Monday's gem

I listened to some stuff today, but I'm not going to talk about all of it. I just want to talk about the one that really stuck.


I listened to Albert Hammond, Jr.'s Yours to keep and loved it. Hammond, Jr. is a member of the band The Strokes, but despite my lukewarm feelings toward the band, I loved this album. It was fresh, inventive, and fun to listen to. A quieter and more introspective album than anything done by The Strokes, Yours to keep made an impact with its musical and lyrical dexterity. It was subtle in ways that The Strokes dream of being. Hammond, Jr. works his way from upbeat to wistful and back again in the span of twelve tracks and, in the process, makes a name for himself as a solo artist with soul.

I highly recommend Yours to keep.

Wednesday's music

Today feels like another short day. I have a meeting this afternoon, so I only got to listen to two albums:
Frank Sinatra's Swingin' songs for swingin' lovers
Glen Phillips' Winter pays for summer

You may remember Phillips as the lead singer of the now defunct Toad the Wet Sprocket. In Winter pays for summer, Phillips trade the amplified rock sound of Toad for a softer, gentler, more introspective sound. I loved this album from the first listen and it continues to grow on me every time I hear it.

Tuesday's music roundup

I started to type "Monday" and then realized that it wasn't Monday anymore. Yesterday was my first Staff Day, so my afternoon was filled with cookout-y food and fun activities.

Today I listened to:
Taking the long way by Dixie Chicks
A blessing and a curse by Drive-By Truckers
Tidal by Fiona Apple

If you ask The Dude what his favorite album of 2006 was, he'd tell you that Drive-By Truckers album is his favorite. It took a while to grow on me, but I do like it a lot.

Breaking on through

There are albums that, for a long time, I didn't "get." Some of them, I knew that I liked them, but I wasn't connecting with them in any meaningful way. Some of them, I couldn't even listen to them without hitting an invisible wall and turning them off in frustration.

For some reason, my level of connection with an album is sometimes connected with mood. I won't "get" an album until I listen to it whilst in a certain mood. Then, for some reason, it reaches into my soul and we connect. Sounds corny, right? It's actually quite soothing. The Dude and I have talked a lot about how I listen more closely to lyrics than he does and how I have to buy into something whole-heartedly before it makes an impact. So, it stands to reason that it might take the precise alignment of the stars for me to fully appreciate some things.

Erin McKeown's We Will Become Like Birds has been crazy problematic for me for a while. I latched on to McKeown when her album Sing You Sinners got rave reviews. I love her voice, but I didn't connect much with that album so I decided to go with an older album. Her voice is wispy and ephemeral which is funny because those two adjectives probably couldn't be used to describe McKeown herself. Based on all of the pictures of her I've seen, I would expect her voice to be deeper and smokier.

Anyway, I love McKeown's voice, but I was having such a hard time connecting with We Will Become Like Birds. It seemed too wildly esoteric for me. I couldn't crack her code. So, I'm sitting her in my PJs doing some work on my computer. It's a Saturday morning and I was up late last night hanging out with some people I've met from Church. I'm not usually slow to start my day, but today I am. I was listening to Modest Mouse's We were dead before the ship even sank and the next album in my iTunes playlist is McKeown's We will become like birds. Suddenly it makes sense. It's light playfulness makes sense to me suddenly on my lazy Saturday morning. It never clicked with me at work because I wasn't in the right headspace, I guess.

It's funny how those things work.

Old and busted vs. New hotness

I was just considering this as I was looking in my iPod for something to listen to:

One of the fun things about writing about what I'm listening to every day is that it challenges me to listen to new music instead of relying on old favorites. It's simultaneously really fun and really terrible. I love finding gems on my iPod or rediscovering old favorites. But, there are albums I come to over and over again for comfort. They are like musical security blankets, and I need them to be productive or to make it through a particularly difficult day.

I try to do my best of finding new things and leaning on the old. And, I want to expose my admittedly small readership to music you might not have heard before. This doesn't work if I listen to the same things all the time, right?

I do my best to mix the best of old and new.

RIP Ms. Mars...

I came to the Veronica Mars party a little late. Everybody loved that show, but I watched a couple of episodes and didn't care much for it. One day I went to Target and Season One was cheap. Because I am, in fact, the highly suggestible type, I decided to give it a go.

I was very, very wrong about Veronica Mars.

I devoured the first two season in time to start the third--now on the CW.

I loved Veronica Mars (the show) because the dialogue was smart. I loved it because Veronica (the character) was tough and vulnerable and honest and fair. I loved Wallace. I loved Duncan. And, against my better judgement, I loved Logan.

