Music

Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.

This is Ponderous

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This is ponderous, man. Really ponderous.

I had this dream the other night. I went to work one day, and nobody remembered who I was. So, I decided to take the day off. On my way out, I run into my boss, and he says, “Hey…you look familiar.”

I said, “Thanks — people say that a lot in these dreams.”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Then all of a sudden, I’m standing on a beach in some tropical part of the world. And there’s this sign that says, “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” It sort of screamed out at me. Then I remembered — I’ve been here in other dreams. But usually there’s a water polo game, and a girl who could talk with her eyes. And she’d say, “Can you see what I’m saying?”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Before I knew it, I was walking near a lake, when the phone rings. And the operator speaks to me in a language I don’t understand.

“Boom bappa-chugga makko-nahwo sing kow, ding kabba-lawa wally gumbo ching pow, heddy gabba-looah kabbah chennesing tee, oom mamma-chugga mannawon is now three.”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Before long, I was coming up on this really weird part of my dream. You know — the part where I know how to tap dance, but I can only do it while wearing golf shoes?

Now I’m back on the beach, walking with this girl who talks with her eyes. This time she says, “I think you see what I’m saying.”

Then, just before I woke up, it started to rain, and I’m suddenly on the phone.

“Boom bappa-chugga makko-nahwo sing kow, ding kabba-lawa wally gumbo ching pow, heddy gabba-looah kabbah chennesing tee, oom mamma-chugga mannawon is now three.”

(The girl, who could talk with her eyes.)

(“Can you see, what I’m saying?”)

(“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”)

This is ponderous, man.

Really ponderous.

— 2Nu, ‘This is Ponderous‘

I love this song. Too bad it’s so hard to find these days. I was lucky enough to track down a copy on some filesharing network or another some time back. Since Amazon’s got the single (used, but hey), I think I need to go spend a few dollars…

iTunes “This is Ponderous” by 2Nu from the album Ponderous (1991, 3:39).

Gallimaufry 3

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Third verse, same as the first…

Ten random tracks from my iTunes library:

  • Violent Femmes, ‘Fat‘, off of 3: The Femmes are a long-time favorite of mine, and ‘Fat’ is one of my favorite tracks off of this album. Very tongue-in-cheek, it’s a rather bouncy little lament about a man hoping a girl will gain a little weight. “‘Cause if you got really fat, fat, fat, / You just might want to see me come back, / I hope / you got / fat.”

  • Hole, ‘Drown Soda’, off of Tank Girl: I have to admit, I’ve never been much of a fan of Hole. They’re not really bad, but most of what I’ve heard from them just doesn’t grab my ear (though I will say that I do like ‘Malibu‘). This track pretty much follows the formula: droning guitars and Courtney Love screeching.

  • Romeo Void, ‘Never Say Never (Hot Tracks)’, off of The Edge Level 1: I’m such an 80’s child sometime. Not necessarily the best 80’s one hit wonder out there, but it’s definitely a fun one — “I might like you better if we slept together, / never say never!” This is a remix off of one of the DJ-only promo CDs I got through the Hot Tracks service.

  • Leftfield, ‘Storm 3000‘, off of Leftism: I first heard of Leftfield through the single ‘Open Up‘, with John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) guesting on vocals. That one track was enough to get me to pick up the full album, and I wasn’t disappointed. While this isn’t one of the strongest tracks on the album, it’s not bad filler, and works quite well as background music.

  • Concrete Blonde, ‘Darkening of the Light‘, off of Bloodletting: This is such, such, such a good album. Most people if they know it at all will only know of it through ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)‘, but there’s not a single bad track on this disc. I’ve been lucky enough to see Concrete Blonde live a few times since I moved to Seattle, and they’re firmly cemented in their place as one of my favorite bands. Besides, Jhonette’s voice is just so good….

