Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.
Being silly here. ;) Feel like harassing me about what I listen to? Here’s the place to do it….
The last ten tracks I’ve listened to in iTunes are:
This feature is no longer active, as a consequence of the move to TypePad. Sorry!
Feel free to use the comment form to praise or condemn me — or if you’re feeling rich and/or adventuresome, use the links to Amazon and pick up something new to listen to!
(This is inspired by the playlist comment feature on Phil Ringnalda’s site.)
A while back, the music industry was convicted in court of price fixing. If you purchased any audio recording (vinyl, cassette, or compact disc) between January 1st, 1995 and December 22nd, 2000, you are eligible to file a claim for reparation.
At the moment, if there is a cash disbursement, it will likely be somewhere between $5 and $20 per claimant. However, if enough people file claims that the disbursement would end up less than $5 per claimant, then the entirety of the settlement fee would be donated to not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs for the benefit of consumers who purchased Music Products. I think that sounds like a damn good option, and seeing as how I’m prettty sure that just about everyone I know bought at least one album at some point during those five years, I think you all should file your claim.
Link via Boing Boing
Some unusually interesting (to me, at least, as both an Apple fan and a music fan) rumors surfacing over at /. today.
First came this post…
danamania writes “Apple’s latest promotion is a gimmick with Madonna, Tony Hawk or Beck’s signature, or a No Doubt logo, on an iPod. It seems Apple’s really pushing the iPod as a too-cool fashion accessory as much as a too-cooler MP3 player… is Maddie’s signature worth an extra USD49 over the standard iPod?” Instead of $50 for the engraved signature, you can spend $20 to print “Madonna’s Signature” in beautiful Helvetica.
Then, in the followup comments, someone claiming to be from Apple posted the following in two separate comments:
Comment one…
I’m posting this anonymously to protect my job. Not that they’ll fire me or anything, but why risk it?
For several years, we (Apple) have been working on ways of customizing computers and electronics. It all started back in the Power Mac Cube days, when we were looking into new injection molding processes. That worked okay, but we got a lot of flak from customers who thought the mold lines in the plastic looked like cracks.
Now we’re looking at custom laser engraving, trying to figure out ways to get the cost down to less than a dollar per square inch. The idea is that you will be able to order your laptop with anything at all engraved on the surface: your name, a logo, a picture of your kids, whatever.
This little promo is just some of the runoff from that work.
Oh, and incidentally, Apple isn’t doing this for the money. I don’t want to say anything else too specific, but there’s more going on between Apple and these artists than just this. Expect to see more interesting things in the coming months.
…and comment two…
Actually, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than that. And I’m astounded that nobody’s guessed it yet.
See, the deal is that Apple’s management — Steve more than anybody else, really — sees the record companies kinda dropping the ball. People are happy with MP3-quality music, and they want to be able to buy it over the Internet. Current systems for doing that just suck. Since Apple controls .Mac, the OS, iTunes, the iPod, and QuickTime 6/AAC, they’re the only ones who are in a position to make a real end-to-end, easy-to-use digital music distribution system happen.
In the future, you’ll (assuming we can cut a deal with Apple Records on that nasty trademark matter) be able to plug you iPod into your Mac, browse a library of songs via iTunes, and download them directly to your iPod over broadband or AirPort. Micro-payment (well, semi-micro; on the order of a dollar per song) will be handled through the .Mac “one click” system, which Apple licensed from Amazon and already uses in iPhoto for buying photographic prints on line. The only DRM will be the stuff we’ve already go built into the iPod that makes it inconvenient, though of course not impossible, to copy music off of it once it’s been put on.
When we go live with this — which we’re hoping to do by the end of next year at the latest — we’re going to need some big names. That’s why we’ve been talking to Madonna, No Doubt, Beck, Dave Matthews Band, Moby, and some others.
Basically Apple is trying to do an end-run around the record companies and the RIAA. It’s not done yet, and it may not work, but the foundation is there and all that’s really left is to sort out the legal details.
