Nateva!

Hello people!  Tomorrow morning, I embark to the Nateva Music Festival in Maine.  Expect a full, multiple-day extravaganza when I return on Tuesday (but probably won't be posted until Wednesday, as most of Tuesday will be spent sleeping).  Get excited!

Stuff That I Listened To: Fate - Dr. Dog or Nateva Music Festival Preparation Pt. 1

For any of you readers who don’t know me personally (at least one? Maybe?), I’m going to the Nateva Music Festival in early July. I don’t know most of the bands other than the headliners (I’m mostly going to see P-Funk and The Flaming Lips), so I decided to check out a few albums by the bands I’m not familiar with. I’m toying with the idea of making this a weekly feature up until the festival. For now, let’s say every Sunday, word? The first album I’ve checked out is Fate by Dr. Dog.


Dr. Dog are an indie-pop band from Philadelphia; Fate is their fifth studio album, released in 2008. Like most indie-pop bands, Dr. Dog are very much informed by rock bands from the 60s and 70s. What’s nice about them is that though this album draws a lot of inspiration from The Beach Boys, The Band, and the Beatles, there are a lot of small touches that are unmistakably modern - things like sampled drums and keyboards - that allow the band to be more than another retro indie group.

That being said, one of the problems I have with this album is that at times it’s just a little bit TOO old-sounding. Dr. Dog have a habit of relying on nostalgia for a lot of their tunes, and while this works very well for the most part, I feel like this overreliance on throwback sounds stops them from finding their own personality as a band – in my notes for this review, I described four of the eleven songs as “Beatles-y”, and comparisons to The Beach Boys, The Band, and The Rolling Stones and possibly other well-known classic rock acts are bound to occur to even the most casual of music listeners.

Luckily, the band has enough personality that they’re able to stand apart from other, boring indie-pop bands. Most notably, they’ve got a commanding control over “the hook”, that indescribable quality of music that makes a song “catchy”. These guys clearly know how to write some great melodies – I challenge you not to get the “choo-choo train” chorus of From stuck in your head. They’ve got a really nice, smooth quality to their music. The melodies are easily digestible, and the album manages to stay exciting through a variety of styles and moods, adding in some pretty cool flourishes like organs, strings, and clarinets.

The stand-outs here are pretty fantastic. The aforementioned From is absolutely infectious, though not one of the most original songs on the album; Army of Ancients' tremolo-picking guitar part gives it a mariachi feel, and the song contains a powerful vocal performance by singer Eliza Jones; and closer My Friend (which is oddly set up as two songs in one) starts off as a cool jammy number, but evolves into a stadium-rock tinged tune – there’s this interesting part in it near the end where the guitar line from another song, The Ark, is repeated, which makes me feel like that whole section is all repeated musical themes from the album. If this is the case, that’s pretty damn cool.

A couple songs near the end are a bit forgettable – 100 Years is a by-the-numbers The Band rip-off, and Uncovering the Old has the coolest intro off of the album, but there just isn’t much to it. Even in these cases, though, there’s usually one or two interesting things happening – an unusual piano tone, or some neat Wilco-esque noise, or a ticking clock leading into a drum beat.

Overall, Fate is just a solid album. It’s filled with some great melodies and neat song structures. At times, its use of nostalgic, 60s/70s rock sounds is a tad overbearing, but the album is just long enough that it doesn’t wear out its welcome. It’s not exactly an album you MUST hear, but it's alot of fun; I’ll definitely be checking out more of Dr. Dog’s stuff over the coming weeks.

Check this out if you like:
-The Band
-The Beatles
-Wilco
-Other indie-pop
Suggested Tracks:
-From
-Army of Ancients
-Hang On

Note: So, this "weekend extravaganza" didn't quite work out as planned.  I wanted to get at least one more post up; let's just say there were some scheduling conflicts.  I may have a post up tomorrow night, but if not, I'm gonna shoot for Tuesday.  Word.

Stuff That I Listened To: "The Suburbs" and "Month of May" by Arcade Fire

Two new Arcade Fire songs have just been released from their upcoming album The Suburbs (available August 3).  You can check 'em out here.

