Songs about Sex (or not)

1.Rumour Has It-Adele
2.Get Lucky-Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams
3.R U Mine?-Arctic Monkeys
4.She Drives Me Crazy-Fine Young Cannibals
5.Howlin’ for You-The Black Keys
6.We Looked Like Giants-Death Cab For Cutie
7.You Shook Me All Night Long-AC/DC
8.Boom-Flight of the Conchords
9.Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?-The Beatles
10.Let’s Spend The Night Together-David Bowie
11.Rebel Yell-Billy Idol
12.What Would You Do-Bastille
13.Come Together-The Beatles
14.Love Removal Machine-The Cult
15.Tyrant-The Bravery
16.Exquisite Corpse-Hedwig And The Angry Inch
17.Enjoy the Silence-Depeche Mode
18.Locked Out of Heaven-Bruno Mars
19.If U Seek Amy-Britney Spears
20.Latch (feat. Sam Smith)-Disclosure

“Jobs”

So I finally sat myself down to watch the Steve Jobs biopic aptly titled: Jobs, yesterday.  And although not as good as I expected, it is certainly good for what it is.  It doesn’t gloss over the uglier aspects of the man behind Apple Computers, nor does it go into the post-Ipod part of his life which is also okay.  It’s not a film about Steve Jobs having cancer, but a film about how he starts a computer revolution, loses an empire, and then comes back out on top of that same empire, which maneuvered him out.  Ashton Kutcher looks just like the guy too.  It’s definitely boring in parts, but it is what it is.  It’s interesting to see just how hard it was for Steve Jobs in social situations, lots of yelling, and spouting of obscenity when he didn’t absolutely love or agree with something.  You see the genius, you see the monster, and you see the man.  And you see just how smart the guy was, and can barely fathom that only mere decades later, all of his inventions have basically changed the course of history.  So love the guy or hate the guy, or feel indifferent about the guy, this movie really gives a deeper glimpse into the inner workings of the early computer industry, and I just find it remarkable, moreso than any other aspect of the film.  It is good on the whole, but my mind is boggled by this one aspect of it all, and that is incredible.  

Your Sunny Day Playlist

Surprise, it’s not a playlist, it’s me talking about music instead.  With the onset of some early Summer days within the last week, it is only reasonable that I would begin to talk about summer music listening things.  Your hot and sunny day music choices, particularly when driving a car, can go one of two ways.  Well that isn’t entirely true, but for the sake of my blog, let’s say there are only two.  You can go the raucous route, maybe not of the angrier variety, but I guess it depends on how you feel that day.  I would think maybe Helter Skelter, or something by Zeppelin, maybe the Black Keys, or say Paris by Grace Potter.  Raucous jams are all around us. How about some White Stripes?  But then again, there is another route, the happy carefree, laid back sort of music.  Try some Flaming Lips on for size, maybe some Sigur Ros?  or that great purveyor of sunshine: Michael Franti.  But maybe you don’t go in either of these directions and settle for some kind of mix of the two which would ideally consist of some Pixies, early Radiohead, most anything by Bowie, maybe some Nirvana, the choice is yours truly.  Mix the happy chill sounds with the upbeat, loud and downright rockin’ and you will surely have your ideal sunny day playlist.  Enjoy!

Playlist time: Night Work

I don’t have any creative title for this one, but I am very proud of what I came up with in an extremely rushed and slapdash manner.  It’s delightfully queer, with a plethora of robotic noises, Album of The Year winners (Daft Punk), my favorite Broadway star of all time,  the lady that makes us go gaga, Glamtastic fun, Industrial, grungey and very dancy, delightfully American and International in equal portions.  Enjoy!

1. Night Work- Scissor Sisters

2. Do What U Want- Lady Gaga and R. Kelly

3. Civilian- Adam Pascal

4. Instant Crush- Daft Punk with Julian Casablancas( of The Strokes)

5. Heart In A Cage- The Strokes

6. I Am The Walrus- The Beatles

7. Midnight Radio- Hedwig and The Angry Inch

8. Harder You Get- Scissor Sisters

9. Artpop- Lady Gaga

10. Survival- Muse

11. Stupid Girl- Neil Young and Crazy Horse

12. The Distance- CAKE

13. Radio- Lana Del Rey

14. Recognizer- Daft Punk

15. How- The Neighbourhood

16. Home Is A Fire- Death Cab For Cutie

17. Tell Me How To Live- Capital Cities

18. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box- Radiohead

19. Sin- Nine Inch Nails

 

 

New playlist: 3 of a kind

I don’t know where this idea came from, but I kept hearing that old cliched line, “The best things come in threes.”  And going from there I thought, why not make a playlists, featuring three songs from each artist in residence upon it. And this is what I came up with!

