Paint that shit GOOOOOOLD!

Atmosphere's new-isher album is ah-mazing!!

From"The Rest of Us" to "You" to "Glass House" to "Yesterday" to "Music Box" and all the ones in between, "Guarantees" and "Wild Wild Horses" and "Me" and "The Waitress" too - okay, so everything's great(!). Weaving in old school with the new school and fresh rhymes. Mmm! And Slug's sooooo good-lookin'!

So I've read that this album is more optimistic, or less angry, at least. If you listen to Seven's Travels (bummer, only 30 second snippets! but you get the jist, soooo good - I really like "Always Comin' Back Home to You", "In My Continental", "Cats Van Bags" - and again, superb, quality tunes) you'll notice it, he seemed pretty angry in '03, and now he's starting to change it up because of his baby girl and everything, life is good. Paint that shit gold.

I'm still reeling from the fact that I decided not to see them in Chi City in April because I was going to see them at Rothbury, and then I was too into what was happening, and somehow John Mayer seemed magical and I was stuck on my blanket and missed the show with Brother Ali. Bummer! And people said it was one of the best shows, which there were a lot so that's really sayin' something. At least I got to see 'em in Columbia last fall, so that was good. Something's better than nothing, or so I'm told.


** OH MY!! I just found this in searching for Atmosphere pictures, and wow! I love this, I love it a lot!! Two of my most favorite musical acts, in ONE!!!

I'm still pretty new to Atmosphere, well. I got "Seven's Travels" when it came out because my freshman year roommate knew some good tuneage, and I love that album, but it's the only one that I have. So, I'm still learning - thank you free napster.

Also, I don't know if I've posted this already, but here's an NPR acoustic studio sesh with Slug and two other rockin' musicians; that lady's got some soul. It's delicious.

Feel Like Dancin'?!

I know I do!

Listening to: Walter Meego, and if you go to the website, http://www.waltermeego.com/ you can fly through space and click to learn more. Oooh! It's fun. You can change the background, too! Walter Meego is occasionally played on Ugly Betty and is influenced by everything from The Beatles and other awesome oldies to Nirvana and other crazy 90s music, alternative to dance-dance-dancey. WOW!


Also, Cut Copy rocks me right. Stupid Napster only allows 30 seconds of a couple seemingly cool songs, so boo! But other than that, awesome.


And, VHS or Beta really makes me dancey. It all started with Night on Fire and went from there.

I JUST WANT TO DANCE!
dance (dance dance dance dance)
YES!

Dr. Funkenstein, King of the Funk, yeah!

We love to funk you, Funkenstein. Your funk is the best!

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHH!!! I got to see George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic (for FREE!!!) Saturday night with my buddy Ty! YAY! Oh my gosh, it was incredible! Let me tell you a little bit about the amount of funk that went down. Oh yeah! And it went down, down, down. Mmmm! It was great!

So, Saturday was a pretty great day in general. Woke up, 8 miles, Cheerios, reading, guitar, nap, wine, Wicker Park Fest, vodka-filled Slurpees with Mariko and gang, then line to George Clinton. Oh boy! So, the doors were supposed to open at 9, they opened at 10. Then the show was supposed to start at 10, but it started at 11:15, and no real complaints here except that my buzz had worn off by the show's start and my feet were a tad tired. I was still ready to get down and funk-funk-funky!!

The crowd was outrageous!! There are some dedicated funksters out there! And I loved it! Everyone was funked out and geared up to dance the night away (and that we did as the show didn't end until 2:30ish - whoa!). My two favorite people was this gay pirate couple. They weren't really pirates, but they totally could've been! Two graying men with bald-ish heads. One was wearing some black Funkadelic shirt, had some scruff to his face, and wore circular wire-rimmed glasses. The other was a Mr. Clean-type with a graying goatee, and he wore a loose-fitting striped collared button-down shirt. Pirate #1, the scruffy one, chatted with me and Ty and inquired as to if we'd ever been to a GC and P-Funk show before, we both hadn't and he said we were in for a good time. He told us that we wouldn't be able to help but dance. We told him we planned on getting really funky, and he said good. Within 5 minutes of the show starting, the black shirt was off and the buttons were undone and the funkin' commenced. It was pretty great, especially since Pirate 1 kept dancing by with a huge smile on his face to make sure we were still dancing and having fun. It didn't so much matter that he was the sweatiest person there and he kept slickin' up against us; he had such a great personality! Around 1:45 when he spun around again his shirt was tied around his head like a turban. I wanted to take him home and make him my best friend!

