So, I've kind of decided a couple things about my life recently. They are that I really enjoy babbling on the internet (aka writing) and should probably do it more, and that I should have followed my 6-17 year old dreams of becoming a marine biologist. Sharks & jellyfish, hell yes. Of course not everyone gets to do sharks or be James Cameron so I'd likely be left with shallow tube worms and mollusks, but hey, still in the ocean. But instead of babbling about how awesome bioluminescence is and how the only way to make my life seem interesting sometimes is to imagine David Attenborough narrating it, I'll talk about writing.
I can only remember writing 3 pieces which have actually stuck out in my mind as actually being good. I was in middle to high school for all of them, have no transcripts of the originals, nor do I remember any of the details, so you'll just have to believe me. I should probably go ahead and clear up that good is likely not the best descriptor, but they have made me proud in different ways. Not included in this list are the two poems I wrote senior of high school, one about banana nut muffins and one about how English class was like beating a dead horse and asking what it meant. For some reason that teacher didn't like me.
Chronologically then. In 8th grade we were assigned the task of rewriting the ending of The Giver. What is going to make this explanation difficult is that I barely remember what happens in The Giver, and am thus just going to make it all up. The Giver was a bit ruined for me because I read A Brave New World and 1984 before it. I remember enjoying it anyway, but I seemed to be the only one in class who was not wowed by the possibility of a dystopian future (as an aside, blogger doesn't believe dystopian is a word and should therefor be burned to the ground). Basically the novel ends with the main character and his baby brother trying to escape their little community through the snow, and eventually seeing some things giving hope, but leaving it open, since as an adult you realize he has all the symptoms of hypothermia.
Fairly dark for a youth novel, but I made mine so much darker. In my less subtle ending, the hypothermia is way worse. He falls down in the snow, everything gets darker, then he feels his baby brother coddled against his chest start to move and realizes he has to keep going, blah blah blah. I can't remember, I think I killed the main character so that the baby could live. I remember it much more fondly than I am able to explain it out. It seemed so good at the time. It is the only time I can ever remember writing something that someone told me was good without prompting. I had always gotten A's on papers, but never received any real comments. This time my teacher (who apparently, my class was so horrible to that she quit the following year) told me it was great, and asked to submit it to some contest. It won something, and I have no recollection of what it was.
The second, was in 9th grade. It is the only true creative writing assignment I have ever had. The assignment was simply, write a piece of fiction. In true nerd fashion, I wrote about Grognar the Barbarian. I assume it wasn't Grognar, but he was indeed a barbarian. It was so enjoyable simply because it was solely my creation. When I think about it now, I'm quite sure it was a pretty good reflection of everything I was reading for fun at the time. Low fantasy hero, lovecraftian monsters of unspeakable even. Good triumphing over evil at great cost.
I remember writing the story all the night before. This was not unusual for me, I always did everything the night before, it's why I don't know anything now, but this was the first time I remember not being able to start before that. I could not think of anything I liked, anything I wanted to do. I wrote and had no idea where it was going. In circles obviously, all my writing does, but at least this one it was intentional. Spiraling down into the hellish abyss. I believe it was to rescue a princess, but I do not think he was a plumber.
And finally, the one that gives me actual pride at my own deviousness. 12th Grade AP Literature exam. Weird that something like that could give pride, but it's actually the only critique I am proud of as well. I like it so much because I got away with it. I like it because there was no way I could have been serious, but my points were so well in place that it could not be argued against effectively. I got a 5 on that exam, and I earned it. I never really thought of myself as a boastful person (whether that is true or not I can't really say) but when I got out of that exam, I was ecstatic, I knew I had passed. I knew I had written an essay about erectile dysfunction and gotten away with it.
The prompt was to fill in the background story for the scenario presented, the scenario being a man and woman having dinner, when a cake is brought out with a single candle. The man becomes angry with the woman and she cries. I really wish I remembered the details, but I suppose the stars aligned at that point in time and the constellations all pointed to that man not being able to get it up. I think the single candle was supposed to symbolize their anniversary, but he only saw it as a competing phallus, reminding him of how he was supposed to be, and how he was not. She tried consoling him, but it only made him angrier, thinking about how he was less than a man. I think I used the word phallus a record number of times in that essay. It gets quite old when you can't substitute penis, cock, dick etc etc. Had to keep it literary.
I realize now this is even worse than trying to describe a movie you saw 15 years ago. It's almost impossible to give enough detail to form into anything meaningful, and harder still to describe why you so fondly remember something you don't actually remember. I suppose I just remember the feelings associated with it rather than the facts.