If anybody finds out I’ve posted this, I’m out of a job, and I’ll probably end up with my ass in court. Hope this “anonymous coward” thing works as advertised.
The laptop engraving sounds very interesting, though I’m not sure how much I’d take advantage of it — though if I had the money to blow on a TiBook, I’d love to add a few extra dollars to get my tattoo design emblazoned on the lid.
The full-solution music idea sounds quite interesting, though. Seems to me that if anyone’s in a position to get this up and running, it’s most likely going to be Apple. A dollar a song sounds a bit steep at first look — it doesn’t drop the price significantly, if at all, over buying a CD from a store — but then, I just really started playing with .mp3 files this past year, and even then I’m pretty much sticking with my own stuff. Someone more into tracking down and finding music online may have a better idea of how appealing this idea might be.
The ¡TchKunG! show last night was flat-out incredible! So glad I made it out there.
After relaxing for most of the day yesterday, I grabbed a bus and started heading out to find the FUNC. I wasn’t really too sure where I was going, but as the bus got closer, I saw a few other people that I thought looked like they might be heading to the show. Sure enough, I heard a couple of them talking about trying to figure out where the FUNC was, and we all ended up banding together. Luckily enough, one of the girls had been there before and knew where to go, so we all followed her for a couple blocks once we got off the bus. Sure enough, after rounding a corner, the sound of tribal drumming greeted us, and we were pretty sure that we’d found the place.
The FUNC reminded me a lot of some of the old warehouse parties I used to go to in Anchorage — it’s an old storage warehouse that’s been gutted and turned into a big empty performance space. Perfect for the kind of anarchistic revelry that ¡TchKung! generally creates. Outside the FUNC was a large draped area that seemed to be serving as something of a “chill room”, with blankets, pillows, and tribal/trance music playing on a stereo. I was never sure whether it was open to the general public or if it was for the performers, so I never went in to check, instead wandering around the lot outside the warehouse and peoplewatching. There were a lot of other people doing the same, talking with friends, and standing around a few burn barrels to keep warm until the show started.
The first half-hour or so of the night was just music over the speakers as everything got set up, then the actual show opened with a demonstration from Quilombo do Queimado Capoeira. Developed as a blend between martial arts and dance when the slaves in Brazil were not allowed to have their own martial art, Capoeira is one of the most amazing and beautiful dance/fighting styles I’ve ever seen. I’ve had something of an interest in it for a few years, so getting to see these people perform was a real treat. Even better, it turns out that while most of their classes locally are during evenings when I’m at work, they do have “all skill level” classes on Saturday afternoons, so I’m thinking about heading down there some weekend in the near future to check it out.
After the Capoeira demonstration, the Infernal Noise Brigade set up off to the side of the main stage. They were a bit too much pure noise for me at that point, so I spent most of their set bouncing back and forth between the bar area, where I grabbed a couple rum and cokes, and outside. There was a fair amount of spur-of-the-moment stuff going on outside, too — everything from firedancing to impromptu and improvised shadow plays using a floodlight aimed against the large white wall of a building next door.
Eventually I headed back into the FUNC and worked my way into the crowd gathering in front of the stage. A few people were wandering through the crowd, attempting to buy crude oil from anyone they spoke to, and passing out “money” in the form of copied dollar bills. Rather quickly after getting the bills, lighters would start to come out, and soon most of the crowd was holding up flaming $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills. Eventually we were told to stop, just in case the fire department came through and declared things a fire hazard, but every so often for the rest of the evening, you’d see the occasional bill go up somewhere in the audience.
After a few minutes of this, Uncle Sam came out on stage to welcome everyone to the show, and started pouring oil out over anyone within arms reach. I hadn’t seen the mudman that’s typical of ¡TchKunG! shows yet, but a ¡TchKung! show just isn’t a ¡TchKunG! show if you don’t get nice and filthy at some point in the evening! This is actually one of the parts of their shows that I’ve always enjoyed — it’s kind of hard to break into groups or think that anyone looks like they “don’t belong” when everyone’s slathered in mud, oil, or anything of the sort. It’s a little hard to describe, but it fits very well with the general air of the shows.
