Behold The Internet!

3.24.11

3:48 pm

Yesterday, I was thinking about David Bowie.

Specifically about how, aside from Extras and guesting on Arcade Fire's and Scarlett Johansen's albums, he hasn't put out any of his own music since before his heart surgery in 2004.

So, I popped his name into The Internet and came back with a news story about how his unreleased 2001 album, "Toy", was leaked, in full, a few days ago.

"Toy" was to be a follow-up to 1999's genre-shifting "hours..." and consisted of a few new tracks and mostly older songs from Bowie's waaay early career re-recorded and re-vamped.

Honestly, most of the songs on "Toy" are shit compared to their original versions, lacking the raw energy and sweetness they were made with, and sounding like Adult Contemporary trying to impress the twentysomethings and failing miserably and the songs you'd want to hear remade ("Love You 'Til Tuesday" and "The Laughing Gnome") are nowhere to be found.

I'm not going to say it should have remained unreleased (Hole In The Ground" and "Shadow Man" are pretty good), but I'll be happy to say that you get exactly what you pay for.

But the point I'm trying to make is that, within twelve minutes, I had brand new David Bowie music.

Thanks to The Internet.

So thank you, The Internet, you make instant gratification more instant.

Also, there's porn.

Lots of porn.

Weird porn.

Dapper Dan's Underoos OR a review of Lykke Li's 'Wounded Rhymes'

3.17.11

3:27 pm

 

I honestly did not realize it was St. Patrick's Day until, around 2:45, a bunch of guys wearing huge, fuzzy, green top hats came onto my train and starting talking about bars.

And even then it still took me a minute.

My Irish half must have been sleeping in.

Lucky Mick.

I, on the other hand, am very sleepy and awake and have been running around full bore since 10 this morning.

And again, all you Daylight fucks can blow me.

My waking up at 10 is the equivalent of your waking up at 4.

Do the math, ass bags.

 

Anyway.

So I am tired.

 

In other news, I have spent a few days with the new Lykke Li album, Wounded Rhymes, and it's awesome.

I think this chick is Swedish or Swiss or something along those lines.

But let's not hold that against her.

Her album sounds, at times, like a pagan beach party, shiny keyboards matched with crazy huge drums and chanting, and, at other times, like some sort of ancient tribal rite in which people scrump instead of pray.

There is a sacred feeling to it, due to the droning quality of Li's vocals.

And not droning in a bad way. Her voice pours over everything like ritualistic syrup, oozing into the spaces the usually sparse instrumentation leaves open.

Almost every track has a starkness to it, but it's a weighty starkness.

While listening to Wounded Rhymes, I was reminded of eels ("Youth Knows No Pain", the high energy opener), Joy Division ("Love Out of Lust", a beautiful, sincere song) and Depeche Mode ("I Follow Rivers", a synth line and drum loop that feel oddly 80's amidst the temples to which Li's voice brings the listener), but, at no point did I forget whose album it was.

Lykke Li stands out among the overabundance of "tough" female pop singers because she has a sincerity that others seem to lack.

Yeah, these other singers are tough...until see they see a hot guy with great abs and then it's back to high school.

One gets the impression from her music and lyrics that Lykke Li could totally kick Lady Gaga's ass.

And might enjoy doing so.

The album is full of stand out tracks, so much so that there end up being one or two that simply don't shine as brightly as the others, namely "Unrequited Love", a sort of doo wop track that doesn't really go anywhere, and "Sadness Is A Blessing" which can become repetitive and features the cringe-worthy lyric "Sadness is my boyfriend". Ouch.

But again, these aren't bad songs, just not as great as the rest of them.

"Rich Kids Blues" is infectious; from it you will catch an ass-shaking disease, curable only by, yes, shaking one's ass, "I Know Places" has a steamy, affected innocence that soaks this simple song in sexuality and "Silent My Song" is a dark, powerful closer, making the listener wish there was more to be had.

In fact, aside from those two not-as-great tracks and a penchant for overusing reverb, both on her vocals and on every drum you hear, this might be the best album I've heard this year.

Although, unrequited love? Seriously? This woman is made of smoke and fire and honey, how could ANYONE not requite her love?

