Happy Birthday, JimD

edit.  Oh, hell.  Apparently tomorrow is Jim's birthday.  Just consider this an early present on Jim's B-Day Eve

we don't do birthdays around here much anymore.  But it's Jim D's B-Day, and I remembered.

Kickstarter Project - Folk Documentary

Hey!  I've known Hilary since the 4th grade, and now she's one of the subjects of an upcoming documentary on the hard-traveling heroes of Americana/ Folk Music.

Hilary and Stuart are The Flyin' A's (who I went to go see just last night).  I've known a lot of musicians at this point, and some have been successful, some less so, but I haven't seen anyone who has worked as hard at keeping their music going as these two.  And they're actually very good, too.*

A while back Stuart and Hilary were noticed by a documentary crew and were approached to take part in the film.  You can see Hil (not really the shyest of daffodils) gets a lot of coverage.

1.  You can see a trailer for their documentary here.



2.  You can help fund the documentary by contributing to the Kickstarter at this link.

They only have a couple of weeks left, so if you can kick in a few bucks, it would get the documentary a really long way and get Hilary and Stuart in front of more eyes and ears than a summer's worth of touring.


*I think we've all known that band or musician we really didn't want to encourage

SW Advent Calendar December 16

Provided by our own AmyD.

This was my response to her email:

I doubt you guys listen to much Magic 95.5 for their magical month of Christmas, but I think they play this song every hour on the hour.  Its insane.

Sometimes...  this is the song that gets stuck in my head, and even a power drill and a tire iron cannot get it out.

And now I share with you. Merry Christmas.

SW Advent Calendar December 15

Every year, right around Christmas, Ms. Darlene Love appears on the Late Show with David Letterman to perform "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)", not just the best modern era Christmas song (in my opinion), but one of Phil Spector's best, no matter what Holiday or day we're talking about.

SW Advent Calendar December 7

For Randy, who (as discussed) is like my personal Shatner.

Happy Nigel Tufnel Day, people

Today it's 11/11/11

gggnnngghhhhhh.... The "I'm Not Feeling Like A Real Post" Itemized Round-Up

This is sort of how I'm feeling at the moment.  I'm doing all right, but, man...  hordes of pinheads, why are you so many, and why do you keep coming?  Even when I keep swinging my axe into your squishy selves?

Its just been a sort of irritating two days, and I'm hoping tomorrow goes better.  Even when I know Friday is going to be a mess of scheduling conflicts.

Item - I finally finished DC's Brightest Day with Volume 3.

What a mess that thing was...  It had some good elements but...  by and large, I see no reason why I'd tell anyone else to read that thing.  I find it sad that the only DC event book that felt driven more by character than "putting a hat on a hat" plot contrivances was the controversial Identity Crisis.  And the only plot-driven one I felt worked as a story was Final Crisis, but only if you read the Superman tie-in.  Go figure.

Item - if you're in Austin on Friday night, go see Jason's band "The Mono Ensemble" at the Carousel Lounge.  Its from 9:00 - 10:30.  There might be a cover, but the rockin' comes free with the seat.

If you're wondering what sort of music Jason plays - its sort of like this.  Only with a lot more dinking around between songs.

Item - I'm in Dallas for the evening and very tired.  I slept pretty badly last night.  Probably why I'm cranky with humanity today, and why its okay if I'm holed up in a rather nice hotel room by myself for the evening.

Item - After enjoying both first seasons, I haven't made time for either Boardwalk Empire or The Walking Dead this year.  I just can't seem to be motivated by TV at the moment.

Well, I am still making time for almost ten shows I can think of, and that seems like plenty, really. And considering I can't find time to read or catch up on my Noir viewing - where the heck is my time going?

Item - Be kind to your fellow humans.  And animals.  Your daily reminder.

Item - Jamie and I will be attending the UT/  Texas Tech game on Saturday.  If you see it televised, I'll be the one in the orange shirt.

Item - Grapes of Wrath is a really, really long book.

Item - Be cool and buy my friends' album.  I can't guarantee you'll like it, but you'll make some very nice boys in Seattle just happy as clams.

In which I talk about why I hate talking about music

So, about five years ago, I started really hating talking about music.  Not just online, but in person.  I have used the analogy "we might as well be arguing over which color we should like best", and I kind of stick to that.

I suppose I sort of used to talk about music here and at League of Melbotis, but talking about music in person is often an oddball conversation wherein you're both talking about driving, but one of you is talking about driving sports cars on empty stretches of road, and someone else is talking about NASCAR, and someone else is talking about playing SpyHunter at Chuck E. Cheese in 1987.

