Double album buy!

The Roots - Rising Down

Joy Division - Closer

Both of these stem from the arty side of rap and punk rock no doubt. First impressions will have to wait until I've had some alone time, but I do want to take this opportunity to officially forgive Fallout Boy for all their musical mistakes now that Patrick Stump has lent his dubiously necessary voice to that brilliant Roots track, 'Birthday Girl'. The reviews were right about it not fitting in with the album, but it is clever, catchy, clever, and you know what? Who gives a fuck about the world, if we had more songs like this we'd be alright.

adam

16 reasons why God would never get tenure

1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no references.
4. And it was not published in a refereed journal.
5. And some even doubted that He wrote it Himself.
6. It may be true that He created the world, but what has He done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate His results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects did not behave as predicted, He often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class: He just told students to read the book.
13. He has his son teach the class.
14. He expelled His first two students for learning too much.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed His tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent, and usually held on a mountain top.

-taken from http://komplexify.com/epsilon/

I think selfhood is overrated. When all's said and done we are victims, not champions, of who we are.

I want to be upbeat and aloof and above all the petty little troubles. But I keep feeling this miry misery bringing me down - it is a low, pathetic, animal emotion. There are 3 emotions that are worthy of homo superior - joy, wonder and anger.

adam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9RAbi2xEvo&feature=related

The thing that separates these girls from Simple Plan (cutesy hairstyle and drug-induced kitsch MVs notwithstanding) is nothing more profound than the musical tact to put their accents in the right places. The simple mastery of rhythm turns what would otherwise be a humdrum cover with nothing but four-on-the-floor and ye olde basicke punke beate into a sincere, intelligent and energetic tribute. 

adam

The power of Led Zeppelin IV to cause me to curl up in a foetal ball and whimper still astounds. A fairly powerful speaker system helps. 

The new anti-smoking campaign announces a 'Rockin' without Smokin' concert - and suddenly I am overcome by the threat of a congregation of terrible Straight Edge bands making music awful enough to wake the dead who sleep beneath the foundations of the Esplanade. 

Actually, no - there aren't actually any good bands in Singapore, although the Observatory comes close at times, as does ublues - but my real grief with this ridiculous business is that making rock squeaky clean is necessarily disingenuous, if you actually give a shit about the music. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't in any way promote smoking, although I have done my fair share of it. But to use rock (or the idea of rock, in this case - asking for actual rock in this country is asking for far too much) to push your own squeaky clean agenda is to disassociate it with everything that rock stands for - the great sacred chaos at the heart of human interactions. 

I'm not outraged at this point. The concert is well meaning, and given the quality of past such productions I'm not (and doubt if anyone is) shocked. But I'd like to add my voice to a debate that maybe will help this sodden little country grow up a bit.

adam

Last night was quite the disaster. Still making sense of what happened - but hey, I guess you don't get awesome unless you're prepared to accept epic failure. 

Sigh.

adam

Science: the God of Small Things (with apologies to Arundhati Roy)

From this moment on, I will be featuring a new sort of blog entry, one that celebrates the little observations that keep you on the thin and narrow ridge line of Sanity, the joyful little discoveries that make you sit up for a moment and go 'wow,' and thank your preferred deity that but for the whim of Science, we might all still be sitting in caves and scratching our armpits and watching the Simpsons.

1. 

Put a watermelon in the refrigerator for a few hours. Take it out, cut it into small chunks and eat it. 90%  of the pieces will be colder on one side. This happens because the outside of the watermelon is the first to lose heat to the cooling effect of the refrigerator - common sense really, but in the days of Phlogiston and liquid heat (scientists actually believed heat was a liquid until alarmingly recently) there would have been a considerable lot more confusion. I think it is actually beautiful that the same laws that govern the motion of the heavenly bodies and the rise and fall of the tides could actually make chilled watermelon pieces cold only on one side. If there is a God, he truly is a joker.

" And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. "

- Kurt Vonnegut

I am happy, for I have found my Kind of Blue. 

When I opened the Head Hunters cd to rip to to FLAC, imagine my surprise when two cds fell out - one of which was the Kind of Blue that I'd been mourning the loss of for months. 

Rejoice, for my brother was dead and now is alive!

adam

Back from Taiwan

Not something I really want to talk about. 

Did get the opportunity to shop for some clothes, though. 

I've got about a week off, sans wednesday, so I guess i'll try and get back to my old life for a quick while before it's torn away from me again. I will not succumb to army! 

In keeping with the general atmosphere of hope and all that, here's some Shonen Knife:

IT'S A NEW FIND

Feel in your pockets for something fun
Wash your socks and turn them inside out
Try to look hip in old ugly clothes
There'll be something different in your life

*It's a new find, It's a new find,
It's a new find, It's a new
It's a new find, It's a new find,
It's a new find, It's a new

Let's all get up and dance to a song
It gets you feelin' very nice
You can have a strange hair cut
There'll be something different in your life

*repeat x2

I can't find any more but you can find a new way

Sache down the street in platform shoes
You can find some new scenery
Make up with your friend and try again
There'll be something different in your life

Just a perfect day
Drink sangria in the park
And then later, when it gets dark, we'll go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too, and then home

[Chorus:]
Oh it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on

You just keep me hanging on

Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun

Just a perfect day
You make me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good

[Chorus]

You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow

Went clubbing. It is aggressively pointless, but I guess that could be the idea. In our world, where everything is manufactured for fast, effective results; where we get straight to the point and discard the packaging; where we make pacts with the demons of efficiency to trade our souls for Extra Credit - it may be that pointlessness is the rallying cry of my generation.

adam

Kari Carpenter

is, I suspect, one of those people whose accent gets more Southern the more drunk she gets. Listen to the studio version of 'Top of the world' (sober) and the live version (considerably more Texan)

adam

Shonen Knife - Or, Music for Strangely Disillusioned 9-Year Olds - Or, Everything You Thought You Knew About Music is Wrong.

This is going to be difficult to put into words - because the primary effect of the music of Shonen Knife is to shamanistically invoke the hyperactive nine-year old that secretly resides deep in our hearts. And nine-year olds are not historically very good at english. Nevertheless - I shall try - for the sake of science. 

Immediately I felt a huge discord within myself as if I had invoked some kind of jungian doppelganger. The grown up in me wanted to goggle in austere horror at the sheer travesty of it all. Shonen Knife does not sound well on cultured ears. The nine year old that I talked about earlier was, on the other hand, ecstatic like he'd been given a bag of lollipops - I can only attribute this mysterious reaction to the presence of some kind of mystical force. 

After awhile the initial shock was replaced with a grating feeling that I've done my growing up too fast. 

adam

life changing redux

Better put up a few more in case you got the idea that I was a music lover.

6. h2g2

7. the great gatsby

8. prufrock

9. eats, shoots & leaves

10. anarchy in the u.k.

11. Little Wing

life-changing

Name 5 events that have shaped who you are as a person.

1. A Love Supreme

2. E.S.P.

3. The Velvet Underground

4. Led Zeppelin IV

5. Preludes

adam

Ever proof that my poor damaged brain is slowly receding into childhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epRWUbgw9V4

I can't get this song out of my head.

adam

I'm on the highway to burnout city, with an open mind and a song in my heart.

In other news, there is true joy in Wynton Marsalis and the Modern Jazz Quartet's rendition of 'Cherokee'. 

adam