This woman is a goddess, more than a goddess; she's the High Priestess of a cult that worships sex and sensuality and flesh and dancing and drums. Watch her aggressively, confrontationally sexy video for "Get Some" if you don't believe me. This video makes men feel like boys and boys enter puberty.

Listen to this album, shake your booty and worship at the Church of the Holy Vagina.

Get Down, Make Books

3.15.11

3:56 pm

Couldn't decide what to listen to today, so I hit the "Shuffle Songs" button on my iPod.

Eventually, "Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery" from Marilyn Manson's "Eat Me, Drink Me" album came on.

I recalled only listening to the album once and thinking it was a piece of shit, that the music was all right, if a little "more guitar solos!!! YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" for my taste, but the lyrics had this jumbled, disconnected feel, like Manson was just reading scribbled free verse phrases of a crumpled handful of cocktail napkins he'd found in his pocket. Things didn't make any sense, let alone rhyme.

And he didn't so much sing the lyrics as croak them tunelessly.

Which he does, but, somehow this seemed more tuneless.

But, anyway, I felt that maybe I had given this album the raw deal and hadn't paid enough attention to it.

So I listened to the first four or five tracks.

And, no, I was right, as was the music-listening-public in general: the album sucks dog cock and should be avoided, by Manson fans and certainly by non-Manson fans, as it may change one's indifference towards him into rage.

His new ("much more than a") album is going to drop later this year.

My breath is neither baited nor held.

I finished "Full Dark, No Stars" last night and here is what I have to say about each of the four stories...

"1922"

King managed to nail the bleakness and desperation he was setting out to convey, but, at its heart, it's just a ghost story; a ghost story proceeded by a pretty brutal murder scene, but a ghost story nonetheless.

A typical, dark King story which ends in the ridiculous Lovecraftian tradition of "I must finish now for the creature I fear and loathe is sitting behind me waiting for an appropriate point at which to inter--"

"Big Driver"

King's version of a revenge tale mixed with aspects of a Dexter-esque, crime-scene-cover-up mentality.

Does that make sense?

Some added character elements made it more interesting than a typical revenge tail, but the mention of the recent Jodie Foster revenge movie, "The Brave One" and the 70's Wes Craven revenge movie, "The Last House On The Left", took something away.

Maybe King felt that not mentioning them would lead people to point out that borrowed elements from them.

Not sure.

A good one though, well executed.

"Fair Extension"

My favorite in this collection.

It takes place in Derry and references both Pennywise and the Dark Tower series (both tiny, but delightful), and has that wonderful black humor that King can do so well when he allows himself, along with a gripping, what-happens-next feel to it.

Only problem is that it ends prematurely.

This isn't a matter of I wanted to know what happens next, it was s matter of how does the thing end.

Kind of a bummer.

"A Good Marriage"

Although a bit long-winded at times, this was a good one. King did a great job of putting his main character in a place where there was no right answer and every choice was immeasurably difficult. A very solid ending to a better-than-good collection.

All in all, a good read, if not as amazing as the hype lead me to believe.

But, that is why it's called hype.

Next time, I'm going to try to avoid any press and see how that goes, although his next novel "11/22/63" is about a guy who time travels back to stop the Kennedy assassination.

Which was the plot of an episode of Quantum Leap.

And a stupid idea for a Stephen King novel.

But who knows, he made a kid talking to his finger creepy, so yeah.

Next up is the latest Phil Tucker book, "Blood From The Mountain", which, I've been told, involves orcs.

Then "Side Jobs" by Jim Butcher, then "Ghost Story" by Jim Butcher and then, unless his head explodes while writing it, the newest Phil Tucker book, the one with more story elements that...well, fucking anything I've ever read.

Should be fun.

A: Eddie Murphy, Choking To Death On A Wet Sock

3.8.11

4:33 pm

Q: What does the man in here sound like when he laughs?

What do I win?

nothing

Enough of that.

Over the weekend, I set out to learn the keyboard line of this song that's been trapped in my head and screaming to get out like sixteen thousand hamsters on crystal meth with smaller hamsters declawed, detoothed and covered in Vaseline up their asses (not the whole song, just this goddamn two-and-a-half-second-long keyboard loop). This isn't your usual, "I keep singing the chorus to Bad Romance and it's driving me nutty LOL!!!" this is, "Every time I'm not actively thinking of or focusing on something, these notes start streaming through my mind, causing me to click my teeth together and tap my feet in time with the rhythm."