On the internet, however, there's no difference between a somewhat apathetic or agnostic stance and finding that your "meh" attitude just outright offends someone.

Concrete Example: If I could barely muster a shrug that REM finally hung it up after not finding a place in my record collection since Out of Time, released almost 20 years ago, I'm sorry.  It doesn't mean I think you're an idiot for praising Monster or Automatic for the People.  I haven't paid any attention to the band since my Junior year of high school.*

I just don't care.  And its not that I don't care that much about YOU as a person (and I know you take your music seriously), but I can't do anything with the fact that we have different ideas about the rock and roll.

Blondie = No Post Friday

Went with SimonUK to see Blondie.  I'm afraid there's no post for Friday.  Or, at least, anything on comics.

That show was AWESOME.  If Blondie is coming to your town, I can't recommend enough that you go.

Debbie Harry is an amazing frontman/lady and it was this great all-ages crowd who all knew all the words.

Ms. Deborah Harry still has it

I will say a few things about Debbie Harry:

1)  she is such a weird/ bad dancer, that it kind of circles back and becomes awesome again.
2)  her voice hasn't changed at all.  She sounded phenomenal.
3)  she seemed to warm up to the crowd as the show went on and was having fun by the end.  And she kept pointing to the 40-something guy in my row who was freaking out completely at seeing Blondie.

The band is full of amazing musicians

I've seen a lot of bands, but its rare I see a bands and walk away thinking "those guys are remarkable musicians".  That's something I think the 3-chords and an attitude approach to rock has really eliminated from live shows, but these guys still totally do that.

Simon and I were en route to my car and saw a crowd waiting behind the building near the buses and decided to humor ourselves.

SimonUk poses with guitarist Tommy Kessler (he is awesome)

No, I have no idea who these girls are in the picture below, but they wanted to be in the shot.  I am sad Simon apparently had a seizure while taking the picture.  It makes this a bit of a Bigfoot moment.

I granted Mr. Kessler a photo-op

Ms. Harry did not exit through our door, or at least while I was standing there, and I doubted she'd want to pose with me if she DID show up, so Si and I moved on.

So, anyway, yes, the show rocked.  And Blondie went straight from "Rapture" into The Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right (To Party)".  It was hilarious.

But I was more or less satisfied when "Atomic" made the playlist on the 3rd song.

Once Upon a Time in America

An Italian conducting an orchestra (I believe in Poland) performing a song written for a movie about early 20th Century American Jews shot partially in Rome (for that vintage look). That's America, people.



I'm a big fan of the movie Once Upon a Time In America, but a very big fan of the score.

Happy 4th of July, cont'd (America at its finest, video #2)

Just in case the previous post didn't say enough about why I love America, I would remind you: we made James Brown AND Rocky.

It's that time of year...

Show Me The Way To Go Home - Jaws from Thomas Kelly on Vimeo.

When Pre-Schoolers compose songs about Superman and Flash

An old chum of mine now lives in Seattle.  Apparently he's putting the words of Pre-Schoolers to music and performing them. 

This song is about the time Superman and Flash ran into a couple of large mammals in a cave.

Scroll to the bottom of the linked page to hear the song (its about 1:30).

Talking Heads

The video for Burning Down the House was probably the poppiest moment the band Talking Heads ever achieved.  The video got regular play on MTV, became the band's only Top 10 hit, and was where I remember first hearing their music.  The video hit in 1983, which would have made me about 8, and still very excited about whatever showed up on MTV, be it Tina Turner, Billy Idol or the J. Geils Band.

However, I really liked that tune.  Its a pretty darn good rock song, and I don't know if I parse the video now any better than I did 28 years ago, but I did like that there seemed to be something to figure out and I suspected it had something to do with the band members wrestling some inner-something.

We ALSO project David Byrne's face onto the side of our house

But, as a kid I didn't care so much about what the art was trying to say so much as the fact that I liked these people who all dressed in white suits, apparently weren't too worried about glamour or attitude and had a kick-ass blonde on bass.  Even then I thought that was unusual and nifty.

10 things I currently like

As I went on and on about things I didn't like in a few recent posts, I thought I'd share a few things that I have enjoyed of late.

1. Game of Thrones - This show got off to a rocky start with an all-exposition pilot, and I wasn't sure I was going to care all that much about a fictional history of a fictional land when there are very real histories to care about.  But it did have a certain je ne sais quoi, and by the end of the 3rd episode, I was in for the full season.  I can't spell anybody's name, or remember half the names, but its still a really well produced show.  And Peter Dinklage's character is my new hero.

