P.S. Really? Korn as your headliner? That’s the best you can do for “the midwest’s best rock festival!”??? Horrible.
P.S. My favorite part of the whole day was the giant pile of trash that I got to clean up because instead of taking five steps and throwing things in the trash can next to our tent, they found it fun to build a pile of trash on the other side. On the ground. At my feet. How lazy and disgusting are you people?
P.S. It was hot today giving out wristbands and checking IDs for the first four hours of the festival in the blazing sun. Could have done without that.
Several months ago, my friend Suzanne changed her Google Talk status to the title of this post: Listen to Greg Laswell.
I thought it was a little strange and didn’t really think anything of it.
A few months later, I posted this status update to Facebook:
Shane is looking for some new music.
Once again, Suzanne came back with the same message: Listen to Greg Laswell.
A couple of weeks ago, I finally took her advice and listened to Greg Laswell. I finally realized what she’d been talking about all along.
You see, Suzanne is married to one of my good friends who is extremely into electronic and house music, particularly a guy named Bill Laswell. I had mistakingly believed that the two were either related or the same guy. And I’m not so down with the house trance music. It’s OK in certain situations (read: never when I’m around), but I’m much more up with sad bastard music like Elliott Smith, Coldplay and Iron & Wine.
When I finally got around to listening to Greg Laswell, I found that he fit perfectly into my wheelhouse of sad bastards. I started with his rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” from the Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack. Then I bought his latest album, three flights from alto nido (iTunes link). Then I bought everything else that was available.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve listened to his albums on repeat and I just can’t stop. Combine Laswell with Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes (which I really just discovered a month ago) and I’ve hit the sad bastard musical trifecta.
I won tickets to see a preview of The Hangover at the AMC Mainstreet theater tonight.
I laughed a lot.
Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms were their predictable awesome selves. The real surprise was Zach Galifianakis, who is absolutely hilarious. And a cameo by Mike Tyson’s tiger.
Quick thoughts before I go to bed:
AMC Mainstreet is much smaller than I envisioned it, but very nice. The theater we saw the movie in was huge.
Bummed there were no trailers.
Kris Allen FTW.
This post was published 6 minutes before my self-imposed midnight Every Day in May deadline.
You have to give it to the producers of American Idol. This season is one of the strongest group of competitors near the top that they’ve ever had. I’m sure there are people who could have seen any of Alison, Danny, Adam or Kris winning.
But we’re down to two: Adam and Kris.
On one side, you have the theatrical, flamboyant, crazy mad pipes rocker Adam. And on the other side, you have the sensitive, solid-every-week, instrumentally-talented, John Mayer-esque guitar man Kris. The two competitors are about as different as can be.
Both had very good nights, but if you’re scoring only the finale, you have to give it to Adam, if only because the horrible final song, “No Boundaries”, favored his unbelievable range.
But my iTunes dollars will go to Kris Allen.
It’s really only a personal preference at this point. Both performers are deserving of the title. Both are extremely talented musically and both I think have the respect for those who came before them. I’m not talking about Reuben and Fantasia and Taylor Horrible Hicks and that cast of characters. No, I’m talking about the actual musicians like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye (both of whom were honored in song tonight) and the others who have treated music not as a contest to be won, but an artistic outlet.
Who knows what their careers will hold for them, but this is the first season where I honestly won’t be upset regardless who wins. Both of these guys are more talented than over half of the previous winners up to this point and certainly more talented than some of the clowns who have record deals.
A few years back, Alli and I went to see Coldplay on their Twisted Logic tour at Sandstone. Anyone who knows me understands that I’m a complete and utter fanboy for Chris, Guy, Jonny and Will.
They put on an amazing live show. Now, you can enjoy a few tracks from their live show for free.
I finally got around to watching the Justin Timberlake-hosted Saturday Night Live and it was easily the funniest episode since the election. After fumbling through the season with unfunny sketches that leaned far too heavily on comic relief from Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader. And those guys can only do so much.
But Saturday’s episode was hilarious. Timberlake killed all his sketches and the writers event stepped up their game, putting out a hilarious opening with Will Forte as Tim Geithner and a great Weekend Update interlude with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.
Thankfully, it was the season finale so it doesn’t have to go back to sucking right away. They at least can run “best of” and top reruns during the summer.
Via kottke, I found this list that ranks all released Beatles songs from 185 (Revolution No 9) to 1 (A Day in the Life).
