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elizabethandthecatapult.com ♥ myspace.com
The last time we mentioned Elizabeth and the Catapult, the song "Race You", went straight to the top ten on The Hype Machine. And it's easy to see why, the song is such a fun and cute pop song.
This Christmas song, "Christmas with the Jews", is also fun and cute (and not to mention quite short). But what you're thinking when you're listening to this song, is "er, aren't you forgetting Hanukkah?"
Maybe you can ask them if you see them live:
- 01/28/10 The Barn Clinton, New York
02/05/10 World Cafe Live Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
02/06/10 8x10 Baltimore, Maryland
myspace.com ♥ twitter.com
Maybe there was a problem with my download, but the MP3 track is 4:56, where the last 30 seconds of the song is complete and utterly garbage... it sounds like it was encoded in error and not part of the song. I've edited out the crap part for you.
The tour information they sent me is as follows:
- January 2010.
Fri 8 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Sat 9 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Mon 11 USA New York Union Hall.
Tue 12 USA New York Pianos.
February 2010.
Sun 21 Norway Oslo John Dee w/The Temper Trap.
Mon 22 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Tue 23 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 24 Sweden Stockholm Debaser Slussen w/The Temper Trap.
Fri 26 Germany Hamburg Molotow w/The Temper Trap.
Sat 27 Germany Berlin Postbahnhof w/The Temper Trap.
Sun 28 Germany Cologne Gloria w/The Temper Trap.
March 2010.
Tue 2 Germany Munich Atomic Café w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 3 Germany Frankfurt Nachtelben w/ The Temper Trap.
themanchesterorchestra.com ♥ myspace.com
My favorite track is "One Hundred Dollar", you can simply hear the anger as singer Andy Hull asks to borrow $100. While the song is short and doesn't offer much explanation, you, as the audience makes up your own background to the song. Anyway, the song is from their latest album, Mean Everything to Nothing, they'll probably be playing loads of their new songs on tour:
- 01/29/10
Salt Palace Convention Center^ Salt Lake City, Utah
01/30/10 The Fillmore^ Denver, Colorado
01/31/10 The Black Sheep* Colorado Springs, Colorado
02/02/10 The Marquee* Tulsa, Oklahoma
02/03/10 Juanita’s Cantina Ballroom* Little Rock, Arkansas
02/04/10 New Daisy Theatre* Memphis, Tennessee
^ with Brand New
* with Harrison Hudson
siamusic.net ♥ myspace.com
Finally, we have Sia. This actually has nothing to do with Christmas, unless you count getting a new music video as a holiday gift. But just talking about the video for "You've Changed" isn't enough to warrant its own article, so I thought I might as well stuck her here.
Sia has always seem to me to be this child trapped in a grown-up's body. The latest video is wonderful, it features this weird stop-motion, "dress up" video-gamey feel to it. I don't know who's idea it was, I'll bet it's a combination of Sia's child-mind and director Dennis Liu of @radical.media, but it came together pretty great.
Be sure to watch the high-resolution video of it (you'll need it to read the song lyrics scrolling at the bottom).
12/23/2009 04:58:16 ♥ vu (
) ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
I find having tonsillitis strange. Despite the constant coughing and the occasional phlegm, nothing else seems to happen. Sure, my breathing does seem a bit more restricted than when I'm healthy and not having a panic attack, but most of the time, it's a minor discomfort a few times every year. Also, it's easily fixed with luminous pink erythromycin tablets (henceforth known as the pink pills, because I have troubles spelling that word).
In late November, after being given the pink pills once again, my doctor told me to come back in two weeks (after the pills ran out) so he could assess whether or not I needed to have them removed or not.
Two weeks passed, the pink pills depleted, and I forgot about the bits of tissue in the back of my throat for another week.
These tissues appeared to be unhappy about being forgotten, and decided to remind me of their presence by becoming inflamed again the week after.
You know what that means? MOAR PINK PILLS.
Now, I have to wait for another two weeks to find out if I will join the ranks of my living family members, each of whom no longer have their tonsils. >.>
Lesson learned: When the doctor tells you to go back within two weeks, GO BACK IN TWO WEEKS. Your tonsils seem to have feelings. They do not like being forgotten about, and will get angry at you if you decide to go back on the third week instead.
Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.
