Best summation about why one of my jobs is so impossible, made in the comments of Gawker:
"The best thing about the current state of "indie" is that starting about the time The Strokes and The White Stripes and all those bands hit the scene, the universe starting folding in on itself. It was no longer a scene of consisting of a handful of bands at any given moment. Suddenly they were popping up left and right on a weekly timetable. As pointed out above, "indie" means nothing anymore. Just about any genre of music you can imagine can be classified as such. And, best of all, the waves of backlash now come so quickly that you can't even tell if something is hip or if it's already passé before it even began. While this seems like a horrifying thing to happen, it's really the most liberating of all possible occurrences. It's harder and harder for people to define their "coolness" by the music they listen to because no matter who you like, somebody even cooler (or less cool?) than you will mock you for liking it. So now we're stuck with just listening to what we genuinely enjoy. Which is how it's supposed to be. And the timing couldn't be better. There are more interesting bands out there today than at any given moment in pop music history. If this were the 80's or the 90's I would probably be forced to love Vampire Weekend because there would really only be a few bands even remotely possible to like. But now there are hundreds. I can just admit I don't care about them much and move on, and know that there are so many fantastic options to try and always something new to explore. And Vampire Weekend will work for a lot of people, and I'm happy for those people."
Showing posts with label muzak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label muzak. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Monday, July 13, 2009
Follow the leader...
Dear Friends,
I have been neglecting you. Badly. It's because I'm writing for pay elsewhere. That's right, pimpin for cash. You knew I was a sellout when we met, don't act surprised!
The thing that stinks is, I'm hard-pressed to share it with you because this blog's been anon for years. I've been able to take refuge in you guys because it won't get back to the powers that be. Been able to artfully complain about people, give you anecdotes about friends, share my crushing heartbreak or falling in love, my crazy and loving family, or my d-bag ex-coworkers has been only because you've been there for me, and you've been there for me quietly.
Thank you. You rock.
But while it's not time for an all-around unveiling (I said it would be when the book got repped and I will stand by that!), I should send you to another place where I'm pretty much writing every day, albeit for music. Sssh, don't tell them that I live here, and more importantly, live here for you. Or they'll come after me and I'll never be able to tell you the skinny of what's going on in my life as well as I have.
Can you keep a secret? This is just between us. Cool?
I have been neglecting you. Badly. It's because I'm writing for pay elsewhere. That's right, pimpin for cash. You knew I was a sellout when we met, don't act surprised!
The thing that stinks is, I'm hard-pressed to share it with you because this blog's been anon for years. I've been able to take refuge in you guys because it won't get back to the powers that be. Been able to artfully complain about people, give you anecdotes about friends, share my crushing heartbreak or falling in love, my crazy and loving family, or my d-bag ex-coworkers has been only because you've been there for me, and you've been there for me quietly.
Thank you. You rock.
But while it's not time for an all-around unveiling (I said it would be when the book got repped and I will stand by that!), I should send you to another place where I'm pretty much writing every day, albeit for music. Sssh, don't tell them that I live here, and more importantly, live here for you. Or they'll come after me and I'll never be able to tell you the skinny of what's going on in my life as well as I have.
Can you keep a secret? This is just between us. Cool?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
WTF
The first public death that affected me was Kurt Cobain, when I was 13. I cried for days, Then I was unaffected, an affectation where I was consumed in teenaged angst where nothing bothered me and nothing was considered by me unless it was my own selfish little bubble, who I loved, who didn't love me back, where I was going, why I wasn't there yet.
And now I think with last year's death of Heath Ledger, I felt oddly strange, upset, for a man I did not know, whose apartment I passed daily and did not realize, who if I saw while alive, would not care. And this week, there was Ed McMahon, who while important was old, Farrah Fawcett, who was the same to me, some abstract creature that did not relate to me in any way, I knew she meant something, I just didn't know to whom. I knew her death was sad, but for me, for cancer, there is time to reflect.
Michael Jackson, a man I grew up watching descend, his brilliance matched only by the swiftness in which he fell--much of it perhaps in his own creation, he was the first of us to overshare to nearly blog when there was no reason to blog, he was the first celebrity I knew of to melt down over and over, and why I knew this I cannot say. At the time I was too young for even grunge, even though I thought I was just old enough really, and I didn't care to understand disco, and thought pop was garbage (though grunge WAS pop, I see that now). I wasn't even a year old when Thriller came out, my mother told me that when I did, it terrified me, and again, far before anything else I mourned, I cried for him then, because I thought he was coming to kill me. The video, long-since considered a masterpiece, gave me nightmares, I hear. I saw it later, saw something which was mystifying and amazing and only scary in its complete awesomeness, but by the time I saw it--and saw that in him--he was not that man any more.
