October 31, 2006
I want this album and I can’t find it anywhere. If you want to be nice and share with me, please holler. I’ll … um, make you a mix?
Dou Wei & FM2 Hou Guan Yin
(Lona; 2006)
But what is really striking about this album is how readily it bridges the gap between early seventies prog (like, the experimental kind, and not the more popular formalized version of Yes and ELO) and present day electronic music. Xhol Caravan, Agitation Free, Area, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Battiato — their fingerprints are all over this thing, which isn’t entirely shocking, since some of the roots of electronic music exist in that cluster anyway, but insofar as the intent is to draw the soothing and sore together, I haven’t heard an album that is so evocative of that nexus of noise in a while. Like those bands, FM3 understand that vibrant tremors exist in all sorts of contexts, groupings, and tempos, and that an album doesn’t have to be a collection of ideas, but rather it can be the idea, and that its parts can simply explain the narrative through moods.
-Mark Abraham
Um, I’m getting a little twitchy.
October 31, 2006
It’s Halloween, y’all. I don’t remember the last time I dressed up, but I did, at one point, have every intention of being Stevie Nicks this year. Unfortunately, I never locked in my Lindsey, and alas, Stevie is crying herself to sleep over a cauldron and McVie head tonight.
So, what’s the back up plan? Well, since women are so fucking creative, it appears as though the costume du jour (more like année) is “Slutty _____”. It doesn’t matter what you are, as long as the word “Slutty” is in front of it, your costume is sure to be a hit. So far, I’ve noticed slutty librarians, slutty teachers, slutty female football players (?), slutty business women, slutty nurses, slutty USPS workers, … well, you get the point. Anything slutty is a “costume”.
Well ladies, you only have one day a year to dress like a slut, so I guess you should take advantage of it.
Oh wai
So I’ve got some alternate ideas for my costume, including but not limited to: Slutty Dick Cheney, Slutty waterboard victim, Slutty Andrea Yates, and Slutty Prison Guard. What are your suggestions?
October 27, 2006
Now here’s an argument I can really sink my teeth into. Rhino’s “Reissue Rumble” is featurning Yes’ Yes (1972) against Boston’s Boston (1976).
Those wanting to relive the ’70s rock experience could not possibly hope to do so accurately without these two albums. For a certain generation of self-respecting white American teenage boys (and many girls too), Fragile and Boston were both essential components of the collection, no matter how big. My older brother was among that number, and so a good chunk of my early years played out to these soundtracks (which, in all honesty, I have barely heard since).
Though each album shows a credible amount of songcraft, both were most notable for their sonic qualities—two great leaps forward—in an era when dry and compressed were generally the orders of the day. So these standard-CD remasterings (One from 2003, the other brand new) do hold some importance.
I know that Fragile is the Yes gold-standard for most, but I have to say, every time I listen to Yes (1969), I’m more enamoured.
October 26, 2006
Whenever I feel bad or worried about my life and the paths I’ve chosen (or not chosen), I go back to one of my favorite quotes of all time, and remember that things could be oh so much worse.
I am fortunate to currently share my life with four wonderful, idiosyncratic cats. Recently, I have renewed my commitment to taking their dental health as seriously as I take my own.
It doesn’t matter who said it. It’s life-affirming and it gives me hope.
For the record, Sophie gets her teeth cleaned by a regular vet, and I have no idea which of us has cleaner teeth.
