And now prescient songs about current events

It’s really a quagmire…

 

 

 

unless you work for a small business who’s owner happens to disagree with you using said contraception…

For those of you about to rock

http://www.theymightbegiants.com/firstalbumlive/

 

TMBG have released a free digital download of their first album live!  It’s a little complicated, but the directions seemed to work for me.  The download finished as I was typing this post.

Very much interested to hear Don’t Let’s Start and She’s An Angel live.  For a 28 year old album (I thought maybe it was turning 30 this year, but wikipedia tells me differently), this album holds up pretty well.  I mean, not Toddler Highway or Chess Piece Face, but TMBG have hardly changed their core sound in nearly 30 years.

may as well finish off the triumvirate of seattle grunge

Sorry Alice in Chains, but these guys rocked my socks more.
My first experience with how awesome Johnny Cash was is when he covered this song as a country romp.

yeah, more PJ

This is footage from the night I saw Pearl Jam. It was my gift to myself for getting my Master’s Degree less than a week before.
Black may be a depressing song, but it’s also beautiful. It’s got a special place in my heart for several reasons, not least of which because it’s the first song to which I ever slow danced.

I haven’t listened to the video I posted (gf is reading a book next to me on the couch, so it’s best I be quiet), but before playing this song, Eddie said “ok, one more, we like you to feel pain” after playing 2 slow weepy ballads before this one…

Sappy

I’ve been thinking a lot about Nirvana lately, not sure why. A forum I was reading was debating how much Nirvana martial was left of note, but the only thing us fans know for sure is that there was another version of this song recorded that hasn’t been released.

This is my favorite Nirvana song. To me, it’s comparing people who don’t question their surroundings to animals that are kept in jars and given breathing holes…and you will think you’re happy.

There were a lot of junk lyrics that Kurt Cobain wrote during his short career:
“an albino, my labido”
“throw down your ubilical noose and I’ll climb right back”
etc.

But this is where I found his lyrics so inspiring.

Go see it

I just got back from date night; we went to see the movie The Fault in Our Stars. We had read the novel when it came out in early 2012 and it was named at Time Magazine’s Novel of the Year. We watch author John Green on youtube, so it’s not like I’m totally unbiased, but…

See this movie!

Right, music: This song is the single from the soundtrack

Just picked up the new album from this group

Atmosphere is a rapper names Slug and his beatmaker who goes by the moniker of Ant. They have made a career out of singing about the problems of every day life.
I was introduced to their music in 2008, when they put out an album with the irresistible title, When Live Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. It was an album about being broke with no prospects of your life improving.
This album is one of my 100 favorite albums, and one of the only rap albums on that list.

The centerpiece of the album has always been, at least to me, Guarantees.
Some sample lyrics:
“Just another zombie walking blindly through your ghost town”
“Months behind on everything but the lottery”
“My cup ain’t close to filled up/we trying to save up so we can have enough”
“My better half is mad at making magic out of canned goods”
“Can’t save no nest egg/in fact this egg is rented/in fact that rent is late”
“The only guarantee in life is a life worth dying for”

Snippet of my former life: I used to love the line “Just me and my son and that crazy woman”. No, I’m not providing references.

Cover song: Fitter Happier

So there’s this semi-frequent gathering where ska bands have a night of doing sets where they cover a bunch of songs by one band.
The headliner always tackles one of the bands that are blasphemous to cover. A few years ago, it was the Arrogant Sons of Bitches who chose to tackle several songs from the Radiohead library.
Now, for my money, the song that really clenches Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer for me is Fitter Happier. It’s an ambient noise track with vocals from an actual computer. The track talks about how it’s important to do things that everybody else does like “kissing with saliva” going to “moral bank/hole in wall” “still catching a good film” “still laughing at a good joke”…

Leave it to a band called Arrogant Sons of Bitches to turn that in to a hardcore punk song

Shovels and Rope

Almost 2 years ago, I saw a little band called Shovels and Rope at the annual KEXP Concerts at the Mural. There was a song (other than their hit Birmingham), which wowed the crowd. Until a couple days ago, when the band put the song on a free EP, I was never able to find the song…
Now I know that the song was called “Who’s Gonna Raise These Babies?”.

None of the headliners for this year’s Concerts at the Mural have been posted, but I have to say that I’m already looking forward to the show with Wimps (who were the last band to ever headline the Funhouse) on Friday the 15th and Mark Pickerel (formerly of Screaming Trees) on Friday the 22nd.

Laugh and be Happy

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Randy Newman had a career renaissance becoming the person who writes music for Pixar movies, but fewer people know that he put out a very good album, Harps and Angels, a few years ago.

This song came on my ipod today and reminded me why it rocked my socks off the year that album came out.