Boy Least Likely To Get Abducted By Puppets
0 Comments Published April 24th, 2006 in Music, boy least likely to.Boy Least Likely To - Be Gentle With Me (video).
This cheered me up no end. I know I’ve gone on about this band a bit too much recently, but you can’t deny the lovliness of this video and the happy-go-lucky puppets that inhabit it. I hadn’t seen it before, but I think its Marvellous. Yes, the capital ‘m’ was on purpose.
.mov stream here (copy and paste into qt player’s “open url”)
(via 3hive/spin - and videos.antville.com)
alternatively - mov file here
Super Special MP3 Bonus:
Boy Least Likely To - Live at KCRW
Today I realised that I have just over one month until my final exams. Shortly afterwards I realised that one of my least favourite words - final - should never be placed next to my other least favourite word - exam. Final Exam. There is no joy there - even the prospect of almost being at the end of seven consecutive years of ‘meaningful’ exams doesnt help very much. There is still all to play for - I’m in the Final, but I havent got my hands on the trophy.
Final Exams.
So, in response I have decided to go mental. Well, first I’ll watch the snooker. Then I’ll go mental. I still have to finish my second (shorter) dissertation, re-check my older (longer) dissertation, revise all my work on segregation in America, learn something about history as a whole, remember some names, dates, and times (particularly where and when the exams themselves are being held), and hold myself together in the process so that I dont explode all over the keyboard. As a result, you might notice that my posts here become:
a) Fewer.
b) Noticably more manic.
For this I apologise. I will continue to post most (if not all) days, but I might end a couple of posts with sounds like this.
sdoifjosdfjsdiofjsdoifjosidfj
For that I cannot apologise. I need to hang on to my sense of self right now. And it turns out my sense of self… Well. Sounds like this.
dsfjsdifjsdoifjdiosjfsdjfiojsdiof
Bugger.
Once upon a time, I thought The Smashing Pumpkins were the most important band in the world. Their music was anthemic but delicate, loud and vicious and, most importantly, knowingly - and nicely - pretentious. (It was probably that more than anything that resonated with me.) Billy Corgan, lead singer and six-foot-five bald dress wearing pseudo-goth, was more important to me than anyone in music, and the albums he wrote never left my cd-player.
Sadly
though I came to the Pumpkins late in their career, and whilst I
searched out, bought, borrowed or downloaded the rest of their albums
in only a few months, once I was ready to see the band live, they had
already broken up. Discovering their music was a historical task -
working backwards, and searching out b-sides and rarities - because I
didn’t have the chance to get excited about their next record.
The important thing I discovered about the Pumpkins during my long search for their most obscure music, is how simple their songs really were. Often dismissed as just another grungey rock-band, Corgan wrote songs that could easily be transported into any genre. He writes piano-ballads, psychedelic trip-out songs, acoustic strum-alongs and big-chorus rock and roll songs. Corgan once said “give me a kazoo, and I’ll write you a hit”, and these four tracks - by no means his best but an eclectic and interesting set, prove that he might have been right.
- 1979 (acoustic version), (original found on ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’) - buy
- Untitled (single) - buy
- Frail and Bedazzled (from the rarities album Pisces Iscariot) - buy
- If There Is A God (piano version from the unreleased Machina II; Friends and Enemies of Modern Music).
(mp3 files - right-click, save-as).
Once the Pumpkins ended, Billy Corgan tried his luck with various side/solo projects, including the (to my mind under-rated) Zwan and a solo project - the relatively disastrous electronica album of last year.
Whilst this gave me the opportunity to watch Corgan make creative choices, and play his music live, it was never really enough.
Which is why the news that emerged today - that the Smashing Pumpkins are working on their new album - is so absolutely ace and exciting. Fans of the Pumpkins have expected it for a while, but for it to be made official, and see the SP logo appear on smashingpumpkins.com again - its a special moment.
Of course the chance is there that the new album won’t be any good. But I would much rather take that chance , and have Corgan create something new, than just watch them rake in the money on a mundane ‘greatest hits re-union tour’.
