11.29.2005 |
>> Neat typography ideas from Ultrasparky. If I'd followed the visual track earlier in my life (i.e. choosing to cultivate my artistic leanings rather than my facilities with writing), I probably would've ended up as a typography geek...
11.28.2005 |
>> Thank you, Jesus: The new Pet Shop Boys album is done and is coming out in spring 2006. I am a big queermo.
11.23.2005 | They Knew Much More Then Than They Do Now
>> So I've seen U2's Vertigo tour three times now -- all in New York City at Madison Square Garden, but from different vantage points each time (the close-up seats, the ellipse, and the nosebleeds). As a result, I'm thinking I've got my thoughts on it pretty well fixed, though expressing them cogently might be slightly difficult. On the whole, I have to say, my feelings are pretty mixed about the whole thing.
Oh, and now would be a good time to avoid clicking the "Read more" link if you don't give a shit about this sort of thing, because this might take a while. Also, this entry was left in progress, because I was typing it at the airport and my flight was called; I could've saved it as a draft, but I thought I should post it unfinished in order to prevent myself from forgetting about it. So, disclaimers aside:
Every concert I attended pretty much followed the same emotional arc: First, I loved the opening salvo of "City Of Blinding Lights," "Vertigo," and "Elevation," all of which are being played with excellent arrangements and visual accompaniment. The next song or two was always a selection drawn from a limited pool of early tracks -- generally "The Electric Co.," "I Will Follow," or "Out Of Control," all of which were enjoyable though "The Electric Co." certainly has the edge, as it's been played the least in recent years ("I Will Follow" is getting a wee bit tired, as excellent a song as it is). Unfortunately I never got to hear them play the "An Cat Dubh / Into The Heart" medley, which I'm sure would've been wonderful. After that bit of rotation, the set always follows the exact same track: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Beautiful Day," followed by "Miracle Drug" (just replaced in the last couple of weeks by "Original Of The Species") and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," then into what's become known as the "heart of darkness" set: "Love And Peace Or Else," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and "Bullet The Blue Sky." "Miss Sarajevo" is then the bridge into the "human rights" section: "Pride," "Where The Streets Have No Name," and "One," which close out the main set.
As I said before, the concert always gets off to a great start, and I remain completely psyched all the way through the opening numbers and the old-school selection(s). My enthusiasm ebbs a bit for "I still Haven't Found..." and "Beautiful Day," which are obviously great songs but which have gotten a bit hoary (it's interesting how "Beautiful Day" already feels as played-out as the Joshua Tree material does), but I certainly accept their utility and their place in the set -- they are signature songs, after all, and bands generally shouldn't withhold hits without a good reason. Though I'll get to that sentiment in a moment.
The "Miracle Drug" / "Sometimes..." combo is kind of an odd beast. My reaction to them is pretty much the polar opposite of my reaction to them on the album: on disc, I find "Miracle Drug" unengaging and "Sometimes..." to be one of U2's absolute best moments. In concert, "Miracle Drug" has actually made me tear up a bit with a weird mixture of sadness and catharsis. ("Original Of The Species," another of my favorites from the album, was actually a bit too muscular and overdriven when played live; the more delicate, sloppy version I saw the band play at Empire Fulton Ferry State Park has stuck me with a lot more.) "Sometimes...," on the other hand, just seems... off, somehow, when played in the arenas. Part of it is the feeling that The Edge's guitar tone is a little too harsh, and the bass tone a little too funky, to suit the song; Edge's beautiful vocal parts have the same problem, sounding less angelic than they do on record, which I suppose is not surprising. It's also the first time in the show when the visual accompaniment -- an image of a featureless man walking against a blue background, played on the bulb-screens that hang behind the stage -- just completely falls flat. I'm not sure what that man is supposed to be representing, but it's not a particularly resonant image, and something much, much better could've been done with that song, which is bursting with powerful emotions.
The part of the show that I truly have problems with is the "heart of darkness" set. I'm prepared to exempt "Love And Peace Or Else" entirely from this complaint, mind you: as a performance, it's always excellent, with a great intro, phenomenal sound, and a wonderful bit of theatre in Bono and Larry pounding away on the tom-toms at the tip of the ellipse. The song itself is solid as well: It's the usual mushy pacifism, but wearing aggressive drag, which is a fun schtick to play with. But every night, when "Sunday Bloody Sunday" begins, I check out of the concert completely.
