I just acquired the most recent Cut Copy album, In Ghost Colours. It's pretty rockin'. I'd never really heard them before and I can't remember if this is a result of me scoffing at a recommendation like a tool, or just happenstance. I hope its the latter, I fucking hate realizing I've been a tool.
In Ghost Colours is a great album. I'd throw down a review, but really, pitchfork said it pretty well in the review linked above. Its a happy, fun album of technopop and you should go track it down.
As I was about halfway through my first listen last night, I vaguely recalled seeing Cut Copy on a concert calendar, and went to Neumos' website to see if I'd already missed it. Sweet! I'd not. Shit! Its on a Wednesday.
Now, as a 9-5'er, this presents a dilemma: is the show going to be worth another zombified day at work? I've been to a number of weeknight shows lately and they've been pretty universally awesome. The Shackletons, British Sea Power, and The Super Furry Animals at Neumos, and Le Loup and the Ruby Suns at Chop Suey have all be excellent weeknight shows in the past month or two. But the next day I am, without fail, a solid wreck. It seems like I should be able to handle getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep after a night of drinking and rocking out to awesome music without any problem, right? Despite the clear intuitiveness of that situation, quite the opposite is the reality.
So, concert promoters and bands I like, What The Fuck is the deal with all the weeknight concerts? I realize that based on travel times and other scheduled shows and the various other logistical facets of planning a tour, some shows will have to be on weeknights. I get it. Seattle isn't New York or L.A.. Fine.
But at the same time, Fuck That. At one of the above-mentioned shows, a friend and I found ourselves chatting with the drummer afterwards. He was full of praise for Seattle, how they always had their most solid, best-attended shows here. How KEXP was the greatest radio station in the country. That's all well and good, sir, but then why the fuck are we having this conversation at 1:30 am Wednesday morning? I know its not his personal responsibility, and he was a sick drummer, and they put on a ridiculously good show, and all the rest, but I still cant shake the feeling that it somehow shouldn't be the case that seeing a good small show in Seattle necessarily comes at the expense of my ability to function at work the next day.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Seattle Concert Scheduling is teh Stoopid
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
That Guy #2: That guy who wears cologne to the gym
For the second installment of my Salute to That Guy, I'd like to talk about a new That Guy of my acquaintance, That Guy Who Wears Cologne to the Gym.
You may have noticed That Guy before. First, there's a mysterious shift in the usual gym smells of sweaty bodies, laundry, and cleaning products. A little time passes and it waxes, beginning to drown all else out. You look around, wondering who would do such a thing. Then you see him: That Guy Who Wears Cologne to the Gym.
He's probably a good looking guy. That Guy, whatever his other flaws, takes care of himself. Apart from obviously spending a lot of time in the gym, That Guy has a tastefully adventurous haircut, possibly with meticulously maintained facial hair. Nothing skeezy like a 70's mustache for That Guy, a soul-patch or a 5-day stubble that's been shaved around for perfect symmetry is more That Guy's style.
That Guy will also be dressed very nicely... almost too nicely. His shirt matches the trim on his shorts, which matches the trim on his shoes. Any pattern on his shirt will, of course, match the main color of his shorts. That Guy plans his gym wardrobe as meticulously as he shaves around his stubble. Very meticulously.
The best part about That Guy is that he usually appears not to be working out. At the very most, That Guy will take a brisk walk on the elliptical machine for a few minutes, but not long enough to really get the heat up. He's wearing cologne, after all, once you start wiping sweat off your face, its just gonna go straight in your eyes and sting like a bitch. That Guy knows this all too well, so a lot of stretching is usually what he'll be doing. Maybe some light weights, you know... for toning.
I have had the misfortune to start working out at the same time as That Guy recently, and worse we seem to prefer the same area in the locker room. Every Fucking Day before heading out, 5 FULL FUCKING SPRAYS with the cologne. He looks like if Samir from Office Space had a Queer Eye makeover. What really worries me is that simply by being in the same room, I'm picking some of the stench up, and that then people think I'm That Guy. And it kills me inside a little everyday.