Sometimes I clearly see the forces from the world that pushed me to this specific life, and it does occasionally make me regretful. I remember sitting with one of my great aunts and uncles and catching up with them. Must have been in high school at the time, but I think my sister was in college. They were asking the kinds of things you always ask kids of that age, about what I wanted to do and where I was going. I of course had no idea and said as much, so my great aunt said something along the lines of "oh, think you might write the next great American novel?" I didn't get the chance to answer. My dad said "No, that's more likely to be his sister." Within the past few years I was talking to my dad about my sister and he brought up the way she thinks and how detail oriented she is. How she probably would have been a better engineer than a lawyer.
(On Spotify)
The Pixies - Hey
The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
The Twilight Sad - Cold Days From The Birdhouse
The Strokes - Is This It?
...And You Will Know Us By The Trails of the Dead - Mistakes and Regrets
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction
Brad Sucks - Making Me Nervous
David Bowie - Heroes
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Yes I Fear Tomorrow I'll Be Crying
There is something unique and heart warming about riding at the front of the subway train. It's only in the old cars, the 50 year old cars that you can still do it I think. Now they're all blocked off or blacked out, but in the old cars where the conductor's cabin lies to one side of the train you can still see out.
There is so much more down there than you think about, than you can see looking out the side windows. The twists and turns built 100 years ago underneath the river, the spaces for the maintenance crews, the ancient graffiti. When you look at the tracks from the platform all you see is garbage and rats, but when you see it the mid points, the barely touched points. Dirty, rusty and labyrinthian. It's not so hard to imagine shanty towns and vagrants under the earth.
It's an oblong illuminated pathway to a place you go everyday but have never seen before. You know the train is going to slow down because you can see the lights. You know there's a curve to the right ahead. It's hypnotizing in its pure efficiency. It's like art deco at its hidden greatest. It was the future, human beings traveling at great speed underground, arriving at their destination, quickly and safely.
What a marvel it must have been. It's like the Crysler Building. Overshadowed because now it's just a regular building. Iconic in it's way, but it's not the tallest. I prefer it to the Empire State Building honestly, but it's not the prettiest either.
It's quite something to stand by a building and not be able to see the roof. I remember standing by the WTC towers when I was a kid. I never got to go to the top, not enough time or too expensive or something. But I remember they were so tall they looked like they had to be curving. Maybe memory just has a funny effect on those things.
I remember it right along with my first subway rides. Blurry, confusing, it was just SO MUCH. The city doesn't feel that way anymore. Maybe I'm just older, or maybe the city is the one losing its edge.
There is so much more down there than you think about, than you can see looking out the side windows. The twists and turns built 100 years ago underneath the river, the spaces for the maintenance crews, the ancient graffiti. When you look at the tracks from the platform all you see is garbage and rats, but when you see it the mid points, the barely touched points. Dirty, rusty and labyrinthian. It's not so hard to imagine shanty towns and vagrants under the earth.
It's an oblong illuminated pathway to a place you go everyday but have never seen before. You know the train is going to slow down because you can see the lights. You know there's a curve to the right ahead. It's hypnotizing in its pure efficiency. It's like art deco at its hidden greatest. It was the future, human beings traveling at great speed underground, arriving at their destination, quickly and safely.
What a marvel it must have been. It's like the Crysler Building. Overshadowed because now it's just a regular building. Iconic in it's way, but it's not the tallest. I prefer it to the Empire State Building honestly, but it's not the prettiest either.
It's quite something to stand by a building and not be able to see the roof. I remember standing by the WTC towers when I was a kid. I never got to go to the top, not enough time or too expensive or something. But I remember they were so tall they looked like they had to be curving. Maybe memory just has a funny effect on those things.
I remember it right along with my first subway rides. Blurry, confusing, it was just SO MUCH. The city doesn't feel that way anymore. Maybe I'm just older, or maybe the city is the one losing its edge.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
What Are You Doing In There?
So I've been watching a lot of Mad Men lately, and am getting rather into it. The episode with which I am stopping today is the one revolving around the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's interesting to think of, waiting for fire from the skies. It's also kind of interesting that we always assumed we would end in fire (and brimstone although honestly I've never been quite sure what that is supposed to be. Checked wikipedia, it's just sulfur, disappointing). I'm just fascinated with the image of it. The looking, the waiting. The prospective fire. The fear, I think. Say what you will about looking into it, I am rather fond of the abyss.
