Thursday, April 15, 2004
kiddy glisten
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The Langley Schools Music Project - "Desperado"
Keith: Obligatory. Has anyone not heard this yet?
Andrew:
Not to be confused with the stellar version from "In America" (a dropload of which would be greatly appreciated, by the by).
Yeah, as Keith says, Langley is pretty old hipster news; but those of you unfamiliar with it are in for a treat: heartfelt, honest "Shaggs"-like music, only in tune.
You really DO just wanna give this girl a hug, dontcha?
Purchase the Langley School's Music Project CD "Innocence and Despair" direct from Bar/None Records
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Learn more about the Langley Schools Music Project
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Guitar Tabs
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The Peabody School - "Fly Like an Eagle"
Keith: Did these kids decide to do this song after seeing a commercial for the US Postal Service? Love the "Tick Tock Tick Tock". Or maybe I hate it. At least the teacher is a halfway decent guitar player. Otherwise, this might be unbearable. Can you say off key?
Andrew: Whoever says 'baby' after the choruses is the coolest kid ever.
No doubt, Andrew! That kid is Captain Cool of the Cool Patrol. Hell, everybody involved in this is.
So much to like about this: the "ohhhwhoah, there's a so-luuuuuuuushun" wail, the wobbly outtasync "doo doo doo doo's", the very cute teacher on guitar, the breakdown near the end where everyone tells the "baybeh" kid to shut up... just rad.
This track is originally courtesy of Sharpeworld, who is now (more or less) back up and running, which is hella good news. The Oz-like archives remain off line, but you should bookmark and peek around; SHARPEWORLD has been very good to me in the past and is off to a roaring start in her newest excursion into musicblogging via Radio Sharpeworld.
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I want you to buy me some Pringles/don't you see/dried potatoes and maltodextrin.
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The official site of the Steve Miller Band
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The Geert Grote School (Groep 8) - "Dreamer"
Keith: Well, they're at least all off key the same way - as opposed to the noise of kids singing 8 different notes, these kids are all flat, tuneless, and tone deaf together! At least, until the end they are. Then it all falls apart in a poorly synced attempt at harmony.
Andrew: Starting to notice a bit of a trend here with school choruses. I'm not a big fan of the original, but this I like. And I stand corrected.
You stand what now?
The fragile, reedy solo at 2:04 sells me and the "dream DREAM DReam drEAM dReAm DrEaM" chorus don't hurt either.
The ending is TOTAL anticlimax, but that seems to fit.
Muziekopnamen van de Geert Grote School
Crawl around a bit and you'll find BUNCHES of tracks to DL.
DON'T miss the incredible, xylophone-driven cover of We Will Rock You!
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"There are a few very talented kids as well as a few very enthusiastic screamers in that class."
By now, you CAN'T be surprised to hear that this link comes courtesy Otis Fodder.
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The official site of Supertramp
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The Castle Park High School Band - "Hotel California"
Keith: What is a High School Cafeteria Band exactly? That would be a typo in the tracklist I sent. Sorry. It sounds like a coffee can is being used in lieu of drums, which I'm feelin. The guitar sounds kind weird too. But all of that is a distraction. The girls singing - incredible. The guy alternating with her? Should be shot. But oh god those girls are actually on to something. But whoever agreed to this alternating vocal scheme was a fool. What is it about the Eagles that make them so attractive to kiddy covers? Is it merely the fact that the songs are clean?
Andrew: Bit of a different age group with this one than the previous school orchestras, and I kind miss the sheer exuberance of the middle school bands. Nice electric guitar. What's that weird shoooook sound at the start and at the beginning of choruses?
Yeah, I thought that was strange too, Andrew. Am I nuts or does it sound like they're using pyrotechnics?
My High School talent show performances were as follows:
Sophomore year: A gag version of "Wild Thing" with lyrics along the lines of "prune juice/you make my bowels loose". I swigged from a coke bottle filled with mixed juices and moshed around the stage, then threw the bottle into the audience. The kid who caught it started drinking it immediately, which was way rad. I got into some trouble for throwing the bottle. Fascists.