He was something else, a fabulous disaster to us, the grabbing masses, something that they called Sid Vicious thirty years ago when he self-destructed, and now I can't help but feel in impenetrable sadness as I watch hours of videos of imitators and news coverage feeling like this man, this poor man, was a joke to us in his twilight years. Today, at least we remember him well. I must be getting old or things are just different in the world, but now I see death and it comes very often, perhaps more than anything else.
Tonight I'm saying WTF. This is horribly sad to me, and I do know why, because it is death, and he was a man who must have felt an inordinate amount of pain for the past fifteen years, and part of me wonders why he couldn't have died before he was tarnished, as awful as that seems, because today we care about him more than we had for decades. Today we remember him more fondly, there are no Walmart boys' pants half off jokes, today we remember his genius, and we should have, we should have before.
And yet. If he did what he did...who can say. The man is dead and I for one, hope he can finally rest in peace.
And now I think with last year's death of Heath Ledger, I felt oddly strange, upset, for a man I did not know, whose apartment I passed daily and did not realize, who if I saw while alive, would not care. And this week, there was Ed McMahon, who while important was old, Farrah Fawcett, who was the same to me, some abstract creature that did not relate to me in any way, I knew she meant something, I just didn't know to whom. I knew her death was sad, but for me, for cancer, there is time to reflect.
Michael Jackson, a man I grew up watching descend, his brilliance matched only by the swiftness in which he fell--much of it perhaps in his own creation, he was the first of us to overshare to nearly blog when there was no reason to blog, he was the first celebrity I knew of to melt down over and over, and why I knew this I cannot say. At the time I was too young for even grunge, even though I thought I was just old enough really, and I didn't care to understand disco, and thought pop was garbage (though grunge WAS pop, I see that now). I wasn't even a year old when Thriller came out, my mother told me that when I did, it terrified me, and again, far before anything else I mourned, I cried for him then, because I thought he was coming to kill me. The video, long-since considered a masterpiece, gave me nightmares, I hear. I saw it later, saw something which was mystifying and amazing and only scary in its complete awesomeness, but by the time I saw it--and saw that in him--he was not that man any more.
He was something else, a fabulous disaster to us, the grabbing masses, something that they called Sid Vicious thirty years ago when he self-destructed, and now I can't help but feel in impenetrable sadness as I watch hours of videos of imitators and news coverage feeling like this man, this poor man, was a joke to us in his twilight years. Today, at least we remember him well. I must be getting old or things are just different in the world, but now I see death and it comes very often, perhaps more than anything else.
Tonight I'm saying WTF. This is horribly sad to me, and I do know why, because it is death, and he was a man who must have felt an inordinate amount of pain for the past fifteen years, and part of me wonders why he couldn't have died before he was tarnished, as awful as that seems, because today we care about him more than we had for decades. Today we remember him more fondly, there are no Walmart boys' pants half off jokes, today we remember his genius, and we should have, we should have before.
And yet. If he did what he did...who can say. The man is dead and I for one, hope he can finally rest in peace.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Your advice is needed!
I haven't been here because I have a new gig writing at a music site and long story short I spend about all my free time doing that, and going to my brother's high school graduation (which has the startling capacity to make me feel SO OLD that he's graduating the same year I had my reunion) and wrapping up three classes and enrolling in a new one and sending the novel off to the editor and really getting on writing the second novel and talking with my writing sample--arguing with it really--for school and organizing all of my lists of where I'd move to school to.
All this in the rain.
It's exhausting! I need a staycation (can't afford a vacation) where I just don't use the internet after a certain hour or I turn into a gremlin. I want to stay at Mogwai. My boyfriend's feeling neglected.
So I'm spending the time I should be scouring for new artists, looking up my favorite music videos of all time. So far I've come up with this, but I want to post some more on the site. So any more suggestions?
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Uploaded by hushhush112. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.
Riskay Feat Aviance & Real - Smell Yo Dick [NEW]
Uploaded by PeteRock. - Watch more music videos, in HD!
All this in the rain.
