Music
drorzel | October 8, 2006The new Hold Steady record, Boys and Girls in America was released on Tuesday, and I picked it up immediately at iTunes. I've listened to it straight through a bunch of times now, while doing onther things. So, how is it?
The short answer is "Not as good as Separation Sunday." At least, it doesn't have any songs that made the same kind of electric, immediate impact as "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" and "How a Resurrection Really Feels."
Of course, that's praising with faint damns-- very few records grab me as quickly and effectively as Separation Sunday did, so saying that this one failed to do…
drorzel | October 3, 2006Over at his AOL gig, John Scalzi points to a list purporting to be the Top Ten All Time Pop Singalong Songs. Here's the list:
1) Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out
2) Beatles - Hey Jude
3) Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive
4) Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
5) Tommy James and the Shondells - Mony Mony
6) Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock and Roll
7) Don McLean - American Pie
8) Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
9) Santana Featuring Rob Thomas - Smooth
10) Village People - YMCA
Words fail me. Almost. Words like "madness" and "sadly deluded" and "totally on crack, maybe cut with something…
drorzel | October 1, 2006I'm a huge fan of the last Hold Steady album, Separation Sunday, and I've spent about six months (not consecutively) earwormed with "Your Little Hoodrat Friend," so I'd be really remiss if I failed to note that there's a new Hold Steady album coming out Tuesday. There's also a nice article about the band in today's New York Times.
I have to say, from the photos with the Times article, they could hardly look less like rock stars. Great band, though, and I'm really looking forward to the new album.
drorzel | September 23, 2006Over at The World's Fair, David Ng is sorting his records autobiographically, and encouraging others to do the same:
If you make a music mix that is a reflection of your informative years, what would those dozen or so songs be, and maybe more interesting, why? You don't have to be proud of the song choices - they're not necessarily a reflection of taste, more about your history.
This could get embarrassing, but it's a grey and rainy Saturday morning, I'm getting a bit of a cold, and I need to do some major updates on the departmental web page, so thinking about my musical history seems like…
drorzel | September 18, 2006You know the song. It's instantly recognizable, even without the slightly daft religious lyrics. The fuzzed-out guitar, the chugging riff, the weird little noises in the background. But who recorded "Spirit in the Sky" (now playing in a Nike commercial near you...)?
The guy's name is Norman Greenbaum, and this is one of those useless bits of trivia that I know that prevent me from remembering important deadlines and where I put my keys. I'd be willing to bet that eight out of ten people on the street could hum the riff and sing the chorus, but not tell you who recorded it.
"Spirit in the Sky…
drorzel | September 14, 2006Despite turning in early last night, I'm sleep-deprived and I have an early morning lab, so here are some random songs from iTunes to hold you until I feel more like blogging. Ten tracks from the four-and-five-star playlist, with bonus commentary on a few:
"Little Razorblade," The Pink Spiders. A new purchase, that I'm really enjoying a lot.
"You Scare The **** Out Of Me," The Frantics. The guy I shared a lab with when I was working on my undergrad thesis had a copy of this, and I spent years trying to locate one. Thanks, Lara Beaton.
"Can't Let It Go," Goo Goo Dolls
"Shame On You," Hot Hot…
drorzel | September 8, 2006Some time back, I asked people to pimp me new tunes, and got a wealth of recommendations. I put in a big iTunes order not long after, and now I've had a chance to listen to most of those tracks, so I thought I should post a follow-up summary of what I bought and what I think of it (below the fold):
Andrew Bird, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Very strange album, with odd song structures, strange lyrics, and some vocals barely above a whisper. Good, though. Key tracks: "Sovay," "Masterfade."
Chris Knight, Enough Rope. Bought after a plug on jefitoblog. Pretty much straight-up country, with…
drorzel | September 5, 2006As we were driving around the other day, the iPod served up "Valerie" by the Crooked Fingers, which is a weirdly unclassifiable little song. It opens with a skiffle-ish acoustic guitar riff, adds a little steel guitar in the background, then thumping sort of jug band bass drum, with a the vocals coming in aheadlong rush, and just when that's all beginning to make sense, the mariachi horns come in, and you just have to say "Fuck it," and roll with the song. It's a good tune, in an odd way.
Anyway, that reminded me of a long-ago party in grad school (circa 1996), where we spent a great deal of…
drorzel | August 30, 2006Chuck Klosterman is a dangerous author for me to read. Not just because it leads to me posting quotes that upset people, but because I like his writing in a way that tends to creep into my own writing. After he releases a new book, I have be be really careful when I blog about pop culture, or else I end up with bad imitation Klosterman all over my blog.
(David Foster Wallace is another writer who has this effect on me-- I was deleting footnotes for a week after I read Consider the Lobster...)
The safest thing to do would be to avoid the subject altogether until the feeling passes, but then…
drorzel | August 21, 2006Every summer, we go to a concert or two up at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). We already had lawn seats for Springsteen, and last week, we had indoor seats for Guster and Ray Lamontagne. We ended up not using the actual seats, thanks to some exceptionally drunk college girls in the row behind us ("Do you need to throw up again?" is not a question you want to hear asked of the person seated immediately behind you), but we had good weather, and it was a pleasant evening sitting on the steps of the pavillion.
