Continuing in the musical vein, sample a live practice take of an old Shannon Campbell favorite,
and three brand new acoustic recordings from Mieka Pauley (look on the left).
You should recognize Shannon from her Blogathon exploits (and her massive MP3 discography (if you feel lost, try some covers, all are excellent)). As for Mieka, I saw her open for Andy Stochansky this fall and was incredibly impressed with both her agile guitar playing and her absolutely huge R&B flavored voice. Her self-titled 2000 release only hints at the powerful performances she brings to bear, but these new tracks do a better job (especially “Secret“). I missed seeing her last week (damn my Thursday night class, i’m going to miss Peter Mulvey tomorrow night), but i am waiting a new album from her with bated breath.
Archives for 2004
A Big Enough Heart Can Hold Onto Anything
Alison seems like someone cool enough that i should trust her taste in music, so i was very interested to read Largehearted Boy after her link to him stated “He has the same taste in music that i do, which equals great!”
I consider myself to be a fairly open-minded music fan, but the Boy’s taste definitely veers lo-fi and out of tune. I can manage to forgive both of these traits individually, but in tandem i can’t stomach them at all. Speaking of which, witness two posts about my arch-nemesis Bright Eyes over the course of a single month. Someone really needs to teach that boy how to sing.
Bright Eyes aside, Largehearted Boy has a Top 11 of 2003 list up, and what could be a better gauge of his (and, thus, Alison’s) taste in music? I didn’t buy a whole ton of new music last year, and The Boy’s tastes run much more indy-male-rock than my own so, not shockingly, i’m only familiar with three discs on his list.
Lowest ranked is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs disc Fever To Tell, which was subtly disappointing … everything i had heard about them made them out to be “The Next Big Thing, but it’s mostly just girl-lead punk with fairly uncatchy screaming (i prefer The Distillers). Still, i can at least comprehend making this pick.
More objectionable is The Shins disc, which Aim was kind enough to gift me with, at number three. Chutes Too Narrow is a listless sounding attempt at something, though i don’t know what. I keep seeing the words “Pop Masterpiece” thrown around in regards to this band, which confuses me. Does underwhelming, out-of-tune singing combined with deft acoustic strumming suddenly equal MASTERPIECE? If so, please send me the masterpiece application next year.
(Pls. see R. Wainwright for the album i would nominate as the “pop masterpiece” released in 2003)
Finally, at number one, is The Postal Service. Give Up is an album i wanted to like in a big way. It features vocals by Ben Gibbard (lead singer of my co-favorite indy band Death Cab for Cutie) and Jenny Lewis (co-lead singer of my co-favorite indy band Rilo Kiley). Also, it was personally recommended to me by Erin McKeown, who i hold in a very high regard. But, the album fails to claim the title of Best Indy Disc Ever that i was so ready to ascribe to it, which is perhaps attributable to its third collaborator, Jimmy Tamborello.
Jimmy lends beats to the disc in the form of stuttering drum machine clicks and claps, which sound so tiny and far away. I don’t object to drum machines on principal, but they are supported mostly by equally far away guitars and humming synthetic organs, none of which grounds Gibbbard’s shiny half-falsetto in enough reality for me to love it the way i do in DCFC. Give Up has made for some excellent background noise, but to me it is too insubstantial sounding to qualify for a “Best Of” list in any category other than background, which made it all the more disappointing to me.
Now that’s i’ve complained sufficiently about two albums that have been collectively bugging me for months and months, effectively lynching the poor largehearted man’s taste (though, only 3/11 of it, which isn’t all that much), i will now, as a conclusion to this rambly weblog post, admit that i am madly in love with his blog.
Why, you ask? Because his absolute adoration of music seeps through every seam and pore and past every comma and period, and that makes his taste completely irrelevant. I wish i could convey to you my love for music, and how i allow it to surround me, and how excited it makes me, but that has never been and won’t ever become the primary focus of this page. However, i can safely say that Largehearted Boy is the nearest facsimile you will ever find, and i plan to read him constantly if only to remind myself how much joy being a fan can really bring you.
And, well, maybe i didn’t find out too much about Alison’s taste in music, but if she even halfway empathizes with the vibe over at The Boy then i think it tastes just fine.
Coolness
File under “Coolness” – A daily reading of the superb semi-fictional (i hope) Acerbia lead me to the witty Stiletto Philosphy, whose top link is none other than The Go Fish, who i suspect could be the most read Philly blogger (she was mentioned in the Inquirer article i kvetched about on CK’s birthday). It makes me happy that TGF’s blogger has become known enough that i find my way back to her from blogs in completely other circles, which i suppose isn’t surprising given her mammoth reading list.
Yo Joe!
There’s something inescapably magical about GI Joes; i never seem to lose the urge to play with them, regardless of my increasing age. Those three and three quarter inch warriors were the ultimate in playtime passtimes — cheap, (dis)poseable, and anonymous enough in design that they could play multiple roles in any story. Your Joes didn’t have to take on the roles outlined in their cartoons and comic books; they didn’t have to play themselves.
The times i most miss have an army of pint sized heroes and villains to play with is after seeing a great fight scene. After the Matrix movies i was jonesing for Joes, and after Return of the King i was practically frothing at the mouth, wanting to go to my mother’s house to dig the guys up. Some web investigation proves that Joes lend themselves to more imaginations than just mine… Joe fans all around the net create comic-style dioramas to tell their original stories to the world!
Finding things like these make me wish that the internet was around when i was a kid. For one thing, you can track down any figure you want in a matter of minutes, making it oh-so-tempting to rebuild your dream army for just a couple hundred dollars (especially with the new and apparently unlimited Funskool reprints of the 80s figures). I had never even seen the elusive Cover Girl before i found YoJoe a few years ago (to this day i have dreams about finding that figure in a toy store). Forget eBay for this; the best sites i’ve found include Guru Planet (a little pricey, but well stocked), Small Joes (good for newer figures), and Joe For Sale (which even offers its very own GI investment opportunity, which hits a soft spot, considering my Record Kingdom experience).
One element of the Joes that i always had a conceptual problem with the fact that Cobra Vipers were sold one-per-package; wasn’t the point that they were a single trooper in an anonymous multitude? I suppose i was supposed to buy four or five of each viper to construct a suitable army, but i don’t think my mother would have financially supported that habit. However, other Joe fans built armies in this fashion, and now Hasbro has released it’s first army building set of the popular Cobra robot BAT for less than the $18 it would have originally taken to buy these figures separately. These figures are a hit with collectors (especially since original BATS pull a hefty price on the resale market).
All of these online Joe-resources makes me want to blow a couple hundred dollars on some vintage plastic, but so far i have resisted. When would i find the time to play with them, anyhow? Surely it would only serve to take away from future Trios. But this exercise just left me drooling about all the childhood toys i could re-own via the internet; i could even get a new Bionic Six Meg, who played Madonna on her GI Joe USO tour!
Trio: Season 4, #3
Bucket Seat, I Think I’m Paranoid, A Long Time Since