Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Has anybody seen my Tambourine?


This hard-to-see image is supposedly the new Cosby book called "come on people." Does anyone find this, along the graphic, amusing? I know Lindsay does.


Can a song be imprinted on someone's brain? I've been wondering about this in some form ever since my Dad idly speculated that it may the case for me with the Fleetwood Mac song "Sara." When I was a baby, the only surefire way to get me to fall asleep was hold me and dance gently to the song Sara***. The song still has immeasurable emotional resonance to me when I hear it, so enter that evidence in as Exhibit A.

More relevant to Halloween, however, is the song "Anything can happen on Halloween." It's from a made-for-TV movie called "The Worst Witch" that I must've seen once when I was very young (I seem to remember, in fact, that I being babysat at the time.) The movie is horrible in all the right ways, and has since become sort of a cult-classic along the lines of Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it's the Tim Curry performance that makes it truly legendary^^^^. It doesn't appear on this very worthwhile wikipedia "Worst Films of all-time" list but it probably just wasn't seen by enough people. After watching this movie once when very young I have, for the last 20 years, remembered the song "Anything can happen on Halloween" and had it stuck in my head several times each year.

I never knew what it was, or where it came from (other than faint memories of watching some Halloween movie and seeing the song in it) who sang it, etc. I only remembered the titular line, "Your hair could turn green" and "your sister could turn into a bat." I'm not sure why, but I never thought to google any of those phrases, and when I finally did (about 10 days ago) I was rewarded with a nostalgic treat. I ordered "the worst witch" from Amazon that day and while I wish I could say that "Anything can happen..." takes me back to some magical time in my life (it doesn't) it is actually a fantastic piece of work. It's very campy and poorly done, but at the time it's catchy as hell. Its bizarre non-sequitur lyrics (including the title of this post and couplets like "April first can be fun, new years eve is a bore") and Curry's awesome "scary" faces make for an excellent piece of comedy, well-deserving of it's mild youtube stardom. Here it is:



I've got a whole shitload of topics I want to cover including file-sharing, "bias" as a concept, and why I'm not a vegetarian but this stuff really takes time (John, AKA "Johnny Neverposts" will tell you.) For preparation though, make sure you've purchased the Radiohead album or else you're soon to feel guilty. Also, I just read an article that suggests that "The Week" is owned by "The National Review"- this would make sense given how often they (The Week) cite that damn magazine but it made me want to talk about Bias. Mainly because I'm the only one I know who actually isn't a fan of the Week. However, I keep peeing in people's cokes (see my post on "The Wire" which made Lost fans unhappy, etc.) so I thought I'd hold off.


****And Sara, it should be noted, uses the "Fleetwood mac" beat of "Bass snare, buh-bass snare" that you can hear in most of their best songs. Dreams is probably the most obvious example, but there's also Gypsy , Hold Me, and of course Sara. Rhiannon is a special case, because the percussion is a bit more complicated but the bass is still there, doing its thing.

^^^^ My Sis, the GF and I have been on a pretty serious Tim Curry kick lately, even watching Rocky Horror Picture Show (which shocked the hell out of me, btw- one minute they're singing "Damn it Janet" and then suddenly Tim Curry is blowing Brad on camera after having nailed his fiancee.)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Counterpoint: 2007 is the worst year in the history of Music


Much beloved site OiNK was shut down recently. I can't put it better than this Stereogum commenter:

Yes, it provided a way to get free versions of widely available popular albums, but it also archived and cataloged the last 50 years of music better than any other place on Earth. Many of which are not readily available for purchase anywhere. It was an excellent record of one field of human achievement and now its gone ... How about the Clash's "Vanilla Tapes" that were lost on a subway train 30 years ago? On Oink, but not in stores.

It was the digital music version of the burning of the Library at Alexandria.

They destroyed the greatest historical archive of rock so they could make a couple more bucks off Rhianna's "Umbrella".


10/23/07- Never Forget

More soon...

Monday, October 1, 2007

2007 is the greatest year for music in history


Right up there with "The reptilian jaw splits creating a rudimentary ear (which then evolves and is naturally selected for to create the ear we know today)" we now have "The year 2007" in the greatest moments in music. The reason for the histrionics, of course, is the new Radiohead announcement today. Radiohead have been semi-secretly working on their album "due out sometime in 2008" and they suddenly announced today that it'll come out in 10 days!!! Yeah, like 10 days from now. You've probably seen this but just take this time to be appreciative. Also, you pay however much you want for it from their website (you could buy it for a dollar or 50 dollars if you want.) It's a double album, too and the songs are amazing including my long-time favorite "nude" (formerly called "(Don't get any) big ideas (they're not gonna happen)" which I've had on a bootleg since 99.)

Think about all the incredible music that's been released in 2007, and feel sory for the critic who is aleady dreading his "10 Best Albums" list at the end of the year.

In approximate order of my liking:
Arcade Fire- Neon Bible
M.I.A.- Kala
The Editors- An End has a Start
Elliott Smith- New Moon
Wilco- Sky Blue Sky*
Andrew Bird- Armchair Apocypha
Spoon- ga ga ga ga ga
The National- The Boxer
Feist- The Reminder
Stars- In our bedroom after the war
The Hives- it hasn't been released yet, but I'm pretty sure about the placement
The Go! Team- Proof of Youth
Rilo Kiley- under the blacklight
The Shins- Wincing the Night Away
The White Stripes- Icky Thump
LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver
Voxtrot- Voxtrot
Mark Ronson- Version
Interpol- Our love to admire
Kings of Leon- Because of the Times
Okkervil River- The Stage Names
Modest Mouse- We were Dead before the ship even sank
Bloc Party- Weekend in the city


*It physically pains me to put Wilco this low on the list, that album is incredible.