Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2011 23:57:19 GMT -8
Ok this is seriously my last post about Muse.. They were the band that started my obsession with Music. And you're right Drew, the more I get into other music the less I like them, but they will always be one of my favourites. Not so much the newer stuff, but Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry will always have a special place in my heart. And I've seen them so many times it's almost become about the fans and the experience rather than the band. And to be honest, the fan base (in North America) is full of teenaged girls who think they're hot (I'm not in this group). Even in the UK their fanbase is mostly female, which is strange for a 'rock' band. Ok I think I'm done.
Also.. Gramma and Stormy get well soon! Sorry for hijacking your thread!
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Post by Geoff on Feb 3, 2011 23:59:17 GMT -8
Origin of Symmetry is my personal favorite.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2011 0:05:39 GMT -8
I said I wouldn't post anymore about Muse.. but you're making it hard to follow up with that Geno!
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Post by Drew on Feb 4, 2011 7:47:36 GMT -8
Ok this is seriously my last post about Muse.. They were the band that started my obsession with Music. And you're right Drew, the more I get into other music the less I like them, but they will always be one of my favourites. Not so much the newer stuff, but Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry will always have a special place in my heart. And I've seen them so many times it's almost become about the fans and the experience rather than the band. And to be honest, the fan base (in North America) is full of teenaged girls who think they're hot (I'm not in this group). Even in the UK their fanbase is mostly female, which is strange for a 'rock' band. Ok I think I'm done. Also.. Gramma and Stormy get well soon! Sorry for hijacking your thread! Nothing wrong with that! |
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 4, 2011 9:12:59 GMT -8
2/4/11Komeda - What Makes it Go? Komeda is another one of those bands that has been my little secret for more than ten years. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back one day when I was a junior in high school, a 'Rock Block' of music videos came on one Saturday afternoon which consisted of clips from Air ("Sexy Boy"), Guided By Voices ("Teenage F.B.I."), Muse ("Muscle Museum") and Komeda's wonderful clip for "Rocket Plane (Music on the Moon)". In hindsight that's a weird clump of songs, but to seventeen year old Horned Gramma, fifty percent of them appealed to the Radiohead zombie in me and the other fifty percent served to fuel a growing interest in the Exotica/Space Jazz stuff that was just coming back in style at the time. Komeda is a wonderful Swedish pop band formed in 1991, named for the great jazz composer Krzystof Komeda (which makes googling them a bitch). Listening to Komeda's records, you know instantly that they are from Sweden -- the loopy, sunshine-y melodies sung in clumsy English by Lena Karlsson can't disguise her hurdy-gurdy accent. Which is just fucking charming as hell, and that coupled with Lena being one of my earliest music crushes sold me on the band pretty much instantly. If bubbly, synthy dance party music is your bag then Komeda is where it's at. If you know me, you know that bubbly, synthy dance party music is NOT my bag; that doesn't mean I don't get in a mood sometimes. There's so much going on in any given Komeda song at any given moment that you are a legitimate stick in the mud if it doesn't make you smile, or move around just a little bit. The lead single from 'What Makes It Go?' is "It's Alright, Baby" which has as much manic energy as any Looney Tunes short. A breathless snare drum keeps a cracked-out foxtrot beat while a fantastic rubber-band bass line runs up and down the board; the low end in this music is an essential anchor to the sweet-as-syrup vocal style of Ms. Karlsson. The shimmering, airy synths create a moving cloud of sound around your head. It would be similar to an Air record if even the ballads didn't have this urgent forward motion, which is contagiously kinetic. Another highlight is the chirpy, backhanded feminist anthem 'Flabbergast', which finds Miss Lena calmly intoning lyrics such as 'Be a rebel, and be sexy Be a good mother A faithful wife, and rational Be true to your ideals...' The wrong sentence structure and hobbled cadence are so sweetly assured, but it just cracks me up because she's never a moment away from the long, drooping vowels of the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show. 'Flabbergast' is followed by 'Campfire', sung by bassist Marcus Holmberg. Every Komeda record has one song sung by Holmberg; it is customarily the one song you don't have to feel bad about skipping. Over the years, I've seen Komeda songs plundered for use in Old Navy ads, Maytag ads, Nintendo ads, and as background music on an episode of the Gilmore Girls (I learned this from stocking copies of the Gilmore Girls soundtrack CD, not from watching the Gilmore Girls -- Lauren Graham gives me the heebie-jeebies). Of course they also contributed a track to the Powerpuff Girls album we discussed a couple months ago. I don't begrudge Komeda for selling their music like that; this music gets under your skin and could potentially make you want to buy something. Komeda might as well get paid for their music somehow because they weren't ever really going to make it in America, unfortunately. The downside is that they haven't released an album since 2003, and are probably gone for good. This album is a riot, a fuckin' roller coaster, and I recommend it to any fans of the Apples in Stereo or of Montreal or De Novo Dahl. It's FUN, and as much as 'FUN' music can just annoy the shit out of me, over the span of thirteen years I have never grown tired of the music of Komeda.