Then there was this drunk lady that kept trying to dance with Ty, but he really didn't want to dance with her. So while I was laughing at him and her failed attempts, he kept smacking her away, but she would keep stumbling back. Eventually she moved through the crowd and found herself a couple boyfriends for the night. It was ridiculous, and slightly disgusting!


At any given time there were 7-15 people on this small stage, all funkin'. It was great. Grooving and jamming on their instruments. George Clinton looked like a teddy bear grandpa, conducting his legion of funky-wunky groovers with a li'l more here, a li'l softer there motions. Then Sir Nose came out, and things got real crazy. His pants were down reeeeeeeeeeal low, it was exciting but also a little worrisome that he might expose himself, and I just didn't know what was going to happen next for a lot of the show. But this! Sir Nose brought some ladies up on stage and grinded them into the ground. Whoa. It was - yeah, whoa a little too much on that for me because you couldn't help but watch even though you didn't want to. It's like when your friends have you over for Thanksgiving dinner at the neighbor's house and you're all in the basement drinking wine and putting sweaters on the dogs and then you stumble up the stairs to leave and people are in the living room watching some German porn with naked people sitting in sugar, drinking tea with mice running around. Yeah.... so, the concert. The costumes the lights. The music - well, duh! The music! It was sooooooo funky!!! Truly a phenomenal show and I'm really glad that I was able to experience it. I've always wanted to see George and his Allstars since the movie PCU came out. Outrageous, incredible and super funkadelic. I can see why they have such a strong following. And! The fact that this man is well into his 60s and still funkin' night after night. I was very impressed. I don't have any of their albums but I do enjoy everything I've heard as I'm a fan of the funk, and the shout outs to the king of funk, Mr. James Brown happened through the night; it was good, real good.

It was hard to keep the dancing steady into the 2nd hour. I wanted to stop. I wanted to leave because I was so tired, but at the same time I didn't want to miss a thing. Like that Aerosmith song. So I stayed. And I flailed my tired bones this way and that. And it was excellent!!

I said, shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam!

Shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam!

-

HOW FUN! HOW FUN!! What a great Saturday!! Funkin', jammin', rockin', jazzin', groovin', movin'. POWERFUL STUFF!!! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!!

Smooth Sending

It surely is a shame that crazy people rob the world of such beauty and talent.

Sam Cooke has the voice of a springtime meadowlark, with the heart of a jungle tiger.

I like that hat.

Hey, Sam!

Where'd ya get that hat?

A man of style.

I like that.

ROCKTOBER!!

That's right! October 2008 is going to ROCK, musically!!!

Starting off with MGMT and Beck, October 3rd at the Aragon Ballroom - you can buy your tickets starting tomorrow, here.

AND, Of Montreal! October 27th at the Riveria - tickets on sale now, here. Bogus, that's a Monday. Merh, I guess it just means FUNDAY MONDAY!!

Here's a great interview with Kevin Barnes. It has some MP3s in it, but they're blocked at work so I can't get to them. I'm very excited for the new album, Skeletal Lamping, which is due out in October this year, and they've apparently re-added a horn section (the guys from Dark Meat - sound pretty awesome) and a piano to the OM mix! YAYAH!!!

You make me feel like sayin' "FOXY!"

I wanna take you home!
I won't do you no harm, no!
You've got to be all mine, all mine.
Foxy men.
Here I come.
I'm comin' to get ya!