It's exhausting! I need a staycation (can't afford a vacation) where I just don't use the internet after a certain hour or I turn into a gremlin. I want to stay at Mogwai. My boyfriend's feeling neglected.
So I'm spending the time I should be scouring for new artists, looking up my favorite music videos of all time. So far I've come up with this, but I want to post some more on the site. So any more suggestions?
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Uploaded by hushhush112. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.
Riskay Feat Aviance & Real - Smell Yo Dick [NEW]
Uploaded by PeteRock. - Watch more music videos, in HD!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Cut Copy Love
I started a mix called "Bronze Pony". It refers to something hilarious only to me, but I can't stop laughing about it. And it is my nickname for my dance partner.
Now if only we could get away with shattering the windows of all apartments in a five block radius...
Cut Copy* "Far Away"
Mystery Jets "Diamonds in the Dark"
Foals "Balloons"
Van She "Kelly"
Hot 8 Brass Band "Sexual Healing"
Camp Lo "Luchini"
MIA "20 Dollar"
Spank Rock "Tell Me What It Look Like"
The Kills "U.R.A. Fever"
Free Blood "The Royal Family"
Yak Ballz "YBTV"
Any more suggestions to add?
*I couldn't be sadder that I'm missing this concert tonight. I love these guys so so much.
Now if only we could get away with shattering the windows of all apartments in a five block radius...
Cut Copy* "Far Away"
Mystery Jets "Diamonds in the Dark"
Foals "Balloons"
Van She "Kelly"
Hot 8 Brass Band "Sexual Healing"
Camp Lo "Luchini"
MIA "20 Dollar"
Spank Rock "Tell Me What It Look Like"
The Kills "U.R.A. Fever"
Free Blood "The Royal Family"
Yak Ballz "YBTV"
Any more suggestions to add?
*I couldn't be sadder that I'm missing this concert tonight. I love these guys so so much.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The Best Song You've Ever Heard
There are no words.
Thank you, BT, for sending this in. Now you're responsible for fifteen people peeing themselves at work and twenty being fired.
Thank you, BT, for sending this in. Now you're responsible for fifteen people peeing themselves at work and twenty being fired.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Nevermind the Bullocks
Vicious.
Was punk rock all about image? Maybe so, at least at the end? beginning? but with music videos like these, does anyone really care? This might be the funniest clip in rock history.
Was punk rock all about image? Maybe so, at least at the end? beginning? but with music videos like these, does anyone really care? This might be the funniest clip in rock history.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Muzak Roundup
Hey, everyone says he's too late to a party that's already over (they do say that about Kavinsky too, those Pitchfork kids hate the hyperbole fun don't they? How can you hate a man who interviews like this?), but I still adore Calvin Harris. Shout out to my friend(s) who have heard his album and sent it my way.*
He answers what is sweetness almost as much as Spank Rock on the other end of the spectrum**
Monday night at Bowery I caught Calvin in all his earnestness, asking over and over "What's up New York? Jump up New York!" So his stage banter could use some work, but he was so excited to be here and have a few errant East Coasters saluting him (the rest of the crowd was a weirdish mix of cliche interpretations of Eurotrash, a grandmother in sequins, and one of the guys from We Are Scientists) that it really didn't matter. Now if only I could be doing the same tomorrow, but Spank Rock got sick and now it's all off. Boo. At least I got those Radiohead tickets in the summer...and I'm listening to a lot of Fleet Foxes and Mystery Jets these days.
Who has a music recommendation to share? Let's hear it!
*Note to all of you, I'm SO COOL that I've had it since last year. No need to ask how I heard it first. No, it was not at a Forever 21 which completely negates all coolness associated with it. Okay, yes it was. Yes, your greatest fears are true: I am lame. Lamer than you ever imagined.
**--who, by the way, I ended up walking behind after the Crystal Castles/Health show a few months ago, and he put a huge traffic cone on his head as a hat and started shouting, "Where the party at?" which I misheard as "Where the party hat?" to which we responded, "On your head!" and then HE started saying "Where the party hat?" and like the Pied Piper led a parade of girls into the depths of Brooklyn and now every time I come into a party I say, "Where the party hat?" Moving on.
