Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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screw this let’s go

Not polite to point.
Thursday (actually, it’s Wednesday night as I write and I just got off a conference call with some guys in Bangalore, India… ah… world time zones) and a slim entry before I skip Friday once again, just seems to be a pattern this month. Out of work at noon today, on the road… heading to a good ol’ fashion wedding on the ranch… high desert… can’t wait. Cloudless blue skies and 14,000ft peaks as a backdrop, let’s go now. I don’t know what I’m going to write… I don’t have much going on.

Music roundup: I’m still trying my best to see what it is that’s got everyone so orgasmic about this new New Pornographers album. From my first listen, it was just another New Pornographers album, sounding like it should and nothing all that special. In fact, I remember thinking that I liked AC’s solo effort more on 1st listen. But, the critic-collective seem to be eying this LP as one of the year’s best already… so I’m doing my best to give it plenty of time to wash around the palette before spitting it out. And, actually, it’s growing on me… bit by bit, it’s growing on me. Aside from the Pornos, other noteworthy items that’ve ended up in my headphones lately: A promising one-man-extravaganza album by The Ladies and Gentlemen; Broken Social Scene’s new one (hopefully it’s better than their sophomore effort, which I didn’t like at all); and Kepler’s latest, which I liked immediately for its country-tinged hush. August is a good month for music, lots of good new listening material.

Guess what. I got a letter in the mail from my doctor today. My throat culture results from back when they put me on antibiotics for strep. In the “results” section it says: strep = negative. I didn’t even have strep. So what was wrong with me, and why did antibiotics clear it up?

OK. Whatever.

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everybody’s lootering

I love this picture.
Wednesday already, and I’ve got a short week. Doing a half-day on Thursday and taking all of Friday off to attend Kristi & Erik’s wedding down south. I can’t wait… it’s almost like my mini-Friday right now. I’m already zoning out just thinking about it. Before my thoughts turn exclusively to camping and drinking and socializing… I better write something.

It’s amazing how far stealing music has come since the days when I was first introduced to it. I can remember when a buddy of mine mentioned Napster to me on campus one day. I went home, downloaded and installed it, and was blown away. I was late to the game, so the network was already populated with millions and millions of traders hosting everything, and I do mean everything, a body could want. The only problem for me: I was still on dialup at the time. I can remember my formula: on a good day with a good connection, you planned for 10-15min per song. I can remember the day that the Pumpkins’ new album, Machina, leaked – long prior to it’s street-date. I was actually online as the songs started getting propagated. I would refresh my search every few minutes and the next track on the album would show up, I’d add it to my download queue and wait for the next one to come online. That night I stayed up all night long. Literally started downloading at 10pm and didn’t finish until near 4am. To fill the time while songs downloaded, I’d listen to what I already had. Think about that, an entire evening spent online stealing songs bit-by-painfully-slow-bit.

Today, things are so much better. While the P2P situation is no longer as easy, and much more risky – alternate looting-locales are flourishing in the high-speed age. These days, I wouldn’t use a P2P app to download tunes even if you paid me. Sure the odds are low, but I don’t want to be the unlucky one who’s the target of some RIAA lawsuit. I don’t even like using BitTorrent for legit downloading. But, despite the grim P2P landscape – music is easier to get than ever. And, it’s so much faster. Nowadays, I can download and entire album in just a couple minutes. In fact, the situation is such that you can simply download entire albums just to “check them out.” What a luxury! I would’ve killed for that kind of speed back in college. And believe it or not, even without P2P – everything you could ever want is still out there somewhere. Yes, I do believe that one day my conscience will get to me and I’ll start paying to download music (actually, I do pay now – but I pay for the ability to grab stuff illegally, not the music itself). I don’t think I’ll mind paying for music, I’ve always been willing to pay for it considering how much enjoyment I derive from it. But for now, while my conscious is still undecided, I’m building up my collection as best I can.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but my next trip to beautiful Taipei is looming not far in the distance. I’ll be gone the 2nd week of September – doing the same conference I’ve done several times before. As I’ve said several times before, I love Taiwan, and always look forward to going. I guess that’s all I had to say about that.

And, I guess that’s all I had to say period. Goodnight.

