Music and life. But I repeat myself.

IDK, My BFF TVOTR?

2008-12-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

If I could be a fly on the wall at any period in musical history, I would like to have sat through the production process of TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain. I don't know exactly went on in the studio, but I imagine an average conversation between the band members went something like this.

Tunde: Ooh-ooh oooh Bluesy yell-singing!

Kyp: Catchy Guitar Riff!

David: WAUGGHHHHHERRRRGGGGGGG beep

Yes, David Andrew Sitek. You ARE a robot. No sense in denying it any longer.

Fl33t F0x3s

2008-08-12T22:25:00.006-04:00

In an effort to continue my late new-years resolution of “steal less music”, I bought Fleet Foxes' album to see what the hype was about. It didn't exactly blow me away on first listen, but it was interesting enough for me to make it the whole way through , and I can kind of foresee the possibility that it might grow on me in time. I just can't shake the feeling that Fleet Foxes are re-inventing the wheel: They're effectively retrofitting their sound, creating a tasty mix of Imitation Old Music^TM for hungry hungry hipsters. Hell, even the CD packaging is designed as a miniaturized version of an old vinyl sleeve. Not that the sound itself is bad, but I wonder if the popularization of FF will actually give their fans greater appreciation for the older bands that they're deriving from. Sure, maybe your average Pitchfork reader has HEARD OF Crosby, Stills, & Nash, but there's a difference between actually knowing the band and just mentioning them in a Fleet Foxes discussion in order to sound informed.

Strung Out on String Quartet Tributes

2008-08-09T12:09:00.004-04:00

String quartet tribute albums are like Communism: They seem like a great idea in theory, but when you actually listen to one, you realize that there's no worthwhile selling point to it other than the novelty of, "Hey, I'm listening to a rock song played in the classical style! Isn't that cool and different?" For the first few minutes, yes. Then, after the initial excitement has worn off, it becomes apparent that that the new acoustic arrangement of your favorite Chili Peppers song isn't all that interesting. Dude, where's my dynamics?

Not that there aren't a few good SQ tributes, like Turtle Island's rendition of "Crossroads". That was brilliant. But Vitamin String Quartet's cover album of OK Computer is another story. After all, there's already enough OKC tributes to qualify for zombie-army proportions. It's an album that so many artists of the late 90's tried to grab onto the coattails of, so there's no reason why it should be spared the rock baroqueification treatment as well.

It's a one-note gimmick. You're listening to a rock or pop song played on strings for the sheer sake of hearing it that way. There's nothing musically interesting added by the four-piece acoustic layout, and the limited availability of sounds puts serious constraints on the song's depth. Unless you're content with the sole payoff of feeling sophisticated by your own right, any string tribute album tends to be far from satisfying. Vivaldi wouldn't have written "Airbag" for the strings, and neither should you.

Clancy Does Gilliam

2008-08-05T21:17:00.004-04:00

Splinter Cell is probably one of my heavier indulgences when it comes to games. After I got Chaos Theory late last week, I broke my nearly one-year sobriety streak from the world of electronic entertainment and shamelessly started my pretend spy career once again. However, there was one extra touch to the game that I didn't expect: a reference to Terry Gilliam's 1985 film, Brazil.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Splinter Cell largely focuses on stealth, that is, sneaking around, creeping up on enemies, hiding, the works. It's a form of make-believe voyeurism that's even more fun than stalking Facebook profiles. So, in one mission that involves shutting down a ventilation system, the spy mentions to one of the terrified guards he's interrogating, "Just pretend I'm Harry Tuttle (De Niro's character in the film)." Following that is a little exchange about heating engineers and ducts that's an obvious homage to Brazil. It's funny though, I wouldn't have expected a Tom Clancy game to reference Gilliam's absurdist dystopia. Thanks, Ubisoft!

Review: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

2008-08-03T18:14:00.005-04:00

The Mummy III: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy movies have always had a special place in my heart, from when the awakening of Imhotep scared the 10 year old daylights out of me, to when The Rock took on the form of a ridiculously awesome half-man, half scorpion CG monster. So, as one who is loyal to my franchise action-flicks, I made a special point to see the third installment in the series, even when my friends, who were still riding in the overwhelming wake that The Dark Knight left, refused to go.

So yeah, Stephen Sommers is no longer directing, but that doesn't serve as a major detractor from the film's enjoyment in relation to its predecessors. The mix of limb-ripping undead action sequences and goofball humor still remains, with actors John Hannah and Brendan Fraser pulling more than enough weight to compensate for the character that now-grown up Alex (Luke Ford) falls short of. Yes, there's the obvious red flag that Maria Bello is now playing Evy instead of Rachel Weisz, but really, it's not incredibly hard to ignore. The British accent and quirky bookwormish charm are still there and believable, and given the technology available today, a digitally face-replaced edition of the film for die-hard fans shouldn't be that far away.

