en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal The Last.fm journal for CortJstr. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2007/08/24/97a_i_miss_their_%22manic_intensity%22 Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:39:34 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2007/08/24/97a_i_miss_their_%22manic_intensity%22 Last Friday Challengers, the newest album from The New Pornographers, arrived in the mail and I’m just now getting around to talking about it. I am nothing if not motivated.

I have to say, on the whole: meh. I’m firmly in the “it’s too slow” camp. What hooked me on the band to begin with were songs like All For Swinging You Around and The Laws Have Changed while Challengers is like taking all of the skippable tracks on their previous albums and condensing them. The biggest disappointment was the title track, because I had such high expectations after previous albums. Mass Romantic is one of my favorite songs, Electric Version is in my regular rotation, and Twin Cinema is fun, even if the SO doesn’t appreciate it as much as I do. I know Challengers is “objectively” a good album but it’s just too slow for me to give all but 2 or 3 tracks any regular play time.

But I, of course, went with the Executive Edition. I mean, who wouldn’t pay an extra $10 for 3 blank discs? I didn’t actually know the 3 bonus discs were blank when I hit the Order button but a quick perusal of the Buy Now Get Early website explained everything. I feel a little cheated on disc 2 (B-sides and demos) because they could have easily had the content for that disc ready, pressed, and complete in the package instead of doing this 1-track-at-a-time download thing. And, being incredibly anal, I probably won’t even listen to any of them until the whole disc is done and I can tag the tracks with MBIDs. Kudos for giving both mp3 and flac versions of the songs though. This way I can load the mp3’s right onto my iPod and use the lossless flac files to burn the actual CD.

Disc 3 (Live from the Future) has a lot of potential. I just hope that it’s not all stuff from this album because I’d much rather have live tracks from the first 2 albums, as I like them best. The fact that their show at the 9:30 Club sold out is also making me a little bitter. Apparently I need to pre-order the album sooner to get into the pre-sale area but I didn’t even hear that they had a new CD coming out at all until fairly recently.

Disc 4 (pictures and videos) I’m not really interested in at all.

I'm probably one of like 4 people who would ever notice this, but the "grooves" design on the CDs is actually the album's barcode, which I think is pretty neat. It even scans.

I know that Architecture in Helsinki released a new CD on Tuesday also, but I’m waiting for emusic to refresh my tracks before I download it. Although based on the 30-second samples I’m a bit worried. I’m hoping for more songs like Wishbone but that’s not at all what the previews sounded like.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/12/30/979_five_lists_of_five_things Sat, 30 Dec 2006 02:19:07 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/12/30/979_five_lists_of_five_things I'm trying to start a meme created by St_Zartan in his most recent journal.

All of these are in no particular order and some may be embarrassing.

Five songs that make me think of water:
Drop
Hag (I have no idea why)
The Legionnaire's Lament
Clear Blue
kaserntorgets charkdisco

Five good songs with parenthetical titles:
Primitive (The Way I Treat You)
Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)
Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)
My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)
Because It's Not Love (But It's Still A Feeling)


Five games with really good music:
The Legend of Zelda (NES) — obvious, but undeniable
Spy Hunter (NES) — Mancini owns you
Uniracers (SNES) — the medal screen especially
Eathbound (SNES) — aka Mother (NES) in Japan
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (PC)


Five great album covers:
London Calling
Last Splash
Tell Your Friends
New English EP
Gimme Fiction

Five songs with underappreciated lyrics:
Tell Your Friends (Part One)
I know exactly what I ain’t
I put it here in this complaint
You think my childhood passion
Just needs a pan to flash in
Cash in, you sinner — I got patience like a saint
It shouldn’t get me but it does
I only bring it up because
I know the way you pander
To any second-hander
Some slander how I’m not the lock you thought I was
Heard what you say about me
You’re better off without me
Heard I was beggin’ you to stay
Don’t have to do this, do we?
Each word gets right back to me
This town’s too small for you to say
(And since you’ll say it anyway)
You can tell your friends that I changed
Heard what you said about me
You’re better off without me
Heard I was beggin’ you to stay
So we’re above this, are we?
Why won’t you say you’re sorry?
I get more sorry every day
You can tell your friends that I changed

So Hard
It's about time
you stood up for yourself
about time
you didn't take it from anyone else
about time you stopped
relying on my advice
is it my imagination
am I talking to myself
despite all the aggrevation
it shouldn't be
it's about faith
in your own decisions
about conviction
in the way that you're living
about time you stopped
blaming it all on me
is it my imagination
am I talking to myself
despite all the aggrevation
it just shouldn't be
it shouldn't be so hard to do
it shouldn't be so hard to get up with you
shouldn't be so hard
whatever just get it together
every seed grows where it's planted
and it's not far from the tree
if you world view weren't so slanted
it just wouldn't be