He answers what is sweetness almost as much as Spank Rock on the other end of the spectrum**
Monday night at Bowery I caught Calvin in all his earnestness, asking over and over "What's up New York? Jump up New York!" So his stage banter could use some work, but he was so excited to be here and have a few errant East Coasters saluting him (the rest of the crowd was a weirdish mix of cliche interpretations of Eurotrash, a grandmother in sequins, and one of the guys from We Are Scientists) that it really didn't matter. Now if only I could be doing the same tomorrow, but Spank Rock got sick and now it's all off. Boo. At least I got those Radiohead tickets in the summer...and I'm listening to a lot of Fleet Foxes and Mystery Jets these days.
Who has a music recommendation to share? Let's hear it!
*Note to all of you, I'm SO COOL that I've had it since last year. No need to ask how I heard it first. No, it was not at a Forever 21 which completely negates all coolness associated with it. Okay, yes it was. Yes, your greatest fears are true: I am lame. Lamer than you ever imagined.
**--who, by the way, I ended up walking behind after the Crystal Castles/Health show a few months ago, and he put a huge traffic cone on his head as a hat and started shouting, "Where the party at?" which I misheard as "Where the party hat?" to which we responded, "On your head!" and then HE started saying "Where the party hat?" and like the Pied Piper led a parade of girls into the depths of Brooklyn and now every time I come into a party I say, "Where the party hat?" Moving on.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Spring Anthem
Dear K,
We're moving away from winter white. But not Fleet Foxes Winter White Hymnal.
You're welcome,
The Spring Anthem Committee
We're moving away from winter white. But not Fleet Foxes Winter White Hymnal.
You're welcome,
The Spring Anthem Committee
Thursday, April 10, 2008
!!! (Chk Chk Chk)
Since interviewing one of these guys, I cannot stop watching this video. I kind of love it.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Frontside
It's not just around the corner, outside a pane of glass. It's close, so close you can feel it between the blinds of your room, in your temporary jobs to fund backpacking books, reunions, new beginnings, bare shoulder prospects. When cover refers to the clouds, when you wake up by the sun's cycle, when you feel lucky to have been given even just one moment to feel lucky, when your hands aren't idle, they're moving together, they send something out and they take something back in.
When being alone is a gift, you swell and it's not with sentiment this time, you smile and it's not for show, you understand without speaking, you get to speak without consequence.
When the sounds of November sound different because of context, the arrangement is only the song ahead, new freckles, missed messages, the hunch beginning to lift away. The pictures peel from the wall because the tape can't hold in the burgeoning heat and it's all right because you don't need them any more.
When soon is now.
When being alone is a gift, you swell and it's not with sentiment this time, you smile and it's not for show, you understand without speaking, you get to speak without consequence.
When the sounds of November sound different because of context, the arrangement is only the song ahead, new freckles, missed messages, the hunch beginning to lift away. The pictures peel from the wall because the tape can't hold in the burgeoning heat and it's all right because you don't need them any more.
When soon is now.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
I'm...I'm...Mikey...I...I....I rock
The neverending music explosion is one I can bearly stop subscribing to. My own obsessesive quest for something different. How it informs our fashion, neighborhoods, eyewear, blank faces, whatnot. The globalization has made people cool, genre-spawn has made us all hotter. What's bad is good for bad's sake, and vice versa. Backlash to the backlash until we're not sure who we're supposed to support any more. What we like? But we like lame stuff like that one Kylie Minogue song that played that whole summer in Australia. Oh that was some sugarpill I could't swallow even without Victoria Bitters.
I'm getting my wisdom teeth yanked. At my old age. I'm a baby about it. Not for the pain, but because I'm going to miss these Cool Kids performances.
First at Studio B, then at the Museum of Natural History? What could be better?
For just a taste of this low-fi pixie dust, here's the track that's been haunting me all week. Repetition as invention and I'm behind it.
Kid Sister, the other (better) half of Chicago wave, hand dancing finger choreography by Kanye not included.
*Vintage* Alert: Check out this Cool Kids track: nailing bringing back "88".
I'm getting my wisdom teeth yanked. At my old age. I'm a baby about it. Not for the pain, but because I'm going to miss these Cool Kids performances.
First at Studio B, then at the Museum of Natural History? What could be better?
For just a taste of this low-fi pixie dust, here's the track that's been haunting me all week. Repetition as invention and I'm behind it.
Kid Sister, the other (better) half of Chicago wave, hand dancing finger choreography by Kanye not included.
*Vintage* Alert: Check out this Cool Kids track: nailing bringing back "88".
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Snow Day
It’s holiday season time, and with the advent of eggnog and my constant joking about my/other people’s “hot toddies” comes all kinds of activity: ferocious shopping, office fetes, infiltration of a thousand santas, you know the drill.