2.  Batman Inc.  - Yesterday I read Batman Inc. # 2-5.  There's not a lot of emotional depth to this one that I enjoyed in prior Morrison Batman work, but its a compelling story and epic mystery. I think he does a great job of picking up Rucka's vibe with Batwoman, and I would likely pick up an El Gaucho series all on its own (which...  probably just me on that one, I guess).

3.  Batman Beyond - I did read Adam Beechen and Ryan Benjamin's first few issues in the collection entitled Hush Beyond, and I quite liked it.  I was a big fan of the TV series and straight-to-video movie, and I wasn't tired of the universe that was developed for the show and the JLU cartoon.  Beechen and Benjamin clearly were both familiar with the series, and its a fun read.  Very glad this series is ongoing and they they're giving Superman Beyond a One Shot to see how that goes. 

4.  Treme - I haven't made it through The Wire*, so don't start on me that this isn't as good as The Wire.  Its a damn good show, although parts have gotten a bit cute for my taste this season.  And its a good reminder of what happened and is still happening in our backyard.  Great ensemble cast, amazing ability to weave in culture and music, and it has Khandi Alexander outside of a CSI show that I can watch without feeling my eyes burn.  It is also job #87 or so that Kim Dickens has had in the last few years (JimD is right, Kim Dickens is pretty great).

5.  Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - A co-worker turned me onto this band, and they're much more listenable than  I would have guessed.  I particularly like the cut "I Love Creedence". 

6.  Friday Night Lights - yeah, I know its already been canceled, but I love this damn show.  And its so sad so many people bring their baggage from high school and apply it to missing one of the best shows on network TV.  The one downside is that I'm not sure the show ever got better than its pilot, which was one of the best hours of TV I've ever seen.  Also:  Connie Britton I could watch doing crossword puzzles or delinting sweaters.


7.  American Gods - is pretty good.  I need to just block out some time to finish it.

8.  Edamame - why nobody told me about this stuff before is mindblowing.  You are all on notice for not alerting me to edamame before now.


9.  The ACL Fest Lineup - Go figure, the one year I don't buy a 3-day pass, its a great line-up.  I'm only going Sunday. 

10.  My goofy gym - I love places with goofy names, and that includes my new gym:  Planet Fitness.  It just seems sort of half-baked, like they decided "eh, that's good enough" and called it a day.  Inside, the gym proudly declares itself "The No Judgement Zone" in four foot letters, which isn't a misspelling of "Judgement", but its also not how you see it usually spelled (ie: judgment).  And for that, I JUDGE THEM.  Also, literally everything in the gym is purple, yellow or black.  I can only guess this is seriously screwing up the rods and cones within the eyeballs of the employees.


*park it.  I will watch it eventually.

Happy Mother's Day - in song!

Happy Mother's Day to the Moms out there! This Mother's Day my own mom is in Kenya wrestling lions or something, and Jamie's mom is in Trinidad and Tobago. So, no formal Mother's Day business for us.

But, hey... I assume somebody out there who reads this might be a mom. So, you know, we tip our hat. Its the hardest job out there, and there's not a lot of room for screwing up.

Anyhow, let's celebrate the holiday... in song!

From our friends in Pink Floyd:



From Dumbo:



From our friend Glen:

No Post Wednesday - Arcade Fire was in town

Well, I went to see Arcade Fire tonight with Jamie, Jason and pal AmyR. The show was really pretty great, and in no small part because Jamie and I figured out it was the first show we'd been to together since a Bowie concert circa 2004.

I dig this song off the most recent album.


Before leaving the stage, Win commented for maybe the fourth time about how much they love Austin, and reminded us "You don't even know how good you have it here". And I think maybe that's true some days. But I'm also glad someone else noticed.

And here's another favorite:

Baby, You're My Angel

Sexy Sax Man IS above The Law (this is the best thing you will see all day)

Thanks to JasonC for the link

Rebecca Black's "Friday" (or: in which I discuss exploiting starry-eyed teens and their parents for fun and profit)

So.  Rebecca Black.

Randy asked me to cover the rise of Rebecca Black, a girl I'd guess is a high school underclassman and who has become famous for a very bad song which is making the rounds.

If you have not seen the video that launched a meme, I'll go ahead and embed it below. I invite you to watch the video in order to inflate Rebecca's hit count and get some context here.



So, I'll be honest... yes, its vapid, pointless pop music, clearly cranked out quickly and cheaply.  It utilizes auto-tune to fix a non-professional's deficiencies, and to make it sound exactly like every other song that's on Top 40 radio. Sure, its hard to say much about the song other than "they really know how to repeat the same words over and over", and itts intended to appeal to an audience I'd guess is between the ages 5-15 (ie: children's music - which i doubt Black herself has grokked), but it is MOSTLY a song that Ms. Black's folks would feel completely comfortable to hear their child sing in front of a crowd (if one can ignore the poor grammar of "we so excited".  Which raises questions for me about the writer's intentions regarding who was supposed to sing this song, but let us not go there.)