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01/23/10 Ampere München
Discography
01/24/10 Studio 672 Köln 01/26/10 Magnet Berlin 01/28/10 Rocking Chair Vevey 01/29/10 Ziegel Oh Lac Zurich 02/01/10 Prinzenbar Hamburg 02/09/10 Thekla Bristol 02/10/10 Hare & Hounds Birmingham 02/11/10 Brudenell Centre Leeds 02/12/10 ULU London 02/13/10 Audio Brighton
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Straitjacket Escape ♥ photo by Dave
The straitjacket incident was obviously the most epic moment of the night, but the theatrics didn’t end there. There was interpretive dancing, rogue boomerangs, and a pretty intimidating box accordion. Throw in a picturesque stage setting and a watering can attached to the drum kit, and it wasn’t an average Webster Hall show. The band managed to take a spacious, relatively normal venue and shift the atmosphere to match that of the album: warm, enthusiastic, and frenzied.
Fanfarlo ♥ photo by DaveWith only one album, they had a limited supply of songs to play. My personal favorite, “I’m a Pilot,” drew from the band’s most appealing quality: their infectious camaraderie. This was most apparent during the encore, when they had run out of songs to sing, so they resorted to the obligatory cover, Low’s “Just Like Christmas,” featuring opening band, Freelance Whales. Anything holiday-related is instantly a cheese-fest, but throw in a cavalcade of instruments and a dozen earnest musicians and it becomes easy to suspend any cynicism.
(I really wanted to end this review by writing, “...and by the end of the night, you could say that the entire audience had shed an emotional straitjacket – and put on a fringed vest of love.” But I won’t. Swearsies.)
Photos by Dave:
Fanfarlo ♥ photo by Dave 
Fanfarlo
Fanfarlo
Fanfarlo & Freelance Whales
12/22/2009 00:12:42 ♥ kateg (
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♥ fanfarlo.com
♥ myspace.com/fanfarlo
What’s your idea of the perfect proposal?
Brought to you by Leap Year. In theaters January 8th.I never dreamed of the way it would happen, I never thought too much about it. I guess it's one of those things where you just think less about it so that when it happens you'll be all the more surprised. To be honest, I don't expect much and it takes very little to make me happy. So- the way it happened for me - the simple sweetness of the way Bobby proposed to me and way it was so unexpected - that was perfect.
Speaking of Leap Year, I really like Amy Adams for some reason. Out of utter boredom and nothing else to watch on the treadmill, I watched Julie & Julia and decided I like her. I still haven't even seen New Moon. I haven't wanted to put him through that - haha.
Some more pics as promised. They were all taken with my phone as my basic requirement for a phone is that it should be a movie-quality camera first, scanner, laser gun, computer and possibly coffee maker second and a phone third or even 93rd, but obviously quality of these pics is sometimes low given the low tech threshold of Terrans.
1. A beach at Cape Point Nature reserve
2. The airport at Palaborwa. Yup. That is the WHOLE airport. It reminded me of the airport in Gaborone (Botswana) 20 years ago (or even Tirana in Albania a few years ago) except it was bigger, cleaner and way more functional. The plane was tiny, only two seats on one side and one seat on the other side of the isle and the passengers had to be spaced out evenly in it to balance it. Total capacity was 32 people including pilots and crew.
3. A giraffe
4. A not so clear pic of a wildeebeest running
1. Buffalo
2. Zebra
3. Frog. Only little but surprisingly loud. It made more noise than the Hippos.
4. Old male Elephant with Musk, waving it's ears at us in a rather pissed off fashion. Luckily the guide was a cool guy and didn't get freaked and stayed there with the car so we could get nice pics. Redhead Girl spotted it and we would have missed it if it wasn't for her. It's amazing how a 5 ton animal can basically hide behind the equivalent of a shrub at 20 metres. See later pics for proof...
1. Elephant hiding behind the equivalent of a bush lamp-post
2. And now you see him...
3. If you look carefully you should see the "tear" that shows he's in musk making him irritable, and testosterone fuelled, meaning, more likely to make him want to stomp dumb tourists bugging him, but he liked us I guess.
4. Inside the plane, pic taken by me holding my arm out. The other side of the isle was a single seat.
So that should complete the pics of animals section for ya.
The trip was basically all good and I even got to see and talk with my father again after 7 years. He's still physically fit and doing well, except I think he thinks in his 60s he should be "old" so has slowed down a bit, which is not all bad since he really needed to get better emotionally speaking. He seems calmer anyway and he's finally retired, which is good.
