Why is Life So Hard?

So I've got a 30 gig ipod and I've recently run out of storage space.

What's this mean exactly? Well, naturally, it means that I have to sift through my music collection and essentially triage albums and artists. This is hard, man. I mean, seriously, how do you choose between "Birth of the Cool," "Walkin'," and "Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet?" It's like the age old question, 'would you rather be stabbed, hung, or shot?' Just set me on fire and get it over with.

Not to mention the fact that I'm really going through a kind of 'discovery' phase, picking up loads of albums that I've never heard but that the rest of the free world has know about for decades. Case in point, Springsteen's "Born to Run." OMMFG! If this isn't a great album, then what is??? I'm also seriously getting into Built to Spill and have just discovered some classic old school Elton John and a whole slew of Bowie's early stuff that I knew of but hadn't actually heard. Now I've cut Madonna's "Something to Remember" and just left "The Immaculate Collection," I've shamelessly disregarded Coltrane's "Impulse! Years" two CD set and just left "My Favorite Things" and (of course) his album with Johnny Hartman, but my question is, 'where's this all going to end?' I'm eventually going to wind up at a point where its easier to pull my own hair out than to decide who's more important to me, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits, Built to Spill or the Archers of Loaf, Miles or Dizzy, Orff or Prokofiev, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, David Bowie or Lou Reed, Cibo Matto or Deerhoof?

Ok, now I might cry. As my music collection grows and my interests and experiences expand, I can't help but long for a day when hard-drive space is simply a 'sky's the limit' situation. I look forward to a society where all the world's music is accessible at any time and at any place. Let's end the misery, shall we?

*A tear falls into the abyss....*

Go, Shorty, Its Your B Day

Yo, straight up for real, if you ain't heard Beyoncé's "B Day," do yourself a favor and blow off your crew and your girl or your guy and go buy this sh*t, friends.

Miss Knowles has been bringing the funk for a while, but she's always managed to tangle her albums up in just enough pop/mainstream R&B to keep me away from wanting to own a full recording. I've just heard a single here and there and thought 'wow,' but I have always known what I'd be in for if I purchased the entire CD....

Now I'm not trying to dis mainstream pop music (but really I'm dissing the f**ck out of it), but I've never really been able to get into it because.... well it would seriously take too long to discuss what's wrong with modern pop/R&B as a whole....

But the thing is, on "B Day," Beyoncé is slangin' things on a totally other level, people. This is not an album that can be ranked with Fergie's latest or whatever: a (possible) staple of the moment/the times, but ultimately a collection of largely forgettable music. "B Day" is like listening to classic soul updated for modern times.

Now, I'm not trying to put this album up on some crazy high pedestal. Let's be straight- this is not "James Brown: Live at the Apollo," but what it is is a breakthrough for Miss Knowles, and I am simply tipping my hat to an artist who's made an album that is hot hot hot and pretty much rocks very very hard. For anyone who heard "Crazy in Love" and thought 'I wish there was a whole album like that, but I don't want to buy some top 40 crap CD with one awesome single' I will refer to the first sentence of this post and say, 'go out and buy "B Day," people!!!' Its good.

If Beyoncé continues to develop in this direction I'll build an altar to her in my home and risk estrangement from my wife. This album is almost a very important one. What's that mean? Its like when Peter Gabriel left Genesis and had to make 3 records before he got it right. Its like when Elton John came up with "Honky Château;" it wasn't "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," but looking back you can see where things would inevitably end up. If this doesn't make sense, or if it seems a little over the top, I'm sorry, but I'm still giving some props to the B for coming out with a record like this. This isn't one of the greatest albums of our times, but its very encouraging. Keep rockin', Beyoncé, you got enough soul to make history....

Silverman is Magic

Wicked.

So, if you haven't seen Sarah Silverman's concert vid "Jesus is Magic" yet, do do do see it, please. You will laugh your twin towers off, and that I guarantee. Only problem is... it's not for the squeamish or the easily offended. The lovely and talented Miss Silverman tackles every conceivable politically incorrect topic and takes every conceivably offensive stance on said topics. She really comes across so snide and unaware and you hate hate hate the fact that you can't help loving her. Her performance here epitomizes those people that you most love to hate, but its all irony, folks... and thank god, because if it weren't miss Silverman would be well on her way to being assassinated by now. That aside, she does some great stand-up and some great songs too! I would totally watch this more than 3 or 4 times... I think.

The Convention is this weekend,

The Washington State Shape Note singing convention is this weekend.

If ya don't know anything about Shape Note Singing, you can find out more here. and the above link.

This will be my, I think, 4th time hitting up the WA state convention. But it'll be the first time I go for both days. I'm pretty excited. Although, i'm a little wary of getting up at the crack of dawn on both a Saturday and a Sunday, and making some food early.

It's pretty great - they always get some singers from Alabama to be treated like rockstars, and Last year in the morning I sat next to a Nun the whole time from Lopez Island. A Nun y'all! So we've got what started as a mainly protestant form of congregational singing - and catholics, even Nuns show up. And don't get me started on all the fantastic singers from Portland. Those people are FIENDS for the Sacred Harp. Word on the street is they sing regularly, EVERY day. ain't that something? and how many wiccans and poly-religious folk are in that number? ska-tillions of them. Folks can get tripped up by the overt religious nature of the texts that are sung. but the text of Sacred Harp tunes are light years away from your standard hymm texts. Sacred Harp tunes are the Nietzsche of christian liturgy. It's all about hardship and struggle, and missing friends and family. To me, it barely even seems like it's any kind of christian in nature - but that might be willful deception on my part. Regardless, the singing strikes a chord in a lot of people, including atheists. And for some in the South, hell, even up here too, Sacred Harp Singing - becomes their church. It's almost like this strange analog to Sufism, in the way it is part of a tradition, but is also outside the mainstream, and has a vastly different agenda from the mainstream.