Overall.....meh, I dunno.  The songs are more overtly indie-sounding then the Arcade Fire have been in the past: Month of May sounds like an LCD Soundsystem song or something, and The Suburbs sort of sounds like New Pornographers.  I like both of the songs well enough, but they're lacking some of the unique instrumentation and emotional intensity of past Arcade Fire releases.  Then again, I used to dislike Antichrist Television Blues (off of Neon Bible) and now that's probably one of my favourites of theirs, so the new stuff could just as easily grow on me.  Actually, The Suburbs is starting to grow on me as we speak.  The album will be pre-ordered, anyways.  EDIT: The vinyl is a double vinyl, so it's $24.99.  Yipes!  Never mind about that pre-ordering.



What do you guys think of the new tracks?  Sound off in the comments section!

New Stuff

Hi everybody!  Just wanted to apologize for not updating in a while.  Coming up soon, you should see pieces on some or (hopefully) all of the following:

-Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's run on The Punisher
-Just Cause 2
-The Fall of Math by 65daysofstatic
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (my first book review!  Although if it's bad, I'm not putting it up.)
-The first part of a new feature

Also, as a quick plug, I've started writing for my friend Ben's new music site called Avast Soundscape.  I've written a couple things for it; they're not up yet, but they will be soon, so check out the site and keep looking for my writings on it!

Finally, I've decided to remove my Google ads and the Reactions thing, because frankly, they're both pretty useless.

-Daniel

Stuff That I'll Be Reading/Playing/Listening To

Yo.  So, I thought I'd just make a quick list of music/books/comics/videogames that I plan to check out this Spring/Summer.  This list is more for me to sort out all the things I want to look at the summer, but you can also expect to see pieces on all of these (that I actually decide to check out), whether they be reviews or other things.  These are in no particular order.

Videogames
- Assassin's Creed 2
- Alan Wake
- Just Cause 2 (currently playing)
- God of War 3 (currently playing, should be done by tomorrow)
- Skies of Arcadia (currently playing)
- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (currently playing)
- Uncharted 2
- Transformers: War for Cybertron
- Splinter Cell: Conviction
- Blur
- Super Street Fighter IV
- Iron Man 2 (we'll see once reviews come out, but it looks rad so far)
- Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (same deal)
- Pokemon: HeartGold/SoulSilver (if I have time)
- Lego Harry Potter
- Crackdown 2
- Condemned 2
- Shenmue 2 (if I can find it)
- Silent Hill 2 (same)
- Bayonetta

Books
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (I say I'm going to read this every year; we'll see what happens.  I read the first two a long time ago and loved them, but stopped with the third for some reason)
- Catch 22
- Cat's Cradle
- Breakfast of Champions (reading now, almost done)
- The new A.J. Jacobs book (once they release it in softcover)

Comics
- The entire Marvel Ultimate Universe (reading now, about 2/3 of the way through it)
- The Punisher Omnibus by Garth Ennis (got this for my b-day, haven't started reading yet)
- Punisher MAX by Garth Ennis
- Automatic Kafka
- Blackest Night
- Scott Pilgrim vol. 3-5
- Box Office Poison
- Joe Kelly's Spiderman
- Dark Reign/Siege
- The Losers
- The Boys
- The rest of Grant Morrison's New X-Men (I have the first Ultimate Collection)
- Astonishing X-Men
- Tag and Bink Are Dead
- reread Y: The Last Man
- reread Preacher
- There must be more.  I can't think of any right now, but I know there's more.

Music
- Gorillaz - S/T
- Blue and Exile - Below the Heavens
- Wilco - Summerteeth, S/T
- Talking Heads Discography
- Flaming Lips Discography
- I actually need more music.  GIVE ME MORE MUSIC TO LISTEN TO!!!  I will accept almost anything as long as I know it doesn't suck.

That's everything I can think of right now.  If I add anything I'll make a note of it in other posts.  Also, any suggestions in regards to books, comics, and music are encouraged!

-Daniel

Albums That I Liked (in 2000): Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2

Well kids, I'm home alone on a Saturday night, and I have an assload of work that I don't want to do. You know what that means! It's time for another exciting edition of Albums That I Liked!

I thought it would be cool to follow up my Aquabats concert post with another Aquabats-themed post, so tonight we're going to be looking at their B-sides album, Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 (before you ask, no, there is no volume 1).