But too comes something else,; tons and tons of Christmas music. And if you know me, if it isn’t on the only Christmas CD that matters, it might as well not exist.
So today, I’m listening, in, but not contained to, the holiday spirit, to the following hilarious playlist of predominantly European electropop music, what’s kept me dancing all 2007, in the hopes that though Paris is weeks behind me, the next time I’m there won’t be too far ahead at all, and that this year I can start a new tradition, of what exactly I’m not sure:
Tough Alliance “New Chance”
New Young Pony Club “The Get Go”
Crystal Castles vs. Health “Crimewave”
Krazy Baldhead “Applejuice”
Justice “DVNO”
Chromeo “Fancy Footwork” (Guns n Bombs remix)
Yelle “Je veux te voir”
Daft Punk “Music Sounds Better With You/One More Time “
Glass Candy “Rolling Down the Hills “
Bag Raiders “Nil by Mouth” (Reprise)
Rex the Dog “Circulate” (JBAG edit)
Alex Metric “Oh”
But too comes something else,; tons and tons of Christmas music. And if you know me, if it isn’t on the only Christmas CD that matters, it might as well not exist.
So today, I’m listening, in, but not contained to, the holiday spirit, to the following hilarious playlist of predominantly European electropop music, what’s kept me dancing all 2007, in the hopes that though Paris is weeks behind me, the next time I’m there won’t be too far ahead at all, and that this year I can start a new tradition, of what exactly I’m not sure:
Tough Alliance “New Chance”
New Young Pony Club “The Get Go”
Crystal Castles vs. Health “Crimewave”
Krazy Baldhead “Applejuice”
Justice “DVNO”
Chromeo “Fancy Footwork” (Guns n Bombs remix)
Yelle “Je veux te voir”
Daft Punk “Music Sounds Better With You/One More Time “
Glass Candy “Rolling Down the Hills “
Bag Raiders “Nil by Mouth” (Reprise)
Rex the Dog “Circulate” (JBAG edit)
Alex Metric “Oh”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
To all the boys I love(d)
Our mix tastes just like Sunday night when the only light is the green glow of a dashboard. We’re driving* and the speakers are cracking too loud but we both like it that way and anything that is said is quickly drowned out by verse chorus verse and you not pushing up the window…
These are our songs, the songs that you don’t know are about us.
If this were a high school dance, I’d like to dedicate the following songs to the intangibles, what I miss and what I don’t:
The Presets “Girl and the Sea”
Menomena “Wet and Rusting”
Laura Veirs “Galaxies”
Greg Laswell “Sing, Theresa Says”
Spinto Band “Oh Mandy”
Calexico “Sunken Waltz”
dios (malos) “I want it all”
The Beta Band “Dry The Rain”
LCD Soundsystem “Someone Great”
Datarock “Princess”
3 of a Kind “Babycakes”
*—well you are, because you always drive, you never let me touch your car, and you shouldn’t, I’m a terrible driver, partly because every time we drive you remind me so and never let me touch the wheel, it’s a vicious cycle, really...
These are our songs, the songs that you don’t know are about us.
If this were a high school dance, I’d like to dedicate the following songs to the intangibles, what I miss and what I don’t:
The Presets “Girl and the Sea”
Menomena “Wet and Rusting”
Laura Veirs “Galaxies”
Greg Laswell “Sing, Theresa Says”
Spinto Band “Oh Mandy”
Calexico “Sunken Waltz”
dios (malos) “I want it all”
The Beta Band “Dry The Rain”
LCD Soundsystem “Someone Great”
Datarock “Princess”
3 of a Kind “Babycakes”
*—well you are, because you always drive, you never let me touch your car, and you shouldn’t, I’m a terrible driver, partly because every time we drive you remind me so and never let me touch the wheel, it’s a vicious cycle, really...
Today, what are your dedication songs?
Monday, September 10, 2007
Funday
Mondays are a period of adjustment. Was it only mere hours ago that I was laughing too loudly about someone’s really big sandwich? Now it’s get back-to-business time, blaring alarms, that project I put off from Friday, fronting as though I’m presentable and all the rest.
In my not-so-secret life, I find I do much more jumping, singing, dorking out. Though that’s not really encouraged during the daily grind. Today, I wish it were.
