It's been about a week since I last posted anything; this is mostly because I'm now in the home stretch of an 8-day-straight run at work. My vacation next week is going to be rad-- at least, it will be if getting there doesn't kill me. Grocery retail is a harsh mistress-- inevitably, any vacation is prefaced by being scheduled at least seven days in a row with no time off. Throw in my 2-10, 9-5, 5-1:30, 2-10, 9-5 schedule (those back-to-back close-open shifts are what we in the supermarket business like to call "the silent killer") and I guarantee, you'll be half-dead by the time you actually get your time off. I usually spend the first day in bed.
Speaking of work, I had my six-year anniversary last Friday. "Are you celebrating with champagne?" asked one of my coworkers, only half-joking-- this particular chain of grocery stores is know for, among other things, a measure of employee loyalty that borders on cultish behavior-- to which I snorted and replied, "I'm actually thinking about buying a fifth of cheap vodka and drinking myself into an early grave." Okay, my job isn't that bad, but looking around and realizing that you've spent the last six years of your life basically stuck in Nine Inch Nails' "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" is certainly a downer.
In other news, Twilight mania has hit again, this time due to the DVD release of the movie. One of my friends went to Walmart at midnight last Saturday when it came out, just for LOLs, and said she couldn't believe how many people were there. I've been playing around with the idea of writing my own vampire novel for a while, ever since I realized how much money $tephenie Meyer is making off her own "Ann Rice LITE" series, and now I've gone as far as actually starting my own. Granted, I'm still sort of just playing with ideas-- I've only got 5 pages so far-- but if it amounts to anything, I'm considering putting it up on the ol' blog in installations. Of course, I'm planning on having actual sex, violence, and gore in mine, and my vampires will not sparkle.
Oh, and there will not be any creepy half-human, half-vampire children running around. *Cough* I mean, not unless they are demonic and bent on total destruction.
All right, well, I've run out of shit to talk about, so I'd better tag this mofo and get on with my day. Big day 7 of 8 today-- I'm leaning heavily on Josh Freese's "I Don't Think That's OK" and Weep's cover of "Shut Up and Drive" in order to get through the day without murdering and pillaging.
26 March, 2009
19 March, 2009
"Wait, I wasted 3 hours of my life on THIS?!"
K and I went to see Watchmen, Zack Snyder's adaptation of the popular comic books, on Tuesday night, because she was excited about it and I was willing to go despite the hashing that the film's been getting from all the critics. After all, we have this great moviehouse (I'm calling it a "moviehouse" because it feels very quirky and '30s of me to do so) downtown where you can see first-run films for only $3.50 ($2.50 for matinees), and also, I figured that since Snyder is also responsible for 300, it would at least be a great-looking movie: Worst case scenario, I could sit and zone out to bright colors and stunning cinematography for three hours.
Dude, I was so wrong. Watchmen is a huge, lumbering mess of a movie, a leviathant whose flashy, big-budget special effects can't reconcile themselves to the BIG, DEEP, MEANINGFUL THEMES portrayed in the comic; in fact, the two often seem at blatant odds with each other. Plus, there's simply too much of everything in this film for any of it to have an impact.
Watchmen takes place in the year 1985, only it's an alternate 1985 in which Richard Nixon has just been elected to his third term and the US and USSR are perilously close to all-out nuclear war. The whole shebang is narrated by Rorshach, who's a superhero of your "I'm crazy, and that's what makes me super!" variety, a raspy-voiced, sweat-sock masked, conservative-minded vigilante whose "journal" is filled with dead dogs in gutters, lamentations on humanity's filthy and unworthiness, et al. He's also bitter as hell that he's the only one still keeping up with the superhero thing; it turns out that Rorshach was part of a group called Watchmen, a coalition of heroes dedicated to keeping the world from going entirely batshit. Now, somebody's launched a plot to take out the remaining members of this coalition.
And that's really about all I got out of the plot, per se: This movie is so jam-packed with plots and subplots and backstories and commentary on current politics, that it's hard to see the main plot, let alone figure out who the characters really are or care about them, for that matter. It's epic but not meaningful, splashy but without real impact, and comes across as being jumbled and disjointed. Case in point? The film's score utilizes songs from Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Simon & Garfunkel, which I'm sure is supposed to "mean" something but mostly just makes you wonder: Do Hendrix and Dylan actually exist in this parallel world, or are we breaking the fourth wall, here?