Fleet Foxes, you amaze me! I've only known your music for a few short weeks, but I'm pretty confident that I can say I love you. Yes, I do. You're lyrical, melodic, beautiful, and most importantly, not hippies, just so you know. (I do love me some old school hippies though, and hippie wanna-bes are pretty great, too. We've all been there, done that.)

.

I saw them perform (listen to them on NPR, and read more) last night with some friends at the free Pitchfork Preview at Grant Park's Pritzker Pavilion - which was awesome in all aspects! Oh, and I also shook hands with the lead singer, Robin Pecknold, congratulated him on all his success, and thanked him for his beautiful music. I'm not trying to brag at all. I'm a big dork about shaking hands/thanking musicians (or any other artist, person of great interest to me, for that matter) for doing what they do, if I'm presented with the opportunity (it's nice to let people know that you think highly of them and their skills). Funny thing is, we saw a few of them walking around before they performed, and I said to my friends, "I bet those guys are in a band." After all, one of the dudes moseying through the lawn was a walking ad for American Apparel (I'm not a fan of the store myself, but he looked good in it) wearing Jesus hair. And Pecknold was standing off to the side of the lawn, smoking a cig, in plaid regalia. Very approachable, appreciative... it took a lot of restraint not to chloroform them and duct-tape them to their instruments in my basement. Ha, ha. I joke! I joke! But seriously, if I could make Fleet Foxes my personal band, I would. Have them play me White Winter Hymnal (I saw the three in the middle of this NPR pic, off stage; the dude with the glasses in these two pictures had to leave the band, momentarily, for health issues. Godspeed, rocker. Godspeed.) every night before bed. Ah! That would be wondrous.

I do hope that I see this one on the far right in person. I will surely chloroform him after shaking hands. Ooh! What a beautiful man. Yum, my heart sings.

One thing that I do not like about Fleet Foxes is their age. They are young. I think Pecknold is even 21, no way! Yes way. Hot dog! How'bout that? Makes me feel unaccomplished at 23. Pecknold and Simon Rich, talented men I love to hate to love.

My Job is BOOOOORING and so are You!

So much so that I'm sssssssssssssssnooooooooooooooooring!

(About the 'you' being boring part, it might not be true, or maybe it is. If so, you should really try to work on this. Maybe that's why we haven't hung out in a while. Work on your excitement level. Thanks.)

Anyway, here's some really great music to make you less boring/more tolerable to be around.

These guys, The War on Drugs, have got it! I dig their jingle-jangle rockstar sound, and they are waaaaaay more fun than the actual War on Drugs which, no no, don't even get me started on that.

Have fun!

Kevin Barnes, how do you read my soul?

Eros' Entropic Tundra -- Of Montreal

All I ever get is sad love
while watching all my friends find their happy love
I don't understand why I should be without love

All I ever get is sad love
always falling for the ones who feel nothing for me
Sometimes I think I should just forget about love

I was walking with my parents
through St. Peter's park
When I saw a young couple with a child
They were all holding hands and smiling
They seemed very nice, seemed to have a nice life

All I ever get is sad love
feeling incomplete and below being loved
I don't know why it has been so hard to find love

All I ever get is sad love
the unrequited kind is all I have procured
And it was nothing at all
like what I've heard about love

Without love life has no great reward
leaving us damaged or feeling so bored
Devoid of memories nothing to record
Wishing the ones that we adore loved us more

Pitchfork: The Devil's Music

Wow! So, I'm very excited that Pitchfork is this weekend! It's going to be the best! I'm really looking forward to it, especially since I've recently discovered that I enjoy many of the acts that are going to be taking over the stages in Union Park! AND! Since I'll be enjoying it with my bestest gal pal, Alli Doll!! She's flying all the way in from NYC just to see me (and Pitchfork, and Chicago)!!!

