Recounts of things I have seen, clips and articles that interest me, and music that conducts my day.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
The Perfect Song
The perfect song is powerful. Its sound reaches places in your body that no other song could. It is one that no matter the situation, its simple presence is appropriate. The tune who’s every word resonates inside your mind and heart like a Bible to a priest. It speaks a language only you can understand. Rather, one only you can interpret.
The perfect song is peace. Its harmonies soother your ears, even in the harshest of times. Its subtle nuances ease your mind with every listen. Tacit or expressive. You know why this song provides comfort, but now how. Ostensibly, it is just the chord strokes of the patterned kick of the bass drum. But, of course, that can not be all. For even in your subconscious mind there are verses that personify themselves from abstract composure. It must mean something.
The perfect song is loyal. You know that those riffs, lyrics, falsettos, they will never betray you. The feeling you get when it is being played is just too promising. Too hopeful. Like when you are ready to call it quits and you look at the sky and see the sun grasp the edge of a cloud, pulling itself into view.
The perfect song is patient. Its messages may be foggy, but that is when you turn on your low beams and move slowly. Listen to it on repeat, constantly moving from 0:00 to 2:08 and back to 0:00, anxiously hanging on every note. Just because you don’t hear it initially, you know there is something there that has nested in your heart that you are dying to discover.
Lastly, the perfect song is important. It is the song you need to share. Show everyone. Something others may not appreciate, but as long as they have heard it even once you are content. Like a sixteen year old who just receives their license and they have driven to all ends ot the city just to prove it. And sometimes they, too, will even find that what they have is surreal, even after all the work they put into getting there.
These qualities of a song provide the hook. However, what makes you listen to it is not just the lead guitar solo, or the brilliance of the lyrics, but finding the beauty and purity in the entire piece.
I found my perfect song.
Japandroids at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival. Photo by Charlotte Zoller.
Goat dragging: Like polo, but with dead goats. Known as Kok-boru, it is a competition that is part of Navruz celebrations, an ancient holiday marking the spring equinox, in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.
Considered Kyrgyzstan’s national sport, Kok-boru is a traditional Central Asian game where players grab a goat carcass from the ground while riding their horses and try to score by placing it in their opponent’s goal. REUTERS/Vladimir Pirogov
Neutral Milk Hotel – “The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One”
Today, fourteen years ago, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was released by Merge, and it went on to define a generation of music. Its unique and intricate songwriting, haunting vocal melodies, and incredibly elaborate instrumentation have not lost a bit of their luster. It is inarguably among one of the greatest albums of the late 20th century. Today we felt it’d be appropriate to celebrate it. Join us in revisiting these songs like the old friends that they are.
Happy birthday, Baby Carrot Two-Headed Flower Boy. Have fun playing pianos filled with flames over the sea. You’re fourteen and loved more and more each passing day.
Yum.
Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Back Pack”
I like honesty in songwriting, especially when that honesty is obscene and unpopular. I like to think that I am obscene and unpopular (I’M JUST NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT, NOM SAYIN’? THAT’S NOT HOW I WAS PRO-GRAMMED, NOM SAYIN’? IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT TOUGH LUCK, NOM SAYIN’?), so when songs do it it makes me feel good. I like songs that make me feel good.
I think I forgot how to write the blogs.
When we take our dreams seriously, their images and feelings subtly begin to alter our waking lives.
Marc Ian Barasch - “What Is a Healing Dream?”
SUB POP
Sub Pop is the best fucking label ever.
For instance:
Holy shit. So talented.
npr:
A Lego in space.
Video: Youtube/mathewmho
Lego man in space: one (very) small step
Two teenagers from Toronto sent a Lego man carrying a Canadian flag into the stratosphere. Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, attached four cameras to a balloon carrying the toy astronaut 24km above Earth. A week after launch they recovered their Lego man in a field, and discovered they had captured stunning space footage
Following this wonderful video, Guardian Comment asks its readers what their most memorable childhood video was.
Shit New Yorkers Say