That makes it sound both morbid and grand but I don't think that's what I mean. It's just the long view. It goes on forever, and existentialism and meaningless and blah blah, it goes on forever. The world will end and it would be beautiful and terrifying and awesome in the traditional sense of the word. Like God's hand come to flick us off the planet one by one. Or maybe more like FLCL ironing out the wrinkles.
I suppose there is the idea that the earth will swallow itself again, a blue orb of poisoned seas. It seems somewhat more likely than the Waterworld scenario, the evolutionary gap between lungs and gills is so great it seems more likely that the sharks would build civilizations, or that our lungs would expand and we'd be more like dolphins. Or again, the dolphins would just replace us. Where would all that water come from anyway? If all the ice melted, but it were still cool enough on the surface for humanity to survive, which I am assuming is possible, where would the coasts be? One can only assume Siberia is pretty safe, Kansas and Colorado. The Andes. It seems like that also misses the fact that it would happen gradually, because we already know how to farm on water.
I honestly don't know what its like not to be able to see land. It seems nice. A wonderful void, filled with heat and salt and occasionally kelp. For the longest time my two obsession have been the ocean and the desert. When I was young and impressionable I read a book called The Perfume of the Desert. It makes it seem like the desert is really the only place you could find God. Which makes some sense I suppose, why would he want to hang out with everyone else? Not hidden under a rock or anything, but in a more introspective way. Tearing away all the other bits until you're just looking at yourself and this planet and he hangs out somewhere between the two.
Usually I go more for the polytheistic belief systems, but much like Buddhism has many applications, it seems Sufism does too. God has always been a metaphor to me for either Truth or Nature. Capitalization makes all the difference. I have proclaimed a great many things in my time, and will no doubt continue to do so, but it seems silly to me now. It is difficult to have serious conversations about beliefs because I honestly have no idea what I believe. The last time I got really into I muddled up my own thinking quite a bit with my feelings. There is the argument that logic does not or should not apply to beliefs, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Neither does omniscience really. Is it worth playing the game when you already know what all the moves will be? You can only play tic tac toe so many times. There's a finite set of moves, all of them done a practically infinite number of times. You know the outcome and only do it to pass the time, or to see if someone else knows where to put their circles to force a draw. But who would God be playing against? I feel bad for Lucifer. It's understandable why you'd want to stop playing (it is the only winning move), but my god man, how to pass the time afterwards?
That makes it sound both morbid and grand but I don't think that's what I mean. It's just the long view. It goes on forever, and existentialism and meaningless and blah blah, it goes on forever. The world will end and it would be beautiful and terrifying and awesome in the traditional sense of the word. Like God's hand come to flick us off the planet one by one. Or maybe more like FLCL ironing out the wrinkles.
I suppose there is the idea that the earth will swallow itself again, a blue orb of poisoned seas. It seems somewhat more likely than the Waterworld scenario, the evolutionary gap between lungs and gills is so great it seems more likely that the sharks would build civilizations, or that our lungs would expand and we'd be more like dolphins. Or again, the dolphins would just replace us. Where would all that water come from anyway? If all the ice melted, but it were still cool enough on the surface for humanity to survive, which I am assuming is possible, where would the coasts be? One can only assume Siberia is pretty safe, Kansas and Colorado. The Andes. It seems like that also misses the fact that it would happen gradually, because we already know how to farm on water.
I honestly don't know what its like not to be able to see land. It seems nice. A wonderful void, filled with heat and salt and occasionally kelp. For the longest time my two obsession have been the ocean and the desert. When I was young and impressionable I read a book called The Perfume of the Desert. It makes it seem like the desert is really the only place you could find God. Which makes some sense I suppose, why would he want to hang out with everyone else? Not hidden under a rock or anything, but in a more introspective way. Tearing away all the other bits until you're just looking at yourself and this planet and he hangs out somewhere between the two.
Usually I go more for the polytheistic belief systems, but much like Buddhism has many applications, it seems Sufism does too. God has always been a metaphor to me for either Truth or Nature. Capitalization makes all the difference. I have proclaimed a great many things in my time, and will no doubt continue to do so, but it seems silly to me now. It is difficult to have serious conversations about beliefs because I honestly have no idea what I believe. The last time I got really into I muddled up my own thinking quite a bit with my feelings. There is the argument that logic does not or should not apply to beliefs, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Neither does omniscience really. Is it worth playing the game when you already know what all the moves will be? You can only play tic tac toe so many times. There's a finite set of moves, all of them done a practically infinite number of times. You know the outcome and only do it to pass the time, or to see if someone else knows where to put their circles to force a draw. But who would God be playing against? I feel bad for Lucifer. It's understandable why you'd want to stop playing (it is the only winning move), but my god man, how to pass the time afterwards?