After Uncle Sam was done, ¡TchKunG! took the stage, and launched into the first half of their set. It’s so difficult to convey in words the energy that is present during one of their shows, but they’re by far one of my favorite bands to see live. The best word I can think of to describe any show by them is “tribal”, in the truest sense of the word — the crowd gets so wrapped up in things, that it becomes something more than a collection of individuals, and something closer to a “tribe”, I suppose…oh, whatever. You get the point. Or you don’t.
Midway through ¡TchKunG!’s set, they broke for a few minutes to bring out the Battle of the Dictators. In came George W. Bush, and then Saddam, held up on litters, with Bush brandishing boxing gloves, and Saddam holding a saber in one hand and an oil can in the other (which he used to pour more oil over the crowd as he passed by). Uncle Sam returned to the stage, and the lead singer for ¡TchKunG! donned an Osama bin Laden mask, and the two of them acted as commentators as Bush and Saddam proceeded to battle it out in the middle of the floor. The battle eventually got a bit derailed, though, when Bush and Saddam became so enamored over each others love of money, oil, and totalitarian control that they ended up molesting each other in the middle of the fighting ring, and the match was called to a halt for “unnecessary fornication!”
After the Battle of the Dictators fell apart, ¡TchKung! took the stage again to do the last half of their set. As they whipped the crowd back up into a frenzy, the mud finally came through, with both a Mudman and a Mudgirl working their way around, making sure that anyone who hadn’t gotten hit by the oil got a good amount of mud on them instead. Later on, the Mudgirl also came through with a gas can full of water, dousing people and giving them drinks out of the spout — a really nice touch, as few people really wanted to wander out to get a drink.
As the set started drawing to a close, another of the standards came out — their firebreather. He came out with two firebrands and cleared a good-sized area of space around him, then sent four or five absolutely huge fireballs towards the ceiling. Those are incredibly difficult to get a good picture of, but I’m rather pleased with the one I did get!
Eventually the set came to a close, and ¡TchKunG! left the stage…only to come back a few minutes later to do an encore set, something I’d never seen them do before! They did a great version of “Dijamy/Crashing the System” from their ‘Post World Handbook’ album, then left the stage again, closing out their part of the night, and after wandering around for a few more minutes, I took a cab home, showered to get the mud off, and fell into bed.
All in all, an awesome night. Hopefully it’s not too long before they resurface again!
More pictures of the night can be found in this photoalbum, and I’ve also found one other small writeup of the night on patr0ck’s LiveJournal. If I find any more, I’ll post them later on.
Just a silly little song that I hadn’t heard in a while that popped into my headphones during work today, as a way for me to start actually posting here again, after a few busy weeks.
Karen, she’s my boss at the shoe store —
we sell to the rich on Madison Avenue.
I come in late from Brooklyn on the F train,
Karen says, “Honey, make this your last time.”
But we like her, she’s firm but approachable,
dresses in style, pretty conservative.
We ask her, “Hey, come out with us after work?”
Karen she always declines…And we talk about
Karen by night.
We imagine she must lead a very dull life,
with just a cat and a book by her side.
We know her by day but we don’t know
Karen by night.In the stockroom searching for a 9B,
I overheard Karen whisper on the phone.
She said, “Meet me at the club —
there’s a shipment coming in,
and I can’t pull this one off alone.”
Well, I didn’t know what to think —
Was my mind playing tricks?
Was there more to this Karen then realized?
I had to know so I followed her home,
I could not believe my eyes!And then I saw
Karen by night!
The leather comes out under the moonlight,
takes off her Chanel and hops on her bike —
looking like young Marlon Brando,
Karen by night.Saw her leaning on the bar with a drink in hand,
and a cigarette dangling from her bright red lips.
