Air is good
We went down to Tacoma on Monday night to see AIR, which was melt-my-heart beautiful. We were in the second row. Air is quite possibly my favorite band ever. At least according to myLast.fm profile. But I have been in love with them for a while. I think it’s because they were sort of my “gateway drug” in high school. Like, amidst the crap I was listening to at the time it caught my attention. I was in the juniors section at Famous Barr and “Kelly watch the stars” was on the tvs. I think I just stood there and watched the entire thing. And then had to get it. Air saved me.
The opener, Kate Havnevik, was also really good. I think EVERYONE sitting around me went and picked up her CD during the break. Sort of Frou Frou + Bjork. Although I have to say listening to the CD afterwards I think she was much more impressive live. But still good.
I need more hours in my day. It’s amazing how much faster time goes when you get home at 6 rather than 3. I sort of miss those 3 hours of my life already. But the new job is going well I think. It’s nice that even though I work more hours there than I did at my last one it doesn’t feel like it when I’m there since I’ve always got stuff to do.
more sexy brazilian girls
Horray!! Brazilian Girls have a new album out!! More sexy brazilian girls = a very happy Jayne. The new one came out a lot sooner than I was expecting, but that’s cool with me.
Check out the Hype Machine and listen to some of the tracks off the album that are floating around the mp3 blogs these days.
In other music related lust, that damn poppy S.O.S. song by Rihanna has been getting some fairly heavy rotation the past few days. I swear it’s just that little Tainted Love sample that gets me. Too bad the rest of the album pretty much sucks…
totally not stressed
It’s really weird. Tomorrow is my last day of classes, and then finals week of course but that’s just turning in a paper and projects, but no actual tests or anything. I am totally not stressed out. It’s bizzare feeling so in control of things when so many people around me seem to be stressing out so much. Especially when I spent all of this past weekend at Sasquatch.
Sasquatch was pretty good. I’ve never camped out for any big music festivals before so it was kinda nice feeling like a hippie for a bit. The weather was ridiculous. Super bright & sunny, pouring rain, and a friggin HAIL STORM that cut Neko Case’s set short. It was crazy, I haven’t really seen a whole lot of hail since I was in St. Louis, but even then I was watching from the inside. Being outside in a hail storm with nothing but a blanket kinda sucks. So a lot of saturday was spent being wet and cold.
But by the end when The Flaming Lips were on it was all good. The Flaming Lips Experience was definately the highlight of the day. It was incredibly fun and insane. superheroes, aliens, santas, streamer launchers, giant balls, nun puppets and all around fun times. Wayne is officially my hero. Sufjan Stevens earlier in the day was also rather fun. Kitchy excessive patriotism, inflatable santas, and inflatable supermen all make for a good show.
But yeah, I’ve been feeling really good about myself the past few days. Earlier today I was all like, “wow, I feel so awesome and smart” but then when I got home I found that I had managed to mail my bill payments to myself. Go me.
gnarls barkley
I am currently obsessed with Gnarls Barkley. Produced by Danger Mouse, who also produced the latest (and awesomest) Gorillaz album. Check them out, they’ve been in my head all day. You can listen to two of the songs on that site.
in my head.
This is going to be a pretty incoherent mess of rambles, but I feel like typing since all I’ve been doing is reading tonight.
The past few months have been a highly racially centric period, which is kind of weird I guess. I just feel like various racial issues have been brought up a lot around me lately so I think about it a lot. It makes me wonder what other people are thinking about. How often do non-minorities think about issues of race? Aside from just like “man, there’s a lot of asian kids in front of odegaard” or something like that.
Even though I’ve been considered a sort of “exotic other” by some, how much am I too guilty of being enchanted by the idea of the exotic other? I am currently really into Latin America, although I suppose it’s the music & dancing that I am so enamoured with.
I am really into the 1920’s, there is just something strangely romanticized about that whole decade (and the beginigs of the feminist movement). Reading about vaudville and bohemians and bebop and all that makes me wish I was alive then, if not for the whole Great Depression thing soon afterwards (and the pervasive racial tensions of the time). I am awaiting a 1920’s comeback. Out with the 70’s and 80’s comeback crap, bring me flapper dresses and cloche hats.
I think about the FedEx logo a lot. Sometimes when walking to school or in the shower or while eating a sandwich. It’s really weird and almost annoying cause it makes me feel obsessive or something. I swear that ever since someone first told me about the arrow between the E and the x (in the counter) I have been thinking about the damn logo at least once a week, if not several times a week. Considering I first learned about that in my first design history class, I’ve spent a lot of unnecissary brain energy on thinking about the logo and how incredibly amazing I apparently think it is. It doesn’t help that I see FedEx trucks on a nearly weekly basis anyways so it’s always there. And people bring it up in design class ALL THE TIME. So apparently it’s a memorable logo. Good job, FedEx.
Sometimes I go a really long time without making things and I forget how much I like making things. I’ve cooked several meals in the past few days, actually started design stuff, and been drawing. I got a sweet light box from UW surplus over the weekend which means I can go over pencil drawings with markers super easy! And I’ve been drawing with a brush pen (as evident in the previous post) and realizing I really like it. So organic and blobbilicious.
Wow. it was really easy to ramble all that out of my head.. I should stop before I get too carried away… sleep.
we are zombies of expression
So this weekend was the 24 hour film making contest, which was fun. It sort of killed the weekend productivity wise for everyone involved, which is especially bad with midterms this week. But I think it was worth it ( at least right now, hope I still feel that way while trying to get things done tomorrow). I like being involved in random creative projects with other people, especially when we have something to show for it at the end. Riley did an awesome job with all the filming and editing, for about 18 hours straight. Heidi provided an awesome clarinet soundtrack. Zach was the co-star and tech master, which enabled us to turn in the thing on time (and in the right format this time!). I just had to dance around and change outfits a lot.We also went to see Tommy (the Who’s musical) on campus, which was really awesome. The set was neat and the whole thing was just really fun to watch.