Hopefully he will think up of a nice hobby that doesn't involve shooting people or hunting criminals. He wrote an article for Magnum (an outdoor/hunting/wildlife magazine) and they liked it, so he might do more of that which I think would be nice for him as he certainly has a lot of funny, crazy, stories to tell and it saves me having to do it at some point.
Dad in the left one and Mom on the right one.
The only hitch was that on the way back the flight was cancelled which was badly unannounced so we wasted hours at the airport before finding out and had to come back the next day to fly home a day late in an almost empty 747 which meant we could stretch out taking up five seats to sleep a bit. Redhead Girl didn't bother, but I did as I never get to sleep on planes due to my height mostly.
Also I renewed my membership to the Mile High Club as Redhead Girl insisted she wanted to join this exclusive club... That's why I love her, she's just comic-book cool.
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The Zatoichi series ran 26 movies (1962-1982) and a television series ran for five years (1974-1979). Twenty years later, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano reinvented Zatoichi with his version of the character. This was easily one of my favorite movie at the time, I saw it at the independent theater twice in 2003 and ordered a region 3 release of the DVD as soon as it was available on import. Incidentally, to show support for the US market, I also bought the US edition of the DVD, which came with a bonus Sonatine movie (which was originally released in the states by Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder productions).
Considering the movie did quite well, critically and (I'm assuming) in sales, I was hoping for a follow-up movie by Kitano, but unfortunately there's no such plan. However, interestingly enough, one of my all-time favorite Japanese director, Takashi Miike* directed a stage adaption of Zatoichi for live performances in 2007.
I'm happy to report that, I saw a very good re-imagined of the familiar character, reinvented as a female protagonist, called Ichi. I wish the producers had kept the brand of "Zatoichi", as people who hear "Ichi" does not always associate the name with the blind swordsman. To be fair, Ichi is the original character's name. The term "zato" means low-ranking blind person (low-ranking in the Todoza guild). Logically, they could've named this movie Gozeichi, because Goze refers to blind musician women of that time period.
Anyway, beside my gripe about the Ichi name as the movie title, I also didn't like the idea that a model (Ayase Haruka) is playing the part of the protagonist. All that was really not worth worrying, because the whole movie is quite entertaining and enjoyable, and there is only once where Haruka is seen 'dolled up' for a music performance (most of the movie, she's covered from head to toe in dirty rags). However, there are at times when the director Fumihiko Sori choose to stay too long on Haruka's beautiful unblemished face. We get it, she's cute.
The story is uncomplicated, Ichi wanders into some town with an inept sword-drawing samurai Toma (the name is close to a slang "tonma" for idiot or fool). The town is in trouble from the Banki gang, and in Zatoichi fashion, Ichi and Toma saves the town. During the course of the film, there are the tried-and-true Zatoichi moments like slashing out the lights and Ichi triumph in complete darkness, the use of sound to throw Ichi off, and, of course, the Cho-Han Bakuchi dice gambling.
What made the film interesting, at least to me, is that the soundtrack is by Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard! So throughout the movie, you do hear that ethereal vocals, similar to her efforts on Ridley Scott's Gladiator. I suspect she only wrote the vocals, the credit I have for composer is Michael Edwards, who previously worked with Gerrad on her solo material. The soundtrack was a bit of a surprise to me, generally these J-movies' music and production team are usually kept inhouse. Although, having said that, the one outro credit song is by Korean J-Pop singer SunMin.
Ichi the movie will be made available in the US market via Bluray and DVD in two days (December 22nd), just in time for last-minute xmas shoppers. Hopefully those Best Buy tonmas will be smart and order some copies for their store (however, if it costs over $25, I'd rather order it online, or not own it at all - hey times are tough!).
* I love all three billion of his movies! Audition, City of Lost Souls, One Missed Call, Ichi the Killer, Fudoh, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Zebraman, Sukiyaki Western: Django, etc.
12/20/2009 02:06:34 ♥ vu () ♥funimation.com/ichi
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For this Christmas, I did buy myself Swords deluxe edition via my favorite store, amazon. It was a bit pricey for a CD/DVD combo ($23 vs $12 for the standard disc), but I'm worth it.
I actually have had a digital copy of the B-Sides compilation since late October, thanks to pen pal friend Mel, as it was a "bonus" if you had preordered tickets to see Morrissey in live in 2009. And of course, like most fans, we still buy the physical release anyway, so it's a bit of a win-win situation for everyone.
