Love of man for machine, 1979 sixth grader style. (I can’t talk too much smack though. I wrote something very similar about my family’s first Apple ][ for school.)

Thursday tunes:
Self - Stratford-On-Guy (Liz Phair Cover)
Guided By Voices - Teenage FBI (Unreleased Mix)

For those of you looking for a little light reading with your music-genre dogma, the authors of the indie-rock article on the Wikipedia are looking for a little help.

Essaythree Year End Top Ten

So, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem: has Daft Punk really played at your house?

“Of course not. I used to play house parties in punk rock bands. You don’t really get paid, but what you do is sell a ton of merchandise, and get a place to sleep. When I got into dancing, taking E and being optimistic, I thought; wouldn’t it be great if some kid wanted Daft Punk to play at his house? So he rings the agent who says they’ll cost $40,000 and he saves for seven years and finally gets enough money and flies Daft Punk over. And, of course, they’d have no idea where they would be landing, ‘cos the rider includes two first-class tickets on Air France. And the kids would be earnestly trying to meet all the rider requirements, but Daft Punk would still end up playing in the basement next to the washing machine, which we all did. A local hardcore band is supporting, and the PA consists of all the local kids’ amps and stereos taped together. I thought that would be like the best show that anyone would ever see. My goal is to actually make that happen for a video - find a really great punk rock house, get Daft Punk to play, and LCD Soundsystem would be the opening local band. It just makes me happy.”

Great music and a great bio.

Before the Garden State soundtrack Frou Frou were not a household name. It’s arguable that even a spot on the soundtrack made them into one, but it certainly made them big enough for lead singer Imogen Heap to jump ship and record a solo disc, Speak For Yourself. On it she shows why she was the soul of Frou Frou, and expands on her already considerable body of Bjork-meets-Jan Hammer dance pop. The accompanying press release explains a bit better the reasons for the break up with both her label and her band:

Working with Frou Frou partner, Madonna and Britney producer Guy Sigsworth had been “an apprenticeship in making amazing records,” says Heap. But Heap was adamant that with her next project, she should get the recognition she deserved. “It’s not Guy’s fault, but with Frou Frou, everyone assumed the man did all the production and engineering, mixing and programming and that the girl – me – just sang,” explains Heap. “And I have to say that really irritated me. We did everything together. I’d been programming on Macs since I was twelve and that was more of a love to me than singing ever was.” After her break-up with Universal/Island, Heap felt the time had come for change. “I loved working with Guy,” she says. “I’d learnt so much from him and all the other various collaborations I’d done over the years. Now I was bursting with ideas and just wanted to get my hands really dirty!”

There are some real stand out tracks here, including the disc opener “Headlock” and the absolutely gorgeous vocoder marvel “Hide and Seek”. My only problem with albums like this is that the chances of seeing a performer like this live are so slim. I’d imagine seeing a song like “Hide and Seek” done live would be pretty amazing.

Geez. Have I been wearing out Illinois. One song in particular has me pegged lately, aptly titled Chicago. I guess for years and years I thought there was beauty in staying, and now I’m seeing the beauty of leaving things behind; or going somewhere new long enough to get a comfortable taste and moving onto the next dish. I like that more.

Joe and I were talking last week about the new musical fad of creating original works of music using the 8-bit synth built in to the original Nintendo (aka chiptunes). He had some chiptunes on his iPod, some unlistenable and some oddly compelling. Today I ran across an entire album of covers of pop tunes done by chiptunes artists. Some of these are just sort of novel, but the cover of ‘Karma Police‘ is mesmerizing. (I’m sure by now Last.fm has totally ratted me out for listening to it 25 times.) I know that the first link for the record is totally glutted by now so I’m going to go out on a limb and make it available here. It’ll be on BT soon enough as well, I’m sure.

NESCover (67.8MB RAR Archive)

01 REM - Losing My Religion
02 Europe - Final Countdown
03 Radiohead - Karma Police
04 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
05 Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
06 Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
07 Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
08 Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
09 Slayer - Angel of Death
10 David Pomeranz - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now
11 Coldplay - Yellow
12 Rick James - Superfreak
13 Semisonic - Closing Time
14 (Silence)
15 Hidden NESmix Intro
16 Zero Wing (Opening Theme) (4×4 Remix)
17 Tetris (Music A) (Piano Practice)

Have fun. (Via BoingBoing, SomethingAwful, et al.)

Bjork on Barney. Story about Bjork’s collaboration with her husband Matthew Barney, the start of yet another film cycle entitled Drawing Restraint 9. I’ve always had a fascination with Barney’s work, and Bjork is Bjork. (Via robotwisdom - Thanks, Joe!)

While in Chicago Joe made me a copy of ‘Come On Feel The Illinoise‘, Sufjan Stevens latest in his bid to write an album about all 50 states. As I think about looking out on the Chicago skyline I keep imagining these songs playing in the background. This has to be one of the most beautiful albums ever made. You owe it to yourself to buy it, or have a nice friend like Joe who is willing to burn a copy for you.
There are times when the music sounds like something from an educational film strip you watched in the 6th grade, then it veers wildly into Polyphonic Spree territory. And then he’ll throw a song like ‘Kasimir Pulaski Day’ in there to eloquently and simply remind you of your own mortality and that of the people you love. Time is valuable people.
All in all an A+ record that manages to defy any genre mongering and beg for a spot in any collection.

As evidenced by the previous entry, I’m descending into the madness that is analog home recording. I think most kids record their own radio shows ; I always did anyway. It was a neat way to pass the time. I used to write my own ad jingles and everything. It came in handy later. When I learned to play guitar I quickly became fascinated with recording through my boombox; I’d play one track to tape, then play along with it into another tape, over and over again, ad infinitum. It was like a really time consuming four track. After I moved away I experimented with several Mac-based recording systems (even some really good ones), but was never really happy with the results. While it’s interesting that Apple has seen fit to make home recording a top priority with the creation of GarageBand there’s still something so sterile about it. There’s just something so nice about the hiss of tape and the hum of AC ductwork in the background of your recordings.
So now that my brother has a four track we’ve been experimenting with various methods for turning out decent recordings. I’ve found some decent tutorials, and I’m raiding equipment lists trying to get a handle on everything.
Honestly, I feel as though this will lead to a rediscovery of what I really love in life. Don’t worry HTML and Photoshop: I still heart you.

I spent the weekend working on some music with my brother. We’re trying to get 12 songs finished before the end of November. My trip to Chicago might put a dent in the plan, but I’ll have the acoustic with me.
We were getting ready to put bass on one of the shorter untitled numbers when I took this pic.