Wow. This pretty much defines fucked up. Korn vs. Kansas I want to stick an icepick in my ear. But, you know, in a good way. (Thanks, Art, you rule)
Wow. This pretty much defines fucked up.
I want to stick an icepick in my ear. But, you know, in a good way.
(Thanks, Art, you rule)
I can’t stop listening to this stunning song. David Gilmour – possibly the most stylish guitarist of all time, and the other brilliant creative mind behind Pink Floyd – is about to realease a new album. I picked up the single from iTunes music store – On an Island. It’s a dreamy, ethereal piece that […]
I can’t stop listening to this stunning song.
David Gilmour – possibly the most stylish guitarist of all time, and the other brilliant creative mind behind Pink Floyd – is about to realease a new album.
I picked up the single from iTunes music store – On an Island.
It’s a dreamy, ethereal piece that sounds, more than anything else, like Obscured by Clouds-era Pink Floyd, that then breaks into some of the most brilliant, classic Gilmour guitar playing I’ve ever heard. It’s one of those songs that almost sounds like a clinic in how to do it, the way I felt listing to Sonny Rollins play a fifteen minute sax solo when I saw him live a few years back. Like you could sit and listen and learn everything you need to know about how to play a perfect solo. It also features stunning backup vocals by David Crosby and Graham Nash, who may be geezers but wow can they still sing.
I was a huge Pink Floyd fan – and still am. But my favortite Pink Floyd isn’t the stuff that sold a bazillion records. I don’t really like Dark Side of the Moon, nor do I much like The Wall. They have great songs on them but they’re not what I consider Pink Floyd’s creative, artistic peaks.
My favorite albums were some of the less massively successful ones; Animals, Meddle, Obscured by Clouds. I tried hard to love the Syd Barret era Floyd, but as brilliant as Barret was, those albums lacked Gilmour’s guitar, and to my ear, that was such a huge component of Pink Floyd’s sound that they never quite stuck with me. They’re great, but I don’t love them.
I stopped listening to Pink Floyd after The Wall. They’d said what they had to say. Waters was spinning off into ego-land and the band had taken on that commercial juggernaut sound, were turning into one of those dinosaur acts that need to stop a while. But I still listen to the old albums, have them all on CD and vinyl. And I love them.
This song has something – something of that old, classic Pink Floyd, something of Gilmour’s first solo album (which I loved when it came out, and wish I could get now, though it’s not yet back in print); and yet it sounds current, not like he simply went back and said I can do that again.. It sounds like that because that sound is David Gilmour.
God I hope the rest of the album – due out next week – is this good.
It’s been too damned long since i gave a shout-out to m’man Art’s site, MashupTown. So here y’all go. Put on the Super Freak – Superfreak vs. Roxanne. This clip fuckin’ rules. Wonder Bop – the Ramones vs. Oasis. Some love it, some hate it. It’s so wrong in a way that’s so right. And […]
It’s been too damned long since i gave a shout-out to m’man Art’s site, MashupTown.
So here y’all go.
Put on the Super Freak – Superfreak vs. Roxanne. This clip fuckin’ rules.
Wonder Bop – the Ramones vs. Oasis. Some love it, some hate it. It’s so wrong in a way that’s so right.
And finally, Dirty Deeds will Rock You – AC/DC vs. Queen. This thing just needed to exist, I tell ya.
Art, you rock my world.
Hey, you know what I wanna hear? more mashups features UFO or Scorpions. Someone’s gotta be doin’ that shit.
This in the nature of a Stupid Quiz or a meme. But it’s a question I asked someone the other day and I thought it’d be good BlogFodder. What is you there song? Visualize yourself walking into a room. What’s playing in the movie? Are you Shaft (One Bad Mutha – Shut Yo Mouth!)? Are […]
This in the nature of a Stupid Quiz or a meme. But it’s a question I asked someone the other day and I thought it’d be good BlogFodder.
What is you there song?
Visualize yourself walking into a room. What’s playing in the movie? Are you Shaft (One Bad Mutha – Shut Yo Mouth!)? Are you Only a Girl? are you Too sexy for your pants?
