Happy VD day everyone!

Oh and by the way, I’m giving up being lame and only posting once every three weeks for lent. I don’t to have to put ashes on my forehead like some kind of cult member though, do I?

Peace.

In a moment of ego, I Googled sdc[blog] and was directed to Erik from FreshlySqueezedSoftware’s nslog (which I read anyway but admittedly have been a little behind on), and specifically a post about anyone who donated $50 or more to the EFF being added to the default feeds of PulpFiction, and lo and behold there I am, in with the legendary BoingBoing and Engadget.

Okay, so it’s not as cool as getting there on the merits of the blog itself (quit laughing… I see you laughing!), but still, I hope that at least a few people keep the feed and read my corner of the web on occasion. And if you do, feel free to let me know so I can link back to you.

Enjoy your Tuesday, I’m off to go yell at iTunes for screwing up a promotion.

I will be returning to my top 10 reviews (yes yes I know I missed the deadline, but I just love the whooshing noise they make) but it occurs to me that I haven’t posted one of my link-laden promotional blog entries in a bit, so…on with the show.

A quick political note, as we get to the inauguration, that this map proves interesting. And who says nothing gets by our government, anyway. Certainly not amendments to bills that allow people in Washington to look at anyone’s tax return they want. Way to keep that homeland security going, guys.

In pop culture junkie news:

- This will only be cool to a few of you, but the days of putting your SL1200’s on a piece of leftover foam from packing is over, thanks to freefloat something which can best be described as a bean bag version of the cingular logo.

- Jesse, who does the witty ramblings on a blog thing much more coherently than I do (of course, I’ll kick his ass in Stratego any day…yeah, that’s right, buddy…I’m callin you out!) pointed me toward a The Who vs. Beach Boys thing that is highly entertaining. Behold The Who Boys.

- In other self-indulgent celebrity news, it appears that Ms. Hilton no longer can even muster up the momentary 5 minutes of non-total-self-interest for a good roll in the hay. She apparently ‘would rather just kiss’. Until those test results come back, Par, I don’t know that you should even be going that far. When ‘thats hot’ is used to mean your cooch has a strange burning sensation, thats not a good thing.- Sorry Jon, I had to do it. Yeah!

- check out Electric Six’s new single, a cover of Queen’s classic “Radio Ga-Ga” ironically one of the only Queen songs I can stomach. I’m not sure if this makes me more excited about their impending new release or worried that they’ve gone over the edge into The Darkness-world.

- In case you had forgotten due to his recent announcing at the Fashion Industry TV awards thingie, Marilyn Manson is the devil.- Who would’ve thunk that a Steve Winwood sample over a repetitive house track would be come the most annoying-yet-catchy track this year so far. Plus the video has hot girls in spandex shakin’ their stuff.

- Here are some of the top celebrity quotes of 2004. Some of them may even make it onto Splunge, my friend Haras’ frequently entertaining quotes group, to which I seem to be the only one posting anymore. Shame, that.

- For those of you who haven’t yet seen the Sin City trailer [grabbed from comics2film.com], I have three words for you: Stripping Jessica Alba. Mmmmmm.. Oh also lots of CGI and Bruce Willis as a noir bad-ass as written by Frank Miller.

- For scientists, the chance to do a study on something as random as “the influence of sexual orientation on vowel production” must be akin to having nothing to do at 3:00 and running down to starbucks for a latte. Which is fabulous, darling.

From the Shopping department:

- With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, don’t forget to order your custom printed M&M’s, you crazy lovebirds! $1 for anyone who orders them with “w” on them… Mister President? Also, here’s a SomethingPositive comic that is the most succinct version of the reason I can no longer put myself or give sympathy to so-called ‘really nice guys’. When nice = not even remotely assertive, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself.

- Do you ever find yourself drinking a 2-liter bottle of something and then needing to take a really steady and straight photograph of something? Well look no further, the Bottle Cap Tripod is here now!

- Who knew that the only thing you needed to make art was some complex mathematical formula? Certainly not I, but I think my parents are in the wrong business.

- Read this article at cultofmac before putting porn on your iPod. And also….ew!

- This, apparently, is an aid… for erectile dysfunction or for cooking is anyone’s guess,

- One of the most criminally underrated and hilariously funny shows (no I’m not talking about the festering pile of overrated crap that is Arrested Development), NewsRadio is finally making its way to DVD in may. Pre-order now from Amazon.

