video roundup

felt like phoning in a post this morning with a few random youTubed vids.



great spoof of Magician David Blaine. I love that the fake Blaine has a goatee that is marker.



another great SNL digital short. if you love the OC like i did this slow motion death scene if priceless.



it's an old viral clip but still funny nonetheless and since i was a tour guide this is even funnier.

don't forget to wash.

The Analysis

Bright Eyes: Cassadaga

for those of you that know me, you know me feelings on Conor Oberst, the wunderkind behind Bright Eyes. His album "Lifted, or the Story is in the Soil Keep Your Ear to the Ground" is one my cornerstone albums of my life. Hit me right at the end of high school/beginning of college and has cemented itself in my personal lore. it was the start of my love affair with pretetious indie music.

fast forward a couple of years and Mr. Oberst has been called every name in the indie/blogosphere dictionary with the most prevalent being "The New Dylan." I too have jumped on that band wagon and soapboxed my beliefs about his musical talent and god given talent to make my heart, my head, and my liver hurt simultaneously. he is releasing his new album "Cassadaga" to the masses which is combination of last two records "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" and "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" Listening to the record for the first couple of times you can't help but be overwhelmed by the production. It's bigger, smoother, and holistically different that a lot of his past records. But in the end it does feel like a mashup of previous work but with larger issues within the songs.

a lot of critics have railroaded Conor for being too political and tackling material too big for his britches. this is a more, dare i say it, "mature" album which i don't think is a bad thing. you can feel a lot of the sadness and growing pains coming through the lyrics with topics such as personal cleansing, war, and death doting virtually every song. but some of the songs come off with grand pagentry and lyrical flourish that make Oberst a man to watch for a long while.

my favorite standout tracks are as follows "Soul Singer in a Session Band" is a great country/soul mash up with the lyrics following a desperate man trying to sing for the masses. sonically and lyrically great to the ear as it just charges forward. also "If the Brakeman Turns My Way" is another hard driving song about growing up. there are also a handful of slower bluesy tracks that showed up a lot on "I'm Wide Awake". "Classic Cars and Hot Knives" are hard songs to get into from the start but they pull you in eventually.

as a whole the record is well produced and sonically stronger than its predecessors. yet, i can't help feeling this is more of a transitional record rather than a cornerstone of his work. i am always going to be partial to "Lifted" and "I'm Wide Awake" is amazing. yet, with the force and lyrical material Oberst displays i think we are in for an interesting ride. i still believe that he is one of the men that we have to watch with the future of music and a lt of that is personal bias but i think i have a reason to say that. pick it up and see if you agree with me.

vote democrat.

Springtime For Hitler and/or Me

well it's the start of spring folks. yes i know it was actually the start weeks ago but i'm slow and way too lazy to put in my thoughts about this time of year. why may you ask? because i live in wisconsin where spring doesn't start till August and you get three days of nice weather and then blistering humidity for a month then it's fall and then winter for 10 months. global warming it's not but more like WTF Weather. spring always tends to look like this in Sconnie. in the month of April and the end of March we get at least 1-2 days and anywhere's up to a week of good weather. this can be spread across the board or all at one time. the remaining days are either 1. snowing 2. raining 3. a combination or both 4. or the dreaded warm/cold/warm/humid/cold type of shitastic weather. i.e. why i don't like spring that much because it nevers stays consistant over time.

but one of my favorite (new) pastimes started yesterday. Brewers baseball. yes i'm a Crew fan big surprise. but any baseball team named after an alcoholic beverage is fine by me. plus the Crew have the most annoyingly interesting franchises in the league. why? because we are owned by Bud (No This isn't a Toupee) Selig's family, we were originally the Milwaukee Braves and had Hank Aaron for a little while, and our original logo is a mitt shaped like and M and a B. awesomeness. i will pretty much shit my pants if the Brew Crew make it into the playoffs this year. but the goal is simple....don't choke. they always choke and usually right after the all star break. this year all i hope is that our pitching rotation stays healthy for at least most of the season. if we can keep a rotation together, take some pressure off of the bullpen the Crew have enough talent to make some impact in the league. i am not trying to be openly optimistic but hopeful enough to watch the team.

in other spring baseball news. the Cubbies are being sold at the end of the season. i wonder if they offended another goat during the off season. rough for the Cubs but here is my suggestion. publicly sell the team like the Packers. there are enough crazy Cubs fans that would buy stock in the team. hell even Bartman would probably buy some shares....if they let him.

also in more Midwest Baseball here is The Hold Steady's Twinsified "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" mp3. entertaining and another reminder of spring.

keep hitting homeruns.