It all comes down to a lack of meaning. I feel very strongly that any and all political and social impact that the righteous idealism of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" represents has been leeched out of the song by decades of overexposure. It's been cast and recast to stand in for so many conflicts that it's just not saying anything specific about anything that matters. It's an anti-war song, and a powerful one -- come on, you can't hear the line "we eat and drink, while tomorrow they die" and stay complacent about military action -- but all it is now is a Golden Oldie From '83, On Your Lunchtime Flashback Hour! As soon as those drums kick in, every middle-aged person in the arena is on their feet and dancing. Dancing! It's the same reaction Eddie Money would get for "Take Me Home Tonight" at your local county fair.
I know that sounds kind of rockist, but every time I hear that song, I just wonder how Bono feels, singing it to a bunch of Wall Street stockbrokers who subscribe to the kind of worldviews, and who've voted again and again for the kind of politicians, that prosecute needless conflict over and over again. Shouting "This is your song now!" is even more of an insult; it's giving the audience free rein to wear the cloak of righteousness for five minutes, to pretend that they Really Care and that Violence Is Wrong, before they return to the world where it's OK to say things like "I think we should just bomb the hell out of all of 'em" and be greeted by serious nods and murmured assent. When R.E.M. say "This is your song now!" before singing "Losing My Religion," it's a different scenario; both songs are overplayed popular hits, but one is, at heart, a pop song about personal emotions, and the other is much more outward-looking and focused on something that is obviously not universal: disgust at armed conflict.
"Bullet The Blue Sky" suffers from pretty much the exact same identity crisis. It's been played on every tour since it was written, largely because the band don't have any other songs in their catalogue that will allow them to show off bruising hard-rock chops. It, too, is a profoundly anti-violent song -- it was written in disgust at how the American military was used to subjugate dissent in Central America -- but every time it gets trotted out, Bono desperately tries to make it new and relevant by pointing it at some other conflict. On the Elevation tour, he came the closest he's come to successfully making it matter again, turning it into a sharp attack on gun violence with a hammy-but-haunting riff on the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman. Seeing that song shoved down America's throat when it was played on the first leg of Elevation was remarkable: here was a band that actually did have the balls to say something that large segments of the audience might not like; here was a band who wrote songs that represented their ideals, and performed them with conviction. But after September 11th, the band dropped that level of interpretation from the song, and hearing it played in New York City became a disturbing experience: inside the arena, it felt like the audience was taking the song up as a battle cry, as a "we want revenge" violence fantasy, losing themselves in the brutality of the music and not in its lyrics of condemnation for the exercise of force.
On the Vertigo tour, "Bullet The Blue Sky" has become spectacularly muddled. It's obviously impossible to sing a song about the American military abroad in this climate without having that song be about the Iraq war, and Bono knows it; he's been incorporating "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" into the lyric, and suddenly the song becomes bizarrely, schizophrenically, pro-soldier -- at last night's show, Bono quite literally dedicated the song to "the brave men and women of the United States Military." How are we supposed to take that? Obviously conflicts like the Iraq war can produce a difficult line to straddle -- it's virtually impossible to respect what the soldiers are being required to do, but it's impossible not to respect the impulse to serve one's country in the name of idealism. A song about hating the sin but loving the sinner could definitely be a rich gold mine for the band to explore, but "Bullet The Blue Sky" is not that song. "Bullet The Blue Sky" is a song of condemnation, of outrage. How the hell are we to take this confused, empty version? Bono can't express outrage anymore; his political maneuverings on behalf of Africa have fenced him in. He can't condemn the war in Iraq with the passion of Patti Smith, who screamed and swore that "There are no righteous wars!" in her opening set before U2 came on, because any anti-war comments will put him on the blacklist of the pro-war American politicians whose support he needs to get funding delivered to African aid. He's been gagged by his own self-expression. (This will be continued, with my thoughts on the "human rights" set and the other aspects of the Vertigo tour. I don't know *when* it will be continued -- it could be a couple of days -- so please, be patient, and if you've got any comments go ahead and leave them, I'll try to address them there or in the update to follow.)
