Tonight's weather was perfect for walking. That is, if one's partial to rain and spritz and dry and spritz and oh hey rain, again. A scarf wrapped around mouth, chin, neck. Hat all snug. Gloves! Yes. Gloves. Black ones, simple.
Nico - These Days
When I'm aware that what I'm listening to reflects my life in a specific moment, it startles me. Sometimes, I put on something different. Sometimes, I keep it up.
Nina Simone - The Laziest Gal in Town
I bought a bottle of wine. Honestly? I'm pretty sure this is my first legal self-purchased bottle o' alcoholic grapes. I'm not a wino. More like a beer-o. My roommate pointed out that I am always drinking expensive beer. Not true. I buy the prettiest label with brand recognition and style preference at $10 or less. What class. But I mean, I drank Mickey's for the first time in years recently.
Showing posts with label streaming audio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label streaming audio. Show all posts
11 November 2008
27 October 2008
Things not to forget
You know how sometimes you'll hear a song for the first time in a long while and it strikes a certain chord that you didn't expect? I have been itching, dying, yearning to feel something lately that didn't throttle me into pure nostalgia. Then I put it on, for the first time in maybe two years.
Fiery Furnaces - Tropical Ice-Land (from EP, although, really, I meant to upload the one from Gallowbird's Bark)
I'll admit it. I like being sad. I have functioned a lot of my life feeling bad because, duh, I'm a first generation Asian American and much as I loathe to fall in the stereotype, here I am, sad as fuck, reeling from the fall out of some war that I can't even fathom that killed aunts and uncles and cousins and great-whatevers I never had a chance to know. Plus, I cry and talk now when I get nervous. Isn't that gross?
But this isn't about that (although everything is, I suppose). I listened to "Tropical Ice-Land" and I remembered how much fun I have listening to music. Poorly playing music now. Talking about music. Letting music plug up whatever organ it is that I've got a hole in. It's a beautiful song. A nonsensical, rambling, heartbreaking song that makes me smile and want to walk around outside alone or hit huge church bells with proportionally large mallets.
I don't mind this feeling. I like it, actually. I don't know what it is. Maybe it is bits of things. It doesn't matter what it is.
Maybe I've written about this song before. It seems like the thing I'd do.
Fiery Furnaces - Tropical Ice-Land (from EP, although, really, I meant to upload the one from Gallowbird's Bark)
I'll admit it. I like being sad. I have functioned a lot of my life feeling bad because, duh, I'm a first generation Asian American and much as I loathe to fall in the stereotype, here I am, sad as fuck, reeling from the fall out of some war that I can't even fathom that killed aunts and uncles and cousins and great-whatevers I never had a chance to know. Plus, I cry and talk now when I get nervous. Isn't that gross?
But this isn't about that (although everything is, I suppose). I listened to "Tropical Ice-Land" and I remembered how much fun I have listening to music. Poorly playing music now. Talking about music. Letting music plug up whatever organ it is that I've got a hole in. It's a beautiful song. A nonsensical, rambling, heartbreaking song that makes me smile and want to walk around outside alone or hit huge church bells with proportionally large mallets.
I don't mind this feeling. I like it, actually. I don't know what it is. Maybe it is bits of things. It doesn't matter what it is.
Maybe I've written about this song before. It seems like the thing I'd do.
30 March 2008
how was your weekend?
Last night I went to the Empty Bottle (convenient, as it's spitting distance from my apartment) to see Magical, Beautiful; Brilliant Pebbles; and Black Moth Super Rainbow, and I don't really have much to say about it other than keep an eye out for Magical, Beautiful. Yeah, will you? Please do.
They sounded dreamy but not glazed-eyed dreamy. Full dreamy. Distinct dreamy. Maybe dreamy is not the right word. As for the sound in general at the Bottle? Muddy, maybe.
They sounded dreamy but not glazed-eyed dreamy. Full dreamy. Distinct dreamy. Maybe dreamy is not the right word. As for the sound in general at the Bottle? Muddy, maybe.
08 March 2008
growing up is for babies
Blog, I’m having a hard time. I’m having a hard time embracing you and giving you the sweet, sweet loving that you need. I’m preoccupied with school, with projects that are actually happening, with filling up notebooks with story ideas and story bits and just stories, with a lot of “personal growth” type stuff and re-figuring out the person I am and what I want out of life and whom I want to be there for it (this was an extremely awkward sentence). Now more than ever, I’m listening to music, really listening to it and realizing that how I listen to music is almost as important as what it is I’m listening to, that the way I listen to an album with one person is drastically different than with someone else, and just a lot of bullshit that won’t matter when I’m dead.
