Happy birthday, Mr. Glass!

American composer Philip Glass celebrates his 65th birthday today.

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West End Girls

So, it turns out DEVO weren't the only ones...

I just checked the Pet Shop Boys' news site (I tend to frequently -- I love them, and they've got a new record coming soon), and they posted a news item about West End Girls. Which I suppose would make sense that they'd be talking about one of their biggest songs and all.

Except it's not actually a song -- it's a new group out of Sweden. Two girls, who do exclusively Pet Shop Boys covers, in fact. I'm not sure if the Pets are involved at all, but still.

They've got a couple videos up -- their versions of "West End Girls" (I hope the album is self-titled -- that'd mean it'd be another entry in the all-too-short list of songs with the same names as both the band and album they're on. Like, say, "Big Country" by Big Country from Big Country) and "Domino Dancing". Of the two, I prefer "Domino Dancing", both in the video sense (the "West End Girls" video is a little dull and also kind of cheezy) and the arrangement (it's similar to the original, but a bit of an "updated" sound that works a bit better than it does with "West End Girls").

I'm not sure what to make of it -- I mean, they ARE great songs, and I'm amused by the way the two girls seem to have the Pets' moves and image down (the Neil is completely disassociated, the Chris is quiet and vaguely surly -- though, unlike the real Pets, both the Neil and the Chris have hats, instead of just the Chris). The accents are vaguely t.A.T.u. (as, I suppose, some wags would note, the possible connotations of two girls doing a bunch of Pet Shop Boys songs, but that's lame), although I don't think their voices are as strong as t.A.T.u.'s.

Still, though -- I'm not sure whether or not they've been together for a while, or if they're a manufactured group. Either way, though, it seems odd to do a manufactured cover band... though, of course, tell that to the A*Teens.

I have to say, though, I'll probably be picking this up -- after all, one of the cuts on there is "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", which is one of my favorite Pet Shop Boys songs from the extremely underrated record Nightlife.

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Gargoyles!

Gargoyle
Originally uploaded by lee_3dhighway.

We got home today about an hour before sunset, and the sunlight was just pure gold. I took some pics of the gargoyles out front, and thought they came out pretty well. :)

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Moral Orel

So, yeah, as y'all know, I'm a big fan of Davey & Goliath, and in a non-ironic sense and all. (In fact, I think it'll be on here in 20 minutes!) I'm also a Mr. Show fan. It's not that often that the two overlap, but when they do, it's a wonderful thing.

The newest show on Adult Swim is Moral Orel, a parody of Davey & Goliath created by Dino Stamatopoulos, and written/directed by Dino, Jay Johnston and Scott Adsit, all from Mr. Show, and made by Shadow Machine Films, who also do Robot Chicken on AS.

When I saw the ads for it, I knew I had to tune in, just because, well, I couldn't figure out what this show that looked like Davey & Goliath was -- when they announced the title, I got excited, as the only thing I knew about Moral Orel was that some of the Mr. Show guys were involved (it seems that some of the AS stuff has become the Mr. Show clearing house -- not only have they had Futurama, which has Bob's brother Bill as one of the main writing staff, but they've got Tom Goes To The Mayor) and the title.

The first episode was the Christmas special -- and I was floored. (A torrent is here -- right now it claims to be being seeded.) It wasn't a straight Davey parody -- there wasn't a talking dog, say -- but it had the look ad feel down, instead using the Davey framework to explore comedy, both in general and in the situation.

The show is very well done, mixing the standard Davey shots with faux-documentary stuff with the grittier, realer aspects of the series. On Christmas Eve, at the sermon, Orel's pastor tells about the Second Coming -- "He might be on Earth right now, but I'm sorry to say, this time, he won't be so nice." Due to the holiday, Orel can't sleep, and gets up to check on his parents in their bedroom. He doesn't go in, and merely watches from the door (this is where it changes to faux-documentary) as they fight over Orel's brother, Shapey, not actually being Orel's father's. Instead of being shocked, Orel's happy, unflappable nature combined with his innate desire to do and be good and holy leads him to make a conclusion -- since Shapey's not nice and not his father's, he MUST be the Second Coming!