When I’m a boss—and my mother swears it will happen some day, and it better damnit, cause she didn’t pay all that money for such a fancy-pants education just for me to blow it by being an assistant my entire life, now did she?—I think I’ll make the office celebrate on Monday mornings. Recess first, the budget to follow. Everyone will get a frosted cupcake and I will make my plucky, diamond-in-the-rough assistant (I imagine her name is Sarah, she’s eager to please and has a ponytail) replay the same mix tape (because in my future, mix tapes are back) each week:
Snow “Informer”
Wreckx-n-Effect “Rumpshaker”
Boyz II Men “Motown Philly”
Bell Biv Devoe “Poison”
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince “Summertime”
Positive K "I Got a Man"*
Young MC “Bust a Move”
TLC “Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg”
Digital Underground “The Humpty Dance”
Pharcyde “Passin’ Me By”
Warren G “Regulate”
Arrested Development “Mr. Wendal”*
And if it’s really lulling, I’ll make the big finish with 2 Live Crew “Hoochie Mama”
Any more suggestions for my in-progress Funday mix?
In my not-so-secret life, I find I do much more jumping, singing, dorking out. Though that’s not really encouraged during the daily grind. Today, I wish it were.
When I’m a boss—and my mother swears it will happen some day, and it better damnit, cause she didn’t pay all that money for such a fancy-pants education just for me to blow it by being an assistant my entire life, now did she?—I think I’ll make the office celebrate on Monday mornings. Recess first, the budget to follow. Everyone will get a frosted cupcake and I will make my plucky, diamond-in-the-rough assistant (I imagine her name is Sarah, she’s eager to please and has a ponytail) replay the same mix tape (because in my future, mix tapes are back) each week:
Snow “Informer”
Wreckx-n-Effect “Rumpshaker”
Boyz II Men “Motown Philly”
Bell Biv Devoe “Poison”
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince “Summertime”
Positive K "I Got a Man"*
Young MC “Bust a Move”
TLC “Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg”
Digital Underground “The Humpty Dance”
Pharcyde “Passin’ Me By”
Warren G “Regulate”
Arrested Development “Mr. Wendal”*
And if it’s really lulling, I’ll make the big finish with 2 Live Crew “Hoochie Mama”
Any more suggestions for my in-progress Funday mix?
**These are my most favorite karaoke songs ever...
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
D.A.N.C.E
Good morning campers and welcome to K’s Dance Party! Not to be confused with K’s Pity Party. This one is funner; promise.
Come in, come in. Wait, are you sitting down? I don’t care if you walked all the way here and it’s Wednesday morning and you’re supposed to be working right now. It’s not my fault you’re such a square! Yeah I said square. You just got served!
Oh I see. Now you’re upset. Hello, dance reference! Lighten up!
What’s with the pouting? (Exasperated sigh). Fine. Fine. No, you’re right, I don’t want to “force the fun” on you, and this being a party and all there “really shouldn’t be any rules”. But it’s my party, right? Can’t I just have one? A small one. Scout’s honor.
(Why did I invite you again?) What? Oh, nothing. No, I didn’t say anything. (Yes I did. Tee hee.)
Okay, the only rule of the dance party is that you must be dancey at all times. No, it’s not technically a word, I just made it up. Yes, you can totally define what that means to you. So let’s see it. Here, take these wristbands on good faith. No I don’t have any more in hot pink. Cause I’m already wearing them, that’s why. Don’t be such a jerk about it. It’s not my fault you didn’t come correct! Oh snap!
Oh him? That’s Juan-Jean-Pierre. He runs back and forth in front of that light while raving. Juan-Jean-Pierre is the new strobe. I’m telling you, he’s so hot right now. Never you mind where I got him.
What’s that pounding out of mypod you ask? Oh that’s our soundtrack for this morning. Yes, the silliest mix you ever did hear, in celebration of our dance party, and Wednesday, and your bad attitude. Psych! Not your bad attitude. I’m not rewarding that, I’ll tell you right now. You’re damn right I put Uffie on there. I know it’s a terrible song but those lyrics can’t be beat! Yes it’s your anthem of last fall, I remember. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard that you’re ready to…uff.
But are you ready to dance?
M.I.A. “Ten Dollar”
The Streets “When You Wasn’t Famous”
Come in, come in. Wait, are you sitting down? I don’t care if you walked all the way here and it’s Wednesday morning and you’re supposed to be working right now. It’s not my fault you’re such a square! Yeah I said square. You just got served!