1. Sweater Weather- The Neighbourhood

2. I’m Afraid- The Neighbourhood

3. Flawless- The Neighbourhood

4. Panic in Detroit- David Bowie

5. The Man Who Sold The World- David Bowie

6. (You Will) Set The World on Fire- David Bowie

7. Never There- Cake

8. Federal Funding- Cake

9. Sick of You- Cake

10. Come Together- The Beatles

11. While My Guitar Gently Weeps- The Beatles

12. Sexy Sadie- The Beatles

13. Muscle Museum- Muse

14. Dead Star- Muse

15. Time Is Running Out- Muse

16. All I Need- Radiohead

17. Myxomatosis- Radiohead

18. Blowout- Radiohead

My fourth of July mix, the freedom of expression is the real celebration isn’t it?

1. War- Mos Def  (A great opener to lay bare the illusions of our American holidays)

2. Catch and Release- Silversun Pickups

3. I Wrote A Song About Your Car- Mike Doughty

4. El Scorcho- Weezer

5. Everything is Everything- Phoenix

6. Bodysnatchers- Radiohead

7. Shrinking Universe- Muse

8. Instant Crush- Daft Punk

9. Arco Arena- Cake

10. In One Ear- Cage The Elephant

11. Sunburn- Muse

12. Ricochet- David Bowie

13. Parachute Heart- Grace Potter and The Nocturnals

14. Tangled Up In Plaid- Queens of The Stone Age

15. A Taste of Honey- The Beatles

16. Freedom of Choice- A Perfect Circle

The Bends

I’m going to start doing a feature on my favorite albums, new and old, for you nice internet folks.  the persistent New England heatwave of the last 13 days or so has made it harder to let myself sit in the computer in this hot house and write any sort of awesome bloggles, but here it is what I wrote with the intention of posting here about a week ago.  Enjoy!

Considered by many to be one of their more normal albums.  Maybe sonically, but thematically its just as rife with remorse, helplessness and alienation, just as plagued by the human condition, in all its instability and heartbreak and hopelessness, with a faint dash of hopeful, in the fact that we can at least carry on from these hard moments.  But that being said, it also contains music prime for singing along to, and songs that sound like they would fit in on standard mainstream radio, and in fact they do.  But the sheer alienation of it, the bleak depression, the fuzzed out guitars and extremely tight rhythms, reflect very much even at this stage, on the band that never fails to exceed expectations or defy conventions.  Music for the sake of music.  You get bittersweet ballads like Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, and Black Star,  a foreshadowing of OK Computer in the awesome opener, Planet Telex, and raucous numbers such as Just, My Iron Lung, and the title track of course.  And close it off with a haunting number like Street Spirit(fade out), to cause you coming away from your listen, unsure just how you’re supposed to be feeling.  Depressing or not its an amazing album, and I actually like depressing music more when I’m happy, so as weird as this sounds, just like The Smiths which I talked about a lot before, Radiohead is my go to happy music.  It’s just good, that’s all there is to it.  

Orange Television at Barnaby’s

Friday Night, I went to the monthly gallery walk in the wilds of Brattleboro.  For those not in the loop, as it were, Brattleboro holds a special event downtown the first Friday of every month.  It’s the day when all the galleries change out their exhibits or add new things.  There’s music and joy and laughter, and some very eccentric, oddball, and amazing people everywhere.  It is the day I remember that there is actually stuff to do in this town.  Running into old friends and new friends in an amazing mishmash is such a joyous and spontaneous experience.  After visiting galleries I stopped into Barnaby’s for a beer.  Drank some hoppy masterpiece well worth my five bucks.  