Mostly, I think that for the Pumpkins to come back with a new record will be to watch them do what they always did best - take risks. And whilst I don’t think the Pumpkins are the most important band in the world anymore, I’m still really looking forward to watching Billy Corgan try to prove me wrong.
1. Venice is Sinking - Pulaski Heights (from the album Sorry About the Flowers)
Arcade Fire is too easy an association to make here, but the violins and driving drum beat, and especially the female backing-vocals, mean its hard not be tempted. A strangely insistent track, epic but not over-produced and really worth a listen when walking through the rain on a cold, smoky night.
Indie geek dance rock with about 5 great tunes hidden beneath its slightly lo-fi sheen.
3. The Boy Least Likely To - Rock Upon a Porch With You (b-side)
As good as anything this amazing - if twee springly
- band (see comments) have made. Another great melody, and full of
hooks that will make you believe it really is spring. Plus a xylophone.
4. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Ballad of Jim Jones (from the album Thank God For Mental Illness)
A brilliant, slightly out of tune song which - whilst slightly more obvious than a lot of Anton Newcombe’s work - still has the feel of something special.
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hyperballad (Live Bjork Cover).
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s take on Bjork with acoustic guitars. Hooray.
6. The Decemberists - 16 Military Wives (from the album Picaresque)
Decemberists get political with jaunty sea-shanty mega-tunes in tow.
7. Band of Horses - St Augustine
A mournful but uplifting, acoustic, echoey ballad to finish this selection of tunes. Sounds a bit like the Flaming Lips if they found themselves locked in a room with nothing but an old guitar and a dusty copy of the bible.
Hope you enjoy the music! Remember to go buy it if you like it, with your 50 Free Downloads at eMusic.com!
Jack White of The White Stripes fame, and latterly the Raconteurs, has written a new song for a Coca Cola advert, which despite all my preconceptions actually turns out to be quite lovely. Have a look:
(Soundtrack to this post: The Cooper Temple Clause - Lets Kill Music)
Generally speaking, I love Apple Computer. I love the iPod, I love their adverts, I love their computers, and I love their hipster, plastic, geek-with-style image. And apart from my recent troubles getting my iMac fixed, there is only one thing about Apple that I had major problems with:
The iTunes Music Store.
Basically the music store, whilst convenient, is a restrictive and expensive piece of not-very-good. To elaborate (by which I mean repeat) - the cost of music (79p a track) is far too high, the Digital Rights Management Apple places on their iPod-only files is far too limiting, and the selection of music Apple has on sale is too mainstream to cater to my increasingly hateful-indie-elitist tastes. Which is why having owned an iPod since 2003, I have only ever bought about 40 tracks there.
And thanks to eMusic.com, I probably won’t buy any more.
eMusic is another one of those web-services I have discovered recently that has simply blown we away. In one day it has changed the way I listen to and buy music - and they aren’t sponsoring me to say it. The point is this:
1) eMusic is wholly legal, based in the USA, and sells all its tracks in mp3 format, without digital-rights restrictions. This is unique amongst music-stores - and it means you can burn your music, share it, back it up and play it on any digital music device you like, as long as you like, forever.
2) eMusic sells all its songs for under 13p a track - a saving of about 66p on the iTunes store per song.
3) eMusic is dedicated to independent labels and bands, which means that whilst bands like Coldplay are still on there, you can also purchase the entire back-catalogue of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. In fact you can get music there that you cant find anywhere else on the net - including filesharing services - unless you went to amazon and paid £15 for the import CD.
4) eMusic gives you 100 free downloads if you sign up today.
This is awesome.
The amount of music I have already discovered is insane, and I am more than glad to pay $15 a month (about £11) for 65 downloads a month.
Perhaps you would to. If you do, visit this web-address and get 100 free downloads with your 14 day free-trial.
(Feel free to lend me a couple for the recommendation…)
Seriously, nobody is paying me a dime for this. eMusic is simply one of the best resources for independent and obscure music there is. It gives artists a fair deal for their work without strangling the user with child-like Digital Rights Management, and for that it should be applauded.
(Soundtrack to This Post: Billy Corgan - Consumed.)
Being a consumer means many things to many people.
