From Gizmodo I got this link to a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy by a guy with a theramin. It’s dope:
But the best part is the guy on the beat machine. He seems SO intense tapping out the beats.
Here’s the same (theramin, not beat) guy doing the Super Mario Theme:
I’ve listened to this performance of “Silver Spring” by Fleetwood Mac millions of times, but never really watched it. And I’m not a huge Fleetwood Mac guy. I enjoy a lot of their music, but never got into them enough to really know anything beyond the band name and Stevie Nicks. So via Bill Simmons via Diablo Cody here is “Silver Spring” by Fleetwood Mac.
So Stevie and Lindsay dated and broke up. And the raw emotion with which she sings about haunting a former lover is just palpable.
pretty good tunes on my birthday.
Musical #1s on February 25 through the years.
On my actual birthday, Rod Stewart (and I guess I) was rocking out with “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’
Find your #1s here.
THE GREATEST TWO FIRST PARAGRAPHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WRITTEN WORD:
I am a very busy and important man. I don’t need to tell you this. The shit I have to deal with every day would make your pubes turn white. Check it: While dictating that last sentence I did something complicated in Excel and pleasured my ex-wife the way that makes her cry and call her mother. OK?
Terrific. Point is, I’m all about maximum efficiency. E.g., I use “e.g.” instead of for example. It’s just faster, and classier.
That’s right, all of written word. The rest of the article on the perfect length for pop songs found here. Including this gem of a sentence: “It’s a mere two seconds longer but feels like it drags on for hours.”
By the way, as per usual, thanks to Kottke.
Recently released an album (Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo – non-affiliate Amazon link) of essentially demos and songs that didn’t quite make the Weezer cut. Some good stuff, some not so good stuff, some experimental stuff, some weird stuff. Thoroughly Cuomo through and through. There’s a lot on this album I like a lot. But this is what I share:
This is the Way – youtube
Here’s Rivers’s review of the whole album. Here’s what he had to say about “This is the Way”:
For Weezer’s sixth album, I was feeling extremely adventurous again. I wrote an epic, six-minute, symphonic type of art song called “Daydreamer.” After I wrote the song, though, I reversed myself again, deciding to write a straight-ahead, nothing-fancy, middle-of-the-road, urban pop type of song. I took the chords from a Mario hit, fired up the drum machine and the synth pads, and wrote “This is the Way.”
Sometime between writing these two songs, I realized that one of them wouldn’t work. Which one, I’m still not sure: I think I might ask Rick [Rubin]. He’s the most extraordinary producer. He has these big beardy jowls because of all the producing he does. At the same time, though, he’s a huge Danzig fan and has a caustic wit.
Everyone around us was saying “‘This is the Way’ is the bomb—you should really do that song.” Scott [Shriner], in particular was like, “I want to sing that song. I can own it.” Even with all the professional respect I have for Scott (he’s been the best, really) I just sort of felt that an urban type pop song wasn’t where I wanted to be. I mean, I’m a married man now. Last year I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. In any case, Weezer has already conquered that territory—multiple times, and with other bassists—in the guise of “Hash Pipe,” “El Scorcho” and “We Are All On Drugs.” It was time to move on. I’ve resolved to do this pretty regularly from now on.
But who knows. Maybe “This is the Way” will end up on Weezer album number seven. We’ll see.
So incredibly weird. Not bad weird. Just weird when not knowing much about the songs on the album, just listening, I thought my iPod skipped to some other album. But straight up Rivers rocking some R&B. I kind of hope some up and coming R&B artist covers this song.
Well listening to some muxtapes now. It’s as good a way to find new music as Last.FM or Pandora, though limited to the actual mix and not as wide and webby as those two services.
I’ve never been good at the mixtape, mix cd, etc. I don’t have a flow with that sort of thing. Maybe it’s the paralysis of choice due to my library size, or maybe from not knowing or being fully familiar with all the music in my library (complete albums I’ve not listened to yet, tons of unlistened songs as well). I just usually toss in songs I know/like until I get a CD full. I used to have a friend who would make mix cd stories. Taking into account the lyrics and all. The one I remember most was the story of a relationship, from courtship to breakup. Mostly R&B, but not because that’s most suited to the story, but that was just his style of music more so than other things.
I’d like to have this skill though. Mix of music that flows together. Appropriate for whatever purpose. So rising and falling songs. Or when needed, as Barney of How I Met Your Mother would want it, always rising! Hell even a good workout mix. Which you’d think would be easy given I have Tangerine, but nope, still not that easy.
This has been growing way fast. I forget where I first read about it. Create a “mixtape” (or, err, muxtape) by uploading music to the site. You get a link. You share, “trade”, etc. muxtapes with friends and strangers. It seems in concept like a more user defined Last.FM.
I’ve not made one yet, but a lot of my music is in .mp4, which isn’t supported (yet, but is slated for support). Maybe I’ll check it out and add it to my linkroll. Not that anyone reads this blog to click to listen to my muxtape. But if you are out there mysterious readers (hell, even the 3-4 regular readers I have that are family/friends) create a muxtape and toss me the link. Or you know, get a Last.FM account or something. (Not that I’m active in any of this social networking web2.0 stuff.)
EDIT: wow no joke. I checked muxtape yesterday. Only the creator’s (of the site) muxtape was available. Now there’s a whole slew of them. Not bad for roughly 12 hours of difference since last I went there.
But Barack certainly seems to get the young ones out. This is a great support video featuring celebs and music. If it were a single I’d buy it. As it stands perhaps I’ll find a way to get this video onto my computer. Ahem, umm, as I respect copyright laws and all of that.
Having grand mal seizures is not a joking matter. But come on, this is ripe with humor about the quality of Sean Paul… but I’ll let it pass.
Not Jurassic 5, the Jackson 5.
The group, which included Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, and later younger brother Randy, stopped touring in the ’80s when Michael and little sister Janet became superstars in their own right. The Jackson Five officially disbanded in 1990.
The Jackson 5 didn’t officially disband until 1990!??!?!