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dreams

Verdant.
Don’t know if anyone else managed to catch the National Geographic Channel’s Inside 9/11 documentary, but man was it excellent. Crammed with interesting details, the first of two two-hour installments details the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on America. The forming of the cells, flight training, etc. The second installment chronicles the events on the day of the attacks. Masterfully put together and chock full of emotional firsthand stories and tons of amazing footage and audio – it’s by far the best telling of the events I’ve ever seen.

Sunday the backyard beat me again. I’m about at the level of frustration where I’m ready to call in a landscaping crew and just hand the task off to them. I really don’t know what else to do. Every time I put on my work clothes and get all motivated, I only end up pacing around the edge of the pavers wondering what to do. Soon enough, I’m so confused and frustrated by not being able to see the solution – I give up and come inside, take off my workclothes, and sit down on the couch in defeat. I really just don’t know what to do. Moving the sprinklers back is such a chore… and then there’s still the problem of actually placing a border around the porch. Sharaun suggested I call a landscaper, have them come take a look, and then pay them to fix it. Problem is – I know that’ll be thousands of dollars… and I begin to wonder about my priorities, spending thousands on a backyard when we’ve got a baby on the way and aren’t really sitting on a pile of money. My pure frustration and this extended (more than a year) stalemate have me nearly convinced that I’ll never actually get around to do anything – and paid help may be the only option. In fact, I think I kind of silently made the decision today… that I’m going to call on Monday, and have them come out this week to evaluate it and draw up some plans. At least at that point, I could still say I did most of the yard. Bottom line is: I just want this dang thing done.

I’m sure someone else, somewhere, at some point, has written about this before, but I’m gonna go ahead with it. I’m not sure how many of you out there used to (or perhaps still do, I’m not judgin’) indulge in a little recreational drug use. Me, I gave up the weed years ago – but my smokin’ years left me with a question that I still think about every so often. Maybe you’re not too familiar with the world of drugs, that’s good, you’re likely better of for it. But, I’m sure you’ve seen an episode of COPS or Law and Order where they show some kind of drugs (pot or cocaine, maybe) packaged for street sale in those little tiny ziplock baggies. There are varying sizes, but when I was in high school you could buy a dimebag ($10 baggie) if you only wanted a joint’s worth of stuff. Most bigger dealers won’t mess with dimes, since they are a pain to package – but the profit margin is higher the smaller you breakup the brick. Anyway, kids are poor, and dimebags are cheap and easy – so that’s what we bought when we were weaning onto the stuff.

What I’m wondering is, where the heck do people get those miniature baggies? And, under what guise are they sold? I would argue that bags of those size are used almost exclusively for the resale of illicit drugs. You never see them in stores, although I have seen them for sale at a head shop or two before. If I’m a soldier in the war on drugs, I’m gonna start tracking customers of these little baggies. Because I’ll tell you what, the guy that buys 10,000 of them isn’t using them to store buttons. Honestly, what else can you do with a 3/4″ by 3/4″ ziplock baggie? You’re not storing screws or beads in there… you’re hawking crack or coke or something on the streetcorner.

Lately I’ve been remembering my dreams when I wake in the morning, which is unusual for me. Some of them were so strange, I wanted to write them down and try my hand at “interpreting” them. Here goes. Wednesday night: I crap my pants at work. I’m running down the aisle trying to make it to the bathroom, but I don’t make it. Interpretation: I’m afraid of messing up at work. Thursday night: I witness the murder of a young girl on a school playground, Ben and I are chased by the killer. Interpretation: I’m afraid of something, and I’m trying to avoid it. Friday night: Anthony is too drunk to drive, so I’ll do it for him. But, he’s towing a boat and I can’t back it up. He agrees to backup the boat and then I can drive away. However, he backs up over a fire hydrant, overturning the boat and killing two kids who were sitting in it. Interpretation: To me this implies I have guilt of some kind, feeling bad for letting those girls get crushed. Saturday night: I’m back working at Omni Music & Video in Florida, but my coworkers are my coworkers from my current job. Interpretation: Work’s got me stressed, and I’m casting thought back to the simpler days of working at the record store. There’s an underlying theme here… one of work and fear. New job, new responsibilities, new fears.