I'll briefly summarize Morrissey's history: he's a bit of a sensitive, indie songwriter with The Smiths. He went solo in "nineteen-eighty-hate" with some classic modern rock hits with "Suedehead" (aka that "I'm So Sorry" song) and "Everyday is like Sunday". He went a bit rockabilly with Your Arsenal (his previous album Kill Uncle was heading to this direction, especially with the B-Sides and singles from this era), and pretty much stayed in this "muscular" rock type music since. As I previously mentioned, I think this has to do with his musical collaboration with Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte.
If you're new to Morrissey, I don't think Swords would be a good starting point for you. I would recommend starting with Bona Drag, a weird mix of b-sides and oddities. Most of the songs on Swords were co-written by Alain Whyte, and there's a nice cohesive feel to each song as they have similiar song writing structure. When you do run into a non-Whyte song, such as "Sweetie-Pie", it just feels out of place. In fact, I think this is possibly one of the worst Morrissey song, right up there with "Michaels Bones".
There is one non-Morrissey-penned song, and it's a live recording of "Drive-In Saturday" (live at Omaha on 11 May 2007). Morrissey's music obsessions tend to be from the 60s and 70s era, so it didn't surprise me to hear him doing a David Bowie cover from the Aladdin Sane time period. But the two are friends, I know that Bowie showed up at a Morrissey show in Los Angeles in the early 90s to do a duet of a T.Rex's song for "Cosmic Dancer", and, of course, Bowie would later record a soul-ish version of Morrissey's "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" in 1993.
Also, it seems in post-2008, Morrissey's songs have been about fatherhood and retirement. Just looking over his titles: "Good Looking Man About Town", "Don't Make Fun of Daddy's Voice", "Teenage Dad on His Estate", "Children in Pieces", that "constipated look" for Swords, and that controversially album cover for Years of Refusal ... you would think that he's married with kids. Maybe that's not a bad thing, with Morrissey's heath in question, maybe he should take it easy. We all can't be like James Dean, you know.
12/19/2009 03:47:04 ♥ vu () ♥itsmorrisseysworld.com ♥ truetoyou.com ♥ morrissey-solo.com
Yeah, I know. You were all waiting with baited breath for my return. The 1 comment I'll get from samjohn999 trying to sell me some real estate in Cambodia or take part in the very safe and secure online spreadbetting that has recently made many millionaires will be all the proof I need.
Yes. I do thank God for my adamantium self-esteem daily. So there.
ANYWAY...Lots happened over the last two months, which is why the long absence from my blog. But I make it up by reporting much funny things and some amazing pictures from my recent trip to see my family in Africa.
So...I am now able to tell you dear readers that I now NO LONGER WORK! That is, I am now no longer employed by anyone to do anything for them that I don't want to do. I will be writing books, finally getting my hypnosis work that I have been doing for 4 years more mainstream and training in and occassionally teaching (when my friend Uldis is not doing it) the System, that awesome, awesome, cool amazing "martial art" (but really oh sooo much more than just that) I have been doing for a while now.
Some of you that care can go see more on that at WWW.WAYOFSYSTEMA.COM where you will find a rather simple site (which badly needs a revamp but I have no time or skills to do it and am hoping one of the other Systema guys will improve it sometime before 2012....)
So yeah!! I am no longer a slave of the system. For a little while anyway. I have a little money saved up for a year at least so the plan is to make enough money to survive (or even you know, buy a few islands, I don't mind being stupidly, obscenely rich, it's ok with me...) doing only what I want to do out of my own wish to do it, as opposed to having to in order to do luxurious things like have running water and food to eat in a nice apartment.
Those of you now turning green with envy please note that you are as much in a position to be doing what I am doing (sweet, sweet nothing) as I am or was. If you REALLY want to do so, I cannot suggest strongly enough that you read Vadim Zeland's book Transurfing Reality (There are three books but the first two are really enough and the last two are only available in Russian for now). More than anything it has certainly helped to shape my view of reality in a way that is really malleable by me, the operator of it. Sounds too Matrix-ish for you? Too bad. That's how it works and you should watch more SF movies anyway, it's good for you!