Such acts include, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver (he wears a fanny pack! my kind of man), M. Ward, and Vampire Weekend (who I used to hate, mainly because I heard them once and thought, hmmm. I think I like these guys, let me give it another try, and then everybody liked them and talked about how great they were and how they're the best band in all the history of music and so I decided that I didn't like them any more because I didn't want to be like everyone else, but it ended up taking a lot of energy trying to avoid them, so I caved and bee-bopped to their songs). Also, I'm really excited to see The Apples in Stereo, Spoon, and DUH! PUBLIC ENEMY!!! Also, Ghostface and Raekwon should be awesome!

I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy every act that I see. Pitchfork seems to have a rigorous definition for great music. Also, for those of you cats that aren't able to attend the weekend's festivities, there's a free preview at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Thursday, July 17th... read more here.

This playlist looks pretty great! Just to check it out.

Magic Music

NPR Music is my savior from office boredom.

Playlist from '06

1. I like this newer Who song which retains their original goodness - what a duo that Townshend and Daltrey are, and they're still sooooo good-lookin' (did you know that they never reached #1 on Billboard?! The classic rock music channel on TV said that, but I'm not going to double check, so let's hope it's right even though that seems outrageously untrue)! Daltrey's voice sounds as good as always, like an angel, not scratched out like some other aged rockers.

2. The Low Lows. Mmm! Yes! I would totally be tricked by this hauntingly melodic spider. And I like this album title, "Fire on the Bright Sky"!

3. This King Crimson song reminds me of Bowie... and it's from '69. Whoa. Just goes to show that good music is timeless. That Athens, Georgia is sure a hub for some great acts...

4. I LOVE RATATAT!! This song just makes me want to dance like a WILD CAT and do an arm shoot out and RAWR with a curled lip. A few hip circles thrown in there and possibly a running man, and some disco eyes. Who's got the smoke machine?

5. This reminds of Vampire Weekend (or rather Vampire Weekend reminds me of the Born Ruffians as they've been around longer), at least the beginning, and all the "hey hey hey hey hey hey hey ahwooooooooooooo!"s. I like this song a lot. Fun lyrics, and the title of course is marvelous, "This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life"

6. Baby I'm Yours. YAY! I love this song... eh, a mediocre cover. Disappointing. Arctic Monkeys, merh.

This playlist definitely has some quality songs that I believe require further investigation and perhaps investment. Yes.

I love French music. Rooo troi, shu shu. A staff pick, sounds pretty good so far. Wiki compared her to Bjork. How fun! I hope she's not as crazy.

MMMMM! Music

Listen to the new My Morning Jacket album, "Evil Urges":

http://free.napster.com/view/artist/index.html?id=11552534

I'm really digging it so far. Showcasing their versatile sound and awesomeness. I think it'd be pretty great to see them live. The vocals on "Highly Suspicious" remind me slightly of Prince, he sings so high, so high-i-high-high-iiiiii! Mm. I'm at work right now so I haven't been able to devote complete concentration on soaking in the sounds, but it's been an enjoyable experience.


And, how about this! She & Him on NPR. I think Zooey D. is a wonderful actress (although I question her reason for being in M. Night Shamalamadingdong's "The Happening" because I heard that it was, get this, AWFUL!) and I very much like listening to her singing. Probably better than stupid Scarlett Johannse/on (sp?). Anyway, She & Him, is Zooey and M. Ward. This is a little interview with the two of them, then some music, and it finishes off with talking to their producer man god, Steve Lillywhite, who's helped such acts as U2, Johnny Cash, and on and on... he's basically Bruce Dickinson - watch out for this gold record!!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91377953


So enjoy, my dear blogger enthusiasts. Enjoy. I must send off my TPS report and head home, fighting the angry mob of pedestrians and motorists to get to the comfort of my smelly, sticky apartment. Oh yay! Annnd, Game 6 tonight! So that should be really exciting!! I can't decide who I want to win... Lakers for the underdog rootin', or Celtics... we'll see who has the best lookin' team. That's usually how I decide things.

Peace!