There's this blog I read, Palms Out Sounds, which I actually used to read once a week, solely for their "Remix Sunday" posts (the latest one is here) and which I never mentioned to y'all cos I'm a greedy asshole who didn't wanna reveal her source for the awesome remixes she's been hearing recently. I know, I suck. Anyway, I've been reading this blog a bit more closely lately specifically because of a recent post they made. Go read it. Rly. We don't get enough people talking about this stuff.
Well, this post has another purpose, Palms Out Sounds has been nominated by Roc-A-Fella Recs for best hip-hop blog, and they need votes and I think it would be really cool if y'all could vote. You can only vote once a day but I figure if we all vote they'll get to do all the exclusive shiznit on the new Jay-Z album release frenzy.
Weird, cos just today we were discussing this stuff in my Theory of Drama class. It was about performing gender (particularly drag acts) and performing race (particularly blackface). I was pleasantly surprised by the discussion, it was really interesting and I don't think anyone said anything too offensive, except for one kid who said that culture is a construct but race isn't, or some shit like that. I was like, "WHAT? WHAT? RACE IS A CONSTRUCT." Naw, I didn't say that, but I was shouting inside my head. Which makes it sound like I hear voices. Well shit, I do. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ohhh lord. Anyhoo.
Here, this is one of the first music videos I ever remember watching.
Watching it now, I'm like, "Go figure he likes the blonde. Tch." I can get a bit bitter at times. Which is hilarious because when I was six, I thought the most beautiful people in the world were Ludwika Paleta, Xuxa, and Marisol. Sorta sad, yeah? I mean I still think they're beautiful ladies. But y'know. Now I make room for people like Julieta Venegas or Beth Ditto or JD Samson or Kelis or whoever. Shit, my philosophy is that I'm too ugly to be picky and be all uppity about who's beautiful or not.
The other music video I remember watching when I was little, of course, was this obscure, low-budget production called "Thriller," which scared the shit out of me.
Shit I'm so disappointed. Last night I met the sibs from The Knife without their masks on and I felt so special to know what they really looked like, but I just realized that it was a dream, which makes a lot more sense since in my dream it wasn't a guy and a girl but two guys. Gawd.
So I've got a lot of ground to retread. I'm just gonna post YouTube vids in between to balance out all the text. Like this:
Nov. 2
I saw Frida Hyvönen, the Wrens and the Walkmen.
I was surprised by how good the sound was at Skirball. It was wild how loud it got, even with my earplugs.
I didn't care for Frida Hyvönen, I thought her lyrics were laughable and she was pretty unremarkable for a "girl with piano" act. Except I'm aware that it's also the kind of music a lot of people dig, plus she was cute, but I couldn't believe she was eating grapes in between songs. Maybe they help her with the singing? ::shrug::
The Wrens may have been almost sorta just a little bit amazing. It was my very first time hearing the Wrens. Well what really shocks me is that they were so old (read: probably in their late 30s). They sounded a little British to me on certain occasions, so I couldn't believe they were from Jersery. Er, JERSEY. They weren't being very showy at first but all of a sudden, bassist dude went wiiiiild and we was all like WTF GRANDPA CALM DOWN but he didn't and all the kids left their seats and rushed the stage and they looked SO HAPPY to be there. Funny about the bass, it looked real shitty and taped up all over and I wondered why, but then the dude started throwing the bass into the air and trying to catch it and I was like, "Oh... that's why..." At the end they were like, "Fifteen years ago we thought we were rock stars" and how they used to volunteer at CMJ too, and
The Walkmen were pretty good though they didn't take over the stage the way the Wrens did. Boogie-Down Nicole said it was the worst Walkmen show she'd witnessed. I liked it, except for the encore Ham came out with this electric saw and uh cut part of this guitar off. We were all confuzzled and the smell and the dust was weird. Oh yeah, biggest applause: "The Rat". I do love that song, but still.