As I said above, Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures (which from here on out will be referred to as Myths. Or I'll abbreviate it to MLOA! because that's an hilariously awesome exclamation) is a B-sides album. For those not "in" with the music lingo, that means that essentially it's a collection of songs that were cut from other albums for not fitting with an album's sound, not being up to the band's usual par, or just being plain friggin' weird. Myths definitely focuses on the WEIRD. While it is the band's most inconsistent (given the B-side thing) and possibly worst album, it still has tons of great moments, including two of their most well-known songs, and is weird enough to warrant a listen. In fact, it's a testament to The Aquabats' skill that most of these songs are still pretty damn good.

One thing that is notable in Myths is the general lack of horns. This album came right on the heels of Vs. The Floating Eye of Death!!, which is basically the album where they stopped being a ska band, and morphed into a punk band with horns (it also happens to my favourite album by them). Still, the horns were way more prominent on that album than on Myths; whether this is because the songs are a tad unfinished or simply because The Aquabats were in the process of changing their sound is up for debate, but it's an interesting thing to note after seeing their transformation for their latest album Charge!!.

MLOA! contains possibly the two most popular Aquabats songs (well, as popular as they could get anyways), Pizza Day and Pool Party, and for good reason too; both of the songs have infectious, sing-alongable choruses, silly, nostalgic lyrics, and some damn fine hooks: in short, everything great about The Aquabats.

About halfway through the album, it gets a little more inconsistent and a whole lot stranger. This trend starts with I Fell Asleep On My Arm, which is an absolutely hilarious send-up of Korn, Limp Bizkit, and nu-metal in general about....well, a dude being really angry about falling asleep on his arm. Some sample lyrics:

"Corporate America makes pencils
For the man with the left hand
They make pencils for the man with the right hand
But what about the man with the numb hand?
Four hundred grand to see The Rage
From back here I can't see the stage
It's time to start my own parade
So lift up your arm and wave"

Awesome.

As the album goes on, strangeness abounds: a bubbly jazz tune about a bunch of creatures mutated by radiation (including an interlude with Billy, the Tap-dancing Mutant Boy!); a waltz about the toils of a baker; and an educational song about earthworms and their function in the ecosystem. There are also some seriously wicked, more normal songs; Danger Woman in particular is a blast of punk-y goodness. And the album ends with a very cool song called The Wild Sea which was the original version of Chemical Bomb from Floating Eye of Death; interesting to see how the same main melody can be used in two very different songs!

Basically, if you like The Aquabats, give this album a listen. If you haven't heard them yet, this probably isn't the best place to start, but it's a hell of a lot of fun! If you're into quirky weirdness, this album is for you.

Suggested Songs:
-Pizza Day
-Pool Party
-Danger Woman
-Radiation Song
-I Fell Asleep On My Arm

Coming up next: who knows?

Have some feedback? Disagree with me and wanna bash my head in? Agree with me and want to feed me grapes whilst giving me a a sensual massage? Comment!

-Daniel

Stuff That I Saw (Live!) - The Aquabats, March 16, 2010 at The Mod Club

This isn't from the show last night but it still KICKS ASS.

Let me get this out of the way early: The Aquabats are my favourite band. Ever. I listen to a pretty large amount of music, and picking a SINGLE favourite band is pretty difficult; but after much deliberation, I don't think I can honestly say that any other band has had the lasting impact on me that The Aquabats have. I've been listening to these guys for roughly 5 or 6 years now, and while I definitely go through alternating 'listening'/'not listening' phases with them, they are a band that I always have, and most probably always will, go back to.

For the uninitiated, The Aquabats used to be a ska band coming out of Orange County, California, a scene that had a huge part in reviving ska music in the early 90s (third-wave ska got especially popular around 1996, as bands like Reel Big Fish and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones started getting featured in MTV movies). The Aquabats had a flair of their own though; they dressed up in superhero costumes, took on goofy personae (such as Crash McLarson and MC Bat Commander), and played music that was over-the-top, quirky as hell, and often an outright parody of the music that surrounded them. Over time, the Aquabats gradually became less horn-driven and ska-y. Eventually, their horn players left the band (except for the sax player, as he doubles as a keyboard player); instead of finding new members though, the Aquabats just decided to revamp their sound. So now The Aquabats play a sort of Devo-y punk/new wave kind of thing, which happens to be marvelous (check out their album Charge! It rules! I'll be writing a post about it eventually).

I got to the show late and missed the first opener, Prince Perry, but he plays some pretty basic roots reggae music. Nothing too special. Keepin' 6 were their usual "meh"; they always seem to me like a less intense Heatskores. Again, nothing to write home about.