Reasons Why Music Sucks

so as i was sitting on my couch last night watching American Idol (i know i loose cool points for that but so screw me nothing else on tuesday or wednesday before Lost) i realized something. the music business sucks. a lot of me has always wanted to be in a band and yada yada yada you can fill in the rest of the blanks. but right now i think music is the last place to be in any entertainment. here are a couple of my reasons why i think music sucks right now and, and why i think there are amazing things happening and why.

Bad Things
American Idol
watching AI you can see why the era of mass collaboration on the internet and music business is pulling it down and apart. i have had to sit through Sanjaya ruin two of my favorite songs and because of a bunch of crying Tweeners and Soccer moms i have to see legitmate contestants leave. but this isn't new for Idol and it won't be in the coming years because i think that ultimately AI is ruining music and the music business. if you look back on past Idolers there have only been 3 successful albums. Two winners (Underwood, and Clarkson) and one 4th place finisher in Daughtry. Fox loves to handjob itself and say what a success the show has been in the biz and i can't discount that. but i believe that putting people who don't know anything about music (technically, historically, socially) is bad for a medium that has the chance to affect so many people. in the end all we have gotten is hundreds of Fox drones putting out senseless crap or making me sit through bad karaoke versions of songs i love that i heard better when i am hearing them at a local dive bar when a drunk regular drinks to many brandy old fashions and thinks they can sing "Black Velvet" idol won't go away and it won't get better because no one this year has the chance to out sell Carrie or Kelly.

Corporate Companies Having Record Labels
Starbucks has started a record label and the first signee is Sir Paul McCartney. this isn't good for music consumers. we already have thousands of indie labels which put out great music. and a handful of big labels that put out really shitty music. pretty soon they will just have to do a nationwide talent search of all the baristas that work at Starbucks so that they can drone us out with their senseless shit everytime i walk in the place.

DRM
you don't know what this means well look it up and realize how pissed people are.

Good Things
Indie acts hitting the charts
this year alone the Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, and The Shins have hit #2 on the charts which is a promising trend that i hope continues. yeah it's hip to be in an indie or emo band right now but at least this music is challenging and progressing the collective conscious.

Public Radio
small and large left of the dial radio stations are amazing. listening to NPR was part of my childhood and now i am old enough to enjoy it. also small indie/college radio stations streaming over the internet is why music and radio is still good.

BitTorrent
having the ability to download music is a great tool that a lot of bands are using and should keep on using. there is so much amazing ways you can use these things to get your music to people and looking at other ways to make money i.e. licensing or just touring forever can make it worthwhile.

ok so that was my quick little analysis. take it or leave it. i'm tired and my coffee isn't working so i fucking crabby. bye.

don't sit on a cactus.

video roundup

it has been a long week so i decided to basically phone in my post today. i was perusing the InterWeb looking for useless videos and found a few gems for your viewing pleasure. but in reality i just thought these were awesome.

IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com - Peyton
Uploaded by IDLYITWdotcom

who would have thought that Peyton (Cut That Meat!) Manning was funny. my favorite line is "Now I'd stab a snitch" near the end. priceless



another great SNL short. only reason this is funny is because i have 2 nephews and 2 nieces and i have been subjected to Dora the Explorer for years now.



i am a sucker for really pop love songs. Bryce Avary or The Rocket Summer as he goes by is absolutely addictive with his tunes. here is a shaky live song from the new album coming out this summer. can't wait.



if you haven't read "The Golden Compass" when you were younger read it now. Philip Pullman's novels were some of my favorite as a child and this is the first trailer for the movie. the ubergeek in me is 'cited for this flick.

that's the roundup enjoy them as long as they stay active.

stay away from elephants.