Enrico Colantoni, the guy who played Elliott on Just Shoot Me, played Veronica's dad. That was pretty awesome, too.

For me, though, the best thing about Veronica Mars (the show) was Tina Majorino. She played Mac--the brainy computer grrl who ended up being Veronica's friend and sorta sidekick. She was smart and funny and like-able, and was a more realistic teenager than Veronica.

Part of the reason that Veronica Mars (the show) worked so well is that there was an overarching mystery that kept me watching all season. Every week a little bit more was revealed and, by the end, we knew everything. There were also mini-mysteries each week that kept the plot moving. Mixing the easily-solvable mysteries with the One Big Mystery kept people watching weekly because it gave people instant gratification.

The other reason that Veronica Mars (the show) worked so well is the dialogue. One of my favorite TV shows starring young adults was Boy Meets World. Want to know why? Because it put words in its characters' mouths that teenagers would actually say. Dawson's Creek made its teenagers seem way older than they were. My So-Called Life made them seem more intellectual than real teenagers. And 90210? Well those kids were just unreal. Awesome, but unreal. What was so great about Veronica Mars (the show) is that its teenagers seemed normal, even as they were put in ridiculously unrealistic situations. It worked, though, because even as they were in over their heads, they talked like real teenagers.

I loved Veronica Mars because it was perfect. And, any imbalance of what made if perfect (cast, plot, dialogue) would kill it.

Then, Veronica Mars jumped the shark.

When the kids went to college, the perfect-ness disappeared. Why? Because the balance was thrown off. And, like I said two lines up, any imbalance of what made it perfect would kill it.

The addition of new characters (okay, I liked Piz a little bit), the disappearance of old characters, and a mess of contrived situations so convoluted that even I couldn't suspend my disbelief that much were the demise of Veronica Mars (the person and the show).

Rumor has it that Veronica Mars got the old heave-ho for the CW to make way for such gems as Gossip Girl and a dating show with a cowboy.

I will keep Veronica, Wallace, Mac, Keith, Logan and, okay, Piz in my heart forever. But, sometimes a show has a shelf-life. And, this one was over before it even began.

Tuesday's music roundup

I was expecting to have to go to a workshop this afternoon, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn it was cancelled. Sadly, the person presenting the workshop was really sick, but I was glad to have the day to hunker down and get a lot of work done.

Today, I listened to:
Fight for your mind by Ben Harper
Bridge by Blues Traveler
My better self by Dar Williams
Bleed like me by Garbage

Fight for your mind has my favorite Ben Harper song: By my side. I love how smokey and full of longing his voice is on that song. It's not a sexual longing, though, so much as a desperate need for companionship and solidarity. It might be brash and ballsy to compare him to Marvin Gaye, but I'm going to. His lyrics are alternately whimsical, full of longing, and politically charged (depending on the song). And his voice is smooth like caramel. Fight for your mind has a lot of reggae influence that Harper loses in some of his later work. I often wonder if commercial success changed his sound to appeal to a more mainstream palate.

The long tail by Christopher Anderson

There are people that need to know the "why" of every phenomenon, and that's cool. There are a lot of people writing books that explain the "why" of every phenomenon, so eventually the two groups meet up somewhere and congratulate each other for their intellectual curiosity.

There are also a lot of people who write business books. You know the books: the ones that will teach you how to run your business bigger, faster, stronger, better? And, there are people looking to run their businesses bigger, faster, strong, and better and who look for any competitive edge they can get.

The Long Tail by Christopher Anderson explains, at great length, the ways in which the internet has democratized retail. In brick-and-mortar stores, he explains, 20 percent of the items provide 80 percent of sales. It is for this reason that most brick-and-mortar stores only stock things that will appeal to the mainest of mainstream consumers. In an online environment, retailers can provide more options. And, even if a small number of people chose any one of those options, they can provide a lot of revenue. The infinite number of choices is what creates "the long tail" from which this book receives its name.

I don't dispute Anderson's claim in the least. As anecdotal evidence, I have almost completely stopped buying CDs from brick-and-mortar stores and buy almost exclusively from iTunes. Why? Because I can't find the titles I'm looking for at Target. And, at $0.99 a song or $9.99 an album, my dollars go a lot farther.

What interested me most about Anderson's book, though, was the idea that online retailers have a distinct advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers in the way in which they can re-arrange their products based on a consumer's needs. If you're looking for an album at Amazon.com, you can find it by genre, by artist, by record label, or by recording date and any way you choose to search for it is "right. And, when you find what you're looking for, Amazon.com will recommend 5 similar artists that you might like. If you walk into Best Buy, you have to figure out Best Buy's organizational scheme or you have to ask someone for help. And, you're probably not going to get recommendations tailored to your specific interests.