Junior year: I spent a lot of time sucking up to the Senior stoner kids who could play an instrument and managed to get them together into a BMOC "superband" of the coolest and most talented badass outcasts to play as my backing band for "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I dutifully transcribed the lyrics from a taped MTV special that subtitled videos (I think it was called "Say What?"). Singing "SLTeen Spirit" to my principal while leading the school in a session of headbanging remains one of my prouder moments.
Senior year: I provided the "hut-hut-hut huthuthuthut" (interesting coincidence!) vocals, shared chorus duties and provided random screaming for a friend's band's cover of Faith No More's "A Small Victory". At the end of the song, we all went apeshit and spazzed out on the floor a'la "the fish", the dance everyone did at the end of "Epic" (in the manner of the flopping dying fish that contorts in death throes as the song's piano solo decrescendos... and would you believe that was Bjork's fish?). We'd wait a minute for the applause to die down and then the guitar player would just start wailing and the drummer would beat the hell out of the skins and we would howl gibberish into the mikes and flail around. This went on for, like, five minutes. They had to come and take us off the stage.
I was subsequently banned from performing solo as punishment for my antics, specifically for "humping the floor", which was not what I was TRYING to look like I was doing, but I would've had I thought of it.
Being banned really sucked, as I was prepared with an instrumental copy of Naughty by Nature's "Hip Hop Hooray". To this day, I still know all the lyrics; but I've yet to put that knowledge to any good use. Pity.
Visit Castle Park High School
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Pictures from the Chattahoochie High School Talent Show
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Regardless of your opinion of this track, it certainly can't be worse than William Hung's cover (note the date of that article).
Could it?
PLEASE somebody dropload that for me. I ain't gonna front, after hearing the godawfulatrocious "I Believe I Can Fly" cover over at GRAMOPHONE, I kinda want to hear a bit more. Just a bit.
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The Central High School Cafeteria Band - "First Rhapsody for Knives, Forks and Spoons, Pts. 1 and 2"
Keith: What on earth is this? Whatever it is, I love it. The percussion is so clean, and the melodies are just goofy and benny-hillish for me to get into it. Shame I am utterly unskilled in the mixing department, or these beats would become a part of my basic toolkit. They just have a distinctive tone to them that I'm loving.
Andrew: Cool music through cutlery. Kickass, and the ending - with everyone just throwing down their 'instruments' - is just plain classy.
Yes, it's another 365 Days submission (offered by no less than Strictly Kev!) and it's a doozy.
Here's Kev's take on the thing:
"Don't know the year on this but I reckon 60's by the sound quality. I found this in Vortex on Queen St. in Toronto, bought in the same crop that yielded the Utica club beer drinking song featured on January 23rd. A high school band clunks and clanks it's way through 2 (original?) compositions by Charles Crean accompanying the band with Knives, Forks & Spoons - very noisy, disjointed and hilarious in that quaint way all high school bands are. The first movement (Allegro Conbeat) is my favorite, 'Wipeout' guitars, a kazoo, oompah style kickdrum and the trade offs between the cutlery and piano make this a treat. The second movement (Andante Con Cha Cha) is a bit more sedate as an organ joins them with overtones of 'The Monster Mash' in places and the whole thing clunks to a halt after just over two minutes."
Kev spins under the name DJ Food. Here's his website.
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Musical Silverware
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Knife Music
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spiffy
Mark at CLASSICALGASP has posted a great new mashup of that Beatles "Because (Acapella)" and Ray Scott's Powerhouse (note to self: a few days of Scott on the Hut in the near future).
The resulting track is loopy and threatening, like trying to outrun Jack Nicholson in a topiary maze. Go get ogg (Mac types go here); go check it out and then keep obsessively hitting that refresh button for CLASSICALGASP's regularly scheduled updates. I know _I_ am.
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I spent part of my day indulging in a way I don't often get to: buying, then kicking back and reading comic books. I had been curious about the work of Bob Fingerman for quite some time and decided to "pop" by the local comic book shop to get some. I picked up the first two volumes of Minimum Wage, pulled up a seat at the shop, popped on the iPod and didn't get up till I was finished. Wonderful!
