10 posts tagged “music”
"I’m an animal
Trapped in your hot car"
"Fingers in the blackbird pie
I'm tingling tingling tingling"
"What's the point of instruments
Words are a sawed off shotgun"
"You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking"
"I have no idea what I am talking about"
We know, Thom, we know
"I get eaten by the worms
Weird fishes
Picked over by the worms
Weird fishes
Weird fishes
Weird fishes"
Now that all of my shifty foreign friends have retreated to their respective hemispheres, I've fully re-matriculated into my standard social life.
In other words, I've been surfing the internet for the past three days.
Greatest discovery: This clip. When I get old and overweight, I wanna do it like Elvis, all jolly and talented-like.
Oooh, and don't forget this one. Like all of Elvis's songs, the lyrics casually shift between cute and offensive, but it's a pretty cracking pop tune.
With shit like this, it's hard to argue for the 'no' side.
We had a conversation the other night about all the terrible terrible music you used to like when you were a teenager, which ended up inspiring the following Messenging:
Logan says:
hey so, im going thhrough my itunes deleting music and guess what i came across.....
Logan says:
that Jewel CD
Mike says:
ha!
Logan says:
should i delete it???
Mike says:
the shame...
Logan says:
or am i required to have it
Mike says:
Listen to it. I'll bet it sounds hella embarrassing
Logan says:
im listening to who will saHEEHAve your soul
Logan says:
o shit, i know the words
Mike says:
haha
Logan says:
this song was last played in 2003
Mike says:
and last enjoyed in 2001
Mike says:
I think last time I cleaned out mine, I came across Teknotronic. 'pump up the jam, pump it up...'
Logan says:
ewwww john mayer
"The only thing we’re really upset about with the leak is that it’s only parts of it. I think there are six songs out there now. People aren’t even able to get the full experience of the album, which bums us all out quite a bit. So if you’re listening leakers [speaking directly into the tape recorder], put up those other three songs, man, pronto."
That's the lead singer of a band called Animal Collective (you'd know them if you were pretentious) talking about a few tracks from his band's awesome awesome album appearing on the mp3 blogs.
I'm dying to post mp3s on here more often, but I'm honestly a bit nervous about the cease-and-desistness. Denmark is notoriously harsh on file-sharing, in spite of their socialist street cred, and I don't know when I'll get another chance to capitalize on lead-singer-approved mp3 postage. So, to fulfill my bloggerly duties, here's the best two tracks off of Strawberry Jam.
And here's some mystery tracks.
I read the other day that the 'beep' sound that we're all so used to was invented relatively recently, like in the '70s or something. It's ironic that all the best music nowadays seems to consist of little else.
Bands I ended up seeing this year:
Arcade Fire
LCD Soundsystem
Band Ane (plinky!)
The National
The Flaming Lips (costumey!)
Oh No Ono
Loney, Dear
A Hawk and a Hacksaw (hammer dulcimey!)
The Who (elderly!)
Goose
Bonde Do Role
Grizzly Bear (Seattley!)
DJ Diplo
Tiesto (throbby!)
Beirut
Suspekt
Electrelane (pretty!)
Arctic Monkeys (acne!)
Wilco
Pelican (needlessly headbangy!)
Muse
Laurent Garnier
Basement Jaxx (Simply! The! Best!)
Background: The first proper festival day was the wettest Roskilde day ever. From sunrise to sunset it rained. And we're not talking some light sprinkle shit. I mean RAIN. The festival grounds, which were already a mudpit from previous days' drizzles, became a full-on lake. The grass Holocaust covered every flat surface between Sweden and the Netherlands in two inches of mud, and created ponds of brown/yellow goo around every vertical surface.
I lasted until around 10 pm Thursday night before I gave up and went back to Copenhagen. I realized I was in way over my head when I stuck my hands in my pockets and they overflowed like a fat guy getting into a bathtub.
I returned to the festival Saturday to find wet ground, dry skies and rejuvenated festivalgoers. I knew the festival was back on track when I saw my first passed-out dude, outside the spaghetti bowl stand, using a paper plate as a pillow.
Highlight of the festival: Weepingly singing along to the following song, which is by far the best thing I've heard in 2007:
Also, I saw this band alone, and no one believes me that it rocked. How can you NOT want to dance Belgianly when you hear this?
Tina Fey's Sorkin-assassinating '30 Rock,' which would be the most quotable show ever if I lived in a country where anyone would understand shit like "I'm on my grind!"