I think this book was an interesting intellectual exercise, but I'm not sure how it would change the business model of a corporation. Most large brick-and-mortar retailers have an online face that can offer consumers an alternative shopping experience and some smaller brick-and-mortar retailers can't afford an online presence. Still, in the age where people are looking for an edge, this book might offer them hope.

Monday's music roundup

I spent most of the day brushing up on my HTML skillz in anticipation of a workshop I'll be attending on Wed. It is for this reason that I have pathetically little to show in the way of music listening.

10K Maniacs--MTV Unplugged
Counting Crows--New Amsterdam

Both discs are similarly mellow and, though I'd never thought of it before, the two groups are disarmingly similar. The Maniacs do have an activist leaning that the Crows don't, though. But both bands have lyrical depth and their lead vocalists both have rich, vibrant voices.

My favorite arrangement of "Rain King" is the slowed down version that smacks of the melancholy. I much prefer it to the more up-tempo version featured on August and Everything After. I always thought, lyrically, that that song lent itself to a slower arrangement, and the up-tempo version seemed untrue to the spirit of the song.

Friday's music recap

I attended the viewing of a webinar in the middle of the day about the relevancy of libraries in a digital age, so I didn't get much album-listening done today.

Today I listened to:
1. A beautiful lie by 30 seconds to Mars
2. Knuckle down by Ani Difranco
3. Maybe you should drive by BNL

For me, what's interesting about Difranco is that, as she's aged, she's become easier to listen to. She's clearly still politically-minded and she still does the spoken-word thing, so she's still authentic. But, to me, she's not as raw and a smidge more polished. I'm guessing that it turns a lot of people off, though, which is sad. Because she's still lyrically sharp.

BNL (Barenaked Ladies) is always lyrically nimble, but I love the understated-ness of Maybe you should drive. I think it might be my favorite BNL album, actually. Maybe you should drive has an undercurrent of sadness or, more accurately, of melancholy. Unlike Barenaked Ladies Are Me, though, they don't beat you over the head with it. It's always there, that twinge of regret, even on the upbeat-verging-on-bouncy track "A." Sometimes, though (like with You will be waiting), it's right in front of your face, clouding your vising like glasses with an outdated prescription.

Enjoy your weekend, y'all.

Thursday's music recap

He was a scary bear. He was a hairy bear.

Oh, er, um...hi there.

Today's music recap is compilation-themed.

Today I listened to:
1.School House Rock! Rocks
2.Q:Best of 86/06
3.Modern rocks:1986-1987 (Discs 1&2)

The first two discs were covers. The second disc is a disc of covers put out by Q magazine and is really fun.

Highlights:
(from the School House Rock disc)
No more kings performed by Pavement
The energy blues performed by Biz Markie

(from the Q disc)
What you waiting for? performed by Franz Ferdinand
I bet that you look good on the dance floor performed by Sugababes

Spiderman 3, or, Why Mrs. Dude loves irony

We went to see Spiderman 3 last night.

I liked it a smidge less than Spiderman 2, but I did like it. The special effects seemed much less fake than Spiderman 2, which is strange because some of the stuff they did was clearly done in front of a Green Screen.

Kirsten Dunst's nipples didn't make an appearance this time. I'm not sure if The Dude was sad about that or not. I was certainly relieved. I mean, you'd hope that they've got a SAG card and are getting a fair wage. Maybe if Dunst refuses to do Spiderman 4, her nipples will agree to make an appearance.

Tobey Maguire didn't do as right by Peter Parker as he did in Spiderman 2. Maybe it was because I spent most of the middle portion of the movie laughing that I didn't see him being true to Parker's emotions. Emo Tobey Maguire is funny stuff. You know how Johnny Depp modeled his Jack Sparrow after Keith Richards? I think that Tobey Maguire modeled his emo Spiderman after Pete Wentz. He was certainly rocking Wentz's eyeliner and pretty emo bangs.

My one big complaint with this movie (and really all the rest of them, too) is that it had a pacing problem. They spent a lot of time in the exposition and then had a mess to tidy up in the last half hour. I ended up wondering if this is because, in comics, you have an infinite amount of time to set the stage in a thoughtful and nuanced way that you simply don't have in movies.

Overall, I liked it. I was fun and fluffy. You should go see it and laugh at emo Spiderman.