  • Sarah McLachlan, ‘I Will Not Forget You‘, off of Solace: Not one of Sarah’s more well-known tracks, and probably for good reason. Not bad, but nothing to make it stand out, either, very much standard Sarah McLachlan. Of course, she’s an artist whose standard pieces are still very worth listening to, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

  • Children of No Return, ‘White Horses’, off of German Mystic Sound Sampler Vol. IV: This song isn’t great, but I love the series it’s from. I’ve got four of the GMSS discs — I picked the first two up while I was in Germany in 1991, and got the second two off of a friend who found them online and then decided that he didn’t like them as much as I would. Great stuff, as far as I’m concerned, with a lot of German industrial and gothic music that’s nearly impossible to find in the states. Amusingly, some of the artists on these albums (like Das Ich, Girls Under Glass and Project Pitchfork) have since gained popularity in the goth/industrial scene here in the States…but I was listening to them first! :)

  • Tori Amos, ‘Professional Widow‘, off of Professional Widow: The original mix of ‘Professional Widow’, from the single of the same name. Here Tori’s somewhere in her middle stage, between songs with lyrics that make sense and songs that still sound incredibly good but are so obtuse as to be nearly nonsensical. Doesn’t mean I don’t like listening to her stuff at all, but there are times I really am clueless as to what she’s talking about.

  • Front 242, ‘Rhythm of Time (Messengers of Neptune)’, off of Mut\@age Mix\@age: A trancy remix of one of Front 242’s earlier tracks, very Orb-ish. In fact, now that I check, the mix was done by the Orb, imagine that. Front 242’s long been one of my favorite industrial groups, and this remix album is worth picking up — not all of it’s really danceable, but it’s a strong collection of mixes that can be pretty difficult to track down otherwise.

  • Jane’s Addiction, ‘So What!’, off of So What!: Jane’s Addiction’s later stuff never really got me as much as Nothing’s Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual and their self-titled live album did, but ‘So What!’ isn’t too bad. The remixes on this single are rather forgettable, though. Not much else to say, really…not bad for Jane’s Addiction, but not their best, either.

All in all, not a bad set of songs this week. And now, the weekly bonus track:

iTunes “Dream On” by Chemical Brothers, The from the album Surrender (1999, 6:46).

13 Free Songs from iTunes

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Have an iPod? Want some free music from iTunes?

iPod, meet iTunes.

  1. Back up any data on your iPod you don’t want to lose.
  2. Use the iPod Updater application (usually in /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater, or it can be downloaded from Apple) to do a ‘restore’ on the iPod, resetting it to factory defaults.
  3. Launch iTunes.

And that’s all there is to it — upon launch, iTunes will flip over to the iTMS and offer you thirteen free songs. Here’s what you get:

  1. Blow It Out – Features
  2. All At Sea – Jamie Cullum
  3. Sunshine to the Rain – Miri Ben-Ari
  4. Lonely – Akon
  5. Golden Touch – Razorlight
  6. Every Time You Go Away – Brian McKnight
  7. Bigtime – The Soundtrack of Our Lives
  8. Laura – Scissor Sisters
  9. She Said – Brie Larson
  10. Just Anotha Shorty – O’Ryan
  11. Sleeping With the Lights On – Teitur
  12. Reach Out, I’ll Be There – Michael McDonald
  13. TKO – Le Tigre

No idea on how long this offer is good for, whether the selections might change at some point, or whether you’ll like the selections enough to make it worth your time. I figured, hey, free music, why not?

(via Accelerate Your Macintosh!)

iTunes “Laura” by Scissor Sisters from the album iTunes New Music Sampler (Universal Motown Edition) (2004, 3:38).

Visual Halo

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As long as I did manage to come up with working recordable DVDs, I decided to finally follow through with a project I’d had in mind for a while now. Sometime last year I found a repository of videos from Nine Inch Nails, including the uncensored version of “Closer” and the infamous Broken short film. Most of the videos have been available on VHS for a while now, but the DVD version hasn’t been released yet, so I decided to play with iDVD.

I’ve not really poked around with either iDVD or iMovie in the past, as I don’t have any sort of video input other than my iSight. Home movies aren’t exactly something I’m playing with at the moment, in other words. Still, it was really easy to put this project together: opened iDVD, chose an appropriate background theme, tossed in the videos, added background music from iTunes for the different menus, and burn. Nice and easy, and now I’ve got my own DVD of Nine Inch Nails videos — and even when they are officially released on DVD, I’d lay good money down that the collection won’t include the Broken short film, so I’ve got that, too.

Visual Halo main menu

iTunes “Closer to God” by Nine Inch Nails from the album Closer to God (1994, 5:05).

