Some music I've been listening to

These aren't neccessarily cds that came out in the past year, just cds that I became aquainted with in the past year or so.

They aren't in order really either.

1: Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I first heard of B&S in the movie High Fidelity. For those of you that have seen High Fidelity, there were, in addition to John Cusack's character, two other guys that worked in his record store. There was the cool dude, played by the awesome Jack Black, and some wussy boy played by some other guy. There is a scene where Jack's character comes into the record store as the other two are listening to the new B&S record. He asks what it is and then informs them that the record sucks ass. That pretty much decided me. If Jack thought it sucked ass and the wussy boy liked it, I mean, come on.

On top of that, what kind of name is Belle & Sebastian anyway? Could you please pick a wussier name? Belle is a chick's name and if anybody named their kid Sebastian today he'd get his ass kicked on a regular basis at school. I always figured, from the sound of their band name, that they played the sort of stuff that the dude is playing in Animal House when Bluto smashes his guitar against the wall.

So, I never bothered to listen to Belle & Sebastian. This was an error on my part. Dorothea had a copy of their album Dear Catastrophe Waitress which I borrowed and listened to at work and it's quite good. I like it. It is pretty wussy, but what the heck, I dig The Smiths too.

It's pretty, happy music. From looking over some of the Amazon reviews of this cd it sounds like their other albums don't sound like this, so I guess I'll avoid them.

2: The Go! Team: Thunder Lightning Strike. I don't know how to describe this album. It's very instrumental but it does have some vocals. Some of the vocals are almost rapping and some sound like cheerleaders. I could see this as the soundtrack to a Tarantino movie. It's got that hip 70's' feel to it, somehow. I swear one of the songs starts off sounding like the soundtrack to a Peanuts tv show.

It's very upbeat music and rocks pretty good. It's unlike anything else I listen to, that's for sure. You can hear some of their music at their website.

3: Flogging Molly: Swagger/Drunken Lullabies/Within a Mile of Home. Somebody at work has a sticker of FM on their cubicle wall, that might be why I looked them up. I would descibe them as an Irish punk band but that doesn't really cover it.

When I first read about em I was pretty skeptical. As far as I'm concerned, The Pogues have covered the whole Irish punk band as good as anybody would ever be able to. Nobody is going to beat Shane McGowan's vocals for that kind of music. However, I have become infatuated with Flogging Molly. They have a sweeter, less angry sound than The Pogues. They have a dose of country and folk and some sea chanty type sounds in there too.

What really sucks is during the time I was really getting into these guys, listening to them for hours at work while doing my dronework, they came to Chico and played at the Senator and I fucking missed them. I read the review in the Chico News and Review the week after they played. Apparently they played a fine concert. Argh. I'm still pissed about that.

It's all because I moved. I used to walk downtown several times a week with the dog and I'd check to see who was playing at the Senator, but since we moved we are sort of out of the way of walking downtown, it's not as nice a walk, but I may have to start doing it again.

4: DJ Danger Mouse: The Grey Album. So, this guy DJ Danger Mouse cut up the Beatles' The White Album and then put it back together again as the music of the acapella (vocals only) version of Jay-Z's The Black Album and he called the result The Grey Album. This is what those hip internet kids call a mash up album, taking two (or more) songs and 'mashing' them together. From what I've heard, most mashups are made by cutting and splicing the music together and some of it sounds ok, but for The Grey Album, Danger Mouse broke the White Album down and sort of remade the music.

You have to listen to it to understand what I mean. I've never heard Jay-Z's original and I don't really want to. I don't imagine I'd like it because The Grey Album is the 'real' version of these sounds for me now. This album is not for sale anywhere, you have to download it.

