Tag: music

Music Chat: The Thermals “Desperate Ground”

Fyrehaar: New Thermals album
Fyrehaar: sounds so samey
Fyrehaar: wish they would play around with their sound profile
Sonic Rob: yeah 🙁
Sonic Rob: I remember the songs being a lot of the same tempo as well
Fyrehaar: there are some good lyrics in here
Fyrehaar: I just want a wider audio range
Fyrehaar: lo fi is cute and all but they did that
Fyrehaar: I want to take this and mess with it
Fyrehaar: change some tempos
Fyrehaar: like, turn one of these into a ballad
Fyrehaar: do another one as punk rock
Fyrehaar: maybe an acoustic
Fyrehaar: it just sounds like B sides from BBM
Fyrehaar: same fucking rhythm
Fyrehaar: Jesus
Fyrehaar: it’s just so unoriginal
Fyrehaar: Thermals, I am disappoint
Continue reading Music Chat: The Thermals “Desperate Ground”

Chat Box

FyreHaar: I experimented last night
FyreHaar: I sang along to “That’s What You Get” and I turned Audacity on to record myself
FyreHaar: My voice is out of shape dude
SonicRob: yeah?
SonicRob: it is scary to hear yourself without the song
FyreHaar: that’s why I did it
FyreHaar: reality check
SonicRob: sure
SonicRob: well, you do not sing like the original singer
SonicRob: do your own style
FyreHaar: it wasn’t super horrible
FyreHaar: yeah I need to stop trying to sing like her
FyreHaar: I am done with puberty
SonicRob: ha
FyreHaar: and trying to sing like a little girl just sounds stupid
SonicRob: yeah, you need to get all Fyre on that shit
FyreHaar: right?
FyreHaar: well I need to fully memorize the words and tune
FyreHaar: and then drop an octave
SonicRob: heh

Chat Box

Sonic Rob: dude
Sonic Rob: when are you coming over for some rock band?
Sonic Rob: there are so many good songs we didn’t get to yet
Sonic Rob: Cheap Trick
Sonic Rob: Jimmy Eat World
Sonic Rob: Bikini Kill
Sonic Rob: The Libyans
FyreHaar: I thought JEW was only guitar hero?
Sonic Rob: Bleed American is
Sonic Rob: RB2 has The Middle
Sonic Rob: which is quite fun
FyreHaar: coo
FyreHaar: It’s gonna be a bit
FyreHaar: maybe next week
Sonic Rob: =(
Sonic Rob: tonight!
FyreHaar: I am working out!
Sonic Rob: Rock Band is a workout!
Sonic Rob: I cannot play it with pants on!
FyreHaar: I don’t think we should play that together then

Quick Review: Jonathan Coulton Live 1/23/10

Got to see JoCo live at the Great American Music Hall on Saturday January 23, 2010.  I couldn’t procure a ticket for Mr. Sonic Rob so I went with some nerdy friends.

As we loitered in the vestibule trying to decide if we should go upstairs or stay downstairs to find a good table (it’s all table seating), a staff member approached and asked “How many in your party?” He then led us to a table normally reserved for people who buy dinner tickets, which are twice as expensive. This table was in the second row back from the stage. Let’s hear it for aimless milling leading to desirable consequences!! Continue reading Quick Review: Jonathan Coulton Live 1/23/10

Abu Gaga

Did anyone else come across the video for Bianca* Knowles’ “Video Phone” (song far inferior to decade-old precursor “Picture Phone” by the Sub Debs; so ya know) and choke on their Pepsi when the writhing Abu Ghraib prisoners appear, grinding their bodies against the curvaceous young singer’s supple form like so many Boschian incubi? I know that what’s really going on with the blue-hooded, dark-skinned men is that they were supposed to have their heads blue-screened out and replaced with cameras (as seen elsewhere in the video), but apparently they ran out of time, forgot to do this bit, or couldn’t figure out a good way to transition from the naked skin of the dancers to the CG camera. Hell, for all I know the director saw the effect and liked it. But there’s no way anymore to see an image like that and not flash, for a moment, to the guy standing on the box with the wires on his hands.

Combine that with the constant imagery of guns in the video and the presence of Lady Gaga who, like Saddam Hussein, is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Kurds, and you can’t help but see the whole piece as a teasing commentary on the repressed sexual desire that America sublimates into violence in general and news coverage of the Middle East wars in particular.

No idea what’s up with the weird homage to Tarantino at the start, tho.

Here is the video, embedded in much the same way that Geraldo Rivera was during the invasion of Iraq. Concidence? I think not:

-ssr

* I know what her name is. “Beyonce” looks to me like a phonetic spelling of how someone might pronounce “Bianca” if they had no idea how it’s actually meant to be said. Ha ha.