I also moved home and thus pay a cheaper rent, though that at the moment is REALLY cheap as I have stopped paying it altogether since more than 2 months after we moved in I STILL have boiler and electrical problems of a pretty serious nature (not to mention several other issues not as serious but certainly not fun to deal with). Let's see how long it takes the Estate agents to wake up now. In the meantime I am going about fixing these things myself now and I will simply not pay rent until I have it ALL sorted and then I will deduct all the costs as well as my time for sorting it all out and only THEN start paying rent again.
Every possible reasonable option has honestly been tried before this and at the end of it I have just lost patience with the utter fucking scandalous incompetence, stupidity and fucktard, brain-damaged-like inability to get any kind of half-decent service done in apparently the whole of greater London from people who take chunks of money from you for supposedly providing such non-existent service.
I would list the incredibly long amount of retarded things I have been subjected to but I'll stick to a few highlights for your amusement:
- The leaky tap in the kitchen was supposedly visited by a plumber. It still leaks exactly the same as before so I asked if the next time the plumber can maybe also hold it and speak some comforting words to it as apparently just visiting it doesn't do the trick.
- Today the guy who supposedly sorted out the washing machine (but I haven't tried it yet so I seriously doubt he actually did anything successful on that appliance) suggested that the way to rectify the problem of the fridge door not staying closed was to "not put any bottles in the bottle holding part of the door". Actually since it's snowing in London I suppose really I should just throw all the stuff in the fridge on the balcony and hope for the best. Maybe even hope it snows enough to make an ice-box which will take us through the short summer like trappers of old in the Canadian wilderness. I somehow resisted the urge to ice-pick the "handy-man" and hang him from a hook off the balcony in case meat runs low in the harsh winter months.
- The boiler "knocking noise" and intermittent hot-cold water when showering is not due to any problem with our boiler. It's from another flat. Hyperdimensional physics must clearly be involved, but I guess it's a "need to know" thing because when I asked how in the name of anyone sane could an electrical problem in ANOTHER flat be affecting MY hot water supply I was not given an answer. Just repeated the same drivel above. I invited the estate agency's maintenance guy to come up here and see for himself. To be precise I told him to bring a towel because I would have pleasure in having him take a shower here to experience for himself the situation. I don't care if it sounded gay to him. At this point buggery is after all only about the 7th lowest item on the list of things I'd like to do to the whole of the "management" of the Estate agency and their employees responsible for them not fixing these issues over a period of 2-3 months.
So yeah...rent's gonna be real cheap around here for a while. I may have to live like a fur trapper of the 19th century but then again the Estate agency offices are literally just outside the apartment complex I live in, so if I ever run out of fresh meat I will just go ice-pick one of the proto-humans they employ and hang his/her carcass from my balcony for preservation purposes and good meat curing. They certainly don't seem to serve any other function so I assume they are a meat giving animal. Sort of like cows but stupider and less useful. And more full of shit which probably means they play havoc with the ozone layer.
In the meantime enjoy a picture of the view I have from my new office space I created inside the flat. That mild reflection is me and I am glad to say I actually have my PJ bottoms on...bonus!
After the hectic end of my work and move, Redhead Girl and I went on holiday for three weeks to South Africa, (Johannesburgh) though she also visited her oldest friend who now lives in Maputo and we also went to Cape Town and a resort bordering the Kruger National Park for a few days so we were actually in planes a whole bunch of times while there.
The trip was great and I also got to train with Vadim Dobrin who is a gentleman as well as being a deadly and funny guy. He was so cool he basically organised one class on a Saturday just for me with two of his top students (who are both younger, nicer people and better than me at Systema, but I feel I make up for it by being far more ornery, vicious and unpleasant than them in general life [which gives me immense satisfaction]* and knowing things about women and sex they will only discover if they become at least as debauched as I am and work hard at it for the next 50 years or so)**
Here's a few pics for you (and more later, including some of an Elephant in musk at about 15 metres from us):
They are (from left to right):
1. Redhead Girl silhoutted on Camps Bay beach
2. Me and my little brother after I just baptised him (with some sea-water, hence the crosses) "Aldo Libero" the first in my own sect of free people. Yes, I plan to have a religion named after me one day, it's all part of my plan to take over the world for my Martian brethren. This was at Yzerfontein where I have a couple of plots, one of which is now for sale for about R1,100,000.00 (roughly about £90,000) which considering it's about 200 metres from the Ocean and has guaranteed views and given the general prices in the area is actually a decent price, so if any of you want it, let me know. Broker fees would be on top of this.