I haven’t worked on any design stuff AT ALL this weekend, which worries me because this was the weekend when I was suppose to really get started on it and really get moving. Instead I worked on stuff for my music class, helped out with our video, and watched Tommy. But I sort of think it’s actually good I took a “break” from design stuff cause it’s all that stuff that happens ouside of design that inspires and influences my design. Plus it keeps me sane to surround myself by other forms of creativity, at least occasionally. So theoretically I’ll be oozing with ideas now. Or at least after I go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning.
free live music
Today I discovered the Live Music Archive which has thousands of guilt-free live shows of thousands of different trade-friendly bands.
So far I’ve listened to entire shows by Hit and Run Bluegrass, Old School Freight Train, My Morning Jacket, and right now, Spoon. I’ve just been streaming them cause I don’t know how to use the .flac format, but they sound pretty good just steaming anyways.
It’s pretty sweet. Just thought I’d share.
Top 20 o’ 05
So this is sort of my top 20 songs of 2005. There was some logic to putting this together… audioscrobbler, playcount, subjective good feelings, and whether or not I’v included it on other mixes for people… It’s not so much the BEST songs from this year as much as it is a general soundtrack to my year (minus non 2005 releases)… or something. Anyways, I’ll send you a physical copy of this mix if you want it (although I think it’ll take 2 cds) just let me know.
01. Sirenes De La Fete - Brazilian GirlsSo. Damn. Sexy. I want Sabina Sciubba so bad.
02. Dare - Gorillaz So much love for Gorillaz.
03. Do The Whirlwind - Architecture In Helsinki The title of my last screenprint
04. Missing - Beck continues to be increasingly awesome, even after all this time.
05. Emerald City - United State Of Electronica I have a weakness for vocoders. I had to buy it.
06. Fake Palindromes - Andrew Bird I am in love with Andrew Bird.
07. Revolution Solution (Feat Perry Farrell)- Thievery Corporation Lots of good songs from this album.
08. Huddle Formation - The Go! Team If only I didn’t get sick the day I was suppose to see them live…
09. Peter Gunn (Max Sedgley Remix) - Sarah Vaughan Verve Remixed 3 has tons of awesome remixes
10. Black and White Town - Doves My fav. of the album, the rest was pretty okay.
11. Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games - Of Montreal We’re going to see them next month!
12. Mushaboom - Feist I really love her voice…
13. Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple Re loving Fiona.
14. Come On! Feel The Illinoise! - Sufjan Stevens We all love Sufjan
15. Lovely Night - Richard Swift Something about the horns in this that make me melt.
16. Night of the Dancing Flame - Roisin Murphy Voluptuary.
17. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap The voice of Frou Frou + vocoder = major audiogasm.
18. I Feel Like A Child - Devendra Banhart So many good songs on the new album, and he was cool live.
19. The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah They’re pretty over hyped, but I do really like this song.
20. Alpha Beta Gaga - The Bluegrass Tribute to Air I don’t know who actually does this version, I thought it was Old School Freight Train, but it turns out it’s not… so I dunno. But this is why I bought a banjo. Plus the original, Air, version of this song is also one of my tops of the year.
This list is terribly hard to read! Maybe I’ll fix it later…
jollification
I was out of my slump by Friday night and had a pretty sweet Christmas eve. Saturday night at home with the family we had Thai food and watched an old Indian movie from the late 70’s called “Satyam Shivam Sundaram” which my brother pointed out is also the name of a Thievery Corporation song, which features music from the movie. Craziness!
Anyways! I’ve been putting together my 2nd anual end of the year mix, and in doing so I’ve found lots of my stuff tagged wrong! Mostly just like the year, which I never really cared about until now cause I was getting sad that so many of my favorite things weren’t from this year. I rarely know when exactly things are released cause I often get into bands years after they’ve broken up or months before they’ve actually put out an album. But yeah, thanks to Google, most of my mix made the cut. Unlike last year, I limited to just things released in 2005…which is kind of annoying cause people like RJD2, Radiohead, The Ditty Bops, and Nellie McKay don’t make it onto the list even though they get heavy rotation in my room, just cause I was slow in discovering them. and Air who I’ve sort of re-discovered this year and am obsessed with, miss out too… but whatever….
I think a lot of these artists are showing up on a lot of other people’s top of 2005 lists as well which is kinda interesting to me just cause I never really know what the majority of other people are listening to. Most of my recomendations have come through friends (mostly Zach) who I guess keep up with new things a lot better than I do.
iPod update
Apple finally sent me a new iPod, and it’s even better than the old one cause it’s a brand new COLOR iPod! 20 gigs like the old one.
Pretty sweet.
But now I have to decide what to do about Midori and The New Color one (it doesn’t have a name yet), because I really don’t need 2 iPods. I suppose I’ll have to sell one or the other, or both (and get a sexy nano). But I dunno, the mini is so cute. But the new one is so in color and holds 5x more music. But do I really need to carry around 20 gigs? I’ve found Midori to be a pretty good size for carrying around what I really want to listen to. But the nano holds as much as Midori and is super sexy.
I’ve also found that I don’t listen to my iPod nearly as much as I use to. Maybe I will more when it gets rainer and nastier out cause for some reason when it’s pretty I want to be able to hear everything around me. And maybe the nano would be small enough for me to want to take it everywhere anyways. Oh, I don’t know!
Yeah, these are the tough life altering choices I have to deal with. Pretty tragic, huh?
Oh and Mirror Mask was really awesome! The visuals were so fantastic. And the title sequence! And it was pretty amusing! Go see it!
