29 posts tagged “music”
We're planning a cabaret party for November. I bought some software that can minimize the vocals on an MP3 -- sometimes. It worked pretty well for one of my fave Momus songs, The Penis Song. There are a few more tracks in the linked collection.
What fun!
Merriam Webster's Word of the Day
Placing higher in Dogpile's search results than Buckwheat Zydeco:
Buckwheat: Wholesome Nutrition
Last night, Ben and I saw Richard Cheese at the Red Devil Lounge on Polk. (Supervisor Chris Daly was leaving from the early show when we arrived.) This meant that I spent a couple hours surrounded by a bar crowd. They were in various stages of inebriation, laughing aloud at RC's lounge cover schtick, and ironically grabbing his ass when he walked around among the audience. This is probably about the same crowd that bar gets every night. Vanilla Ice will be playing there soon and I'm sure there will be many people ironically 'enjoying' his performance as well.
The thing is, Richard Cheese and his band are good at what they do. They can play. He can sing. His asshole stage persona (I don't want to know whether that's his true personality) wore on me a bit but was amusing. And Ben and I like to dance. And they were certainly playing dance-able music. There wasn't any room to dance among the sold-out crowd, though. And most everyone else wasn't even moving, except to go back to the bar for more drinks. So depressing.
Irony doesn't interest me quite as much as it used to. It's too simple and crass. Life if far more interesting than an 'ironic' lifestyle. I'd much rather sincerely declare my opinions than hide behind irony the way many, many people seem to. It looks cowardly to me to never admit to truly liking anything. If everything you like you only like ironically, then no one can fault you for your personal taste, which is unlikely anyway as such people are tasteless. It is quite cowardly to not even admit to having an opinion on your entertainment and fashion and whatnot, particularly as so many people base a large part of the identity on their clothes and favorite music and tv shows and movies and whatnot.
Such an unpleasant venue and crowd. Ben is amusing enough to have made up for it, though.
I was in the mall for lunch and heard an annoying pop song on the muzak. The catchy ones are the most bothersome, as that means even though that's the only time I've heard it, it'll be stuck in my head. This particular annoying, catchy pop song reminded me of Wham!'s Last Christmas. Good thing that chorus is simple enough that I remembered it in the store and drew my focus away from the muzak.
Anyways, I had to hear it for real and found this goofy vid:
I found Andras Jones' album A Curmudgeon For All Seasons back when I worked at KUCI, UC Irvine's campus radio station. The first track I played was "Frankenstein Valentine" and my co-host and I fell in love with it. The album art makes AJ look snarky and cynical, and that's in the songs for sure, but they're also sweet and funny and a bit dirty (just a bit because he has far dirtier songs in his oeuvre).
One day, Mike was like, "You play this song all the time, why don't you try getting this guy on your show?" I was like, "Oh, he doesn't even live around here." So Mom e-mailed him and we found out that he was visiting LA. And, of course, that weekend I caught the tail end of the Saved By the Bell episode he was in. (According to Maria's Saved By The Bell Site: 8.6: "The Showdown" - Airdate: 1/4/89 / A new student, Deke Simmons, arrives at JFK Jr. High and stirs up trouble. The gang encourages Screech to stand up to him. / Guest starring: Andras Jones as Deke Simmons.) The extra funny thing is, when I tell people about Andras Jones and mention this episode they totally remember him!
So he drove all the way down to Irvine for the show and wasn't used to playing "Frankenstein Valentine" so he had to pull out a lyric sheet. We recorded his live performance and made a CD out of it. (That's where this file is from.) He hung out for a while and talked on air. He's politically-minded and used to have a radio show himself and was very comfortable pretty much taking over my show for a little while.
I just missed him at a movie screening in Hollywood because he was wearing a funny hat and I didn't recognise him.
I also got to see AJ at San Diego Comic-Con one year. He was there signing for Nightmare on Elm Street 4. Then he performed in Mark Hamill's Comic Book: The Movie and David and I got to be extras in the scene.
My Mom and David and I drove up to see him play at the Knitting Factory once.
We also saw him on Mtv Cribs -- staying in a trailer in Andy Dick's backyard. It was a very entertaining, but far too short, segment.
I think he's back in Washington now doing Radio 8 Ball, among other things.
Happy Valentine's Day Everybody!
David won tickets to a comedy show from sfist. It was the closing concert of Sketchfest '07. Bruce McCulloch headlined, with Craig Northey and special guest Scott Thompson. Two 'kids in the hall'! What fun.
Also, some guy called Dragon Boy Suede (hey! I started reading a book about dragons today!) who was pretty damn funny, too. I'm not entirely sure how much of his schtick was actual technical difficulties and filler, but he did make me laugh repeatedly. I think I would've laughed more often at his jokes if I hadn't seen the punchline coming. Things are funnier when they're unexpected.