Gallimaufry 2

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Same as before, ten songs that iTunes chooses at random:

  • Naughty by Nature, ‘Every Day All Day‘, off of Naughty by Nature: One of the weaker tracks off of what’s overall a very good 80’s hip-hop album. I’ve never been a huge hip-hop fan, but generally when I am, it’s 80’s era stuff, and most of Naughty by Nature’s stuff was a lot of fun.

  • Rent Cast, ‘Tune Up #3’, off of Rent: One of the brief inter-song mini pieces from the Broadway musical. Works well in context, but these short bits are rather odd when mixed in with everything else in my collection.

  • Rent Cast, ‘Today 4 U’, off of Rent: Another odd coincidence with random selections. Angel’s introduction song, Rent’s single foray into a pseudo-techno piece. Again, one that works well in context, but it doesn’t really stand well on its own (it’s somewhat annoying on its own, to tell the truth).

  • Linda Perry and Grace Slick, ‘Knock Me Out’, off of The Crow: City of Angels: A slower, somewhat atmospheric song. Not bad background music in a mix, but it doesn’t really stand out to me one way or another. Of course, the movie it comes from is pretty hideous (sad to say, I’ve seen all of the Crow films to date, and the first one is by far the only one worth paying attention to).

  • James Horner, London Symphony Orchestra, Mel Gibson & Sophie Marceau, ‘Not Every Man Really Lives‘, off of More Music from Braveheart: A little bit of dialogue from the movie leading into some of James Horner’s wonderful soundtrack. Every time I hear some of the music from Braveheart it makes me want to give the movie another watch.

  • Nine Inch Nails, ‘Down In It (Shred)’, off of Down In It: One of the remixes of Trent’s early singles. At this stage, he hadn’t become nearly as experimental as he did later on, so there’s really very little to tell the various mixes of Down In It apart from one another. Still, not a bad little song in itself (even if he has openly admitted that he was essentially ripping off Skinny Puppy‘s’Dig It‘ when he did this track).

  • Eddy Grant, ‘Electric Avenue (Hot Tracks)’, off of The Edge Level 2: A DJ-exclusive remix from the Hot Tracks remix service, this is from one of their 80’s retro discs. “We gonna walk down to Electric Avenue, and then we’ll take it higher….”

  • The Weavers, ‘Goodnight, Irene‘, off of The Best of the Decca Years: I got this album mainly because of Wimoweh, and then figured I’d see what all else they’d done. It falls right in line with much of the music I heard growing up in my dad’s collection, and I ended up knowing a lot more of these songs than I expected at first.

  • The Remains, ‘Why Do I Cry‘, off of Rock: The Train Kept A Rollin’: A 1966 pop-rock track from another of the discs in the Sony Soundtrack for a Century series that I’ve been working on collecting. Not a bad track, but not really a standout track, either.

  • Nine Inch Nails, ‘La Mer‘, off of The Fragile: This is the album that got me to stop obsessing over anything Trent Reznor did. After quite a few years of talk about how different his next album was going to be, and hearing his remix work with artists like Puff Daddy and the Family, instead of anything new or groundbreaking we got an album comprised mostly of tracks that sounded like all the instrumentals off all his prior albums. I was unimpressed, and as such, have only listened to the album a few times.

Not quite as interesting a selection as I got last week. Maybe we’ll do better next time…

And now, the ‘bonus track’:

iTunes “Case #12” by 29 Died from the album Sworn (1995, 1:29).

Legend

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Years ago, my brother and I found a cassette tape on the floor of the family van. Neither of us knew where it came from or who had left it there (as it wasn’t either of ours), but neither of us are generally likely to refuse free music, so into our collection it went.

Upon first glance, it didn’t seem all that special — Bob Marley and the Wailers ‘Legend’ album. When we tossed it in the stereo and started listening to it, though, it turned out that we were in for a bit of a treat. It turned out that rather being the “normal” Legend album, this tape instead had early 80s-era dance remixes of all of the songs. We were confused: it was all the same tracks in the same order as any other Legend tape, but versions we’d never heard before. Since Kevin is more of a reggae fan than I am, and I’m more of a dance music fan than he is, I ended up with the tape.

Over the next few months, every so often I’d try to track down where the tape came from, all to no avail. None of our friends remembered leaving it in the car, or even hearing it in the first place. Since it was an official factory-produced tape, I took it down to Mammoth Music (the single best locally-run music store in Anchorage) and had them punch the catalog number printed on the shell into their system, and they came up blank — no record of that particular version of the album existing at all.

