godream | Entries tagged with music

Live music makes me irrationally happy. Especially if it's a band I love. Especially if it's a band that is awesome live. And I went to see Mike Doughty's Band tonight, so I'm especially especially irrationally happy. Eeee!

(... and now to go do the logic homework.)

Current Mood: eeeeeee!
Current Music: "stand in the light stand in the light stand in the light"

Yesterday morning it was proven to me that canned cream of mushroom soup (unlike canned spaghetti) can be eaten at least two months after the printed expiration date. Go figure.

I'm thinking I'm going to bake cookies tonight, and they're going to be everything-that-I-have-kicking-around kind of cookies. Currently debating if I can get away with loads of chocolate and cinnamon in the same cookie -- it sounds like a good idea to me. Anyone with brilliant recipes, feel free to share...

Carbon Leaf was pretty awesome, in spite of arriving too late to hear What About Everything, my favoritest song. (I cried. On the inside. In my bitter, angry heart.) The band's performance was interesting to watch in a couple of ways: for one, I've gotten used to watching lead singers who also play an instrument at the same time, generally guitar, and Carbon Leaf's lead singer whose name I can't be bothered to look up doesn't do that (though he did kick out the harmonica and a wind instrument I wasn't close enough to identify -- maybe electronic?) and by contrast with what I'm accustomed to, the just standing in front of the mike looked a little odd. Which of course says more about my concert habits than the band itself. :P The bassist had an interesting acoustic bass -- oddly proportioned, like an anorexic cello, but I think it was some sort of upright bass. And although the banter left something to be desired (that other city in Massachusetts is pronounced wusstah, not wor-ces-ter, and it got less funny every time, and there was a whole bunch of dead time to fill 'cause the humidity and temperature were all over the place -- if you don't like the weather in MA, wait a minute -- and kept messing with the instruments' tuning) the music was fantastic, which is really what it's all about anyways. I thought one of the guitarists in particular was really incredible, but the whole band was awesome and made me extremely happy.

One more week left at work, then maybe I'll go home for a week or so, then back here probably just as the huge wave of incoming frosh show up. Which I'm actually really looking forwards to -- it'll be weird for us not to be the frosh anymore, but it should be fun. And people will be coming back from their various summer things, and it will be Good, 'cause I miss everyone. I'm looking forwards to the school year starting (although also panicking a bit, 'cause omigod suddenly it's so soon.)

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: carbon leaf - what about everything?

Copley Square concerts could very easily become a new habit. Saw half of Maia Sharp's set (really good) and all of Mike Doughty's (fantastic) yesterday... the concerts are nestled in this grassy area, a little crowded but not too bad -- I was close enough to the stage to watch guitar fingerings (with the side effect that my left ear will never be the same), and it was an absolutely beautiful day, and really nice on the whole.

Then off to hear Speakeasy at the Middle East -- as usual the sound setup there made me a little sad; the upstairs room is not a huge space and I imagine there's only so much you can do (and the sound tech was definitely walking around the room and listening and balancing actively the whole time) but it seems like the solution they use every time (the only solution, probably) is to up the volume on everything until it can compete with the drums, which imho ends up just being way too much for the room and hurts the band's sound. Last time I saw Speakeasy there one of the things that set them above the just-okay bands was their use of varying dynamics; they didn't seem to do that quite so much this time, but were still good, especially the second half of their set.

Shakespeare on the Common on Wednesday was pretty good too -- I was sort of disappointed that they reserved a whole lot of space in front of the stage for sponsors of the performance, most of which wasn't even filled up, so we couldn't get all that close to the stage. :/ But they did a good job -- ( I'm cutting half a sentence here because it's hilarious and if you plan to see this I don't want to ruin the surprise ) -- and it must be tough logistically to figure out how to stage a performance like that on a limited budget, outside, in such a way that it can be repeated nightly for three weeks. I thought it was pulled off well.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Mike Doughty - Grey Ghost

The shampoo I bought last week labeled "Tangerine Tickle" would be better named "Tangerine Sledgehammer". It's a lovely scent, but a wee bit intense first thing in the morning.

Wood is a.) expensive and b.) heavy. (Or to get all Mastercard on you: truck rental, $19.99 plus sixty-some cents per mile; lumber, $100; hardware, $25; friendly hall people who will help carry loft parts up three flights of stairs, priceless.)

