Hey Stagger! I’m gonna make my big attack!
Just another WordPress.com weblogTrades Abound
I was going to edit this into the end of the last entry but I think it was long enough as is.
The trade deadline for the NBA just passed, and it saw a lot of movement. Pau Gasol to the Lakers, Shaq to the Suns, all of the big trades have been discussed to no end for the last few weeks. The trade that interests me, however, is the big 3-way trade between the Cavs, the Bulls and the Sonics. More specifically, I’m interested in what happens to the Cavs. It’s been obvious for a long time now that Cleveland needed another big player. They already have possibly the best, and if not soon to be the best, player in the league in Lebron James. However, half the time no one else on the team seems to be able to make a basket, he may be The King, but carrying a troupe of giants on your back must eventually wear on your body and your nerves.
When I saw that the Cavs made a “bold” trade, I was initially ecstatic. I knew this had to happen, it was time to drop some of that dead weight and make a change. When I saw that in this “bold” trade they dropped Larry Hughes off to the Bulls, my ecstasy approached levels I’m afraid it maybe never reach again as long as I live. The only news that could have surpassed this in gaiety would have been if the Knicks dropped that fat bastard Eddy Curry. But anyway, I digress. Examining this trade further I found that the Cavs hadn’t simply traded for another star, someone to supplement Lebron’s game, but they had picked up 4 new players. Initially I thought to myself “well, did they really need 4 more role players?” Even with the 4 new guys, they still lack a true point guard, and how much of the weight these new players will take off of Lebron is still to be seen. That being said, I am definitely a fan of having Ben Wallace on the team. If he can manage to pick up his game to the level we know he can achieve he could be quintessential to the Cavs defense. I don’t know much about the other 3 players, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in on the issue. I think it’s strange that they didn’t go for a point guard, especially with big names like Jason Kidd and Mike Bibby moving around. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how this all works out. For now let’s just all rejoice the departure of Larry Hughes, mourn the loss of Drew Gooden and his funny hair/beard, and hope that soon enough Ben Wallace will bring the afro to Cleveland.
Post #23?
So I’ve been way too busy to update this as often as I’d like, especially since I like to at least make an attempt to make it sound like I understand how the English language works when I write here. Well anyway, here’s a few things that make life worth living.
The new album by The Copyrights, “Learn The Hard Way,” has been burrowing it’s way into my head for the last week or so. It has an important mark of a great album in that as soon as it ends I immediately want to start it at the beginning and listen to it again. Whenever I aim to listen to one track I always end up listening to the rest of the album because I can’t bring myself to turn it off. To the untrained ear it sounds like more of the same from our favorite pop punk gang members, but some part of me wants to convince those ears that it has a different feel to it than “Make Sound” I think it feels more like “Mutiny Pop” except with better songs. Every song, from start to finish, brings it and reminds you that pop punk doesn’t have to sound tired, it can be fresh and fun, loud and in your face. The release of this album has pretty much consolidated that I’m going to drive home in April to see them, Teenage Bottlerocket and The Unlovables at the Cake Shop. Now that The Copyrights have a whole new batch of songs I absolutely need to see live I can’t wait until the next time they come around.
Top Tracks: Second Hearse Same as the First, She Turns It Up, Out of Ideas, Charlie Birger Time
This past Friday I went to go see “Be Kind Rewind” which was totally good. It was weird. Not just the kind of weird I was expecting walking into the theatre to see a Michel Gondry movie, a totally new kind of weird. It had the crazy visuals that make you think about the way you look at things and it had the things that aren’t quite real enough to make sense, but Michel Gondry’s crazy French brain apparently thinks everyone in Passaic, New Jersey is slightly retarded. I’m used to Jack Black acting like an idiot, which is at least a constant I know I can depend on, but Mos Def thought he was a slow child of 11 years, and all of these townsfolk a) were for some reasons renting VHS tapes of Rush Hour 2 in 2008 and b) didn’t possess any kind of logic. No one in the movie acted like a real person, and it took a minute to get used to, but it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the movie. Such a ridiculous plot wouldn’t hold with normal people, so I guess you could call it a brilliant directing decision. The movie was worth watching just for all of the Sweded movies, and on top of that it was a pretty great, heart-warming movie about how great movies are.
