well, it has been a long time, hasn't it? this lil wreck has been busy doin' lots of things as of late, writing tunes, makin' viddys and generally being a nuisance on other areas of the nets. i know, i know, i really should pay more attention to this old abandoned blog, but what the hell...
things around the metry wreckhouse are now in remote mode. we've all settled in quite comfortably here since the move, everyone is busy working and /or going to school/daycare... or in my case, just takin' up space in this place. it's really not hard to get in a groove in this town. they don't call it the big easy for nothing.
the above viddy is one of the things poppin' outta my head lately. i had it up and around for awhile, but was never happy with it. so i stripped it down to the chassis and gave it a complete overhaul. so i feel better now...
and for all aspiring stars out there, (or if you just want to hear some great music from around the world), you really should go to len amsterdam's great music hosting site, whitby shores.
the metry wrecks seemed to have found a home there, they love the tunes and viddys and even have neil young as a blog buddy. you really need to check it out, now!
one of this space's favorite groups of late is austin, texas' very own 'spoon'. britt daniels and band have the best catalogue of smart, concise, stripped-down music as anyone else out there in this big ol' (yet evah shrinking) rock-n-roll world right now. their latest release, the baby-gibberishly titled 'ga ga ga ga ga', was our pick as best album of '07 (if we would've had a list that is)... and very much far ahead of all the rest. spoon are a band making music that continues to defy labels and flirt with the boundaries of your average four piece pop ensemble.. (this w'rooms #1 song for awhile has been 'the beast and dragon, adored' from 'gimme fiction', it reminds us of plastic ono lennon around '70, what with it's plaintive cry for rock-n-roll, lost and gone forever, and the silly, fruitless pursuit thereof... ahhh, the infected voice, the staccato guitar, the rumblin' pianny, the shaky drunkin' rhythm... while all the time explaining why it keeps getting done...
'...I got a feelin, it didn't come free. I got a feelin, and then it got to me. When you don't feel it, it shows, and they tear out your soul... And when you believe, they call it rock and roll, And when you believe, they call it rock and roll.')
ga(x5) is sparse, hook-laden econo-pop; very tight, very addicting and sensibly un-ordinary. each song is a varied piece of funky genius, containing undeniable danceable trippy dittys and finger snappin' fun, all in an easy to handle 40 minute package. (the version we have has an extra cd of spoon in a more experimental vein, which is ok by me, the more the better...)
from the fractured synchno-pop opening anthem of 'don't make me a target', the neo-soul treatment on 'you got yr cherry bomb', the goofy, skippy feeling 'don't ya evah', the poppy hook-heavy 'the underdog' ... this record is a maturing continuation of the catchy unorthodox style that each of the proceeding albums had hinted at. it all comes together here. 'ga (x5)' is a gorgeously understated masterpiece.
trust me, you need this cd...
and just to show ya'll that it's not all studio wizardry, here is a show by brett and the boys from the bay area last fall. the sound is very board worthy, the band is tight and vibrant, and mr. daniels voice is in it's best cracked-falsetto, whiskey-soaked whimsical mode. it seemed like a great show and enjoyed by all in attendance... those lucky bastards...
... presented for your approval and available in mp3 for a week or so, by way of yousendit:
spoon at the treasure island music festival september 16, 2007
just to clear the air before this starts, i am a reformed catholic and unorthodox pagan, born of devout christians and believe in true christian values. as i grew up christmas time was all about getting things, giving things and spending time with friends and family, and oh yeah, being especially nice to everyone you meet. we didn't dwell on the jesus stuff too much, maybe at church on christmas morn, (or in catechism, which i liked because of the history aspect of the bible, not really the flashy uber-religious context), but not a whole lot as i remember. neither did my friends, family, classmates, or most people i'd meet on the street. we all knew what it meant and dealt with it in our own ways. we weren't overtly religious and recognized that maybe not everyone else had the same beliefs as we did. it was always just a real fun time of year, with everyone included... or at least that how i remember it.
but now what the fuck is wrong with these people, you know, the ones who are so afraid that their christmas is being assailed by an organized assault they scream and rant and rave like a child left coal in his stocking. this has been simmering for a while now, with the 'bill oh-reallys' yapping about 'the war on christmas' and how the left is trying to take all the crosses and commandments off of public lands and bullying stores about how they want them to appeal to their customers... and on and on and on...
i hate exclusiveness, have always avoided clubs, fraternities, orders, lodges, religions or anything that had 'us and them' stamped in the fine print, (or as groucho once said, 'i'd never join a club that would have me as a member'). i mean, it's ok if ya wanna go be a sheep, walk lock-step and follow the pack, as long as you keep to yourself and don't try to win me with hallow arguments as to why your club is better than the others, i won't subscribe to your religion. but now these right-wing nut-case evangelicals are downright scary. their attitude of 'it's my fucking christmas!' is outta control. what unmitigated gall of these people to try and tell me how to celebrate the season. it ain't even their holiday by rights, it really belongs to the pagans, (and we know what they think of those heretics). the winter solstice has been celebrated by cultures all over the world for eons before christ was supposedly born, (which, don't be shocked now, was not on dec. 25th).