Once more for those not in the loop, Barnaby’s, formerly, Rocky Top Tavern, has a sign out front boasting that it is Southern Vermont’s premier music hall.  I experienced my first show there, when I went to see local band, The Love Sprockets perform. The music was great, a lot of soul behind it, a lot of passion, but out of the abysmally small crowd, half of them still thought it was a sports bar and paid no attention.  But that was  a Sunday night also.  Friday, I was getting antsy waiting for the ban to start, so I ended up taking a walk with my friend.  When I came back a bit later, the soundchecks were finally done, and the set was in full swing.  

I found myself assaulted by a unique fusion of grungy vocals, blues jams, Southern Rock, and Radiohead.  Lots of energy, lots of feedback, lots of distortion. And a super tight three piece.  I danced up a storm with wild abandon. It’s not enough for me to feel the music, I must become it.  Orange Television did this for me. I scored a free CD and made some new friends and dancing partners that were immediately on the level.  The community is truly starting to come together, and it is through music.  The crowd consisted of standard bar flies, groupies, and general music fiends like myself.  

So if you’re out some night and need a break from the standard bar routine, check out Barnaby’s and see if there’s a show.  It may look like a sports bar still, but  I soon think it will be a musical hot spot for the region.  See you there. 

Also check out Orange Television in Northampton, Mass on May 4th, covering Ok Computer in its entirety. 

Countdown newness

This week’s countdown will start with my new feature, Inspiring Mustaches.

1.Freddie Mercury- Freddie was an amazing voice and continues to be on recordings everywhere, and where does that power of awesomeness come from you ask?  The mustache in this video is a fine indication of that.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE&NR=1

2.Life is What Happens in-between- I watched the film, Intermission, over the weekend, which is about the intersections of a bunch of people that from the inception of their stories makes you think they are not particularly related to one another.  As the movie continues, everything seems to fall together, and you begin to see how few degrees of seperation there truly are between one event, one person’s action and another.  And the moral of the stories as it were, seems to be that life is what happens in the spaces between. Life is what happens, when you just let it play out naturally.  I rather like the idea, and I think much can be learned from seeing the world in a more collective sort of way.

3.The week’s song obsession- Army of Me by Bjork.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyEJxzQM24Q    Watching the film Sucker Punch twice in this, it’s opening weekend really made me become greatly attached to this song, especially seeing how well it was used in the film. Which leads me to number four on our week’s 11.

4.SUCKER PUNCH- Hot girls? Check.  A story that apparently takes place in Brattleboro? Check.  Lots of fast-paced action, and pure imagination, and a very quavery boundary between dreams and reality? Check.  I was glad to find a story that isn’t overly complicated, pretty visuals, a perfect choice of music on the director’s part, including great covers of songs by The National and the Eurythmics sung by the star herself, Emily Browning.  And I already mentioned I saw it twice. And the pacing of the movie is never too slow like I found the director’s take on Watchmen to be.  Thank you for a great time at the movies! Twice!

5.Speaking of Movies….this is an item of not so greatness, yet it is a big piece of the pizza that was my week.  Kipling Cinemas, located on the Northern end of Bboro mysteriously shut down after their thursday night movies, for the indefinite future.  This is a strange turn of events, for the movie going populace is in full force around these parts.  http://www.reformer.com/ci_17695652?source=most_emailed

6.Headroom Stages- My usual shout out to a business or a person that helps keep the quality of life to a high level. This week, Headroom Stages on Elliot Street in Bratt, former home of my once beloved, and smelly Tinderbox.  http://headroomstages.com/wp/  I had the pleasure of experiences my first show there.  I witnessed the bizarre multi-voiced folk of Dred Foole, who mentioned having played a show in that room before, with the added comment, “it never looked like this before.”  And when I say multi-voiced, I mean that he sang most of his songs in two or even three different voices, making a one person call and response that could be described as almost musically schizophrenic.  Add into the mix random babbling and other gibberish, he is his own effects pedal.  Next to hit the stage was Kurt Vile, a one man band on acoustic guitar, that has to be heard to be believed.  Let’s just say it was the loudest           “acoustic “show I have ever been to.  And I had that opinion before J. Mascis, Indie champion of Dinosaur Jr. fame, (or not as the case may be) took the stage, showcasing some of his newest solo work.  Great use of looping, and a rawness that can only be felt in the live performance, and an overall fun time, that I would be more descriptive on if I could have seen better over the heads in front of me, and if I had not been exhausted beyond belief and nearly falling asleep at the end of the set.  Go see a show at Headroom Stages!