3. Redhead girl looking sexy at Boulders, the Penguin colony, which she loved and where she took hundreds of pictures of the ridiculous and yet very cool penguins.
4. Redhead girl and me at Boulders again (Simon's Town).
Here is a couple more for you:
1. A Penguin suntanning. if you look you can see he has his eyes closed and little short feet propped up
2. Boulders beach. Exclusively for the use of Penguins so their small colony can be safe from human interference
3. Redhead girl at the Dias cross at Cape Point
4. My view for a lot of the time we were at the game resort
But since I know you're all waiting for the animal pics, here they are:
1. Ostriches at cape point. the males are black with white feathers and the females brown
2. Hippos at the golfing resort (I have never played golf, but the animals all over the range are cool)
3. Crock near the pond in the middle of the golf course. I had to get a little closer than you see Redhead Girl in the last pic as all these pics were taken with my camera phone, but he was sleeping so no problem really
4. Redhead Girl takin pic of the giant lizard
This post is becoming mammoth, so more pics of animals (including the Elephant one) in the next post after I eat dinner!
* Hey I get my pleasure where I can, don't judge.
** I'm not that old, it's just that there's lots of catching up to do for them in this area really. Way more than is healthy anyway.
DOMINO? YOU MEAN DOMI-YES
dominorecordco.com
You know, I honestly don't know how Ryan does it, keeping up with the various 'tweets'. I personally think twitter become absolutely useless if you have more than 50 friends. There's also so much spam on twitter!
So, I mostly just have it filtered to reading our own twitter to discover new freebies. So below was sent out a few days ago:
weheartmusicWe♥Music
Check out the @DominoRecordCo Xmas Sampler - http://bit.ly/53Thv0 - Final Fantasy, Wild Beasts, The Kills, Franz Ferdinand & King Creosote.
11:49 AM Dec 14th from web
I also really dig Joker's Daughter (for non-comic book nerds, yes the Joker had a daughter - I think she mostly fought the 70s Teen Titans). I love "classic" pop girl-group sound, and this band has the vocals and melodies. Although the subject of Gremlins and "Bouncing Liquorish Bears" may be on the weirder side.
OF DOVES AND FISH
harveysidfisher.com
Dovecote Records gathered three of their recording artists to do a mini-tribute to Harvey Sid Fisher. While I don't know much about Fisher, based on hearing the three covers by Mason Proper, Tim Williams, and Trevor Giuliani, I have concluded that Fisher was a bit of a strange songwriter and has a bit of an interesting "older" man's vocals... each of the modern artists do try and emulate the singing style.
My personal favorite is Tim Williams' rendition. Nice backup vocals and the repetitive "hit another wall" refrain.
If you want to hear these songs for yourself - head over to dovecoterecords.com and click on the "Download Now" link. There's no catch either, none of that "give us your email" thing. Just a nice little free EP.
UPDATE 12/18/09: I misread the press info, the songs are all sung by Harvey Sid Fisher (doing covers of Dovecote artists). This would explain why all the songs sounds like an "older" man.
OLD WAVE MIXTAPE
nouvellesvagues.com
Cover lover band of approval, Nouvelle Vague, made a 10-track free mixtape at whenyouawake.com.
Most of the tracks are by American artists, some classic from Roy Orbison ("You Got It"), Louis Armstrong ("We Have All The Time In The World"), Johnny Cash ("Ring Of Fire"), etc. There are a few weird ones (weird as in didn't fit in) like Sufjan Stevens and Rolling Stones... however, I will admit tapping my feet when I heard the intro to "Let's Spend The Night Together". There is the token French artist Serge Gainsbourg on the mixtape for good measure.
While I'm not entirely sure about the legality of this free download, I think it's good promotions for the bands mentioned on the tape. Plus, it's a nice boost of ego, you know?