I Know More
Somebody bring me back to the beginning
A place as nice as any place to start
That's where I must have misplaced my opinion
I wasn't sure where I was headed
I was following my heart
In the beginning I'm recalling
Thinking I thought I knew it all
And I think I thought I knew a lot
Now I know I knew so little

So bring me back to where and when
I was convinced I could go up against whatever came along
Bring me back and I'll bring back what I've learned since
Lately I'm convinced in the beginning I was wrong
In the beginning I'm recalling
Thinking I thought I knew it all
And I think I thought I knew a lot
Now I know I knew so little
As time progressed, I've reassessed
I know that now I know at best It isn't all or nothing
It's somewhere I know in the middle

I know more - I know
Now then I knew then I know I know, now I know I know
Then I knew less
Than I thought so I know more - I know
Now then I knew then I know I know now I know
Then I knew less
Than I thought so
In the beginning I'm recalling
Thinking I thought I knew it all
And I think I thought I knew a lot
Now I know I knew so little
As time progressed, I've reassessed
I know that now
I know at best It isn't all or nothing It's somewhere I know in the middle

Aside
Measure me in metered lines,
in one decisive stare,
the time it takes to get from here to there.
My ribs that show through t-shirts and these shoes I got for free;
I'm unconsoled, I'm lonely. I am so much better than I used to be.
Terrified of telephones and shopping mall, and knives,
and drowning in the pools of over lives.
Rely a bit to heavily on alcohol and irony.
Get clobbered on by courtesy, in love with love, and lousy poetry.
And I'm leaning on a broken fence between Past and Present tense.
And I'm losing all these stupid games that I swore I'd never play.
And it almost feels okay.
Circumnavigate this body of wonder and uncertainty.
Armed with every previous failure, and amateur cartography,
I breathe in deep before I spread these maps out on my bedroom floor.
Leaving. Wave goodbye Losing,
but I'll try, with the last ways left, to remember.
Sing my imperfect offering.

We Dug a Hole
His head is a big black hole full of big black things
And it sucks so hard you could never miss the mark
True to form, no one's ever seen anything come out
What a travesty, what a sad fate
Sigh, someone get a band-aid please
We gotta get this guy a machine for his cranium
I mean I don't think
Maybe I don't hear what i need
This never really goes anywhere

We dug a hole
And put our heads in it
We dug a hole
We dug a hole
And put our heads in

This winter day comes too quick and brought
with it not enough hot spiced cider or cinnamon toast
You'd never think they'd notice but when you got a dead star
sucking up photons in your brain
things start to change
And for the record let me say
It's not his fault that things never change
And summer is always too short
He's doing real good for a guy with a black hole in his head
And you'll never meet him anyway]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/07/17/978_the_weakerthans_july_11,_2006_@_9:30_club,_washington,_dc Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:30:24 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/07/17/978_the_weakerthans_july_11,_2006_@_9:30_club,_washington,_dc Last Tuesday was the first ticked concert I went to in 9 months. That’s a bit sad. I’ve only even been to a couple of unticketed shows in the meantime. Anyway, The Weakerthans. Good stuff.

The SO couldn’t cut out of work early so we missed the first opening act while we were eating.* I don’t even remember their name off the top of my head. We did manage to arrive in time for the last 3 songs from The New Amsterdams. The show surprisingly wasn’t sold out but it still took us a while to get situated so I didn’t really hear enough to make a decision but they were surprisingly rocking for a band featuring an acoustic guitar and a standup bass. I’ll probably snag some of their tracks at the end of the month when I’m trying to use up my stray emusic tracks.

While waiting for the roadies to switching everything out we both made a list of the songs we most wanted to hear. Mainly because we’d taken the Metro and thus figured we’d have to miss most, if not all, of the encore because it closes at midnight during the week. Lame. Right about here two women came up to the spot next to me with one of the club staffers. From what I could overhear they were only at the show because he got them in free. The only thing any of them knew about the band was that he had a friend who likes them.

Exactly right on time** Samson walked out alone and played I Hate Winnipeg. Right about there those two women beside me decided that they weren’t going to enjoy this concert. About 6 songs later they were gone.

After Winnipeg the rest of the band came out and proceeded to play about half of Reconstruction Site. Between that section and Aside we heard every song on our “must hear” list. Which ended up working out great for us because we did end up leaving 2 songs into the encore to make sure we didn’t miss the last train.

