Squeal!
8.28.2009
8.27.2009
Songs of Summer
Frankly, twasn't my favourite summer of life... but that's what fantastic summertime tunes are for! A million minutes spent on the subway, even more minutes of non-job-itudinal time to surf the interwebs, and a splendid Lolla made for many great songs discovered and enjoyed. Here are a few I lurved this summer, and will probably listen to past Labor Day...
Pony Pony Run Run - Hey You
I posted this one before, moons ago, but I'm still not over it, making it possibly/probably my fave song of the summer.
The xx - Crystalised
Runner up. Can't stop listening to it.
fun. - All The Pretty Girls
Really, I only learned of this song yesterday, but it's quickly climbing my most played list and is sure to brighten these last days of summer.
Free Energy - Dream City
la la la, sigh.
MGMT - Hot Love Drama
Princey. And kinda Leona Lewisy. I like.
Harlem Shakes - Y Control (YYYs cover)
Has creeped its way past the original in my order of liking.
Jaydiohead - Song and Cry
A tad depressing, yes, but sometimes life makes you sad and you need to wallow. Also, it's quite a genius mashup.
Discovery - Carby (ft. Ezra Koenig)
Best song from this supergroup of dreams.
Arcade Fire - Wake Up (Where The Wild Things Are)
Spent a good part of the summer watching this trailer over and over, waiting for summer to be done with so I can watch this movie over and over.
Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice
Summerest of songs, ever.
The End. Bring on the end of summertime, Danny.
8.25.2009
No, pull DOWN the covers!
Now, I know I've made it no secret that I'm a huge fan of covers - namely the latest craze with Radio1 redos of tunes released mere seconds before their respective covers have begun rotating around the blogosphere. What really makes a good cover is the fresh perspective an artist can bring to an already established song in order to vamp the song into something all his/her/their own. But, sometimes, this handover/renewed ownership can backfire and the public will start to think these covers are the work of the reinterpreteur. Well, I'm here to give the limelight back to its due owner(s):
"This Woman's Work" - Kate Bush
...this might be the best example of a cover overshadowing the original work. Ever since Maxwell first covered this during his MTV Unplugged special... and then Love and Basketball used it for THAT scene... and then it was used for every other contemporary girl solo during every SYTYCD episode known to man, I'd venture to guess that all of YOU even thought it was a Maxwell original (not that any of you remember who Maxwell is anymore).
** I'd also like to include this song as homage to be paid the late, great John Hughes. Hear, hear, She's Having a Baby. **
"Hurt" - Nine Inch Nails
...Johnny Cash's NIN cover is a little harder to spot, because it seemed that he finally began accepting his old age, when he recorded this rendition, and took out various no-no words. Everyone knows that "crown of shit" is the signature Trent Reznor tell!
"Hallelujah" - Leonard Cohen
...It's a toss up as to which version of this 3948394x-covered is the one people always mistake for the original: Rufus Wainright or Jeff Buckley's, but the fact remains that few realize who crooned this originally borderline spoken word tune.
"Knocked Up" - Kings of Leon
...I mostly put this up as a yolk with S, since some poor, misguided soul seemed to think that KoL was DOING A COVER of Lykke Li, during the former's set at Lollapalooza. Y'know... because Lykke would obviously be the one to pen a song about a pregnant lover. Ah, to misguided youths...
Mad about Men
This show. That man. Sigh... I realize - and regret - that I am years behind in obsessing over Mad Men, but I will totally make up for lost time with my level of obsession, just you wait.
A few thoughts, now that I'm caught up to the rest of the world (may contain undecipherable spoilers):
Frickin Jon Hamm, you are gorgy. Remember on 30 Rock how he was in a beautiful bubble and I was like "damn, he IS beautiful."? Times infinity in a suit and/or shirtless.
Granted I only know about the 50s/60s ad-men era what this show, and maybe Revolutionary Road, has told me, I think the qualities of the characters are pretty true to any time. And - excuse me while I whine for a mo - especially lately, I have been right there with Don Jon and his feelings of discontent. Life is confusing, y'know? And while I may not sleep around on my wife, when he does (sleep around on my wife), I most of the time don't hate him for it. Is that awful? Probs. What I'm tryinggg to say is that I think he does a good job of giving depth to the character, exposing emotions and thoughts through every tryst - many times with just a dreamy crease of the brow - rather than just being a van der sloot.
