Sarah Asplund and myself made a little recording with some help from Peter Asplund (who recorded Sarah) and Yahoo, over which I sent the email with the digital piano accompaniment. The song is “Love Has No Pride,” by Eric Kaz, a hit for Bonnie Raitt in 1971. Happy New Year to all Kulturbloggers.
You may download the file, and listen to it in iTunes, or whatever.
Yep, it’s that time again, best-of year-end lists. But I’m not going to just post a best-of list of shows, instead I’m gonna do a recap of various bands I’ve seen. Feel free to post your own best-of list, though. I tend to go see mostly very underground/unknown bands that aren’t easily accessible to many people, so I questioned whether I should post this or not, but hey, things have been slow.
I didn’t get out to as many shows this year as I wanted to, but I still managed to catch at least 24. (There may be one or two I’m forgetting that I didn’t get my camera into. I document shows with my camera so that I’ll be able to remember them.)
Thanks to Susan for doing a great Christmas T-dome in style. The Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan version of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” won hands-down in massive holiday traffic.
See if you detect a theme in this week’s t-dome, y’all. (more…)
Lots of gifts under the tree, some even from my wish list. Yippee!
So let’s talk about the highlights/lowlights of Christmas giving. What was the best present under the tree for you? What was the worst? You can speak in general terms if you’re afraid of insulting people, but what’s blogging for?
Me: best gift was either a nice Timbuk2 messenger bag, or a set of used DVDs from wifey: the Kill Bill movies, Magnolia, and several others. Worst gift was socks — lots and lots of socks. I only have two feet, people.
Steve’s out of town and asked me to take care of Thunderdoming this week. Last week’s winner was R.E.M. I’ll refrain from commenting beyond that. 
This week: Christmas songs! I was trying to go for current bands doing old standards, but I couldn’t resist including the Kinks.
Have at it.
As some of you know, I live in the Triangle area of North Carolina, so named because of the three cities that form the backbone of the area: Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Our market is currently blessed (cursed?) with the presence of not just one, or even two, but three sports talk radio stations. What is even more amazing is that there doesn’t seem to be any lack of things to talk about, at least at this time of year, with the NFL playoff race, the start of conference play in the ACC (men’s and women’s basketball teams are worth following this year), the surprisingly hot start of the Carolina Hurricanes, and lots of action in the hot stove league.
As I was listening to one of these shows the other day, listening to random callers spout nonsensical opinions as to why Coach K doesn’t know what he’s doing, it occured to me that if there were three radio stations in our medium-sized market devoted to letting listeners share their opinions about sports, why weren’t there any radio stations devoted to letting listeners share their opinions about music? (more…)
I’ve enjoyed the recent movie discussions on Kulturblog and thought I’d add my two cents. This Christmas season seems to be offering more promising Christmas movies than the last couple of years. This always gets me excited even if I’ve ultimately been tricked.
The Family Stone is a perfect example of this. My wife and I were excited for what seemed to be a warm fuzzy comedy about accepting newcomers into the family. Almost like Meet the Parents (which we loved) but with Sarah Jessica Parker instead of Ben Stiller and Christmas!
Well, it tried to be that, a little. And in certain moments, it was the movie we wanted and the movie we were promised. But too many things ruined it for us (all of which, of course, are not in the previews). The token gay couple was not only a token gay couple, oh no, they also had to be an interracial couple with one of them being deaf, no less. Finally, the interracial deaf gay community is represented in a movie!
Then there was the sloppy love quadrilateral involving a fairly manufactured, already-done boy-and-girl-are-engaged-and-find-out-they’re-more-interested-in-others spin involving them being more interested in each other’s siblings. And if that weren’t enough, we have the dieing-of-cancer-I-can-get-away-with-anything-because-I’m-dieing mom played by a very unlikable Diane Keaton who is supposed to make us cry at certain points.
All in all, if the preview were about ten minutes longer, it could have included everything interesting and/or entertaining about the movie. The remaining 90 minutes, sadly, are disappointing.
When have you been tricked and how?
Wow, a lot of you weirdos like Adam Ant. Who knew? Well, onwards and upwards.
There are many reasons to hate the Christmas season. Fortunately, cinema isn’t one of them. For sure, there are many turkeys out there, but we have been blessed with some fine holiday films through the years.
So, what are your favorite holiday films?
Walking out of SYRIANA this afternoon, I turned to my friends and said, “that wasn’t confusing at all.” They agreed. Our only conclusion is that SYRIANA is the type of movie that rewards attention and punishes those who rely on instant gratification.
The short and inaccurate review: like TRAFFIC, only with oil.