Also-- if you're offended by repeated full-frontal shots of nuclear, possibly cancer-causing blue dick, definitely don't bother seeing this movie.
L-Scale Grade (out of a possble 5 Ls): L 1/2
Dude, I was so wrong. Watchmen is a huge, lumbering mess of a movie, a leviathant whose flashy, big-budget special effects can't reconcile themselves to the BIG, DEEP, MEANINGFUL THEMES portrayed in the comic; in fact, the two often seem at blatant odds with each other. Plus, there's simply too much of everything in this film for any of it to have an impact.
Watchmen takes place in the year 1985, only it's an alternate 1985 in which Richard Nixon has just been elected to his third term and the US and USSR are perilously close to all-out nuclear war. The whole shebang is narrated by Rorshach, who's a superhero of your "I'm crazy, and that's what makes me super!" variety, a raspy-voiced, sweat-sock masked, conservative-minded vigilante whose "journal" is filled with dead dogs in gutters, lamentations on humanity's filthy and unworthiness, et al. He's also bitter as hell that he's the only one still keeping up with the superhero thing; it turns out that Rorshach was part of a group called Watchmen, a coalition of heroes dedicated to keeping the world from going entirely batshit. Now, somebody's launched a plot to take out the remaining members of this coalition.
And that's really about all I got out of the plot, per se: This movie is so jam-packed with plots and subplots and backstories and commentary on current politics, that it's hard to see the main plot, let alone figure out who the characters really are or care about them, for that matter. It's epic but not meaningful, splashy but without real impact, and comes across as being jumbled and disjointed. Case in point? The film's score utilizes songs from Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Simon & Garfunkel, which I'm sure is supposed to "mean" something but mostly just makes you wonder: Do Hendrix and Dylan actually exist in this parallel world, or are we breaking the fourth wall, here?
Also-- if you're offended by repeated full-frontal shots of nuclear, possibly cancer-causing blue dick, definitely don't bother seeing this movie.
L-Scale Grade (out of a possble 5 Ls): L 1/2
12 March, 2009
The New Regime, "Coup"
Confession time: I didn't actually have high-speed internet until last June, so I was a bit late in getting into the whole downloading music thing. Once I got into, though, I never got out: Probably half my iTunes library consists of songs that I've downloaded from the internet, and the last time I actually bought a physical CD was when NIN's The Slip came out in May of last year.
I was reminded last night, during a trip to the mall, why it is that I download instead of buying physical CDs: A, there's a nearly-infinite selection of music available for download via retailers like Amazon, and B, downloading an album is usually about $3-$5 cheaper than buying the same album from a brick-and-mortar store. FYE, the store in which I was browsing, had a very limited selection, and the average price of a CD was $15.99. Ouch! It's no wonder that the big labels are hurting!
And wow, that introduction turned out to be a lot longer than I had originally intended. You're probably looking at the title of this right now and going, WTF? Is this a review or another long-winded rant about the decline of the music industry, which has already been done to death by smarter people than you? No, really, this is supposed to be a review. That long-ass intro was supposed to be a short paragraph saying how my preference for downloading music rather than buying it has led me to discover artists who offer digital releases of their albums but not neccessarily physical copies of them, such as New Regime (I hate Myspace, but this is the only website for the group), Ilan Rubin's project, who just released his debut album, Coup, via iTunes and Amazon.
Rubin, a 20-year-old drummer from LA who has worked with Lostprophets and is currently the touring drummer for Nine Inch Nails (you just knew this would circle back there somehow, didn't you?), wrote all the songs and recorded all the vocals and instrumentation for Coup himself, during Lostprophets' hiatus-- no small feat, considering that the album features a dizzying array of different styles and influences.
Clearly informed by artists like Queen and the Beatles, Coup is a diverse, ambitious effort. Opening track "The Collapse" begins with a piano-and-drum stomp that quickly leads into a "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style lamentation on "what you've become", while a few tracks later, "Haunt My Mind" employs some nifty electronics and a spare piano line in its intro. "The Credit 'We' Deserve" is an airy, acoustic-guitar-driven jaunt that features Rubin harmonizing with himself (yeah!) and a well-crafted, Beatles-esque melody.