Nov. 3
Went to see Junot Díaz who was hilarious. A must-see, seriously. He didn't want to read that much, so he just wasted time by talking to everyone about Rutgers (where he attended) and stuff. These students from BMCC were there, and all the rich NYU kids were a li'l scared, you could feel it, lol. Except for the most part I want to cry because he's such a good writer and I'm afraid I'm never gonna get to. I mean I don't want to be an author, I just wanna have a basic grasp on the English language goddamnit!
Nov. 4
I went to a CMJ panel on how to make it as a VJ. I went because Kim from Top Model was a panelist. And yeah, she looked beautiful. Also, Steven from Fuse was there. I really liked the panel. Since these people are on camera all the time, they were all very talkative and kept the panel going. Steven hogged things a bit though, revealing too much about himself: he used to be a middle school teacher and he thinks Micky Avalon is gonna be huge. I was like, Micky who?
After that I stayed for a panel on The Next Big Thing. It was basically people plugging their own projects. Like Jim Diamond (y'know, "the dude who sued the White Stripes") was plugging for a band he'd recorded recently and it pretty much sounded like one of those Detroit New Garage Rock bands, 3rd-rate White Stripes, etc. Or like Sarah Lewitinn (yeah, I KNOW) was plugging for The Oohlas. I mean she's cute but she was looking rough and her hair looks terrible. And someone from XL picked an artist from her label. I thought the panel was gonna discuss how buzz is created, I didn't think it would be so narrow as to literally pick 5 artists to expose to the crowd. We also had to listen to one full song by each of the artists, which ate up most of the one-hour panel without leaving much room for chitchat. It's not to say that the songs were bad, but there could have been a really interesting dialogue that just didn't happen, y'know?
The sad thing is, the panel moderator (who was from the Shortlist Music Prize) was the only one who picked someone totally unrelated to him, and he actually seemed really embarrassed about his pick, because rationally he understood what a dumb choice it was, but at the same time he sincerely liked it. Well guess who the fuck he chose: Micky Avalon.
Now the song was hilarious, because when I saw his picture I thought he was some white version of the kids out of Wassup Rockers, but uhhh apparently he's a crazy Jewish hip-hopper kid. But don't mind all of this, the fact is that this dude is on MySpace Records. Brace yourselves, y'all, this guy's probably gonna become really popular. Somebody get me a barf bag plz.
The third panel I went to was one on the influence of bloggers. I met my classmate Monica there. It was nice to see someone I knew. Well as the panel went on (which included Fluxblog dude and a Pitchfucker) my eyes started wandering and all of a sudden I made eye contact with... um, Kareem. Haha. It made me feel better about being at a panel on bloggers. At the Les Savy Fav show a couple of days ago he said Ryan Schreiber was sitting a couple of rows behind me. That also made me feel better; I may know what Kelefa Sanneh looks like but it's cos he's cute. Kareem has no excuse for knowing what Ryan Schreiber looks like. LOL.
After the panels I recovered by having dinner at Rachel's house. Maria was there too! Dinner was really good! Damn.
Nov. 5
Hung out for like an hour with my presentation partner. Remember? We're doing schtuff on Touch and Go? It was pretty awesome, and there was a weird moment, too: his suitemate walks in and we say hi and he says, "I think I know you from somewhere, WSN?" YEAH! He's the kid who seemed like he got into music because he got injured in his junior year of high school and lost his football scholarship and ended up with a guitar in his hands while he recovered. You know the type. And then we both fessed up about not having gone to meetings for a while. Haha, aw.
Nov. 7
There was a career fair for the noobs at NYU Law. Cute "kids". In quotes because they're all older, sometimes much more so. But still. Whatever, I got to smile at high-maintenance lawyers (some nice ones, too), and the snacks were pretty sweet. Even the Pepsi I pilfered tasted pretty good.
Nov. 9
LES SAVY FAAAAAV!!! GREAT!!! ENERGETIC!! SHORT SET (AND THANK GOD COS I WAS ABOUT TO DROP DEAD).
Missed the two openers. Boogie-Down Nicole and I spent the time bonding and talking shit about people. Y'know. And then inside we met Kareem who was happy (read: a bit on the drunk side) and was all like, "You just missed me DJ" and I felt a bit sore about it because I do love the kind of shit he DJs, but it was all good. I also found out my classmate, Monica is a mutual friend, so I was asking her about it and one of the first things he pointed out is that she meows.