Blood On the Wall - Lightning Song
The new Blood On the Wall is so good. SO GOOD. There are a lot of good things in the world.
Blood On the Wall - Lightning Song
The new Blood On the Wall is so good. SO GOOD. There are a lot of good things in the world.
02 March 2008
young marble pants
I have a thing for things twee and kitsch. It pains me to admit it but it's true. Tea cups. Books. Furniture. Give me the sweetest jangly indie pop in the world and though I may initially turn my nose away from it, I will secretly listen to it on a warm, sunny day (like Sunday!) and smile a lot like an idiot. Do things like buy a coffee table.
Never mind that Pants Yell! is a band name that rubs me the wrong way, the latest LP title is fantastic--Alison Statton. As in Young Marble Giants' Alison Statton. Colossal Youth. That's a brilliant band name and a great album. Other than !!! and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I can't think of any other bands that deserve the audacity of having "!" in their name. Maybe some day I will be okay with frivolous punctuation marks.
Pants Yell! - Reject, Reject
What I love about this song is where it drops off for a bit at exactly the two-minute mark and then comes back in with a whiny twist. That's lovely. I also love all of their lyrics. Simple. Tongue-in-cheek. Reminds me of The Smiths and Belle and Sebastian and Beulah and you know, all of those bands that Pants Yell! sounds like, i.e. all of the stuff I listened to in my first year or two of college. What was I thinking?
22 February 2008
god, i really hope someone actually reads this one
I have a difficult time describing Dengue Fever to my friends partly because I understand what Chhom Nimol is singing and the style of music they're steeped in is what I grew up on. I can say something stupid like, "You know, it's psychedelic pop world music with an indie rock twist. Os Mutantes but Southeast-Asian and not overtly political and stuff. You probably won't like it." But that's bullshit.
Thanks, uh, Myspace!
I just can't remove myself from the music and approach it objectively to compare them to other bands in my limited knowledge. I don't want to try to yet. Plus, I would hope that my friends would love it, too.
For now, I can't articulate it other than this:
It is the sort of stuff that we had piles and piles of cassette tapes of in the car. This is sweat in the summer, and drinking neon green (because pink is lame) sugary, milky, watery drinks with ice cubes bobbing around in this genius piece of plastic wrapped around a straw and bound with a rubber band, and sticky rice, and papaya salads, and meat on sticks, and learning how to ride a bike that first time, and living in the city, and Catholic school. That's all kind of a mouthful and still doesn't approach what I mean. My (mostly middle class, white, suburban) friends grew up with the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or whatever it is that their parents loved. What did I have? I had Khmer Rock. (Oh, hi. I'm Cambodian.)
"I'm Sixteen"
My parents came to America, as kids, basically, in the '80s with other refugees thanks to something called a genocide. I don't often acknowledge that I'm a first generation American and that I learned America as my parents were going about it, too. That's really fucking stupid. I'm only realizing now that it's kind of bad ass, Amy Tan-esque implications and all (don't worry, I'm not a Genius Who OMG Hates My Mom So Much Why Am I Not White So I Fail At Being Awesome By Whining For Eight Billion Pages In Thinly Veiled Fictions That Bore Monica To Tears But Make Oprah Squint In Awe--my mom rules harder than your mom and I'm pretty average in the grand scheme of things but I accomplish vast levels of awesomeness and have no aspirations to make anyone squint in awe other than cute boys, to be humble about the matter(anyway, I get Ms. Tan and her work and her impact and blah blah blah I just wish I found it dynamic and, you know, interesting)). Pardon that digression.
Anyway. Music. Yeah. My parents, well, they kind of rule and kind of suck and I'm glad that they're my parents and they've shaped me into the lump of flesh that I am and blah blah blah. I used to resent that I didn't have the WASP youth of my friends but fuck, my parents have passed down a ridiculous sense of cool to me, if I've gotten anything else good from them other than a fierce temper and a thick head of curly hair. Also, life. Living is pretty boss.
"Sleepwalking Through the Mekong"
My father spent his late youth in Oklahoma smoking weed and rolling down hills, listening to Black Sabbath. I found this out at 16 when I severed the end of my thumb in the process of chopping up chocolate for brownies and listening to old tapes I found in the basement. This is not a long story. I didn't know about this until way too late; by then, I'd already established my taste and no prodding or poking could make me feel good for never having actively listened to the Beach Boys until I was a junior in high school. For all I knew, he didn't listen to music. And still doesn't.