The video and song have been mocked by folks online who know better* and believe themselves snarky.  Hey, that sounds sort of like what we do here, but let me be 100% honest with you:

I have absolutely no idea what is funny about this meme. This song sounds exactly in my head like what I hear when anyone from Hilary Duff to Miley Cyrus to Britney Spears to Ke$ha to (insert pop starlet using autotune who is the product of a producer looking to create a brand).  It sounds like bad pop, which is what it is.

Perspective, people.

Sure, its a stripped down version of the overproduced pop that's dominated kid's music since someone tried to make a go of making Tiffany a household name.  I salute Black's parents for not buying that she has to put on a skimpy faux-Catholic school girl Halloween costume ala Ms. Spears to get attention, nor that she should sing about wanting to be "rubbed the right way", as Aguilera insisted en route to making the Top 40.  She seems like a sweet kid, and if riding in a car is a big deal to her, more power.

But...  I am 35 and a dude, and this is not intended for me.  This is exactly what pop music sounds like right now no matter who is performing it and no matter how they're dressed.  The difference is that she's singing about the dumb stuff that I suppose most kids in middle-class and upper-class homes think about at her age. Honestly, isn't this her "Everybody's Working for the Weekend"** but for rich kids for whom Friday represents a chance to get a ride with her friend's mom to the Pizza place where that cute boy from Geometry might be hanging out?  At least she's singing about what she knows. 

The fact that she can't sing (thus: auto-tune) and the lyrics are asinine: I'm sorry, where were all you people when Will Smith decided his daughter needed to be a pop star and everyone talked about how great and catchy that @#$% was? 

In short, its silly, its badly written, it doesn't really work...  but that describes 95% of what gets generated out there that outsells all your favorite bands.  So let us all give poor Rebecca a brake.

And... did we just notice that there are cynical producers exploiting bright-eyed young people and their parents? Heck, I admire Ark for their brazen choice to put their label out front and announce to YouTube Nation exactly who was making mad bank off of this hack job. And who can say that this method hasn't worked for them?

• Rebecca Black has a top-selling tune on iTunes.  
• You have smug self-satisfaction and once entertained notions that Crash Test Dummies were a good band when you were trying to define your tastes as "alternative". 

It's the Disney Channel of music.  If we're going to bag on this, let's all tune into Wizards of Waverly Place and bag on that show for not being The Wire.

Now what I do love is that at 2:30 in the video, this random, much-older guy shows up and starts rapping about how he wants to echo Rebecca's sentiments regarding the awesomeness of Fridays and his joy at seeing a school bus.

Guy in car, I salute you.***

Also, at about 1:16 it seems Ms. Black was asked to invite her pals to join her in a video shoot, and, man...  her friend in the braces does just not know she is about to be an internet meme.

Now, I know what I was listening to by 7th grade, so I can say with confidence, this would have drawn the same blank stares from me that Ms. Debbie Gibson received during her reign (btw, is this really worse than Electric Youth?), but maybe in, like, 2nd grade I would have thought this would have been great to hear at Pizza Royale while plugging quarters into the Galaga machine.  Back then, this would have been right there in my wheelhouse. 

You aren't going to really convince me that this is a whole lot different from, say, Taylor Swift.  Teen singer, handled by agents and producers, singing repetitive, tuneless songs, not in control of her own destiny...  Actually, that's kind of how I feel about modern country in general, but I digress.  The difference seems to be just how much someone's parents were willing to spend on an investment and how much a producer thought they could make on a kid before they wised up and he moved on to the next kid.

I am also not convinced that this girl is any different from the 10's of 1000's of bright-eyed hopefuls who show up for American Idol, nor what becomes of the "winners" of that show.

Now, I am willing to embrace this video and song as silly, if you'll acknowledge that Avril Lavigne did far more damage to the music industry than a 1000 Rebecca Blacks could hope to accomplish.

*I've seen your record collection.  You don't know better, and you have some explaining to do.
**I would submit that "Working for the Weekend" and much of the Loverboy catalogue was weaker than this tune, but we still let that @#$% play over the PA at Red Robin three decades on.
***In the story I've written in my head to give the video a narrative, this is RB's aunt's boyfriend who is the only one who appreciates Ms. Black's auto-tuned talent.

Oh @#$%...  

Here she is going acoustic (thx, Randy!)


I think her friend in the braces is sitting there on the couch looking way more comfortable this time.