As an aside, James Cromwell is in this movie. Cromwell has been in everything from Six Feet Under to Revenge of the Nerds to L.A. Confidential. It's staggering how many things he's been in. I know him best as Farmer Hoggett in Babe. The Dude couldn't figure out where he knew him from. We talked about it on the way home and he said that Cromwell was probably in something iconic and that he'd probably be mad at himself for not knowing it when he saw his IMDB profile. All of the sudden, The Dude turns to me and says "He was Jack's dad on 24!" I replied "something iconic, huh?"

Wednesday's music recap

Today I listened to:

(What's the story) Morning glory? by Oasis
Feels like home by Norah Jones
We were dead before the ship even sank by Modest Mouse
Haughty melodic by Mike Doughty

Three observations:
1.Oasis can write a catchy pop song like nobody's business. There are some great tunes on ...Morning glory?

2. I'd never listened to Feels like home before today. Nora's previous album Come away with me, in my opinion, was a nearly perfect jazz/pop album. You can understand, then, why I was nervous to listen to the follow-up album. It was pretty good. Not as great as the previous one, but not terrible. I was shocked when I heard Dolly Parton's voice on the track "Creepin' in" but I think it was my favorite song on the album. I got bored near the end, though, which is the kiss of death for an album (in my opinion). If you can't produce 13 compelling tracks, cut down the number of tracks on the album, I say. If I get to track 9 or 10 and I'm bored, woe be unto you.

3. Mike Doughty writes ridiculously good songs. I want to write, produce, and direct a movie so that he can write the soundtrack.

Tuesday's music recap

I used to listen to podcasts at work, but the project I'm working on now isn't compatible with podcast-listening. So, now I'm listening to fewer podcasts and more music. I suspect that, as my projects change, I'll go back and forth between podcasts and music.

Yesterday, Black Frances played:
Sarah McLachlan's Afterglow
Regina Spektor's Begin to hope
R.E.M.'s Green
Pearl Jam's Vs.

I have only listened to Afterglow and Begin to Hope a few times. It was interesting listening to them again. Both had gems of songs that I loved uncovering. And I was reminded how much I love Sarah McLachlan's voice. It's alternately sweet and husky, soaring and smoky. I love when singers have depth of range. And Regina Spektor has both range and quirky-ness. She is doing what Nelly McKay did and I prefer it to McKay's work.

Spiderman 2, or, Why Mrs. Dude should learn to suspend her disbelief

It is rare that The Dude and I actually make time to see a movie. We always say, 'we should go see that,' but usually we forget about it and, six months later, we see it at Blockbuster. When we went to see the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, we saw a preview for Spiderman 3. Despite all of the estrogen in my body, I have a soft spot for movies where 'shit blows up' as The Dude likes to put it. So, we made plans to see Spiderman 3 upon its release. The only problem is that we'd never seen Spiderman 2. So, The Dude procured it from Blockbuster, it sat on our TV for two weeks, he took it back and rented it again (along with Die Hard).

Last night we watched it.

Why does Kirsten Dunst always look like her dog died? I mean, I get that Mary-Jane is supposed to have the weight of the world on her shoulders and all that, but still...it doesn't show a good range of acting.

Overall, I liked it. I'm not very good at suspending my disbelief, though, so there were some parts that I ended up not liking very much. Basically, I didn't like the inconsistency in the MJ-Peter Parker friendship. She kept talking about how they'd always been friends, but in the beginning of the first Spiderman movie, she barely knew his name.

The special effects were good, but not great. The mark of a good computer-based special effect, for me, is that you can't immediately say 'gee, that was obviously done with a Green Screen.' I have low standards--I know this.

Toby Maguire did right by Peter Parker, I thought. He expressed Parker's confusion, sadness, and determination honestly and with integrity. I should say that I have loved Maguire for quite a while, so seeing him get lots of screen time (some of it with his shirt off) is so exciting to me.

The Dude noticed the dearth of screaming women. He's right--there were a lot of screaming women.

And Kirsten Dunst's nipples made a cameo.

Overall, I enjoyed Spiderman 2. Tonight we're going to see Spiderman 3. It seems like a lot of Spiderman, but I'm game...

Obviously Mrs. Dude got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning...

I feel like the old man sitting on the front porch of his house shaking his fist and swearing at the young folks. Still, it's not going to stop me from griping.

Two things:

1. Amy Winehouse is the new "it girl" in music. I'll admit that the song "Rehab" is catchy. And what smacks or irony more than a song about rehab set to a catchy beat? Not much, I say. Anyway, when listening to her single "You know I'm no good" on my way to work, I was reminded of my issue with Amy Winehouse. Katherine Whalen did what Amy Winehouse is doing now, only Katherine Whalen did it better.