Over time, unfortunately, the tape died, and I eventually resigned myself to its remaining a mystery.

Then, one day a couple years ago, one of the ladies I was working in at the Microsoft print shop came in with a new two-disc deluxe edition of Legend that she’d just picked up. We listened to disc one, she popped in disc two…and I damn near blew a gasket when the long-lost beats of the mysterious remixes came out of the stereo. I don’t have the liner notes available to me now, so I don’t remember all the details, but it turns out that all the remixes had been done between 1980 and 1984, and had been out of print for years before the deluxe edition was released onto CD.

That deluxe edition is now available on iTunes, complete with every one of the remixes I spent so much time enjoying after they appeared in my car. If you think you can handle the admittedly somewhat odd experience of 80’s dance mixes of Bob Marley reggae tunes, I’d definitely recommend giving it a listen — my personal favorite of all the tracks is the remix of Buffalo Soldier.

iTunes “Buffalo Soldier (Remix)” by Marley, Bob and the Wailers from the album Legend: Deluxe Edition (1984, 5:25).

Gallimaufry

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Terrance resurrects an old meme as a weekly thing. He titled it Friday Ten, but posted it on a Wednesday, so I’m not sure where things are going to go from here, time-wise, and so have decided that ‘gallimaufry‘ will make a good title (the definition works, and it’s a fun word). In any case, it can be entertaining to do, so let’s see what we get…

The rules are simple: put your entire music playlist on random, and post the first ten songs your music player comes up with.

  • The Postal Service, ‘Nothing Better‘, off of Give Up: Rick had me make a copy of this album to see what I thought. I’m still not entirely sure if I’d buy it, but it’s not bad — a very 80’s-synth-pop-ish feel to the songs. Catches my ear, but hasn’t yet snagged my wallet.

  • Pigface, ‘Hips, Tits, Lips, Power’, off of Fook: Pigface is one of my personal favorites, an industrial ‘supergroup’ with an ever-changing lineup. HTLP is definitely one of their better tracks, but it’s the live versions that really stand out.

  • Simple Minds, ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, off of The Breakfast Club Soundtrack: Okay, yeah, I’m a child of the 80’s — not only is this one of my favorite songs from that era, but often it’s all I can do not to pump my fist in the air like the character does at the end of the film as this song kicks in just before the credits roll.

  • Scott McKenzie, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)‘, off of Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1975: The Sony Soundtrack to a Century collection has an incredible set of songs spread across twenty-some discs, covering literally a century of recorded music. I’ve got most of the sets that make up the full collection, and will track the last few down eventually.

  • Tori Amos, ‘Yes, Anastasia‘, off of Under the Pink: Much as I like Tori’s work, her more recent albums have just been getting weirder and weirder lyrically. This is from back when you could still figure out what she was talking about on most of her songs. ;)

  • Delerium with Sarah McLachlan, ‘Silence (Sanctuary Mix)’, off of Plastic Compilation Vol. II: The Plastic Compilation series of samplers are some of the best collections of modern electronica I’ve found in recent years. This track (in its various remixes) was quite a hit on the dancefloors a few years back.

  • Fischerspooner, ‘Emerge (DFA Remix)‘, off of iTMS Exclusive EP: I first heard of Fischerspooner when The Vogue got a bunch of free sampler CDs that included Emerge, which was one of the more requested tracks at the club for a while. Admittedly, though, this is a rather bland remix.

  • Bytet, ‘Anything‘, off of Split Single: Bytet is Robert Geiger’s dark electronica project from Anchorage. I saw him perform on quite a few occasions, and I used to chat with Robert every so often when I ran into him around town. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that he’s on the iTMS, even if I had to link to different mix of the song that popped up on my playlist. Going to have to drop him an e-mail later on and say hi.

  • Mojave 3, ‘Mercy‘, off of Dr. Martens: Shoe Pie: The Dr. Martens shoe company used to put CD samplers in with their shoes from time to time. Shoe Pie is one of two of the samplers that I have, though I picked it up used rather than with a pair of shoes. The song…well, I can’t really say it grabs me.

  • Tori Amos, ‘Past the Mission‘, off of Under the Pink: Now, that’s just funny. 15,189 songs in my collection, and iTunes randomly grabs two songs off of the same album. This one happens to feature Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails doing backup vocals — singing, even, rather than screaming!