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Rusty
North American Scumfoot
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Post by Rusty on Feb 4, 2011 9:39:58 GMT -8
This sounds very familiar, but I don't think I've actually heard this band, maybe from one of the commercials you mentioned. I definitely dig it though.
Also Laura Graham reminds me of a younger version of the mother from the Black Swan, not sure why.
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 4, 2011 10:01:11 GMT -8
The first post in this thread has been updated to include a Table of Contents.
For your health!
(Meanwhile, today's review - 2/4/11 - is at the bottom of the previous page.)
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Post by stamper on Feb 4, 2011 10:10:35 GMT -8
Wow. I forgot all about Komeda! 'What Makes it Go' was a pretty popular album amongst my friends back in '98. Thanx for taking me back to that fun time!!
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 4, 2011 10:10:58 GMT -8
The move to the blog space is still pending the revival of my Macbook; it got pretty fucked and it's taking some time to find the pieces we need to bring it back to life. My whole mp3 library is imprisoned on that thing, and on my iPod - which can't be synced with a PC laptop without being formatted and losing everything. One of my main desires for the blog is to be able to upload my own mp3s, so with all the traffic coming in this weekend because of the lineup I decided to just leave A Record a Day here for the time being. |
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 8, 2011 9:10:52 GMT -8
2/8/11Crispin Hellion Glover - The Big Problem =/=‚ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be. One of my favorite quotes is from Steve Martin, who said (and I'm paraphrasing): "I make some films because they are good films, and I make some films because I like to buy paintings." Steve Martin is an intelligent fellow, and his fans know that, so the question of 'Dear God, WHY is there another Pink Panther movie...?' can be answered with that quote. It's kind of reassuring, too, when we think about a class act like Bill Murray voicing Garfield the Cat, or we see Tim Burton superimpose the face of Crispin Glover onto a ridiculous-looking CGI body in 'Alice in Wonderland'. Everyone, I'm sure, remembers Crispin Glover as George McFly from 'Back to the Future'. He's been in dozens of movies since then, but that's definitely his best known role. Fans of cult cinema are familiar with his weirder side, on display in classics like 'The Orkly Kid' and 'Rubin and Ed'. And fans of the truly bizarre (hi there!) may be familiar with Crispin Glover, the auteur. Crispin Glover finances his ongoing project, which he calls the 'It Trilogy', by appearing in god-awful films like Burton's 'Alice'. The 'It Trilogy' is a series of experimental films, directed and financed completely by Glover. Two of the three planned films have been completed: 'What Is It?', the cast of which consists entirely of people with down syndrome; and 'It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE!', which was written by and stars a man named Steven C. Stewart, who suffered from cerebral palsy his entire life and wrongly spent the majority of his life in a mental institution. They are intense, bewildering, sometimes ugly films - graphically violent and sexual, nearly impossible to comprehend. They are incredible films. Crispin Glover will only screen these films when he is personally in attendance, and these events always include a Q & A and a performance of something he calls 'The Big Slide Show'. Bear with me. 'The Big Slide Show' is a forty-five minute presentation which involves dramatic readings from several of the (equally bizarre) books that Crispin Glover has self-published, books with innocuous sounding titles like 'Oak Mot' and 'Concrete Inspection' and 'What It Is and How It Is Done'. Readings of two of these books, 'Oak Mot' - which is the story of how a beautiful androgynous boy in the mid-1800's inadvertently gave rise to Nazi Germany - and 'Rat Catching', which includes 'Studies in Rat Catching for the use in schools' - comprise the bulk of Mr. Glover's album, 'The Big Problem =/=‚ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.' With musical accompaniment from vintage weirdos Barnes & Barnes - the people responsible for the Dr. Demento staple 'Fish Heads' - Crispin Glover shrieks and wails through abridged versions of 'Rat Catching' and 'Oak Mot'. The narratives are wildly unhinged, and the only thing that makes you realize there is anything resembling a rational progression to follow is how dementedly assured Glover is as he recites them. This isn't just a Book on Tape From Hell, though - sweet Jesus, there are songs too. A cover of Nancy Sinatra's anthem 'These Boots Were Made for Walkin' seems like a natural enough choice; hilariously, a cover of Charles Manson's 'Never Say Never to Always' seems equally at home. Crispin Glover has a whispy tenor, not a bad voice, but laid over Barnes & Barnes terrifying calliope music it sounds like the soundtrack to one of David Lynch's nightmares. 