I don’t know how I missed the fact that the Arcade Fire put out a 7" single with two new tracks, but I did. Consisting of one original and one cover, which are simply gorgeous and OK-for-a-B-side, respectively. The A-side, Cold Wind, is a haunting tune that was supposedly done exclusively for some show on HBO I’ve never seen because we don’t have HBO. Who cares, it’s new Arcade Fire… and it’s lovely. Please, our Father who art in Heaven, please allow this band to continue producing music of this quality. Too bad their September show at the Warfield is sold out. I think we paid ~$10 to see them the 1st time at the Bottom of the Hill… oh how they’ve come along, fetching a cold $25 per ticket now.

‘Night.

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dressing the part

I make more money than you.
Monday morning, 7:30am. Guess I drank enough water last night to offset the 12-year scotch that coursed through my system as I finished up and published Monday’s entry, ’cause I feel fresh as a daisy. I’m not a fan of liquor by any stretch, and a “scotch on the rocks” is probably the last drink I’d order by choice. Changing subjects, in her haste to leave this morning, Sharaun grabbed my keys on her way out the door – her own keys being in her purse, which she also took. This leaves me keyless. No way to start my car to get to work, no way to get back in the house once I’ve locked the door behind me. Luckily, there are enough folks who work with me that live near here that it’s not hard to score a ride in. It’s kinda nice, sitting here in the air conditioning, listening to some vintage Cure… almost makes me wish I was friendless and had no one to call to get into work.

Lemme hit you with a quandary I’ve been thinkin’ on the past couple weeks. I’ve been thinking lately about “dressing the part” at work. What I mean is, changing the way I dress to be more in-line with my newly bestowed responsibilities. Using my acute sense of perception, I’ve noticed that most “bigwigs” at work wear decent looking slacks and shirts most of the time. So, while I hate “dressing up,” I’ve been considering changing my daily uniform to something more becoming a “manager,” junior or not. I’m not talking long-sleeves and ties or anything, just something a tad “dressier.” I’m even willing to make the long-pants-in-summer sacrifice for this, that’s how much I’ve debated it. Problem is, I’m torn about actually doing it… being able to see it from two totally different angles…

Part of me thinks this is very logical, something that I should definitely do. I think of a new-hire, fresh out of college, and their 1st impression of me should I be appointed their manager. Here’s a junior manager, wearing shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt. Is he going to respect me more or less than a junior manager who’s sharply dressed in slacks and a nice polo shirt? As judging-a-book-by-its-cover as it sounds, I think the clothes do manage to communicate some sense of professionalism – lending some “cred” to the manager title. Not saying you can’t be #1 stellar manager in shorts and a ballcap, but I also think that dressing the part may help me actually act the part. Odd as that sounds, when I’m dressed up I feel more important and actually act a little more professional. After all, the saying “The clothes make the man” must exists for a reason.

While part of me does see logic in it, another part of me sees the idea as horribly pretentious. Young snot makes good and all the sudden starts dressing like he’s hot shit. I don’t want that at all. Heck, there are people twice my age who’ve worked here three times as long as I have – and here I go getting some minuscule promotion and start dressing like CEO or something. There’s got to be a happy medium between the two extremes. I’ve considered “breaking in” the new look: starting with one day a week, maybe bumping that to two or three after people warm up to the new duds. I’ve set myself up really, since going from my daily vestments of today to Dockers and buttons each day would be a pretty evident change. What a silly thing to worry about, right? You’d think, but it’s been on my mind of late.

I love the new look of audioscrobbler, or last fm or whatever it’s called now. It’s actually a really cool site. My profile’s been linked in my sidebar for a while now, and I’ve been aggregating stats on my listening habits for a little over two months now. I hope the service stays free; it’d be interesting to go back over a year and see if my listening habits line up with what I say the choice albums were for that year. Right now the “overall” charts look pretty accurate for what I’ve been digging the past couple months. We’ll see.

Goodnight.

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scotch on the rocks

Glug glug.
Today, no two paragraphs are about the same thing. At least I had some time to write this weekend. Time that should’ve been spent mowing lawns or painting walls or doing laundry or any number of other things – but wasn’t. Tonight was Chivas Regal scotch on the rocks at a coworker’s place for dinner… four of those and the fingers are a little heavy and stubborn on the keyboard.