Oh I see. Now you’re upset. Hello, dance reference! Lighten up!
What’s with the pouting? (Exasperated sigh). Fine. Fine. No, you’re right, I don’t want to “force the fun” on you, and this being a party and all there “really shouldn’t be any rules”. But it’s my party, right? Can’t I just have one? A small one. Scout’s honor.
(Why did I invite you again?) What? Oh, nothing. No, I didn’t say anything. (Yes I did. Tee hee.)
Okay, the only rule of the dance party is that you must be dancey at all times. No, it’s not technically a word, I just made it up. Yes, you can totally define what that means to you. So let’s see it. Here, take these wristbands on good faith. No I don’t have any more in hot pink. Cause I’m already wearing them, that’s why. Don’t be such a jerk about it. It’s not my fault you didn’t come correct! Oh snap!
Oh him? That’s Juan-Jean-Pierre. He runs back and forth in front of that light while raving. Juan-Jean-Pierre is the new strobe. I’m telling you, he’s so hot right now. Never you mind where I got him.
What’s that pounding out of mypod you ask? Oh that’s our soundtrack for this morning. Yes, the silliest mix you ever did hear, in celebration of our dance party, and Wednesday, and your bad attitude. Psych! Not your bad attitude. I’m not rewarding that, I’ll tell you right now. You’re damn right I put Uffie on there. I know it’s a terrible song but those lyrics can’t be beat! Yes it’s your anthem of last fall, I remember. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard that you’re ready to…uff.
But are you ready to dance?
M.I.A. “Ten Dollar”
The Streets “When You Wasn’t Famous”
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
MTV has something to teach us...or not
There was a point recently where I found myself eyeing MTV in the background of a strange person’s house. Isn’t that always how it goes, some weird party, and you become privy to the viewing habits of friends of friends, and you’re surprised, maybe even horrified? It was just like that. And I thought, wow, what is the problem with MTV, how could it have missed its mark so completely, its sold demographic utterly opposite of the truth behind it. I remember it was dogma in sixth grade for us. From 18-24 I’m not sure if we looked at it once, and now, here I am, now practically geriatric, and watching it again. In my own house and at risk.
And what have I missed?
I’ll tell you.
The absolute shaving of Silverchair. I mean, really? This is what’s happened to you, Daniel? See if you had just moved to Connecticut and married me like I wished when I blew out the candles as I turned twelve, none of this would have happened. I mean, jeez. I liked you a lot better when you were ripping off Pearl Jam.
It worked more than when you were ripping off Coldplay. Talk about "pulling a Fred Savage*".
But, as a really great side revelation of viewing this atrocity, if I were a guy, I would so wear a vest as a shirt just about every day. But I would dance a little better.
So much better in fact that I’d pretty much want to be this, no matter how much the other guys hated me, the other revelation which fell over my virgin eyes. The hottttness of what’s happening in the video is trumped only by its lyrics. I mean, I don’t know when it became acceptable for a daytime hook to demand that the girl which the guy is stalking with clothes-removing X-ray telescopes to “sit down on top of me” and that “Ooh, she wants it…so I got to give it to her”, but I sure am glad it did, aren’t you?
And lastly, in ridiculous round-ups, here is what happens when Brooklyn stagedads hit thirty and get their way.
Thank you, ex-pat, for showing me this, and the beginning of the end of the world. I’m waxing on MTV and these kids are paling around with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs citing the Sex Pistols as influencers? CSS remixes? WTF? And I thought Smoosh was bad (good?).
Wait, something is becoming clear. The Tiny Masters of Today are the Silverchair of yesterday. Let this be a cautionary tale to you, kids. Beware! See us old folks know a thing or two about a thing or two still…
And what have I missed?
I’ll tell you.
The absolute shaving of Silverchair. I mean, really? This is what’s happened to you, Daniel? See if you had just moved to Connecticut and married me like I wished when I blew out the candles as I turned twelve, none of this would have happened. I mean, jeez. I liked you a lot better when you were ripping off Pearl Jam.
It worked more than when you were ripping off Coldplay. Talk about "pulling a Fred Savage*".
But, as a really great side revelation of viewing this atrocity, if I were a guy, I would so wear a vest as a shirt just about every day. But I would dance a little better.
