Musical experience
I'm probably going to talk about other things, but I wanted this to start off with what just happened to me today. I understand that this probably won't affect any of you even the least little bit, but I had my brain knocked right out of my skull by a sloppy, poorly-recorded song. I am musically violated. It is inside me. It's like when you get a song stuck in your head, except it's in my soul. And not in my head. That would be awesome and annoying. This is merely awesome.
See, the group Azure Ray broke up a little while ago. They're just two people, people split up, especially if they've been creative partners for like ten years, since early high school. They want to branch out and recharge. It's cool. Tragic for Dave, who had just discovered their full discography, but at least I had something to remember them by. They were working on independent projects, ones that I anticipated would turn out like Mary Fahl's pet project, which appears entirely unfindable, and seems to have defuncted her home page simply by existing. Trying to re-imagine "The Wall" (the entire album) will do that. She had to know it when she started in on it. She's Mary frickin' Fahl, she can do what she wants. She has gobs of credibility to waste, but the album I waited so long for came out without me knowing about it, or being able to find it. The same thing happened to Steve Burns for his second album, and I don't even really know what it's about. His site (homepage AND photobucket) is down (his MySpace remains, sorta), and I haven't been able to get that album. I assumed that kind of thing would happen for Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink.
So when I heard the unmistakeable voice coming through an episode of Dollhouse, I was compelled to investigate. Maria Taylor seemed to have kept herself pretty busy, and I haven't opened up any of the stuff of hers that I found online, but Orenda Fink really seemed to be unavailable except through the traditional means. Was there really that much of a divergence of public acceptance, or does Maria Taylor just know a better publicist? Anyway, I was thinking about whether I would ask for some of her stuff for Christmas, and the ordering link appeared to have a couple of free downloads. I figured I might as well click on one to see what she was up to these days, and...oh. Emm Jee. I don't think I've ever been so powerfully and immediately taken by anything as I was with this. The words may or may not play a part in it, simply by phonic impression rather than by meaning, but it's the music that knocks me down and steamrolls me. I don't expect any of you to even enjoy it, but this is like remembering that you had a twin brother.
Mom was impossibly awesome. It will be "here" on Friday. Whether that's to her house or my house, I don't care.
[RETRACTION]
Bullshit, yes I do. It seems to be getting sent to her, which is fine. I will get it for Christmas. I can wait. I will spend that time dreading the amount of disappointment I will face for actually getting excited about something. I don't get excited about things. I get interested and curious and even happy, but excited is a rare, rare gift.
(I shared my vulnerability with you. I am so gay.)
Enough about that. I need to get my mind off of the awesomeness.
I was sick last week. It was harsh. Coughing, phlegm, hacking all night long, not getting any sleep, everything except feeling bad. I actually felt great. If my lungs would cooperate, I would have happily gone running. Some diseases are congenital, and some are congenial. Mine was the friendly kind this time. It was absolutely not cool to be hacking that much, but I think I hated the cough drop more than the coughing.
The disease just plain lasted too long, that's it. A day or two would have been fine, but it had been growing since the concert.
What concert? Oh, right, the DETHKLOK CONCERT. I went to see that. Didn'tcha guys know? Yeah. I thought it would be Mastadon opening for them, but that just shows what I know. It was a four-band tour. High On Fire was impressive from the standpoint that they were able to play their instruments. Putting together a song, perhaps having some sort of progression or continuity? Not impressive. Or fun to listen to. They were thrash. It bored me.
The next band was Converge. If you're up for a laugh, look them up on Youtube. The first video result I got was for the channel "MusicIsFuckingDead." That about sums it up. That guy, who's making noise with his mouth but doing everything he can to avoid speaking or singing? He bounced around on stage the whole time. He doesn't play any instruments. Making that noise is all he does, like the dancing guy from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but without the occasional musical involvement. It was hilarious, in a "people will mosh to anything" type of way. By the way, don't bother looking up two of their songs. They're all exactly the same.
I absolutely do not see what the big deal is about Mastodon. Nothing against them, the non-metal-conductive speakers made it sound like they were playing all over each other. One thing I did notice is that they were delightfully terrible at distributing their energy. Intensity needs to be measured and displayed with at least some regard to what's going on in the song. It's called pacing, and if you don't know what you're doing with it, all of your stuff is going to sound the same, which means nothing you do will ever be special.
I am so glad that the bong that is SJSU's auditorium was mostly cleared out by the time Dethklok took the stage. Really, guys? Weed is the drug of choice for a metal concert? Really? Thrash just doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd want to be mellow to.
I got excited when I spotted Skwisgaar's Gibson Explorer being tuned by the roadies.
Everything it's showing there was amazing live. The band is very scantly lit, since the performance is based around the fictional side of the band, but Brendan Small saw Gorillaz do only that, and wanted to be different. He wanted the live audience to be able to see what was going on, and it really works out great. Gene Hoglan makes the impossible look pedestrian.
The video for Bloodlines was awesome, and the visuals added a lot to Murmaider and Black Fire Upon Us. Seeing the solo in the Coffee Jingle done in person was humbling. The kind of talent hurts to see. I was afraid that they were going to end it with Go Into The Water, but then they turned off the video, turned on the lights, and did Fansong without the band-obscuring darkness. It paid off wonderfully. It was an awesome night, and I'm glad that my sister asked me to take her to it. I know she's glad she went, because she also won a raffle for an XBox360 version of Brutal Legend. She doesn't have the system for it, but she's resourceful. She'll find a way.
