47 posts tagged “music”

Just testing the embeddability and streamability and full-track-lengthitude of my last.fm playlist.  Lessee:

I was just going to give you the two Paul Simon tracks, but it turned out that when I went to upload "America," I accidentally uploaded the Allen Ginsberg poem by the same title, so you get a little poetry bonus, too.

I traded out my twitter sidebar widget for a last.fm widget.  Go on and scroll down and have a gander, won't you?  Is anyone else using last.fm?  It's a cool site that allows you to track all the music you listen to and find other, similar music you might also like.  I'd type a lengthier explanation, but I don't feel like it.  It's been another long day, and I still have more to do.  Bleh.  Hence, the procrastination online, as always. Anyway, music!

These are the four best songs I heard today:

I have been listening to a lot of Wir Sind Helden lately, and maybe you should be too.  Here are a  couple of tracks from Die Reklamation and a couple from Von hier an blind. 

Now wasn't that nice? I thought so.

The "Lord of the Pi's" episode I mentioned below (dubious apostrophe and all) was more than an homage to The Big Lebowski.  In the episode, the kidnapped wife character (aka Bunny Lebowski) was played by Patty Hearst.  Yes, that Patty Hearst. Dude, I know.

In spite of the fact that Veronica's new school is called Hearst College, it was still one of those "OK, what is happening with this stunt casting?" situations.  Yet, after Tuesday's episode, and after I watched my old Ti-Beaued episodes last night, it all became clear.  I won't say any more about that on the chance that anyone is reading this who hasn't gotten a chance to see the show yet. 

But, with all this in mind, I'll give you this song, in honor of Patty herself.

What song best describes your current mood*?
Submitted by Section31.

It's a toss-up, so you get two.  I basically can't get enough of this album.

All-Time Top Fives:

Books:

1. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - Vladimir Nabokov
2. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
3. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
4. Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
5. À la récherche du temps perdu - Marcel Proust
   

Films:

1. Harold and Maude
2. The Graduate
3. Blue Velvet
   
4. The Big Lebowski
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
   

Music:

1. Dinosaur Jr.
2. Bob Dylan
3. Stevie Wonder
4. Frank Zappa
5. Ani Difranco

Top Five Things I am into Right Now, a Short, Multi-Media List:

1. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
2. Veronica Mars (Season 3)
3. The Zero Effect
4. Sugar - Copper Blue
5. The Office (U.S. version, Season 2)
   

In response to:

Books, movies, music; what's in your top 5 right now?

I may have interpreted this question differently from how other people did, but guess what, suckas? I do not care.  So, behold, a list of albums purchased by me long, long ago.  They may not get played daily anymore, but they've still got what it takes.  And like my man Cusack, I will present them in autobiographical order. 

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Water.  Alright, so I didn't purchase this one myself; my parents did. It was one of the first cassette tapes I remember from childhood, and we used to listen to it in the car (the first of our family cars that had a tape deck was a wood-paneled Jeep Wagoneer purchased after the Pinto and the Pacer had both died). At some point, I hijacked this tape from my parents, and it now lives inside my tiny Toyota, twenty years old and distorted as hell. I was about seven years old around the time this got the most play in the old Jeep, and I knew and sung along with all of the songs on the album.   My brother, who was two, could only sing along with "The Boxer" -- you know, the part that just goes "lie la lie, lie la lie lie lie la lie"?  That part.  The track I have selected for today is "Why Don't You Write Me."  Please to note badass saxophone part.

And now, readers, we move on to my jazz awakening.  I heard jazz around the house growing up, and really got into it once I started playing musical intruments "for serious" (meaning my year of Suzuki piano doesn't count).  John Coltrane's Soultrane was (and is) my favorite Coltrane album. Man, I wanted to be that guy.  The track of choice here is "Good Bait," a favorite tune of mine and how I got my friend G into jazz.  He later named his big, howling, black-and-tan coonhound Coltrane, so something must have stuck.  It would seriously behove a person to listen to this track.

Freshman year in high school I graduated from listening to my Dad's generation's classic rock and started checking out more contemporary indie stuff, and for me, the band of the moment was Dinosaur Jr.  I loved the ripping guitar and the fuzzy whine and J Mascis's admittedly terrible singing voice.  I transcribed the lyrics to my favorite tunes in painstaking lettering and hung them on my bedroom walls.  The white rubber toe of one of my black Chucks was emblazoned with the band's name, drawn in Bic pen.  It was a thing.  A big thing.  And so I give you the title track from Dinosaur Jr's Greenmind. Go ahead and rock out; I'll wait.

Finally, I have to mention Morphine's Cure for Pain. I remember so clearly the day I bought that album-- G and I were hanging around one of the local record stores just kind of browsing around and shooting the breeze with this guy who worked there --  some guy named Super Cooper, who was in a stereotypically cheesy local goth metal band called something like "Deus Requiem." You get the idea.  Anyway, I mentioned that I had started playing the baritone sax, and Cooper kind of freaked out. "Bari sax?  Oh my god, you have got to hear this band!"  He dashed to the back of the store and put on this album, which proceeded to knock my socks off.  And so I bought it,because how could I not?  I still have that original cassette tape, too. Like all the others, it rides around neglected and distorted in the back of my car, but, unlike the others, I have never replaced it on CD.  I only have a couple of MP3s from this album, so you'll have to make do with "Buena," which, as the name implies, is good, but is not as awesome as "All Wrong."But I think you'll survive.  It goes without saying, more awesome saxophonic mojo awaits you in this track.

In response to:

What are some of your favorite, forgotten albums that have stood the test of time?
Submitted by PeterGibbons.