Thursday, August 25, 2011
What I Most Want Is Bad For Me I Know
It's been a long time since I've decided to write about bands you haven't heard of and don't care about, but I've been drinking and daddy needs a hit. It's actually difficult to avoid just making a list and telling you its good, go listen to it because you know I'm right. So instead I will try to tell you why I like it so much. This will often be because it reminds me of other things you haven't listened to.
So where to start? Just kidding, I know already. Cults - Cults. It's an awesome album. It makes you want to dance. Just right now. It's so reminiscent of 60's pop (aka what was then the devil's music) with a nice electronic covering to it. It's got finger snaps. I love finger snaps. "You Know What I Mean" sounds like it should be played at the prom in Back To The Future. A lot of their music just reminds me of "Then He Kissed Me" or "Duke of Earl" (I find out now the verse is apparently "Where Did Our Love Go"). Which is, now that I think about it, the music I grew up with. Surely I am not the only child who grew up listening to the music from when their parents were teenagers (god help my unborn children). It just kind of all flows together as this combination of the pop sensibilities of a previous era, which to me seem less pretentious than the current pop which tries to be something more than dance music, with the gentle synth and electric guitar which fits so well. It's just pleasant to listen to.
John Maus. You can tell the dude is good at the musics because his wikipedia page calls him a composer. Seriously though, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves is awesome. In terms of pure genre categorization its kind of all over the place. It sounds like, I dunno, Kraftwerk and Duran Duran and Joy Division had a baby. If Duran Duran is the only one of these you know, then you can guess that it kind of sounds like something from the 80's! Which is pretty accurate. It's got that synth that just sounds like there would be leopard print spandex somewhere in the music video, but it lacks the amount of pop required for such a thing. There is a song where "pussy is not a matter of fact" are the predominant lyrics. While probably true, it was to me unexpected, and surprisingly catchy. Also not something you want stuck in your head at work. That aside, most of the songs have a kind of depth that leaves you with a slight sinking feeling. "Hey Moon" is without a doubt my favorite off the album. It has that wonderful night time staring at the sky feel down so perfectly with the lyrics and tempo and what I can only describe as the texture of the song. It's just how it feels.
Ok, I am tired. I wrote this basically to appease Pat who keeps telling me to write about music even though no one else likes it At all.
So what else should you listen to? Or rather, what am I listening to at the moment?
Washed Out - You and I
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
David Bowie - A New Career In A New Town
The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Panda Bear - Tomboy
The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack)
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
Honey Cool - Then He Kissed Me (Found this while looking for The Crystals version)
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me (classic 60's)
The Beach Boys - That's Not Me
John Maus - Hey Moon
Cults - Bad Things
So where to start? Just kidding, I know already. Cults - Cults. It's an awesome album. It makes you want to dance. Just right now. It's so reminiscent of 60's pop (aka what was then the devil's music) with a nice electronic covering to it. It's got finger snaps. I love finger snaps. "You Know What I Mean" sounds like it should be played at the prom in Back To The Future. A lot of their music just reminds me of "Then He Kissed Me" or "Duke of Earl" (I find out now the verse is apparently "Where Did Our Love Go"). Which is, now that I think about it, the music I grew up with. Surely I am not the only child who grew up listening to the music from when their parents were teenagers (god help my unborn children). It just kind of all flows together as this combination of the pop sensibilities of a previous era, which to me seem less pretentious than the current pop which tries to be something more than dance music, with the gentle synth and electric guitar which fits so well. It's just pleasant to listen to.
John Maus. You can tell the dude is good at the musics because his wikipedia page calls him a composer. Seriously though, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves is awesome. In terms of pure genre categorization its kind of all over the place. It sounds like, I dunno, Kraftwerk and Duran Duran and Joy Division had a baby. If Duran Duran is the only one of these you know, then you can guess that it kind of sounds like something from the 80's! Which is pretty accurate. It's got that synth that just sounds like there would be leopard print spandex somewhere in the music video, but it lacks the amount of pop required for such a thing. There is a song where "pussy is not a matter of fact" are the predominant lyrics. While probably true, it was to me unexpected, and surprisingly catchy. Also not something you want stuck in your head at work. That aside, most of the songs have a kind of depth that leaves you with a slight sinking feeling. "Hey Moon" is without a doubt my favorite off the album. It has that wonderful night time staring at the sky feel down so perfectly with the lyrics and tempo and what I can only describe as the texture of the song. It's just how it feels.
