Now that I’ve moved and live too far away to walk to work, I spend a lot more time in my car than I used to, so I’ve found myself searching for CDs to listen to while driving. Since I haven’t made any alphabet mixes lately, I decided to go back to my old habit of making a mix every month or so of what I’m currently listening to. It can be anything new or old, just songs that have caught my attention over the past few weeks. Here’s what I came up with this time:
1. Baltimore to Washington… Woody Guthrie
2. Come On Hard… Gin Blossoms
3. The Weight of the World… Editors
4. Crash… The Ocean Blue
5. Car Crash… Matt Nathanson
6. Catch… The Cure
7. Places… Blue Merle
8. Jolene… Dolly Parton
9. The Night Starts Here… Stars
10. Dance With Me… Cabin
11. Twenty Four Hours… Athlete
12. Gravedigger (Live)… Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds
13. Be My Escape… Relient K
14. Carolina… Josh Rouse
15. Words… Doves
16. Ohio… Damien Jurado
17. Ragoo… Kings of Leon
18. The One I Love (Live)… Liz Durett
19. Someone to Love… Fountains of Wayne
20. The Bleeding Heart Show… The New Pornographers
9.30.2007
9.16.2007
Standing on the Mountainside
I spent the past two days at Red Rocks taking in the inaugural Monolith Festival, and other than some sore legs, I’d call it a rousing success. The festival had five stages (the main Red Rocks stage plus four smaller areas), and over the course of two days, I saw 19 bands. Having been to a few festivals in my time, I was pretty impressed with the efficient timetable by which the bands’ sets were staggered (and the fact that everyone basically stuck to it), especially since this was the organizers’ first shot at this. Over the two days, I caught bits and pieces of a lot of performances, but here’s who I stayed to watch play more than one song:
FRIDAY
Everything Absent or Distorted
The Broken West
Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Das EFX
Kings of Leon
Editors
The Decemberists
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Cake
SATURDAY
Nina Storey
The Little Ones
Meese
Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s
Ian Ball (of Gomez)
Lords of the Underground
Art Brut
Spoon
The Flaming Lips
Whew. When I look at that list, it’s no wonder I’ve been so looking forward to chilling on the couch today.
After hearing so much about them, I was really looking forward to seeing the Lips, and they didn’t disappoint. They put on a great show (although I could have done with a little less speechifying from Wayne Coyne) with smoke, lasers, confetti, streamers, and dancing aliens and Santa Clauses, and were a great way to end the two days. Kings of Leon were definitely the highlight for me, but I was impressed by The Broken West and Ian Ball (who did some great covers and solo versions of Gomez songs), really happy to finally get to see Margot & TNSAS, and had my interest piqued enough that I’ll try to see Editors and BRMC in a different setting. It was also very cool to discover some great Denver-area bands (Everything Absent..., Meese, Cat-A-Tac, Nina Storey)—there’s a pretty solid music scene developing out here. Overall, this was a great festival experience, and hopefully, next year’s will be just as good. Parking was a breeze, it was easy to move between stages (as long as you don’t mind climbing stairs... lots of them), the food and merch was fairly reasonably priced (although they could use some more variety in the food department next year), the lineup of artists was solid, and of course the setting couldn’t be more amazing. I’m already looking forward to seeing next year’s announcement.
As a side note, I was really pleased to see woxy.com as a sponsor of Monolith. As I’ve said before, WOXY was the local college radio station in Oxford, OH (where I went to school) for many years, and turned me on to a lot of the music I still love today. Through a series of strange events, WOXY was forced to go internet-only, and has twice been snatched from the jaws of bankruptcy. I talked to one of their DJ’s, Shiv, about the happy fact that they’re still in business, and we reminisced about Oxford. Then he gave me a free t-shirt (rather appropriately, the graphic is a phoenix emerging from the ashes). Sweet.
9.03.2007
Overrated
Thinking back over the past few weeks, there seems to be a theme to the pop culture I’ve absorbed: too much hype. The most pleasant experiences were the things I wasn't expecting anything from.
Slan, A.E. Van Vogt. Apparently, this novel is an important part of the sci-fi explosion of the mid-20th century. Maybe so, but maybe readers had lower standards back then, too. Yikes. Thankfully, the genre has progressed quite a bit since those days. While the alienated-mutant-on-the-run-from-human-authorities theme was pretty familiar (having been repurposed many times since, most noticeably as the basis for the entire X-Men mythology), the writing was so stiff and stilted that I barely made it through the book.
Little Children. Why did the critics love this so much? It was creepy and disturbing, the narrator was jarring and disruptive, and there wasn’t much likeable about any of the characters. Guess that’s reviewer-code for “edgy” and “gritty performances”. Well, the Oscars can have this one.
National Treasure. Nicolas Cage in a Jerry Bruckheimer production. Two guys that are emblematic of everything wrong with Hollywood. Of course they’re making a sequel. It was good to shut my brain off for a couple hours, I guess, but that’s definitely all I got out of this.
American Dreamz. This spoof of reality singing shows one was actually decent, although there were probably some inside jokes I missed because I’ve never watched American Idol. Given that tradeoff, however, I was happy to miss some of the humor. And seriously, why does Chris Klein keep getting roles?