- For the gentiles among us (you know who you are, you guilt-free uptight…), Here’s a lovely flash animation of what all those yiddish words you toss around actually mean… Thanks mom!

- For my fellow New York cronies, here’s a glimpse of how the city that never sleeps until around 11:30-ish compares to the same blocks 100 years ago (where people had a much more sensible bedtime. Also, they wore hats. All the time.)

Phew. Now my queue of links is finished.

Back to laundry.

Woo freakin hoo.

I know there are a ton of people who read this blog (well… a couple at least) who are or have been in the music biz, so mostly to them I pose this request for comments (inspired by a random flip through my iPod that landed on the Tsar record…remember them?):

Name a band that you’ve worked that flopped commercially (in whatever relative definition you use where you work), but you think deserved to be a success. A band you’d wish had caught on but just didn’t stick. A record you still listen to and think “too bad we couldn’t break them”

I’ll start with two.

First from my TVT days, the band Wayne. Influences ranging from the power-pop of the Raspberries to the quiet singer/songwriter of Nick Drake, the album is sweet without being wimpy and tight without sounding forced. And yet if someone wants to be nice and check the soundscan, I’d bet it never broke 20K.

My overlooked Sony band is Ari Hest, which I spoke about in detail in my top 10 review. It looks, however, like Columbia is going to pick up and run with this project, and if anyone can break singer/songwriters with mainstream appeal, it’s them.

So, what bands do you look upon as a missed opportunity?

First, let’s get this out of the way: I used to work at TVT, who put out this record. The guys are friends of mine. The record wouldve been on my list even if I hadn’t worked it.

One of my first encounters with Ambulance was at a marketing meeting at my old job, the VP of marketing said basically “I know a lot of you have been waiting a long time to work this kind of record. Well, here it is.” And so it was.

Some might be surprised that I’m a fan of this record, being as it’s so definitively a Williamsburg hipster thing, but to them I say that I’m just full of surprises.

When I was working the record, the party line was that it was like Velvet Underground meets Jesus and Mary Chain, which is pretty accurate. These days, I like to think of it as “What The Beach Boys would sound like if they grew up as stoners in the 718 (totally unlike what Marcus, Benji, Darren and co actually are, right guys?). Dreamy guitar pop with influences as wide as shoegazer, twee, and other indie pop genres, make this a consistantly mellow, enjoyable listen, even in its more wall-of-sound tracks. Highly recommended.

Buy: @Amazon

If The Cocteau Twins and The La’s came together in Billy Corgans back yard and drank lemonade and played in the grass, it would sound like The Delays. Bring back shoegazer and wall-of-sound production, I say.

So my history with Ari Hest is kind of strange. Way back in what must have been 2001, my friend Erica was playing this CD at her desk of this son of a friend of her fathers named Ari. It sounded good and so I asked for a copy, but it got lost in the shuffle. Fast-forward a few years, I’m hangin around the A&R department of Columbia (26), and Ari’s doing a soundcheck, and had apparently been signed to RED INK (our indie distributor). So I sit in for it with my bud Jared and get hooked. Before you know it, I’m going to see him for the second time at Irving Plaza. He puts on a great show and I’m wandering around afterward looking to see if theres anyone from work there and lo and behold who do I see but Erica. Small world moments abound, and is just another reason why I’m still not sick of this record.

“Someone to Tell” is a mishmash of re-recordings of songs from several of Ari’s previous records, and having heard some of the original versions, I’d say these have more of a sheen to them consistant with his hooky acoustic pop (yes, I’m not too much of a snob to use the p-word. It’s filled with hooks that the Mayer / Mraz / Yorn’s of the world wish they could come up with, delivered with a full rich baritone (I’m not sure thats right…deep but not Barry White deep). I’ll spare you the track-by-track recap, except to say “They’re On To Me” will be in your head for weeks after hearing it, and “Someone To Tell” reaffirms my statment that songs in 6/8 are just naturally better and ends with one of those three part harmony moments that could just go on forever and stay sweet. And the songs in between, they ain’t so bad either.

You can hear pretty much the whole album at AriHestPlayer.com.

