31.7.08

One less than five, and one more than three

Gordon already posted this, but it's too good to pass up. It's Feist doing a variation of her ubiquitous song, "One Two Three Four", on Sesame Street, and it's pretty damn cool. Thanks, G.



It's a shame the iPod ad was way overplayed. It's kind of a double-edged sword, isn't it? She totally deserves the exposure, but that ad was simply overkill. However, it's still a great song. I love the big ending, particularly the horns. It makes me happy. So here it is; hopefully you haven't heard it in a while and it'll sound fresh again.

Feist > One Two Three Four

30.7.08

I'd beg for some forgiveness, but beggin's not my business

I ran into Squeeze's Up The Junction on accident. I bought this soundtrack for the movie, Brimstone & Treacle. I was a pretty big fan of the Police back then. The movie starred Sting as an unruly and sinister houseguest or some shit like that, and the soundtrack had a couple non-album Police tunes that I was after. I can't even listen to them much anymore, I think my girlf and I just played them to death. I didn't even bother with the reunion tour that surfaced last year. And besides, is there anyone who can stomach Sting these days? Whenever I see or hear of him these days, all I can do is roll my eyes. Wanker.

So, the lasting gem from that soundtrack turned out to be Up The Junction, by Squeeze. I think my favorite thing is how the song just tells the story straight through, no chorus or anything. The music is upbeat and very catchy, but the lyrics are sorta sad. My favorite line (which I used to title this post) is when he sings, "I'd beg for some forgiveness, but beggin's not my business." To me, it's like he knows it's fucked up and he'd like to make it better, but there's no point in trying because there really is no going back. All parties involved have moved on. It's a perfect pop song, to these ears.

Squeeze > Up The Junction

27.7.08

Your Latest Crush Post-Post-Hangover Post

Hey, here are my (downloadable) setlists from Friday night's edition of Your Latest Crush. Cheers again, to Aaron, Debbie and Stuart for having me, I had a blast. I didn't take any pics, I was actually kinda drunk.

1st Set

1. Puffy X Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra > Hazumu Rhythm
2. The B-52's > Private Idaho
3. Blondie > 11:59
4. Asobi Seksu > Mizu Asobi
5. GO!GO!7188 > Manatsu No Dance Hall
6. Gloria Jones > Tainted Love
7. Cinerama > 10 Denier
8. Halcali > Twinkle Star
9. Old 97's > Timebomb
10. Ted Leo/Pharmacists > Me and Mia
11. Kaela Kimura > Ground Control
12. The Ramones > Do You Wanna Dance?
13. The Clash > Gates of the West
14. Book of Love > Book of Love
15. Kahimi Karie > Candyman

>>download<<

2nd Set
16. Kaela Kimura > Happiness!!
17. Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings > I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
18. Lali Puna > Lowdown
19. Shonen Knife > Daydream Believer
20. GO!GO!7188 > Yuge
21. Skywave > Here She Comes
22. Lykke Li > I'm Good I'm Gone
23. Perfume > Puppy Love
24. Baby Bird > Goodnight
25. Halcali > Baby Blue (Baby Blue is Good Mix)
26. L.E.O. > Ya Had Me Goin
27. Shonen Knife > Boys
28. PUFFY > That's The Way It Is
29. Beulah > If We Can Land A Man On The Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart
30. Chocolat > Like A Starberry

>>download<<

22.7.08

You'll be on your knees tomorrow

I just thought of this the other day, for no real reason. I used to work with this guy, Joe E. He was (and probably still is) an abrasive guy. He meant well, it was just his tough guy exterior. So naturally, we argued about lots of things. It was fun to argue with him because he'd get really animated. One of the things we argued about was this; for some reason he believed Do It Again was performed by Santana. I have no idea why. I guess maybe musically, it sounds a little bit like something Santana would do, but I dunno. I mean, I kinda grew up with that song and I always knew it was Steely Dan. Plus, it was a fairly popular song, and I'd never heard anyone else get it confused with a Santana song.