She literally meows. It's just a habit, and if she wasn't cute she'd probably get a lot of shit for it, but I think it's endearing. Kareem said it freaks him out a bit cos he used to have a girlfriend who did that. WEIRD! What is this, some trend I wasn't aware of? Tch, better than hipsters wearing those palestinian scarves. Don't deny, you know what I'm talking about.
We also couldn't figure out whether Steve Buscemi dies in Reservoir Dogs. I've never watched the movie, so I dunno. I only figured he did because he dies in most of his movies...
Anyway, the show was great, it was a bit scary when Tim came our way but it wasn't too bad, didn't get no spit from him and he wasn't hassling people that much. Maybe he got a little talk from the NYU folks. Whatever, I'm just glad he didn't make me cry.
But next Thursday I wanna watch Ugly Betty on the TV because it's a pain having it stream on my computer.
Nov. 10
Work was a pain, but then when Boogie-Down Nicole and I walked to the train so I could go home, there were a shitload of police cars and fire trucks at Houston & Broadway. Fuck. So then Nicole and I walked to 2nd Ave, and the train wasn't working but I didn't realize so I walked into the station and at the bottom of the stairs was... UHHH ALBERT HAMMOND JR. And I was like, "OMG LOOK AT THIS GHETTO ASS STROKE GETTING ON THE SUBWAY" not that he was looking bad, oh no, he looked quite nice, but I'm just sayin'. I mean, this might be the most mundane thing I've seen someone do since I witnessed Frodo "Jordan Catalano is Mad Jealous of Me" Baggins getting on the line for coat check.
Well anyways, I was really stressed out and I was like, "How cute, a stroke on the subway" so I didn't say anything to him, though Al got out of the train station and I followed suit because I saw Boogie-Down Nicole had come back and was like, "Yeah biznatch, trains ain't runnin'". Nicole did see Albert come out of the train and she told me I should have told him I liked his album okay, and I was like, "Goddamn missed opportunity arghh". Well, anyway, we went to her dorm to see what happened and the Gothamist Map said that someone had reported a "suspicious package". Ohhh boy.
This Weekend was Gael García Bernal Weekend.
I watched Mala educación and El crimen del Padre Amaro. I liked the former much better than the latter, though I have to say the acting was fantastic in El crimen. But I love Almodóvar and the movie was too fucking meta to be true. And it was so colorful! Aw and the kid in it was so cute with his ears sticking out!
Also, I'm a bit pissed about the version of Mala educación I got, supposedly it's the "NC-17" cut, but honestly, some bits of El crimen freaked me out a lot more than Mala educación--I really feel like they both should have been R movies.
Here's a video of Klaus Nomi. He was one of the early victims of AIDS, when it was still seen as a gay epidemic. In his dying days, he was actually quarantined because of misconceptions that even being near someone with AIDS was dangerous.
And here's a video of the Germs. Darby Crash never came out of the closet, which I personally feel contributed to his depression and recklessness and ultimately his death. I'm really just including this because I love the Germs, and although I hardly agree with Darby on anything really, you have to admit it's impressive how many suckers fell for his fascistic tendencies.
Here's something more recent, a video of Grizzly Bear. I love this video, they've got such wonderful songs.
Another recent one, just for the LOLz.
This last video may be really obvious, but whatever: Madonna has been a queer icon for decades now, and this MTV performance is scandalously good.
Sorry this seems to have a bias towards gay men! Really, all these songs are excellent and I love them! I know there's lots of other artists who represent the queer spectrum even more widely, but maybe that's for another post.
Omaigá!!! ¿¿Por qué no me dijeron que el video de "No Hay Igual" tiene Calle 13??
To be honest, the video is lackluster, but whatevs, Calle 13 dude seems to be havin' fun. Can't say the same about Nelly. Well, I think the rappin' sorta cuts the flow of the whole "party hard" vibe, but at least he keeps things interesting, plus I do like his bit at the end.
Okay, agora I go to work. Wait, before I go, here's the video for "Atrevete-te" that Calle 13 did. WARNING: LOTS OF VIDEO HO'S IN CUTE SKIRTS. Okay, ¡bai!