Got my bermudagrasss killer in the mail the other day, and I eagerly opened the package to find the pint taped securely shut across it’s lid. Anxious to put the stuff down on my weeds, I sat down to read the product label and advisories. Apparently this stuff is the most caustic poison on earth. You can read the warnings for yourself, but this is some evil stuff. When applying, you’re advised to wear long pants, a long sleeved shirt, and special gloves to avoid skin contact. You can’t breathe it or get it in contact with your skin, and God forbid you somehow get it in your eyes or ingest it. You’re supposed to triple-wash the container before recycling, and are advised not to burn it or spray it near irrigation or animals. When I placed the order online, I chose the full pint over a half, thinking that, if I did need to do several applications to get the job done, I didn’t want to run out. Turns out the stuff is so potent, that you use less than an ounce for 1000 square feet of turf – so my $60 pint is probably enough to treat an entire city.

I’m sorry Death Cab, I probably jumped the gun. The more I listen to your new album, the one I panned a last week, the more I realize that my downloaded copy is probably not the real deal. The quality isn’t stellar, and some of the songs sound half-done. If this is, indeed, the studio version and not some comp of demos or whatever, I’m cool with that too. It’s not 100% bad, but it’s not what I’ve looked forward to as a follow up to that album with the bird and string on the cover. It’s slow, and drippy, with only a couple peppy numbers to break the melancholy. Most times, I love the dreary indie-pop, dig the teary-eyed horned-rim stuff… but this stuff is kinda… bland, kinda… vanilla. I’ve got some hope that, when and if the proper album leaks, it’ll be a little more polished and a little more instrumented… but who knows.

I was sitting in church this Sunday, looking down at my folded hands as I often do during a prayer. That’s when I noticed a smallish raised bump on my finger – what I used to call my “writing bump.” A callous from holding my pen/pencil tight as I write, only now it’s merely a dwarfed miniature of what it once was. I just don’t write anymore. Thinking about it, I write so little, I can name the few instances when I do: signing something, such as a document at work ; writing the one check a month for that single remaining bill which I can’t setup for auto-debit; or taking quick notes during a meeting. All of this probably amounts to only a few hundred words per week. Using my hands to write has almost become a thing of the past. I type everything. Back in college, when I would fill both sides of a piece of notebook paper with the step-by-step operations of a laborious LaPlace transform – my writing bump was prominent, well-worn. Since college though, the actual times I hand-write something have dropped so sharply, I hardly have a bump at all.

Goodnight.

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speaking of “watery”

Scooping.
Oh man… Peter Jennings died. What a bummer. My folks were ABC News folks, and I grew up listening to Jennings do the evening news every night. When my turn for adulthood came, I, too, chose ABC News for my occasional didn’t-get-to-check-the-internet-much TV news outlet – and Jennings was still there. I watched the first tower fall live in the top “window” of a Woodstock-style two window layout, the bottom one containing Mr. Jennings. Not like he was family or anything, but something about people who report the news gives me respect for them… like they are so much more “tied in” then us John Q. Publics. Now he’s just another old-timer reference that Lil’ Chino won’t understand, like Cronkite to my generation.

I don’t know what’s up with this new Death Cab album yet, I can’t seem to peg it. For some reason, I can only get about halfway through before I want to switch to something more uppy like the World Leader Pretend or HARD-Fi albums Ben recently turned me onto. Death Cab have always been good for some melancholic languid indie pop, but this album sounds particularly watery-weak to me after the first few listens. Maybe I’ll get over it, it’s not fair really since I’ve not yet once sat down and listened to it once front-to-back. I wonder if any Mr. Gibbard’s radio-success with Postal Service will spill over into this new album? I’m sure that, since they’re now under the major label umbrella, they’ll release a single proper, and perhaps even have some help payola’ing it into rotation. My thoughts are that, from these first impressions, they’d’ve done better commercially riding the last album rather than this one. But what do I know.

11:11pm and I’m working. Trying to get back into the “swing” I was in before strep took me out of the game. Sure, I’m still busy; and sure, I have crap due tomorrow that I’ll be working on tomorrow… who cares. The whole being sick thing kinda forced me to see that the company lives on with or without me, and I’m not nearly as critical as my swollen head may lead me to believe. That’s good, really, because it gives me some leave to slack a bit – and when I say “slack” I mean not work until midnight.