5: The Kleptones: A Night at the HipHopera. Another mashup/internet only album. This one is based on Queen's Night at the Opera and a whole bunch of different snippets of rap and other bits. With such a great album as the base flavor it's hard to fuck up and the Kleptones didn't. I love Queen. They are one of those bands whose sounds are so pervasive that even though I have never purchased one of their cds, their songs are burnt into my brain. The Kleptones do a great job mixing this thing up. Download it and check it out. What have ya got to lose, it's free :)

6: Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This is another one that is hard to describe. The singer's voice is probably not very good but it seems to work. Their are a bunch of different instruments being played on this album. All kinds of sounds going zinging around. It's fairly acoustic but not necessarily always. Even the song lyrics and titles are odd. Songs about two headed boys and the king of carrot flowers and communist's daughters. WTF?

This is one of those albums that at first sort of repulsed me, sort of made me draw back like I might if I saw some freaky bug but then I had to go back and listen to it again and again. Now I've gotten over my initial scare and I dig it. I suppose if I were stoned when I listened to it the first few times that might have eased me into it, like a muscle relaxant to ease my clenched sphincter of a brain but as it was I had to take it rough edges and all. I feel I'm stronger now that those scars it left going in have healed up.

7: Drive By Truckers: Decoration Day/The Dirty South/Southern Rock Opera. I love these guys. If you love Lynyrd Skynyrd you have to check out these dudes. Three guitars in one band is usually a good sign. Great lyrics, screaming guitars. This is what I listen to get those Belle & Sebastian wusses out of my system. On Decoration Day there are two songs, each written by a different band member, about a friend of theirs who commited suicide. The one I really like is called "Do It Yourself" and it has a verse that goes like this:

Everyone has those times when the night’s so long
The dead-end life just drags you down
You lean back under the microphone
and turn your demons into walls of goddamned noise and sound.

And then the guitars kick in at the end there and make that wall of goddamned noise and sound (though I bet it's way better live) and everytime I listen to it I wanna learn how to play a guitar so I can do that. It wakes up all those rock star fantasies, know what I mean? Cause that's just a cool bit of music, I think.

Lots of their songs tell stories which is something I like. I dig story telling musicians.

8: Wilco and Billy Bragg: Mermaid Avenue. Some Wilco I love and some I haven't really gotten into yet. Billy Bragg I never really listened to. In my mind he's always been 'some British folky dude'. I got this because of Wilco. There was a time when I listened to Uncle Tupelo's (short version: Half of Uncle Tupelo became Wilco) Anodyne over and over and over and over again. I tend to get obsessive (that might not be the right word though) about some stuff when I like it. Anodyne was very much one of those things I fiended out on. Wilco is damn good too (some would say better) so it's not like I'm just following them because they used to be Uncle Tupelo. Anyways...

Billy and the guys from Wilco sound like they are having fun on this album, which is a good thing. Apparently they all got together with some of Woody Guthrie's lyrics and went to town. If you like rootsy, country, folky rock you should check this out. It's just good music.

Oh yah, it's also pretty lefty, if ya know what I mean. Not suprising since it's Billy Bragg singing Woody's songs.

Some music I've been listening to

These aren't neccessarily cds that came out in the past year, just cds that I became aquainted with in the past year or so.

They aren't in order really either.

1: Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I first heard of B&S in the movie High Fidelity. For those of you that have seen High Fidelity, there were, in addition to John Cusack's character, two other guys that worked in his record store. There was the cool dude, played by the awesome Jack Black, and some wussy boy played by some other guy. There is a scene where Jack's character comes into the record store as the other two are listening to the new B&S record. He asks what it is and then informs them that the record sucks ass. That pretty much decided me. If Jack thought it sucked ass and the wussy boy liked it, I mean, come on.

On top of that, what kind of name is Belle & Sebastian anyway? Could you please pick a wussier name? Belle is a chick's name and if anybody named their kid Sebastian today he'd get his ass kicked on a regular basis at school. I always figured, from the sound of their band name, that they played the sort of stuff that the dude is playing in Animal House when Bluto smashes his guitar against the wall.