The show progresses from there, with a lot of great riffs on the situations, although my favorite thing in the episode is the last scene -- they don't go for the easy joke. It's got to be seen -- it's a really mature, classic ending that made me change my mind about Adult Swim having gone downhill. (I don't like a lot of the new series -- Moral Orel and Stroker & Hoop aside, a lot of them basically seem to be of the sort where the implicit message is "Man, you suckers will eat up any shit we get high and think of" -- well, explicit in 12 Oz. Mouse, where the creator, a co-creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force actually said that he had the idea to come up with a show while he was drunk and did it that way intentionally... )

The first actual episode (torrent here, again, it claims it's being seeded) wasn't quite as good as the Christmas special -- a bit more Jokey, and a bit sillier/less realistic. Part of the fun of the first episode was how it completely melded together the real and the parodic; this one's basically straight satire -- and the satire IS a bit ham-handed, but it's still pretty funny the way it's executed. Just because they go for a bit of an obvious and easy target doesn't mean they don't hit it dead on with wit. Still, though, they're definitely both watching, and I'm really excited for more episodes. It's Adult Swim going back to experimental and adult comedy, rather than the easy, drug-induced haze they've kind of devolved into with the new series.

Man, I was all ready to say "Oh, and it's time to end this post, because Davey & Goliath is on! But now it's Bibleman. Stupid TBN changing their schedule.

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We knew him when...

Hey, CW! Once this gets off the ground, will you give me a job? :)

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The American Astronaut

OK, I really want to see this. In fact, I wish that Herzog space movie Rev. saw was available in some form, because I'd love to see it and this movie in a double feature. From the review of The American Astronaut on notcoming.com:

But the most remarkable scene occurs in a floating barn, where Curtis and the Boy decide to take refuge. Inside, the two encounter the leader of that long-forgotten race of traveling silver-miners. Hidden in the darkness of space, we can barely see his decalcified body, thin and brittle from atrophy and bobbing like a worn-down marionette puppet on rickety strings.

I'm guessing Rev. knows this director (Cory McAbee) since he linked to the Billy Nayer Band (of which McAbee is a member, and who do the music for The American Astronaut) in that Herzog post earlier. Have you, or anyone else reading this, ever seen this movie?

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Hello, Young Lovers

You ever have a band that you just don't get at first, and then, all of a sudden, it just clicks, and you just Get It, and it just makes so much sense?

That's recently happened with me -- and the band is Sparks. It's really strange -- the first time I'd heard them was when my SO bought the In Outer Space album, as she'd had it before, but lost it; Silver Platters had a copy for a decent price, so she picked it up again, and on the way back from the store, she put it in the car CD player.

And, um, I didn't get it. It was one of the albums from the Moroder-era, and I wasn't really sure what to make of the absurd, silly lyrics, and the over-the-top cheeziness of the arrangements. Some of it I kind of liked (The funny "I Wish I Looked A Little Better"), but for the most part, I just didn't get it -- my reaction was something like, "Wait a minute; these guys are considered "real" music, but Barnes & Barnes are a novelty band?"

This kicked off a bit of a Sparks phase with her (she'd always been into them, but her interest had been renewed), and she started picking up the other albums when she'd come across them -- mostly the Oglio reissues of the 1980s stuff, but the occasional UK Import release of the Island albums from the 1970s. And I'd listen to them, and I'd slowly get a bit more acclimated to Russell's falsetto, and the goofy lyrics, but I still didn't quite get it. After all, this was the band that gave DEVO David Kendrick, who played on DEVO's worst records and was one of the reasons I didn't like those albums (he can't hold a candle to Alan Meyers). But, I wouldn't necessarily mind when she'd throw them in.

The Sparks phase continued when she bought the two DVDs they've put out. Live In London was Oh-kay -- I lost interest about halfway through, but I loved Ron's bits, and I thought the song "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" was magnificent -- I figured if I was going to get a Sparks record, it'd probably be the one that one was on. But I didn't. And a few weeks later, she brought over Li'l Beethoven: Live In Stockholm, and we watched the Li'l Beethoven half.

And then it happened.