Sometimes Rubin gets a little too ambitious-- too many tracks follow the same formula of "quiet intro, then explode into rock god bombast, fuck yeah!"-- and his singing is a little dodgy, especially when he's trying to channel Muse frontman Matt Bellamy (who, if you ask me, usually vacillates between channeling Freddie Mercury and Thom Yorke, so I don't know what that means), but these problems are easy to overlook. A more noticeable flaw in Coup is its overwrought lyrics, but after all, Rubin is only 20 FREAKIN' YEARS OLD, so "melodramatic" is the name of his game.
Overall, however, Coup is a solid effort from a talented up-and-comer which anyone who enjoys Queen and/or Muse should check out.
I was reminded last night, during a trip to the mall, why it is that I download instead of buying physical CDs: A, there's a nearly-infinite selection of music available for download via retailers like Amazon, and B, downloading an album is usually about $3-$5 cheaper than buying the same album from a brick-and-mortar store. FYE, the store in which I was browsing, had a very limited selection, and the average price of a CD was $15.99. Ouch! It's no wonder that the big labels are hurting!
And wow, that introduction turned out to be a lot longer than I had originally intended. You're probably looking at the title of this right now and going, WTF? Is this a review or another long-winded rant about the decline of the music industry, which has already been done to death by smarter people than you? No, really, this is supposed to be a review. That long-ass intro was supposed to be a short paragraph saying how my preference for downloading music rather than buying it has led me to discover artists who offer digital releases of their albums but not neccessarily physical copies of them, such as New Regime (I hate Myspace, but this is the only website for the group), Ilan Rubin's project, who just released his debut album, Coup, via iTunes and Amazon.
Rubin, a 20-year-old drummer from LA who has worked with Lostprophets and is currently the touring drummer for Nine Inch Nails (you just knew this would circle back there somehow, didn't you?), wrote all the songs and recorded all the vocals and instrumentation for Coup himself, during Lostprophets' hiatus-- no small feat, considering that the album features a dizzying array of different styles and influences.
Clearly informed by artists like Queen and the Beatles, Coup is a diverse, ambitious effort. Opening track "The Collapse" begins with a piano-and-drum stomp that quickly leads into a "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style lamentation on "what you've become", while a few tracks later, "Haunt My Mind" employs some nifty electronics and a spare piano line in its intro. "The Credit 'We' Deserve" is an airy, acoustic-guitar-driven jaunt that features Rubin harmonizing with himself (yeah!) and a well-crafted, Beatles-esque melody.
Sometimes Rubin gets a little too ambitious-- too many tracks follow the same formula of "quiet intro, then explode into rock god bombast, fuck yeah!"-- and his singing is a little dodgy, especially when he's trying to channel Muse frontman Matt Bellamy (who, if you ask me, usually vacillates between channeling Freddie Mercury and Thom Yorke, so I don't know what that means), but these problems are easy to overlook. A more noticeable flaw in Coup is its overwrought lyrics, but after all, Rubin is only 20 FREAKIN' YEARS OLD, so "melodramatic" is the name of his game.
Overall, however, Coup is a solid effort from a talented up-and-comer which anyone who enjoys Queen and/or Muse should check out.
Essential tracks: "All These Changes", "The Credit 'We' Deserve", "Haunt My Mind"
Rating: LLLL (out of a possible five Ls)
09 March, 2009
Bromance ahoy!
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor sure knows how to keep the fans connected: Not only did Reznor launch a redesigned nin.com back in August 2008-- complete with discussion forums, chatrooms, member profiles, and a remix section-- but he also signed up with social-networking site Twitter and has been putting out videos from the band's recent Australian tour. The videos, shot by the group's art director, Rob Sheridan, from onstage with the band, are a brilliant way to capture the intensity and energy of a NIN show, especially the last of the series: a performance of the classic "Wish", with guests Dillinger Escape Plan.