The single most entertaining part of the show was watching the bassist and guitar player. Samson is up there singing about his cat telling him to stop being so depressed while the other two guys are busy rocking the fuck out. They were playing with their guitars pointed straight up in the air, spinning around, and in the classic rock post on their knees facing each other. We chose to believe that they were trying to be funny but either way these guys were having some serious fun on stage.


*Despite being in the painfully lame “U Street Corridor” Busboys and Poets has some damned fine pizza. The hummus wasn’t bad either.

**This is quite possibly the first time in concert history that the main act started on time.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/13/977_listen_as_i_describe_the_best_concert_i%E2%80%99ve_ever_been_to Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:34:43 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/13/977_listen_as_i_describe_the_best_concert_i%E2%80%99ve_ever_been_to Sit back now and listen as I describe the best concert I’ve ever been to. It was June 21, 2002 at the Recher Theatre in Towson, MD.* The show was billed as Rock & Wrestle 2002 with Kelly Bell Band and Laughing Colors billed as “co-headliners” and Margret Heater opening. But everybody knew that this night was all about Kelly. I feel the need here to explain that Kelly Bell is a man, KBB is a blues band, LC has almost a classic rock sound, and Margret Heater is an all-male punk band. I have no idea where their name came from as I hadn’t seen them before and haven’t seen them since.

It also needs explaining that Kelly Bell is a pro-wrestler with Maryland Championship Wrestling.

I went with my then-new girlfriend (this was like our 3rd date) with neither of us quite knowing what to expect. I’d at least seen KBB and LC before whereas she’d only heard them on CD. When we walked in the first thing we noticed was a 20’ wrestling ring set up in the back of the room with a couple of TV cameras around it. So the idea was that in between bands instead of the audience just standing around watching the roadies swap out the instruments we’d all turn around and watch matches being filmed for the MCW Rage! TV show. We also each got a free copy of the new MCW Rage CD featuring the 3 bands we were about to see when we walked in.

It was…surreal. We watched Margret Heater who we both agreed wasn’t our kind of band then turned to watch what I believe was a tag match. I remember one team had a religious theme to them. Genesis or something like that. The others were called The Slackers (Chaz and Lunchbox) who I remember because they were obviously supposed to be Jay and Silent Bob knock-offs. I don’t remember what happened during the match but it definitely succeeded in being more distracting that watching the stage crew. Actually now that I think about it there may have been an opening match before the first band. Anyway, not important.

I also remember the Heavyweight Title being easily defended (by The Bruiser?) and the guy who had the TV Title pissing off my SO. According to the MCW website it was Romeo Valentino. Well he came out with a valet (a woman who hangs around with the wrestler looking pretty and helping him cheat) and another woman introduced as “his property” who he’d apparently won from another wrestler beforehand.

Somewhere in between Laughing Colors put on a great show. They played all my favorite songs and towards the end lead singer Dave Tieff lead us all in a sing along from his then-new solo comedy album (Live at the Nut). He did the heartwarming family number My Friend John (Fuck the World) where we all swayed our middle fingers back and forth in the air (as if we cared very little, if at all).

Last up was KBB. When they came on stage Kelly was clearly wearing tights and wrestling shoes under his trademark overalls. The thing is Kelly had been on the shelf from wrestling with a knee injury for about 6 months at this point and we were clearly about to witness his triumphant return. They played a whole set and were closing up with Homegrown (which just happens to be Kelly’s theme song) when Romeo Valentino comes back out into the ring, grabs a mic and starts singing along (really poorly) and claiming that he sounds way better than the crappy KBB.

Well Kelly is having none of this and storms off stage and runs back into the ring in his wrestling gear. A ref follows and we have in impromptu match! The cameras weren’t rolling so this was a “dark match” just for the live audience. Kelly wails on Romeo for a while when the valet gets involved. Then suddenly other woman “the property” jumps into the ring and starts whooping the valet’s ass. The crowd loves it. Even my SO was cheering at this point although when I pointed out to her that she was cheering pro-wrestlers she had this horrified look on her face but she had undeniably been caught up in the crowd energy.

So Kelly does a finishing move at the same time the “property” (sorry I can’t remember their names and I can’t tell who it was from the MCW site) does a finisher on the other woman and Kelly Bell is the NEW MCW TV Champion! Woo! So he celebrates by saying this was his first title and finishing Homegrown. Later it’s announced that the title was stripped from Kelly because it was an “unsanctioned match” so his win didn’t count and doesn’t show up in the title history. Boo to that.