I really liked Hard n Phirm best, tho. I'd seen Chris Hardwick before at the Hollywood Improv in, like, 2003 or 2004. Some time before I moved to SF. That dinosaur song is still v. catchy and, sadly, topical. le sigh. I bought their CD after the show and learned that they're Rodeohead (country western-style Radiohead). Not that I'd ever actually heard Rodeohead before, but I'd heard of them, and that counts for everything. The only thing about HnP that disappointed me was that a song of theirs I'd never heard before and really really like isn't on their CD. oh well. I guess El Corazon will have to do for now.
Dreamgirls
My Mom and I saw this over my holiday break. Jennifer Hudson is completely amazing and made me cry, she performs so well. The whole cast was good, but it's Ms. Hudson's movie. They even had Hinton Battle, who was the villain in the Buffy musical! I bought the soundtrack just for Ms. Hudson's tracks, but the rest of it is good, too. At last, something good has come of that American Idol show.
Children of Men
Cameron went with me to see this New Year's day at the new Bloomingdale's shopping center downtown. This movie made me cry, too. Kevin is right that 'all the good stuff was in the trailer', but that's how movies always are. The plot still managed to surprise me in a few places and the whole thing was well made and the cast was great. A good film, even with the depressing content.
Pan's Labyrinth
I saw this with David (and a man resting a fedora on his knee sitting next to me) at the newly-Sundanced Kabuki. I hadn't been there since the change in ownership. This came very close to making me cry a few times. It's beautiful and scary and icky and gory and uplifting and enthralling. Highly recommended if you can handle scary suspense and bloody violence.
The next new movie I want to see is something with Jennifer Garner and Kevin Smith, just cuz I like watching those people. I don't expect it'll be great, but I need another movie theatre fix and the mid-Feb. release of that Drew Barrymore / Hugh Grant RomCom is too far away.
They're, like, our culture's folk music. Many, many people can easily recognize their songs, even sing along to the chorus of most of their hits. I once had a great time participating in a Beatles sing-along with a few thousand other people.
In the past 10 minutes, I've heard one John Lennon song and two Beatles songs out in public. I love 'em and all, but that still kinda creeps me out. 'Course, around here shops usually alternate their Beatles hits with Stevie Wonder hits. Like when I get one Stevie song in the elevator, another in Walgreens, and a third blasting out of a restaurant on Powell. It's just odd to randomly hear so much of it all at once.
Everything has been squeezed in right before the holidays!
Saturday, David and I went to Musee Mechanique at Fisherman's Wharf. It has a bunch of penny arcade-type machines and video games and whatnot. I got to see photos of the 1915 World's Fair in SF, and play metal rock 'em sock 'em robots, and skee ball, and I tried to play Centipede, but the firing button was broken. It was terribly frustrating!
Then we used a photo booth and tried to be as silly as possible down the strip of pix. I think we did a pretty good job. There was a lot of laughter involved.
Then Brian and I went to Oakland for Gaskell's Christmas Ball. We got there a few hours early for lessons. My previous waltz lessons had been lost to the sands of time. It was not easy, but it was fun. I can't even remember all the dances we 'learned'. Some of them were quite silly!
The whole ball was entertaining. The people watching was the best -- hoop skirts and corsets and kilts and top hats and all other manner of garb. At the end we all sang the Hallelujah Chorus together. I'm glad they had cue cards because I hadn't sung that since high school.
Sunday, we had a TWoPcon at the Scharffen Berger factory in Berkeley. Cisco picked me up downtown so we could drive across the Bay together. When I sat down in his car I found myself facing a lil video screen cued up to a Battlestar Galactica episode! Cisco's been trying to convince me to watch BG for a while now, but it just isn't my type of show. I finished watching it on the way home. It's a high quality show, but I still don't want to watch it again. It's much too violent and dramatic for my taste.
We met Cathy at the SB cafe and Cameron got to the shop just before the tour started. We learned so much about chocolate! It was very interesting. The factory doesn't run on Sundays, though, so the machines weren't as fun to look at as I suspect they are when they're working away. The lecture our guide, Danny, gave before we saw the factory was the best part of the tour. Well, that and the free chocolate samples! Oh! and the whole vanilla beans we got to sniff. Yum!
We had a yummy lunch and then cruised through the gift shop again before departing. I bought myself a molinillo. It's a stick for frothing Mexican drinking chocolate. I'm eager to melt some more Ibarra and try it! Some of the rings on the stick actually move on their own. It's fun just to play with--if it makes a delicious drink I'll like it even more, if that's possible.
Sunday night, Rika and many of her friends and I went to the Grease sing-along at the Castro. I had a pretty good time at the Sound of Music sing-along earlier this month, but I'm not a fan of TSoM. I love Grease! Olivia Newton John used to be my very favorite singer ever. I even saw her in concert when I was a lil kid.
Unfortunately, it was too cold to dress up in a cute skirt, but the goodie bag they gave me had, among other things, a pom-pom! Shaking a pom-pom is much funner than clapping.
The sing along was such fun! Not only do I know all those songs, I also know quite a bit of the dialogue, too. So so fun! Woooo!!1!!!
Now I just have to get everything ready to fly south to visit my family on Thursday night. Oh, the pressure. At least I don't have to worry about mailing things on time or anything like that. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody in SoCal and eating all the delish food down there.