Addendum: I would assume that there is a corresponding That Girl, probably That Girl Who Wears the $400 Workout Outfit to Walk on the Treadmill. Apart from being even less well-worded, I just dont care about That Girl. I'm a straight dude, and I will more than likely never say anything resembling "man, I wish that hot chick would stop wearing tight, perfectly tailored clothes while working out next to me." Of course, though I'll not complain, I'm not gonna oggle, either. I'm not That Guy Who Leers at Ladies at the Gym. Nobody wants to be That Guy.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Omega Man Has Fallen
For a few weeks now, some friends and I have been wanting to make our way through some of the more excellent offerings of 70's sci-fi films. Our plan to watch The Omega Man this evening seemed all the more appropriate given the news this morning of Charlton Heston's death.
For those unaware, Omega Man was the second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I am Legend. I saw the adaptation by the same name with Will Smith last year, and though it was no Children of Men, the portrayal of the emotional impact of the apocalypse was similarly impressive.
I was not exactly expecting a similar experience from Omega Man. Charlton Heston did not really do emotional depth so much as he did varying degrees of a squarely set jaw combined with a somewhat blase misogyny. The Omega Man was a perfect vessel for this. Where Will Smith's Robert Nevile was a dedicated scientist and all around badass, Heston sortof loped around town with a swagger, seemingly less concerned with restoring the human race or avoiding the mildly vampiric 'survivors' sharing the city with him than with taking a drive and looking awesome. And awesome he certainly did look.
In a way, I hope that this is the legacy Heston is remembered for, being the awesome leading man from 70's sci-fi classics. I would certainly rather remember the man in the unbelievably excellent neckerchief in Soylent Green than the head of the NRA, the 'pry it from my cold, dead hands,' line or the elderly gentleman being harassed by Michael Moore.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Climate Change
It has snowed twice this week in Seattle. Snowed. Twice. When I was growing up here, this wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but in the intervening 20-odd years, Global Warming has kicked our climate in the nuts hard enough that a few snow flurries in the dead of winter is pretty much all we can expect. I'm frightened. We could be on the verge of the
oceans reaching a critical desalinization point and ushering in the second ice age. OK, probably not. It is probably more like Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow. We'll probably not be entombed in an icy wasteland by Superstorm Ice Hurricanes. But shit is going down in Antartica.
On Tuesday, it was discovered that the Wilkins Ice Shelf had begun to disintegrate. Well, at least Global Warming isn't real, right? I mean, it would really suck if our nation's leaders have been up there for the past, hrm, 8 years going on about how "Climate Change" is not scientific fact and we should wait until there's a consensus on the issue within the scientific community before altering policy that would have a detrimental effect on the economy, etc., etc.
Well guess what? It does suck like that. Far from being informed and honest about Global Warming, the Bush Administration has been either criminally dishonest, or criminally ignorant about the way science works. And common sense, for that matter, because common sense is really all that is required to understand what is happening with the melting of the ice caps.
The point at which the polar ice caps end is essentially just the equilibrium point between two forces acting in opposite directions: the freezing of the pole during winter and the melting of the pole during summer. Not that complicated when it really comes down to it, one season is entirely devoid of the warmth of the sun, the other comprised of nothing but. So much heat (A) during summer plus so much cold during winter (B) equals how much ice will survive through each summer and accumulate to become an ice shelf (C). A + B = C, where B is a negative number. The scientifically inclined will no doubt realize that this is a gross simplification, and that those variables are not even in the same units. But that's basically how it works.
This is a process that aggregates over thousands of years. The ice we're talking about is hundreds of meters thick, accumulated and compacted from thousands and thousands of feet of snow that fell on the mainland thousands of years ago. Some conservatives opine that the ice is so massive that a couple degrees difference one way or the other could not possibly affect it. Well, if you really think that you are either A. fucking retarded, or B. somewhat ignorant on the issue but will stop thinking that the second you become informed. I'm guessing that if you consider yourself conservative, vote republican, and maintain that "Climate Change" is the proper term rather than Global Warming, then you belong to group A and can just go fuck yourself.
Now that I've insulted the intelligence of conservatives everywhere, let's just go ahead and look at the proof of this. In 2002, the B-section of the Larson Ice shelf disintegrated. In THREE WEEKS. A hunk of ice shelf the size of 
So now, the Wilkins shelf has begun a similar process, and may disintegrate entirely during next summer. As a singular event, this is not a crisis, a fact upon which Idiotic Conservatives and other asshats love to focus. But its a canary in a mine. Polar ice melt is a process dramatically more sensitive to temperature trends than human memory. So if I'm sitting here in Seattle, occasionally waxing nostalgic about the colder winters of my youth, what the fuck would the ice caps be thinking? ...you know, if they were conscious and could think and whatnot. Something tells me it would be loud, filled with cursing of the human race, and very, very sad.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Leave the Emo Kids Alone!
