GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY
Brilliant.
A friend posted this link and I'll second it; it is an excellent essay the Beatles and their music. For boffos, this article has enough theory to make a great new way of restating something that everybody already knows: the beatles were genius.
What a yo-yo.Was down at Vertigo for a show last night to catch Breathe Owl Breathe. Very good show. I bought their new album just for the song "Boat." They are an eclectic threesome, but sound a lot bigger than their numbers. The lyrics are indie-folky without being fey. Workaday observations walk hand in hand with winsome wishes. Micah (above) and Andrea do excellent vox, his dry-as-sherry voice conjures up a slightly romantic Nick Drake while she sounds like all three of the Andrews Sisters. Heady stuff. The Drummer wins the Fraser Campbell award for Tone, Taste, and Time. If all indie bands had drummers like him, the world would know no hunger.
B.O.B. singer wears t-shirt with handmade woodblock print of Lakers-era Kurt Rambis. Gunboat Diplomacy only officially recognizes Suns-era Kurt Rambis. -Editor
ah, my love for Sound and Recording never runs dry. For July we have an extensive write-up on Yamaha’s Tenori-On and “Controllers of the Future.” Of course, Monome’s 256 gets a blurb. It could have been a better blurb considering it only scratches the surface of what it is capable of. But “a box of buttons with which you can do anything” just doesn’t convey much. In this bang-up issue you also get a DVD of Ryuichi Sakamoto and others getting paid to mess around with hot gear. As for the monome, Daedelus performing with the 256 is included as well. Bonus.
Daedelus from Sound and Recording July Bonus DVD
ABOUT THE MUSIC: Ghost is an old song. Very old. Lyrically, the song has two origins: the chorus was written around 2001 after Uni while the verses were put together in 2002 while living on the Upper East Side. The original demo, since lost to a faulty hard drive, sounded troublingly similar to Travis’ Blue Flashing Lights in its drum pattern. That was not the inspiration behind the song, just an unhappy detour in its evolution. The basic palette of the song is rooted in Blur’s Strange News From Another Star: electric piano panned to the far left, acoustic guitar far right for the verse; the chorus is marked by stereo acoustic guitars. That idea was come upon driving a car down Hawley Highway in Michigan during a one of many hiatuses from New York. A bulk of the recording was done in Smyrna, and it was the first time using my Space Echo RE-201 in a song.
The guitar feedback and background noise that bookends the track were captured from Eric’s guitar in the old DUMBo Studio: the wah was picking up a Spanish-language radio station while were working on Another Winding Road, another track that has ne`ver seen the light. Another version of the song exists as a Franz Ferdinand sound-alike, though it is extremely rare and usually done a cappella after too many drinks in Atsugi proper.
yesterday my Commercial Photo (top photographers of 2008!!) came in the mail along with a surprise: Katamari Fortissimo Damashii, the soundtrack the bestest video game of all time, Katamari Damashii.
for those unfamiliar, Katamari Damishii is a game in which the stars in the night sky have disappeared, prompting the gargantuan king (who sports a generous codspiece) to dispatch his diminutive son to earth to collect junk which will be turned into stars. You control the prince, who pushes a small ball, picking up objects around a house, the neighborhood, the city, islands, etc until the final levels when you are called upon to make a katamari damashii over 500m in diameter. What makes the game great is the mundanity of the objects you fine: erasers, tacks, mosquito coils, watermelons, cats, underwear, cards, giraffes, ocean liners and entire atolls. brilliant stuff for someone who has spent time in japan and is infatuated with (stuff).
but the soundtrack is also amazing. the music ranges from sublime j-pop to smoky jazz sing-alongs to bombastic stadium grandpa j-pop. awesome.
Lonely Rolling StarThe 40h is a product of Monome in Philly. Gunboat Diplomacy has a 40h and a custom 128.
MUSIC WE LIKE: One of the main engines driving the gunboat, one of the sonic storms putting the wind in our sails is the band Supercar. The video below is the song Storywriter from their farewell concert DVD. A concert I tried to get tickets to, but was too late. my life's greatest regret. This is the song STORYWRITER off the album High Vision.
I love this video by Masahi Kawamura for Hangetsu by the band Sour. The song is OK, par for the Japan-Indies Course, but the video is fun to watch.
Got my new issue of Commerical Photo this morning and Tokyo Jihen's video for Killer Tune was recognized for its technical merits.
While I like the video and I like the idea of Shina Ringo, I've always been ambivalent about her music, Queen of Kabuki-Cho not withstanding.