Alright, I really like this song a lot. I enjoy the feel of the song and the lyrics and just about all of it. I derive great enjoyment from listening to it.
I do not like this video.
I feel as if it cheapens the song somehow. Perhaps it’s gimmicky using a bunch of naked people. There is just a sizable dissonance between the video and song for me. It doesn’t get the emotion or basically anything right. I was initially, and remain, disappointed.
In case you haven’t seen it be forewarned, it is NSFW. Not in the slightest. So don’t watch it in front of your parents either. But here it is. Agree or disagree.
I’ve been rehashing all the albums I have amassed over the past 10 months or so for our impending Best of 2009 list, and so I’ve been back enjoying Andrew Bird. His January release, Noble Beast, is still excellent, not surprisingly. I’ve also been listening to the reworked versions that were released as a part of his Fitz and The Dizzyspells EP that was issued in May.
“Anonanimal” was my favorite off the album, so it’s not really a surprise that it’s simpler reworking – re-titled “See the Enemy” on the EP – is my favorite from the EP as well. The soaring strings of the original are replaced by plucked ones, the lyrics are slowed and reorganized. And you know, it sounds equally as fantastic.
Here’s a true story: I burned my mother a copy of Jamie Cullum’s debut album twentysomething after I bought it. She loved it (I knew she would. It’s kind of mom-rock.) Her penchant for his jazz piano covers made me question, however, whether I was slowly turning into my parents. It was a real nature/nurture kind of inner struggle. Then her dog ate the CD, and she never got herself another copy. So, I absolved myself of any further thought that my taste in music was compromised.
Besides, there are probably worse things to have your tastes morph into than semi-flaccid, jazzy reinterpretations of recent hits, aren’t there? (On a final note, I actually really liked his first album, despite my indications otherwise.)
This may be the last 1000 Minutes entry where I do not have a crying baby in the background as I attempt to write. I have no idea what effect my pending fatherhood will have on my contributions to the blog, but I intend to make it minimal. But the kid isn’t here yet so I have to keep having small heart attacks each time I receive a call from my wife.
Go here if you don’t know what this whole thing is about.
This song is older than I am, yet I have always had a great affinity for it. I don’t have any particular affinity for Elvis Costello and this is the only song he participates in that I have on my computer. I don’t recall when I first heard it and don’t attach it to any memory. But it has easily earned its rightful place in my 1K by being a great song, despite my having very little to say about it.
Those that know me will advise you I used to be into really hard rock music when I was younger (but only if you were to ask them a very specific question about it I suppose). The Deftones were at the center of this phase, but my tastes expanded around them to not such great music from not so great bands. Luckily for my wife, at this point in my life the Deftones are really the only band whose music I still enjoy that could be lumped into a hard rock classification. I believe that is because they write deeper lyrics, have vastly more melodic and richer music, and in general were vastly superior musicians to the majority of the groups they may have been associated or toured with. Chino Moreno’s lyrics don’t bash you over the head with a lack of subtlety and in fact do quite the opposite. Purposefully obtuse a majority of the time, he also has a tendency – perhaps proclivity is a better word – to writing songs about driving. Escape to the mystery of the unknown is surely a common theme throughout the creative world, but it certainly is no worse for the wear in the Deftones’ hands. This is amongst my top one or two favorite Deftones songs and I love everything about it and never see myself sickening of it.
I can’t seem to get all the way into Citizen Cope. It’s really nothing he’s done. I have 4 songs of his, 2 from his first album and two from The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, and I enjoy all four. But for some reason they’re not enough to give me the push to purchase anything else.
Does everyone have artists that fill that niche for them? I suppose that’s the state of music as a whole. We’re conditioned to view artists in terms of singles, heard in thirty-second clips overtop of a commercial to shill cars. And while that might make fame easier to attain, it also makes it far more fleeting. So, either way, my apologies to Mr. Greenwood since he seems like he’s a talented individual, but his talent isn’t personally compelling.
001: Joywave - Ridge/Traveling At The Speed Of Light 7"
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Upcoming Western NY Concerts
NOTE: Concerts are in Rochester unless otherwise noted.
1/5: Les Racquet
1/12: Joywave with Old Tapes, Dave & Marissa
1/13: The Dads
1/14: My Brightest Diamond
1/17: Josh Netsky Band with Cuddle Magic
1/18: Tycho (Buffalo)
1/26: Avicii
1/26: A$AP Rocky (Buffalo)
1/28: The Crystal Method (Syracuse)
2/11: Blind Pilot (Ithaca)
2/22: William Fitzsimmons
2/24: Mike Doughty
2/25: Charles Bradley (Buffalo)
2/29: Summer People
3/3: Matthew Good
3/5: Evening Man
3/23: The Men
3/30: tympanogram’s 3rd Birthday with Born Gold, Old Tapes, TBA
4/20: fun.
4/23: Cults (Buffalo)
5/6: Bear In Heaven (Ithaca)
5/7: M83 (Buffalo)
an examination used to test the condition of the middle ear and mobility of the eardrum, and the conduction bones by creating variations of air pressure in the ear canal.
Basically, it sounded like a cool name for a blog intended to be primarily about music. We’d both had other blogs previously, but over beers it was decided that more damage could be done as a joint venture. And here we are.
We share a passion for the undiscovered and under-appreciated, and hope that you’ll be able to find something you love as well.
Disclaimer
The music offered on this blog is for sampling purposes only. If you enjoy something you hear here, please go out and buy the music, see a show, or purchase some merchandise. Posted mp3s are available for a limited period of time only.
If there are any materials featured here that are your intellectual property, and you would prefer them removed, please notify us and we will be happy to oblige.
Contact Us
Do you have an artist or band you think we should hear? Please feel free to let us know and we'd be glad to give it a listen.
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About the Author: Dave
I like music. I can't describe how I came to like the music I do, because I don't know how or why, I just do.
Many years ago, Napoleon's brother, my great-great-great-great-great-great Grandfather, came to America. He was asked his name on Ellis Island while being processed as an immigrant. Not understanding English, he was under the impression that he was being asked how he had arrived in the new land. So he turned around and pointed at the sea vessel and said, 'LaBarge.'
About the Author: Andy
I come by my music taste of my own free will. My friends listened to 2Pac, my parents to contemporary Christian and me? Sunny Day Real Estate. I can’t explain it.
“Music, true music, not just rock ’n’ roll, it chooses you. It lives in your car, or alone, listening to your headphones…” - Lester Bangs