All in all it was utterly surreal to go back and forth between the bands and lackluster wrestling but it was undeniably more fun that just watching 3 guys put together a drum kit and sound check. I’d never seen minor-league wrestling before only the cartoony WWF stuff. I guess the bigger promotions don’t have to do these kinds of stunts to bring in fans but they might want to give it a shot anyway because it was lots of fun.

Now that MCW has reformed after a 3 year absence and Kelly is back wrestling (apparently he’s a heel** now) so maybe they’ll do another one of these.






*What? I keep all my ticket stubs.

**Wrestler-talk for "bad guy"]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/12/976_catbird_records_cbr_003 Wed, 12 Apr 2006 02:08:55 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/12/976_catbird_records_cbr_003 Thanks to a write up in Wired I decided to risk the whole $6 and try out Hemstad. Normally I'm not really into instrumental stuff* but I'm really enjoying their s/t album (which I'd like to but last.fm doesn't hasn't imported it from Musicbrainz yet). The SO had that same reaction. We agree that it's weird and not our normal style at all but undeniably good.

So far I dig on kaserntorgets charkdisco the most. It kind of reminds me of something that would play in the background of the old SNES game Earthbound (originally Mother for the Famicom). It's just this fun happy quirky sound that would completely make sound totally appropriae say after Nes got all the Zombies out of Threed.

Well worth the $6 especially for those who manage to snag the bonus disc as well.


*Well, sometimes they go, like, "ba ba ba" and stuff.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/10/975_i_almost_missed_out_on_ladrytron Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:03:02 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/04/10/975_i_almost_missed_out_on_ladrytron As anybody who has been paying a disturbing amount of attention to my charts can tell, I’ve started listening to Ladytron. I realize I’m kind of behind the curve on this, as Witching Hour shot to the top of the eMusic charts basically immediately upon release. Now on what you can see on my charts you might think that it took me this long to give them a try because I thought they’re too mellow for me. A good guess, but wrong. The true culprit is inappropriate genre-labeling.

See, I’m not one of those “I like all music” or “I like all music except country and Latvian nostril chant” kind of guys. Nope, I hardly like all music and there are several genres that I’m willing to write-off entirely. Country, metal, *core, and whatever the hell My Chemical Romance is spring immediately to mind. Well when I was first looking into Ladytron somebody (I remember it being eMusic but that doesn’t seem right) had them labeled as hip-hop which was enough for me to not even listen to the 30-second samples and just move on. It wasn’t until recently when I saw them showing up in St_Zartan charts that I began to suspect I had received misinformation. Then just a couple of days after that I heard a Ladytron song on WNRN’s stream (also, I heard Metric for the first time that same day, prompting me to acquire Live It Out) which just drove home that I was totally wrong in passing up this artist.

So anyway, Ladrytron, a bit too mellow in places but on the whole, good stuff. At first listen I especially like Destroy Everything You Touch but that could easily change over time. I might even consider DLing their other albums next month when my eMusic account refreshes.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/02/07/974_what_do_you_mean_%22sold_out%22%3F Tue, 7 Feb 2006 21:14:57 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2006/02/07/974_what_do_you_mean_%22sold_out%22%3F Last week it was announced that The Boy Least Likely To was finally touring the US and would even be playing a show at the 9:30 Club. "Awesome" I thought. But then I found out they were only opening for somebody called James Blunt (who?). The SO and I decided if the price was right we'd go anyway because we could always skip out if this Blunt guy sucked.

Yet somehow the show was already sold out. I refuse to believe that this whats-his-name sold out a show in one day (especially when tickets are still available for the Beth Orton and George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars shows). I assume it was one of those lame "pre-sale" deals that started getting popular a few years ago.

So no live goodness for me. I guess I have no choice but to sit here and listen to The Best Party Ever a couple of times and weep like a small child.

(I would also be pissed about The New Pornographers shows both being sold out but they're only opening and I just saw them so that's not so bad).]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/11/04/973_welcome_26_year-olds Fri, 4 Nov 2005 01:11:27 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/11/04/973_welcome_26_year-olds So this group is for anybody born in 1979. I saw there were ones for 1989 and 1978 and thought, "why not me?!"