"Minimum Wage" is HIGHLY recommended autobio; it's fresh, funny, honest, sexy and dead fucking on. Like visiting New York. The backgrounds are HIGHLY detailed and I can generally tell where the action is taking place, which makes me really nostalgiac. I miss the city. The art improves as it goes on; to which end Fingerman recently released a more-than complete version (mostly redrawn, with much new material) of "Minimum Wage" called "Beg the Question" (published by and available from Fantagraphics) that I now want very badly.
If you see a copy of Fingerman's work at your local library/comicstore/whatever, be sure to pick it up and give it a look; you won't be sorry.
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Personal stressors and a decidedly unhealthy inability to release pentup emotion (exterior, not interior reasons) have left me a pretty sorry moviegoer these past two months. I've seen maybe four films in the past two months which is definitely some kind of all time low for me.
I mention this because I DID get around to seeing the third Lord of the Rings movie yesterday and it's as good as advertised. The Shakespearean-scope fight scenes are sweeping and anything but anonymous and every line of dialogue and forward motion fairly oozes portent and melodrama. It plays like an immense trailer; every fifteen seconds there's another money shot. Somehow Jackson manages to keep one upping the prior high, like a cinematic party anthem with yet more and more complex and improbable situations and effects wonders (the Legolas vs. the Oliphant fight would have to be the pinnacle). The much ballyhooed extended length of the film only gives everyone room to stretch out and get the job done proper; by the end, I hadn't been taken out of the story once and was astonished that it was dark outside.
Quality writing and acting make this about three times as cool as Star Wars; the effects are about twice as hot as either of the last two SW prequels.
Anyway, the greatest feat this thing pulls off is to INVOLVE you. I got teary often, which is rare. Probably a better indicator of my madness level than the tearjerker nature of the film, but it surprised hell outta me.
I'm INTENSELY frustrated by the casting of the execrable Jack Black in the new King Kong film, but I'll probably force myself to the theater anyway. The blossoming of Peter Jackson into the king of Hollywood is as unlikely a story as any I could come up with, but I'm enjoying it too much to let a casting gaffe (albeit a REALLY bad one) derail my view of the ride.
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The "Wayne Brady" episode of the Dave Chappelle Show had me literally laughing myself hoarse. If you're not watching this, you're missing out on really revolutionary TV. I don't like everything the guy does (just watched the last episode of the season and half of it was dumb, but the other half was hysterical); when he hits, he homers.
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musicblog clicky
Some more clickariffic and unsidebarred Musicblogbackthepower types (and even some corporates!):
Warp Records is organized intelligently, easy to sample and stylishly designed. Why can't larger labels follow suit?
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April Winchell is one of the real grandmaws of musicbloggin'. No offense intended, Missus Winchell.
A great site to pilfer the most offbeat and frightening stuff imaginable, from Hindi Abba covers to Italian lessons by Fabio to Joe Pesci's spleen freezing cover of "Got to Get You Into My Life".
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Interesting audio, and not just Me'Shell NdegéOcello on this Me'Shell fansite.
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The Unofficial Wire Audio Companion offers "links to representative mp3 or streamed tracks from albums reviewed by The Wire, provided for the purposes of aiding listeners in their record-buying decisions."
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Soulstrut is a great source for music conversation and lots of realaudio vinyl transfer.
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Popnose is dead; long live Popnose.
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Birth/Music/Death has Ludacris, Prince, Manu Chao and Buena Vista Social Club and you're not even listening to me because you already clicked over there, didn't you? Hello?
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Bush No. 10 steps up with plenty of mashup akshun: Em vs. Axel F, Britney vs. ODB, Sugababes vs. Daft Punk... Frankee vs. Eamon? Well, I suppose it was inevitable.
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I'm seriously feelin' Poj's shit these days. Great mashups and bobbin' head glitch. Just click anywhere and be pleasantly surprised.
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Last mash link: fettdog.
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Glorious Noise is music journalism wit' lotsa imbedded music for download.
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I just mentioned NEGATENDO last week, but I wasn't aware that they was ALSO musicbloggin'.
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Music for Robots is a collaborative musicblog that has really hit the ground running.
Highly recommended.