Ok, I am tired. I wrote this basically to appease Pat who keeps telling me to write about music even though no one else likes it At all.
So what else should you listen to? Or rather, what am I listening to at the moment?
Washed Out - You and I
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
David Bowie - A New Career In A New Town
The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Panda Bear - Tomboy
The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack)
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
Honey Cool - Then He Kissed Me (Found this while looking for The Crystals version)
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me (classic 60's)
The Beach Boys - That's Not Me
John Maus - Hey Moon
Cults - Bad Things
Sunday, May 1, 2011
When the MC's came to live out their name and to perform
You may or may not know that I'm a big fan of rap music. Especially 90's era gangsta rap. It is strange to think about now. How easy it is to find music similar to something you like. As I put on my horn rimmed glasses, twist my moustache, and lean my cane to the side, I will play on your nostalgia and reminisce about the olden days. I'd watch music videos on tv, back when there was music on MTV, even though we were already complaining about there not being enough of it, and on VH1 and a station called The Box, which was a station where you called in the music video you wanted to see. I say that because we only had that station when I lived in PA so I have no idea what areas actually had it. I bring this up because I remember seeing Wu Tang videos and was pretty much sold from there out. Especially Triumph, which was admittedly much later but was still so awesomely weird. I had heard Dr. Dre and Ice Cube when I was younger but didn't really get into it until I was older. I suppose it's because my sister never listened to rap so I didn't have as much exposure to it than I did to all of the 90's alternative bands.
The reason this is at the front of my mind is because I was in a hot dog place with some friends/coworkers and the restaurant was playing rap music from someone's ipod, and GZA's Liquid Swords album came on. This is one of the best rap albums of all time. I love it, and I announced it. I may have literally said "Oh shit this song is awesome," the second the intro started. It's got the kind of lyrical mastery that makes me love rap music. It also has tons of samples from Shogun Assassin and a couple from Five Deadly Venoms, which are both awesome movies.
Which brings me back to the Wu Tang Clan. GZA is in Wu Tang for clarification. As is Method Man, ODB, Raekwon, U-GOD, Masta Killa, RZA, Ghostface Killah, and Inspectah Deck. They are my favorite, probably because there is significant evidence that they are nerds. The most gangsta ass nerds in existence. But there are all the references to these old Kung Fu movies and comic books which I also grew up on. They rap about the way every guy wants to imagine themselves. A rogue following his own honor, the ronin still living by the bushido. Up until a man is 25, maybe even 30, he still has certain thoughts. Maybe if I train really hard, pack up and move to a Shaolin temple in China and just train, I can be a total badass. Just quit and be a hitman. But a righteous one. Kill dictators or something. By all this I mean, it is both accessible instantly because it just sounds good, but like all the best music has depth.
As always, I'm having problems discovering not to mention maintaining any kind of main thesis. I guess it's because people think it's weird that I not only like rap music but am pretty open about it. I can't figure out if this is just a race thing or what. I don't really liked Eminem (though catchy and when I was young I did like his early songs), but I think he opened up rap music for a lot of white people, especially given Dr. Dre's endorsement. Which is really weird because little white kids (me) have always loved rap music. I think it was probably 1990 before they figured out that half the people buying rap albums were suburban white adolescents. This became kind of joke, check out the movie CB4 if you haven't before, it's pretty funny (and has Charlie Murphy!). What people thought this said was that we need to censor music to protect our children from terrible things like bad words and lyrics about sex and drugs which they don't even understand, but probably really said catchy songs with good hooks, and music your parents are against you listening to tend to become really popular. More than that, music about isolation and life's difficulty speak to everyone.
Maybe it's not the race thing, and just a general appearance thing. It apparently surprises people that I like heavy metal and punk, too. But, back to rap music. It has changed. Can we all agree that crunk rap is shit? That dance music is not hip hop? Even Nas says hip hop is dead, the fact that he does it with will.i.am is so ironic it hurts me.
Is it too corporate? It has always seemed that selling out degrades music but I am not even sure what that means anymore. Repeatable success is just hard, and studio influences can obviously be detrimental to the music. I dunno, underground hip hop, indie hip hop, is still pretty awesome. It is somewhat more complicated than that though. Like Common. Dude has some great songs. To me, for awhile, he was one of the best rappers that didn't break mainstream. And it was pretty obvious the reason he wasn't is because he didn't rap about what the record labels said would be successful. Now he collaborates with Kanye a lot and there's a lot of influence there. It's different. It's more main stream. Some of it is still really good, but some of it isn't as good. Maybe I'm just biased.