Remember that list of videos Pitchfork made? Stylus made one too. And they did it better. I guess it helps that they didn't rule out any of the big directors (Gondry, Cunningham, etc.), but I really feel that Stylus were more successful because they were going for iconic, whereas Pitchfork seem to be going more for just odd or interesting images. I'm not saying the Stylus list is perfect, but I'm much happier with it.
In addition, I'm happy to report that Purpology is sort of back! Let us rejoice!
Waiting until September shall be pure torture. And then it shall be a torture trying to track this album down in an indie store and then it shall be more torture giving up and accepting that I shall have to buy this at a chain store. SIGH!
I wish they'd come to New York City! [Pout.] Well, the new tracks sound very Kinky-esque, but not in the boring way that the new Rapture track does.
I just started watching Arrested Development. The first disc was okay funny, but the second one has been REALLY funny. It's a bit of a pity that the episodes are so short. David Cross is hysterical. Also, I just have to say Ellen DeGeneres is one lucky bitch for landing herself Portia DeRossi.
By the way, I'm mad no one told me Fatrick's in this video! Do I have to discover everything by myself?
I discovered this by checking out the Fueled By RamenYouTube account. I watched a lot of the videos, and I have to say... meh. Well, I think I like Gym Class Heroes okay! I just found it odd that it's just a rapper and his band... I mean I expected a pop-punk band like the rest of the bands on Fueled by Ramen. I was really shocked that Panic! At the Disco were actually the pop-iest band on the list (in a good way, too!). However, I find Brendon Uri(n)e to be really fucking annoying! But the actual music I found tolerable. Just hearing these bands makes me question how and why Pete Wentz has been allowed to create his own label and sign bands. It's like, I could be a better A&R person! Tch! Except for Lifetime. Holy moly.
On top of that, I'm sorta upset that Paramore are just like Avril Lavigne, maybe just a teensy bit heavier; it's disappointing because at least that Hayley girl isn't annoying like Jemina Pearl.
The one thing that really upsets me is that when I listen to these bands it feels like Brand New will never come back. I'm getting so antsy about the new album, and how much it's gonna suck, yadda yadda yadda. I know we're getting close, that they know it'll be released in the fall but it still feels like a long while.
Okay, okay, enough pop-punk talk, here's a video for shits & giggles:
I finally finished the whole Sandman series again! It was great! REally beautiful!!
Watched Wassup Rockers with Boogie-Down Nicole. It was funny! The soundtrack was pretty cool, too. It was very uh, Huntington Beach. At least that's what I imagine HB punk sounds like; I can't recall which hardcore bands are from that area.
That's one of the (many) things that was disappointing about The O.C., they could have milked that hardcore punk shit. It could have been amazing. But no. They had to go down the whole Death Cab route. Well, maybe I expected too much out of a soap opera.
Anyway, back to the movie. It really cracked me up, except for the scary parts. Like Janice Dickinson was pretty frightening in the movie. She fit perfectly in the movie. The kids were pretty cool, but I didn't really care to see all these teenagers having all these things I don't have (tight pants, sex, etc). I learned a lot though. For example, I learned that teenage boys are pretty fucking stupid. Actually, I already knew that but it was a very good reminder. Another thing I learned is that there's like a secret society of Latina maids. Also, I learned that it must suck moose balls to live in California, especially if you're too young to drive and too poor to have fast internets.
On another note, Boogie-Down Nicole and I agreed that J. Lo used to be cool. A long, looooong time ago.
Yesterday I hung out with my friends. Went to Other Music with Rachel and Grumpy Jesus Guy was watching us. I have concluded that it's because this one time, Rachel and I were at the store and I asked her if she was going to purchase the CD she had in her hands, and she said in her typical sarcastic manner, "No, I'm going to steal it." He just gave us both this look.