This sequence of notes has replaced silence in my mind.

First thing when I wake up and last thing before I fall asleep.

Looping.

Endless.

Murderous.

I failed in that task to replicate and, possible, hopefully, expunge it from my soul, and then said fuck it and made a dark, ambient thing that sounds a bit like Coil to me.

It's called "Just This Thing" and can be found here...

I made this piece using a keyboard and a Stylophone and Pro Tools.

I plan to do more dark, ambient stuff as the mood suits me and, although my one and only band is George Washington Diarrhea, I might start a new one for this, less vocal, more instrumental, more...I don't know..not fecal/phalli/dolphin-touching-centric sound.

Not that more than 70 people in the world have ever heard any of the music I've made, most likely far less.

The thing I'm concerned with regarding making music that involves very little musical input and/or talent and a whole lot of knob twiddling is that there's no real substance to it.

Stripped of all the effects I've layered onto it, "Just This Thing" isn't all that impressive.

Not that the final product is going to win me any Grammies, but I think it sounds cool and it definitely has a distinct, foreboding feel to it, which is what I was aiming for.

I mean, with enough work in post, knobs, buttons, switches and etc., you could probably strum a detuned electric guitar once and take the right person on a musical journey through their own spleen and back, but that doesn't say much for the composer's musical ability, of which, in my opinion, I have very little.

But that really doesn't matter as less than 70 people have ever heard anything I've done.

Which is sort of par for the course, I suppose, as four people read this.

Hi everyone.

How's things?

Good on ya.

All right, self deprecating hatespiral finished.

After recording my shitty bullshit fucking asshole piece of shit "song" on Saturday, I met with Lauren and we had some good Italian food capped off by some pretty bad Italian coffee (overtones of burned popcorn were present) and the best Italian chocolate cake I've had in months.

It was like eating Jesus' personal fudge stash, but made into a cake.

Augh, I'm actually salivating.

Pavlov was onto something...

After an excellent meal and a healthy amount of catching up, I returned home and did some grinding* in Dead Space 2, only to realize I might just be done with that game.

Fool of a Took.

The next day...I don't really remember, probably watched some West Wing, and then Chris came home from Katie's birthday thing in Philly and we watched The King's Speech, which was great, but maybe didn't deserve all those Oscars.

What happened was that Colin Firth didn't go full retard...because you never go full retard...unless you are, in fact, a full retard.

Hey, does the phrase 'full metal retard' make anyone else think of that Master Blaster guy from Thunderdome?

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I am now full retard.

And you never go full retard.

After finishing Perdido Street Station, I reread the first Grind Show book in preparation for spitballing ideas for the next few Grind Show books** with Phil, the second of which should, barring his fingers falling off, be finished April 1st, maybe give or take because of some extenuating circumstances in his real life.

After rereading TGS, I finally got to the Patton Oswalt book, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland.

A lot less funny and a lot more thoughtful that I'd expected, but still hilarious in places, namely the fake movie script punch-up and the essay about North American hobo songs.

If you have any interest in Oswalt's incredible stand up, you should check this out.

And, if you don't, then you haven't heard his stand up and I am better than you.

Or at least more versed in cultural literacy.

This evening, I will embark upon Stephen King's latest, a collection of novellas called Full Dark, No Stars, an excellent title which goes along with, so I've heard, an excellent book.

By the time I'm done with that, I'm going to read the most recent Dresden book, Side Jobs, which should lead me right up to the release of the newest Dresden book, Ghost Story, coming out in April.

Then, I will have read all the books there are and there will be no more.

Running beneath all this (aside from that fucking keyboard loop) is me, chiseling my way through West Wing.

I'm two episodes away from the end of season four and, I believe, the end of Sorkin's involvement with the show.

Hopefully, the dip in quality will not be too noticeable.

When I get home tonight, I think I'm going to spend a moment looking for tablature for this goddamn song so I don't blow my fucking head off.

Wish me luck.

* Grinding in the sense of doing the same, simple action again and again and again in order to make one's character more powerful, usually unfairly so, not in the sense of slamming my crotch against someone or something.

** The second of which, I have on good authority, will be called The Beauty Of The Beholder Is In The Eye Of The Cloacae.