DEP covered the song for their 2006 EP Plagiarism (along with Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You"-- fun trivia fact), and the two bands met up in Sydney, prompting an, uh, enamored Reznor to post in his Twitter account: "Inter-band NIN/Dillinger Escape Plan Sydney Harbour Bridge climb bromance last night. Actually quite fun!" Oh, that TR, ever the romantic. (Uh, BROmantic?)
By the way, I am going to use the term "bromance" as many times as possible in this blog, because hey, it's just fun to say.
Anway, bromance or not, it's a great performance. Not only can you practically see the testosterone emanating in great big waves from the stage, but in the last 45 or 30 seconds of the video, you can witness Reznor (who, by the way, is fast approaching the age of 44) take a really impressive dive into a drum kit. You have to give the guy props for that: I'm only 24, and I'm not sure I could get back up that quickly after tangling with a bass drum. Watch:
Other things I love about this video?
Anyway, you can view the rest of Sheridan's video from Down Under, or have a look at this one in true HD, at NIN's official website.
Nine Inch Nails will be touring North America this spring and early summer with co-headliners Jane's Addiction; tourdates and ticket sales info can also be found at www.nin.com. Catch them if you can, because it's sure to be an explosive show-- plus, Reznor has said that after this tour, he's "making NIN go away for a while".
And just because I can and because I think it's funny. . . .
DEP covered the song for their 2006 EP Plagiarism (along with Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You"-- fun trivia fact), and the two bands met up in Sydney, prompting an, uh, enamored Reznor to post in his Twitter account: "Inter-band NIN/Dillinger Escape Plan Sydney Harbour Bridge climb bromance last night. Actually quite fun!" Oh, that TR, ever the romantic. (Uh, BROmantic?)
By the way, I am going to use the term "bromance" as many times as possible in this blog, because hey, it's just fun to say.
Anway, bromance or not, it's a great performance. Not only can you practically see the testosterone emanating in great big waves from the stage, but in the last 45 or 30 seconds of the video, you can witness Reznor (who, by the way, is fast approaching the age of 44) take a really impressive dive into a drum kit. You have to give the guy props for that: I'm only 24, and I'm not sure I could get back up that quickly after tangling with a bass drum. Watch:
Other things I love about this video?
- The reaction from Ilan Rubin, NIN's 20-year-old drummer, who seems to be unsure as to whether he should be more concerned about his boss or his bass drum;
- The fact that Sheridan hasn't taken an elbow, guitar, or fist to the face yet, given that there are so many angry, muscular, black-clad rock guys onstage;
- That DEP frontman Greg Puciato and TR could be twins (awww, matching black t-shirts!);
- TR's introduction of DEP as a "poor man's Coldplay".
Anyway, you can view the rest of Sheridan's video from Down Under, or have a look at this one in true HD, at NIN's official website.
Nine Inch Nails will be touring North America this spring and early summer with co-headliners Jane's Addiction; tourdates and ticket sales info can also be found at www.nin.com. Catch them if you can, because it's sure to be an explosive show-- plus, Reznor has said that after this tour, he's "making NIN go away for a while".
And just because I can and because I think it's funny. . . .
01 March, 2009
Woohoo, first official IDLWTIG music review!
Dear Lord help me; I'm listening to Britney Spears and actually sort of liking it. A friend of mine made me a copy of her latest album after I brought up a news story about la Brit sharing rehearsal space with NIN, and I must say, I am eternally grateful to her. Don't get me wrong; pop is still pop, and la Brit's little-girl voice gets grating at times. However, with Circus, Spears seems to be out to prove that she's not just the next has-been psych-ward case, and she's lined up a set of expertly-crafted, adventurous club bangers to accomplish that feat.
The album kicks off with the one-two punch of “Womanizer” and “Circus”, two dancey, single-worthy tracks which provide a jarring contrast to “Out From Under”, a Max Martin-penned ballad that could hold its own in a grudge match against any pop song currently on the radio (and which would actually demolish the latest entries from Beyonce and the Killers, if you ask me). “Kill the Lights” is yet another “Brit vs. the paparazzi” journal entry, albeit one that documents the battle with bitchy tongue-in-cheek humor and impeccable beats, while “Unusual You” seems to channel Depeche Mode, with its blippy synths and keyboard line. “Blur”, produced by Timbaland acolyte Danja, is a woozy account of the morning after-- a subject on which la Brit is undoubtedly an expert.