You get one choice. Not for moods, one for your slinky sexy entrance, one for your dramatic entrance, one for your ‘nobody notice me now’ mood. I want the one; the one that you think tells your story or the one you want to tell you story.
Here’s mine:
Funkadelic, I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody’s Got A Thing.
That’s the one. That’s the one I wanna hear when I walk into the room. That’s the one I wanna hear when I’m walkin down the street in my leather kilt and combat boots.
That’s me, baby.
So tell me – here or in your own blog – what’s your theme song? What rocks you into a room in the movie in your head?
And what’s mine? What movie rocks me into the room, in the movie in your head?
Sometimes it’s gotta be Gurus. You can’t take me anywhere, I’ll strip down to my underwear If you give me half a chance. Hippy-freelove, outtasight! I’m gonna turn off every light And hold a private dance. It started out one afternoon, hot sake in my living room Among some special friends. Soon some others dropped […]
Sometimes it’s gotta be Gurus.
You can’t take me anywhere, I’ll strip down to my underwear
If you give me half a chance.
Hippy-freelove, outtasight! I’m gonna turn off every light
And hold a private dance.
It started out one afternoon, hot sake in my living room
Among some special friends.
Soon some others dropped around and we all started gaffing down, well,
You know how these things end!Miss Freelove, Come back sometime-
Miss Freelove of ’69.Torches flashing sweaty passion, each made love in their own fashion-
We had quite a ball!
Do the monkey, feeling funky, I’m just like any disco junkie
And I don’t care at all.
Maybe I’m not thinking straight, I only know that it feels great
And I’m glad you do too.
It could be just a passing fad but think about the fun we had
The last time you decided to pass through.Miss Freelove, come back sometime
Miss Freelove of ’69.And everything is gone and far away
And everything is gone and that’s o.k.
And everything is groovy, would you say?
Would you say?Someone called the cops on us. They didn’t have the heart to bust
The kinky scene they found.
They checked their badges at the door and joined the action on the floor
(When they laid their nightsticks down!)
Miss Freelove …….
La-la-la-la love
La-la-la-la love, Freelove!
I’m playing with last.fm, which is kind of cool. I got a plugin for itunes that reports my listening habits (spyware I installed on purpose – really that’s a wrong idea but it’s still kinda cool). I’m working on a good way to do dynamic updates on my blog but haven’t found a good way […]
I’m playing with last.fm, which is kind of cool. I got a plugin for itunes that reports my listening habits (spyware I installed on purpose – really that’s a wrong idea but it’s still kinda cool).
I’m working on a good way to do dynamic updates on my blog but haven’t found a good way to do it yet. But then I haven’t tried very hard.
Still it’s cool to see the charts when I have iTunes shuffling at random all day.
One more day, then it’s vacation time. I’d be counting hours if I had enough time.
This just completely rules. To steal Cory’s description from BoingBoing: Scratch n Spin is a very amusing short video advert that combines footage of a DJ’s hands working on a set of turntables with footage of a streetscene; when he grabs a car and moves it around the roundabout, it is synched to the sound […]
This just completely rules.
To steal Cory’s description from BoingBoing:
Scratch n Spin is a very amusing short video advert that combines footage of a DJ’s hands working on a set of turntables with footage of a streetscene; when he grabs a car and moves it around the roundabout, it is synched to the sound of the record from the original shot scratching back and forth. It’s intensely clever and laugh-out-loud delightful.
You know, not that many people watched Rock Star INXS, and there seems to be a negative critical buzz around it. But anyone who watched and wasn’t caught up simply missed the point. Sure, it’s teevee, it’s a game show of sorts, so it’s a little silly and very contrived. It has to be in […]
You know, not that many people watched Rock Star INXS, and there seems to be a negative critical buzz around it. But anyone who watched and wasn’t caught up simply missed the point.
Sure, it’s teevee, it’s a game show of sorts, so it’s a little silly and very contrived. It has to be in order to make something like this work. But the core of it is that this guys who called themselves INXS lost a lead singer in a weird and tragic way, but they’re not done yet. They’re not done being a band. They’re not done making music or performing.