Moms (yes, I call her "Moms") gave birth to me in her youth in Philadelphia and she listened (and still listens) to Top 40 and everything Cambodian she could get her hands on. I blame her for the tapes, for Sinn Sisamouth and Preap Sovath in my life and all of the people whose names I don't know but music I remember so well.
"Sober Driver"
And Moms's brother (my uncle because that's how that works) and their parents, i.e. my maternal grandparents, need some credit, too, for having karaoke on 24-7 and VHS tapes of concerts in Cambodia on heavy rotation. I went to Cambodia when I was 15 and had the oppurtunity to pause for a moment just outside of one of those insane concerts where everyone is so polite and enamored--you really have to see it to understand or maybe I just need to explain it some other time, who knows. Anyway, I was on the back of my cousin's motorbike and I don't remember what I was thinking. I'd be lying if it were something deep and profound; it was probably something along the lines of, "Holy shit, there are a lot of people here just to listen to music."
Thanks, ericrichardson!
This is getting all stream-of-consciousness (but not really because I've reread/barely edited this about sixteen times before finally pressing "publish post") and rambling and stupid so, yeah, what I wanted to say? I just wanted to say that I'm really psyched on going to see Dengue Fever at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday. Really, really psyched. I have a plethora of anecdotes and memories stored in my fat head and I can't wait to add Wednesday night to the list.
I just can't remove myself from the music and approach it objectively to compare them to other bands in my limited knowledge. I don't want to try to yet. Plus, I would hope that my friends would love it, too.
For now, I can't articulate it other than this:
It is the sort of stuff that we had piles and piles of cassette tapes of in the car. This is sweat in the summer, and drinking neon green (because pink is lame) sugary, milky, watery drinks with ice cubes bobbing around in this genius piece of plastic wrapped around a straw and bound with a rubber band, and sticky rice, and papaya salads, and meat on sticks, and learning how to ride a bike that first time, and living in the city, and Catholic school. That's all kind of a mouthful and still doesn't approach what I mean. My (mostly middle class, white, suburban) friends grew up with the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or whatever it is that their parents loved. What did I have? I had Khmer Rock. (Oh, hi. I'm Cambodian.)
"I'm Sixteen"
My parents came to America, as kids, basically, in the '80s with other refugees thanks to something called a genocide. I don't often acknowledge that I'm a first generation American and that I learned America as my parents were going about it, too. That's really fucking stupid. I'm only realizing now that it's kind of bad ass, Amy Tan-esque implications and all (don't worry, I'm not a Genius Who OMG Hates My Mom So Much Why Am I Not White So I Fail At Being Awesome By Whining For Eight Billion Pages In Thinly Veiled Fictions That Bore Monica To Tears But Make Oprah Squint In Awe--my mom rules harder than your mom and I'm pretty average in the grand scheme of things but I accomplish vast levels of awesomeness and have no aspirations to make anyone squint in awe other than cute boys, to be humble about the matter(anyway, I get Ms. Tan and her work and her impact and blah blah blah I just wish I found it dynamic and, you know, interesting)). Pardon that digression.
Anyway. Music. Yeah. My parents, well, they kind of rule and kind of suck and I'm glad that they're my parents and they've shaped me into the lump of flesh that I am and blah blah blah. I used to resent that I didn't have the WASP youth of my friends but fuck, my parents have passed down a ridiculous sense of cool to me, if I've gotten anything else good from them other than a fierce temper and a thick head of curly hair. Also, life. Living is pretty boss.
"Sleepwalking Through the Mekong"
My father spent his late youth in Oklahoma smoking weed and rolling down hills, listening to Black Sabbath. I found this out at 16 when I severed the end of my thumb in the process of chopping up chocolate for brownies and listening to old tapes I found in the basement. This is not a long story. I didn't know about this until way too late; by then, I'd already established my taste and no prodding or poking could make me feel good for never having actively listened to the Beach Boys until I was a junior in high school. For all I knew, he didn't listen to music. And still doesn't.
Moms (yes, I call her "Moms") gave birth to me in her youth in Philadelphia and she listened (and still listens) to Top 40 and everything Cambodian she could get her hands on. I blame her for the tapes, for Sinn Sisamouth and Preap Sovath in my life and all of the people whose names I don't know but music I remember so well.
"Sober Driver"
And Moms's brother (my uncle because that's how that works) and their parents, i.e. my maternal grandparents, need some credit, too, for having karaoke on 24-7 and VHS tapes of concerts in Cambodia on heavy rotation. I went to Cambodia when I was 15 and had the oppurtunity to pause for a moment just outside of one of those insane concerts where everyone is so polite and enamored--you really have to see it to understand or maybe I just need to explain it some other time, who knows. Anyway, I was on the back of my cousin's motorbike and I don't remember what I was thinking. I'd be lying if it were something deep and profound; it was probably something along the lines of, "Holy shit, there are a lot of people here just to listen to music."