The first half of the album was OK, but I didn't get why it was so completely repetitive -- it started to bore me. I'd heard "The Rhythm Thief" and "Suburban Homeboy" before on the Sparks MySpace Page (by the way -- what does it say that I wasn't able to find it using the myspace search, but it immediately came up on Google, huh? I think that's one of the reasons I prefer LJ and Blogger...). "Rhythm Thief" was OK, and, well, I loved "Suburban Homeboy", and that was the only reason I wanted to continue watching. But as it went on, I just kept feeling sort of bored and confused as to why she liked this stuff so much.

Again, this is when it happened. More immediately this time.

Mainly, the song "My Baby's Taking Me Home". The noise in my brain audibly went Click, and I became a Sparks Fan. The rest of the stuff lined up, and I realized that they ARE a great act. And the amazing thing is that it's one of the most repetitive songs on Li'l Beethoven -- aside from the recitation, the only lyrics are the title repeated. Over and over. And over and over. And over and over.

Home. Home. Home. My baby's taking me home. My baby's taking me home. Home. My Baby's Taking Me Home.

And it just clicked.

The melody, the panning of Russel's vocals. Everything.

And then the recitation, which is one of the moments of Sparks Perfection.

As we walk through the morning rain / And the skies are clearing / And the streets are glistening / Streets named for New England trees / A rainbow forms / But we're both colorblind / But we can hear what others can't hear / We can hear the sound of a chorus singing

The combination of the poignant and beautiful lyrics of the first half with the hilarious, faux-pretentiousness of the second half is just amazing; it's a perfect mix of the beautiful and Real with a sly sense of humor that allows for commenting on the structure of the pop song and the banality of recitations in songs in general while actually still saying something that's not to be discounted at the sake of the joke.

And I realize how odd it is to say that the recitation is one of the best parts of the song -- usually that only happens if the song is overblown and schmaltzy enough as it is, and the recitation just nudges it over the edge into Cornball Hilarity (like, say, "You Look So Good In Love" by George Strait). But in this song -- it's not the case. The song is a simple statement -- a simple feel, an emotional place, and the recitation says so much about that, both in the context of the song itself and music in general. It's a wonderful sentiment about that feeling of being in love in addition to a puncturing of pop cliches. It takes a deft talent to do both of those things at once (one of the few examples I can think of is Frank Zappa's "Love Of My Life" from the Crusin' With Ruben And The Jets album, which can be read both ironically as a deconstruction of the banality of R&B lyrics and non-ironically as a sweet, pop, love song... though I think Zappa might disagree with me on the latter) -- usually one counteracts the other. But not here.

So, anyway -- that did it. I ended up listening to that stuff again, and the other albums made Sense. They're not all great (Terminal Jive and Pulling Rabbits Out Of A Hat have their moments, but the lyrical spark isn't as pronounced and they tend to come off more as good, but generic dancepop albums), but when they're on -- they're on. I am particularly fond of their most recent stuff (Balls is a great album, and Li'l Beethoven clicks with me know, repetition and all), and I am awaiting their new record, Hello, Young Lovers with baited breath -- it's one of the many that comes out on February 6th (though in the US on March 7, apparently).

I Am A Sparks Fan.

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The Picard Song

Uh... this is, sans question, the weirdest, stupidest Star Trek thing I've ever seen. Some guys wrote their own song using a bunch of Star Trek samples and then used The Sims video game to, uh, make a Star Trek-based music video of it all. It's on Google Video and it's funny.

Is using The Sims to make music videos a thing? Well, check out the Willy Wonka video...

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Atomic Blasts

Holy cow. Check out these pictures of a nuclear blast. What makes this different than other mushroom cloud photos you've seen? "Automatic Camera situated 7 miles from blast with 10 foot lens. Shutter speed equaled 1/1000,000,000 of-a-second exposure."

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Cat Heaven

Sometimes we look at our cats and think, "You lucky devil, doing nothing all day..." but THESE cats have it MADE! I literally would do this. Not to this extent in terms of the fluorescent '80's Jimmy Buffet feel, here, but to me, a cat walk doesn't strike me as too ridiculous.

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Centralia Still Burns

You have no doubt heard about the town of Centralia, PA, where the coal seams underneath the town have been burning since 1962. Interesting site.

