Special Back To School edition.
shuffle. five. describe.
- Lucinda Williams - Lonely Girls. A slow, sad, sleepy song. Repetitive, and just barely avoids monotony because it sounds exactly like a Monday morning after a long vacation. So, I can, sortof, relate.
- Robyn Hitchcock - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. A Dylan cover, from his all-Dylan "Robyn Sings" album. I vastly prefer Robyn's covers to Dylan's originals - Dylan's voice and delivery just kills songs for me; Hitchcock's voice is infinitely better, which paradoxically lets one pay more attention to the words and less attention to the delivery.
- The Pogues - Jesse James. A good, stompy, sing-along. I could probably do without the gunfight sound effects. And the reverb on that one guitar seems excessive.
- Flamin Groovies - Yes It's Time. Hard to believe this one was released in '76; it really sounds like like something from '66. Though the same can be said about bands like Harlem, who stick to that sound today.
- Anita O'Day - Love Me Or Leave Me. Swingin. I can't tell if her voice is gravelly or if she's distorting the mic, but it's a nice effect. As always, it sounds like she's smiling while she's singing it.
Do it.
Huh that’s funny, Robyn’s Dylan covers tend to be some of my least favorite Robyn songs. A few of them are great, but I have a hard time listening to “Robyn Sings”.
it’s not an album i listen to frequently – it’s a bit too long for that. but, i do like a bunch of the tunes, the Johanna’s, esp..
Hey, here’s a nice version of Not Dark Yet.
Like
Left my portable drive at home, so it’s back to the shared drive with all the soundtracks on it.
Masaharu Iwata & Hitoshi Sakim – A Chapel (from Final Fantasy Tactics)
Not bad for aural wallpaper.
Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart
What can you say? It’s bombastic and epic! It’s singable! It’s freaking Jim “Bat Out Of Hell” Steinman! They don’t make ’em like this anymore, and they would fail if they tried. Speaking of fail, have they done this song on Glee?
The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again
Wheat. The full, keyboard-wanky 8-minute version. I know we’ve heard this a zillion times, but I still think Roger Daltrey’s scream on this track is the best ever put to vinyl.
Deedlit’s Theme – Fairy (from Record of Lodoss War)
Short but sweet. Pretty nice strings. Don’t know anything else about it.
RX – KGBTV
Fox anchor voices over a programmed beat, put together by mashup artist RevolutionX. I heard this guy’s mix of George W. Bush doing “Imagine / Walk on the Wild Side” back in 2006, and downloaded all the tracks he had at the time (which are offline now). This is one of those; it doesn’t do much for me.
“Speaking of fail, have they done this song on Glee?”
oh hell yeah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIRCK_7uGg
just watching with the sound off, it looks like they’ve turned the bombast up to 11 or 12. everyone is singing with their mouths as wide open as they can get.
just watching with the sound off
Good thinking.
Actually felt like winter today.
I’m going to cheat and give you the 10 random tracks I had in the gym today (my phone logs this stuff which is cool).
1. Gorillaz – Starshine
2. Fatboy Slim – Praise You
3. Paul McCartney – Live and Let Die
4. Them Crooked Vultures – Dead End Friends
5. Scissor Sisters – Music is the Victim
6. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – American History X
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cheated Hearts
8. Arcade Fire – Ocean of Noise
9. Muse – Invincible
10. Radiohead – Morning Mr. Magpie
BTW whenever I open ok-cleek.com, be it from home or work, there is a long pause before the browser starts loading the page – sometimes up to 30s. I think it might be a DNS issue. Anyone else seen this?
i see it, too. i’ve been unable to figure out what’s going on.
Yep, I get it. That’s three countries so it must be universal.
I get zero lag on the redirect page at the site root. The delay only happens when the browser attempts to load /blogs. So I’d say it’s not DNS, it’s FYWP.
hmm.
i wonder if it’s the YouTube iframes. as soon as that ‘Mats post bumps off, we’ll know.
It’s been like this for a few months. I first noticed it around the time you had WP issues and removed the mobile version.
hmm. wonder if they throttled me…
any better now?
Just connected at home and no delay. Changed anything?
not really.
other than pushing that YouTube post off the front page.
i tried a bunch of wordpress things, but none of them had any effect. i used FireBug to measure the times. seems like the initial connection always takes a second or two, no matter what i do.
False alarm. Still slow. Ow well, it’s no biggy!
Gray and white rectangles.
Saw Stan Ridgway on Saturday night after a ridiculously busy week. He was awesome as usual (I’ve seen him three times now) in a tiny club show. Loud though, and all electric which was surprising as his latest is largely acoustic. Played mostly old stuff, including a couple of rare things (like Don’t Box Me In the song he did with Stewart Copeland). If you haven’t heard his/Wall of Voodoo’s version of Ring of Fire you are missing out.
1. Electric President – Good Morning, Hypocrite
Nice little song by this indie-electronic duo. Sort of reminds me of Postal Service (which is how I found them. All Music Guide listed these guys as similar artists). All their stuff is this mellow and I liked it enough that I got most of what the singer has put out with his “band” Radical Face.
2. Simple Minds – Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel
I always liked Simple Minds, even before they hit the big time with the Breakfast Club. This song is dreamy and mellow, just like the last song. What’s up, Media Monkey?
3. Amanda Palmer – Fake Plastic Trees
Mrs. Neil Gaiman performing possibly my favorite Radiohead song alone on the ukulele. And it works somehow, which is more a testament to the power of that song than anything else.
4. John Vanderslice – New Zealand Pines
No video for this one so you get my dropboxed version. Very mellow, indie-electronica from a pretty cool artist. I think I got to him from Andrew Bird in a similar way as I got from Postal Service to Electric President. Nice song but man, this mix is putting me to sleep.
5. Gary Numan – Music For Chameleons
Numan was my synth god in the early eighties. He was never big in the US other than hit Cars which is too bad because some of his other stuff is pretty damn good. This song is ok I guess, but rather than the video for the song I give you Alan Partridge air-bassing it. If you haven’t seen Partridge you haven’t lived.
I was so busy this week I never got back to the quiz and never congratulated the winner, Cris. So congrats!
I kept looking in my rear view mirror, expecting to see you bearing down on me.
I was hoping that the gunfight sound effects on Jesse James was actually that guy bashing the beer tray on his head. No such luck.
Still slow.