This record is a permanent fixture on my iPod and iTunes at work and at home, and I dont see that changing anytime soon.

Anyone who spends any time with me knows that tho I’m a bit of a music snob (mouths shut), I also have pretty eclectic taste. I was also one of the few New Yorkers to shun the whole lo-fi garage rock thing. My feeling is, pop and rock music should include, oh I dont know…melody. There was some weird taking-pride-in-lack-of-songwriting-skill that I hate, that being the main reason I can’t stand Punk music. So when bands like Coldplay (for which even mentioning that they are always compared to has become ubiquitous) and Travis began worrming their way back into the mainsteam, no one was happier than I to have the melody return to pop music.

And then I heard the Keane record.

Keane are a three piece band consisting of bass, drums and piano. The lack of a lead guitar gives the group a more restrained sound less inclined to veer off toward the power chord moments.

The first three songs solidly land “Hopes And Fears” amongst the most cherished of albums in the realm of music. Solid hooks, soaring choruses, lyrics both simple and heartfelt and production worthy of the songwriting. “Somewhere Only We Know” begins with a hook that would only make any sense on keyboards (check The Killers “Indie Rock ‘n’ Roll” for a similar riff that comes off a lot harsher on guitar) and continues through a chorus that will be in your head for days.

The next track, “This is the Last Time” is one of those soaring songs that you just want to crank up and spin and sing along to at maximum volume. In serious contention, it uses its simple octave bassline and Tom Chaplin’s amazing voice to churn up a slice of massive shimmering U2-meets-”Friday I’m In Love” that can only be described as majestic.

And so it goes for 11 tracks, some ballads, some weaker than others, but overall this is one of the strongest records of quite some time.

Buy: Hopes & Fears
@iTMS @Amazon

So this is a new thing and we’ll see how far I get. I thought I’d write some reviews of my top 10 albums of this year to explain how tthey got there.

I started doing the top 10 thing at my old gig, who had a semi-official way of doing things when istarted, but nowhere to post them, until I redesigned their intranet and made it a yearly event. As a side note, this is the first year I haven’t worked there, and they’re not doing it, so there you go.

It’s a very High Fidelity thing to do, but since I’m a music geek, it fits.

So, without further ado, in no particular order, my reviews of the top 10 records of 2004… You know… above this post.

Since I am a geek, I am therefore required by law to be a fan of all things Groening (even going so far as to commandeer the name ‘Bongo’ to refer to a former coworker…long story.) It was very dissapointing to me when the frequently-cited-as-underrated Futurama finally got canned. By the way, is there like one exec at Fox who does the good shows while everyone else is focused on how many horrendous reality shows they can vomit up. I mean, the House premiere was actually very solid in a Chicago Hope-meets-Law+Order: SVU kind of way. But I digress. So when I saw that TBS was running a contest to give away original cels from both Futurama and what may be the funniest cartoon of all time, The Family Guy, I felt the need to share the wealth with my loyal reader(s).

I’d like to offer a suggestion to Microsoft’s marketing team in the form of ad copy: “Microsoft Flight Simulator: So easy to use, even a brain in a dish can fly it! [via paulmclanahan.com] This all just means that we’re one step closer to this:

That’s right. Krang is coming. All hail Krang.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the movie poster for Edward Scissorhands as Willy Wonka.

And now we come to the creepy politics section. I’d be the last person to claim that video games had any connection to violence… but for those who do, who tend to be vehemently pro-military, perhaps they should take a look at this video of air force fighters taking out a collection of Iraqi civilians in distinctly xBox-like fashion.

Online commentator Jim Meskauskas comments on what has become an increasingly distressing issue in the news lately. He calls it The Tyrrany of the Minority, where a small number (one that would previously go ignored) vocal opponents consider themselves “offended” by something now have the power to keep content from airing, or otherwise control the flow of whatever they might be “offended” by. One of the most terrifying prospects of this is the story reported in USA Today of a woman who went into a drug store to fill a perscription for birth control pills only to have the pharmacist refuse because they objected to birth control as a concept. This is insane. In-freakin-sane. I don’t have words to express the insanity of this. It’s crazy.

Oh well, I guess thats the new way of things in our lone star country run by god-jesus.

Whatever…as long as I dont miss the last 5 minutes of CSI because some world leader died.