This guy, Joe, wouldn't budge...even when I brought the album to work. When confronted with this, he said Steely Dan's version was a cover. Okay mister fucking smart guy...
Do It Again is on which Santana album? Of course, he didn't know. BUT, he was not wrong. Well, I got news for you, Joe E. (wherever you are); you were wrong then and you're wrong now, you crackhead. IN YOUR FACE!

Man, that was cathartic! I feel so much better now. I gotta do that more often.

Steely Dan > Do It Again

17.7.08

A million stars all light your name

I've recently been addicted to Kaela Kimura's Ground Control. Man, this song is insanely catchy, I love it. It sounds like it's mostly in English with bits in Japanese, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't know much about her besides what Wikipedia tosses up. Her dad is a Brit and her moms is Japanese, she has a few albums to her name (Scratch; Circle; and Kaela), and she's cute as hell. If anyone has the lowdown on her, please spill it. You can find this track on her Scratch album, which, by the way, I really like. I found a link to an English language site, if anyone wants to check it out. Looks like she recently released a new album!

Kaela Kimura > Ground Control

16.7.08

Hey, Mister DJ!

Just as an aside, Aaron, Debbie, and Stuart of Your Latest Crush have been kind enough to ask me to DJ in Stuart's absence. So I'll be doing a set there next week (Friday 25th July) and hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much. The whole thing runs from 9pm -2am at the House of Shields. I'd be there anyways, because it's a fun gig. Great music, cool peeps, and reasonably priced drinks. Should be fun, come by and say hello. Get the lowdown over at yourlatestcrush.com. The guy in the pic up there is the aforementioned Aaron, taken at last month's edition of YLC.

We Came Along This Road

So this is another vid I made. Again, the scenes are from Seven. This time, the music is We Came Along This Road, by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I love Seven, it's one of my favorite films, but I promise I'll use a different one next time.

13.7.08

Muxtape

Muxtape has been out for four or five months. A couple weeks ago, I was being held captive in my own apartment (building maintenance was painting both sides of my front door) and I finally got around to uploading a mix. You can upload up to twelve tracks at 24mb a piece, and it creates a streaming mix for you to send to your friends, lovers or SOs. Whomever.

If you're interested, you can find my mix here: http://robothero.muxtape.com/. Post yours, too!

12.7.08

Is it one too many times?

Recently, I've been playing around with this movie making software that came with this laptop and realized I could make my own music videos, or fan videos; whatever you like to call them.

The Lali Puna track, Past Machine, is one of my favorites on their I Thought I Was Over That album. The way it builds, I always thought it would make a cool musical companion to a movie chase scene, even though most chase scenes are a dime a dozen. The song begins, I don't know, blandly? Generically? Something like that. After a few bars, it starts to get frantic and there's an underlying sense of dread. The notes and textures create those feelings. The drums, especially the hi-hat and cymbal. The electronic flourishes, ticks and glitches. The way she sings, kinda robotic and emotionless but still melodic. It completely lends itself to cinema.


I'll go on record by saying Seven (or Se7en) is one of my all-time favorite movies. Utter perfection, in every way, including the chase scene. By the way, I'm going to talk about this assuming peeps have seen it, so beware of spoilers if you haven't and are planning to see it. The way it starts is innocent enough. Following a paper-thin lead, our two heroes, Mills and Somerset, knocking on John Doe's apartment door. The chase begins when John Doe walks up while carrying a bag of groceries and fires shots at Somerset and Mills, quickly turning the table on them. The whole thing ranges through the apartment building, veers through another resident's apartment, on a rooftop between buildings, back into the building, down a fire escape onto a busy street and comes to a climax in a back alley across the street.

There is a sequence within the whole chase that is just amazing to me. It starts when Mills climbs onto the fire escape ladder and slips. For a moment he is hanging by his fingertips, the camera looking down, the rain pouring down. Just that split second alone, is totally worth it, but there's more. The camera tracks John Doe, who is frantically trying to get across the street without the aid of a crosswalk. It's out of focus and bouncing around. Everything is dark and grey. It completely appeals to me and I love it.

The scene slows for a bit as both John Doe and Mills get across the street and into an alley. Mills, of course, is looking for Doe but Doe appears to be gone. The next bit is sort of vital to the movie. Doe actually stuck around in the alley, ambushes Mills and has a chance to kill him. He clocks Mills with a tire iron and holds a gun to Mills' head...and lets him live. And the film goes on.