Blades of Glory. Will Arnett gets the funniest line of the year: “Not only did we embarrass Marky Mark, we let down the Funky Bunch.” The movie was stupid and silly, but sometimes stupid and silly is all you need. Besides, who cares if the movie was any good? Jenna Fischer in lingerie! If I wasn’t on Team Pam before (which I was), I sure as hell am now. Yowza.
Superbad. Not as funny as all the hype, but still good for a lot of laughs. Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame) is going to be hurting when he grows out of being able to play the awkward teenager, but for now, he’s got that role locked down. And of course, Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow continue their hot streak.
And speaking of those two, September 25 is now looking like the most geektastic day of the year, and Apatow and Rogen are involved. Not only is Halo 3 finding its way into the hands of millions of gamer geeks that day, but Knocked Up hits on DVD. Something tells me Seth Rogen may be celebrating by playing a little Halo himself. (And by something, I mean the fact that I played an online game of Halo 2 with someone I’m 99% sure was him recently.) On the other hand, he’s a big Hollywood star, so he’ll probably celebrate with coke and hookers. Hookers who play Halo. Or something like that. That’s what I would do, anyway.
Wilco at the Fillmore Auditorium. And now we get to the pleasant surprise. I’ve always had a hot and cold relationship with Wilco’s music, but I saw them in Columbus, OH about 8 years ago on a double bill with Matthew Sweet. I was there for Matthew, but I remember Wilco putting on a pretty solid show. So I knew they were capable performers, but no memories from that Columbus show could have prepared me for the show they put on Saturday night. The lineup of the band has changed somewhat over the years, and they seemed a lot more willing to rock out, putting two and three guitars to work on songs that are definitely more mellow on the albums. Plus, not only is new lead guitarist Nels Cline an amazing player, smoothly handling a wide range of styles from Neil Youngish to Brian Mayesque, he’s got the showmanship thing down, too. I had a great time, so much so that I finally gave in, went home and hit iTunes to fill in the gaps of my Wilco collection. And now I know I’ll enjoy it all.
Slan, A.E. Van Vogt. Apparently, this novel is an important part of the sci-fi explosion of the mid-20th century. Maybe so, but maybe readers had lower standards back then, too. Yikes. Thankfully, the genre has progressed quite a bit since those days. While the alienated-mutant-on-the-run-from-human-authorities theme was pretty familiar (having been repurposed many times since, most noticeably as the basis for the entire X-Men mythology), the writing was so stiff and stilted that I barely made it through the book.
Little Children. Why did the critics love this so much? It was creepy and disturbing, the narrator was jarring and disruptive, and there wasn’t much likeable about any of the characters. Guess that’s reviewer-code for “edgy” and “gritty performances”. Well, the Oscars can have this one.
National Treasure. Nicolas Cage in a Jerry Bruckheimer production. Two guys that are emblematic of everything wrong with Hollywood. Of course they’re making a sequel. It was good to shut my brain off for a couple hours, I guess, but that’s definitely all I got out of this.
American Dreamz. This spoof of reality singing shows one was actually decent, although there were probably some inside jokes I missed because I’ve never watched American Idol. Given that tradeoff, however, I was happy to miss some of the humor. And seriously, why does Chris Klein keep getting roles?
Blades of Glory. Will Arnett gets the funniest line of the year: “Not only did we embarrass Marky Mark, we let down the Funky Bunch.” The movie was stupid and silly, but sometimes stupid and silly is all you need. Besides, who cares if the movie was any good? Jenna Fischer in lingerie! If I wasn’t on Team Pam before (which I was), I sure as hell am now. Yowza.
Superbad. Not as funny as all the hype, but still good for a lot of laughs. Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame) is going to be hurting when he grows out of being able to play the awkward teenager, but for now, he’s got that role locked down. And of course, Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow continue their hot streak.
And speaking of those two, September 25 is now looking like the most geektastic day of the year, and Apatow and Rogen are involved. Not only is Halo 3 finding its way into the hands of millions of gamer geeks that day, but Knocked Up hits on DVD. Something tells me Seth Rogen may be celebrating by playing a little Halo himself. (And by something, I mean the fact that I played an online game of Halo 2 with someone I’m 99% sure was him recently.) On the other hand, he’s a big Hollywood star, so he’ll probably celebrate with coke and hookers. Hookers who play Halo. Or something like that. That’s what I would do, anyway.
Wilco at the Fillmore Auditorium. And now we get to the pleasant surprise. I’ve always had a hot and cold relationship with Wilco’s music, but I saw them in Columbus, OH about 8 years ago on a double bill with Matthew Sweet. I was there for Matthew, but I remember Wilco putting on a pretty solid show. So I knew they were capable performers, but no memories from that Columbus show could have prepared me for the show they put on Saturday night. The lineup of the band has changed somewhat over the years, and they seemed a lot more willing to rock out, putting two and three guitars to work on songs that are definitely more mellow on the albums. Plus, not only is new lead guitarist Nels Cline an amazing player, smoothly handling a wide range of styles from Neil Youngish to Brian Mayesque, he’s got the showmanship thing down, too. I had a great time, so much so that I finally gave in, went home and hit iTunes to fill in the gaps of my Wilco collection. And now I know I’ll enjoy it all.
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