This week I received my Steinway’s Pizza Pack, which I think I wrote about a while back when I ordered it. It’s Alive! Records is the best. Putting aside the fact that they sent me 6 great pop songs on weird brown swirly vinyl, I got a t-shit, a magnet, a poster and a CD-R with the songs on it all packed into a tiny Steinways pizza box, for 10 fucking dollars. As for the record itself, it’s what you expect from The Steinways, awesome, fun short pop punk songs about girls (in some cases in Portuguese) and they’re all awesome, my favorite is probably Twenty Year Old Virgin (even though I really hate that title) which might be one of my favorite Steinways songs ever. It’s Alive! will be stealing some more of my money in the coming weeks when they put out the last Copyrights album “Make Sound” on green vinyl. I’m going to need to pick one of those up.
School work has been absolutely destroying me for the last 3 weeks or so. I’ve never done so much work in my life, I just hope it’s enough to make it worth it. This week should be a break of sorts, I have no tests and only 1 or 2 homework assignments that I know of thus far. Maybe I can finally get around to finishing Bioshock, Mass Effect or Phantom Hourglass. Or I could start getting into Assassin’s Creed, or I could finish reading the Poincaré Conjecture or The Luck of the Bodkins. Basically the options are endless. My life could be a bottomless pit of solitary enjoyment if I dropped out of college.
Right Quick
Update: The new Copyrights album kicks ass. Audiosurf is awesome. I’m busy. More coming later.
Unconditional Love, Grievances and Pizza
It makes me upset that there is minimal chance that any of these songs will end up in Rock Band, but here are some songs that really should be in that game. I’ve been meaning to make this list for forever now (and it came out way longer than I expected):
- Crazy = Cute by Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer
- Mary Without Sound, Better Open the Door or pretty much any other song by Motion City Soundtrack
- The Loved Ones, Love for Tender or No Action by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
- Romeo A Go-Go by Every Time I Die
- A to B or First Day by The Futureheads
- Wouldn’t Believe It or 10 Minutes by The Get Up Kids
- Stuck Pig by Glassjaw
- Lying Through Your Teeth or Scandalous by Head Automatica
- Hold Up by The Living End
- Second to Last by New Found Glory
- Your Love by The Outfield
- Halleluajh by Paramore
- Fucking anything by Queen, especially Somebody to Love or Don’t Stop Me Now
Don’t get me wrong, I love Rock Band, but the song list does leave something to be desired. I think a big part of the reason why is that they had to go up against their own monster. Guitar Hero was already on its third installment under a now near household name and Harmonix is trying to sell this ambitious $170 box of rock. To help move units they had to make sure they had songs that people would recognize, leaving us with songs that perhaps aren’t the most fun musically, but that appeal to a wide audience. With their plan to constantly add new songs there is still a chance that some more obscure, fun songs could end up in the game, I just wish they would ask me what to put in it. I’m really looking forward to when they start putting full albums up for download; I would love to be able to play all the way through an album I love with some friends. I think that’s the best way they could get across what they were trying to do with this game in the first place.
In other news, earlier today I acquired one of the (apparently much sought after) Steinways Pizza Packs. If you aren’t in direct contact with me and haven’t heard about this yet, It’s Alive! Records (the very same people that brought us the Chinese Telephones Super Pack) are releasing the new Steinways 7″ “Unoriginal Recipe” and sold 100 Pizza Packs – which include a “pizza crust” colored 7″, a t-shirt, a magnet and some other stuff all packaged in a pizza box. Point is, I should be getting one in the mail in the next few weeks and a bunch of people are already freaking out that they didn’t get one, so yeah, I’m awesome.
And lastly (although it appeared first in the title because it is the most important) this weekend Mal and I saw 27 Dresses and I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about Katherine Heigl since. Kat, when you see this – and I know you will – call me, I think we’d work well together. Also you’re movie was immensely entertaining even though it was completely predictable and riddled with cheesy dialog and a truly terrible sidekick. None of the said dialog was from you of course, you were brilliant, the sun shining through in a partly cloudy sky. I love you and goodnight.
Chinese Telephones: a love story
With each listen I become slightly more enamored with this album. I can’t think of anything more positive that I could say about music; an album that gets better with age? You sir are a liar!
The first thing that struck me about the Chinese Telephone’s first full length is how well it works as an album. By themselves, most of these songs are great, but the way they are put together on this album gives them something extra, what I’ve heard you might call “je ne sais quoi” (thanks Dr. Frank!) It almost feels as if you’re listening to a live set from a band who perhaps puts a little too much thought into what songs would sound best next to eachother, what song would best open the set, and what would be a great closing song to leave the people wanting more.
The song writing on this album is exactly how I like it. They manage to do a lot with a little, using basic pop punk song writing to make something original. Even if I can only make out a line or two in each song, I enjoy the mix of frantic vocals with the more melodic, singalong parts. Songs like “Stay Around” have a more straight pop-punk feel to them, while songs like “Tell Me Tell Me” feel a little dirtier, which is assisted by the overall sound of the album.