Wow, what a crap entry. Goodnight.

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world debut

Yargh.
Sharaun and I went to get Lil’ Chino’s first ultrasound last week. Man… what an amazing thing that was. This little baby, barely four months old and two inches long… was kicking and squirming and moving all over. Going in there, I expected so much less… people had set me up to expect seeing a peanut-looking thing with little definition. Turns out that’s about as wrong as wrong can be. This thing had a lot of definition… little arms, little legs, fingers and toes you can actually count, and clearly visible facial features. Looking at the little guy, alive and moving around on the screen (and even more impossibly, alive and moving around somewhere in the depths of Sharaun’s belly), it was hard to believe that something that’s already that real-baby-looking is, in reality, just a two-inch long “tadpole.” We got to hear the heartbeat, and got to take home Lil’ Chino’s first pictures. I was going to post them today, but my scanner is broken…

This weekend was a barnburner for music. Heard some ill tunes while at a party at Ben & Suzy’s place, and downloaded that. The album’s by some group named after an REM song, World Leader Pretend, but there’s this one song on the album that is just outstanding. I’ll try to find a link before I post this. Also at Ben’s party, he decided to kick the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! record, and to my surprise, it sounded different than mine. Then I remembered that my copy was seemingly patchwork in song titles and bitrates, and figured it must have been cobbled from various sources – some obviously including EPs of the same songs that were much different than the released album versions. Still, it’s nice to have heard the fetal version of some of the tracks – but the album versions have a nice shiny polish of studio applied, and I like it better. Then, Saturday morning, someone leaked the new Death Cab album. A pretty boast-worthy leak which surprisingly wasn’t accompanied by any release group hubris – which leads me to believe a lowly college-mag reviewer or record store worker ripped and released his/her promo copy for the love of the tunes. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but I’ll let ya know.

I think, had I been born 5 years later, I would’ve been a great MP3 release group insider. For those not familiar with how the whole pre-release MP3 thing works, the general process involves an “insider,” someone who has access to new albums before they are released for sale. This person could work at a radio station, newspaper, or in a record store that has access to promos. The insider gets the album, and sends a copy to the group’s encoders. The encoders follow the release group’s ripping and verifying protocol, ensuring a high-quality rip. The encoders then send the newly ripped MP3s onto the packagers/releasers. The tracks are then “packaged” for release and posted to one of the top-echelon underground FTP distribution sites. Within hours, a secondary group of folks, distributors, go in and download the album and spread it around to file-sharing locales accessible to us folks who aren’t “in.” Speed is key in the entire process, as the bragging rights only come for those who hit the ‘net first with the newest stuff in the best quality. It’s a huge deal, and it’s the machine that keeps me fed.

Anyway, when I was in college, I worked at a mom-‘n’-pop record store, and had daily access to promo releases of big albums. I know, because I used to beg my manager at the time to let me take choice ones home and rip copies to cassette (the pirate’s medium of choice at the time). That’s how I was tired of the Pumpkin’s Mellon-Collie before it ever hit the shelves; why, to this day, my copy of OK Computer is just a white disc with a black and white illustrated paper sleeve. Once I became “assistant manager,” I had unlimited access to whatever promos I wanted – and I used the privilege to be benefit. Transplanting those days five or so years into the future, I can completely see myself participating in the digital pre-release trade. Maybe not hooking up with a release group proper, but at least being an “indie” ripper/releaser for the glory of it. Y’know, the whole “I had it first, but am feeling benevolent… so here, you should hear this” thing.

I like the headline from CNN today, “Typhoon hits China, killing at least 1.” Not that I like typhoons, or them hitting China, or even killing, I just like the statement. Doesn’t the fact that some “killing” happened pretty much guarantee “at least one” was killed? If it were any less than one, you couldn’t really say any “killing” happened at all. I think it was the “at least” part was funny to me, it’s like CNN got some word that folks had died – but no hard numbers. Then, in a macabre desperation to post a body-count, they went with the safe “at least one.” Hey if there’s death, at least one poor dude must be dirt-nappin’… logical to me.

Goodnight.