Who's Katherine Whalen, you're probably wondering. She was the female vocalist for the swing-revival band Squirrel Nut Zippers. After the band broke up (did you know they got back together?), Whalen developed a solo career. Katherine Whalen's voice is rich and layered, sultry and husky, sweet and soulful. And, while Amy Winehouse isn't a slouch, I have a hard time finding the depth in her voice the way I do in Whalen's. So, if you dig Amy Winehouse's album, you should look into Whalen's newest album "Dirty little secret" or, better yet, check out the Squirrel Nut Zipper's 1997 album "Hot."

2. I'm okay with bands doing covers. In fact, there have been a lot of covers that have been fantastic. One of my favorite Better Than Ezra songs is their cover of the James song "Laid." But have you heard the Green Day cover of the Who's "My Generation?" It's awful. My feeling on covers is that if you don't have something interesting to bring to the song, seriously consider why you've decided to cover it. The Green Day song actually takes away from what The Who did with it. It's raw and stripped down, which I appreciated as a nod to the punk aesthetic that influences them. But it just isn't sung well. To me, there's a difference between Eddie Vedder knowing he can't hit all of the notes in "Reign O'er Me" and Billy Joe just not trying to hit the notes in "My generation." Maybe there's supposed to be some irony in an aging rockstar singing about he'd rather die than get old...

Hot stuff by Carly Phillips

There's this bookstore near my house. Most of what it sells is mass-market paperbacks. Yes, there are a few hardcovers and a few nicer paperbacks. But mostly, the shelves are full of mass-market paperbacks. Most of these paperbacks are romance novels. What I have learned about romance novels is that they are fun and easy to read. I sometimes feel a sense of shame that I enjoy romance novels so much. I know, as a librarian, that this is stupid; people should read what makes them happy. I like reading books with happy endings. And nothing gives you a happy ending like a romance novel.

I picked up the title "Hot stuff" in this bookstore. It is the first title in the "Hot Zone" series. I hadn't ever read anything by Carly Phillips, so this was uncharted territory for me.

Hot stuff centers around the eldest of three sisters who were orphaned when their parents died and who were sent to live with their Uncle Yank. Yank Morgan owns and operates a PR firm that specializes in athletes and his three nieces joined the family business after finishing their education.

In this title, Annabelle is paired with former pro-football player Brandon Vaughn. Vaughn was a former client of Yank's until his money-grubbing ex-wife chose a different PR firm for Vaughn while he was recovering from surgery and loopy on meds.

Vaughn comes crawling back to Hot Zone (and Yank) with his tail between his legs needing their services. See, he's trying to build a lodge in his hometown. He wants to build a resort for the wealthy and he wants to use the profits to fund his real dream--a camp for kids with learning disabilities. The problem is that someone doesn't want Vaughn to succeed.

Lovesick Annabelle is the victim of some not-so-subtle matchmaking from her family and reluctantly takes the assignment to work with Vaughn. Hilarity and romance ensues . And, at the end of the story, everyone gets to live happily ever after.

I enjoyed this title. It was fairly well written and had just enough intrigue to get me through the graphic sex scenes. Now, I don't consider myself a prude, but I did find myself blushing a little when Phillips talked about various characters and their sexual activities.

Overall, though, it was a fun and fluffy read.

Coming up this week...

This week you can look forward to:
A post about Tori Amos' new disc American Doll posse
A post about our new Tivo

and whatever else strikes my fancy.

TTFN, y'all

Why Mrs. Dude was painfully wrong about Arctic Monkeys

I have trouble liking critics darlings sometimes. When the Arctic Monkeys disc "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not" came out, I didn't like it very much. I liked the single "I bet you look good on the dance floor," sure, but I didn't dig the album very much. I felt like the energy didn't hold up over the duration of the album and I got bored fairly quickly. So, I wrote off Arctic Monkeys as just another critics darling.

When "Favourite Worst Nightmare" came out, The Dude bought it. It made it's way onto Black Frances and, eventually, I found myself face-to-face with this disc.

About two tracks in, I knew I was in trouble.

See, this album was everything I didn't think the previous one was. The lyrics were fantastic and the music was the right mix of rock and pop. I wasn't the least bit bored with it, and found that the end came way too quickly. What I loved most about this disc was that they were able to keep up the energy over 12 songs. Sometimes, pop-punky bands have a problem keeping that energy going and one or two tracks end up being throw-away tracks. Not on this disc.

So, I must say that I was wrong about Arctic Monkeys.