Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Music
My musical Achilles’ heel
I will be the first to admit that my musical tastes are not for everyone. Even I find the Swans’ Michael Gira’s baritone to be deadly, and the best thing I can say about Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon is that she out-Courtney Loves Courtney Love. And while I can’t understand why anyone would dislike the swanging accordion riffs of Gogol Bordello, my wife and son both do, and since I love them, I’m honor-bound to concede there is a viable worldview that does not elevate GB to the level of, say, Devo, B-52s, or Talking Heads.
But I can’t take more than a half hour of country music TV. I discovered that today in the gym. Here I was doing my best to strain my back on the lat pulldown when some young buck with his trendy li’l soul patch turns the TV on to the country music station.
It’s not the music that bugs me. I know this because I’ve been in restaurants where country music plays in the background, and I don’t lose my appetite. It’s the musicians. It’s this nagging hunch I have that they’re all posers. That their cowboy hats and vocal twangs are props, and if I could see them in the privacy of their own livingrooms, I’d find them sipping sherry and speaking perfect William Powell-esque English. That if I tugged on their beards I would discover just how well Krazy Glue binds to skin.
Country music also tweaks me because it’s yet another member of the set, Things That Are Immensely Popular That I Don’t Get. Like football, for example. A couple of weeks ago, Jake and I went to a pizza parlor after our workout. While we were waiting for our pizza, we had a good thirty minutes to observe the American couch jock in one of his favored habitats: in a restaurant with beer in one hand, pizza in the other, surrounded by fellow couch jocks. I don’t understand all the yelling and hooting and whistling. If I tried to mimic the behavior, I would yell, hoot, or whistle at inappropriate times. The best I can do is exclaim “OH!” a few hundred milliseconds after everyone else reacts.
Perhaps football fans bother me because I can’t seem to work up that degree of enthusiasm over anything.
D.
Musical interlude
Video game music wasn’t always this good. Remember Pac Man’s tinny soundtrack? But things have come a long way since Pac Man.
For a quick eye-opener (ear-opener?), try Tin Hat Trio’s “The Longest Night,” from the game Triachnid. Then listen to Jami Sieber’s “Undercurrent” or “Maenam”, both of which you’ll hear while playing Braid. You’ll even hear “Undercurrent” backwards (Braid is a time-manipulating game), and it’s intriguingly good.
Even Civilization III had some decent music, although when you hear something ad nauseum, it still gets tiresome.
On the other hand, I can listen again and again to Portal’s “Still Alive,” the song that introduced us to Jonathan Coulton, and it never fails to make me smile. (Or maybe it was his, “Re: Your Brains.” Also good for grins.)
D.
Troubador to the geeks
More Jonathan Coulton for y’all. He’s right, the mathematics is simple . . . provided you’re comfortable with imaginary numbers.
D.
Best. Title. Ever.
Best. Concert. Ever. by Jonathan Coulton.
Here’s his version of Baby Got Back . . .
And here’s another great song from Best. Concert. Ever.: Kenesaw Mountain Landis, first baseball commissioner and mean mother — well, you’ll find out.
D.
Friday night yucks
Stick with it to the end . . .
More performers should screw up their lyrics. It’s great entertainment.
Jonathan Coulton is also known for the best zombie song ever written and Still Alive, the end credits song for Portal. Portal, by the way, is one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s pure, distilled brilliance.
D.
Found it at last
Jarboe’s cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart:
She’s one of a few female vocalists whose work I really, really love. Here she is doing In My Garden . . . with a really cool video to boot.
Enjoy.
D.
Merry in mauve
I can’t decide whether the years have made Richard Butler more measured, more mature, more poignant . . . or simply more tired.
Psych Furs, Pretty in Pink, 2007.
Was reminded of this while reading an old, old post of mine on loss of innocence. Here’s the coherent part:
Maybe we focus on the sexual angle because that, at least, is a pleasant (or at least humorous!) memory. And, maybe for some people, the loss of virginity does equate with the loss of innocence. But for me, and I suspect for most people, loss of innocence meant coming to terms with the real world. I wouldn’t take that innocence back no matter how much you paid me — because it would only mean having to lose it all over again.
D.
Your musical interlude
Have I mentioned lately how much I dig the Dandy Warhols?
Love the song, but I also like the narrative of this video. Reminds me a bit of Atom Egoyan’s Exotica.
Good Dandy Warhols starter CD would be Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, or perhaps the latest one, Earth to the Dandy Warhols. Dandy Warhols Come Down is excellent, too. The only one I’m a bit indifferent to (of the ones I’ve heard) is Welcome to the Monkey House.
That’s all I got tonight . . . and sorry I haven’t been around much but today is representative: up at 5, home by 8. Okay, this was a bad day, but I wanted to hear those violins 🙂
D.
27 Jennifers
Since no one commented on this bit from yesterday, I’m-a-shovin’ it down yer throats:
I really dig that song. Lyrics and more below the fold.