Musical musings
Jan. 17th, 2005 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistMy throat hurt last night and my head was stuffed up so I took some Ecuadorian equivalent of Nighttime Cold Syrop, which rendered me incapable of doing anything except listening to my iPod on ADD shuffle (I kept getting bored with each song roughly 1 minute 40 seconds into it). A lot the stuff on the iPod was new stuff that I DLed/burned off people while in SF. Apparently I also found it necessary to keep a running commentary on the zombie DJ iPod party in my mind (TM The Onion and also apparently Ryan McGinley DJs with two iPods).
Here are my notes:
Iron Wine sounds exactly like The Clientele and Postal Service tries to sound like both of them and all of them sound like they would listed "Nick Drake" as an influence when advertising for band members.
Azure Ray sounds like Sheryl Crow meets Mazzy Star with surprisingly not-awful results (the awfulness on account of Sheryl Crow, not MS, obviously).
The Concretes are like Britta Phillips with the valium prescription cut in half (and I mean nothing derogatory by that, I like The Concretes and anyone who knows me knows I looove Britta Phillips).
Ryan Adams' cover of Wonderwall is surprisingly good
Damien Rice is creepy. Seriously, have you seen that video for "The Blower’s Daughter" where he is pretty much stalking some adolescent victim of the Potato Famine? It´s got Rob Thomas ethos all over it but, like, in sepia?
Deerhoof has songs that are all kinds of different and all of them sound like the various bands that my exboyfriend used to torture me with by putting them on early in the morning (It´s not that I hate Animal Collective. It´s more like tepid tolerance where The AC are concerned. But not in the morning. I like silence in the morning. And occasionally some Mozart and Prokofiev. But that´s IT.)
Dirty Vegas is like Enigma meets Chemical Brothers
The beginning of “Double Feature” by Luna is to “I Love You Because I have To” by Dogs Die in Hot Weather as beginning of “Everybody Cries” is to “Strange Currencies” )and it could also be beat-matched to “Take It Off” by The Donnas?
EVERYBODY has covered Wild Horses. But The Sundays did the best job.
Hefner demonstrates that some emo is danceable to and would even lend itself well to techno remixes. And that the UK can do (and has done) better emo-wise than Apple Martin(i)´s papa with his vaguely meta-liberal Politik
I don't get Joanna Newsom. And I have nothing per se again eccentric “I am an elf in a swamp” singer-songwriters. I mean, I was such a huge Tori Amos fan in high school that I had a pair of jeans on which I wrote in permanent marker “so you can make me come that does not make you Jesus” and I still shell out for every album she releases. But listening to JN's music makes me feel funny in the same way that that movie with Marcello Mastoianni does, it´s called "I Don´t Want To Talk About It" (and what a metaappropriate title!) where he falls in love with a midget but eventually she leaves him for a circus.
I only like Kylie when she is being bludgeoned by Nick Cave
Somehow, despite the obvious reference of the title I didn´t register before that Luna´s "The Owl and the Pussycat" was an actual lyrical re-do of Edward Lear´s poem, which makes the already lovely song a thousand times more lovely, as we go from
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
to
Allison Andrews came up to see me
In a beautiful pea-green coat
Taking my pulse, feeding me pills
Wrapped up in a five-dollar note.
The band March Violets does not sound like what their name would lead you to believe they sound like
The best James Bond theme song was "From Russia With Love" performed by Matt Munro, with Madonna coming in a close second with "Die Another Die" for the line "Sigmund Freud, Analyze This!"
Yo La Tengo and Pavement are two very good very distinct bands yet there are tons of neither good nor distinct bands that manage to sound like both of them simultaneously, but, like, in a subpar bootlegged pale imitation way which is like an aesthetic slap in the face, you know, like if you have a crush on someone and you see someone who looks like them but, like the ugly version, through a funhouse mirror.
I think I had Spiritualized confused with some totally other band because I thought they were totally bland and they kind of aren't.