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I love books, but I’m a prisoner of the English language. With the exception of reading Stephen King’s short story “Quitters, Incorporated†in my third-year German class in high school (what were you thinking, Frau Nicholsen?), I’ve never read anything other than books written in English (the five pages I suffered through of “The Tin Drum†do not count).
Being uni-lingual is (um, obviously) a huge disadvantage when it comes to discovering and reading great works of literature in other languages, because only the blockbuster writers are ever translated for English readers (Garcia Marquez, Dostoevsky, etc.). I know there are many, many brilliant writers I’m missing, and I’d love to hear recommendations (classic and comtemporary, fiction and non-fiction, etc.) of books to read from foreign writers around the world.
Thanks!
King Kong is set to be released this weekend and I don’t think I’ll see it. Not this weekend and probably never. I decided that what it will take for me to see the movie is a combination of sweeping good reviews and friends’ recommendations. The story itself doesn’t necessarily interest me and the media hype/trailers make it look terrible. And when I say reviews I mean by those I respect (see Eric Snider), not the quote whores that will be found on any movie poster. And even if the reviews are good, it would still only occupy a back burner unless my friends (who I respect their movie taste) tell me that I have to see it.
Like described above, my sense is that we make our entertainment decisions based on combinations of the following four factors:
Read the book/know the story: Depending on how much I enjoy the book/story will I base my level of interest in the movie-version of that book/story.
Media hype: Commercials don’t do much for me. Partnerships with corporations (McDonalds, Ford, etc) will usually decrease my interest in the movie. Movie posters are almost all the same (terrible at communicating what the movie is about, good at communicating who’s in the movie). For me it’s all about the trailer.
Reviews: I agree with probably 90% of Eric Snider’s reviews and with that kind of success rate I don’t find it necessary to spend much time reading other reviews. A good movie critic can go a long way in helping you make your decisions.
Recommendations: This is probably the most persuasive of the four. If all three of the others are negative but my friends all say they loved it, I’ll probably see the film.
What do you guys think? Are there other factors? What importance to you put on each of these factors? What’s the most important combination?
How exactly did Elliott Smith lose last week’s battle? Apathy of the cool kids is all it takes for the nerdy to triumph. So, this week I’ve thrown together some fairly random songs for your enjoyment. The Shins win, with “Caring is Creepy.”
A lot of people have trouble knowing what to give as gifts. This can result in uncomfortable moments as your husband unwraps unwanted cuff links or as little Susie opens up the 2-year old fashion, now sadly out of style. Why not get people what they want? Better still, why not learn about what people want, and use that as an inspiration to get them something they’ll love, but hadn’t thought of? This is the best type of gift: something you love, but something that had never occurred to you.
I believe this is what Amazon Wishlists are for. (more…)
I finally got around to watching “Fight Club”. And it turns out that, despite its name and its singular popularity among men, this movie is really just another sentimental chick flick. There’s the supportive, loving girlfriend anxiously wringing her hands over her mixed-up and confused boyfriend, who, of course, just can’t decide whether or not to commit to her and invest himself fully in their relationship.
And, true to form, the boyfriend finally comes around in the end, realizing he can’t live without her, just in time, before it’s too late, and she is gone forever.
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A couple weeks ago, my wife needed the Green Day song, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” for work (I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing for a music-buying addict to be married to a Music Therapist). We don’t have a lot of Green Day, even though American Idiot won me over. So I took a quick look at their discography online, and I realized that not only was the song she needed on what might be Green Day’s worst album, but that overall a lot of their albums are inconsistent. On the other hand, International Superhits! looked like an amazing compilation. It turns out that it is. For having a bunch of spotty albums, Green Day has tons of fantastic songs; hearing them one after another solidifies the band in my mind as one of the real forces in 90′s (and 2000′s) rock. But this isn’t about Green Day. . .
My best friend just emailed me and asked if it would be dorky for her to write a fan letter to her favorite singer. I told her she should see a couple of the emails I tried to send to Mike Scott, lead singer of the Waterboys. Tried because I don’t know if it was an email address he ever checks or actually uses.
So I’m obviously not the right person for her to be asking if it’s dorky or not.
Have you ever had dorky/embarrassing moments of fandom (that you’re willing to share)? Here are a couple of mine. (more…)
I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I seriously have not come to my conclusion in a haphazard or slap-dash fashion. To the contrary, I’ve been methodically conducting research and contemplating things out in my mind in great detail.
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Coldplay! Coldplay won last week, with quite possibly its best song beating out mediocre offerings by Radiohead and Blur.