So much better in fact that I’d pretty much want to be this, no matter how much the other guys hated me, the other revelation which fell over my virgin eyes. The hottttness of what’s happening in the video is trumped only by its lyrics. I mean, I don’t know when it became acceptable for a daytime hook to demand that the girl which the guy is stalking with clothes-removing X-ray telescopes to “sit down on top of me” and that “Ooh, she wants it…so I got to give it to her”, but I sure am glad it did, aren’t you?
And lastly, in ridiculous round-ups, here is what happens when Brooklyn stagedads hit thirty and get their way.
Thank you, ex-pat, for showing me this, and the beginning of the end of the world. I’m waxing on MTV and these kids are paling around with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs citing the Sex Pistols as influencers? CSS remixes? WTF? And I thought Smoosh was bad (good?).
Wait, something is becoming clear. The Tiny Masters of Today are the Silverchair of yesterday. Let this be a cautionary tale to you, kids. Beware! See us old folks know a thing or two about a thing or two still…
(:sobbing:)
*You know what I'm talking about. Adorable kid, not so adorable adult...
Monday, August 06, 2007
Summer Songs
Once I was gifted a mix, and it was the soundtrack to the best summer of my life. Marine biology, two weeks in Tokyo and the one were just forming in front of me.
Listening to that mix was a transporting swell, a wave that fell into me and then out of my hands in such manic happiness, and this morning I remembered it wrong and somehow added on other songs that never even existed in the same space. Good memories are like that for me. They bleed into each other, pooling in a long strand of endorphins that can't be separated.
Listening to that mix was a transporting swell, a wave that fell into me and then out of my hands in such manic happiness, and this morning I remembered it wrong and somehow added on other songs that never even existed in the same space. Good memories are like that for me. They bleed into each other, pooling in a long strand of endorphins that can't be separated.
The songs just felt like grass and the pool, long days and elbows out of car windows, star-studded nights and barefoot running in someone else's driveway. Wearing a bathing suit at all times just in case, throwing tomatoes at the dog, popping a new can of tennis balls, the smell of wood chips and washing the car by hand.
My summer songs today, in no particular order, which do not go together at all, and don't even have to do with the same summer would be:
Mew “Zookeeper's Boy”
Modest Mouse “Never ending Math Equation”
Built to Spill “Carry the Zero”
Sufjan Stevens "Chicago"
Pinback “Loro”
Neko Case “Deep Red Bells”
Summer at Shatter Creek “Home for the Holidays”
Sun Kil Moon “Carry Me Ohio”
Dr. Dog’s cover of “Heart it Races”
Wilco “Company in My Back”
Animal Collective "Leaf House"
Editors "Munich"
Rogue Wave "Publish My Love"
Junior Boys "First Time"
The Knife's version of "Heartbeats"
And lastly, Royksapp "Eple", the unheard anthem of that weekend in Lake Como, where we got lost, and found a baby donkey and pet it until its mother shooed us away...
What are yours?
Monday, July 23, 2007
If I ruled the world...all videos would be in cartoon form
All my favorite videos present and past are animated; all my favorite bands are Scandinavian or emerging from behind the Iron Curtain.
Logic was washed away with this morning’s torrential downpour. Now I’ll give my right toe to anyone who allows me to go home and watch these between Flight of the Concords on demand.
Anything by Los Campesinos. Particularly the video for the latest.
Old summer colliding with new.
Before Napoleon Dynamite made ankle-length snow boots cool, I bet Jonas from Mew already had his own line.
Logic was washed away with this morning’s torrential downpour. Now I’ll give my right toe to anyone who allows me to go home and watch these between Flight of the Concords on demand.
Anything by Los Campesinos. Particularly the video for the latest.
Old summer colliding with new.
Before Napoleon Dynamite made ankle-length snow boots cool, I bet Jonas from Mew already had his own line.
My most treasured videotape from the library when my dad rented it for me when I was seven.*
Where I learned all my dance moves.
An eighties throwback enjoyed a little too much.
When fat rabbits unite.
And finally, my all-time favorite and gold standard.
Any more suggestions?
*For those of you familiar with my dad and his practices, does this at all seem out of character? That instead of Sesame Street I was subjected to Yellow Submarine? This is a man who refused to give up a mailbox war, was one of the first straight men in the entire world to bring a hair dyer and hairspray into the locker room at the gym in the 80s, and was in charge of my Brownie troop since none of the mothers would do it and then took us to see the county jail and to pick up trash, glue-gunning and stapling my badges onto my sash. Best dad ever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)