Posts Tagged Under ‘Music’

Quick Hits

Yo.

• Romney winning Michigan is a little surprising, but then I say that as someone who picked him to win the state a few weeks back, only to later doubt my own pick. The reports said a lot of his votes came from the affluent Michigan suburbs, which would make sense because I really don’t see him ever connecting with middle-middle-, lower-middle- and impoverished-class voters. The dude is just way too inauthentic and screams “privileged guy” too loudly. I think the rest of the Michigan GOP must have been split evenly between McCain and Huckabee and allowed Romney to hook it up.
• Opinion: Chuck Brown and Fugazi are the best musical acts to come from D.C. Your thoughts? Not that it matters, being that I’m right. I’ll make a possible exception for Minor Threat, but that was Ian MacKaye too, so in that case you’re just debating MacKaye-led bands.
• The water heater died yesterday in our apartment building, so I had to heat up a pot of water and bathe with that, a washcloth and a bar of soap. I felt and smelled just as clean as I would have been following a regular shower, and the whole thing was strangely invigorating, which is probably because I was freezing my ass off as the water cooled between rinses. Still, if we someday have to go back to nineteenth-century life, I think I could handle it in the bathing department. Although if I did have to go back to the 1800s, I’d miss cryingwhileeating.com.
• Jeremiah pointed to this a while back, but talking about D.C. made me remember that it won for coolest city flag. I happen to think Phoenix and Wichita should be ranked higher and Denver lower, and would like to ask what exactly Provo was thinking.

Out.

Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:37 pm | Link | Tags: 2008 Elections, Music, Washington, D.C. | 2 Comments »

Diamond Dave

If you had to set Pittsburgh to music, I always imagine the soundtrack to be early-era Van Halen. (Think Van Halen and 1984.) Particularly “Cradle Will Rock” and “Runnin’ With the Devil”.

This is almost solely attributable to WDVE.

Wiz Khalifa

This guy came out last year, but I had to give blog props to Pittsburgh’s newest and best rapper:

412!

The Humans Are Dead

I planned to cancel my HBO subscription this summer, but then I caught Flight of the Conchords and now I’m stuck to the show like a junkie with monkey disease. So I’m going with a copout post of three of the best:

Hung, Then Tried, Then Shot?

I agree wholeheartedly with this guy:

Random

• I’ve got a little Short Bus from Filter playing on the iTunes right now. What happened to industrial rock? There was a glory era from about 1992-1999 or so, and then it really faded away. Nine Inch Nails are still around, but they just don’t have the prominence they used to have. I blame Clear Channel Communications, because why not.
• There really aren’t many people who are happy with the direction of the United States at the moment. Whose fault is this? The media? The Republicans? The President? The Democrats? The military?

  I feel like our wise commentators are afraid to call out the common cause behind all of those: the citizens of this currently misguided nation. Because in our society, the people are the ones putting their government in place, consuming the media and shaping the economy, and I just can’t help but think that most peeps have been pretty derelict in their citizenly duties.

• Speaking of that, I gotta read this.
• Luckily though, you readaz are bright people. So I know you’ll go check out Slate’s new video magazine, Slate V, when it launches soon. Help a blogga out: I’ve been working like a mug to get this thing ready to go on a really tight deadline.
• It’s not quite new anymore, but I still think Dirty Jobs is one of the best cable shows in years. Watching a dude get all mudded up and covered in sludge for the sake of good television has a great, dumb appeal, but to roll Gompers-style for a minute, I gotta give it up for the matter-of-fact, highly popular, non-preachy throwback glorification of the American worker in this age of obscene fetishization of the horded wealth of the few. I didn’t like when Mike Rowe shilled for Ford, but otherwise the show is a high-quality effort to remind us bourgeois slobs that societal consumerism doesn’t come easy.

  Also, I like to watch people smash things.

I’m out.

Trent R.

Anybody heard the new NIN album yet? Opinions? I know a lot of it’s available for listening online, but I haven’t made the time yet.

Also, I once saw Trent Reznor at the Pittsburgh airport. He got his own bags after flying up from New Orleans on the same flight as Lil’ Stack. Here’s a quick list of other interesting people I or my bro have seen on planes or in airports:

Your call.

• Joey Porter
• Lil’ Wayne
• Barry Melrose
• LL Cool J
• That guy who thought King Arthur invaded Iraq

Sadly for LL and crew, none of them will ever top the time I made the scene with Heather Graham. In that quarter-second of eye contact at that Guggenheim art-collectors’ ball in 2004 that I wasn’t actually supposed to attend, I’m telling you: connection.

Bar Songs Worthy of Hate

3. “Don’t Stop Believing”, Journey - Yes, I do like this song. You like it too. So do your twelve friends. So does that annoying bar chick and her husband-hunting friends. So does the guy who says “bro” who’s just here to “cut loose with my boys”. These people indicate that the Journey trend has become way too popular to be ironically ahead of the game anymore. Sorry, Kevin.

2. “Living on a Prayer”, Bon Jovi - Again, I like this one. It brings back phat memories of Dance Marathon and Northwestern. Except that all those DJs who feel the need to pause the track during “whoaOOOOH! LIVING ON A PRAYER!” make me relive it a little too often, so hearing it all the time makes me feel like that dude who hangs around the college campus just a little too long after he graduates. And I am not that dude. I follow the “one visit after departure” rule very strictly here, Internet. Respect that.

1. “Sweet Caroline”, Neil Diamond - I don’t like this song. At all. In fact, I’ve hated it since I was a kid and my parents rocked “Oldies - 3WS” back in the car-radio day. Neil Diamond isn’t even a very good singer. Singing onomatopoeia doesn’t hold much of an appeal either: verbalized sounds aren’t lyrics, homes. If I go to a bar and the DJ rocks the track-stop for this one too (he’s probably already done it for Bon Jovi), I’m future-skipping that bar with the quickness. Also, Red Sox fans: baseball is boring. Sorry to tell you.

Tonight I had TV dinner and a beer. I am 1950s mantastic. What.