So Kanye. He seems like an ass. That said...his music is pretty good. Kanye always bothers me because I feel like he could do better. His ego is so huge it makes the music worse. If he could stick to anything in a song without saying how he's better than everyone ever, or making attacks on people that had a joke at his expense, his music would be much the better for it. I think specifically of him trying to get back at South Park for the fish sticks thing. By bringing it up he kinda proved their point. All that said, he has made some good music. But he's a dick and he's at the point now where he's successful because he was successful and that just sucks for music. Although My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a good album. Way better than 808s and Heartbreaks. But the ego is like a slime over the whole thing. You can see how good it could have been, but bleh.
Wu Tang - Cream
GZA - Liquid Swords
GZA - Shadowboxin
Method Man - Release Yo Delf
MC Lars - Ahab
Wu Tang - Triumph
Common - What a World
Sage Francis - Little Houdini
Kanye West - Monster (The Jay-Z verse is terrible, the Nicki Minaj one is awesome)
Grooveshark link because it takes forever to upload stuff to share and my dropbox is full
The reason this is at the front of my mind is because I was in a hot dog place with some friends/coworkers and the restaurant was playing rap music from someone's ipod, and GZA's Liquid Swords album came on. This is one of the best rap albums of all time. I love it, and I announced it. I may have literally said "Oh shit this song is awesome," the second the intro started. It's got the kind of lyrical mastery that makes me love rap music. It also has tons of samples from Shogun Assassin and a couple from Five Deadly Venoms, which are both awesome movies.
Which brings me back to the Wu Tang Clan. GZA is in Wu Tang for clarification. As is Method Man, ODB, Raekwon, U-GOD, Masta Killa, RZA, Ghostface Killah, and Inspectah Deck. They are my favorite, probably because there is significant evidence that they are nerds. The most gangsta ass nerds in existence. But there are all the references to these old Kung Fu movies and comic books which I also grew up on. They rap about the way every guy wants to imagine themselves. A rogue following his own honor, the ronin still living by the bushido. Up until a man is 25, maybe even 30, he still has certain thoughts. Maybe if I train really hard, pack up and move to a Shaolin temple in China and just train, I can be a total badass. Just quit and be a hitman. But a righteous one. Kill dictators or something. By all this I mean, it is both accessible instantly because it just sounds good, but like all the best music has depth.
As always, I'm having problems discovering not to mention maintaining any kind of main thesis. I guess it's because people think it's weird that I not only like rap music but am pretty open about it. I can't figure out if this is just a race thing or what. I don't really liked Eminem (though catchy and when I was young I did like his early songs), but I think he opened up rap music for a lot of white people, especially given Dr. Dre's endorsement. Which is really weird because little white kids (me) have always loved rap music. I think it was probably 1990 before they figured out that half the people buying rap albums were suburban white adolescents. This became kind of joke, check out the movie CB4 if you haven't before, it's pretty funny (and has Charlie Murphy!). What people thought this said was that we need to censor music to protect our children from terrible things like bad words and lyrics about sex and drugs which they don't even understand, but probably really said catchy songs with good hooks, and music your parents are against you listening to tend to become really popular. More than that, music about isolation and life's difficulty speak to everyone.
Maybe it's not the race thing, and just a general appearance thing. It apparently surprises people that I like heavy metal and punk, too. But, back to rap music. It has changed. Can we all agree that crunk rap is shit? That dance music is not hip hop? Even Nas says hip hop is dead, the fact that he does it with will.i.am is so ironic it hurts me.
Is it too corporate? It has always seemed that selling out degrades music but I am not even sure what that means anymore. Repeatable success is just hard, and studio influences can obviously be detrimental to the music. I dunno, underground hip hop, indie hip hop, is still pretty awesome. It is somewhat more complicated than that though. Like Common. Dude has some great songs. To me, for awhile, he was one of the best rappers that didn't break mainstream. And it was pretty obvious the reason he wasn't is because he didn't rap about what the record labels said would be successful. Now he collaborates with Kanye a lot and there's a lot of influence there. It's different. It's more main stream. Some of it is still really good, but some of it isn't as good. Maybe I'm just biased.
