(no subject)
Just found out The Cars have a new album out. That makes me happy. Fills me with a joy that's hard to convey. I'm even happier that I don't have to pirate it thanks to Spotify. What a wonderful service. Now, THAT I would pay for, if it wasn't already free. As it is, I can deal with the ads. I deal with 'em while I'm watching television, I can put up with 'em here. (Radio doesn't apply 'cause I don't listen to the radio.) Anyway, two songs in and I'm happy with it. Not like I have a whole lot invested in it to get upset about. Nor was I ever a giant Cars fan, but a new album by this band scratches an itch I didn't know I had.
Something I'm noticing about this new Cars album -- for being a "new wave" album, and for being a band that's fronted by a prolific rock producer, it's extremely organic sounding. Most new music I hear nowadays have the background noise the instruments make removed. Not this one. You can clearly hear fingers moving up and down guitar strings. I like that. Rock music shouldn't be cleaned up.
I'm a season and a half into Mad Men via Netflix. Again, using a service that's free or cheap because I'm cheap. Mad Men's one of the many shows I've wanted to check out for a while based solely on its hype. I wasn't expecting anything but a good show, so I wasn't let down. It IS a good show. It puts so much focus on characterization that early into the run of the show I became aware of how greatly it overshowed other shows characters. By that I mean this -- while watching other shows you're aware you're watching characters on a screen and you've had to condition yourself to think of them AS a character -- not as a person, but as a one-dimensional character on a screen. Mad Men goes beyond that. You MUST think of these characters as people to appreciate them.
I have a feeling I've been missing that in a lot of the high-quality television shows I've skipped out on over the last decade. Those shows that get the hype. I never watched The Wire, The Sopranos, or any of those because I either didn't have HBO and didn't want to pay $70 for a fucking DVD or missed the first handful of episodes. Trying to fix that with a few of those that I know are worthwhile. Desperate to get my hands on the full run of Breaking Bad.
Still trying to get a job. I've changed the way I'm going about it. I'm not trying to get ANY old job anymore, 'cause that obviously wasn't working. My dad had a sign he kept hanging above his workbench for years. Didn't matter much until I really thought about it a month or so back, but it certainly applies. "There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road." Good advice, Dad. Or bad advice. Depends on how you wanna take it. I take it as a hint that I should focus my efforts. Try to get a job that I either want or will be good at, instead of anything at all. And seeing as how I have a talent with small electronics repair and production, that's what I'm aiming for. Won't be anything special, but it'll do.
It'd be wrong if I didn't say that the last couple of weeks didn't make me hate my government a little bit. For the first time since 1999 I felt absolute disgust for the federal government. That's a normal reaction for most Republicans. It's new for the rest. I've been pretty naive. Given the people I support almost blind faith. That has changed.
Kyuss, the band that defined my taste in music for the last sixteen years kinda reformed, minus their guitarist. So it's 3/4 of Kyuss. They're playing a show in Atlanta pretty neat my birthday. I've been thinking about going to see it, seeing as how these guys are pretty much the basis of the music I've been listening to since I graduated high school. But then I thought -- the singer, John Garcia, has seen better days. Time was, I thought he had the best voice in rock. And I was serious about that statement, and would argue about it. His voice on Kyuss' three later albums, the Slo-Burn album, and the two Unida albums, can't be denied. But I've heard stuff after that... and it's hard to listen to. Particularly the live recordings. The bass player's a notoriously stoned/drunk fool of a man. The drummer, Brant Bjork, is a master of all he surveys, but what he's doing now is so different than what Kyuss was. Brant's solo stuff is more... punk rock chill. In other words... time changes people. These are different people than the guys that made Kyuss so great. I'm kind of afraid to go see them, for fear that my first time seeing them will be a bad experience.
But then, I've always thought that even if something new comes along and is bad, it shouldn't ruin what's come before. Take the Star Wars prequels, for example. Dropped from George Lucas's ass. Oldschool Star Wars fans rightly hate them. But they'd be foolish to let that hate tarnish their love for the originals. And, incidentally, from what I can tell, younger kids like the prequels more than the originals, so... it's a generational thing. Either that or the younger generation has no fucking taste.
Point is, I might be in the wrong to give up on going to see my heroes. Who knows. Not like I have the money for it anyway.
Speaking of Brother Brant... here's Automatic Fantastic. Enjoy. Relax.