She looked like she was looking for someone,
like she was looking for a fight.
Then a young blonde buck walked in,
she grabbed him by the collar,
kissed him hard on the mouth
and slapped him on the cheek!
Then I thought she spied me in the corner of her eye,
so I ran outside, but all night all I could think about was…Karen by night!
The next morning, I’m late as usual,
Karen’s there fresh as a daisy.
She says with a smile, “Why, you look like hell —
and where you last night?”Karen by night!
Imagine she must lead a very dull life,
with just a cat or a book by her side.
We know her by day but we don’t know
Karen by night!
The leather comes out under the moonlight,
takes off her Chanel and hops on her bike,
Looking like Marlon Brando —
Looking like young Marlon Brando.
Wish I could be more like
Karen by night.Looking like young Marlon Brando
(not like the old fat Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now),
Karen by night!
— Jill Sobule, “Karen by Night“
Last Saturday, as part of the birthday celebration for Prairie, myself, Prairie, her sisters H and K, and H’s boyfriend P went to see local artist Jason Webley‘s final concert of the year. I first discovered Jason during Bumbershoot the first year I was here, and have been a fan ever since. I managed to talk Prairie into going to his last show with me, and she got everyone else to go along as well. Made me a bit nervous, as everyone was going just on my word, but I wasn’t too worried.
While I’d not yet been able to make it to any of Jason’s big shows, I’d been captivated by Karen Olsen’s writeup of his Halloween 2001 performance.
At last, the Last Song (still my absolute favorite of all Jasons songs) began to play, and the band members and other cronies brought the giant puppet to a standing position, its arms looming over Jasons head, while flanking him with two candelabras of small homemade candles and the cardboard signs. People linked arms and held up joined hands and a few cigarette lighters as the house lights went down, and Jason began to sing the song that has held many of us together during the recent times of crisis:
And we say that the world isnt dying, And we pray that the world isnt dying, And just maybe the world isnt dying Maybe shes heavy with child.
The chorus rang out with hundreds of voices, clapping hands and stomping feet, while noisemaker bottles were tossed out to us by Ishan who dragged a plastic sack of them forward at the last moment. Harmonies broke out all over, and were taken up by the band members as well. At the end came the chant of Igga-di igga-di igga-digga-dup which went on and on, growing into six- or eight-part harmonies as we began to follow Jason up the aisles and process out of the theater en masse, and it was the sweetest thing youd ever want to hear. I rushed as quickly as possible to grab my sweatshirt, trenchcoat, cloth bag and bodhrn (I can never seem to learn to travel light), and exit along with the rest of the crowd, fearing that I might miss something if I didnt hurry.
After reading that (and the rest of the review), I was determined not to miss this year’s final show, and the added benefit of being able to introduce some more people to Jason at the same time just made it all the better.
Suffice to say, the show was incredible. Jason’s bigger shows are generally somewhere between performance and performance art, and involve a lot of crowd participation, sometimes blurring the line between performer and audience. Absolutely incredible stuff, we all enjoyed the show, and it was most definitely well worth the time. As with last year, Karen has written a wonderful recap of the night’s events…
The last line is taken up by the crowd, with one harmony line over another over another, just as we did at the May Day concert, only with many more voices this time. We sing it on and on as if to make the moment stand still and last as long as possible, and that one line, We row the boat ashore, Hallelujah interlaces our hearts together like Celtic knotwork, with Jason and with each other. Jason stands back and listens, grinning rapturously at what he has helped to create and nurture. What music has joined together, let no one put asunder As the boat chorus goes on, Maureen and another woman, now both in white satin gowns, pilot small boats topped with candles, and feathers hanging over the side, through the crowd; people eventually figure out that they are to take the feathers joined with cards and connected with soft twine that looks and feels like fake hair. Finally, Last Song breaks in, with the crowd and band joining in on the verses as well as the chorus. Jason attacks the song with his entire being; by now, hes been singing his heart and soul out for at least two and a half hours. A box above the hanging knife begins to sprinkle feathers like snow on Jasons head as he sings, One day, the snow began to fall
People are singing so joyously, many arm in arm, that they are not prepared for what happens when the song finally ends. Jasons attendants remove his hat with a feather stuck in it, his kimono, shoes and socks, and finally the loose orange trousers. All he is wearing now is the burlap loincloth from May Day. He drinks a glass of red wine that has been handed him. The knife begins to be lowered toward him, and the two ghosts raise a white screen in front of him, showing Jason in silhouette with the knife slowly descending closer and closer. As the knife reaches his head, fake blood is splashed on the screen, and someone yells, NO! Jason’s silhouetted hand slaps against the blood-drenched sheet.
