Strangely Fine;” here was a new Semi with a horny Dan Wilson. And you know, horny lead singers aren’t a bad thing necessarily, but not when they gross you out. Track by track, Semisonic had gone from “Closing Time” and “Singing in My Sleep” (tracks 1 and 2 on FSF) to “Chemistry” and “Bed” (respectively 1 and 2 on AAC). Chemistry is passable, demonstrating Dan Wilson’s knack for melding together the rhythmic lyric and the pop hook, although the words are juuuust a little bit contrived, even for him. It’s on “Bed” where he makes the great, and tragic, mistake of taking things too far:

“Well show me a friendship that’s pure and chaste/
And I’ll show you and engine that’s dying to race/
Well the time has come for me to find/
Another way to get my soul fed/
I know we could be the sweetest friends/
But if that’s where it ends/
Then I’ll find someone else to bed/
Bed/
Find someone else to bed.”

so you know, with Dan Wilson’s less-than-sexy-man voice, that kind of seductive come-on is not particularly effective.

His voice is much better suited to tracks like “FNT” or “Secret Smile,” where his geekiness is sweetness, and becomes a strength rather than a liability. I mean… listen to “Singing in my Sleep” and tell me that his voice works so well with the attitude of the song. That is completely gone in AAC. :( it makes me sad.

Anyway, “Singing in My Sleep” is all about (cue fanfare here) the mixtape. This isn’t the only piece of pop art that’s done this sort of thing — High Fidelity, anyone? Anyway, it got me thinking about the mixtapes i’ve made for people (none, actually, although i’m thinking of putting one together now), those people have made for me, and those people have made for other people.

Mixtapes are possibly the most wrenching way to get to a person’s heart. Well, at least they are if you’re the kind of person who is aurally inclined, at least, and i suspect many of you are. anyway, i’m one of those people, and i’ve been lucky enough to be have been the recipient of one of thoooose kinds of mixtapes once and only once. i’m wary of spelling out who this person is — i know he used to read my blog, but since i think he thinks i’m ignoring him for some reason (i’m not ignoring him) i’m not sure if he stops in at any time. so i’ll just leave him anonymous, but i’ll say that every once in a while i think back and wonder how it could have been. it’s one of those things.

the tracklisting on it was masterful. it included such songs as…
top gun theme
omd – dreaming
yaz – only you
james – sit down
pet shop boys – always on my mind
baltimora – tarzan boy
… and a ton more i can’t think of right now.

but i remember it made me weep, and i think a piece of my heart will always go out to that person who made it for me….

it’s funny how people manage to burrow their ways into your heart.

lots of music in my head.

current winamp playlist:
who da funk – shiny disco ball
fanny pack – cameltoe
missy elliot – gossip folks
50 cent – in da club
beatnuts – watch out now
nas – i can
liz phair – extraordinary
rufus king – just what i need
ben kweller – ice ice baby
crush – jellyhead
yaz – only you
the flaming lips – race for the prize
buddy holly – that’ll be the day
cooler kids – all around the world (punk debutante)
darude – feel the beat
daft punk – one more time
di tiesto – touch me
paul oakenfold – southern sun (tiesto remix)

currently spinning:
the bats
the flaming lips
blur
stone temple pilots

we’ve got confetti everywhere!!!

jer and i went to the flaming lips show last night at the palladium. openers were the starlight mints and liz phair. we missed the starlight mints, but liz phair (whom i was pretty excited to see) was pretty darned cool. i have to say though, her new stuff with The Matrix (Avril Lavigne’s producers) is radically different from her old stuff. The song of hers radio stations are playing, “Why Can’t I,” has a part that really reminds me of “Complicated,” and as a whole reminds of of “Complicated”s annoying repetitiveness. I like the other lead off single from her album (song: “Extraordinary,” album: “Liz Phair”) much better.

The Flaming Lips, as expected, were gloriously quirky. they threw confetti at the crowd, featured audience members in animal costumes and the like dancing on stage, and bounced big giant ballons through the audience. hehe, it was like a birthday party! They even led the crowd in singing “happy birthday” to a few birthday folks in the audience. pretty sweet.

So anyway, jer and i were covered in confetti cuz we were so close to the stage. We left some of it in the car, at Denny’s, and a ton all over our apartment. :)

i’ll post pictures up from the show soon, as soon as i have my computer back up. (I’m on jer’s right now… my video card died.)

here’s a sample of what i’m listening to this week:
blur – sweet song, good song (both off their new cd think tank, which is so good it brings me to tears)
liz phair – extraordinary (which doesn’t seem to be the single off her new album, which i totally don’t understand)
panjabi MCs – beware of the boys
blur – good song
ben kweller – bk baby, commerce tx
the rentals – the love i’m searching for
the flaming lips – fight test ep

blur’s set list from coachella
http://forums.blur.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1785

song of the hour: weezer – only in dreams
good old blue album. :) i know i’ve posted this up here before, but it demands a repost…

song of the hour: all american rejects – swing swing

hey, the song is kinda catchy. =) check it out when you have a chance!

here’s a more detailed coachella update:

woohoo, it’s COACHELLA!!!

jer, julie, and i went to coachella on saturday. we left our place at around 11, but still got there so late — at about 4 — since it took more than an hour to get to westwood as there was a lot of traffic heading to ucla because of festival of books and another hour+ to get into the venue once we got to Indio on top of the 3 or so hours Yahoo maps said it would take to get to the place. I was bummed since we missed Ben Kweller and Idlewild, but luckily, the best were yet to come.

we staked out a plum spot by the center alleyway to the main Coachella stage for the Hives and stayed firmly in place for the rest of the night, an effort that totally paid off when the Beastie Boys took to the stage and everyone crowded in. Not to mention we were able to get really good views of all the acts before Beastie Boys — blur, Queens of the Stone Age, and Ben Harper.

here’s a brief rundown:

– the Hives: less than stellar performance, maybe it’s because they’re swedish. the band’s humor was slightly lost on the less-than-totally enthusiastic crowd, and the quality of the show suffered for lack of crowd involvement. sometimes lead singers should talk to the crowd more. in this case, he probably should have said less. >_