I had a whole lot more to say, but this is already too long. I'll come back later on.
Big love.
See, the group Azure Ray broke up a little while ago. They're just two people, people split up, especially if they've been creative partners for like ten years, since early high school. They want to branch out and recharge. It's cool. Tragic for Dave, who had just discovered their full discography, but at least I had something to remember them by. They were working on independent projects, ones that I anticipated would turn out like Mary Fahl's pet project, which appears entirely unfindable, and seems to have defuncted her home page simply by existing. Trying to re-imagine "The Wall" (the entire album) will do that. She had to know it when she started in on it. She's Mary frickin' Fahl, she can do what she wants. She has gobs of credibility to waste, but the album I waited so long for came out without me knowing about it, or being able to find it. The same thing happened to Steve Burns for his second album, and I don't even really know what it's about. His site (homepage AND photobucket) is down (his MySpace remains, sorta), and I haven't been able to get that album. I assumed that kind of thing would happen for Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink.
So when I heard the unmistakeable voice coming through an episode of Dollhouse, I was compelled to investigate. Maria Taylor seemed to have kept herself pretty busy, and I haven't opened up any of the stuff of hers that I found online, but Orenda Fink really seemed to be unavailable except through the traditional means. Was there really that much of a divergence of public acceptance, or does Maria Taylor just know a better publicist? Anyway, I was thinking about whether I would ask for some of her stuff for Christmas, and the ordering link appeared to have a couple of free downloads. I figured I might as well click on one to see what she was up to these days, and...oh. Emm Jee. I don't think I've ever been so powerfully and immediately taken by anything as I was with this. The words may or may not play a part in it, simply by phonic impression rather than by meaning, but it's the music that knocks me down and steamrolls me. I don't expect any of you to even enjoy it, but this is like remembering that you had a twin brother.
Mom was impossibly awesome. It will be "here" on Friday. Whether that's to her house or my house, I don't care.
[RETRACTION]
Bullshit, yes I do. It seems to be getting sent to her, which is fine. I will get it for Christmas. I can wait. I will spend that time dreading the amount of disappointment I will face for actually getting excited about something. I don't get excited about things. I get interested and curious and even happy, but excited is a rare, rare gift.
(I shared my vulnerability with you. I am so gay.)
Enough about that. I need to get my mind off of the awesomeness.
I was sick last week. It was harsh. Coughing, phlegm, hacking all night long, not getting any sleep, everything except feeling bad. I actually felt great. If my lungs would cooperate, I would have happily gone running. Some diseases are congenital, and some are congenial. Mine was the friendly kind this time. It was absolutely not cool to be hacking that much, but I think I hated the cough drop more than the coughing.
The disease just plain lasted too long, that's it. A day or two would have been fine, but it had been growing since the concert.
What concert? Oh, right, the DETHKLOK CONCERT. I went to see that. Didn'tcha guys know? Yeah. I thought it would be Mastadon opening for them, but that just shows what I know. It was a four-band tour. High On Fire was impressive from the standpoint that they were able to play their instruments. Putting together a song, perhaps having some sort of progression or continuity? Not impressive. Or fun to listen to. They were thrash. It bored me.
The next band was Converge. If you're up for a laugh, look them up on Youtube. The first video result I got was for the channel "MusicIsFuckingDead." That about sums it up. That guy, who's making noise with his mouth but doing everything he can to avoid speaking or singing? He bounced around on stage the whole time. He doesn't play any instruments. Making that noise is all he does, like the dancing guy from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but without the occasional musical involvement. It was hilarious, in a "people will mosh to anything" type of way. By the way, don't bother looking up two of their songs. They're all exactly the same.
I absolutely do not see what the big deal is about Mastodon. Nothing against them, the non-metal-conductive speakers made it sound like they were playing all over each other. One thing I did notice is that they were delightfully terrible at distributing their energy. Intensity needs to be measured and displayed with at least some regard to what's going on in the song. It's called pacing, and if you don't know what you're doing with it, all of your stuff is going to sound the same, which means nothing you do will ever be special.
I am so glad that the bong that is SJSU's auditorium was mostly cleared out by the time Dethklok took the stage. Really, guys? Weed is the drug of choice for a metal concert? Really? Thrash just doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd want to be mellow to.
I got excited when I spotted Skwisgaar's Gibson Explorer being tuned by the roadies.
Everything it's showing there was amazing live. The band is very scantly lit, since the performance is based around the fictional side of the band, but Brendan Small saw Gorillaz do only that, and wanted to be different. He wanted the live audience to be able to see what was going on, and it really works out great. Gene Hoglan makes the impossible look pedestrian.
The video for Bloodlines was awesome, and the visuals added a lot to Murmaider and Black Fire Upon Us. Seeing the solo in the Coffee Jingle done in person was humbling. The kind of talent hurts to see. I was afraid that they were going to end it with Go Into The Water, but then they turned off the video, turned on the lights, and did Fansong without the band-obscuring darkness. It paid off wonderfully. It was an awesome night, and I'm glad that my sister asked me to take her to it. I know she's glad she went, because she also won a raffle for an XBox360 version of Brutal Legend. She doesn't have the system for it, but she's resourceful. She'll find a way.
I had a whole lot more to say, but this is already too long. I'll come back later on.
Big love.