Displaying Category: Music

Tanya Davis wrote this wonderful poem called, oddly enough, "How To Be Alone," which she put to (some) music and filmed with the help of Andrea Dorfman. Please watch the resulting video: How To Be Alone.

Personally, I love it. Probably because it speaks so much to how I live my life. Maybe not entirely with the same joy that Tanya expresses, but I do do these things, both because I like to and because, as someone who is alone, I have to. What's important in all this, though, is my primary credo: I shalt not sacrifice mine life for lack of someone to experience it with. In other words, don't not do things because you don't have anyone to do them with. Don't miss out on great movies because you're friends are too lame to join you. Don't eat ramen when you could be out enjoying a meal at a nice restaurant. Don't avoid the park because you're afraid of looking odd by yourself. Don't miss a chance to see a great band because you're friends complain they don't know the music. Don't be afraid to sit at home and get drunk in the silence or go out and get dizzy watching the crowds go about their shopping at the mall. Live your life, whether with others or by yourself.

I do all of those things, often happily. Am I happy all the time? Nay, I am not. Though I am happily alone, I am unhappily lonely. Those are different states and I still get them confused depending on the perspective. I will say that there are lots of things I would really like to do with someone or someones and I often miss spending time with my friends and loved ones. But I firmly and steadfastly believe that even without these people around, there is life to be lived and I don't want to miss out. What about you? What do you do or would like to do alone?

I came across two robot love stories yesterday, both of which were adorable. The first is a short film by director Spike Jonze, who recently directed Where the Wild Things Are. The film is called I'm Here and tracks a familiar love story between two humanoid robots in Los Angeles, but with a twist that kind of reminds me of The Giving Tree. It's about 30-35 minutes long and I highly recommend it. There's also a trailer if you'd like to get a feel for it before diving in.

I also have a little music video by one of my favorite YouTube vloggers, Meekakitty called Don't Unplug Me by the All Caps. And yes, I realize this song is entirely done in autotune and I have already declared my distaste for it, but... uh... They're robots! It makes sense! Or something...

Check'em out and coo at all the cuteness.

I am sure we are all familiar with the band OK Go's past "homemade" video craziness. They just released their newest video for the song "This Too Shall Pass" and it is pretty much the most amazing Rube Goldberg Machine ever created. The only problem is, I have no idea what the lyrics of this song are as I was far too busy watching the action to pay any attention to the actual song.

As an added bonus, Gizmodo has embedded a series of videos showing the behind-the-scenes work that went into making this video.

Seriously, cake is much better than pie, but that's not what this video by singing ukulele slash kazoo playing duo Rocky and Balls is about.

So I thought, "You know, I like some of Regina's songs, and she definitely has a different texture to some of her music, I think I'd like to see one of her live shows." So I did. It was a good show. For most of the show, the instrumentation included: drums, violin, cello, and piano. Then there was a section in there where Regina went solo and played keyboard, or completely a Capella, or even one hand playing the piano, and one hand playing the seat of a chair with a drumstick. I was impressed. I only have one of her albums, so there was plenty there I didn't recognize, but I was also pleased to hear songs I like and recognize as well. I now feel like I have seen a Regina Spektor show.

The opening band, by the way, was Jupiter One and they were also quite good. Two guys on guitar, one on bass, one on drums. However, the two guys on the guitar would also play keyboards and/or violin and/or flute. And they would use those other instruments to generate loops they would layer. This now seems fairly common, but it's always fun to see a loop take shape. I had a tough time classifying the music exactly, though the style definitely sounded familiar and comfortable. I guess check some of their tracks on the website if you're curious.

There is such a thing as too far, and this song by FattySpins is a wonderful demonstration of why falling in love at the Apple Store is just sad.

*tear*

Slashdot has posted a story about Sony's seemingly blatant copyright infringement against Alejandro Fernandez in which they distributed a CD of songs they didn't have rights to. Doing the math based on precedent set in two RIAA cases such as the Jammie Thomas ruling which gives $80K per song or the Sony vs Joel Tenenbaum ruling, which gives $22.5K per song, Sony would be looking at judgments of $1,151,460,000 to $4,094,080,000. Of course, while it makes perfect sense, it's something we'll never see. Thank you double standards for making life so baffling and yet predictable.

Yes, this is a little sensationalist since this is all taking place in Mexico, which has different laws and precedent is different, of course, but I still expect the US rulings will be indicated if this ever goes to trial. And also, we have no idea what Fernandez's contract was, so it's quite possible that Sony does have rights to those tracks.

The Machine is a Pink Floyd cover band. My only real exposure to Pink Floyd is via The Wall, which I like, but this concert obviously exposed me to much more than I would be familiar with. In the end I learned that Pink Floyd songs are mostly instrumental, and not very interesting instrumentals at that. I don't want to knock The Machine, they seemed to do a good job and those in the audience who seemed to be familiar with the music looked to be enjoying themselves, it's just that I wasn't especially enjoying myself. I guess I just don't know loooong instrumentals. This is probably why I'm not so down with going to Dream Theater concerts anymore. The band itself wasn't all that talkative and didn't really relate with the audience much. The only really interesting thing the band did was toward the end of the show when, mid-song, the members of the four person band all switched places. The guitarist switched with bassist and the keyboardist and drummer switched, so they were each playing the other's instruments. I mean, that's impressive, right? I guess? Sure.

I've been told by friends that I would like the band Sigur Ros. I had no idea what sort of music it would be, though, and I was put off by the information that they sing in a made up language. However, knowing their music would be used in a dance performance I'll be seeing next week, I decided to sample some of their videos so as not to be too surprised. I punched the name into YouTube and watched a couple videos: Glósóli, and Hoppipolla.

The lyrics certainly didn't matter and the music was delightfully enchanting. Even better than that, the videos are, well, as the subject suggests, I was moved. I shall have to browse more of their work as I think there is definitely something beautiful to found in there.

Eight hours of a Dashboard Confessional station on Pandora is like liquid emo in my ears. It burns...