If anybody's curious the connections are based on people/bands Wikipedia lists as active in 1979. Yes, some of them suck but I was 0 years old and had very little control in the matter.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/10/20/972_the_new_pornographers_oct_15,_05_show_,_washington,_dc Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:53:27 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/10/20/972_the_new_pornographers_oct_15,_05_show_,_washington,_dc On Saturday I got to see The New Pornographers for the first time. They’ve become one of my favorite bands and kind of introduced me to a whole area of music that I never thought I would like. I heard them mentioned quite a few times back when I used to visit the painfully indie message board Dumbrella and one day after seeing a movie with some friends at the Uptown I had some time to kill so I wandered down to Revolution Records and actually listened to them. For anybody in the DC area RR is a great store. You can listen to any CD (for real, none of this 30 second samples of major label crap like at Barnes & Noble) and the listening rooms have the added bonus of being covered in pages of Sesame Street Magazine circa 1983. Also, Lava Lites.

Anyway. They only had Electric Version so I took it back to the listening room and was hooked right away. I went in thinking it would be crappy droning wuss music such as they played at the Lilith Fair but damn if it didn’t make me happy. I defy anybody to not enjoy All For Swinging You Around. It didn’t take long to acquire Mass Romantic after that.

When I heard that Twin Cinema was coming out I pre-ordered it immediately and started checking for tour dates. Because what self-respecting band released a new album and doesn’t tour to support it? Apparently it’s lucky I was so vigilant because the 9:30 Club show sold out in just a few days. Unfortunately the show was the same weekend that the SO’s sister was visiting. But the SO likes them almost as much as I do and wasn’t willing to miss the show just because her sister has poor timing. So we gave her the option of sitting home alone to wait for us or to come along to see a band she’d never heard of. She decided to come.

On the Saturday both of my companions made it clear to me that we would be arriving to the show late. Apparently they have a thing against venues with no chairs and didn’t want to stand through two openers and the main act. My explanation that both openers contained members of the main act did nothing to win them over so a late arrival it was. This made us miss Immaculate Machine but we did make it in time for Destroyer. This actually bugged me because I know nothing about Immaculate Machine but I already own Streethawk: A Seduction (thanks to eMusic) but I’m not really thrilled with it.

The main even started off immediately with Twin Cinema so I knew that we were in for a good show. None of that saving-the-singles-for-the-encore crap that so many bands seem to be into lately. I’m not about to list every track they played but I think all 3 albums were well represented and Neko Case got to sing lead at least twice so I was happy. The only disappointment for me was that From Blown Speakers sounded a bit off. I’d say that it was something about how the sound was mixed but it was just that one song. It was very odd.

Visually it was quite tame. No banners, no crazy lights, and no confetti cannons. They just used the crowd pleasers now and then. Although A.C. Newman (or is he still Carl when he’s with this band?) could not have looked less like we pictured him. Well that’s a lie, but barring him coming out looking like something on Farscape he couldn’t have looked less like we pictured him. But the woman that plays keyboards (and tambourine when Neko’s busy) is pretty cute.

There was a distinct lack of chatter which isn’t something I’m a fan of. Most of the time we’d get a song title at that was it. There was a little anecdote about Carl being pulled over for doing 76 in a 45 on the way to the show and being a little worried by the officers’ reactions when he said that he’s a musician.

I also never noticed before just how much tambourine is in their songs. I thought maybe it was in a song or two but apparently there’s at least one in every song they do. Even more surprising were multiple appearances by those little keyboards that you have to blow into. Wacky.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/09/21/971_the_soviettes%27_newest_album Wed, 21 Sep 2005 17:33:16 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/CortJstr/journal/2005/09/21/971_the_soviettes%27_newest_album I finally got off my butt and bought a copy of LP III. Yes it came out back in June but I was waiting for it to show up on eMusic where I’d found their previous two albums. But I broke down and paid full price. The horror.

I’m glad that I did get it, though. I’ve listened to it probably 4 times now and I think it’s actually stronger than the two previous releases. I didn’t care as much for LP II when I first got that one but it grew on me. Not to say I regretted it, just that it didn't feel the same as LP did. But after a couple of months on the iPod I found that I couldn't differentiate between albums much at all. I anticipated the same growing reaction to LP III but I’m digging it right out of the gate. Well, except for the very quiet announcement before track 1 that keeps fooling me into turning the volume up way too loud. Of course the inclusion of ¡Paranoia! Cha-Cha-Cha certainly helped.

The problem is that I’m really anal about some stuff (spelling and grammar obviously excepted) so that song gets under my skin a bit. See, on Rock Against Bush, Volume 1 (which is where I first heard of The Soviettes to begin with) they have it listed as ¡Paranoia! Cha-Cha-Cha but on LP III it’s ¡Paranoia Cha Cha Cha! and on thesoviettes.net they leave off the ¡ and the hyphens. Whatever am I to do? Although while poking their site looking for an answer I did find out about Go Betty Go who I plan on downloading as soon as my eMusic tracks refresh.]]>