The Analysis: Battlestar Galactica

Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica
i'm a huge geek/fanboy/science fiction nerd wrapped up inside a hipsters body. this should surprise anybody and therefore big surprise i am a loyal BC fan and i thought i would offer the two cents about season 3's finale last night.

i will have to admit i have gotten to this show later than everyone else. i didn't start watching from the beginning but because of the wonders of dvds i have seen every episode including the miniseries. therefore i feel like i have the ability to offer my piece on this amazing show. but first my gut reaction on this season: Meh.....

It started off amazingly with the humans making a break for it off of New Caprica and all the shit dodging/shots firing/starship battles that any ten year old could enjoy. in there they through in political oppression, unlawful imprisonment, and unjust punishment which made for compeling television the likes i haven't seen on more than maybe two shows in the past 6 years.
then they left New Caprica and the shit started to hit the fan. in the episodes that followed we saw people get thrown out an airlock, people jump out of an airlock, box each other in a crappy ring and more hookups, breakups, and bitching about hookups and breakups that i thought i was watching Desperate Housewives. i just think that they ran out of ideas and didn't have the ability to hit everyone with the pretentious political revisionist banter that have fueled so many past episodes. every line just seemed to lack power and punch that would make you analyze things to no avail. plus the revealing of the mythology took on a Lost style pace in that in an episode full of virutally nothing you got 1 minute of answers crammed at the end.

but i'm gonna have to say the finale was ok. Baltar was acquited in a nice courtroom finale that actually brought back that lovely punch of political analysis that i have loved about this show. we found out (maybe) 4 of the final 5 Cylons were (Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, Tory) which was ok and not all that surprising. and then the final climatic scene where the Cylons were attacking for the first time in god knows how long and then all of a sudden Lee was seeing Starbuck (who was apparently deceased in the shows attempt to stir things up) and she said she could show him where earth was. bam. done. see you again in 2008.

WTF! ok fine it was a so so ending but whatever it wasn't shocking. it was just all crammed together and the fact that we have to weight 9 months for the next installment is just bullshit. it's said to say but i think this show is starting to jump the shark. they are out of twists and turns and the politics is getting overrun. but i am a fan through and through. therefore i am gonna watch when it comes back on. let's just hope that i don't forget about the damn thing in the meantime. oh well. at least Entourage is coming back.

stay away from lasers.

The Analysis: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists- Living with the Living

i thought i would throw in my two cents worth today about a new album that is flowing through my ear drums this week. Punk songster Ted Leo is a man that i have grown to love with honest adorement (if that's a word) over the past couple of years. not having much exposure to his music before 2004's Shake the Streets i soon began to absorb all of his music including Hearts of Oak and The Tyranny of Distance. Well his new album is longer, more complicated, and challenging than all of the past.

what i love about Ted Leo is the fact that he has the ability to put the melody of the song in the verse and not in the chorus. on songs such as "Who Do You Love", "C.I.A.", "A Bottle of Buckie" he places the hook right before the chorus which can be so bizarre to some people who are used to the Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus mentality. plus the melody is never a simple hit you in the face type of sound but more a gradual realization that by changing the inflection in his voice you hear something different. Leo is really more a singer/songwriter than a punk musician. But with his socially conscious lyrics and lightning fast solos he is one of the most interesting men in music.

"C.I.A" and "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb." are two cooly anti-war/government tracks. the thing with Leo is that his lyrics may be politically motivated but they don't sound preachy. "Bomb" is a frenatic punk anthem that doesn't let up for a second as he rips through the chords faster than any drum stick while shouting "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb."

Yet, the album can drag at times and feel a tad unsettled. Some of the guitar hooks blend around the mid tracks and you forget each glorious melody until you listen again and again to get the full understanding. the album itself feels unsettled with only a handful of tracks feeling comfortable and gooy. but i can't blame Ted for this feeling because listening to each track you hear the pleading in his voice for change in a lost country. as a musician he is smarter and more talented than most singers working today. yet, know one but the inclusive set realize this guys power.

so my advice is buy Shake the Streets first and come to love this. then buy this album because until you appreciate his past work can you love this new work.

keep the melody flowing.