'Auto-Maniuplator' is a beat heavy ode to masturbation, and 'Clowny Clown Clown' is... Well, it involves a clown. I don't suppose many of you will ever listen to this record, so it isn't that I don't want to spoil it for you, it's just... I don't really know how to describe Crispin Glover's relationship with that clown. The album ends with what sounds like George McFly screaming (SCREAMING) in German. It sounds like that because that is in fact exactly what happens. To say that this side of Crispin Glover isn't for everybody is an understatement. The movie poster for 'What Is It?' is a vintage painting, one from Mr. Glover's own collection, that depicts a naked, pre-pubescent Shirley Temple wearing a Nazi hat and boots and masturbating with a riding crop. 'The Big Problem' is an oddity, absolutely among the most unusual things I've ever heard. None of this is meant to be funny or shocking; the REALLY interesting thing is that this is all coming from a very sincere place in Crispin Glover's heart. No lover of experimental music or cinema has a complete collection without this disc in it; love it now, because someday Crispin's long-awaited 'Big Love Album', produced by Marilyn Manson (and hopefully containing his Michael Jackson cover) will hit and you'll want to say you were there first. Probably not, though. Check it out, here's the video for 'Clowny Clown Clown'!
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Rusty
North American Scumfoot
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Post by Rusty on Feb 8, 2011 10:55:32 GMT -8
This is by far the weirdest one you have ever done. I had no idea that he was anything other than Mcfly SR.
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Post by Drew on Feb 8, 2011 11:32:19 GMT -8
This is by far the weirdest one you have ever done. I had no idea that he was anything other than Mcfly SR. +1 Sort of hearkens back to the first review |
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 8, 2011 11:57:07 GMT -8
Crispin Glover is a very friendly, intelligent man. He has absolute confidence in what he does, and he works hard. The 'It' Trilogy is one of the most sincere labors of love I've ever seen. If he comes to your town, go see him. It'll freak your shit out, but it's just not to be missed.
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Post by emptyfox on Feb 8, 2011 12:43:42 GMT -8
I just missed one of these screenings and q+a's two weeks or so ago.
*kicks self in junk*
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 8, 2011 12:45:48 GMT -8
Yeah, he was in Portland recently, too. I've seen him three or four times showing these films, but we missed him this last time.
He'll be back, for sure.
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Post by Geoff on Feb 8, 2011 13:11:46 GMT -8
HEY MCFLY
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 8, 2011 13:14:07 GMT -8
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Post by ComesWithASword on Feb 8, 2011 13:15:06 GMT -8
I just missed one of these screenings and q+a's two weeks or so ago. *kicks self in junk* I was like 5 people away from getting in on the third day. I tried to convince them to just let me stand in the back for the entire night. I had my dvds of willard and back to the future all ready to be signed and errthang. *kicks cinematheque employee in the junk, runs away. sobs* |
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Post by Horned Gramma on Feb 8, 2011 13:18:47 GMT -8
Addendum:
The cast of 'What Is It?' consists entirely of people with down syndrome, with the exception of Fairuza Balk, who played Dorothy Gale in Walter Murch's classic nightmare factory Return to Oz. In 'What Is It?', she provides the voice of a talking snail.
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Post by emptyfox on Feb 8, 2011 13:19:58 GMT -8
*kicks cinematheque employee in the junk, runs away. sobs* hahhaha |
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