First official post for the Nonalignment Pact
Forgive me, I wasn’t officially appointed the new Saturday person until Thursday, so I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of prepared remarks. Also, I don’t want to write a long, navel-gazing “about me” post in which I introduce myself.
Better to say that I thought this blog was a bad ass idea when first introduced in late 2006, and I’m dorkily excited to post here once a week.
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eMusic has been gradually compiling their own top 100 list all week. Right now, they list only 100 through 11. Because I’ve had an unfortunate fixation on “indie rock” for much of my adult music life, I own 55 of the 90 listed recordings. eMusic shares the same fixation, which is why I’ve been a subscriber since 2001.
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The new Beck record came out this week. If you weren’t big fans of the last two records, Guero and The Information, I agree. Both were bloated, unfocused, and not very fun. Beck sounded like he was trying a zillion different ideas and discovering none of them worked all that well. Seemed to put him in a bad mood.
The mood is pretty dour on Modern Guilt, too. But the sound is energized and cohesive. The clutter is gone, and the songs stand together like a well built fence—consistent, sturdy construction, with enough space to allow for a nice breeze. There’s a lot of other crap you could learn about this record by reading the reviews, but here is what you must know: it frequently sounds like Queens of the Stone Age.
In a good way.
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This is cool: “Right now, we can equip you with a rebuilt Roland TR-808, TR-909, TB-303 and some floorboards. Interested? Give it a try!”
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Finally, there’s this.
GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.
4 Comments:
Welcome Marshall. Have you used that hobnox tool? Looks promising.
I've had an eMusic account for a few years now. It can be frustrating at times - things I want not always on there but ninety percent of the time they aren't on iTunes either.
In John's very first post he gave us "a singular, heart wrenching promise to actually pay a mote of attention to the new Beck album."
But tagged on "Hahahahahahaha, just kidding."
I don't think Beck has been mentioned since so this is a first Beck post too =)
I haven't played around much with the Hobnox thing yet, but it seems pretty robust for a web app. I've historically been pretty dumb about figuring out step synths, but I might spend some time with it.
I love eMusic. They have a lot of editorial content aimed at helping you discover new music. And I've discovered a lot of stuff I would never have found otherwise. And it's hard to the beat the price at 25 to 40 cents a track.
And yeah, I noticed Beck wasn't a frequently discussed topic. But he's always interesting and has a few masterpieces under his belt (e.g., One Foot in the Grave, Midnite Vultures). So I'm a fan.
I toyed around with hobnox a bit. Pretty fun. Love the visuals - moving patch chords around without tangles and stooping over. I might not be able to go down to my studio again without hiring a grunt.
I like Beck, quite a lot actually. Always have. One Foot in the Grave probably has gotten top 40 rotation in my collection.
Also, that russian video is hilarious.
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