For some of us the idea of the purchase, absorption and destruction of inanimate objects is a negative idea - and the prospect of it being our main purpose on this earth is even worse. I can understand that feeling. None of us wants to be defined by the things we buy rather than the things we say, think or do. And because most of use realise - especially when we are stuck in Sainsbury’s trying to choose which brand of toothpaste we identify with most - that on one level we actually are, ‘consumption’ becomes a very depressing image.
The reason is that like evolution, cosmology and the morning-newspaper before it, the idea of “the consumer” reduces (focuses?) our understanding of our importance in the General Scheme of Things (to the very, very small level it really is) even further than before.
In another sense though, if you believe (like I do) that a person’s character, whilst moulded by their genetic make-up (by which I dont mean stem-cell lipstick ho ho ho) - is basically a reflection of their upbringing, their surroundings and the people around them, the things we consume really do take on a quite profound importance.
On a large scale the music we listen to, the films we watch, the books we eat and the food we read really does contribute a massive amount to who we are. They define the ideas we come in contact with, the emotions we learn to express, and the vocabulary through which we elaborate on our daily lives. Even in the very short term they’re important - to take one example, eating sweets can make me happy almost immediately, and when I’m walking in the street on any-given-day and put on a certain song, my mood is liable to instant, and massive change. It happened today listening to The Flaming Lips - ‘The Fight Song’ (which made me clench my fists and refuse to stop when on a particularly damaging run) - and so in both long and short time-scales, the things we consume can indeed consume us. In a good and figurative way.
Although if you go to Africa and buy a tiger, it can literally be true as well.
So, the point is that I don’t think there is anything inherently bad about being a consumer, especially a discriminating one. Consumption is the very basis of our new-world, and it should be embraced. Not always of course - especially when our consumption harms other people in countries we can’t even see. But basically I’m not convinced that we should retreat from labelling ourselves consumers, but instead realise that our consumption reflects who we are and rarely dominates us.
It is with that in mind that I joined the excellent website All Consuming.net. The idea is that you list the things you are consuming, have consumed and want to consume, whether its books, music or whatever, and people with similar tastes to you get in touch and suggest things you might like too. Its all rather spiffy - much like the equally awesome 43things. And its makes me shout - “I am a consumer, dammit! but one with better taste than all of you - and I dare you to prove me wrong!”
And thats quite a nice feeling.
The upshot for you is that you can see what I’m consuming - ie listening to, reading, eating and so on, on the list which is nestled down there in my sidebar. Very useful.
Pretty artwork too. Go! Consume it!
Of course the above
below is all in jest. To find some new music to listen to visit these
mp3 blogs and read/listen to your hearts content. All are excellent.
The Suburbs Are Killing Us
FLUXBLOG: Effing The Ineffable
*Sixeyes
Spoilt Victorian Child
Short Attention Span Radio
music (for robots)
something I learned today…
Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good
Copy, Right?
The Hype Machine
aurgasm
sourfall
Comfort Music - mp3 love, 5 days a week
devil in the details
You Aint No Picasso
largehearted boy: a boy, a girl, and his radio
I realise that this blog is essentially an exercise in online-vanity, and despite the fact that I also think that a lot of what I write here is worth reading, I cant escape the essentially personal nature of its content.
I’m going to embrace this fact, however, rather than ignore it, and promote my own opinions, values and choices above all others.
Because if I cant do it here, in my own personal kingdom, I cant do it anywhere.
In this spirit, therefore, I have added the “Now Listening To…” page (see above). Here you can see the songs and artists I am listening to most (thanks to last.fm) - and you can adjust your own opinions accordingly. Im sure that lots of you want more detail regarding my opinions on music, film and daily life, but this will have to be enough for now.
Long live King Michael the Dangerously Obsessive, may his opinions and decisions reign over you forever.
Update:
Last.FM is amazing.
Not only does it gather and report all my favourite music to you (which is very nice of it), it also has a feature called Last.FM player, where it selects songs I might like to hear, based on what I’ve listen to before or based on an artist I specify, and streams them to me to listen to.
Its incredible - if I want to chill out and listen to some Dylan like music, I type in ‘Bob Dylan’ and I get endless perfect tunes to listen to for free!
