This Music Moment- Belle and Sebastian (2007)

When I mentioned Belle and Sebastian in my post on Two Door Cinema Club, I recalled this particular Music Moment very vividly and instantaneously; I believe I compared Two Door to them because of the instant perking of ears that occurred in both cases when I heard a particular song of theirs.

Belle and Sebastian was a band name I was familiar with, but at the time I could not honestly put a sound to the impression I had of then from their name. Naturally, I thought they were a duo, playing who knows what kind of music. But in summer 2007, I was living in New Hampshire and commuting 70 minutes to Boston to paint the interiors of vacant apartments with my two roommates, Jacob and Claytor. It was a grueling, tough day for us, and I was exhausted for our long drive home. I put on some college radio station to add a little variation to the usual sounds of NPR we listened to most of the time, both driving or working; I just wanted to hear some tunes. After a few songs went by, this one track popped on and I instantly woke up, befuddled and excited, wondering who the hell was making this great, harmonic, classic sounding pop music. The broadcaster didn't mention the band after the song ended, so I had to go home, check the radio stations website and their playlist timeline, and after a long while I finally found what I was looking for. Wrapped Up In Books, track 8 off their 2003 release, Dear Catastrope Waitress:



Naturally, I picked up Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and I was not disappointed. Linkage: It starts off hilariously with a Zombies-style ode to sex with Step Into My Office; they follow that up with the superbly produced title track, a love song to people working dead end jobs with high hopes; their first single from the album, I'm A Cuckoo, is neat but, to me, Wrapped Up In Books is the lynch pin of the album. Further listening comes from their follow up studio album (after a singles and eps collection and a live album), 2006's The Life Pursuit: Act of the Apostle starts it off great; Funny Little Frog is just classic, wonderful, happy go lucky pop song about the idolization of romance. Enjoy, Slingers.



dear catastrophe waitress

the life pursuit

This Music Moment- Flaming Lips (2002)

Recently, I was looking through a huge book of CDs that I bought when I had just begun listening to my own music in middle school, through high school and into my early 20s. It was full of random crap with a bunch of gems and all the while completely nostalgic. While I was flipping through it, random memories would pop up about these albums I was spending time to investigate deeply, and I spent a few hours trying to remember why the hell I had bought one album, or how much I missed and had forgotten about another. Very soon, I flipped to a page that had two Flaming Lips albums: 1999s The Soft Bulletin, and its follow-up, their 10th album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and I immediately remembered my first exposure to their contents.

My girlfriend, circa 2002, had bought me some concert tickets as a birthday present that summer of my senior year in high school. It sounded like a good show, though I was only somewhat familiar with the bands on the bill. There was some forgotten, neat opening band, The Flaming Lips, and Cake as the headliner. Sweet, I knew a couple of songs by Cake, but I was pretty apathetic about The Flaming Lips. I remembered that a friend in middle school had given me whatever album of theirs it was he was listening to, and it had their single at the time, She Don't Use Jelly. That track is just some silly pop in the style of grungy rock, and it was the only reference I could use to put a sound to the name. Basically, I was unprepared for the show that followed.

There was one thing in particular that blew me away about this show. I had recently seen Battle Royale with metaghost, and during the concert, the Lips had a huge movie screen behind them playing random video clips to go along with every song, and for a decent few they were playing scenes from Battle Royale to accompany their music. It was dark, violent film to go along with the mostly psychedelic electro pop music they were playing, but somehow it totally worked; the show was a complete visual and audio spectacle, with dudes in woodland creature costumes at the sides of the stage blowing up giant glitter filled balloons to pass into the audience, awesome crowd participation, and other high-profile hijinks. It was a seriously well done show, and it completely sold me on what these guys were doing.

Yoshimi and Soft Bulletin are pretty darned nice; they seemed to only play hits from both albums at the show, and it made for a wonderful concert. Link time: Race to the Prize is an awesome way to kick off Soft Bulletin; The Spark That Bled is a bit more moody and varied as the albums third track. Yoshimi is full of hits; Fight Test kicks things off proper; the title track rocks electro pop socks off, and its basically moot to mention that it also features the culturally-absorbed and now discarded Do You Realize, though it sure holds up well.

Track 2 is what I want to share though. I forgot just how awesome this song is (especially its bassline- yeah buddy) until I uploaded the albums to my computer and revisited it. It has a great blend of electronica, spaced out vocals and tight production. Not to mention that bass, again:



Awesome show; a big time Music Moment. One of those great carefree summertime memories brought back from revisiting old tunes.

yoshimi battles the pink robots

the soft bulletin

This Music Moment-"Rock With You'", 2011

So this is a two, possibly three-part relevant blog post, concerning one particular night at Owen O'Learys (for you boston folk), and a night coming up this wednesday, 4/27. A little while ago i posted about how I had never heard Billie Jean, or much other Michael Jackson for that matter, until one fateful night a few months ago. I got my ass chewed out by many folks; i know. It is a crazy thing. Ive heard it a lot.

But soon after i bought thriller and absorbed the glory of Billie Jean etc., i went to owen olearys to see my friends vince and keith do their acoustic show of awesomeness. I didnt know that Ananda, a singer who sometimes contributes to their show, would be playing with them the night i arrived, fresh into Michael. I sat down at a table with ananda and the crew between their sets, and told her about my Michael neglect through my life. She reamed me out propper; said "i grew up in Trinidad, and when i was 8 years old i got a bus full of fellow Trinidad citizens to sing along with my rendition of Billie Jean. And they all knew all the words. Do you know how small Trinidad is on the map?! And you were in AMERICA?!". She really drove the point home; how the fuck did that happen?

So she tells me about how great Off the Wall and Bad are, and im like "well shit im on it. tomorrow ill be picking them up." She goes cool, but check this out. She goes up on stage with vince and keith and they kick out the sickest acoustic version of Rock With You, from his debut Off the Wall, in perfect form; the album is probably the strongest, most hit-packed premier since the beatles or elvis, and right before madonna and then the unstoppable force that is Lady Gaga. Serious Shit. Heres his video for Rock With You, 1980.



These guys, vince keith and ananda, are all professionals; shit was tight as fuck. Keith had some loops built so's he could solo over the verses; ananda has one killer fucking voice, and vince has the drums locked down. I rocked out to it, and when they were done ananda was like "you know that one?" and i said "no, but fuck yes!"

off the wall