Another thing I really like about this show is how a lot of times they just don't explain things. Why did you randomly stop shaving or telling us of the day Sally was born? Did Betty ever bring in your 'if lost, return to' suitcase from the front step? I don't know if watching two seasons in a week made this more or less frustrating than it would've been, but at first, I really expected them to finish every conversation and make up every argument. But I quite like that they don't.
I love Harry Crane, I hope he gets a dedicated plotline. And actually I really like Pete, with his blue suit and whinypants douchiness. Oh and I so called it about Salvatore in like the first eppy. Betty is so pretty, I kind of can't get over it. I haven't yet decided if I like Peggy, but I do feel pretty bad that she has to live with that haircut outside of filming. Oh well, women's lib and all that.
I feel like I should learn to drink alcohol neat. How did they do that? And more amazingly, how did all our parents get born with their parents all drinking and smoking and preggering all at once?
I hope this show encourages men to dress in suits.
Finally, yay for the Sesame Street spoof! Let's be honest, it's so I can be in touch for this parody that I started watching this show at all. Are they allowed to have cigarettes on SS? I mean they can barely have cookies.
P.S. Check me out, dirrty martini-ing it up with DD!
8.17.2009
Lollapop, Lollapop...
One week is the suggested recovery time from a 3-day outdoor rain or supershine lollapalooza. So it's been more than that, and we're finally ready to talk about it.
Here is the color guide, so you know who is saying what: S, R
FRIDAY
Fleet Foxes
What angel voices, I'm surprised their serenades didn't part the clouds and bring on the rays of light. Also, I hereby declare cutting out the elbows of one's plaid button-down the new cutting off the legs of your old ratty jeans.
"Brother, you don't need to turn. me. away." --these boys were the harmoniest of harmonicas. From beards to the hat socks to flannel to the danger of getting electrocuted... this set was the perfect example of how Lolla doesn't sate my desire to see a band perform, it just makes me want more.
Thievery Corporation
I went to TC, knowing/liking several of their songs, but not thinking much of what to expect. Turns out, they're a DAMN GOOD live show. They're kind of the perfect festival act: there are 39483094 people on stage, they have a faux-message to send about poverty or racial profiling or freeing Tibet or somethingoranother, there are fun drums - it's a wash! I hadn't thought about it before, but I think it might actually be really cool to go check out their live show (that's a lie, I had thought about it... I just thought it might just be 4 harpists situated around a sitar).
me: hm why don't i remember thievery corp at all?
R has taken this chat off the record
R: they were - shhh - blaaack.
...Ah yes, those.
Of Montreal
Robots and ninjas and balloons, oh my! This was one of the bands that I felt seeing at Lolla was just a peek of a lady's ankle, what a tease! Anyway, LURVED IT.
I learned the trick to Lolla pretty early: go pee before you HAVE to. The apocalypto gas mask people and giant clown ladies and - yes - "robots and ninjas and balloons, oh my!" had me watching, but the pending doom of my bladder exploding kept me more interested. C'est la vie.
Kings of Leon
UH-FRICKIN-MAZE-ING. What a dreamy you are, Caleb Nichol, singing about fiery sexytimes. And the drummer, you renaissanciest of men, playing your harmonica and beatboxing and whistling and whittling, all while you beat to the beat. And, R and I, swaying like we were Zanessa. It was a beautiful thing, really.
EEEEP! Zanessa swaying, indeed! Sigh...
No, really, that's more or less ALL I DID. Just stand there and sigh... and sway... and sigh. Caleb managed to find a common sexual experience among all the throngs in the audience and himself. Nathan was a percussive animal. The bassist was gorgy. Sigh...
Sway...
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
La Pasadita
Mmmm...
Mmmm... (though, it has to be said, I haven't been back SINCE Lolla weekend, for fear of having OD'ed on the greatest burritos Chicago has to offer)
SATURDAY
Los Campesinos!
Thanks for giving me time to situate myself for the band following you.
So... they're Welsh. (??)
Arctic Monkeys
You swoon, you mosh, and then you die. This was the highlight of the weekend and also this year's edition of "We Survived the 7' Tall Man Trampoose-a-lot Convention". Though being sandwiched between two of the world's tallest (and nicest) Mardy Bums did limit my view of Dreamy McCutiepants Alex Turnypoo, it also prevented me from being stomped on by high schoolers. For the best, I guessss...