The ancient legend that sets the stage for Tomb is like cultural Pringles – the real historical ingredients, such as the Great Wall, terra cotta soldiers, and oracle bones are all ground up into a paste and then reconstituted into an all-encompassing smorgasbord of “Chinese stuff” that adheres to a solid formula. The manner in which the unfortunate O'Connols once again find themselves at the will of the undead is executed a bit more intricately in this one. After all, now that Frasier is living the life of an aristocrat and Bello is trying to be Nora Roberts, how exactly does this quaint lifestyle become disrupted to the point where flying to Shanghai becomes a necessity?

The answer, my friends, is the lack of a good museum to trash in London. By this point in the series, the weary old British Museum has been pretty much exhausted of all it's artifactual intrigue, and the O'Connols must now fly to the east to deliver an artifact to the Shanghai museum, in a locale where brother Jonathan (John Hannah) just happens to own a nightclub, and where disdainful, out-of-touch son Alex just happens to be excavating the emperor and his kiln-fired entourage. Add in some family drama and some betrayal on the part of a crooked professor and you've got your rising action. Party time!

Since the action is now out of Africa, so to speak, the former supporting characters of Egyptian descent have been outsourced and replaced with those of Asian descent. Jet Li takes after former Mummy antagonist Arnold Vosloo by playing pretty much the same role - a self-centered figure of power that spends most of his time onscreen decomposing. Oded Fehr's grimness in the role of Arded Fey is replaced by the deadly daintiness of Isabella Leong. It's a good (and necessary) rotation of the franchise's stock characters, but for the whole, the Chinese actors in Tomb are just playing the same traits that Asians are known best for in Hollywood action flicks: martial arts, mysticism, talking in metaphors, and being really serious.

Still, though, the action remains satisfying, with the exception of a few combat scenes in the Himalayas in which the overwhelming confetti of CG snow becomes more of a visual hindrance than an aesthetic enhancement. The abominable snowman makes his first notable appearance since Rudolph, and the emperor himself gets an updated skill set, one perk of which allows him to transform into animals. In one scene, he's a hydra, in another, he's a big cat whose appearance is almost too Maurice Sendak-esque to be threatening. Perhaps best of all is the 'good' zombie army that is summoned to fight the clay soldiers, a crowd-pleasing touch that features lots of the undead physical comedy just slightly reminiscent of Army of Darkness.

Tomb is not completely lost in the shadow of the two films that came before it, but it's differences are nonetheless noticeable. The pace of action from one set of ruins to another is uneven, with parts that are rushed or otherwise resolve too quickly. Also, both Mummy movies II and III both feature a near-identical part of the story where a protagonist is killed mid-film and then promptly resurrected, a minor cliché previously unknown outside of Dragonball Z episodes. Do these flaws completely derail the movie? No, but they do show us a lack of luster that wasn't there when Sommers directed. In a way, Bello's replacement of Weisz for the character of Evy can be seen as analogous to the film as a whole: a tolerable substitute, but with obvious differences.

Modern Guilt

2008-07-06T12:41:00.000-04:00

Beck's new album comes out tomorrow.

This is a cause for celebration.

Albums I've been diggin' this month

2008-06-29T22:37:00.007-04:00

1. Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
2. The Slip, Ghosts I-IV and Year Zero - Nine Inch Nails
3 D-Sides - Gorillaz
4. Third - Portishead.
5. Mirrored - Battles
6. Aja and Alive In America - Steely Dan
7. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
8. Return To Cookie Mountain - TV on the Radio
9. Yesterday was Dramatic, Today is OK - Mum
10. Drum's Not Dead - Liars

It's good when the good new music you find happens to fit the season. I'm glad I had my massive Radiohead binge during the winter this year, because the somber mood that dominates their work tends to be more suited to the colder months. Now I've got a new arsenal of tunes that, for the most part, makes for a consistent "summery" sound.

Major Chords? In MY Radiohead?

2008-06-07T22:43:00.002-04:00

Copied from AtEaseWeb:

"As reported in our live updates last night, Thom Yorke played a new song in Radiohead’s second encore of their show in Dublin.

At Malahide Castle, Thom played the piano in a song that hasn’t been played before. It’s unsure if this is the new song the band have been working on in previous soundchecks. A video of the performance has turned up. And for now the song is titled ‘Super Collider’ until we hear otherwise. Enjoy!"

I hope to god that this is some kind of practical joke. Maybe Thom just lost a bet and has to play this birth defect of a song as a result. This is not Radiohead at its finest, nor is it the sound Thom is meant to have. And I normally like his piano ballads too. Videotape is wonderful, but this, this is just blarg.