daffodilpublicity.com confirms these are their forth-coming North American tour dates:
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Friday, Jan. 22, Philadelphia, PA, World Café Saturday, Jan. 23, New York, NY, Webster Hall Sunday, Jan. 24, Boston, MA, Somerset Tuesday, Jan. 25, Montreal, PQ, Metropolis Wednesday, Jan. 27, Toronto, ONT, Opera House Thursday, Jan. 28, Detroit, MI, Crofoot Ballroom Friday, Jan. 29, Chicago, IL, Logan Square Monday, Feb. 1, Denver, CO, Bluebird Tuesday, Feb. 2, Salt Lake City, UT, Urban Lounge Thursday, Feb. 4, Seattle, WA, King Cat |
Friday, Feb. 5, Vancouver, BC, Venue Sunday, Feb. 7, San Francisco, CA, Regency Monday, Feb. 8, Sant Cruz, CA, Rio Theater Tuesday, Feb. 9, Los Angeles, CA, Henry Fonda Friday, Feb. 12, Dallas, TX, Granada Saturday, Feb. 13, Austin, TX, Mohawk Sunday, Feb. 14, New Orleans, LA, Republic Tuesday, Feb. 16, Miami, FL, Revolution Wednesday, Feb. 17, Orlando, FL, Firestone Thursday, Feb. 18, Atlanta, GA, Loft Saturday, Feb. 20, Washington DC, 9:30 Club |
YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO SAVE MONEY
I don't work for Best Buy, but I wanted to pass along this deal, since it is almost a crime to not buy it. It is $140 for HANNspree 23" HD LCD 16:9 Widescreen Monitor. That's cheap, considering the same monitor would've cost at least $700 a few years ago.
I did buy it and setup was very plug-and-play easy. It came with a disc for a Windows Vista driver, but if you just have XP, it would just recognize the monitor. Hooking it up on the PS3 using the HDMI cable (not included) was also easy - however I did not like the long pauses as PS3 auto adjust when it plays bluray discs (I suspect this has to do with determining that it's a compliant display since HDMI is notorious for anti-piracy junk).
Compare to the old CRT monster monitors, this 23" is superlight - even Mr Burns can easily move the monitor around. The product page lists 9.9lbs, but it feels like it's only one or two pounds.
The monitor does have built-in speakers, but it sounds tinny. Not exactly awesome audio, but for $140, that's just a bonus. I recommend buying monitor headphones and plugging it in the monitor for clearer audio. And speaking of audio, since this is marketed as purely a monitor - there is also no remote control access. If you need to turn down the audio, you have to adjust it on the monitor itself.
Despite my complaint, this is one of best image display I've own. It's native 1920x1080 is pretty sweet when I'm playing Dragon Age (since now I can have more items in the "quick" slots at the bottom).
* practically free
12/16/2009 11:25:14 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
Greetings, dear readers. I hope you are well.
I had a couple of vertebrae fused last October, and so I've been away on a health sabbatical of sorts. The cold weather is not helping! I feel so odd saying that I will welcome some warm temperatures again, especially after we got some lovely snow in my home area last weekend. But when you have metal in your body, or nerve damage, or both, you start feeling the barometric changes more.
I wanted to take a moment to share some other music blogs I have been reading here at VOX. I promise I will be back with more music, including 2NU's last offering. (Who is 2NU? Stay tuned...) But until then, allow me to share some other blogs of interest, including a side project of mine.
(On a side note, it seems to me that many of the resources I looked at when writing reviews here seem to be very similar to what friends of mine looked at writing for university and college publications, or what they played for college radio. But I digress...)
Those that have followed my reviews here know that I'm a big fan of mashups and bastard pop. It's always been a satirical commentary for me, in some part, on how the commercial industry likes to come back to familiar hooks and "radio-friendly" licks-- how else can two or more songs, especially when they seem so radically different, come together? They can come together, all right, in a rather slick way that can express an entirely new idea that is different from the sum of the mashup's parts.
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The Dude’s Blog (Blog de The Dude) has a general focus-- nothing too specific, but that's fairly within the spirit of things at W♥M-- write about what you like. Obviously, his username is taken from The Big Lebowski, which was referenced by Vu in Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). His latest post covers his album picks for 2009.
- Aurelio’s blog is a little more general than even that--"Un cocktail de musique, ciné, bouquins, bonne bouffe et rigolade" (A mix of music, film, books, good food, and comedy). He hosts Albums 2009, so some of his latest posts have also been about his selections of music in 2009.
- niggytardust writes in English and French, so if you don't speak/read/write French, you have an English option. More of a rock focus.
- Ground Countrol To Major Tom focuses on new artists and independent music.
- Music Is My Radar is written by moien
So there you have it. I'm probably just scratching the surface, but most of these bloggers and Vox Groups specifically mentioned (if not all) have contributed to W♥M in some form or another, so have a look around.
12/15/2009 23:56:22 ♥ jaklumen (
/ jaklumen.vox.com)