Oh, and now would be a good time to avoid clicking the "Read more" link if you don't give a shit about this sort of thing, because this might take a while. Also, this entry was left in progress, because I was typing it at the airport and my flight was called; I could've saved it as a draft, but I thought I should post it unfinished in order to prevent myself from forgetting about it. So, disclaimers aside:
Every concert I attended pretty much followed the same emotional arc: First, I loved the opening salvo of "City Of Blinding Lights," "Vertigo," and "Elevation," all of which are being played with excellent arrangements and visual accompaniment. The next song or two was always a selection drawn from a limited pool of early tracks -- generally "The Electric Co.," "I Will Follow," or "Out Of Control," all of which were enjoyable though "The Electric Co." certainly has the edge, as it's been played the least in recent years ("I Will Follow" is getting a wee bit tired, as excellent a song as it is). Unfortunately I never got to hear them play the "An Cat Dubh / Into The Heart" medley, which I'm sure would've been wonderful. After that bit of rotation, the set always follows the exact same track: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Beautiful Day," followed by "Miracle Drug" (just replaced in the last couple of weeks by "Original Of The Species") and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," then into what's become known as the "heart of darkness" set: "Love And Peace Or Else," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and "Bullet The Blue Sky." "Miss Sarajevo" is then the bridge into the "human rights" section: "Pride," "Where The Streets Have No Name," and "One," which close out the main set.
As I said before, the concert always gets off to a great start, and I remain completely psyched all the way through the opening numbers and the old-school selection(s). My enthusiasm ebbs a bit for "I still Haven't Found..." and "Beautiful Day," which are obviously great songs but which have gotten a bit hoary (it's interesting how "Beautiful Day" already feels as played-out as the Joshua Tree material does), but I certainly accept their utility and their place in the set -- they are signature songs, after all, and bands generally shouldn't withhold hits without a good reason. Though I'll get to that sentiment in a moment.
The "Miracle Drug" / "Sometimes..." combo is kind of an odd beast. My reaction to them is pretty much the polar opposite of my reaction to them on the album: on disc, I find "Miracle Drug" unengaging and "Sometimes..." to be one of U2's absolute best moments. In concert, "Miracle Drug" has actually made me tear up a bit with a weird mixture of sadness and catharsis. ("Original Of The Species," another of my favorites from the album, was actually a bit too muscular and overdriven when played live; the more delicate, sloppy version I saw the band play at Empire Fulton Ferry State Park has stuck me with a lot more.) "Sometimes...," on the other hand, just seems... off, somehow, when played in the arenas. Part of it is the feeling that The Edge's guitar tone is a little too harsh, and the bass tone a little too funky, to suit the song; Edge's beautiful vocal parts have the same problem, sounding less angelic than they do on record, which I suppose is not surprising. It's also the first time in the show when the visual accompaniment -- an image of a featureless man walking against a blue background, played on the bulb-screens that hang behind the stage -- just completely falls flat. I'm not sure what that man is supposed to be representing, but it's not a particularly resonant image, and something much, much better could've been done with that song, which is bursting with powerful emotions.
The part of the show that I truly have problems with is the "heart of darkness" set. I'm prepared to exempt "Love And Peace Or Else" entirely from this complaint, mind you: as a performance, it's always excellent, with a great intro, phenomenal sound, and a wonderful bit of theatre in Bono and Larry pounding away on the tom-toms at the tip of the ellipse. The song itself is solid as well: It's the usual mushy pacifism, but wearing aggressive drag, which is a fun schtick to play with. But every night, when "Sunday Bloody Sunday" begins, I check out of the concert completely.
It all comes down to a lack of meaning. I feel very strongly that any and all political and social impact that the righteous idealism of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" represents has been leeched out of the song by decades of overexposure. It's been cast and recast to stand in for so many conflicts that it's just not saying anything specific about anything that matters. It's an anti-war song, and a powerful one -- come on, you can't hear the line "we eat and drink, while tomorrow they die" and stay complacent about military action -- but all it is now is a Golden Oldie From '83, On Your Lunchtime Flashback Hour! As soon as those drums kick in, every middle-aged person in the arena is on their feet and dancing. Dancing! It's the same reaction Eddie Money would get for "Take Me Home Tonight" at your local county fair.