Coincidentally, Fountains of Wayne also has a song called Supercollider, and it's infinitely better. Maybe it's because FoW actually STICKS TO THEIR ORIGINAL SOUND and doesn't try to mess it up with this shitty, "Clocks"-esque halfassery.

Facebook Novelists, Pt. 2

2008-05-27T14:26:00.004-04:00

This could possibly be the best book cover ever:

If you can't succeed at being a writer, you can always whore yourself out on facebook

2008-05-26T16:57:00.004-04:00

I feel a bit foolish, really, thinking that FaceBook could be relied upon for things such as creative writing support and feedback. When I first stumbled upon the facebook group for "Aspiring Novelists", I was excited, it seemed like a decent place to connect with others who were genuinely committed to that particular subcategory of starving-artisthood. Now, however, I realize that it's just a place for people to sell their pathetic Vanity Press creations, complete with poorly Photoshopped covers. I would post the pictures here, but at the same time, I fear the wrath that the mighty Creative Commons License might bring down upon me, and besides, why would I want to mock such esteemed works of literature like Kim Gilmour's "Drive To Nowhere" anyway?

Because it's fucking ridiculous.

Looking for a read that doesn’t involve boring goblins and magic potions?

In Drive to Nowhere, a group of teenage schoolgirls are on a geology excursion to the Warrumbungle National Park in rural Australia when things start getting weird. They seem to be driving in circles; their coach hits a kangaroo and there is general oddness from the freaky, hypnotic coach driver.

Can feisty 15-year-old Eeare, the daughter of a world famous rock star, find out what’s going on?

Drive To Nowhere by Kim Gilmour is all about a daughter of a rock star and her friends; some terrible teachers; a day that just won’t end and the world of media mayhem surrounding us all...

Yes, I shit you not. I urge you to explore the rest of the website, which, in addition to hilarious tidbits about the novel, contains some of the best MS Paint art I've ever seen.

Oh well. Maybe the resident manager of the author's halfway house will buy a few copies out of pity. Writers have to eat too, right?

Keyboard Confessional

2008-05-23T19:56:00.003-04:00

If there's one part of the Internet that's a true marvel of modern time-wasting, it's the infamous grouphug.us, an anonymous confession site designed to give e-closure to those of us who don't have all the perks of Catholicism. I find that I have to limit how much of this fine site I read in one setting. After several pages, the confessions all run together in one big blob of anonymity, which detracts from the individual voice of each message. When read alone, however, they're awesome. Check this example:

"im 13 years old and cant drive. my family is uber-christian and are completely against masterbation, so i have to do it in private."

One thing that The Web 2.0 has taught me is that life can REALLY be hard on some people, and even when it isn't, a person's view of life can be tweaked accordingly to accommodate any troubles they see fit for themselves. Take for example this young man. Obviously, he's convinced that not having the right to drive at 13 is nothing short of a tragedy, and more importantly, his family is one of those horrible households that doesn't allow public masturbation. You have to masturbate all by yourself, ALONE? Poor kid. Somebody call DeFax.

Yeah, the whole thing's a bit trashy, but what the hell. I'd rather indulge my inner voyeur on that site instead of facebook. It's also a good place for creative inspiration, serving as a good defibrillator for my writer's block in the past. I saw a confession a while back about some kids who smoked behind an orphanage and accidentally burned it down. I don't know whether it's true or not, but damn, that'd be a good scene in some story.

Anyway, I'm going to watch 30 Days of Night, which I'll probably just end up vegging to. I was out all day looking for a job.

Battles = bitchin'

2008-05-23T10:23:00.008-04:00

Can I just take a minute to say how awesome Battles are?

No, not armed combat. I'm talking about the royally kickass band from New York that's been blowing my mind lately, in a good way. I was introduced to their music through a friend of mine who frequents the AtEaseWeb forums (she's much braver than I). From their first YouTube video, I was hooked.

It's rare that I find a band that I like at first and then continue to appreciate even more. I've found that in the past, the bands that I tend to play to death the most are the ones that I don't enjoy on the first listen, but then gradually adjust to. But for Battles, it was love at first listen, and then some more. What I find most impressive about them is that they manage to make their music so radically different, and yet, enjoyable at the same time. Being avant-garde doesn't always give you an instant Get Out of Suck Free Card.

Then again, it's all just a matter of opinion, ain't it? If you dig Battles like I do, check out their album .

I must admit that I've been listening to a good bit of NIN lately. Maybe I just appreciate their stuff more because they're giving it away for free now. My inherent cheapness can't resist free music, even if it is part of Trent Reznor's master scheme.

I'm trying to get into TV on the Radio as well, but Return To Cookie Mountain hasn't really clicked with me yet. I figure it deserves a few more listens before final judgment.