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The backyard project

12/19/2004
Originally uploaded by prettywar-stl.

Now this is cool... a guy in St. Louis took a pic of his backyard every day for 280 days. The results are fun to browse through, watching the seasons change.

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Celebrity Faces

Want to see which celebrity you most resemble? Sure, we all do! Upload your photo and see!

Requires registration. It's a beta site, so comparisons can only be made to the "world's 2,400 most famous men and women," but it looks like the next version will have family sites.

My results: #1, Ewan McGreggor (at 65% actually), #2, Dennis Quaid... Carey Grant and Tom Cruise were in there (this thing is pretty generous I think). What are yours?

One freaky result, pictured above, was interesting. Click that link... I got goosebumps. I've been an editor... have always felt drawn to the WWI battlefields...

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And it's the B-side of our platter, sports fans, and I'm singing for you all covered in sequins

Don't worry, this is the last of these, but I just did another one like my Best Pop Song one, which is your one favorite song ever. It's pretty much the same thing, just, you know, favorite songs. I really enjoy learning these sorts of things about people (even those I may not know, as with the Pop Song Poll, I didn't actually know who a couple of the respondents were!), and it's always cool to hear potential Great Songs, y'know?

I'm thinking the culmination of this is going to be some big online compilation of a bunch of brief paragraphs and whatnot written about these songs by the people who chose them and other people who agree with them. (Perhaps with a audio component as well, I don't know. Hopefully.) But yeah -- I think that would be pretty cool. I'm thinking, though, with these, there won't be any point-counterpoint. Just people arguing for songs, rather than arguing against. And that goes for me, too -- I will just remain silent! Even if, say, someone said their all-time favorite song was, say, "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. I would refrain from mentioning how I find the only thing that song should be commended for is finding some way to make the female body sound nauseating. For reals, "My humps, my humps, my humps/my lovely lady lumps"? Bleagh! Not a single utterance from me about how anything becomes catchy if you say it 2000 times in 3 minutes! Nope!

So, anyway, though; once there's a relative consensus or when it looks like as many folks are gonna weigh in as are gonna, I'll post the results in a comment here. And, I don't know -- if I figure out how to best go about Stage II, I'll probably post that as a comment here as well. But probably not as a post, as these've probably taken enough real-estate already!

By the way, in reference to the subject-line -- did you all see that apparently, this month, the Bonzos are doing a one-off sans-Viv reunion? And it'll apparently be put out on DVD? With the Rutles opening? That'll be really awesome, but then, I'm a huge Bonzos fan...

(Also, for the record -- my all-time favorite is "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" by Talking Heads.)

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Area 51 photographed

...way back in 1974, by astronauts aboard Skylab. A cool story that has just recently been declassified, found via Slashdot. (And note that the pic with this story is NOT the pic in question- I assume the 1974 pic would have better resolution.)

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I'm going to scream like a little girl!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Six Flags Over Georgia is adding a mega-coaster called Goliath (click for more artist renditions of how the coaster will look when built), due to open in April of this year. As soon as we found out, we had to make a trek over there to see how construction was coming along... I cannot WAIT to ride this puppy. Heh heh!!


I love how so much of the coaster stands above the area where traffic flows into and out of the park... in some of my pics you can see the front gate practically surrounded by the Goliath's track. And the first drop is 200 feet of screamy-liciousness... yee-ha! :D

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Pop Song Poll

Since probably the lamest thing I could possibly do is link to one of my own LiveJournal posts, here goes! Anyway, I think I mentioned this in a comment, but a week or so ago, I did an LJ poll for people to mention what they think of as the Most Perfect Pop Songs. (I thought that it'd accept non-LJ people to post, too, but as Lee can attest, not so much...) Anyway, though, I ended up posting the results this morning, so take a look! (And feel free to add some in the comments, as I _KNOW_ those will accept anonymous folks).

I was pretty impressed with some of the choices, as some of them were ones that I just forgot about (like "America" by Simon & Garfunkel, which I love), and some of the ones I'd never heard of (the track by Robot, "Ne Poussez Pas Meme Dans les Orties" by Chorus Reverendus). I've always been into pop music like this, and sometimes there really isn't a greater joy than just some really perfect pop song.