Anyways, we went to the Quirowitz household and read musicsecret and had a good laugh. I mistakenly told them that Shaant from CIWWAFUCKTHISGODDAMNBANDNAMEISWAYTOOLONG is 18; I was confusing him with Sonny from From First to Last. Hey, sorry I confused one ugly greasy-haired bum with another. Shaant apparently is all of 19! I think everyone else was confused, too, Steven's Untitled Rock Show was on and FFTL were on but we were like, "Dude, that kid looks like Shaant." Boogie-Down Nicole and I also concluded that Trohman from Fall Out Boy is fucking awesome. This is evident in the following clip from the "Making Of... 'Dance, Dance'" video:
(Forward to around 1:12, and then to 3:25)
Rachel was like, "What's the big deal", but we were both like, "Dude, he's Jewish!" because we all know that's a totally legit reason for liking someone. For dinner we went to get Chinese food and I think Boogie-Down Nicole got a bit teary talking about how much she loves Selena.
Anyway, since I haven't written about Interpol in ages, here are my favorite remixes of their songs:
(1) "Fog vs. Mould for the Length of Love" (2) "Obstacle 1 (Arthur Baker Mix)" (3) "Public Pervert (Carlos D. Remix)"
We got some cool stuff at work. Like this new intern kid. He's so cute and cuddly and namechecked Aziz in my presence. He also seemed quite amused when "OMG I <3 Livejournal (And My Livejournal <3s Me)" played on my mp3 player. I think we'll be able to be friends. LOL. Well, the products we got were awesome and I sort of want ALL of them! I must save my store credit. We got the Four TetDJ-Kicks, a compilation of British reggae and calypso, and We Jam Econo. I was shocked by the new intern because he asked me who the Minutemen are. I don't know why I was so shocked especially since this kid is pretty young; I think it was probably my sexist views of indie rock fans. It was a weird and irrational reaction from me. I just told him to read Our Band Could Be Your Life.
My dad told me that he plays the CD that I burned him with all these songs that he likes, and he observed that when he plays "La jaula de oro", the Mexican dudes in the liquor store my dad works in get bummed. I'm like, NO SHIT. The whole song is how living in America as an immigrant sucks. But I have to agree with him, what an awesome fucking song!
OMG! By the time I wake up tomorrow, my Joan Jett vid on YouTube will have had 10,000 hits! ASSUM! Speaking of videos, in my last post I forgot two important videos I think everyone should watch: "Dog on the Sidewalk" by Deerhoof and "Karma Police" by Radiohead.
Tomorrow: Jason Collett, Buck 65 (!!!) and Feist. I wanted to go to the Pride Parade but I really can't do both. I'd be too pooped by the end of the day, I think. I don't want to be in too many crowds and in the sun for so long.
"I'm Like a Bird" Yesterday morning Nelly Furtado was on the telly and I'm sure she performed her "hot" new "hit", but she also performed "I'm Like a Bird". And she destroyed it. It was awful. I don't know what's wrong with her, but in every performance I've seen recently and even in her videos, it's like she's just posing, as if she went to modeling school and she just thinks that cameras are everywhere. You know, like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton do: always ready for the cameras by presenting their best angles. Nelly, she wouldn't ever really move her head. I guess her new hair was real expensive and she just wants to pose in the proper way to show it off. It just makes her "dance moves" all awkward and needy for validation from, I dunno, the cooler kids.
But that's not where it ends. Her eyes were glazed over like, "Why the fuck am I singing this song again?" She knows the words, but she didn't feel them at all. AT ALL. I was so appalled by this behavior and wondered where it all went wrong. She could have cared less about performing.
La Perdida Dude! This book was totally intense, you muthatouchas! Except the back of the book quotes someone telling the readers to "put down their copies of Love and Rockets", which is probably the worst advice you could give anyone, haha. It was nothing like Love and Rockets! The main character was pretty much as the title suggests, totally LOST in the midst of things. The female characters in L & R are fucking powerful and amazing. The character of Carla in La Perdida... well, not so much. But it brought up some interesting points about culture and "revolution" and stuff. It was also nice learning some new Mexican slang, haha. I found parts of it scarier than in Persepolis, and I wondered why. I think because Carla is from a privileged, safe background, you know it's a total shock to her that such scum roam the earth and she's stuck among them. On the other hand, war and terror and oppression permeate all of Persepolis, and we know that Satrapi, though she lives hard times, has become successful in her adopted country of France. La Perdida is not the best work I've read in terms of emotional effect, but still tells a good story.