Musically, there's not a whole lot to say about the show. If you've heard…
drorzel | August 11, 2006I'm getting a little sick of the current rotation on iTunes, which means it's probably time for another shopping spree. I've got a couple of albums on my list to buy already (the new Tom Petty, the new Richard Thompson), and I've heard a couple of good tracks on KEXP that I'll check out (new songs by Midlake and the Long Winters), but I'm always interested in new music.
So, what's new in the music world that I ought to buy? Ideally, these should be tracks available through iTunes, though I will buy physical CD's if I have sufficiently good reason.
My tastes are somewhat eclectic, as you can…
drorzel | July 26, 2006So, here's a different sort of scenario for an audience-participation post:
Imagine that you are in a weirdly well-stocked karaoke bar, and you have to sing a song. There's no way out of it-- if you don't you'll lose your job, rabid squid will eat your family, deranged America-hating terrorists will kill a puppy, whatever. The bar has absolutely any song you might want, no matter how obscure, and you only have to do one.
What song would you sing?
This post really begins with a conversation at Readercon, where it was noted that the World SF Convention will be held in Yokohama in 2007. Kate and…
drorzel | July 24, 2006Twelve of the Top 25 Most Played songs were correctly identified over the weekend. Given the obscurity of some of these, that's pretty impressive. I think there's only one that should've been obvious that didn't get guessed.
Full answers are below the fold.
(Edited to add: If you enjoy this sort of thing, here's another list of lyrics to identify.)
"Holiday In NY," The Ike Reilly Assassination. I have no idea how this is the most-played song in my library.
"Roots Radicals," Rancid. When in doubt, rip off the Clash.
"Valentine," Bobby Bare Jr.. A twisted little pop gem, via KEXP.
"So It Goes…
drorzel | July 21, 2006We haven't done the guess-the-lyrics thing since I moved over to ScienceBlogs, and that seems like a good thing for a lazy Friday (I played soccer after work on Tuesday and Thursday, and basketball at lunch on Wednesday, so I'm pretty wiped. What a drag it is getting old.).
A little variant on the "Random Ten" thing: the list below the fold is the Top 25 Most Played playlist from iTunes on my home computer. It's a little quirky, thanks to my habit of putting recent acquisitions on shuffle play for a few weeks to get a feel for new songs, but it's not a bad representation of my general tastes…
drorzel | July 14, 2006My plan was to spend yesterday and this morning doing deep and substantive blogging while sidelined by a medical test. That sort of fell through, which means I get to spend an extra day in the lab, but also means you get lazy blogging. And what could be lazier than the classic "Random Tracks from iTunes"?
My recent listening has been dominated by live tracks from the KBCO discs posted at jefitoblog-- there's some great stuff there, check it out. For the sake of this, though, I'll give you ten tracks from the four-and-five-star playlist, plus ten tracks from the entire music library, as a…
drorzel | June 22, 2006Two music-related follow-up items:
Over on her LiveJournal, Kate has a more complete concert report from the Springsteen show, including a full set list, and some links to Springsteen resources.
Elsewhere in blogdom, the Blog on Bach is unhappy with my Old Tunes Experiment. The author seems to take the whole thing a little too personally, but I'd probably react similarly to somebody showing up in comments to start dogging Bob Dylan or the Afghan Whigs. Anyway, a couple of clarifications behind the cut:
First of all, I didn't say that I disliked Copland and Reich-- the only thing I said I…
drorzel | June 20, 2006I'm a little ragged today because Kate and I went up to SPAC last night to see Bruce Springsteen, who is currently touring behind his album of Pete Seeger songs. This was a short-notice concert-- I only got the tickets (as a birthday present) on Sunday-- so this review will be pretty much it as far as blogging today, because I didn't have time to set other posts up for today, and I'm a little tired this morning.
I didn't really know what to expect from this show, because the album itself is sort of odd-- Pete Seeger songs and folk standards, done by a huge mob of studio musicians. It's good,…
drorzel | June 2, 2006Having been depressing and/or political for the last few posts, I feel like I ought to do something to lighten the mood. So here are some pop songs (extended beyond the canonical ten because it's the last day of classes. Woo-hoo!):
"The Devil Went Down to Georgia"Charlie Danliels Band
"Since You're Gone"The Cars
"Star Bodies"The New Pornographers
"The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"The Pogues
"Barrier Reef"Old 97's
"Oceanographer's Choice"The Mountain Goats
"How Could I Know"My Morning Jacket
"I Can't Remember"The Thorns
"Ache for You"Ben Lee
"Start Choppin'"Dinosaur Jr
"Some Girls"The Rolling…
drorzel | May 23, 2006So, in our last installment, I had purchased a bunch of classical music off iTunes, and pledged to listen to it while away at DAMOP last week. I was pretty good about it, too-- I kept the classical playlist going on the iPod all the way through the flights down there, and for listening during the week. I did abandon it for the trip back up, but only because I found myself seated in the Squalling Infant Section of the plane, and needed the more even volume distribution provided by pop music to cover the noise.
So, what were the results of the experiment? Look below the fold for details...
The…