Aside from great songs the overall feel of the album is what propells it from good pop-punk, to a great album. I recomend getting your hands on this as soon as you can so you can really start to love it in a couple of weeks.
Top Tracks: Tell Me Tell Me; Back to you Again; Keep Smiling
What my life is missing
I just read the first chapters of “Wake Up, Sir!” by Jonathan Ames. After 13 pages it appears that this book is ready to do some serious ass kicking. I’m assuming that the narrator is getting ready to get into some serious trouble, only to be bailed out by his trusty valet Jeeves. If anyone wants to write a good book, it’s a pretty safe bet to start with an extremely sarcastic and/or witty narrator and then throw in a thoroughly straight-laced butler/valet/general-keeper-of-well-being. Hugh Laurie’s “The Gun Seller” took this formula, through in some explosions and espionage, and the end product was nothing short of fantastic. I’ll probably write something about how great this book was when I finish it, seeing as the main thing I wanted to do with this blog is talk about the books/movies/albums/video games I read/watch/listen to/play, so that perhaps I could spread a little of the joy in my life to others through good taste.
Top 5′s
Now that the twenty-aught-savage has come to an end, these can be made official.
Top 5 Albums of 2007*:
5) Common – Finding Forever
Top Tracks: So Far to Go; Driving Me Wild; The Game
4) The Ergs! – Upstairs/Downstairs
Top Tracks: Boston, Mass; See Him Again; 2nd Foundation
3) The Copyrights – Make Sound
Top Tracks: Stand Up/Stand Down; Knee Deep; Caveat Emptor
2) Motion City Soundtrack – Even if it Kills Me
Top Tracks: Antonia; Last Night; Fell In Love Without You
1) The Unlovables – Heartsickle
Top Tracks: Let You Go; Have You Ever?; What You Want/What You Got
Honorable Mentions: Jimmy Eat World – Chase This Light, The Methadones – This Won’t Hurt and Chinese Telephones – s/t
Top 5 Movies of 2007*:
5) You Kill Me
4) Juno
3) Eastern Promises
2) Superbad
1) Knocked Up
Movies that kick too much ass to be on this list: National Treasure 2, Live Free or Die Hard and The Game Plan (I’m really only assuming on that one.)
*I have not even heard/seen a vast majority of the albums/movies released this year so this list is fairly limited and should not be taken to heart.
EDIT: I decided to add my favorite three tracks from each of my top 5 albums.
Warning Device
So I guess Red Scare is showing the true extent of their punk rock-ness, and putting the new Teenage Bottlerocket album – Warning Device – out now, even though the official release date is January 8th. Geez, they really don’t give a fuck, do they? It’s already up on iTunes and on the TBR site it says they’re shipping them out today.
I was going to buy it on iTunes, because I got some gift cards for Christmas, but then I found a means of acquiring it without paying for it, so I opted with that. I might be getting a record player soon anyway, so maybe I’ll buy the vinyl to sooth my conscious when the it comes out.
I’m currently listening to it for the 3rd time, and I definitely like it. Their last album – Total – was the album that pretty much got me into the whole pop-punk scene (or whatever), and therefore is responsible for like 80% of the music I listen to now. So while I’m listening to this the whole time I can’t help but think, “Well yeah it’s good, but it is Total good?”
Total has two songs that I don’t totally love on it, “Crashing” and “A-Bomb” this album only has one song that sounds like either of those, and it’s the first song, and it’s like 51 seconds long, and I actually like it, so plus one for Warning Device. However, while Ray sings both of the aforementioned songs on Total, all of the Kody tracks on that album I love. On Warning Device, this seems to have switched, I think all of the Ray songs are great, and while Kody has a few definite gems, some of the others fall a little flat. Maybe they’ll grow on me. No one gets any points there. Through some kind of crazy Wyoming magic, they managed to make some of the songs on this album sound like they couldn’t have just been pulled from Total. I can’t put my finger one what is different, but I’m convinced it’s there. Also, the album gets stronger as it goes on, which is always a plus.
I guess I’ll have to let this one sink in a bit more before I give it the definitive better/worse than Total stamp, which I should probably aquire and use as the standard for rating albums from now on. Either way it’s a great record totally worth listening to, and definitely the best record of 2008 to come out in 2007.
Favorite Tracks after 3 listens: “Gave You My Heart”, “Anna’s Song”, and “Crawling Back to You”
BOTTLEROCKET!