So Kanye. He seems like an ass. That said...his music is pretty good. Kanye always bothers me because I feel like he could do better. His ego is so huge it makes the music worse. If he could stick to anything in a song without saying how he's better than everyone ever, or making attacks on people that had a joke at his expense, his music would be much the better for it. I think specifically of him trying to get back at South Park for the fish sticks thing. By bringing it up he kinda proved their point. All that said, he has made some good music. But he's a dick and he's at the point now where he's successful because he was successful and that just sucks for music. Although My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a good album. Way better than 808s and Heartbreaks. But the ego is like a slime over the whole thing. You can see how good it could have been, but bleh.
Wu Tang - Cream
GZA - Liquid Swords
GZA - Shadowboxin
Method Man - Release Yo Delf
MC Lars - Ahab
Wu Tang - Triumph
Common - What a World
Sage Francis - Little Houdini
Kanye West - Monster (The Jay-Z verse is terrible, the Nicki Minaj one is awesome)
Grooveshark link because it takes forever to upload stuff to share and my dropbox is full
Sunday, April 3, 2011
And I Want To Touch the Sun
So here's some select pictures from the pillow fight.
Music Suggestions:
The Pillows - Subhuman
The Pillows - I Think I Can
The Pillows - Last Dinosaur
The Pillows - Crazy Sunshine
Music Suggestions:
The Pillows - Subhuman
The Pillows - I Think I Can
The Pillows - Last Dinosaur
The Pillows - Crazy Sunshine
Let's Talk About Spaceships...
I'm a bit ashamed to say that despite my advanced years, extensive music knowledge, and love of all things Sci Fi, that I am just now getting into Rush. Despite the fact that those first three facts are false, it still surprises me a little. Since I feel shame just by waking up in the morning, being ashamed about it isn't exactly groundbreaking though.
My musical taste is always changing and I admit I sound like a blathering idiot whenever anyone asks what kind of music I like. To say "everything" is both an outright lie and as close to the truth as I seem to be able to manage. I can be very dismissive of music I don't like, but usually only because other people's taste in music is awful. Most people don't like to hear, "Well I like prog rock, punk rock and revivalist punk rock but it's all crap for the last decade, opera but mostly only German ones so far, electronica but rarely trance or industrial, mostly late 80s and early 90s gangsta rap and some of the transition into R&B like LL Cool J but never crunk rap." I could go on, but by that point someone has poured a drink onto my head. And for good reason, because I would go on.
I bring this up because I've been having difficulty placing myself on the musical taste map lately. Post rock, dream pop, space and prog rock. Somewhere in there is a commonality that I have been craving and it's causing me to jump between bands quickly and with little to no real forethought.
To put it simply I want to reenact a moment I am not sure if I've ever actually experienced. I've got all the details down pretty well so I think it must have actually occurred sometime when I was in high school. It's not overly complex or anything. I just have this very specific and tactile memory of listening to music of this type, from timing I'm going to guess Mogwai, and lying on the floor of my room. Which is weird because I rarely did that. I was usually in my chair or hammock. So I'm just listening to music and staring at the ceiling, possibly at the fan, and am just completely caught up in the music. Sitting, staring, time goes by and that's it.
It's just so oddly specific given that my memory is usually terrible. Although now that I think about it many of my memories are like this. Completely meaningless and without context, but thoroughly detailed and nostalgic.
So I guess I want to recreate that feeling of just nothingness and absorption, but it's not specific to the music as much to the texture of the music. Mogwai sounds significantly different than Stars, and Rush, and My Bloody Valentine. But when I listen to them I want to sit and just listen, but I worry that I'm not even capable of that anymore. To just sit and listen to an album or two. Given how much I've ranted about the superiority of album rock this is clearly hypocritical, but it's hard to just sit and listen these days.
I listen while doing other things, but it's hard to really say how much listening I'm doing. My mind used to be full of at least 50% song lyrics, but that number seems to be decreasing. Honestly, I don't know the words to very many "new" songs that I have been listening to. I like it so I listen to it while I work or while I read, but what am I listening to? I worry that it is becoming just noise.
And I'm not sure how to prevent that other than to pay attention to what I'm listening to. This is something I tend to do once and then take completely for granted. But I suppose that is why I am liking Rush so much. It's great to just hear it. Upbeat, moderate tempo, easy to listen to. But it is so much better when you listen to it. The lyrics are great, and nerdy (meaning it has space and fantasy influences), but it's all very well crafted. It is tricky, because once you have really listened to it, it's hard to just hear it afterwards.