Speechwriters LLC = fantastic. (And playing in Boston on July 25th -- who's with me?) You should download and listen to Acetate now, because it is acoustic awesomeness (and not even piracy 'cause that link is via their official site, yay legal mp3s.)

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Speechwriters LLC - Beach Song

So those of you who are familiar with mostly my favorite choices in Music To Study To (loud and punk and upbeat and repetitive and catchy and deemed obnoxious by many self-respecting adults) may be surprised to learn that my very favorite song ever is Hallelujah (and I totally cried during that scene in Shrek entirely because of the song).

So of course this post in

audiography made me explode with joy. I haven't listened to them all yet, but I'm slowly working through the list -- so far I really like the instrumental Chris Botti cover, and the Late Tuesday version is also lovely with all sorts of pretty vocal harmonies, and the Kathryn Williams one has really beautiful strings mixed in too.

Current Music: and every breath we drew was --

All right, this does it. Last post that happens with an AM timestamp but *before* I got to sleep for a while. Hopefully.

But anyways. Random tidbits:

( speakeasy==awesome )

( school spazzing )

( and. )

And (about last week) -- thanks. I was gonna write more about it but this is really what there is: thank you. :)

I can never sleep the first night in a new place -- it takes me at least a night or two to get used to a new bed, new night sounds, just a new place in general. I slept fine on Sunday, though, which is a good omen, right?

Of course, in spite of this, I've decided I want to switch dorms. Simmons is really nice, very windowy and clean, but... well, I've been going by East Campus nearly every day and everyone there seems friendly and creative, if possibly clinically insane, and there are just so many upperclassmen back early to convert freshmen who seem to care about the place, and that seems important. So hopefully the housing adjustment lottery goes my way and I get to live over there, and then hopefully after that the in-house room lottery *also* goes my way, and I get to live on 4e, which bills itself as "the warm and fuzzy floor" and boasts nightly cocoa feeds and friendly people. We'll see. Otherwise... I mean, I don't *not* like Simmons, I could certainly live here, but I think I'd be happier at EC. So. I'm keeping fingers crossed and all that jazz.

Speakeasy played at Senior Haus last night. I'd kind of already filed everything L-S into a neatly labeled little box in the back of my mind, so it was a surprise to see all those people (hi

itallwillfall!), though definitely a good surprise. And of course I was reminded that I kinda regret lots of the times I opted for the lazy/shy route in high school... motivation to do better here, or something. *shrugs* It was also the first time I'd been over to that dorm, which was... okay, smoky and a little sketchy, and not really my kinda thing, but as usual the people seemed on the whole friendly.

All sorts of silly Orientation type events this week, involving being bombarded with a million times more names and faces than my brain knows what to do with, watching cheesy videos, touring the campus, learning about the facilities, all that stuff. I was going to go into more depth (and maybe will, later) but there's free food outside and after that I have an audition for one of the campus a capella groups, so I should probably get on that whole social, active resolution now. :)

Current Mood: better

Why is it that the songs that sound like they would be amazingly fun to play just aren't? I was looking up tabs for Third Eye Blind's "I'll Never Let You Go" and realized that yes, the chord progression in the middle is just the silly power chords being moved around thing. I hate power chords, they're boring. Total entertainment rip-off. C'mon, how much fun is it to play three strings with three fingers? Not a lot. Also, it sounds great when they do it, and insanely awkward when I do. Bah. The same thing goes for the entire repertoire of Me First & the Gimme Gimmes. Hmph.

By the way,

shaktool, I'm pretty sure it's sentences like "Hmph" that are totally murdering my Fleisch-Kincaid reading level.

Ah, the glories of reshelving. My local library, I've discovered, has the They Might Be Giants - Direct From Brooklyn DVD! (*cue eeeeeeeee!'s*) As well they should, seeing as John and John went to the town high school. I've been making my way through the music videos, most of which I haven't seen except off their website in a size not much bigger than a LJ icon, so I'm psyched. And I'd never seen "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" before (or a few others), and it's great.

I'm told once upon a time TMBG were staples of MTV. If they still were, maybe the channel wouldn't suck. Er. Let me rephrase with slightly less cynicism. This is already more interesting, entertaining, and funnier than the last DVD I watched, and I haven't even gotten to the end of the videos yet, let alone the special features (which include, among other things, the Tiny Toons TMBG videos). Granted, the last DVD I watched was "The Sweetest Thing" (don't even ask) -- but still. The videos are hilarious and creative and innovative and utterly about the music.