There are two or three duds-- notably, “Mmm Papi”, which is just creepy, and “My Baby”, whose melody and lyrics are so cloying and trite that you'll probably end up with tooth-decay after too many listens-- and the last third of the album is fairly forgettable, save for “Leather and Lace”, which is a fun romp through every musical style of the 80s; however, Circus is plainly the work of a pop goddess who is finally back at the top of her game.
Essential tracks: “Unusual You”, “Circus”, “Kill the Lights”
Rating: LLLL (out of a possible five Ls)
27 February, 2009
"Why the hell are you listening to John Mayer?"
My sister actually asked me this question soon after I woke her up this morning; my response was something along the lines of "I realize I woke you up at the ungodly hour of ten a.m., but that doesn't give you the right to invoke that name in my house!"
I should mention that there are a few music artists whose names you don't mention unless you want to see me go from Normal Bitch Mode to Super Hella Flaming Bitch in about .008 seconds: John Mayer is one; Bono is another. And actually, those two are pretty much it; pretty much anyone else is at least up for discussion
But I digress. The point is, I was not (nor would I ever be caught dead) listening to John Mayer. I was, in fact, listening to Yoav, an Israeli-South American musician who-- get this-- makes acoustic electronica. Seriously. Every sound in his songs is either vocals or produced by a guitar. It's very cool stuff . . . not to mention, the closest I will be venturing to pretentious hipster coffee-house music. Anyway, his album Charmed and Strange is available on both iTunes and Amazon, plus he does have a Myspace page, so you should check out his stuff (especially "Adore Adore" and "There Is No One") if you get the chance. He entered my radar after Modwheelmood remixed a couple of songs (though I still haven't managed to locater those tracks) and I finally decided to download him after somebody on Echoing The Sound linked to a video for "Club Thing".
Anyway, again, some cool music for you to check out. I probably won't put up anymore blogs this week, since I work all weekend and will be occupied with completing my sister's move into my place as well. So-- Have a good weekend, everybody!
I should mention that there are a few music artists whose names you don't mention unless you want to see me go from Normal Bitch Mode to Super Hella Flaming Bitch in about .008 seconds: John Mayer is one; Bono is another. And actually, those two are pretty much it; pretty much anyone else is at least up for discussion
But I digress. The point is, I was not (nor would I ever be caught dead) listening to John Mayer. I was, in fact, listening to Yoav, an Israeli-South American musician who-- get this-- makes acoustic electronica. Seriously. Every sound in his songs is either vocals or produced by a guitar. It's very cool stuff . . . not to mention, the closest I will be venturing to pretentious hipster coffee-house music. Anyway, his album Charmed and Strange is available on both iTunes and Amazon, plus he does have a Myspace page, so you should check out his stuff (especially "Adore Adore" and "There Is No One") if you get the chance. He entered my radar after Modwheelmood remixed a couple of songs (though I still haven't managed to locater those tracks) and I finally decided to download him after somebody on Echoing The Sound linked to a video for "Club Thing".
Anyway, again, some cool music for you to check out. I probably won't put up anymore blogs this week, since I work all weekend and will be occupied with completing my sister's move into my place as well. So-- Have a good weekend, everybody!
26 February, 2009
Okay, it's time to stop making shitty covers of "Enjoy The Silence"
I'm sick today so instead of cleaning my house (which is what I should be doing), I find myself parked in front of the computer with a box of tissues, a bag of cough drops, and a bottle of water, trolling YouTube for videos. I started out looking for Depeche Mode's creepy video for their new single, "Wrong"-- which has, by the way, been irrevocably lodged in my brain for the past two days-- and ended up searching for videos of "Enjoy The Silence". I still haven't found the original video, but I did find plenty of covers. Bad covers.
Seriously, what is it about this song that makes shitty goth bands want to record their own horrible remakes of it? Isn't that what karaoke is for? I mean, sure, I love NIN's "Discipline", but you won't find me in a studio, recording my own "re-interpretation" of it, and why? Because 1) it's unnecessary, as I could never hope to capture the brilliance of the original, and 2) I'm pretty sure TR would hunt me down and threaten to rip my cunt off if I tried to. (Though maybe not, since Maroon 5 still hasn't been punished for their "acoustic" performance of "Closer".)