So, I never bothered to listen to Belle & Sebastian. This was an error on my part. Dorothea had a copy of their album Dear Catastrophe Waitress which I borrowed and listened to at work and it's quite good. I like it. It is pretty wussy, but what the heck, I dig The Smiths too.

It's pretty, happy music. From looking over some of the Amazon reviews of this cd it sounds like their other albums don't sound like this, so I guess I'll avoid them.

2: The Go! Team: Thunder Lightning Strike. I don't know how to describe this album. It's very instrumental but it does have some vocals. Some of the vocals are almost rapping and some sound like cheerleaders. I could see this as the soundtrack to a Tarantino movie. It's got that hip 70's' feel to it, somehow. I swear one of the songs starts off sounding like the soundtrack to a Peanuts tv show.

It's very upbeat music and rocks pretty good. It's unlike anything else I listen to, that's for sure. You can hear some of their music at their website.

3: Flogging Molly: Swagger/Drunken Lullabies/Within a Mile of Home. Somebody at work has a sticker of FM on their cubicle wall, that might be why I looked them up. I would descibe them as an Irish punk band but that doesn't really cover it.

When I first read about em I was pretty skeptical. As far as I'm concerned, The Pogues have covered the whole Irish punk band as good as anybody would ever be able to. Nobody is going to beat Shane McGowan's vocals for that kind of music. However, I have become infatuated with Flogging Molly. They have a sweeter, less angry sound than The Pogues. They have a dose of country and folk and some sea chanty type sounds in there too.

What really sucks is during the time I was really getting into these guys, listening to them for hours at work while doing my dronework, they came to Chico and played at the Senator and I fucking missed them. I read the review in the Chico News and Review the week after they played. Apparently they played a fine concert. Argh. I'm still pissed about that.

It's all because I moved. I used to walk downtown several times a week with the dog and I'd check to see who was playing at the Senator, but since we moved we are sort of out of the way of walking downtown, it's not as nice a walk, but I may have to start doing it again.

4: DJ Danger Mouse: The Grey Album. So, this guy DJ Danger Mouse cut up the Beatles' The White Album and then put it back together again as the music of the acapella (vocals only) version of Jay-Z's The Black Album and he called the result The Grey Album. This is what those hip internet kids call a mash up album, taking two (or more) songs and 'mashing' them together. From what I've heard, most mashups are made by cutting and splicing the music together and some of it sounds ok, but for The Grey Album, Danger Mouse broke the White Album down and sort of remade the music.

You have to listen to it to understand what I mean. I've never heard Jay-Z's original and I don't really want to. I don't imagine I'd like it because The Grey Album is the 'real' version of these sounds for me now. This album is not for sale anywhere, you have to download it.

5: The Kleptones: A Night at the HipHopera. Another mashup/internet only album. This one is based on Queen's Night at the Opera and a whole bunch of different snippets of rap and other bits. With such a great album as the base flavor it's hard to fuck up and the Kleptones didn't. I love Queen. They are one of those bands whose sounds are so pervasive that even though I have never purchased one of their cds, their songs are burnt into my brain. The Kleptones do a great job mixing this thing up. Download it and check it out. What have ya got to lose, it's free :)

6: Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This is another one that is hard to describe. The singer's voice is probably not very good but it seems to work. Their are a bunch of different instruments being played on this album. All kinds of sounds going zinging around. It's fairly acoustic but not necessarily always. Even the song lyrics and titles are odd. Songs about two headed boys and the king of carrot flowers and communist's daughters. WTF?

This is one of those albums that at first sort of repulsed me, sort of made me draw back like I might if I saw some freaky bug but then I had to go back and listen to it again and again. Now I've gotten over my initial scare and I dig it. I suppose if I were stoned when I listened to it the first few times that might have eased me into it, like a muscle relaxant to ease my clenched sphincter of a brain but as it was I had to take it rough edges and all. I feel I'm stronger now that those scars it left going in have healed up.