'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' by Michael Chabon, which I haven't read since I was 19 and still has a Harry Potter-like ability to keep me up halfway to Danish sunrise.
'Bros' by Panda Bear. If it's possible for one song to encapsulate the short-lived awesomeness of Danish springtime, this is it.
'Hot Fuzz,' an action movie so British it should come with fucking crumpets.
The new season of 'The Sopranos'. How's it gonna end?
Marmaduke Explained. How emasculating must it be to get up every morning and make a comic strip knowing that it will be crushingly mocked on the Internet before noon?
The everlasting this
Old episodes of 'Arrested Development,' which might be the most perfect sitcom ever.
4/29 Truth. The world needs more possible passive-aggressive takedowns of 9/11 conspiracy theories. "It is not just Rosie O'Donnell who agrees it is impossible for fire to melt steel!"
Brian Eno's bastard child Eluvium. Why shouldn't a one-note synth song be 12 minutes long?
The Sartorialist. I don't really know anything about clothes, or shoes, or which scarf goes with whatever bus I'm riding, but this dude is just so nice.
The Chemical Brothers' new album (pre-emptively).
The Concretes (retroactively).
Human dog-whistle Joanna Newsom at Vega two weeks ago and Of Montreal at Loppen last Sunday. I don't usually go to this many shows, but hey, I'm on my grind.
I'm in serious awe of the Roskilde Festival lineup this year. I was already 8th-grade-girl excited, but they just announced 100 more bands yesterday, and now it's getting ridiculous. There hasn't been this much good music in one place since I made mixtapes for my Civic. Check it:
Arcade Fire: Even their sophomore slump is better than like 90 percent of the albums clogging up iTunes
Arctic Monkeys: I don't even like or care about this band, but I'll mention them just to make people jealous
Basement Jaxx: Hey, Americans. You know that throbby shit with empowered female vocalists you hear coming from convertibles in gay neighborhoods? That's this band. It's acceptable for heterosexuals to enjoy this kind of music on more historical continents, and I'm looking forward to seeing my breeder brethren sing along.
Beastie Boys: I'm only going if they promise to do 'Brass Monkey'.
Beirut: This is more or less all we listened to on the Italy trip last year, so hearing it at Roskilde is just going to make me think of hot sun, salty sea, and scorching heartburn.
Bjork: I only make music with grunting and whisper
Camera Obscura: Haven't heard of their songs, but they're constantly compared to other bands I like. Bring it on.
Clipse: Am I the only one who feels really over rap music? Nonetheless, I might go to this one just to watch the Danes squinting at all the slang.
Dizzee Rascal: The man who blessed the world with the line "Guilty, betrayed so innocently / Us natives act immigrantly."
Dune: Four uncomfortably good-looking 17-year-olds from the Danish peninsula. Or possibly The Shire.
Exposions in the Sky: 12-minute long, wordless drum-and-guitar mope ballads. I'm gonna bring a crepe.
Grizzly Bear: So last time I saw this band I ended up talking with them afterwards, and it turns out the bassist is from seriously like half a mile away from me in Seattle. Him: "Yeah, I'm from Everett, around 160th St." Me: "I used to go to your Taco Bell!"
The Killers: Did you know the lead singer's Mormon? I'm checking for long johns...
Klaxons: Another overhyped British band, but whatever. One of them is probably porking Kate Moss (or will be by July), and might have some good between-song anecdotes.
LCD Soundsystem: Yes! Festival's quota of meta: Fulfilled! I imagine the stage setup for this will just be the band in between two giant pairs of ironic quotation-marks.
Machine Head: Why God invented the devil-hand-symbol.
Matmos: Two French dudes who produced a Bjork album. I'm gonna need drugs for this one.
Mika: Juuuuuust in case Basement Jaxx wasn't gay enough.
Moi Caprice: The Danishest band ever. Has anyone even heard of these dudes outside of Scandinavia?
Muse: Hiyo!
My Chemical Romance: I think I've seen this band before. There was an afternoon at a music festival about two years ago. That much I know is true. However, a Jeep, half a bottle of vodka, and a beer garden have Eternal Sunshined away any other memories of that day.
The National: They're from Portland, but I tell everyone they're a Seattle band. Gotta represent Cascadia.
Peter Bjorn & John: Why is every good band from Sweden nowadays? And no, it doesn't make up for Abba.
Queens of the Stone Age: Dave Grohl's modern-day Wings.
