Oh hay sup
XKCD has been autobiographical lately.
Jotanna came and visited last weekend and it was amazing. Between metagaming DDR for hours on end and visiting every single good location in the area, it was fun times. We stopped by Rhode Island, and damn those kids are improving fast. Jojo and I got good scores, and somewhere along the line I discovered I lost fifteen pounds. Must have been all that frustration being taken out on dancing games. I guess that's one way of channeling energy. There was also mango rum and Wiebke and homemade beef stroganoff to make us happy, and oh did it make us happy.
It sucks because after that oh-so-blissful dancing game-saturated weekend, I've given up dancing games until next Wednesday to study for my midterms. Classes are going fine, but four tests in three days will cause a crazy-busy-frenzy. If I can get through it alive and manage some good dancing game sets, then maybe I'll enter in the Monster Golf tourney, but it's more likely that I won't. But I might. We shall see, especially since Fil is waggling the promise of a free ride to Rhode Island over my head.
Apparently Ra Ra Riot isn't playing at BU anymore on the 8th of November, and I was so looking forward to it (They'll be playing December 15th at Middle East Downstairs with Tokyo Police Club. Kyle dear, mark your calendar). This Saturday is The Decemberists though, and we might have an extra ticket since Bailey might not be able to go [insert sad face here]. And this weekend from Thursday on will be bash-head-against-wall-studying. And maybe dim sum, if we can reach our ideal number of four. That shit's addictive.
And for shits and giggles, I made an Epic JujuMix. It's more indie than usual, because I don't have Copy Pod running off my flash drive so I've been too lazy to extract some of what I've been listening to (mainly The Decemberists and DJ Taka's "Milestone" on an awkward loop). Still, you can download it at my Box account, and here is my tracklist:
Cat Power - Sea of Love (Baptist & Khoury cover): It's a pretty, recognizable old standard that Cat Power gives new life to by singing it to the tune of eerie and ukelele. It's deleriously haunting.
Digitalism - Pogo: The first time I heard Digitalism, I didn't know what to think of them. They're kind of like if you took The Bravery and added some synths and some other element I can't put my finger on. It's not quite electro but not quite rock, which makes it a great listen.
Gravy Train!!! - Call Me in French: I saw Gravy Train!!! in concert as an opening band to Junior Senior and they were insane. Seriously, I think they were mad gay. Their music and percussion is ridiculously simple, their themes are overtly sexual, and their outfits are seriously homosexual. Throw in some mild synths and dancing and you got yourself a band!(!!)
Hello Saferide - The Quiz: The melody isn't original but the strength of this song is the lyrics. "Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld? // Do you read more than two books a month? // Do you get racist or sexist when you've had a few? // Is it fine if I make more money than you?" People make compatibility too cliched nowadays. If I were to launch the Spanish Inquisition on a guy, this would probably be the best way.
Lily Allen - Everybody's Changing (Keane cover): A music blog that I ran into called Keane the band that you can love and hate simultaneously. Keane's first album got me through Sophomore year, and although the follow-up was well-received, I wasn't as thrilled or moved by it as Hopes and Fears. The amazing thing about Keane is that their songs have a way of relating to you by knocking you down, in an emotionally masochistic sense... which is why Lily Allen is so brilliant. She makes this song fantastic by making it ridiculously upbeat, but not over the top. It's one of my favorites, most definitely.
Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks: This song is very sixties/Belle and Sebastian sounding. Peter, Bjorn & John gained fame by this song being the opening track to volume 3 of the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. I think the whistling gets me. It's a well-put together song.
Psapp - Hi: Bailey introduced me to this song after seeing it choreographed on Dancing with the Stars. Psapp's music in general is amazing. This song most definitely channels the Frou Frou spirit like most British female vocal electro-pop does, but the lyrics and music of this song just put it all together. A snippet of Psapp's fine beats are also featured as the theme song for Grey's Anatomy as well. Whether you like the show or not, the music director for it really brings the show to life.
Ra Ra Riot - St. Peter's Day Festival: I picked this song because it's catchy. Ra Ra Riot's use of various instruments is fabulous, as well. The beat with the string ascending scales in the background just makes it feel as if the song is continuously rolling, even though the verse is really repeated over and over again. You just don't mind it because of all the busy work the instruments are doing... and doing well.
Sean Lennon - Parachute: Makie introduced me to this song when she was doing a song-sending binge from her Princeton webspace a few months back, and it pops up on many of my playlists. It's slow, pretty, and epically depressing. The song uses a pretty unoriginal chord progression in the chorus, but he does such a great job with it that it seems so fresh. Ugh, I love it.
Sergio Mendes - Please Baby Don't (featuring John Legend): I was introduced to the wonders of John Legend thanks to my coworkers at Starbucks, and the wonders of Sergio Mendes from Bailey after learning her Brazilian dance to his tune "Magalenha" (which I can still half-assedly do, with her help!). Mix John Legend's sexy voice and Sergio Mendes' mad lounge beats, with a really adorable tune and a cautionary tale of tentative love. The rest of Mendes' album, Timeless, is a variety of everything, mostly Black Eyed Peas collaborations and one fabulous reggaeton song that my roommates make fun of me 'til high heaven for. It's worth listening to.
Stars - The Aspidistra Flies: I'm not going to lie. I don't really like the new Stars album, especially after the brilliance of Your Ex-Lover is Dead and previous works. So herein lies a previous work. From the 2002 release The Comeback EP comes this song, in all its waltz-time glory, stripped down with none of that trying-too-hard techno beats that turned me off from the recent release, and voila, brilliance.
Young Love - Discotech (Weird Science Remix): As awesome and danceable the original "Discotech" was, the 80's-esque synths give this song a second life.
Download this mix and let me know what you liked/disliked. If I had my way, I would've probably thrown Akira Yamaoka's take on DJ Taka's "Moon", which I've been listening to on loop recently while Picrossing on the T, but maybe I'll just throw it on the next mix I make.