Ranking that full list of songs is quite an undertaking. And ambitious at that. The Beatles have been a favorite of mine ever since I was very little. My mom and dad ingrained in me an appreciation for their contribution to the world of pop music and once I heard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I was totally hooked. Last year’s Across the Universe was one of my favorite movies of the year for this reason alone.
I’m not ambitious enough to rank all 185 singles, but I’ll give you my own personal top 10 (the original author’s overall ranking of the song is in parentheses). Feel free to share your own Beatles favorites in the comments.
I’ll be honest…when I heard they were going to use a bunch of Beatles songs for the soundtrack of Sean Penn’s movie I Am Sam, I was a little annoyed. I imagine it was a result of Michael Jackson owning the Beatles’ catalog and then spending himself into oblivion and losing the rights to evil overlord Sony because he owed them so much money. But to hear Sarah McLachlan sing this song (and then subsequently to hear my oldest friend Gabe sing it at his sister’s wedding accompanied only by a bass) totally sold me on this track.
There’s something about this song that rings true to me. I didn’t really discover this gem until later into my adult life and when I listened to it. (But I found it before David Cook covered it for American Idol.) I found it to be this great character study and I began to understand where Ben Folds (another one of my favorite artists) found some of his story-telling inspiration.
All the lonely people…where do they all come from?
The Beatles early music is personified by this track…the light clapping in the background, the harmonies…this song is what brought them to America. Along with songs like “Love Me Do” and “Can’t Buy Me Love”, this is the sound that many people associate with The Beatles. Unfortunately, they miss out on some of their later brilliance. That’s not to discount their early work. It just shows how great they were.
It’s just a great love song. George Harrison was vastly overshadowed as a songwriter because of John and Paul, yet his abilities are so evident in songs like this. While he was arguably the largest spiritual seeker in the group, he still seemed to stay grounded despite all their escapades with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This is only my perception, but this song is a great example of why George should have gotten more of his songs on the albums. He was a great songwriter that just coincidentally happened to be in a group with two of the greatest of all-time.
I loved this song so much when I first got the Sgt. Pepper’s album. It wasn’t until later that I learned that the song was really about drugs. That was a bizarre discovery for me. I’d listened to this record so innocently over and over and over again and that revelation was an awakening to me. Songs about drugs? That’s not such a huge revelation to the current generation, but to me…it was huge. I began to understand it more. I never got into heavy drugs…music was the only connection to that world I would ever have. This song was my gateway to that world.
My list will obviously be marked by more songs from Sgt. Pepper’s than most, but that’ a result of how special that album is to me. I’d affectionately call this song a “little diddy” because it’s got this great old-timey feel. I remember being littler and singing this song to myself at the top of my lungs, before I really understood it. But it’s so great and happy and it’s my list. The way that Paul sings “Indicate precisely what you mean to say…yours sincerely wasting away…” is so wonderfully joyful.
Perhaps the most iconic Beatles song ever, it’s no surprise that it’s at the top of my list. It’s just so genius. The simplicity of the beginning – just a piano and a voice, then it opens to be a gospel hymn. Beautiful. I love how Julie Taymor portrayed it in Across the Universe:
The author and I share our number one ranking, “A Day in the Life”. It’s the closing song on Sgt. Pepper’s and…well…the author says it best:
“A Day In The Life,” to me, is the quintessence of what The Beatles are all about. On that song they took the seemingly mundane ordinariness of everyday life and showed it in a different light, and suddenly the view changed. Suddenly the drear of existence seemed flush with possibilities, even if those possibilities were only accessible via the corridors of one’s own mind. While the lyrics drolly looked at the limits of reality, the music dared to suggest those limits were illusory and easily shattered.
It’s gorgeous and it nearly brings me to tears every time I hear it. It’s like a full opera in 5 ½ minutes.
Wrapping it up…
Honestly, your list will not be the same as my list. There are certainly people who don’t like The Beatles and others who probably love them more than I do. But it’s hard to deny that their work did anything less than change the landscape of music for generations to come. If you’d like to hear the original songs, I suggest that you visit the original inspiration for this post. He’s done the work of linking online to versions of all the songs.
Despite what The D thinks, the last episode of Saturday Night Live was one of the best of the season. First, you had Jon “Don Draper” Hamm hosting. He was a lot better than I even expected him to be.
+ Jay-Z = 
Recent Comments