To summarize, all you Sudburians should rush to the Goodnow and get this. As soon as I'm done with it, that is. The rest of you, to amazon.com!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: oh, come on, just *guess*

So I finally got my hands on the new Eve 6 CD. (OK, it's probably not new any more, but it's newer, at least.) Thus far it hasn't been quite as good as I was hoping/expecting. It lacks a lot of the clever wordplay in the lyrics that I've really enjoyed in their past releases -- and for goodness sake, "breathless"? "restless"? Two syllables, guys. Not three. In "Bring The Night On" it sounds like breath-a-less. Huh?

Maybe it'll grow on me, though. I'm liking some of the songs later on the CD better than the earlier ones, thus far, on first hearing. Nothing as catchy as "Inside Out", nothing I like as much as "Showerhead", nothing like "Superhero Girl" or "Nightmare" or "Open Road Song" or "Promise" or "Rescue", and the slow songs don't measure up to "Here's To The Nights" -- and I've obviously listened to their first two releases far too often. Which probably contributes to the possibly unrealistically high expectations I had for this CD.

You know what it is? They've matured or something. I don't think they do mature quite as well as angry teenage emotion and running away songs. Or else I wasn't prepared to listen to mature, to songs comforting friends and affirming life. Stupid as it sounds, I wanted angst, I wanted rebellion, I wanted anger and passion and and none of this positivity. Somewhere, catchy and addictive turned to singsongy. Of course, I'm typing this as I listen to the CD for the first time, and have a few songs to hear yet, and I often like songs better on second or third hearing, so we'll see.

And they do get points in my book for the line "she tests me like a scantron". I laughed, at least.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Eve 6 - It's All In Your Head

While reshelving today, I caught sight of the childrens' book Nightgown of the Sullen Moon -- I didn't get a chance to read it, since I was working, but I did flip through it. It seemed just as interesting and strange as the title would lead one to suspect. The real reason it caught my eye, though, is that there's a They Might Be Giants song of the same name, which I'd heard was named after a kiddie book. (The song actually comes up more than the book in a casual google search...) So it was pretty neat to see the inspiration for that.

In other news, someone (probably my mother) has got my school e-mail in their address book and whatever that new virus is. "Partial message available". Ha.

Current Mood: amused

Of Rolling Stone's top 500 albums, I don't have any. I thought I had Jagged Little Pill but then I realized that's technically my mom's. (I bet she'd like it back, too.) There are any number which appeal to me, which I've heard for whatever reason, which I meant at some point to obtain, but none which I actually own.

I'm going to put a positive spin on this and call myself a rebel, unconfined to the boundaries of the pop music machine. Even though now I'm remembering how much I want/wanted a whooole bunch of those. :P

There's a live Sting concert on the radio -- they're currently doing Roxanne, all improvisey and embellished upon. (Though it's just Sting, not The Police, so not quite as cool. Backups aren't as good, imho.) But still. It makes my day complete. :D

... yes, I am a loser, is there a problem?

... which I'm just added as an interest, in spite of the fact that I don't play it and (no offense, bass players) don't think it's exactly the most challenging instrument in the known universe. (Come on, it's like guitar for dummies! I mean... please don't hurt me...)

BUT. Here's why I love bass and think it's vital: in so many songs, it is the heart, the lifeblood. Get out your favorite rock now, turn up the bass, and listen: the energy in the song all comes from that strumming. I was listening to Eve 6 on the way to work, with the bass as high as it went on my puny discman. The heartbeat of the song is all in the bass -- screw the drums, the bass is where the rhythm is. And all sorts of interesting harmonies and echoes of melodies. (I guess the former is the alto in me talking, the bit that thinks the top of the staff is for showoffs and the shallow. :P ) ... This was going to be about twice this long but my brother needs math help, so I gotta go. That sums it up anyways, insofar as this particular fascination of mine can be worded.

ETA: Oh, I forgot. Killer bass example: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I give Fat Mike the bassist all the credit for how pulled-together, tight, and -- I want to say utterly professional, but that sounds pretty silly applied to the all-male band with the Natural Woman cover. I listen to NOFX just because I love that bass. ... OK, the clever lyrics too, but that's another kettle of seafood.

And anyone who knows where the challenge is, let me know. I've never played it, I wouldn't know, and I'm willing to learn. And apologize if I was wrong.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Eve 6 - Leech