godthedog

"in my life," beatles. or if you want to be all self-aware & postmodern, you could use "don't you forget about me" from 'the breakfast club'.

all build, no payoff. when polanski was supposed to be lost in the water & stuff i found myself not caring, & the encounter between him and the woman was full of painfully self-aware dialogue, & when the husband thought he had killed him, i found myself not caring even more.

maybe, but it's also a really shitty argument.

that line is GOLDEN. joel has a much better personality, but his delivery did kinda bother me. his tone of voice just didn't seem that eager to rip into the movies. after the series moved to sci-fi, i rarely watched it; the host segments just started getting weirder and darker (in the writing and the way they looked), and it was really off-putting and not funny. i think they ran out of ideas for the host segments around the time joel left, when they'd start doing stupid sitcom plotlines that would run throughout the show. and the 'manos' episode is REALLY overrated. worst movie ever, without a doubt, but i don't find their treatment of it all that funny. there's lots of loooong pauses, and even everyone's delivery is more "i am in pain, please make it stop" than "let's try to be funny."

"really long avant-garde songs" edition: 1. miles davis, "sanctuary" (it's got weird tempo/dynamics changes and has no real rhythm or solos, i consider it avant-garde) 2. john coltrane, "ascension" 3. velvet underground, "sister ray" 4. peter brotzmann octet, "machine-gun" 5. beatles, "revolution 9" 'pele' is my favorite tori album, but i don't think it's got her greatest songs on it. 'pele' has it on consistency & overall sound, but i think most of her best-written stuff is on 'under the pink'.

coltrane, 'meditations'. good, good stuff, seems like he was trying to synthesize that airy, spiritual 'a love supreme' sound with the harsh 'ascension' sound, and it blends together really well. but i wish he'd taken the harsh sound further, it sounds kind of pussified compared to 'ascension'.

moderate is good. liberals are not very electable.

I'll ignore just how wrong the first paragraph of this post is and just say you really need to check out more of the Murmur-to-Document era R.E.M. Loads of fantastic stuff from that period. that might very well be my next fixation after coltrane.

just a warning, i was EXTREMELY disappointed in 'the tenant'. it's a total rip-off of 'repulsion', and in comparison to it, fails on just about every level. this coming from a huge polanski fan (but i didn't like 'knife in the water' either, so take it for what it's worth).

i quite like it, and i've never liked 311.

bob dylan - "just like tom thumb's blues"

SPOILER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ dude, come on. when they were in the elevator near the end and they wanted to stay together so badly but couldn't even kiss each other, how could you not FEEL THAT TENSION~?!

gertrude stein line of the week. this just struck me as funny in an "antisocial dorky college kid" way. about the moderates thing: i spent most nights that week calling SC polls, and all but maybe 2 of the respondents considered themselves "moderate." not that that's any real statistical evidence, so take it for what it's worth. edwards WILL be on the democratic ticket, i have no doubt. even if he doesn't win, he's the easiest lock for VP in the world: a southern democrat, with more charm than all the other nominees put together. perfect foil for the standoffishness of...well, of everybody else who's running.

i think a better topic would be "how are you annoying?" that's much more interesting to me.

i'd hardly call 'monster' overrated, it gets crapped on by some REM fans quite a bit. "divisive" might be a better word. i personally think the big singles on that album ("what's the frequency...", "strange currencies") are the most boring tracks from it. come to think of it, the whole first half of that record is kinda ho-hum to me (though it does sound interesting), & doesn't really get kicking till "tongue." from that point on i think it's a terrific album, and "let me in" is one of my favorite songs ever. that said, i still think AftP is their best. but i don't really feel qualified to vote in this, as i've only heard 'murmur' and their post-'out of time' stuff.

even more coltrane: 'the major works'. has "om", "kulu se mama", both editions of "ascension", and some other random track. seems pretty good. "ascension" is, of course, god-like; "kulu" is inoffensive (if unspectacular), and "om" would be pretty damn good if it weren't for that stupid fucking pretentious chanting. the random track is blah.

Hrm, the title track is what does it for me. Sweet, sweet bliss... Which reminds me -- does anyone have the unplugged Reed/Cale/Nico album? I've been meaning to pick it up when I see it, but is it really as grand as I would think it is? no smiley could possibly express my shock and elation that such an album even exists. maybe this one. no, that doesn't quite do it.

For me, the sign of a great musician is making great music without showing off. Also, Inc, have you heard of Franz Ferdinand yet? What do you think? possibly the sign of a great music-maker, but it's impossible to gauge someone's pure musicianship (i.e., skill in playing one's instrument) if they don't show it off a little. if hendrix had made all his music by only playing three chords, no one would be able to justify that he was a great guitarist. i can't think of any examples of miles being flamboyant with his instrument; if coltrane would take one measure and fill it with 16 different notes all over the place, miles would take the same measure & play maybe three narrow-range notes and leave a beat or two of empty space. about 'sketches' & 'porgy and bess': a) i don't really consider 'porgy' to be that great an album (too "big band"-sounding for me), and b) i consider them both, more than anything, to be gil evans records that miles played on. miles is featured prominently as hell, but evans was the mastermind--he wrote the arrangements, he conducted the session players, etc. all miles did was show up and improvise, ultimately putting less time into it than the session players (as he was prone to showing up late, or not showing up at all).

you think davis was a better trumpeter than coltrane was a saxophonist? i never really thought of miles as a really great trumpeter per se, he just had a very distinctive sound & never really showed off.

i've fretted over this question for many a night... miles davis or john coltrane: which, at his peak, is better & why? and i dare to to answer this before banky does.

practically perfect in every way: beatles velvet underground slightly less than perfect: john coltrane bob dylan ween jeff buckley jimi hendrix bjork pre-2000 tori amos portishead

tori amos edition: 1. "yes, anastasia" 2. "horses" 3. "precious things" 4. "bells for her" 5. "iieee"

osborne also had a GREAT single released from that same album, "st teresa." got almost no radio airplay, played maybe once on mtv, but far & away one of my favorite songs from that time period.

no fucking way did batista ever almost kill rvd. rvd cannot be killed, especially via his neck.

lots of poking fun at the japanese + lack of any positive representations DOES = a pretty stereotypical image. i wouldn't call it RACIST, but it could be construed as such. anyway, my favorite movie of 2003.