josh blog

Ordinary language is all right.

One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.

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11 Jan '02 10:34:18 PM

Today's megamix:

Dismemberment Plan, Is Terrified. Dungeon Family, Even in Darkness. Laika, Silver Apples of the Moon. Shellac, 1000 Hurts. Jay-Z, Unplugged.

The Shellac sounds weak and tinny. And I haven't heard the Laika yet, I just found it used. The first time it came on was a lot more disturbing than I was expecting from hearing their second and third albums. Yet another role model for Radiohead.

11 Jan '02 10:24:46 PM

Yesterday's megamix:

Faust, Faust / So Far. Magnetic Fields, The Charm of the Highway Strip. Magnetic Fields, Holiday. Arab Strap, The Red Thread. Mogwai, Come On Die Young.

I thought having the Magnetic Fields discs in there would pick things up a bit. But they didn't seem to work at all. Until "Maybe I Was Born on a Train" or whatever came on, working better, they just seemed to be too dirgey or just... stick the sound somehow, in a big morass. Merritt would be pleased that when something from Holiday came on it sounded unbelievably skronky and mangled and the beginning.

Faust sounded a little dinky. I don't like their guitar sound. Plus I kept getting long songs and not "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl".

I thought also that this would be a nice chance to hear some of The Red Thread again, but it only came on twice before I stopped listening to the stereo. First, the long song (track 8?) with the sighing string sample and the booming drums. Whenever I hear that song, at first I'm a bit let down by how it doesn't seem to do something enough, I'm not sure what - maybe it doesn't sigh enough, or maybe the beat isn't tight enough. But by the end, everything has become chaotic and I'm happy. I'm reminded of a baloon that has trouble ascending, then finally flies away. The second song was the one where he reads his girlfriend's diary. It was pleasing too. Nice spy beat.

11 Jan '02 08:23:19 AM

This review of Jay-Z's Unplugged appearance is about the lamest review I've read in a long time. I'm not sure I want to play with the reviewer's "interesting" / "novelty" / "essential" distinctions, so let's just say that I think these are some reasons to value the record:

11 Jan '02 07:29:22 AM

I've heard Mark's story here before, from exchanging mail with him, and from the tape of the broadcast he was kind enough to send me. I like the way he tells it here. What I'd really like to see is a return, after the end, to talking about how the music affects him. I know I don't ask for much, ha.

11 Jan '02 06:40:13 AM

An interview with Misha Mengelberg.

10 Jan '02 11:22:44 PM

I have started the long and eventually painful (right now it's fun) project of typing in the names, artists, and release years of every CD I own. I have an old list like this that would save me a lot of work if I only added the CDs I've bought in the past couple years since I stopped adding new purchases, but I've also sold some and it would be more annoying to have to go through every (unsorted) disc I have hunting for the ones I think I sold in order to know that I can delete them from my list. So, I'm starting from scratch.

This may seem kind of pointless, but trust me - it's a very helpful tool for listening to everything I have, with as many CDs as I have. It keeps me aware of even owning some things.

10 Jan '02 09:01:37 PM

I think (it's early, only my second listening, so...) the Dungeon Family album might be more profitably thought of as a chance for its creators to experiment, especially the producers. 'Experiment' not in the sense of 'try something new and daring', but 'move some shit around and try a couple of things in different ways to see what happens'. Benefit to be seen, of course, on the 'proper' albums to come.

Could also apply this to the new stuff on the Outkast best-of.

(Because it seems to have the same lazy-let's-see attitude.)

10 Jan '02 08:54:13 PM

!

9 Jan '02 09:42:52 AM

This was one of my favorite single reviews of the past year.