damien rice

Heard this guy interviewed on a local college radio station. And of course, I heard him play some songs.

Amazing lyrics, wow. The music that I heard seemed to be non-intrusive, you know? mellow, sparse. But the lyrics broke through and stopped me. I had to really listen, once I started to listen.

He was saying some amazing things, about how he had been very successful with his band Juniper. He got really tired of what it meant to be a big musician star. He took some major steps back, and out…He left and remapped his path to his own creativity.

I have so much respect for that kind of introspective work. And I believe that his new album ‘O’ is reflective of his originality.

Check it out. I’m going to, as soon as it comes out.

I’m a bunny, right?…All we do is hip hop!

Who says the bunny can’t jam? You’re buggin’
If you don’t know who I am, You’re buggin’
If Bugs ain’t the coolest in the land, you’re buggin’

EEeeehh..we only buggin’

Space Jam sound track is dead on. Most of the songs are really serious songs, and the CD is worth is for them.

I still like when Bugs does the rap at the end. Man, that’s funny. He dead on imitates so many of the hip hop affectations.

Bugs can do it…He’s the rabbit

Heavy D!

Now that we found love
what are we gonna do
With it?

man oh man oh man! Saw a clip of Heavy D and the Boyz doing that song last night. That is one of those songs that takes my full attention.

The beat, the hooks just get me. I think he’s very good.

And he spits out those lyrics like nothing, he just slams them out and moves on before you’ve even figured out what he did.

I have that CD somewhere, I’m gonna have to find it.

Information Society

“I wanna know
What you’re thinking”

I like the lyrics, but it was the voice of Spock saying “Pure Energy” that made me love this song. Should I be ashamed of that? I’m a trekkie and I love 80’s electronica.

This is pretty good 80’s new wave/electronica. Some of the songs are very dated, but more than a few on the album are not. The cover makes me laugh, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep playing the music.

I suppose I should check out the greatest hits album. I got this one specifically because of the Spock bits in “Tell me what’s on your mind”

Dr. Alban

I first discovered Dr. Alban in Russia. 1992. I don’t think I ever heard anyone here in America mention him. But the kids in Russia thought he was the bomb back then.

I got his album. Boy, that’s a whole nother story!

Let’s just say, when I got back to america, I searched high and low, finally special ordering the CD “One Love”.

I love it. It is very AFRICAN. The CD is mostly in English, but he has some african language, Swahili, I think thrown in sometimes. I really like hearing songs in other languages. It makes the musical experience more pure, not knowing what is being said. Only listening to the sound of the words, and the emotion in the inflection.

How often do we really understand what each other are saying, even in our native tongue?

Songs in other languages cut me loose to not understand.

Anyway, Dr. Alban is highly electronic. Dancehall reggae, I guess. “Sing Hallelujah” is very gospel sounding. “Om We Rembwe Ike” sounds extremely tribal. I love the foreign (to me) roots of his musical expression. These are great dance tunes.

The message is especially poignant right now, too. “One Love” breaks my heart.

“The rich will live
and the poor will die
this is not it and what is it?
One love”

And “It’s my life” works great as a angst teenage song. It also has a deeper meaning, when taken in the context of African politics; Dr. Alban sings love songs to his home Africa.

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Cher

Cher was always associated with my mom. Mom said she liked her style, and I assume that she was talking about the Sonny and Cher show. I don’t remember that show at all.

But a couple years ago, I heard Believe on the radio, and I had to have it. I liked how her voice was digitized. And I really liked the words. A beautiful woman, heart-broken but moving on.

I saw her in concert, too. Wowee! That was a great concert. A real show. Way more about the production than the music. Maybe Cher has always been that way. I don’t know, but I loved it.

I met a guy later who couldn’t STAND her. “She should never had made another album.”

She is unadulterated pop. But what’s wrong with that?

“BABY it’s all or nothing now!”

DisCO. Makes me want to find a mirror ball.

Pink Floyd’s _Dark Side of the Moon_

“The 3 P’s: Pink Floyd, Pepsi and Physics”

That’s was my cute redhead friend said my freshman year at college. I’d run into him in the cafeteria, and had to get his attention away from his headphones.

This is the 30th anniversay of Dark Side of The Moon. I’d never sat down and listened to the whole album before.

But my cute boyfriend (not redheaded) came over with a newly remastered Super Audio CD, and we sat and listened to it the whole way through.

I asked him, “What’s it about?”

He said, “Nobody knows exactly. Everyone gets something different. That’s why it’s popular.”

I was suspicious, because I’ve never been impressed with the kind of music you’re supposed to be stoned to really ‘get.’

I liked it. It was evocative, and set my mind free to ponder what the music suggested. It worked in the same way that a classical music concert makes me think, too.

It’s nice that the lyrics or soundbites are not too rooted in current events, so that it doesn’t date itself.

I enjoyed the way the music flowed, without interruption between the songs. It was an entire experience, like a recorded concert.

I think it’s a work of art. Chris left the CD over here; I’m gonna listen to it again.

Dave Matthews’ “Crash into me”

I’ve had this Dave Matthews’ album forever ( Crash ). I had seen him in concert at the H.O.R.D.E festival before I bought the album. I like him live, and I eventually bought the CD.

I hadn’t listened to it in a while, so when I saw it in my collection I grabbed it. I remember I liked it, but it was a vague memory.

The whole album is good, really. I love the fact that he uses horns! More horns, we don’t hear enough horns anymore.

But after hitting track three, I remember why I have a fuzzy memory about the album.

That song…”Crash into me”…Oh man…I LOVE that song…wow…SO much. It’s like chocolate.

Like really good chocolate
your favorite kind
Left in a bowl on the coffee table
Full

I can’t help but go back and back.
I try to get through the album and then I just go back to hear that song. It has this melt-me effect. It sort of turns me into a loose slithery heavy-lidded person.

WHICH I REALLY SHOULDN’T BE WHILE I’M AT WORK.
but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, I thought I would share that.

Maybe I’ll do another review later of other chocolate-type songs. I know I have a few of them.

They Might Be Giants

“Blue canary in the alley by the light switch
Who watches over you!
make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
I’m the only bee in your bonnet”

I LOVE that song. If I have to say why, we are not on the same page. TMBG’s Flood is a album where I can say, “Set phasers on repeat, Spock!”

But most of the other TMBG albums are like that. I saw them play live at the Warfield in San Francisco. The concert was so much fun! Fun! Fun!

It was interesting to compare notes afterwards with the guys at the record store I worked at during that time…The week before, the boys had gone to see Marilyn Manson at the Warfield. Apparently, the highlight of that concert was when all the people in the balcony began spitting towards the stage. The boys in the pit got a rain of saliva, even though most of it hit the band. Apparently the band just rubbed it in, making it part of their act.

Not my Warfield experience. MY band did not encourage that sort of thing. We were all in the pit bouncing up and down and bobbing our heads to our favorite songs. Everyone there was congratulating each other on their mutual love of nerd rock and by extension, nerds.

Yay for nerds and yay for They Might Be Giants!

I am excited to read the TMBG and David Eggers are on tour together. How interesting would that kind of show be? Pretty darn, I think.

Anybody going to be checking it out?

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“everybody move to the back of the bus…”

I heard this song on the radio once, and I could not get it out of my head.

It is a truly amazing song; it makes me start to move all the different parts of my body to the earthy beats.

MMM!

I only wish I had more body parts.

So I found out what the song WAS:

“Rosa Parks” from Aquemini

It’s by far the best song on the album. There are others I kind of like, but this one really grabs me by the scruff of the neck and makes me want to dance in ways I haven’t thought of yet.