now, i don't mean to be pissin' on nobody's holiday, but they started this crap. they want war, they got it. i am all for trashing everything; the obsession of the over-lighted tree, the constant inundation of inane songs sung by tone-deaf singers, the endless, boring, old slogans, the stupid movies and lame t.v. specials, the repetitive stream of crass commercialism and all it's sick pseudo-religious trimmings that truly make detestable what used to be a much more innocent season. this world is full of people who don't celebrate the holiday in the same fashion. still the christian militant fascist fanatics see any other view as a threat to their beliefs. so, they play victim, cry foul and worry themselves silly over whether its 'merry christmas' or 'happy holidays'. and what happens when each and every organized religion wants to put up their own version of the spirit of their holiday? is it a matter of might make right? that is how real wars start isn't it? no one wins in this silly debate. faith is for each person to celebrate in their soul, home or church and not to be crammed down the collective maw of everyone else... especially in the public square, or in government offices. this is not solely a christian country, it is a nation built by the hands of peoples of many beliefs. why can't we all just get along?... we should be better than this, you'd think.
'what would jesus do?' is a fond rallying cry, but a damned few so-called christians rarely do anything resembling the teachings christ. his was a message of tolerance and moderation, of love thy neighbor and helping one another get by... not having crusades for oil using the blood of the poor to finance it, greedy corporate christian wealth that neglects the unfortunate, and mall-sized christmas specials that breed cultural divisiveness. have yourself a merry little christmas is now moot, it's buy more, spend more and just do it my way and we will win this war with them that are different from us... get real, no one is gonna take christ out of christmas, you have that, just don't act like it is the only reason for the season... the reason's in your heart. i don't think the birthday boy would be proud of what it has become. it's just silly the way these people think, as if they do. one drive around the neighborhood here proves their so-called-spirit is alive and well in suburban new orleans, (s.a. says she has never seen so many houses decorated in her life, and i gotta admit it sure seems like the most to me also).
i just wish we could all get along, even if only for one stupid day...
...and if that wasn't bad enuff, the republi-cons are using faith as a major litmus test as to who is most qualified to run this country for them. i dunno know about you, but these last seven years, with a man who was hand-picked by these fruitcakes, is more than enuff. i nearly threw up spiked eggnog out of my nose when i saw huckabee's, (sounds like what you do when you swallow a flying insect), christmas message, (he is the savior flavor de jour for the 'us' guys). i tell ya, every american really needs to see this video, but not for the reasons they want... and you want this guy to be your latex salesman? i hope he is gonna be their next right-hand-of-god, he is truly just too good to believe. he thinks he is so close to heaven he'll probably try to fill his cabinet with the 12 apostles... (the guy just seems like a snake oil salesman to me; sweet talkin', smarmy and not to be trusted).
whew... i think i am thru here, i know i stepped on some toes with this holiday rant (i hope so at least), but my feet hurt already from all this bru-ha-ha, so let's just all try to get along this year, eh? we are doing our part, by enjoying the festivus thingy at home with our pole amongst friends and family, (we're still not checking faith credentials to get in, so come one, come all!), and celebrating the season like the drunken pagans we ought to be... bah humbug!
(here is the real subliminal message from the huck, and it's a lot scarier than 'paul is dead, paul is dead')
also, in the spirit of the stealin' of the over-hyped/priced holidays we offer these tidbits of mirth and detriment, in mp3, thru festivus at least, by way of yousendit:
...to everyone everywhere, just hold true to what the season means to you! and a happy merry celebrations to all... now if ya'll excuse me i still got presents to wrap!
*** back by popular demand, in time for this xmas, is this repost of the 12-1-05 entry... (with corrections and additions)
...for seven years the beatles released an annual christmas record, on flexi-discs for members of the fan club. it began in 1963 as the four of them sat around a microphone in abbey road studios to record a thank you message, and by '66 they were making it a small epic, of sorts, using audio skits and new songs. for '68 and '69 the beatles weren't even doing it together at all, just piecemealing stuff they each recorded at home, then handing it over to kenny everett (the bbc dj) to edit for release. in december 1970, after the band broke up, apple records released all 7 christmas flexi-records on one vinyl l.p., again, only to the fan club.
for years all of this was really hard to find on any medium (i was lucky to have a friend whose sister belonged to the fan club and had them all, including the l.p., of which she would not part with but let me tape, so i at least it in some form, which was spread as far as i could). now the price for any of the original records is unreal, as you can imagine. but thanks to the wonders of the internet you can find these lil gems on torrent or other various places, (i found a nice cd of the set, along with the other christmas tunes done by each after the split, on ebay a while back, but i'd love to own the l.p. in vinyl before i die)...
