Archive for Music
October 16, 2007 at 10:17 am · Filed under Music
My latest iPod methodology is to listen to my music album by album in alphabetical order by album title. This makes my listening fairly random, musically speaking.
Here are the albums I’ve listened to so far. Can you name the artists without Googling? (If the artist is in the title, I’ve mumbled it)
- …And Out Come The Wolves
- …Somewhere More Familiar
- 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
- 100 Broken Windows
- 12 Memories
- 1977
- 20 Golden Greats
- 23 Great Recordings By
- 40oz To Freedom
- 9
- A Decade of *mumble* Music
- A Grand Don’t Come For Free
- A Life Less Ordinary
- A Little Bit Of Mambo
- A *mumble*
- A Place in the Sun
- A Smile Makes a Lousy Umbrella
- *mumble* Live
- Absolution
- Achtung Baby
August 13, 2007 at 9:47 am · Filed under Montreal, Music
Last night I accompanied my betrothed to the Crowded House concert at Theatre St Denis. I’m not a huge Crowded House fan, but she is, so I just went along to keep her company. It was a crowded house, apart from a few empty seats in the front row which almost caused a stampede when Neil Finn suggested people should fill them.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. There were two other acts before Neil and his band took the stage. First up was Liam Finn, Neil’s son, who did a quick set of three songs on his own, singing, playing guitar, going crazy on the drums, and waving his wa-wa joystick about. It was innovative, creative, and slightly manic.
Second on stage was Pete Yorn, who started on his own with an acoustic number before bringing the rest of his band on for a fun set, in which he played the drums as his drummer had been “detained at the border”. The songs were upbeat and foot-tappingly good, and rounded off nicely by a rendition of Elvis’ Suspicious Minds.
Finally Crowded House came on stage to a standing ovation and launched straight into a couple of their hit songs, before settling back for a few less well known (to me anyway) numbers. In the breaks between songs the band joked with each other and with the audience, about lederhosen and Avant Garde underwear, breakfast in the John and Yoko suite, empty front row seats and whether or not they’d been to Montreal before.
Towards the end of the set they got the crowd on their feet before two encores, finishing the evening with an audience sing-a-long of Take the Weather With You.
I’m always very cynical about concert encores, especially when the band are so obviously guaranteed to be coming back, whatever the audience does. It’s even more obvious when the roadies bring on new pieces of set after the band have “said goodnight”. But the encores got the crowd going, and the concert finished very nicely with a group bow from the band before they all ran to the front of the stage to shake hands with the front row of the audience and Nick Seymour made comments to audience members further back.
So, despite not being a big fan, I enjoyed the concert. We had good seats, about 13 rows back with a clear view, despite the 6′ tall guy who sat in front of me at one point before switching places with his shorter friend. It’s always a pleasure to see a band obviously having fun and making an effort to interact with the audience, and the music was pretty good too.
June 14, 2007 at 11:44 am · Filed under Music
Since Apple have decided to start offering non-DRM music tracks on iTunes (and good for them), I decided to give it a try. The interface is incredibly smooth. I already had an Apple account from when I bought my Powerbook so I tried to log in with that and it automatically converted that account to an iTunes account. From there it was as easy as finding a track/album I liked and clicking “Buy”. The tracks download in the background letting you continue to browse and they get added to your iTunes library when the download finishes. No wonder iTunes is so popular.
The DRM-free selection is still fairly limited but I’m hoping it will grow, and more record labels will release their music in DRM-free formats. The tracks cost 40 cents more because in addition to the lack of DRM, they are sampled at a higher quality (not that my untrained ears would notice).
As for the music itself, I bought the entire KT Tunstall album, Eye to the Telescope. I’ve listened to it on the way to work for the last couple of mornings and I’m generally impressed. There are a couple of tracks I love (Black Horse and the Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See), some that I like and a few that I consider just filler.
March 13, 2007 at 8:21 am · Filed under Games, Music
Here are some lyrics for 10 of the songs I listened to on the way to work today. Can you identify them? No Googling!
1: But you all know I tried
So forget about it, girl
My head’s like a kite
When such a creature I sight.
2: I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar, yet I cant seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me - Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town by Pearl Jam
3: You know I didn’t even know her name
But I was never gonna be the same
What a lady, what a night! - December 1963 by The Four Seasons
4: shes crazy about her daddy
Oh she believes in him
She loves her daddy.
5: Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn’t matter much to me. (cover version, bonus points for the artist I listened to) - Strawberry Fields, but by whom??
6: I’d bring her gold and frankincense and myrrh
She thought that I was making fun of her
She made me feel I was fourteen again - Jane by The Barenaked Ladies
7: Life is so boring it’s really got me snoring I’m wearing out the flooring in a cheap motel
But I don’t have to work and I might be sinning but I never have to listen to the rings of school bells
8: I dream of a place that’s hedged with roses
With a man in the middle don’t talk in riddles
You get hung on every single word
Some call it high, some call it low
9: tongue tied and a visceral third degree
feel warm center of gravity
wash us all away
body never lies
10: Xylla was an archetype,
the voodoo queen the queen of rap.
Joan thought men were second best
to masturbating in the bath. - 88 Lines about 44 Women - but by whom?
January 3, 2006 at 1:05 pm · Filed under General, Movies + TV, Music
Happy new year everyone, time to take a look back at 2005.
Top 10 events of 2005
- Jen getting pregnant
- Jen having a baby
- Surprise parties (giving and receiving)
- Finishing the cupboard
- Making new friends
- Learning to play euchre
- Achieving my ATM
- Teaching a Unix course
- My first Ebay purchase(s)
- Managing to keep this blog going for the whole year
Top 10 Music of 2005
- The Killers
- Modest Mouse
- Arcade Fire
- Rise Against
- Green Day
- Jack Johnson
- The Shins
- The Gorillaz
- Motion City Soundtrack
- Ben Kweller
Top 10 Movies and TV that I saw in 2005
- Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
- Bad Santa
- Garden State
- Doctor Who
- Motorcycle Diaries
- Serenity
- Lemony Snicket’s Unfortunate Series of Events
- Lost
- Little Britain
- Battlestar Galactica
Discoveries of 2005
- Hospital food is even worse than I imagined
- Online poker is addictive
- Changing nappies isn’t as scary as it sounds
- PVRs rock
- I know more about Canada than many Canadians
- Firefox (or did I discover that in 2004? hmm)
- The Battle of Wesnoth
- I can be funny sometimes
Worst things of 2005
- C-sections
- Dubya
- Rising transit prices
- Overly credulous people
- Everyone having parties when we can’t make them
- Missing every single YULblog meet
- MySpace
- Accidentally using salt instead of sugar in a cake mix
- Bureaucracy getting in the way of progress and creativity
- Loved ones getting sick
September 22, 2005 at 7:24 am · Filed under Music
The music is ok, but the accompanying ethos is worthy of ridicule. (turn your speakers on).
September 16, 2005 at 12:01 pm · Filed under Music
I got my first taste of the music of Athlete this morning (on CBC of all places, that lockout seems to have improved their music selection). I was quite impressed, I should really try to keep more on top of the Brit music scene. So Britfolk, what else should I be listening to?