Not to compare Neil Peart to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, but Scheherazade had a very similar effect on me. I heard it before and recognized it because it's quite popular. It was even in an episode of Leverage. But then, I actually listened to it. And the violin comes in just completely fills me with music and a little sorrow and thoroughly demands my attention. ( directly to the violin and youtube sound quality is awful, but you owe it yourself to listen to the whole thing).
To summarize: Rush is awesome. So is Scheherazade, and you should listen to better music.
This is the point where I list specific songs for you to listen to, but since I've been listening to Rush while writing this, I don't even know which ones are best. So I will say, Tom Sawyer, Tears, and La Villa Strangiato.
Portishead - Small
Stars - Death to Death
Le Tigre - Deceptacon
New Order - Regret
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade (I Movement - The Sea and Sinbad's Ship is my favorite)
The Hundred in the Hands - Lovesick
Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhh!
Also
I'd also like to ask if anyone even listens to these suggestions, if not I'll stop.
My musical taste is always changing and I admit I sound like a blathering idiot whenever anyone asks what kind of music I like. To say "everything" is both an outright lie and as close to the truth as I seem to be able to manage. I can be very dismissive of music I don't like, but usually only because other people's taste in music is awful. Most people don't like to hear, "Well I like prog rock, punk rock and revivalist punk rock but it's all crap for the last decade, opera but mostly only German ones so far, electronica but rarely trance or industrial, mostly late 80s and early 90s gangsta rap and some of the transition into R&B like LL Cool J but never crunk rap." I could go on, but by that point someone has poured a drink onto my head. And for good reason, because I would go on.
I bring this up because I've been having difficulty placing myself on the musical taste map lately. Post rock, dream pop, space and prog rock. Somewhere in there is a commonality that I have been craving and it's causing me to jump between bands quickly and with little to no real forethought.
To put it simply I want to reenact a moment I am not sure if I've ever actually experienced. I've got all the details down pretty well so I think it must have actually occurred sometime when I was in high school. It's not overly complex or anything. I just have this very specific and tactile memory of listening to music of this type, from timing I'm going to guess Mogwai, and lying on the floor of my room. Which is weird because I rarely did that. I was usually in my chair or hammock. So I'm just listening to music and staring at the ceiling, possibly at the fan, and am just completely caught up in the music. Sitting, staring, time goes by and that's it.
It's just so oddly specific given that my memory is usually terrible. Although now that I think about it many of my memories are like this. Completely meaningless and without context, but thoroughly detailed and nostalgic.
So I guess I want to recreate that feeling of just nothingness and absorption, but it's not specific to the music as much to the texture of the music. Mogwai sounds significantly different than Stars, and Rush, and My Bloody Valentine. But when I listen to them I want to sit and just listen, but I worry that I'm not even capable of that anymore. To just sit and listen to an album or two. Given how much I've ranted about the superiority of album rock this is clearly hypocritical, but it's hard to just sit and listen these days.
I listen while doing other things, but it's hard to really say how much listening I'm doing. My mind used to be full of at least 50% song lyrics, but that number seems to be decreasing. Honestly, I don't know the words to very many "new" songs that I have been listening to. I like it so I listen to it while I work or while I read, but what am I listening to? I worry that it is becoming just noise.
And I'm not sure how to prevent that other than to pay attention to what I'm listening to. This is something I tend to do once and then take completely for granted. But I suppose that is why I am liking Rush so much. It's great to just hear it. Upbeat, moderate tempo, easy to listen to. But it is so much better when you listen to it. The lyrics are great, and nerdy (meaning it has space and fantasy influences), but it's all very well crafted. It is tricky, because once you have really listened to it, it's hard to just hear it afterwards.
Not to compare Neil Peart to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, but Scheherazade had a very similar effect on me. I heard it before and recognized it because it's quite popular. It was even in an episode of Leverage. But then, I actually listened to it. And the violin comes in just completely fills me with music and a little sorrow and thoroughly demands my attention. ( directly to the violin and youtube sound quality is awful, but you owe it yourself to listen to the whole thing).
To summarize: Rush is awesome. So is Scheherazade, and you should listen to better music.
This is the point where I list specific songs for you to listen to, but since I've been listening to Rush while writing this, I don't even know which ones are best. So I will say, Tom Sawyer, Tears, and La Villa Strangiato.
Portishead - Small
Stars - Death to Death
Le Tigre - Deceptacon
New Order - Regret
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade (I Movement - The Sea and Sinbad's Ship is my favorite)
The Hundred in the Hands - Lovesick
Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhh!
Also
I'd also like to ask if anyone even listens to these suggestions, if not I'll stop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)