7: Drive By Truckers: Decoration Day/The Dirty South/Southern Rock Opera. I love these guys. If you love Lynyrd Skynyrd you have to check out these dudes. Three guitars in one band is usually a good sign. Great lyrics, screaming guitars. This is what I listen to get those Belle & Sebastian wusses out of my system. On Decoration Day there are two songs, each written by a different band member, about a friend of theirs who commited suicide. The one I really like is called "Do It Yourself" and it has a verse that goes like this:

Everyone has those times when the night’s so long
The dead-end life just drags you down
You lean back under the microphone
and turn your demons into walls of goddamned noise and sound.

And then the guitars kick in at the end there and make that wall of goddamned noise and sound (though I bet it's way better live) and everytime I listen to it I wanna learn how to play a guitar so I can do that. It wakes up all those rock star fantasies, know what I mean? Cause that's just a cool bit of music, I think.

Lots of their songs tell stories which is something I like. I dig story telling musicians.

8: Wilco and Billy Bragg: Mermaid Avenue. Some Wilco I love and some I haven't really gotten into yet. Billy Bragg I never really listened to. In my mind he's always been 'some British folky dude'. I got this because of Wilco. There was a time when I listened to Uncle Tupelo's (short version: Half of Uncle Tupelo became Wilco) Anodyne over and over and over and over again. I tend to get obsessive (that might not be the right word though) about some stuff when I like it. Anodyne was very much one of those things I fiended out on. Wilco is damn good too (some would say better) so it's not like I'm just following them because they used to be Uncle Tupelo. Anyways...

Billy and the guys from Wilco sound like they are having fun on this album, which is a good thing. Apparently they all got together with some of Woody Guthrie's lyrics and went to town. If you like rootsy, country, folky rock you should check this out. It's just good music.

Oh yah, it's also pretty lefty, if ya know what I mean. Not suprising since it's Billy Bragg singing Woody's songs.

WTF man?

This is so messed up and typical of our current administration.

link

Next year, the administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets over 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a Hummer, which gets 10-12 mpg.

I mean, wtf man? I read shit like that and I'm ready to start the revolution right now.

WTF man?

This is so messed up and typical of our current administration.

link

Next year, the administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets over 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a Hummer, which gets 10-12 mpg.

I mean, wtf man? I read shit like that and I'm ready to start the revolution right now.

Women vs Men

Doro just told me that this morning when she let the dog out for his morning pee (at about 5:30am) she saw our neighbor in his kitchen naked with the lights on. She said when she realized she was staring she looked away but then looked back.

I told her that if our neighbor was female and it had been me that had let the dog out and seen her naked in her kitchen Doro would have punched me in the nuts.

She says that if that had been case she would have went over to the neighbor and said "Who the hell do you think you are, you promiscous bitch?"

But it's ok that she looked at the naked dude.

Doro claims that if it had been a woman she would have been doing it on purpose in order to ensare me in some carnal liason but the man was doing it just because he's stupid.

So, her premise is that women know when they are naked and that if they are naked around men it is on purpose and men are stupid and don't realize they are naked and people can see them. Do you, gentle reader, agree?

Women vs Men

Doro just told me that this morning when she let the dog out for his morning pee (at about 5:30am) she saw our neighbor in his kitchen naked with the lights on. She said when she realized she was staring she looked away but then looked back.

I told her that if our neighbor was female and it had been me that had let the dog out and seen her naked in her kitchen Doro would have punched me in the nuts.

She says that if that had been case she would have went over to the neighbor and said "Who the hell do you think you are, you promiscous bitch?"

But it's ok that she looked at the naked dude.

Doro claims that if it had been a woman she would have been doing it on purpose in order to ensare me in some carnal liason but the man was doing it just because he's stupid.

So, her premise is that women know when they are naked and that if they are naked around men it is on purpose and men are stupid and don't realize they are naked and people can see them. Do you, gentle reader, agree?