When the screen is removed, the nearly naked Jason stands alone, looking stricken and speechless, as if all the musical energy has gone out of him. Three women in white tie ropes about his chest and arms, connected to ropes anchored to the speakers on either side of the stage, as incidental music drones louder and louder from the band. Jason is raised into the air and hangs suspended, in a posture of crucifixion, several feet above the stage. One of the women loops another rope about his knees, which is connected somewhere near the back of the theater, and he is raised higher, in a horizontal prone position, and drawn off the stage and above the aisle, as several people, including Josh, carry a narrow, rectangular beam toward him. He is lowered onto the beam on his back, nearly falls off of it, and is secured to it with numerous ropes before being carried out of the theater and into the frigid night air. The music is crashing down on us in a pitiless monotone, in the mood of a death march. I grab everything I brought with me, not bothering to put on my jacket and sweatshirt, which I removed when it began to get crowded and hot in the theater. Thus I end up outside in just teeshirt and jeans, after the long push by the crowd to exit for the procession. Not everyone joins in. Not everyone has left alive. Once outside, I look north and can just see the main procession disappearing up University Way. Feeling exhilarated in the cold, fresh air, I run into the street with dozens of others who are trying to catch up, wondering what drivers and others in the vicinity must be thinking about this spectacle.
Incredible stuff. Even without the theatrics, the music itself is wonderful, amazing, stuff. You really should get your own copies. Trust me on this. You won’t regret it.
Well, this just sucks — Jam Master Jay, DJ for Run-DMC., was shot and killed in the studio.
While most of my music listening is more on the side of goth, industrial, and electronic, there’s a lot of ‘old-school’ rap in my collection, and Run-DMC were some of the true pioneers of the field. They also stayed in the game for fun, making a lot of good, upbeat, fun songs, without stooping to the guns and violence of the ‘gangsta rap’ that has become so popular of late. Truly sad to see something like this happen.
(Thanks to MeFi for the link)
Okies, this was kind of weird. As usual in the evenings, I’m sitting here at my desk, working on my ‘puter and letting iTunes grab songs at random. The current track is ‘America No More’, by the KLF, off of the single for ‘America: What Time Is Love?‘.
The song is a combination of war sound effects (planes, helicopers, missiles, explosions, and the like), a bagpipe tune, and samples from various broadcasts from around the time the song was written, in (I believe) 1991.
All of a sudden, I hear George Bush Sr.’s voice coming out of my speakers…
…the legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free. Iraq will eventually comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions, and then, when peace is restored, it is our hope that Iraq will live as a peaceful and cooperative member of the family of nations, thus enhancing the security and stability of the Gulf.
I guess it sounded good at the time, huh?
Over the past few months, I’ve been working on converting every audio CD I own to .mp3 format on my computer. I just got done tonight — and the results are kinda frightening, in a very cool sort of way.
Here’s the final tally:
40.5 days. It would take me over a month to listen to everything I have, listening 24 hours a day. Just crazy.
But very, very cool.
If anyone’s bored/morbidly curious enough, feel free to download my .mp3 list (586.6kb .zip’d .xls file).
I like being a music whore. :D