I'm sure I would've been doing my KoL sighing for this set, too, had I not been having to Atlas shrug the thousands of loonies off my back. In my opinion, they didn't play enough from their first album, but I guess that's what you get when you go see a band about to release their third. In terms of our lives hanging in the balance, this didn't hold A CANDLE to last year's WS7TMT-a-LC: Rage Against the Machine edition, but I was a little surprised that a band who wrote/sang "Riot Van" could evoke such a brashness from the world's tallest 17-year-olds. Then again, I suppose it's because they wrote/sang a song about a "Riot Van".
I guess I should say something about the music, huh? Well the percussivist, whatever his name is, was great. Alex couldn't've given a damn about me dying or anyone else in the audience, but he's pretty and sings about 505, so we forgive.
Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning
SantOgold
This ain't Maury, bia, best keep your personal anecdotes to yoself. Just sing to me about Brooklyn, and be on your way.
So, of all the YouTubing I did about Santi, back when she was but a blip on the Billyburg hipster-hop/indie/folk scene, I never thought her performances would amount to anything. Since we were recovering from Arctypoos, we weren't remotely close by... but I appreciated her creating (Eh? Eh? Get it? I'll be here all night, folks...) a dance floor for people to behave inappropriately whilst thousands looked on.
TV on the Radio
Tunde, how could I forget you?? TVOTR was fun. I was not satisfied seeing them at Lolla, from what was essentially the Santi stage area, but I could see Toonds bouncing away and that was nice. As a fan who didn't lurve the mountainous cookie album and did lurve scientist dears, I must say this set was just right. Good on you, Tunde, not only for having that magical stick on Lost, but for being a splendid show-ratuer.
Ughh, fiiiiine, I'll talk about them too. Actually, I quite purposefully left out TVotR, since I didn't find being waaayyy at the back (and exhausted) the way to see them. You see, since I first began doom-doom-doom-ing the background humdingers to "Ambulence", 3984093844a albums ago, I've wanted to see Tunde & Co. live, but for whatever reason (and there have been several) I have never managed. That's why I thought Lolla was a pussy way of popping that cherry (yeah, yeah, tawdry language... get over it...). Tunde channeled a lot more of an inner James Brown than I'd have thought, but there were a good number of people on that stage who looked kind of bored. Who knows if my mind would've changed, had I seen their two biggies ("DLZ" and "Staring at the Sun"), but with KarenOgold flanking their set... it seemed they were in high spirits and welcome company.
Diplo
Wiiki wikki.
Check Diplo out... all suited up. Barney would be so proud.
AWW, Swarls! If you had said that during the dancey dance dj set, I think it would've been exponentially improved.
Animal Collective
Alright, Enya. You fail for not playing the songs I wanted to hear... or any songs at all.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Okay, so I wasn't soo enthused to see them, but KO surely told me so. She was fabulous and so endearing, forgetting the lyrics to her own biggest hit song. What a cute crazy.
The minute "Runaway" started, and Karen O came out in her Native American headdress, I was immediately taken back to when I last saw her, live. She's such a Siouxsie Sioux, and I luuuuurve her for it! And, yes, her forgetting the words to a slowed-down "Maps" might be the most adorable thing, ever.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (Acoustic Live)
Wavy Wizards
What a perfect end to a lovely day and night.
Day and night...la la la la la la, free his mind at night...
SUNDAY
Ra Ra Riot
Cheerful, summertime music on a grassy knoll = bliss. I could put that lead singer in my pocket and take him home and hug him all day. And the cellist is super hot. Go Ra Ra. Sis-boom-bah.
I think my ethnicity changed, during the course of the 12:30pm set on the most albedo-y, sun ray bans in my face day, but I daresay it was worth it. Talk about more renaissancey folk, this damn cellist/pianist/cute dress wearer more or less stole the show for me.
Bat for Lashes
Ohmigod, GIVE. ME. THAT. OUTFIT.
Okay, so while ^^this one^^ was ogling Natasha Khan's sequined leotard, I was amazed at how she could honestly belt out that voice in that sweltering heat. She even apologized to us, at one point, for her cottonmouth, but I honestly wouldn't have even known she was struggling had she not told me so. Her bopping and use of 9383943 different instruments from foreign lands and lady drummer and just all-around adorabilityiosity made B4L one of the best shows of the weekend for me.
Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
Gang Gang Dance
I peed at this time. And some baby went deaf.
Gang Gang is the quintessential sit-on-a-hill-and-listen-to-some-tunes band. It's also very much like Thievery Corporation, where you don't know if all 3948394 people on the stage are contributing to the music, or if the 4 main musicians just brought some friends along to par-tay. Gang Gang definitely lives up to the third word in the title, but they also prove they're musicians... like, they make music... like, sometimes there are just drums and doot doots and no words. For a hot Sunday afternoon, where I know I'll need a break, it works. I'm just not sure where else it might...
