Unhuman
From an extended interview, whose quality I can not yet attest to as I have not finished reading it, Billy Joel on Not Working and Not Giving Up Drinking:
From an extended interview, whose quality I can not yet attest to as I have not finished reading it, Billy Joel on Not Working and Not Giving Up Drinking:
Let’s see, well I don’t know enough about classical music to correctly name this piece, but the one I’m listening to right now is performed by Lang Lang and is called Chopin - Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58, III. Largo. Ok, well now I feel guilty and I need to sort out this title. Ok, off to Wikipedia.
It’s almost mid-April and we’re coming into a huge snowstorm. They’re saying somewhere between 8 and 20 inches starting tonight and continuing tomorrow. Mykala has planned a Christmas dinner for tomorrow night, the Santa nightlight is plugged in, I’m listening to Christmas music (“Christmas with the Rat Pack”), and getting a game of TextTwist going.
With my head in the sand of school, the world turned around me, and I kept my horizons narrow and focus tight. What I failed to realize was, well, mortality. You’re young and learning and the last thing you think of is your body—it does what you ask it to do, and it doesn’t sideline your plans with pain, inflexibility, or hospital stays.
I bought Mykala tickets to William Fitzsimmons on her birthday in January, and we finally got to see his show the other week. It was probably the best concert to which I’ve ever been. When the opener got up and just played a song on his acoustic guitar, sans-mic or pickup, I realized the earplugs I brought might be overkill (for once). I hate the cotton-eared feeling you get when you’ve been listening to loud music for too long. I’m also not a huge fan of hiding the (still embarrassing) fact that I’m wearing earplugs in a venue whose sole purpose is, ostensibly, to facilitate listening.
I think this is an uptempo house remix of a 70s funk song? Pandora + late night = GET YOUR FUNK ON.
Finished another root canal today, which means I can stop worrying about that person’s tooth. Wrote up an extensive treatment plan. The school is generally horribly inefficient — though it can be a great place to learn if only you have the right instructors.
Now, I’m at home, waiting for Mykala to get here. She’s at work until 10pm. We don’t see one another nearly enough: maybe two hours on a good day. Last night, she fell asleep in my arms on the couch. That’s my absolute favorite.
Ellie Goulding’s ‘Home’ is a song with a tide. It washes out to low tide, and you are left with stripped down melody: guitars, vocals. It rises to high tide, and you get powerful crashes of synthesizers and hip-hop inspired backbeats. Her voice has no sharp edges, just round corners.
Nike+ has this “Power Song”; it’s what you play during your run when you need instant motivation. This is that song: “Part Of Me (Original Mix)” by Solar Stone from “Rain Stars Eternal”.
John Mayer 2011 Clinic – Berklee Blogs
I can’t stress enough how important it is to write bad songs. There’s a lot of people who don’t want to finish songs because they don’t think they’re any good. Well they’re not good enough. Write it! I want you to write me the worst songs you could possible write me because you won’t write bad songs. You’re thinking they’re bad so you don’t have to finish it. That’s what I really think it is. Well it’s all right. Well, how do you know? It’s not done!
I was leaving the rec center yesterday, and I heard the radio edit of Rihanna’s song “S&M” echoing from a few blocks down frat row. (Or, as the City of Minneapolis calls it “Greek Letter Chapter House Historic District”.)
Well, it’s been a few years since I visited this topic, so here we go. I posted this at HN, and since people liked it there, here it is in a slightly edited form:
The loudness wars are the primary enemy of quality sound reproduction in most (not all) music recordings today.
Merz has a great song called Moi et Mon Camion. It’s extremely lovely. He also does electronic stuff… but his guitar-driven folksy stuff is a bit more pleasant.
The title track of Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A is incredible. There’s an ambient feel to it (echoing synth-marimbas), unique rhythm, electronic scratches and pops. Yet it’s more than the sum of those parts. Until recently, I’d never listened to it and I don’t know why. I mean, I loved “In Rainbows”, so I don’t know why I didn’t give Radiohead’s previous albums a better listen.
Mick Without Moss - The New York Times:
“You can delegate things to other people,” Jagger observes, “and you have to, to a certain extent, but if you’re not behind it and getting your knowledge and input into it, it’s not going to turn out as interestingly and probably it won’t be what you would like. It’ll be disappointing.”
Jeremy Messersmith - A Girl A Boy and A Graveyard:
She says, “Life’s a game we’re meant to lose.
But stick by me, and I will stick by you.”
This quote from Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke about Street Spirit (Fade Out) confuses me. I’ve never listened to it before, now I can’t decide if I want to hear it, or to never listen:
I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.
The Weepies new album is exceedingly excellent. Here, try it out: Hard to Please, track 10 from their new album, Be My Thrill.
Holy crap-a-moly, this song is intense. Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine. I think its from that popular movie series about werewolves or vampires or something… can’t say the pop-culture ties dilute its awesomeness.
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