Luckily, The Aquabats brought their usual wit and charm to the stage and delivered a kickass performance. That being said, the first time I saw them (about 5 years ago at The Reverb, which was the last time they came to Toronto), was better. This is probably due to lack of label support that The Aquabats have at the moment after being dropped from their record label last year. It was extremely noticable, and did affect the show; merch wasn't too varied, and they ran out of basic sizes very quickly (and everything was more expensive than last time too). Most notably though, the set was WAY too short for a headliner; it clocked in at about an hour. This is fine for a local band, but for The Aquabats? Really?

The problem with such a short set is that it meant that the band had to stick to their more well-known, concert-ready songs. Here was the setlist as I remember it (not in order).

CD Repo Man
Super Rad
Awesome Forces
Fashion Zombies
Nerd Alert
Look At Me, (I'm a Winner)
The Cat with Two Heads
Pizza Day
Pool Party
Lovers of Loving Love
Tiger Rider vs. The Time Sprinkler
Martian Girl

So as you can see, choice cuts from Charge! and their more successful tunes (anecdote in regards to that: some asshole standing next to me kept yelling for them to play Super Rad; they did eventually of course, but what the fuck? If he only wanted to hear that song, he should of just stayed home and listened to it instead of coming to the show and being a dick....and then decapitated himself with a dull razorblade. Just sayin'). The problem with this, besides the lack of any really COOL inclusions (though it's nice to hear Cat with Two heads again, and it was neat of them to pull out CD Repo Man), was that some of the Aquabats show staples, i.e. monster battle royales, were supremely cut back; usually there are two monster fights, and there's some sort of plotline-esque thing going on throughout the show. We got one fight, and no reference to it afterwards.

Anyways, I'm nitpicking here; the fact of the matter is that it was a great, energetic show, filled with the same offbeat, family-friendly humour The Aquabats are known for. I laughed out loud numerous times, and few bands connect to their audience like The Aquabats, what with the MC Bat Commander always getting the audience to sing, giving constant high fives, and just generally being an awesome dude. Seriously, when I brought my camera to the last show, he actually posed on-stage just so I could get a picture! Totally sweet dude.

The picture in question.

I hope this review wasn't too negative sounding; if you get the chance, go see The Aquabats, even if you don't like/know them. I promise, you won't be disappointed. It's just a shame that their current record label situation is what it is. Let's find a new one and release that new album already, boys! You can do it!

The Aquabats Rules!

-Daniel

Albums That I Liked (in 2000): Kid A

Ahoy! This is the start of a music feature (finally!) that will be ongoing. Essentially, it's a sort of "best-of the last decade" thing, but instead of doing a list or anything I'm just going to go through each year and talk about whichever albums I want. So I'll be on the year 2000 for a bit, then 2001, and so on and so forth.




The year is 1997. Radiohead have just released their revolutionary album OK Computer to deafening critical praise. The album is an extremely complicated piece of music, mixing their previous mainstream alt-rock appeal with thick, experimental soundscapes, and trading in teen angst and heartbreak for complex lyrical themes of consumerism, social corruption, and alienation. In the public eye, they have finally reached their full potential, and have established themselves as a band important to the present and future of rock music.

The question, of course, remained: Now what? Well, for Radiohead, the answer was to take away anything resembling an electric guitar and create one of the best electronic albums of all-time. Kid A is a huge stylistic change from their earlier work; one that, in my opinion, payed off in spades. From the opening descending synth run in Everything in It's Right Place to the organ and harp fade-out of Motion Picture Soundtrack, this album grips you with a feeling of oppressiveness and paranoia. The world of Kid A is cold and emotionless; everything seems eerily sterile and programmed to perfection.

Most of the music perfectly exemplifies this feeling with tons of synthesizers and strange sound effects, but what's great about the album is that almost every song stands out on its own while still working perfectly with the overall feel of the album. Only two of the ten songs here don't immediately stand by themselves; the ambient interlude Treefingers is really just that, and the OK Computer-esque Optimistic (the only track where the guitar is the dominant instrument), while actually a really nice, well-written song, doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. Regardless, these are still good songs, and serve to break up the oppressive nature of the album.

Something else pretty neat about Kid A is that it was one of the first largely-pirated albums ever, debuting on Napster a month before it's release - and yet, it debuted at number one on the album charts in the UK, US, France, Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada. Just sayin'.