This is getting all stream-of-consciousness (but not really because I've reread/barely edited this about sixteen times before finally pressing "publish post") and rambling and stupid so, yeah, what I wanted to say? I just wanted to say that I'm really psyched on going to see Dengue Fever at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday. Really, really psyched. I have a plethora of anecdotes and memories stored in my fat head and I can't wait to add Wednesday night to the list.
11 February 2008
I Miss Being 20
The Smiths - Unhappy Birthday
Recently, I turned 21. I'm not one to cry but I've been crying like an idiot for the past few days and OMG, TMI. At the bar during my birthday celebration I heard some chick chirp, "Oh my god, TMI! TMI!"
Sufjan Stevens - Happy Birthday
I also read at my first proper public venue. It ruled. This happened on the night of my birthday.
Jens Lekman - Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa
I share my birthday with Jens Lekman. What a QT, OMG, 4REAL. Whom am I kidding. Everyone is hideous and I feel like shit. I have a cold, too.
Recently, I turned 21. I'm not one to cry but I've been crying like an idiot for the past few days and OMG, TMI. At the bar during my birthday celebration I heard some chick chirp, "Oh my god, TMI! TMI!"
Sufjan Stevens - Happy Birthday
I also read at my first proper public venue. It ruled. This happened on the night of my birthday.
Jens Lekman - Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa
I share my birthday with Jens Lekman. What a QT, OMG, 4REAL. Whom am I kidding. Everyone is hideous and I feel like shit. I have a cold, too.
04 February 2008
It soothes you, doesn't it, like a lick of ice cream
Oh, hi! I'm back, again. I was gone, again. In NYC! I think I am moving in a year or two. Big If. Big Ifs. None of that end-of-the-year business because, goodness, it's FEBRUARY and I'm not going to be 20 anymore very soon. Yikes.
Photo from avaloncm.
Thao With the Get Down Stay Down - Bag of Hammers
The safest music in the world. Not really. Springtime on a friend's open lawn and the charcoal's a-goin' and the corn is grilling and everyone is nice and vegan and goes to a liberal arts school or an ivy but we are fucking cool, man. WHY IS EVERYONE ALWAYS SO NICE?
ETA: Yes, this is the song you're probably looking for if you've found this page via Google.
Thao With the Get Down Stay Down - Bag of Hammers
The safest music in the world. Not really. Springtime on a friend's open lawn and the charcoal's a-goin' and the corn is grilling and everyone is nice and vegan and goes to a liberal arts school or an ivy but we are fucking cool, man. WHY IS EVERYONE ALWAYS SO NICE?
ETA: Yes, this is the song you're probably looking for if you've found this page via Google.
11 November 2007
*Not Well-Written
I thought I had a lot more to say about the show I went to last week, but the cursor's been blinking in this empty field for so long, just blink blink blink and I couldn't come up with anything. There isn't much to say other than I grew up, I stopped listening to Sole, I stopped listening to music that "speaks" to me in a way that I no longer find appealing.
I still love a lot of the things I used to listen to. I used to really love everything associated with Anticon. Why? seems to have progressed in parallel with me by moving from weird whatever to pretty solid but still interesting indie rock territory. If you asked 15-year old me what I'd be listening to as a college senior, I never would've guessed it would largely be the CUTEST POP MUSIC IN THE WORLD--I'm looking at you, Belle and Sebastian. If you also happened to tell 15-year old me that I would go to art school to study writing, I probably would've puked up snot and intestines and laughed and laughed and laughed while wearing my science medals. I digress. What I meant to say is that I still like and listen to a lot of the stuff with the Anticon label slapped on it. Except for, well, Sole. Sole is not something that has aged well with me.
I went to the show partly because I wanted to satiate that younger, idealistic, pimply-er, fatter me who really loved dense music that reaffirmed whatever it was I believed in. Mostly, I went because I said I would as a friend was opening up. The show was good. I had fun. I got bored. I saw things and myself in a different light. However, because that experience touches on things that should be discussed with my BFFs and not a blog not meant for my post-teenage angst*, I think this is where I'll wrap up. At least I saw a cute boy.