I know that sounds kind of rockist, but every time I hear that song, I just wonder how Bono feels, singing it to a bunch of Wall Street stockbrokers who subscribe to the kind of worldviews, and who've voted again and again for the kind of politicians, that prosecute needless conflict over and over again. Shouting "This is your song now!" is even more of an insult; it's giving the audience free rein to wear the cloak of righteousness for five minutes, to pretend that they Really Care and that Violence Is Wrong, before they return to the world where it's OK to say things like "I think we should just bomb the hell out of all of 'em" and be greeted by serious nods and murmured assent. When R.E.M. say "This is your song now!" before singing "Losing My Religion," it's a different scenario; both songs are overplayed popular hits, but one is, at heart, a pop song about personal emotions, and the other is much more outward-looking and focused on something that is obviously not universal: disgust at armed conflict.
"Bullet The Blue Sky" suffers from pretty much the exact same identity crisis. It's been played on every tour since it was written, largely because the band don't have any other songs in their catalogue that will allow them to show off bruising hard-rock chops. It, too, is a profoundly anti-violent song -- it was written in disgust at how the American military was used to subjugate dissent in Central America -- but every time it gets trotted out, Bono desperately tries to make it new and relevant by pointing it at some other conflict. On the Elevation tour, he came the closest he's come to successfully making it matter again, turning it into a sharp attack on gun violence with a hammy-but-haunting riff on the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman. Seeing that song shoved down America's throat when it was played on the first leg of Elevation was remarkable: here was a band that actually did have the balls to say something that large segments of the audience might not like; here was a band who wrote songs that represented their ideals, and performed them with conviction. But after September 11th, the band dropped that level of interpretation from the song, and hearing it played in New York City became a disturbing experience: inside the arena, it felt like the audience was taking the song up as a battle cry, as a "we want revenge" violence fantasy, losing themselves in the brutality of the music and not in its lyrics of condemnation for the exercise of force.
On the Vertigo tour, "Bullet The Blue Sky" has become spectacularly muddled. It's obviously impossible to sing a song about the American military abroad in this climate without having that song be about the Iraq war, and Bono knows it; he's been incorporating "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" into the lyric, and suddenly the song becomes bizarrely, schizophrenically, pro-soldier -- at last night's show, Bono quite literally dedicated the song to "the brave men and women of the United States Military." How are we supposed to take that? Obviously conflicts like the Iraq war can produce a difficult line to straddle -- it's virtually impossible to respect what the soldiers are being required to do, but it's impossible not to respect the impulse to serve one's country in the name of idealism. A song about hating the sin but loving the sinner could definitely be a rich gold mine for the band to explore, but "Bullet The Blue Sky" is not that song. "Bullet The Blue Sky" is a song of condemnation, of outrage. How the hell are we to take this confused, empty version? Bono can't express outrage anymore; his political maneuverings on behalf of Africa have fenced him in. He can't condemn the war in Iraq with the passion of Patti Smith, who screamed and swore that "There are no righteous wars!" in her opening set before U2 came on, because any anti-war comments will put him on the blacklist of the pro-war American politicians whose support he needs to get funding delivered to African aid. He's been gagged by his own self-expression. (This will be continued, with my thoughts on the "human rights" set and the other aspects of the Vertigo tour. I don't know *when* it will be continued -- it could be a couple of days -- so please, be patient, and if you've got any comments go ahead and leave them, I'll try to address them there or in the update to follow.)
11.21.2005 |
>> God damn it, now I need a Nintendo DS -- Mario Kart is out
11.18.2005 | Get Another One, You Moron!
>> I got my new Powerbook battery the other day, and took it for its first spin last night -- it lasted for four hours. Considering that the original battery now lasted for five minutes, that kicks a lot of ass. I'm very excited, as I now have both a pretty-damn-sweet desktop (though of course I bought a new iMac three weeks before they updated them, grrr) and a very usable mobile machine. Best of all worlds!
And on a completely unrelated note: Any of my Florida peeps gonna be home for Thanksgiving? I'm looking at you specifically, Cameron and Paul. I'm gonna be busy with family stuff but I'd definitely like to see you...
Also, Jeremy, I hope you got the title of this post. (Look at me with all my insider shout-outs today! I hope the rest of you feel totally uncool because I didn't single you out. Maybe later, when I put together my dodgeball team.)