Red Hot Chili Peppers: I'm having more and more trouble caring about this band. As Brock put it, "Fuck their new album. It's just gonna be more songs about California." I'll still go, though, if only to see how far away you have to be before you can't see Anthony Kiedis's creepy veins.
Speaker Bite Me: I've never even heard of this band. I just want to convince Laust to go.
Taxi Taxi!: Two 15-year-old Swedish chicks with harps and piano. I saw them play a few weeks ago in Copenhagen, and it was unexpectedly awesome. I have a feeling the audience for them at Roskilde is going to be like 75 percent trenchcoat, though.
Tiesto: You know that song 'Sandstorm' that drove you crazy like five years ago? Well, he didn't do it, but if he could've, he would've.
Trentemoller: The famousest Dane since Hans Christian Anderson and that Bond villian.
The Whitest Boy Alive: I'm trusting Dan's judgment here.
Wilco: The soundtrack to every Clinton-era indie kid's unrequited love. The audience for this is gonna be a bunch of skinny Danish guys crying and carving 'Susan!' into their arms with housekeys.
The Who: It's gonna be weird seeing a troupe of half-mummified Brits singing 'teenage wasteland!' but whatever. This at least gives me an excuse to say "That pinball wizard has such a supple wrist!" all weekend.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the Roskilde Festival website just hates all the bands that are playing this year? I was really excited about going, but after reading these passive-aggressive Danglish blurbs, I feel like I should just stay home with a good book and some gravied pork.
BEASTIE BOYS
The pioneers of white rap and kitschy music videos are back at Roskilde Festival.
Yikes. Being the 'pioneers' of white rap is like being the guy who invented the denim jacket.
BJÖRK
Björk’s magical world still shines as brightly as the Icelandic evening sun
Translation: They're expecting her to cancel. At least this way they can blame it on the 'magical world' she lives in.
THE KILLERS
Stadium rock in the vein of U2 and Bruce Springsteen
U2 and Springsteen? Does anyone even like them anymore? That's like saying: "Here, have a Pop Tart. It's breakfast food in the vein of dodgy Korean desserts and polenta."
KLAXONS
One of this year’s most important new bands – and surely one of the most publicized.
Translation: We think this band is as overhyped as you do. We suggest you get a styrofoam bowl of spaghetti while they pollute the Danish air with their Britishly overdone 'la la la'-ing.
MIKA
English pop phenomenon with enough room in the flamboyant arsenal to harbour the best kitsch of the past 30 years.
Translation: Gay. As. Christmas.
TUNNG
Soothing folk-pop with grating electronics
Translation: We're not even gonna pretend with this one. Just don't go. Seriously.
THE WHO
The band behind one of the most important soundtracks of the youth revolution is ready to let loose the primordial forces of rock history
Translation: The average age of the people at this concert will be somewhere between Golf Course and Craftmatic Adjustable Bed.
Ahhhh, the Great Musical Cockblock of '07 is finally over. For the fortunate audiophiles who don't live in a scoldy Nordic country, allow me to explain: Last October, almost all of the Internet service providers here in Denmark put a block on allofmp3.com, the generous, WTO-frustrating Internet music store that sells entire albums for the cost of a song on iTunes. Trying to access the site from a Danish computer gives you this message:
"Ved Københavns fogedrets kendelse af 25. oktober 2006 er Tele2 A/S blevet pålagt at hindre vore kunders adgang til www.allofmp3.com, som efter IFPI's opfattelse formidler ulovligt kopieret musik."
Which more or less means 'Nice try, bro'. I don't really understand how this ban came about, and why the ISPs capitulated so easily. I mean, I can't yank a 320 kbps version of 'Winds of Change' off the Inter-nyet but I can still be subjected to this dude?
Anyway, this little Scandygram underestimates the Internet's neverending, hydra-like ability to get around regulations, especially when free shit is involved. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: musicmp3.ru.
Like everything ending in '.ru', the site is of dubious legality and full of delicately composed English like "We are starting an unexampled program!" and "iron nerve customer support." They appear to have taken the entire Allofmp3 archive, and new albums are popping up every day like tuberculosis in Siberia. They don't take credit cards yet, but they do give you an opportunity to explore the exciting world of Russian PayPal services (Nyet-banking, maybe? You can tell I'm loving this).
So: My long musical winter is finally starting to melt. I can rejoin my pretentious indie brethren in endless meadows of it-might-as-well-be-free music and rejoice in discovering new twinkly Scand-pop and embarrassing British flamboyance without having to resort to MySpace. I forgive you, Russia.