I've always said that, as a real ALBUM, as in a cohesive musical work and not just a collection of songs, Kid A is maybe my favourite album ever. You need to be in a specific mood to listen to it, but there just aren't any other albums that can so totally express such a feeling of dread and paranoia of the surrounding world. It's a breathtaking piece of music and one that should not be missed by anyone who consider themselves fans of music in general.



Suggested Songs:
- Everything In Its Right Place
- How To Disappear Completely
- Idioteque

Agree? Disagree? Questions? Comment!

-Daniel

Stuff That I Saw: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is a documentary about the creation of the band Wilco's monumental album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Sort of. What's interesting about the documentary is that it isn't so much about the recording of the album itself as it is about the problems Wilco faced getting the record actually released. In fact, by the halfway point of the movie, the album is already completely finished.

It's a really great movie, filmed in stark black-and-white and showing a band who is at a turning point in their career (which certainly ended up being true; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot shot Wilco to alt-rock superstar status, and is generally considered their finest hour). What the film ends up really being about is the music business itself, and a band's unwillingness to compromise their artistic integrity in the face of label pressures.

What's cool about this documentary (and I guess Wilco as a band) is that you can tell everyone in the band is basically normal. Nobody in the band seems to be an eccentric genius, alcohol/drug abuser, or ladies' man (though there is one hilarious scene where a bunch of girls ask bassist John Stirrat to sign their asses). Jeff Tweedy especially, the guitarist, singer and main songwriter of the band, is a perfectly normal guy; he's married with two kids, is a little shy and awkward around fans, and just generally seems like a really dedicated, hard-working guy.

Director Sam Jones keeps the pace at a steady clip throughout the brisk hour and a half runtime. Peppered between interviews is footage of the band rehearsing, recording, and mixing the songs and some very nicely-shot live performance clips. The DVD itself is a really nice package, containing a bunch of extra performance clips and deleted, as well as some live Jeff Tweedy solo tunes and a short making-of feature (which, yes, seems a little bit odd, but it's very short and gives some interesting insight about the documentary-filming process and why Jones decided to make Wilco his first project).

This film is a real treat for Wilco fans; we get to see a band actually recording their magnum opus! That's incredible! Can you imagine how cool it would be to, say, see Radiohead make OK Computer (or, in my opinion, Kid A, but that's another post altogether)? Or The Beatles make Abbey Road? It's amazing that the creation of such a seminal album is documented here, and the best part is that seeing this film actually adds a layer of depth to the album, making it even more enjoyable. So, in short: cool band, interesting predicament, great performance clips and a higher understanding of the context in which the album was created, making an already deep album even deeper. Really, what more could you ask from a music documentary?

-Daniel

Ahoy-hoy.

Hi kids! I'm Daniel, I'll be running this blog. Now, I'm sure you have many questions, including (but not limited to):

-What is this blog about?
-Aren't there enough blogs out there?
-Why are you doing this to us?
-What makes you think you're so damn special?

This blog is going to be exactly what the title is - stuff that I like. You're gonna get a bit of everything here; some music stuff, some video game stuff, some comics stuff, and maybe some movies and TV eventually

I have several reasons for starting this blog, but the main reason needs a bit of background. I'm currently in the process of getting my Music major in school; as I'm sure you've heard, living off of Music is basically a fool's errand. Essentially there are two ways to do so: 1. You're in a band that hits it big or 2. You do various music-related things and get enough money to live decently.

Realizing that it's very difficult to both be in a quality band AND have it become mainstream, I've been trying to go with the latter. I consider myself a fairly decent writer and have always been somewhat interested in Journalism, specifically of the music, comics, and video game variety. While I don't intend for any sort of writing to be my main job, there are worse things you can do for a bit of pocket change. The beauty of Journalism is that so long as you have something to show for your work, you don't really need a degree to freelance. So, essentially what I'm doing here is beefing up my "portfolio". I've also flirted with the idea of starting a blog because I like writing and haven't been able to write for my personal enjoyment for quite a while. It's also a better outlet for my opinions than talking to myself in the shower....uuhhh.....yeah.

Anyways, I was going to write a really long post about Mass Effect 2 (just beat it last night), but this turned out being longer than I expected. Perhaps I'll do it later today; otherwise, tomorrow, I promise.

Peace y'all
-Daniel