Vampire Weekend
Roar, Lion, Roar... la la la...
...from Alma Mater to the--Lollapalooza main stage?
Passion Pit
Yet another band that Lolla dangled in front of me and then left me wanting more of. Even Brocks loved the fro-y falsetto of Passion Pit, and that's saying something. Also I was raped by a tattoo poet's ass. All in all, a fantastic show.
I treat all the Lolla shows as if I am their mother, so I have a tough time Rosemary's Baby-ing it to try and decide on the best. Buuuuuuutttt... I'd have to say PP was DEFINITELY up there. They got to play the stage that in the street, which always seems to host my favorite acts (Black Kids and Girl Talk, last year), because it tends to be full of bands that want to just make you forget about the sun beating down your back (and does it) and make you move. Move, we did.
I hope my boyfriend doesn't sue me for talking about our personal time all on the intrawebs.
Passion Pit - Sleepyhead (Neo Tokyo remix)
Snoop Dogg
By far the toughest choice R and I (by which I mean, S) had to make. Snoop or Lou Reed. In the end, we played it right. Snoop first, to smoke and blap and one hand in my pocket, other hand making a peace sign with the best of Chi's high school population... so like, our 5th set of underage boyfriends of the weekend.
Aww, high school boyfriends! Situating ourselves by this particular set was definitely eye-opening, though, as I learned that children born in the '90s are perfectly capable of using [insert whatever illegal music downloading agent kids prefer these days] to learn all about the drug use, mysogany, loose sexual endeavors, and police authority abuse in which Long Beachers were taking part when they were but crawling around in their nappies. There was plenty of audience participation, particularly when Snoop tricked us into telling him we wanted to fuck him. Hmm, my mama always warned me about boys like him...
Lou Reed
Take a walk on the wild side, la la. Conveniently we caught the only song by him I know. He's old, it was way past his bedtime... and set-time, really.
We got to Lou just in time, it seemed, since we heard his beginning was suck and he ended up going over by about 20 min.
The Killers
I really forgot what good performers they are, and they've gotten so better. Remember the first time I saw them on their Hot Fuss tour and I loved Petunia Flowers? And then when that happened again this time? A perfect night. Minus one of my high school boyfriends calling me "ma'am", but don't worry, I got him back by denying his dying friend a sip of water.
Aww, Killers... I haven't seen them in moons either, and what with KoL and YYY, I completely forgot that Sunday too had a pretty killer (hey-o! whew, man, where DO I come up with this stuff? Don't forget to tip your waitress...) headliner. Thankfully, they're also the kind of band that recognizes their new stuff, but doesn't forget the cold classic with which we all fell in love. All those years ago, when they first hit it big, they promised us to be the nouveau glam rockers of our generation... when the final chords of "When We Were Young" blared, and the pyro blasted, and I forgot about the pain in my feet and jumped right along with the crowd... I realized that they might have done it, after all.
The Killers - All These Things That I've Done
And then we separated with only our memories and battle scars. Life after Lolla sucks.
PSA!
You guys! Wear your seat belts!
In taxis, too!
Especially in taxis!
Here's why:
See? I was in that cab. Not the yeller one. The other one. And it crashed, and the airbags came out, and I hit my leg on the plastic thingie between the seats, and now I have a boo-boo.
And we had to go to the hospital (Bellevue - am I the only one who thought that was just a mental hospital? When they said that's where we were going I was like "nooo, I'm not crazy! there WAS an accident!!." But actually it has a big ER and stuff, too). Anyway we went there and I got to ride in an ambulance (!) which was wayy exciting, and the EMTs were very very nice. But the ER staff was not, because they have stressful jobs or summat. Psh.
Anyway, they stuck me in pediatrics because I am only 22, which is a terribly young age. But that was actually a bad thing because I had to fight with adorable children for attention, and, though I was wearing my spider-leg eyelashes, no amount of batting can compete with a 4 year old with a cough. I was supposed to get a tetnis shot (because of the boo-boo), but then after 3 and a half hours I was booooored so I was all "laaaate." And here we are.
So let this be a lesson to you all: Wear your seat belts in cabs, or else you too might have to go to the hospital and deal with mildly unpleasant staff, and spend 3 hours trying to find the trombone in the tree in the Highlights magazine. Which is pretty fun, but still.
Are you all going to wear seat belts in taxis now? Promise?
Good.
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