Lots of bands have faced this – Van Halen, Queen, Judas Priest, oh hell, dozens. And almost always they wind up with some celebrity who doesn’t really fit.
Ok. It smacks of sellout. But how are you going to find your right guy, and get your audience to accept him, and get them to care?
I watched the show expecting to hate it, hating the idea. And yet it caught me up – party because INXS themselves are such likable guys. I got to care about them and their search as much as about the contestants in this game show. I wanted them to find the guy who’d give them back their identity as a band.
I saw INXS tonight in Oakland, and once again, it’s clear they’ve found the guy they were looking for. I honestly can’t say that they were any better with ol’ Michael Hutchence. The guy they found, against all odds, is as perfect for the role as anyone could possibly be.
JD’s a superior frontman, one of those guys who’s made to be on stage. He’s got the look, they style, the sound, the charisma. He’s got the voice, and sounds incredibly good singing the band’s old hits. He sounds as good to my ear as Hutchence ever did, and is as dynamic a performer.
The thing that makes it work though, more than anything else, is seeing how dammed happy these guys look. Not just JD, who’s about as lucky a guy as you’re gonna find, but the rest of the band, who not only found a singer and jump-started a career, but who are back to being a band again. You can tell how much it means to these guys.
It was a good show. I’ve never been a giant INXS fan, so these songs don’t have a huge emotional resonance for me. But having watched the re-birth of this band in that curiously voyeuristic way, I have come to care and root for them the way you do for a friend’s band. It’s that sort of pride when you see them do well, that absurd personalizing of something.
All I can say it, they put on a good show anyway, but if you watched Rock Star INXS, go see ’em live.
Some small things make life good in a big way. And you know who you are. No, wait, I’m not talking about that kinda things. I’m talking about these kinda things:
Some small things make life good in a big way.
And you know who you are.
No, wait, I’m not talking about that kinda things. I’m talking about these kinda things:
I been running like a man who’s been running in place I been actin’ like a fool who can’t remember his place I been thinkin’ bout the day when I’m dead and gone won’t you scatter my ashes and remember this song –House of Freaks, Lonesome Graveyard I’ve been listening to that album – […]
I been running like a man who’s been running in place
I been actin’ like a fool who can’t remember his place
I been thinkin’ bout the day
when I’m dead and gone
won’t you scatter my ashes and remember this song
–House of Freaks, Lonesome Graveyard
I’ve been listening to that album – Monkey on a Chain Gang – most of the day, and remembering when it came out. I played the vinyl to death, wore out a cassette. 1987. I’m trying to remember what I was doing in 1987.
I must have been working at Sun Micro at the time – I would have been twenty-six or thereabouts. I would have been in the middle of my music scene period, hanging out in downtown clubs most nights of the week, roadieing for several bands. Lotta schlepping amplifiers and a whole lotta drinking. The days when I could drink halfway til dawn and still go to work. The days when the ‘net was still new and I was figuring out how to seduce people with words sent over a wire. Around then I made my first try at writing erotica, a story that embarrasses me now but was remarkably good for a first try, all style but no substance.
Monkey on a Chain Gang was one of the albums I was playing those years. I’m trying to recall what else I was listening to, but not much of it stayed in my heavy rotation. Gun Club stayed, Thin White Rope stayed, and so did American Music Club, and of course Violent Femmes. And this one, more than any of those others. It’s one of the first albums I dropped on the new iPod I got for xmas.
I dunno if Bryan Harvey’s death would have hit me this hard if it was just the music. I mean, I haven’t followed his career since Freaks. I didn’t even really like their later albums that much. But it’s the absolutely horrible image I can’t get out of my mind. It’s not just him. It’s his kids. It’s the fact that his daughter, his little four year old, is like my daughter named Ruby. It’s the fact that they were murdered in their own home.
I can’t get the image out of my mind. And I can’t stop listening to the songs.
…won’t you scatter my ashes and remember this song…