Anyway -- I think the plan (at least in weird, nebulous mode) is to see about getting everyone to write a little bit on all the songs they agree with and posting a sort of online compilation of these. But I'm not certain on that. Perhaps it'll just remain a big old list. Though it'd be cool if people wanted to write stuff about these songs. Because that's the kind of thing I get off on is finding out about what makes things click for other people, even if they do not click with me (I mean, come on, Madonna?).

So, whaddyathink, sirs?

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Stabilized Zapruder film

Apologies if y'all have seen this before, but it's new to me... I have probably mentioned to a couple of you the cool stabilizing filters we have now at work that we can apply to an area of video- i.e., if you have video of a car chase shot from a helicopter, we can highlight the car and hold it perfectly steady throughout the clip. The price paid is that the video warps and jitters all over the edges of the screen, since the image is being digitally warped to hold the shapes in the center artificially "steady."



Well, someone has applied a high-grade version of this technology to the Zapruder film of JFK's assasination.(embedded QT movie) NOTE: The video is fairly graphic, much more so than if you've only seen the usual shaky version of this film. More in the complete post...

It's been awhile since I read up on JFK assassination theories, but it looks to me like there are two shots fired here... one when the car goes behind the sign that blocks the view from the camera (see how JFK moves suddenly, like he has something in his eye), and then the second one that busts his head open (ugh).

This does not sit with the government's "single bullet theory," but to my eyes (after just a couple of viewings) it looks like both bullets might have come from the same place, so it's still possible Oswald was the only gunman, but if so he definitely fired more than once into the car. I just don't know.

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I Can't Help Falling in Love with Ladies & Gentlemen Floating In Space

No, that's not the name of a mash-up. :) In 1996, When Jason Pierce (aka "J. Spaceman") was recording his third, breakthrough album as Spiritualized, he built the title song Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space around a sample from the Elvis song "Can't Help Falling In Love."



Unfortunately, the Presley estate nixed it.

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Possibly because they're protective of the copyright, possibly because they don't like druggy-alien-gospel music... who can tell? Pierce reworked the song, still quoting a few of the lyrics, but without the extra layer of sound that the sample provided. I remember reviews at the time saying that the end result was actually better than what he started with, but now after hearing the original, 9 years later... I think I disagree.

Decide for yourself: Here's the album version of "Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space"

...and here's the original version. (The sample is most obvious to me at the end, with the choir singing from the original song... you never hear Elvis' voice.)

The original is busier and harder to follow, but the way that choir kind of breaks out at the end... I think that's beyond awesome.

---
In other Spiritualized (not quite-)news, Stylus Magazine has posted an appreciation of the second (and my second-favorite) Spiritualized album, Pure Phase. This review doesn't mention one bit of trivia I read back when the album came out in '95, which I can't find a reference for but suspect might be true: apparently Pierce had the album's producer mix the whole thing, but when he heard it, was unhappy with the mix, so he did his own mix of the album. That one didn't suit him either, so he tried layering the two mixes over one another, and got the weirdly shifting, "phasing" album that we finally heard.

If anyone can vouch for the truth or fiction of that story, speak up... I don't even remember where I read it.

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Everything old is new again

Actually, this is pretty freakin' cool in its way:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - With an appearance that draws heavily from the classic muscle cars of the late 1960s and early '70s, the Dodge Challenger, premiering in concept car form at next week's Detroit Auto Show, should satisfy those who thought the 4-door Dodge Charger just didn't have the right stuff.

This time around, the number of doors stays true to the original spirit. Just two.

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OK, finally...!

The Flaming Lips have finally announced a release date for At War With The Mystics, their next CD: March 4th (in the US, March 3rd in the UK).

Also, buried in this article is another cool tidbit- the 5.1 surround-sound mix DVD of The Soft Bulletin is coming out January 31st. Yay!

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Aw, man!

J.P. got what I wanted for Christmas. :D

Check out his review of the great "girl-groups" compilation that Rhino Records just recently put out. I so, SO need this.

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Needs more boom.

The tallest building in South Dakota (the Zip Feed tower) meets its demise at the hands of a demolition crew... or does it?

Heh heh... more here.

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