Listening to Xiu Xiu makes me want to medicate the lead singer
Air + Francoise Hardy = winning combo
Also, apropos of nothing, but here are a couple more pics from A. and mine jaunts around the country. I didn´t modify these pictures, that was all the cheap blue curtains on the 11-hour bus ride from Quito to Guayaquil and the subsequent twilight in conjunction with a strange bus light that was appended to the ceiling in the shape of, like, a trippy lilac surfboard.
A. reading
me wishing that the bus ride would end already
Here are my notes:
Iron Wine sounds exactly like The Clientele and Postal Service tries to sound like both of them and all of them sound like they would listed "Nick Drake" as an influence when advertising for band members.
Azure Ray sounds like Sheryl Crow meets Mazzy Star with surprisingly not-awful results (the awfulness on account of Sheryl Crow, not MS, obviously).
The Concretes are like Britta Phillips with the valium prescription cut in half (and I mean nothing derogatory by that, I like The Concretes and anyone who knows me knows I looove Britta Phillips).
Ryan Adams' cover of Wonderwall is surprisingly good
Damien Rice is creepy. Seriously, have you seen that video for "The Blower’s Daughter" where he is pretty much stalking some adolescent victim of the Potato Famine? It´s got Rob Thomas ethos all over it but, like, in sepia?
Deerhoof has songs that are all kinds of different and all of them sound like the various bands that my exboyfriend used to torture me with by putting them on early in the morning (It´s not that I hate Animal Collective. It´s more like tepid tolerance where The AC are concerned. But not in the morning. I like silence in the morning. And occasionally some Mozart and Prokofiev. But that´s IT.)
Dirty Vegas is like Enigma meets Chemical Brothers
The beginning of “Double Feature” by Luna is to “I Love You Because I have To” by Dogs Die in Hot Weather as beginning of “Everybody Cries” is to “Strange Currencies” )and it could also be beat-matched to “Take It Off” by The Donnas?
EVERYBODY has covered Wild Horses. But The Sundays did the best job.
Hefner demonstrates that some emo is danceable to and would even lend itself well to techno remixes. And that the UK can do (and has done) better emo-wise than Apple Martin(i)´s papa with his vaguely meta-liberal Politik
I don't get Joanna Newsom. And I have nothing per se again eccentric “I am an elf in a swamp” singer-songwriters. I mean, I was such a huge Tori Amos fan in high school that I had a pair of jeans on which I wrote in permanent marker “so you can make me come that does not make you Jesus” and I still shell out for every album she releases. But listening to JN's music makes me feel funny in the same way that that movie with Marcello Mastoianni does, it´s called "I Don´t Want To Talk About It" (and what a metaappropriate title!) where he falls in love with a midget but eventually she leaves him for a circus.
I only like Kylie when she is being bludgeoned by Nick Cave
Somehow, despite the obvious reference of the title I didn´t register before that Luna´s "The Owl and the Pussycat" was an actual lyrical re-do of Edward Lear´s poem, which makes the already lovely song a thousand times more lovely, as we go from
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
to
Allison Andrews came up to see me
In a beautiful pea-green coat
Taking my pulse, feeding me pills
Wrapped up in a five-dollar note.
The band March Violets does not sound like what their name would lead you to believe they sound like
The best James Bond theme song was "From Russia With Love" performed by Matt Munro, with Madonna coming in a close second with "Die Another Die" for the line "Sigmund Freud, Analyze This!"
Yo La Tengo and Pavement are two very good very distinct bands yet there are tons of neither good nor distinct bands that manage to sound like both of them simultaneously, but, like, in a subpar bootlegged pale imitation way which is like an aesthetic slap in the face, you know, like if you have a crush on someone and you see someone who looks like them but, like the ugly version, through a funhouse mirror.
I think I had Spiritualized confused with some totally other band because I thought they were totally bland and they kind of aren't.