And on a completely unrelated note: Any of my Florida peeps gonna be home for Thanksgiving? I'm looking at you specifically, Cameron and Paul. I'm gonna be busy with family stuff but I'd definitely like to see you...
Also, Jeremy, I hope you got the title of this post. (Look at me with all my insider shout-outs today! I hope the rest of you feel totally uncool because I didn't single you out. Maybe later, when I put together my dodgeball team.)
11.16.2005 |
>> News keeps trickling out -- here's the tracklisting of Morrissey's Ringleader Of The Tormentors, and it's coming out two days before my birthday. Nice!
11.14.2005 | Start With An Up Song
>> I just finished watching Nashville. It was pretty damn good. But right now, I need -- need -- for somebody to immediately send me an MP3 of Ronee Blakely's "Tapedeck In His Tractor (The Cowboy Song)."
I suppose I could just wait for the Paul Van Dyk remix on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack... (I kid, I kid!)
I suppose I could just wait for the Paul Van Dyk remix on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack... (I kid, I kid!)
11.11.2005 | Five Songs That Karaoke Bars Rarely Have And I Very Much Wish It Were Otherwise
>> Prince, "Pussy Control"
Pixies, "Vamos"
The Smiths, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
The Magnetic Fields, "Papa Was A Rodeo"
X-Ray Spex, "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!"
I do think there's money out there to be made by somebody who's willing to put up New York's Official Indie Karaoke Bar. You'd probably have to license and record some of the songs all special-like, but it would be worth it.
Pixies, "Vamos"
The Smiths, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
The Magnetic Fields, "Papa Was A Rodeo"
X-Ray Spex, "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!"
I do think there's money out there to be made by somebody who's willing to put up New York's Official Indie Karaoke Bar. You'd probably have to license and record some of the songs all special-like, but it would be worth it.
11.11.2005 |
>> I truly think that I might cry: Arrested Development has been cut down to 13 episodes, is off the air for the rest of sweeps, and is, in all likelihood, doomed (its production costs are higher than most cable networks can afford, which will likely keep it from getting picked up by another network). Just another reason to resent America: shows like this die while Trading Spouses lives.
11.10.2005 |
>> Holy shit, Dylan Horrocks' Atlas #2 is finally coming out in January! (Horrocks' Hicksville is one of my all-time faves.) (Via)
11.10.2005 |
>> Superman-With-Chimps.com. There aren't enough W's, T's, and F's in the alphabet. (As seen in Superman #223.)
11.10.2005 |
>> New download-only Underworld material! Must buy the very minute I get home from work.
11.09.2005 |
>> Popjustice knock it out of the park again with their track-by-track review of Girls Aloud's Chemistry
11.06.2005 |
>> OK, Thomas Haden Church looks awesome as Sandman in Spider-Man 3
11.06.2005 |
>> A Doctor for the Future -- incredible NYT Magazine article on a doctor in Amish & Mennonite country in Pennsylvania who's using genetics to diagnose and treat his patients. A question that's not asked by the article, that, while likely extremely painful to ask, I'm genuinely interested to hear about: Does having this knowledge about the origin of their children's diseases (namely, genetic damage caused by breeding within a fairly closed culture) put stress on their commitment to their faith and community?
11.05.2005 | It's The Little Things
>> Two little things that made my day a bit brighter:
- MTV2's mock infomercial for The Beavis & Butthead Mike Judge Collection Vol. 1. Oddly hilarious. Features Billy Dee Williams as a host and a random appearance by a man dressed as Gambit in what was quite possibly the best man-on-the-street segment I've ever seen. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be viewable on the MTV website, but it really was great.
- Last.FM Radio. I think it's a subscriber-only feature now, but it's worth the money -- I'm currently away from my hard drive, and all I have to do is install one tiny app and click "Start Radio" and bam, I get a solid, reliable stream of songs I've listened to in the past through Last.FM. Brilliant. It can even be customized by tags -- my "Best Of 2004" station is especially good. I really need to feed more music through Last.FM; the more it knows about you, the more interesting things get...
11.02.2005 |
>> This Harold Ramis interview includes fabulous tidbits about the sadly never-made Ghostbusters 3, i.e. Ghostbusters Go To Hell (Via)
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