Imagine Mazzy Star on Quaaludes, but not as good. That’s Trespassers Wiilliams, a sort of twangy Shoegaze-meets-Slowcore outfit. Here’s “Lie in the Sound,” which strikes (as much of their work does) as slight, pleasant chill-out music.
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Shogazer Sunday: Trespassers William’s “Lie in the Sound”
Sunday, June 1st, 2014Road to Nowhere: Attack of the Clones Division
Thursday, April 24th, 2014Sometimes I’ll cruise iTunes looking for covers of songs I like. While doing so for Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere,” I discovered that one ensemble had released the same cover of “Road to Nowhere” under multiple band names.
Eleven times.
Indeed, the versions of “Road to Nowhere” on iTunes by the following bands (all of which clock in between 3:49 and 3:53) are all exactly the same:
Moreover, several of those incarnations of the same band (Studio Sunset, Burning Down the House, Psycho Killers, Wildlife, Klone Orchestra) appear to have issued the same entire album of Talking Heads covers (with the same tracks) multiple times. Indeed, they appear to have done it three times under just their Studio Sunset name!
(BTW, if you really want that album, the cheapest version is Burning Down the House’s A Salute to Talking Heads, which is a mere $5.99, compared to $7.99 or $9.99 for some of the others.)
But wait! There’s a completely different group that did the exact same thing with the same song.
Eleven times.
All these covers of “Road to Nowhere” under these band names (all of which clock in around 4:01) are the same:
Finally, here eight cover versions that are not only exactly the same, but the underlying track is so close to the ones above they might be the exact same version with a different vocal mix:
Mike Judge Has A New TV Show: Silicon Valley
Wednesday, April 9th, 2014The creator of Office Space, Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill has a new (live action) TV show on HBO called Silicon Valley.
The first episode is up free:
I’ve seen about half of it. It’s reasonably funny, but some of the geek characters are a bit too cliched…
Swell Documentary on the Making of Paul Simon’s Graceland
Thursday, April 3rd, 2014Dwight’s linking of this piece on accordions got me listening to my favorite album featuring accordions, Paul Simon’s Graceland, one of the all time great albums. I was vaguely aware that a 25th Anniversary edition had come out, and poking around online I find that a documentary on the album had come out last year, all of which is available online.
If you like the album, ths documentary is well worth your time.
Aaron Allston, RIP
Friday, February 28th, 2014I’m floored by the news that Aaron Allston just died from a heart attack at age 53. I knew he had health issues, but had no idea any were that serious. I used to run into him fairly regularly at Indian restaurants in north Austin, as well as at cons and parties. Aaron wrote mostly media tie-in work, but I enjoyed the stories of his I read.
I should probably finally get around to reading Doc Sidhe, his Doc Savage pastiche…
Dream Diary: My Non-Shootout With Michael Jackson
Tuesday, February 18th, 2014I dreamed I was in the process of buying a bank. One customer I knew was telling me she was going to sue me, even though I didn’t even own the bank yet. I think she was doing it out of spite.
Then I was riding in a car with someone I think wanted to sell some sort of service to my bank. While we drove I was worried about what level of fractional reserve the bank should have in these tough economic times. (Yes, I dreamt about fractional reserve banking; I’m just a wild and crazy guy). But then the guy driving drove up and over an unfinished overpass, despite my warning, and we landed with a crash in a closed Target parking lot at night.
I was walking along after that, and I had to go into a convenience store to use the bathroom (yes, one of those dreams), but I was worried my dog would run off while I was inside.
Inside it was more like a hotel or bank lobby, and when I went into the restroom, it was some sort of cave (more like a video game cave than a real one).
For some reason, Michael Jackson was holding a ridiculously long antique wooden rifle on me, something like 15-20 feet long, saying he wanted to die as a woman and as a defender of the Alamo. (I guess he was channeling Phil Collins here.)
The gun was so close to my face that I swept the barrel aside with my left hand while I pulled my own gun out of my pocket with my right. But I couldn’t fire it because there was a beef jerky packet stuck to it that prevented operating the trigger.
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson had turned into a friend of mine, and not only was the rifle he holding normal sized, but it turned out to be made of beef jerky packets connected together in the shape of a gun as well.
Then I woke up.
Shoegazer Sunday: Silvania’s “Trilce”
Sunday, February 9th, 2014Silvania is Peruvian duo currently resident in Spain (and not a manufacturer of inferior lightbulbs). “Trilce” is from the “floaty, spacy” branch of Shoegaze.
I hope you like religious statuary…
Why Sports Parody Is Impossible These Days
Friday, February 7th, 2014Though this happened last year, with the Olympics starting it’s newly relevant again: Canadian curler gets two year ban for steroids.
Still waiting for that chess steroid scandal…
Dream Diary: Intimations of Doom
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014Not a lot of news on the personal blogging front, so I’ll put down last night’s dream. which was interesting not only for multiple dreamed disasters, but also because I remembered long stretches and multiple scenes of it.
First I dreamed my family and I were all living in a spacious glass-walled condo (we never lived in any type of condo), when three assault helicopters surrounded the building. Since they were flying at exactly our level, we came to the conclusion they were spying on us and closed all the drapes/blinds. We also worried they were eavesdropping on us, or had tapped our (landline) phones, so we went out for Chinese food.
At the Chinese restaurant, we hadn’t even been seated when I noticed a tornado off in the distance, shouted to alert the restaurant of this fact, then made my way to an inner corner to duck and cover. I remember that corner seemed unused and trash-strewn. (I dream semi-regularly about tornadoes, though thankfully I’ve never seen one in person.)
Later I was walking toward downtown Austin, when I looked up and saw debris floating in the air, and realized a large bomb had gone off. Troops were coming in on one of those large street overpasses Austin doesn’t have, and I quickly turned and walked the other direction for fear of being blamed for the bomb. (I put this down to watching videos of the situation in Ukraine.)
Next I was in a building and realized that the political elites had all left earth for another planet, that the infrastructure on this one was starting to fail, and two women were there for vaguely menacing reasons, trying to get me to go somewhere. I tried to convince them that the situation was a great reason to have sex, but they weren’t buying it. I also remember speaking at a meeting/rally on the problem, where I was trying to work the word “sabotage” into the description of the problem, so I could then introduce the Beastie Boys and get them to play that.
Finally, I remember driving up to a beach house in my uncle’s car, driving into the garage, then through a second space, an finally into a third space that opened out into three separate parking spaces lobes, each on a sort of upward slope. I remember thinking it was a lot of space for a garage, and worrying since his car had no reverse. But once inside it was some sort of townhouse and wasn’t on the beach, where I was waiting with other people for friends to show up. Then I had the usual “I’m naked” moment, but I wasn’t sure whether it was time yet to go out to my car and get my clothes.
Then I woke up
The Longest Version of U2’s “Bad” Ever
Friday, January 10th, 2014“Bad” is my favorite U2 song. This version, recorded in East Rutherford, NJ, on April 15th, 1985, is far from my favorite, but at 18 minutes and 17 seconds its certainly the longest. It has a winning batshit crazy intensity, with Bono throwing in riffs to “Waiting For My Man,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Hide Your Love Away” and “Sympathy for the Devil,” plus freeform lyrics that seem to have improvised on the spot, since they show up nowhere before or after.
And it all pretty much works against the base “Bad” riff.
Come on down…