For what I was doing, I wanted it to be ambiguous. Where you didn't know (if you had not seen the movie) whether Mills was gonna live or not. So I just had it fade at the scene where Mills is lying in the alley next to a garbage truck in the rain, and Doe is holding the gun to his head. You can see Mills mouth the word, "No", and then that's it. That's the kind of stuff I love, something that leaves you wondering what happened. Then, you fill in the blanks with your imagination.

Now, I'm not trying to say I did all this work and blah blah blah. I mean, really, all I did was cut up a few scenes from a movie and lay a song over it. Also, the edits are kinda lame. Some of them kinda jump a little, not smooth at all. So I'm not trying to take any kind of artistic credit at all. That all goes to director David Fincher and the band Lali Puna. This isn't me being a pretentious jackass (even if I usually am); I'm just a guy who loves music and movies, playing around with a laptop. That said, here it is. And there will be more videos in the future. This is kinda fun, even if I'm not good at it.


6.7.08

Oh, what can it mean?

How cute is this? I love Shonen Knife; they're so unassuming when they play live, they always do fun covers and they sing it like they mean it. Awesome.

4.7.08

It's one of those days

Happy 4th of July! Kick back, have a beer and listen to Adrian Belew's ode to barbecues and park outings. I think he even mentions apple pie in there. Mmm, apple pie.

Adrian Belew > One of Those Days

3.7.08

Track 2

Yeah, the new Puffy single, All Because of You, is not so hot. The B-side, however, is great! I love it! Unfortunately, I don't know the title, but it doesn't matter. This one is written by Tamio Okuda (as opposed to the A-side which was written and produced by Avril Lavigne and Butch Walker). I think this is the sort of song where they really shine. Unlike the overproduced faux rawk of All Because of You, this track is light, carefree and sorta jangly, with hooks for days. Their voices really stand out. Check it.

1.7.08

I Want To Believe

Back when the X-Files started out, I didn't watch much television. I think I used to go drinking and shooting pool with my friends more than anything. I would see the occasional ad for the X-Files, but never really paid attention, thinking it was some over-sensationalized tabloid style show like the ones that were popular at the time.

I started going out with a girl who was totally hooked on the X-Files, which, of course, meant that I would be watching it as well. I remember being sort of reluctant at first, but that quickly changed. I think my initial introduction was somewhere in the middle of the second season. I was seriously surprised; apart from The Simpsons, I didn't think there was much television worth watching back then. Not that I was a snob or whatever, I just preferred to go out or play hockey.

In any case, I quickly developed an addiction and we'd both stay in on Fridays, waiting for Mulder and Scully's next adventure. What fascinated me the most was the show's similarity to another show that was a childhood favorite, The Night Stalker. Take The Night Stalker and throw in a healthy serving of government conspiracy and you've got the X-Files. I was quite pleased when I saw an interview where Chris Carter mentioned that The Night Stalker was a big influence on the X-Files. Darrin McGavin, who played Carl Kolchak in The Night Stalker, even showed up in a few episodes as Arthur Dales, the FBI agent who created the X-Files way back in the 50s. How fucking cool is that?

So the point of this post is, there is a new X-Files movie, I Want To Believe, coming next month, and I'm totally excited. Seriously, I don't care if someone says it's gonna be awful or whatever. They could show 2 hours of Scully doing her laundry with a washing board in front of a log cabin, and I'd still be all over it. Anybody wanna come with?

I recently have busted out my copy of a soundtrack album called, The Truth and The Light, by Mark Snow. It consists of music from the television show, which is not exactly a huge deal. The music is good and fits the show well. The cool thing about this album is that there's a lot of incidental dialog which, when coupled with the music, gets straight up creepy at times. Like this track, where Duane Barry screams out, "THEY DRILLED HOLES IN MY DAMN TEETH!" If you haven't seen this episode, well, context is everything.

Who is coming to the movie with me?

Mark Snow > Raptus (from The Truth and The Light: Music from The X-Files)