I'm So Glad That I'm An Island
posted March 18, 2007, 6:38 pm | Log In To Post Comments | 
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Tags: Metric, Dinosaur Jr, Modest Mouse, LCD Soundsystem, !!!, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Sound Of Silver, Myth Takes, Foley Room, Thickfreakness, tv sucks, yelling at strangers
Lyric Of The Day: "There is no way out/the only way out is to give in..." - Metric, 'Empty'
Forgive me. It's been a surly week, and even though I feel like I matched it blow for blow, I'm still really exhausted and ready to just die for a month. Emily Haines makes me feel better, though, plus she's easy on the eyes, which ain't no bad thing neither.
Dinosaur Jr. is coming to town and I have no tickets. This is wrong. This is oh-so wrong. I will cry if this keeps up.
Oh, listen to me whine...
New Acquisitions (I like this part):
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank: Yes yes yes. A thousand times yes. One of Isaac Brock's strengths as a lyricist is somehow making you feel like you're part of this huge collective of like-minded souls, albeit clumsy and mole-like, well-intentioned but distastrously ill-suited to what we're trying to achieve; and even though we might be stumbling around and breaking things accidentally, we're all trying to get to the same place in the end. I would let this man enter me if he needed to.
LCD Soundsystem, Sound Of Silver: One of those groups that I just wanted to hate when they came out, as they were championed by every kid wearing tight jeans and a hoodie under their blazer (Indie kids are like any other sort of infestation, which means you should not feel guilty for using lethal methods to get rid of them. It's okay, they have no souls, so they don't really feel anything...); they won me over, however, and I was curious to see how they'd follow up on their self-titled release. James Murphy is still doing his best 70s glam-star impression, and even though at first listen most of these songs sound like part 2 of 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House', it's still pretty agreeable.
!!!, Myth Takes: More New York dance-punk. !!! always seemed like the cooler older brother to LCD Soundsystem; there was always the impression that while you were listening to what DFA was putting out, there seemed to be something a little better going on with !!!. The name of this new one reminds me of that series of fantasy humour books by Robert Aspirin in the 80s that had similar 'playful' titles like Hit Or Myth, Myth-Conceptions, etc.; of course, it was the kind of humour that one could only appreciate if they'd spent their formative years in a dark basement playing Advanced D&D, which is to say, lots of jokes about Plus 10 Vorpal Swords and having sex with demons and elves. It was...um...not good.
My childhood was sad. I know this. Get off my back.
I'm still waiting for someone to come up to me and ask if I've heard the new Exclamation Mark, Exclamation Mark, Exclamation Mark.
Amon Tobin, Foley Room: I don't need to listen to this to say that this will be brilliant. It's Amon Tobin. You would not believe how many people ran screaming from his last effort simply because it had Tom Clancy's name stamped all over it (http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/albums/index.php?album_id=3355); which is sad, as it was probably his most cohesive work to date. Listening to Amon Tobin is like watching a Kurasawa movie about robotic samurai.
Plus: one of the downtown record stores is having a sale on stock that's actually good ("Boston's Greatest Hits for ten bucks? Where do I pay?"), so I picked up these:
The Black Keys, Thickfreakness: One of the many CDs I discovered while working at EvilRecordStore, but somehow forgot to pick up while I still had a discount. I am a dolt. The Black Keys do bluesy rock they way it's s'posed to be done, and they're only two guys. Plus, the cover is just SO FRIGGIN DIRTY.
Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea: Someone stole my copy of this. Someone's gonna die a slow fucking death.
What else? Lessee...I haven't seen Zodiac yet, I haven't seen 300 yet, and even though Christopher Eccleston is now on 'Heroes', television has just bottomed out completely (Aaron Sorkin: seriously, what the fuck, dude? Why am I watching forty-something actors make mushy faces at each other?) - that is, until season 3 of LOST, Battlestar Galactica and Deadwood all come out on DVD, at which point I will have to sell a couple pints of blood to pay for it (I refuse to watch these shows as they're broadcast, for many reasons...). I am currently reading Mark Danielewski's Only Revolutions, which is even more schizophrenic than House Of Leaves was, but is still strangely beautiful; of course, it might also mean that I'm gonna start yelling at random strangers on the street because the narrative frustrates me to no end, but that's art for ya.
Oh, and girls still make my head do strange things that I'm not proud of, but it seems as though the human condition consists of nothing but inventing new ways to abase one's self for the chance to touch a boob or two.
My belly is now making enough noise to drown out the music, so I must either feed it or punch it. I'll let you know how it goes.
Comments:
Chris, I had no idea that Amon Tobin had a new album coming out. I'm very curious. I've got the new !!! sitting here waiting for a dedicated listen too. And I'm interested in your full take on LCD soundsystem. The last one was on the fence for me.
Additional Tags: Smashing Pumpkins, Adore, Machina, Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
posted on March 20, 2007, 12:23 am
