Work and Play

Last week, due to a last-minute illness of one of our regular writers, I blogged for work. It was an interesting experience. Not because it was new, but because in the four five years that I’ve been posting here, I’ve created a voice for this blog that I’m totally comfortable with—if I had to give it a name, I’d go with “geek snark” (or maybe gnark? sneek?). Even though I got the opportunity to write about a really amazing night of music, comedy, and dancing (2 of the 3 will seem quite familiar to regular readers of this blog), the assignment for work presented a challenge for me, because it didn’t feel like the blogging voice I’m used to would exactly cut it in the world of real reporting. (On the other hand, if you look at some of the other posts on Elevated Voices around the same time as mine, you’ll find several videos of a drag queen and a guy pretending to be French hunting “celebrities” around Denver, so “real reporting” is a term I use loosely.) I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the end result, and unlike this blog, I can’t go back and make unlimited edits, but I guess it turned out all right for a first effort. If there’s one thing I’ve figured out in the extremely limited writing I’ve done, it’s that I can at least do a decent job of mimicking other writing styles, so hopefully, I’ll get more chances to practice other voices beyond this one.

(And because I know she’s going to post a comment to this effect anyway, my friend Jenny has been telling me to try writing for other outlets for years now. It’s just taken me a while to figure out that she might actually be on to something.)

Summertime

This past week, Entertainment Weekly ran a small piece trying to predict what the “summer jams” of 2008 will be. A lot of mainstream music mags and websites generally do something along these lines around this time of year, and most lists are fairly predictable themselves. They will almost always include: 1 rap song with mail-order beats, tired references to how much money, cars and women the rapper has, and an incredibly annoying and repetitive hook; either a crappy Top 40 band masquerading as “punk” or “emo,” or some marginally “alternative” band slipped in by the editors in a desperate effort to hang on to whatever shreds of cred they might have once had; and inevitably, the list will be topped off by the current overproduced mess from the R&B or pop starlet of the moment, who 90% of the time can’t hit the high notes without the aid of pitch bending software. In recent summers, we’ve been treated to Rihanna, Beyonce, Avril, and Britney. This year, EW gives us three options: Mariah Carey (OK, she’s got a real voice), Fergie (absolutely hopeless without Pro Tools), and the coup de grace, Maroon 5 (kings of pitch shifting themselves) featuring Rihanna. Double the Pro Tools action, double the summer jam potential, apparently. Well, screw all that. If you can’t sing without a computer to help you, there’s no way you should be making money as a singer. But good luck trying to convince whoever is buying the iTunes Top 20 every week of that fact (I’m looking at you, High School Musical fans). Luckily for me, I haven’t crossed into that territory in many many years, and in that spirit, here’s my anti-summer jam mix. Perfect for rocking your Memorial Day picnic.

I Will Possess Your Heart… Death Cab for Cutie
Orange Crush… Editors
Grounds For Divorce… Elbow
Violet Hill… Coldplay*
Living Well Is The Best Revenge… R.E.M.
The Righteous Path… Drive-By Truckers
Rich Kid Blues… The Raconteurs
Just Like Heaven… The Watson Twins
Outfit [Live]… Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
I Like What You Say… Nada Surf
I Thought I Saw Your Face Today… She & Him
M79… Vampire Weekend
Lights Out For Darker Skies… British Sea Power
The Light… Sun Kil Moon
Shooting Star… Air Traffic
One Day Like This… Elbow

*Full disclosure: Coldplay is treading dangerously close to falling into one or two of the categories I listed above (for that matter, Death Cab’s not far behind), and I’m not 100% sold on the quality of this, their new single. But I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt until I hear the new album. Plus, c’mon, it’s Coldplay. They’ll be impossible to avoid in a few weeks anyway. Might as well start assimilating now.

Hey You. Yes You.

Every year, Time picks their Person of the Year (formerly known as Man of the Year until they got beat down by the PC Police) who has had a major impact on the world over the past 12 months, and this year, they totally copped out. This is a half-assed attempt to address the fact that ordinary average citizens are contributing more and more to the global conciousness through blogs, MySpace pages, and photo and video-sharing (on sites like YouTube, which anyone with a tiny level of awareness will recognize on the screen of the iMac on Time's cover).

Personally, I'm not sure how much the majority of bloggers and YouTubers are contributing to the greater good of the world (seriously, how many more people do we need talking about music and movies?), but all this "user-generated content" has opened a lot of doors to a lot of good music and funny videos that were previously tough to find before we could all just email them to each other. Once again, the Internet has leapt forward by providing us with more ways to waste time.

On the other hand, some things are worth the time. Here are two particularly funny videos I've come across recently. The second one is most definitely NSFW.
The Scrubs/Charlie Brown Christmas mashup (Thanks to Cynthia for this one)
Saturday Night Live's Special Christmas box

READ
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Twelve more vein openers

Again, we return to ugo.com for the artwork and track list for the new Coldplay album. It's called X&Y, and it will be out on June 6th. I wonder if this one will be any cheerier than their last two. The release date has been pushed back twice, probably because it's safer to release their albums during bright and sunny times of year. Don't want any mass spikes in the suicide rate of their fans.

I've got the NCAA Final on in the background. I don't really care much about the outcome, except that if Illinois wins, I win two of my pools. So go Illini, I guess.

Got the new Paste magazine yesterday, and I've been listening to the included CD tonight. There's some good stuff on there from Doves, The Decemberists, Mark Geary, Glen Phillips, M. Ward, and Hammock. But the biggest surprise is Deana Carter, who previously fell into the Shania Twain/Faith Hill category of pop country songstress. Her track, "Atlanta & Birmingham" from her upcoming album The Story of My Life shows a surprising depth and grit that makes me curious to hear more. Since every one of these Paste discs results in me buying a couple of CDs, I'd say Glen Phillips and Hammock are my first choices. But if I'm feeling adventurous, I might give the story of Deana's life a try.

Paste Recommends... that I spend more money on CDs

Regular readers (all three of you) may remember my post about my last visit to Luna Music, a local CD shop. Tonight I stopped by again to pick up the new CD from one of my favorite bands, Doves. When I got there, I discovered to my delight that Luna has a promotional listening booth set up by my favorite music magazine, Paste. For those of you not familiar with the magazine, it covers a lot of alt country, roots rock and British artists that you may not hear on the radio (at least not yet), and each issue comes with a 20+ track sampler CD. Since subscribing a year ago, I've spent more than my normal amount of money on music, because I discover some great artists on each new sampler CD. Well now, to make matters worse, Paste is placing these listening stations, called Paste Recommends, in independent music stores like Luna. You can listen to a variety of CDs by different artists and also listen to the sampler from the current issue of Paste. So to make a long story short, not only did I pick up Doves' stellar new disc, "Some Cities", but I also got Ivy's "In the Clear" and the self-titled debut from The Shore. It's both a blessing and a curse to love music so much. Blessing on my ears, curse on my wallet.

Come on in. Don't be frightened.

For those of you just joining us, welcome to our live coverage of MLS Cup ’97 from RFK Stadium. I’ve decided to start a blog. I know a lot of people tend to tie their blogs to some kind of major event in their lives, but I’m doing mine as a way to let my family and friends keep up with my life, whether they live in Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, DC, Michigan, New York, or anywhere else around the globe.

Upcoming events that will be covered on this page include: my first attempt at coaching youth soccer, the ongoing saga of redesigning Indianapolis Monthly (the magazine that pays my bills), my current obsession with Will Ferrell’s impersonation of President Bush, and my upcoming week in Alaska. Enjoy.