Estudando O Pagode I was shocked to hear this album. I thought it was gonna be real nice 'n' easy. I was expecting MPB--música popular brasileira. No chance, fuckers, just from this album I found pagode to be a very strange genre. It's the hardest album I've listened to in the past six months. As soon as the music started I was like, "Oh shit, I really should have been more familiar with this stuff before I decided to get listen to it." Not a bad album though, but it's more of a concept album and I feel like I was thrown into it without proper research. I think what I like best is that it really IS a study of the sub-genres in pagode; every track explains which kind it is. I am pissed at the liner notes, which are completely in English. Even the lyrics. Maybe it was too much to ask for English/Portuguese lyrics. Gawd.
I should mention that last week when Rachel and I went into Other Music, there was a $75 copy of Estudando O Samba, which I'm sure has been sold by now. (Went to OM again today, and the album was still there.)
Marisa Monte Two nights ago, I listened to her voice, and I almost cried knowing that I will never have as beautiful a voice or sing in as lovely a manner.
"Warning" For some reason I was thinking about this music video I really liked when I was in high school, Incubus's "Warning". I re-saw it recently and cripes, that song was much much worse than I remembered. I remembered it being beautifully angsty and deep. Hahahaha. It's like when I re-listened to the Spice Girls way after they were over, I was like, "Wow, these songs are actually BAD!" Likewise, the video was not as great as I recalled, but it was fun to go to songmeanings and see what people were saying about the video. People seemed pretty hung up that this girl kept screaming at 10:24; I wasn't as concerned about the numerical time as I was about the fucking post-its all over her room.
Lance Bangs I packed this limited edition 7" for Lance Bangs at work, and Damian was like, "Hey, tell Lance to give a kiss to his wife for me". LOL!
Pitchfork Everyone's favorite not-really-very-good-yet-strangely-very-revered online music publication did a feature on their favorite music videos. I think they just had each writer pick 3 or 5 favorites. It was a pretty good list, at least from the 20 or so videos from the list I was familiar with. I did take issue with the choice of certain videos; I could think of better ones. I just wasn't sure what they were going for, they say they were avoiding all the obvious awesome choices (er, everything Gondry, pretty much, lololol), but then they picked stuff like A-Ha and Duran Duran and Madonna. It's like, srsly? I totally wouldn't have thought of that! Pfft.
Other videos I've seen and don't get why they were included: "Danger! High Voltage!", Electric Six "War Photographer", Jason Forrest "Galang", M.I.A. "Don't Save Us From the Flames", M83 "Material Girl", Madonna "Mickey", Toni Basil "My Doorbell", The White Stripes
I really don't think, for example, those are the best Madonna or White Stripes videos. And I don't think that Jason Forrest video is the best animated war-related video I've seen, that would go to Pinback's "Fortress".
"Helena" is interesting because it matches a cool concept that is well-realized with a really good, anthem-like song. But I don't think it's the best My Chemical Romance video, I consider that video to be "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". Yet "I'm Not Okay", as a song, is pretty crappy and is nowhere near the strongest MCR track. So which is more valuable? The solid video that lives up to the song, or the AMAZING video that makes the song more tolerable than it would have been otherwise? I love the "Helena" video, but I think the "I'm Not Okay" video will become the video that defines My Chemical Romance visually and will have a slightly better shelf life. Besides, the dead girl in the former video really creeps me out (in a bad way).
"Untitled #1" is definitely a beautiful video and very representative of not only the song, but Floria Sigismondi's visual prowess. But it's neither my favorite Sigur Rós video nor my favorite Sigismondi video. I think I like the "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" video the best; it makes me cry. And I absolutely love what Sigismondi did for "Blue Orchid", because it's The White Stripes past their prime but they still look awesome and creepy (in a good way) in the video.
They're all pretty awesome videos and could have had a spot on the list, I think! The only problem with my list is that I'm mostly very familiar with music videos from like 2000 and on.