***(well, i finally did get the lp right after the original post, the real apple fan club one... heheheheheeee, she treats me so good!)
...the beatles were always big on christmas. they would plan album and single releases for the holidays and even had a kinda off-broadway christmas show in the early years. and as mentioned in a previous post, it meant a guaranteed record under the tree on the morning of december 25th each year. i still miss those times, but at least we've still got the christmas records to fill the house with beatle-christmas cheer when it comes, at the end of every year ...
here are the very hard to find fan club flexi-disc records on mp3 download for you to put under the tree for that special santa-beatle on your list ...
***(these links are now thru yousendit, so that you can save 'em, since the site i was using/hacking flipped 'em to video streams on youtube... i may add links to those later for ya'll (or you can go here now and save me the trouble)... in the meantime, get 'em while they're available, for 100 downloads or the next week or so, or you can just listen to the audio stream to enjoy anytime at all as long as you like... so, garry crimble to all and getty babel dear christmas!
so, i know this is christmas time. s.a. asked me to make a few copies of an mp3 cd of christmas music for her and all her workmates at the road home thingy. i started by digging up as much as i could, like every cd in the archives (quite a few), and finding an enormous torrent file on the magical net, (it's only a mere 10 gigabytes of the most varied assortment of christmas mp3 cheer one could hope to find beneath the tree, including a complete set of the old firestone christmas lps from my early childhood... too sick).
after weeding out the obvious klunkers, (such as the entire 6 cds of nordic muzak and the celine-type crap), picking out the obvious winners, (i think all the standards are known), and incorporating some odd bits here and there, (some more odd than others), the cd had turned into a 193 track monster.
then came the fun...
sorting, remixing and recording, in all about a weeks worth of toil and labor. needless to say i am so burned out on christmas music that i almost went into canniption fits looking for a tree with the little lady at home-desperate the other day, just hearing the burl warbling 'it's a holly jolly christmas' in my state is almost tantamount to christmas waterboarding...
but, seeing as this space was vacant last season, (we had better fish to fry), we thought it'd be nice to let ya'll in for some of that old odd assortment of mp3 holiday cheer, for a week, at the most, thru yousendit...
a new improved edition of the 1965 beatles' film 'help!' was just released on dvd, all cleaned up, in a nice, slick 2 disc package, sounding and looking much better than i do after all these years... what a godsend. we needed some new kinda beatle stuff, and i guess this'll hold us until they get around to releasing 'let it be' on dvd for the 1st time.
the first time i saw help! was when it came out in '65. we were living in niles, illinoise at the time, i was 9 and my mom drove us to the local cinema. i don't remember what i was thinking on the way in, but when we emerged, my life had changed. i recall having the most euphoric feeling, like i floated out of the picture show. i wanted to be a beatle so bad and i just couldn't get enough of the music, i wanted to make that music (and still do!). it seemed they always had so much fun making music and living life. it seemed like a good job to me.
for years it was ocassionaly shown on t.v., all chopped for commercials and time constraints. one time i caught it and made an audio tape for my friends and i to play endlessly while imagining the movie and memorizing the dialog. finally it came out on vhs, and later a limited release on dvd during the 90s. the dvd copies have been pretty rare and cost quite alot, well, they used to. but the earlier dvds of 'help!' were made from old prints of the film. they looked faded and washed out. still, it was all there was to be had... 'til now that is.
we watched the new version last night and were in complete awe at how vibrant and alive the movie is now. the color seems to jump off of the screen, as when they are all in their shared, multi-colored apartment, and the surround sound is full, crisp and lush. and even after seeing this movie at least a hundred times i was now picking out many things that had slipped by before. it just looked and sounded perfect on the big 42" and 5.1 .
the 2nd disc of the set contains the 30 min. 'the beatles in help!, (which has been bootlegged for many a moon), a look at how the movie was restored, (unbelievable!), and some other 'help!' stuff... but the film is the real star here. there is also a deluxe edition with a few goodies like the script, a poster and photo booklet to jack the price, (tho i would like to cop the poster), but it is all just dressing, it's the movie that everyone really needs.
a rarely seen version of 'help!' from some brit t.v. show...
and now, the complete beatles' set at shea stadium, august 15, 1965, again in mp3, from the original line recordings (with minimal crows noise)... this is the real deal, with the songs that were omitted from the t.v. special release in '66, 'she's a woman' and 'everybody's tryin' to be my baby':
m.a. sample