7.Paul Is Undead–  An amusing alternative history of The Beatles, if they were a bunch of zombies.  It’s a highly silly, and deeply intriguing read. Check it out.

8.Good Omens- A great read, and a great take on the apocalypse, full of humor, the highest level of absurdity I have come to expect from most of the works of the authors, Mr.s Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, while still feeling down to earth and real.  It’s all in the way they draw the characters.  And it gives me more ideas to write my own apocalyptic, sacrilegious, irreverent, heartfelt and sentimental tale, code-named: Satan’s Darlings. More on that to come, and expect a deeper review of this book on my book review blog  http://booktalking42.wordpress.com/.

9.More hot tunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n3OepDn5GU

10. Let’s go to comic-con!  http://www.comic-con.org/cci/  And for a nerd-fixation to keep you on your toes until then, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNyg1ftMIU.

11. April is going to be the month of ROCK!   http://www.spin.com/reviews/foo-fighters-wasting-light-roswellrca

Until next week, keep it real, (or fake) and be spontaneous!

Love Today

Sure, Valentine’s Day may have once again already come and gone, but keep in mind that although this seems like some silly holiday used as an excuse to engorge ourselves on chocolates, or you could be one of those people who doesn’t really see any point to the day unless they have themselves a snookums.  Be that as it may, if the day is apparently about love, let’s remember that. If we already have a someone or not, Valentine’s Day seems like the perfect day to just spread your love to all.  There is so much suffering, so much hate, so much evil in this world, if we just set aside a day to just love a little stronger, to “Try a little (more) tenderness,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pPqC6i2M0E and to share more of your self to the world.  One person may be able to change the world, but if we don’t “Come Together,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8LZGQ4MkvQ our message of love may fall short.

  I had initially envisioned today’s Valentine entry as a dating advice column, but I had this idea that Valentine’s Day is better off being a world love day. But, I will digress for a few sentences to touch on a few pieces of romantic advice  I encourage people by all means, if they have sweethearts, or whatever they may title themselves, take full romantic advantage, but if your in first date territory, the “love” aspect of this holiday may be overwhelming to people only getting to know each other. You don’t want to jump the gun if you really want things to work out with the best scenario/ positive outcome.  Maybe it’s not meant to be, and maybe it is, but regardless, if you go in using a little restraint, you just might have a lifelong friend regardless. 🙂  Not always of course, but I’m a romantic through and through, and think there is too much beauty found in my circle(s) of friends to ever hope something could compromise the warm fuzzies of friendship. 

To make our lasting impact on this world, it should be clear, that what you need more than anything to do this, the driving force behind our dreams, our hopes, our desires, “All you need is love.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ98qac2UIM  Without love, where is our motivation, where is our “drive?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTjzZzfR7w Human creatures need a lot of love to be able to come to terms with just simply existing sometimes.  They always say that all these wicked and bad things occur in the world, because human nature is not to be kind, loving, or gentle.  But maybe it is our nature to love.  We wouldn’t be so adamant about writing “silly love songs,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9QVN0bpa4 or be so obsessed with the perpetuation of valentine’s day, or want to watch  chick flicks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gudEttJlw3s which I am not too prideful of a man to admit to enjoying most of the time. 

To close, I would like to pose a shout out to my lovely, loving friends, who will surely be world changers, if they aren’t already.  Thank you for adding that extra spark of awesome to my life, and helping me to “Always look on the bright side of life.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2UP86bciVA  And I would also suggest that if you are in or around Keene this coming weekend go see The Vagina Monologues at Keene State, Friday and Saturday at 7, or a 2pm matinee on Saturday. One of my awesome besties, the esteemable Casey Ann Adventure is one of the directors this year, and she is brilliant. And if you really are into changing the world, and giving a little more love and/or a fan of the monologues check out the V-Day website as well, http://www.vday.org/home.

Everyone’s gonna love today, gonna love today, gonna love today……  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWiccrTB4LM

Peace, until next time.