Perhaps it's the lack of consequences that makes crappy bands so bold about putting their inane takes on "Enjoy the Silence" out there-- after all, when was the last time you ever heard Martin Gore threaten to rip somebody's cunt off? At any rate, the crappy covers are out in full force. Behold, the guilty:
Of all of these, I think I'm most offended by Keane's version, since they've managed to water down a great song and make it into what is essentially mall muzak. Of course, it's my opinion that both Keane and the Fray should be put onto a space shuttle and blasted into orbit around Jupiter, but I think their cover actually justifies that sentiment.
By the way, I did finally find the video for "Wrong", but not on YouTube. Here's a link if you want to see it; with its use of the rewind-narrative and multiple car crashes, the creepy clip reminds me slightly of NIN's video for "Deep"-- except better and without a stupid plot that attempts to tie-in with a movie, TR's dubious acting "skills" ("I'mma make a withdrawal!"), and inexplicable green goo.
Also, if you're looking for a really good Depeche Mode remake, Modwheelmood covered "Home" at a gig in 2006, and I know there's a soundboard recording of it floating around on YouTube somewhere.
I'm going to go take more cold medicine now, so this will be all for today!
Seriously, what is it about this song that makes shitty goth bands want to record their own horrible remakes of it? Isn't that what karaoke is for? I mean, sure, I love NIN's "Discipline", but you won't find me in a studio, recording my own "re-interpretation" of it, and why? Because 1) it's unnecessary, as I could never hope to capture the brilliance of the original, and 2) I'm pretty sure TR would hunt me down and threaten to rip my cunt off if I tried to. (Though maybe not, since Maroon 5 still hasn't been punished for their "acoustic" performance of "Closer".)
Perhaps it's the lack of consequences that makes crappy bands so bold about putting their inane takes on "Enjoy the Silence" out there-- after all, when was the last time you ever heard Martin Gore threaten to rip somebody's cunt off? At any rate, the crappy covers are out in full force. Behold, the guilty:
- BREAKING BENJAMIN is responsible for this atrocity; keep in mind that this group has a history of ruining great songs (Tool's "Sober" and NIN's "Hurt") and therefore deserve no mercy.
- Euro cheese-metal outfit LACUNA COIL covered the song for their 2006 album Karmacode. The fact that Cristina Scabbia is totally hot still doesn't excuse how cheesy and ridiculous their version is.
- As if I didn't already hate HIM enough, they offer THIS version of the song. The accompanying fan-made slide-show doesn't make me like it any more. As a matter of fact, I managed to listen through all the way to the other two covers (to make sure they entirely sucked, of course) but only made it through til the 1:35 mark on this one.
- At this point, you might be asking yourself, "So, how would one go about stripping a song like 'Enjoy the Silence' of all its inherent sexiness and making it suitable for play in, oh, elevators and supermarkets?" The answer to that would be to let KEANE (aka, the British precursors to The Fray) loose with a tambourine and keyboard.
- IT DIES TODAY (the name and the lead singer's Danzig hair both scream OMG WE'RE SO GOFFIK!, but they're actually just more cheap pseudo-metal) offer their take on the classic. As the band name would suggest, yes, it sucks.
Of all of these, I think I'm most offended by Keane's version, since they've managed to water down a great song and make it into what is essentially mall muzak. Of course, it's my opinion that both Keane and the Fray should be put onto a space shuttle and blasted into orbit around Jupiter, but I think their cover actually justifies that sentiment.
By the way, I did finally find the video for "Wrong", but not on YouTube. Here's a link if you want to see it; with its use of the rewind-narrative and multiple car crashes, the creepy clip reminds me slightly of NIN's video for "Deep"-- except better and without a stupid plot that attempts to tie-in with a movie, TR's dubious acting "skills" ("I'mma make a withdrawal!"), and inexplicable green goo.
Also, if you're looking for a really good Depeche Mode remake, Modwheelmood covered "Home" at a gig in 2006, and I know there's a soundboard recording of it floating around on YouTube somewhere.
I'm going to go take more cold medicine now, so this will be all for today!
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