I still love a lot of the things I used to listen to. I used to really love everything associated with Anticon. Why? seems to have progressed in parallel with me by moving from weird whatever to pretty solid but still interesting indie rock territory. If you asked 15-year old me what I'd be listening to as a college senior, I never would've guessed it would largely be the CUTEST POP MUSIC IN THE WORLD--I'm looking at you, Belle and Sebastian. If you also happened to tell 15-year old me that I would go to art school to study writing, I probably would've puked up snot and intestines and laughed and laughed and laughed while wearing my science medals. I digress. What I meant to say is that I still like and listen to a lot of the stuff with the Anticon label slapped on it. Except for, well, Sole. Sole is not something that has aged well with me.
I went to the show partly because I wanted to satiate that younger, idealistic, pimply-er, fatter me who really loved dense music that reaffirmed whatever it was I believed in. Mostly, I went because I said I would as a friend was opening up. The show was good. I had fun. I got bored. I saw things and myself in a different light. However, because that experience touches on things that should be discussed with my BFFs and not a blog not meant for my post-teenage angst*, I think this is where I'll wrap up. At least I saw a cute boy.
01 November 2007
The Decade-And-Some of Repetitious Band Names
Gang Gang Dance like Die! Die! Die! and whatever, sixty-four more Something Something bands that are no where near being as good as those two and all of the stellar bands I know I'm not thinking of.
Dance Party Earthquake Riot Volcano. WHY HAVEN'T I BEEN LISTENING TO THIS BAND THE MOMENT I HEARD ABOUT THEM? Why must I dismiss everything because of a dumb band name and because it is "cool" when it actually is cool? Or hot. Hot like things that which are so cool that it defies all logic and simultaneously exists in both ends of the spectrum thus being HOT and COOL. Not smoking hot because I am asthmatic and that would be a bad scene, man. Really bad. Why must I be this way?
Dance Party Earthquake Riot Volcano. WHY HAVEN'T I BEEN LISTENING TO THIS BAND THE MOMENT I HEARD ABOUT THEM? Why must I dismiss everything because of a dumb band name and because it is "cool" when it actually is cool? Or hot. Hot like things that which are so cool that it defies all logic and simultaneously exists in both ends of the spectrum thus being HOT and COOL. Not smoking hot because I am asthmatic and that would be a bad scene, man. Really bad. Why must I be this way?
31 October 2007
Je parle français, mais un peu
I've never been to Paris in April. I've been there in October, November, December, January, June, July, and August. Once in the colder months, twice in the summer. Perhaps I should've stuck it out for April.
Charlie Parker - April In Paris
Parker's Paris is: catching the Metro just in time and carrying a black umbrella. Lunch dates with someone whose eyes wrinkle in the corners before he smiles. Swapping stories about "back home" with fellow ex-pats with only a glint of nostalgia and not that overwhelmingly thick coating. Dusk walks around the neighborhood in heeled shoes that click or tap or click-tap. Some other Paris that I may still find if I ever wind up back there.
I'll admit it. When I was in France, I listened to a lot of the same things. Feist and Dizzee Rascal videos aired a lot on M6 in the early morning hours and I was totally into it. It's not so much a secret, but I love marionettes and puppets. So grotesque and whimsical. "Dream" is a bit kitsch and kind of silly and a few years later, I'm not sure if I like Dizzee Rascal or if I just buy into critical hype.
...
I'm computer dumb so bear with me as I try to figure out how to use, er, build? a flash player. Maybe by the New Year, yeah? I bet it's all sorts of simple. For the time being, I'm using Bleep for flash since I'm not 1337 enough to listen to horribly obscure stuff.
Charlie Parker - April In Paris
Parker's Paris is: catching the Metro just in time and carrying a black umbrella. Lunch dates with someone whose eyes wrinkle in the corners before he smiles. Swapping stories about "back home" with fellow ex-pats with only a glint of nostalgia and not that overwhelmingly thick coating. Dusk walks around the neighborhood in heeled shoes that click or tap or click-tap. Some other Paris that I may still find if I ever wind up back there.
I'll admit it. When I was in France, I listened to a lot of the same things. Feist and Dizzee Rascal videos aired a lot on M6 in the early morning hours and I was totally into it. It's not so much a secret, but I love marionettes and puppets. So grotesque and whimsical. "Dream" is a bit kitsch and kind of silly and a few years later, I'm not sure if I like Dizzee Rascal or if I just buy into critical hype.
...
I'm computer dumb so bear with me as I try to figure out how to use, er, build? a flash player. Maybe by the New Year, yeah? I bet it's all sorts of simple. For the time being, I'm using Bleep for flash since I'm not 1337 enough to listen to horribly obscure stuff.
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