Listening to Xiu Xiu makes me want to medicate the lead singer
Air + Francoise Hardy = winning combo
Also, apropos of nothing, but here are a couple more pics from A. and mine jaunts around the country. I didn´t modify these pictures, that was all the cheap blue curtains on the 11-hour bus ride from Quito to Guayaquil and the subsequent twilight in conjunction with a strange bus light that was appended to the ceiling in the shape of, like, a trippy lilac surfboard.
A. reading
me wishing that the bus ride would end already
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apropos of little
Date: 2005-01-17 08:35 pm (UTC)he came here on tour last easter and we watched him (i was allowed to bring my dog in)
everyone sat on the floor. he was very sweet and kind, and i think the business side or 'trying to sound like' has little to do with what he is doing
but i like all those bands, so it's ok if they are similar, to me
Re: apropos of little
Date: 2005-01-17 10:45 pm (UTC)Re: apropos of little
Date: 2005-01-17 10:53 pm (UTC)Re: apropos of little
Date: 2005-01-18 02:39 am (UTC)Re: apropos of little
Date: 2005-01-18 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-17 09:46 pm (UTC)Iron & Wine is cool but I think Devendra's first album does the same thing much better.
and the best Bond theme song is still Tom Jones singing "Thunderball."
no subject
Date: 2005-01-17 10:46 pm (UTC)I don't really get Devendra either...
no subject
Date: 2005-01-17 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 02:09 am (UTC)incidentally, the Damien Rice duet from Tori's upcoming album is pretty kickass.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 07:52 am (UTC)I haven't seen that video, so I can't comment.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 02:38 pm (UTC)See, I *liked* Strange Little Girls a lot conceptually and liked a lot of it in execution. While there were some tracks that didn't do it for me, I thought the Eminem cover was creepy and awesome as was the Depeche Mode cover, "Rattlesnakes" and "I don't Like Mondays." Then again, I was always a big fan of Tori's covers--in high school back when I used to trade her bootlegs over the bulletin boards on Prodigy my favorites were the covers bootlegs where she did everything from "Famous Blue Raincoat" to "Love Song" to "American Pie" which of course she started singing as an intro every time she did Smells Like Teen Spirit in concert after Kurt Cobain killed himself.
The one Tori album that didn't work for me was To Venus and Back, all the new stuff on the 1st CD I just couldn't get into at all. Luckily she returned to form with Scarlet's Walk.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 05:08 pm (UTC)honey, you're on the internet now. waiting for release dates is a thing of the past.
Strange Little Girls: I also have usually liked Tori's covers. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and the Joni Mitchell cover and her rendition of Shel Silverstein's poem and "Love Song." but Strange Little Girls was, I felt, all about doing incongruous covers, and Tori got so caught up in the concept that she didn't really bother to make any of the covers interesting in of themselves. it was like she counted on her fans thinking "wow! Tori's covering Slayer! isn't that cool?" even though the rendition was just awful-- and Modest Mouse have proved that you can do folksy covers of Slayer and still make great music.
From Venus and Back I didn't really bother to listen to all that much. I actually paid less and less attention to her for a while-- Under The Pink was incredible, and Boys For Pele was slightly less interesting than that, and Choirgirl Hotel was slightly less interesting than that... so what I'm saying is that maybe Beekeeper really is a good album, and I'm just disappointed after the majesty of Scarlet's Walk that she's not back to what I perceive as the apex of her game.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 02:43 pm (UTC)http://www.irishmusiccentral.com/damienrice/videos.html
or
http://music.channel.aol.com/musicstyles/soundtracks.adp
or possibly
http://music.channel.aol.com/musicstyles/soundtracks.adp
(it's the new video, btw, apparently there was an old one, too, which I had not seen)
let me know what you think
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 12:29 am (UTC)i like the concretes, but I have never heard of britta phillips. however, if they have only half the valium prescription of britta phillips, she must have attained a higher concentration of valium than blood in her veins.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 12:35 am (UTC)Damn right!
...And the March Violets are the shit. I love all that early drum-machine fossil-goth stuff.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 04:39 am (UTC)