Well, I was in the middle of reading up on some background for a new post, when I saw the following story on Wired. I saw the headline several times earlier in the day, but without a summary for context, it didn't really sink in that it really meant it. Apparently there has been escalating strings of violence directed at Emo kids in Mexico.
That's right, Emo kids. Getting attacked. By punk-rockers and rockabilly kids. And now they're banding together and rioting in response. Now, I have several insensitive responses to this, mostly revolving around my hatred of Emo music and culture, and my mild disdain for people who don't realize that punk died sometime in the last millennium and/or think that pompadours, mutton-chops and white undershirts as outerwear are good ideas. But my dislike of Fallout Boy notwithstanding, This Shit is Fucked Up.
Emo is strongly identified with homosexuality in Mexico, and we all know how manly and straight you have to be when a rockabilly dude. Some of the rhetoric surrounding the attacks has included the term, "emosexual." It would be hard to deny that there is something at least a little bit sexually ambiguous about the whole Guy-liner phenomenon, but when just the name of a musical genre has become hate-speech, that hardly fucking matters. Knock it the fuck off, just leave the Emo kids alone.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Justice, Diplo
Last night, Ryan and I got to see Justice perform at the Showbox SoDo, and it was awesome. I am a big fan of the phenomenon of two French dudes making sweet, sweet techno musics. Daft Punk's Alive 2007 album is one of the greatest albums ever made and the performance on the eponymous tour completely blew my mind. Justice is well on their way to living up to the very high standards set by their quasirobotic predecessors.
This was the second Justice show I'd seen, the first being this past October at Neumos, and I had some rather high expectations going in. Neumos, for those unfamiliar with Seattle's Capitol Hill concert venues, has a tendency to be full of shoegazers and other low-energy wankers even at the most energetic of shows. Which is unfortunate and also highly puzzling when the crowd for a show like Ratatat somehow isn't rocking the fuck out from the moment they start till the moment the house-lights come back on. But Justice at Neumos almost brought the place down. I was at the back wall and there was not a single stationary person there during the entire show.
I had never been to the Showbox SoDo before, and was unprepared for the experience of walking in and being surrounded, surrounded, by tools. Its like there was some kind of tool convention of which I was unaware and it was being hosted by Justice. Also, it was a type of tool I'd had only glancing previous experience with, the tool who looks and acts like a stereotypical frat guy who's trying to be a hipster. Most unsettling.
The Fear was beginning to rise until Ryan pointed out that the show was part of the Myspace Music Tour. Ohhhhhhhhh... *that's* what that is. While I'm all in favor of bands getting the word out and networking and all that good stuff, the cultural trappings of the Myspace phenomenon can fuck right off.
So things start off with the opener, Diplo. Wow, talk about unfulfilled potential. Diplo seemed to have a talent for building some rather excellent soaring, almost symphonic melodies and then utterly destroying everything 4 measures later in favor of 4 minutes of boring thumping beats. What the Fuck, Diplo? First of all, pick a style and stick with it. Second of all, if you are going to break up your melodies, you can't just ditch them entirely. Keeping some element of the previous section is required if you want people to think that you're doing something other than flipping the crossfader from left to right and calling it a mix. Third, pick a style and stick with it. I realize this is the same as first of all, but its such an important point I thought it was worth mentioning twice.
Needless to say, Justice wiped all of this from my mind the moment they started. Where their show at Neumos had been relatively similar to their album, this show overall seemed to take a serious hint from Alive 2007 and mixed things up in a serious way, pulling both new and unexpected, stylistically, samples into the mix as well as sections mashing up two of their own songs into beautiful new hybrids. It was just an audiovisual assault of excellence, from start to finish. My favorite mix from the October show made a reappearance and I was simply overjoyed. The party mixed over Master of Puppets. I had a pretty serious Metallica thing in high school, and this song just makes me happier than i can explain. If anyone knows where I can acquire it, please, please let me know.
Thank you France, for once again putting two of your dudes together for the purposes of making sweet techno. The world is a better place for it.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Nuclear Cat
JackBauer Cat would have it all wrapped up by this time tomorrow.