Yeah, that's another thing I've found recently. Grooveshark. Very handy. Doubt anyone's clicking my links, but that's okay. It's the idea of sharing. Wish their iphone app worked without jailbreaking.
Okay. I'm on a fairly regular schedule. Let's keep it that way.
Something I'm noticing about this new Cars album -- for being a "new wave" album, and for being a band that's fronted by a prolific rock producer, it's extremely organic sounding. Most new music I hear nowadays have the background noise the instruments make removed. Not this one. You can clearly hear fingers moving up and down guitar strings. I like that. Rock music shouldn't be cleaned up.
I'm a season and a half into Mad Men via Netflix. Again, using a service that's free or cheap because I'm cheap. Mad Men's one of the many shows I've wanted to check out for a while based solely on its hype. I wasn't expecting anything but a good show, so I wasn't let down. It IS a good show. It puts so much focus on characterization that early into the run of the show I became aware of how greatly it overshowed other shows characters. By that I mean this -- while watching other shows you're aware you're watching characters on a screen and you've had to condition yourself to think of them AS a character -- not as a person, but as a one-dimensional character on a screen. Mad Men goes beyond that. You MUST think of these characters as people to appreciate them.
I have a feeling I've been missing that in a lot of the high-quality television shows I've skipped out on over the last decade. Those shows that get the hype. I never watched The Wire, The Sopranos, or any of those because I either didn't have HBO and didn't want to pay $70 for a fucking DVD or missed the first handful of episodes. Trying to fix that with a few of those that I know are worthwhile. Desperate to get my hands on the full run of Breaking Bad.
Still trying to get a job. I've changed the way I'm going about it. I'm not trying to get ANY old job anymore, 'cause that obviously wasn't working. My dad had a sign he kept hanging above his workbench for years. Didn't matter much until I really thought about it a month or so back, but it certainly applies. "There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road." Good advice, Dad. Or bad advice. Depends on how you wanna take it. I take it as a hint that I should focus my efforts. Try to get a job that I either want or will be good at, instead of anything at all. And seeing as how I have a talent with small electronics repair and production, that's what I'm aiming for. Won't be anything special, but it'll do.
It'd be wrong if I didn't say that the last couple of weeks didn't make me hate my government a little bit. For the first time since 1999 I felt absolute disgust for the federal government. That's a normal reaction for most Republicans. It's new for the rest. I've been pretty naive. Given the people I support almost blind faith. That has changed.
Kyuss, the band that defined my taste in music for the last sixteen years kinda reformed, minus their guitarist. So it's 3/4 of Kyuss. They're playing a show in Atlanta pretty neat my birthday. I've been thinking about going to see it, seeing as how these guys are pretty much the basis of the music I've been listening to since I graduated high school. But then I thought -- the singer, John Garcia, has seen better days. Time was, I thought he had the best voice in rock. And I was serious about that statement, and would argue about it. His voice on Kyuss' three later albums, the Slo-Burn album, and the two Unida albums, can't be denied. But I've heard stuff after that... and it's hard to listen to. Particularly the live recordings. The bass player's a notoriously stoned/drunk fool of a man. The drummer, Brant Bjork, is a master of all he surveys, but what he's doing now is so different than what Kyuss was. Brant's solo stuff is more... punk rock chill. In other words... time changes people. These are different people than the guys that made Kyuss so great. I'm kind of afraid to go see them, for fear that my first time seeing them will be a bad experience.
But then, I've always thought that even if something new comes along and is bad, it shouldn't ruin what's come before. Take the Star Wars prequels, for example. Dropped from George Lucas's ass. Oldschool Star Wars fans rightly hate them. But they'd be foolish to let that hate tarnish their love for the originals. And, incidentally, from what I can tell, younger kids like the prequels more than the originals, so... it's a generational thing. Either that or the younger generation has no fucking taste.
Point is, I might be in the wrong to give up on going to see my heroes. Who knows. Not like I have the money for it anyway.
Speaking of Brother Brant... here's Automatic Fantastic. Enjoy. Relax.
Yeah, that's another thing I've found recently. Grooveshark. Very handy. Doubt anyone's clicking my links, but that's okay. It's the idea of sharing. Wish their iphone app worked without jailbreaking.
Okay. I'm on a fairly regular schedule. Let's keep it that way.