Not a bad little list, that.

And now, a ‘bonus’ eleventh track (consider it a not-really-hidden track), thanks to the usual iTunes blurb I toss on posts when I’m posting from home…
iTunes “Higher Than the Sun” by Primal Scream from the album Just Say Anything (1991, 3:37).

Cover Tunes

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Mike linking to this punk cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ reminded me of something that I had bouncing around in my head yesterday.

There’s no end of punk/goth/alternative/industrial covers of pop songs — KMFDM’s cover of U2’s ‘Mysterious Ways’, 1000 Mona Lisa’s take on Alanis Morisette’s ‘You Oughtta Know’, Bigod 20 doing Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’, and countless others (including the only-in-my-head, never-going-to-happen cover of Garth Brooks’ ‘Ain’t Goin’ Down ’til the Sun Comes Up’ by Ministry with guest vocals by Les Claypool).

I want it to go the other way.

I want to hear Britney Spears cover My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult’s ‘Days of Swine and Roses’ (“Christian zombie vampires!”). N*SYNC or whatever boy band is around taking on The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘Dominion/Mother Russia’. Janet Jackson’s version of the Violent Femme’s ‘Day After Day’. Eminem doing Concrete Blonde’s ‘Bloodletting’.

And so on.

It’ll never happen (the closest thing to this that I know of is Russian pseudo-lolita-lesbian duo t.A.T.u. doing Morrissey’s ‘How Soon is Now’), but I would so buy an album of covers like that.

iTunes “Jesus Christ Superstar” by Laibach from the album Jesus Christ Superstars (1997, 5:45).

Balloon Feather Boat Tomato

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Jason Webley has updated his site with information about his most recent show. He has links up to the photo galleries that Josh and I have posted (nifty!), plus a few other goodies.

The “Life of Webley” animation that opened the show can be downloaded as a 4.8Mb .wmv file, and he’s posted the text of the four stories from the evening:

The Story of Balloon:

What is it about holding a balloon that is so magical and familiar? A hand that is holding a balloon is a content, happy hand. Why exactly is that? I’m sure the scientists and philosophers and marketing people have written dozens of millions of pages about this subject, but I have my own theory.

The Story of Feather:

Feather was a girl who trusted her feet. She ran so light, so fast and so reckless that she never had time to fall and skin her knees. She had big bright eyes filled with bees a-buzzing and long yellow hair that trailed behind her when she ran through the garden. There was always dirt under her fingernails and snot on her chin. But never a scrape on her knees. Because she trusted her feet.

The Story of Boat:

Isn’t it interesting how differently people move through the world? One person walks down the street and everyone he passes immediately likes him and thinks to themselves, ‘what a nice pleasant fellow! I should invite him over for dinner!’ But when another person walks down the same street in much the same way, people lock their doors and grumble to themselves, dogs bark, he is met with suspicious glances until eventually someone throws a shoe at him.

The Story of Tomato:

Tomato was the most beautiful woman in the world. She never knew her mother, but she never gave that much thought. She was the most beautiful woman in the world and there were always plenty of people around to shower her with attentions and affections.

iTunes “Music That Tears Itself Apart” by Webley, Jason from the album Viaje (1998, 3:22).

iTMS: Kevin Spacey ‘Beyond the Sea’

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Beyond the Sea

Last night while bouncing randomly around the iTMS, I noticed an album by Kevin Spacey. Since I know Kevin as an actor, and not a singer, I was a little curious, and did some investigating. Turns out that there’s an upcoming biopic of Bobby Darin called Beyond the Sea with Kevin in the lead role (as well as directing and producing), and he actually does all of his own singing for the film.

That was enough to peak my curiosity, and I went ahead and bought the album (19 songs for \$9.99). After a couple listens over the course of the day, I’ve gotta say that I’m impressed — while I have no doubts about Spacey’s acting chops (I think he’s one of the best of today’s stars), it’s a very pleasant surprise to hear how well he does crooning away at Darin’s signature pieces.

Highlight tracks I’ve discovered so far are The Lady is a Tramp, Beyond the Sea, As Long as I’m Singin’, and of course, Mack the Knife. If you’re at all into this era and style of jazz, I’d say the albums worth picking up, and I’m definitely looking forward to the film.

iTunes “Mack the Knife” by Spacey, Kevin from the album Beyond the Sea (2004, 3:04).