I'm at work so I've got to run.

As for bringing food for the dinner-on-the-grounds potluck: I'm thinking Cornbread as some point. and maybe some pinto beans. Vegetarian sides are still hard to come by at these things, even way up here in seattle.

Word.

Portastatic! Hobart!

Last night was the Portastatic and Camera Obscura show. As it turns out, T-Money wasn't feeling well, at all. So I had an extra ticket and called up th' homie Hobart, of HOBART fame. (BTW, Hobart #7 is at the printers and will be getting sent out soon, so get yo' copy. It's the ART issue. so it's full of, ART. and words).

Hobart didn't know a thing about the whole Mac/Portastatic/Superchunk thang, so he had to listen patiently while I ran circles around him in my enthusiasm.

The show was great - Just Mac and Margaret. And they started low key, but by the end - it was gripping. The best part was when Margaret picked up the tiny keyboard for "___" (oh, heck i can't remember the title, I'll post it later) and played some mighty lonesome casio-tone. {see below}

By San Andreas, and I wanna Know Girls - I was sweating and wishing the set were twice as long.

Camera Obscure was solid. I admit, on the slower numbers i was feeling how late it was, but they had a string of about 3 uptempo numbers, and the lead singer was rocking this big epiphone ES-335 looking guitar through a blues driver and a fender twin, and it was this propulsive Velvet Underground/meets ballsy twee-pop/50's dance hall that really was rocking. and by rocking i mean, lets all dance cause there's nothing you can do but dance. The photos of the Camera Obscure set didn't come out at all. I suspect there is a hint of irony in that somewhere.

Photos are below:

Mac and Margaret gettin' into it, y'know (in my best R.L. Burnside voice)

Margaret soothing us all with the Casio-tone. (the Ninja Turtle sweatshirt guy may or may not have been painfully alone)
It does not get any more hardcore awesome than this.

Night Night Hobart. Let Chewie howl you a lullaby

Prince,

Go, Just GO over to the you tubes and watch (again) how Prince just nails everything about a live performance. It's over, people. There's no more good reason to make songs, record, or play in front of people. There used to be needs to make that stuff. Now, there is only wants. From the superbowl half-time performance on, every new piece of music is just gravy.

I love this too, at a press conference before the show he played some music and then stopped and:

Officials had warned that Prince would answer no questions, but he pimped the room by taking the small stage and saying, "Contrary to rumor, I'd like to take a few questions."

When a reporter lobbed a softball, Prince and his four-piece backup band replied with ear-shattering music. Then he continued to play for some 10 minutes before the performer signed off, saying "See you at the Super Bowl. Peace."

ha HA! Suckas! That is what it's like to be a the TOP of your game. And Prince at the top of his game is the apex, the apogee, indeed the very event horizon of everyone else's game.

Podcast Fever

So, I've lately begun to seriously enjoy listening to podcasts as opposed to music on my way to school. I'm swiftly becoming addicted, in fact. Why?

Well, in some cases, I believe there's a certain quaint enjoyment to be found in listening to the personal podcasts of individuals as it is much like listening to someone's blog. As can be expected, this experience may bring a certain feeling of being connected to a greater community, creating a web of "friends" that you don't know and who don't know you but will nevertheless air their life's dirty laundry and their innermost hopes and fears for you to connect-with/laugh-at. But it may also, at times, become brutally laborious, as you careen through the average Joe's pensive recounting of his/her daily banal minutia of why they chose a certain brand of toothpaste or why why they decided to rent "Brokeback Mountain" instead of "The Devil Wears Prada" at the video store. J. Michael Haas puts a nice twist on his personal podcast, "The Daily Purge," by including excepts of his writings at the start of each installment. After his readings, however, the podcasts often degenerate to him talking about his cats.... This is the reason that I don't listen to podcasts like this too often. So what, then, do I listen to?

Mostly, I've found myself listening to podcasts like Boing Boing's new one, Penn Jilette's "Penn Radio," "Democracy Now," "Real Time" with Bill Maher, etc. These (and like a gagillion others I've recently decided I can't live without) sit in that greyish news/current events/editorial/entertainment zone that helps career underachievers such as yours truly feel connected to what's going on in the world. Of course, this feeling comes largely from listening to others rant and rave about how our society is coming apart at the seams. Oh well, it's better than not being informed at all.

On another note, Indie Feed has a collection of podcasts that are seriously cool and fun give you a little taste of various artists and whatnot. Likewise, KEXP is rocking my world lately too, injecting my earbuds with all kinds of new artists and sweet live performances.

Let us also not forget discipline specific podcasts like "Inside Home Recording" and the many Photoshop Podcasts out there. What better way to stay ahead of the game?

If you're not yet "into" podcasts, I guarantee that once you start searching, you'll find a plethora of casts that fit your individual tastes. Recently, I'm listing to/watching (ipod video, ya'll... holla!) audiobooks, radio shows, poetry readings, personal blogs, political debates, news, new music releases, etc, and finding myself absolutely thrilled with the wealth and variety of information that can be carried with me wherever I go. Maybe this is a passing thing for me; I can't say for sure. But with so much quality content out there.... how could it be?

This. Is. Dope.

This idea was rad and blew my socks off when Crooked Fingers did this on the "Dignity and Shame " tour. I got goose bumps just thinking about it, and set about on the internets for quasi legal ephemera to re-create the experience.

It was cool then and it's STILL cool (ghoulishly cool to the touch) when the arcade fire does it too, and they couldn't have picked a better song to do it with.

Check it here.