Finally a post featuring an actual band...or two. I'm too lazy for this usually and my interests are scattered week to week. However, today that's not the case because I'm in school again now. This means I seem to pay more attention to music. It has to do with the whole being immersed in the pursuit of knowledge, growth, and self thing that's supposed to happen when one takes college seriously. Although I'm not sure if I do that enough or not. Anyway...
This band has taken a few years to grow on me because I didn't particularly care for the singer's voice. It's like an exaggerated Beatles-esque stoned sounding voice that tends to make me feel dopey for listening. I'm not sure that makes sense as I'm not very good at describing these kinds of things, but on to my point. Somehow once I got over the voice, The Clientele's music actually became rather groovy/pleasant and suitable for procrastinating with instead when assigned to read articles on the Bush Doctrine. So there you go. They're catchy, so listen.
When the night it comes to me I wonder if the days I've lived through count With the world strung like a rosary Through faces moving in the crowd What is the color, and the number When happiness begins? When the night waits in the laurels There's a dream
Alela Diane, I've also known about for a while. It's simple folk music that feels like a story unfolding, a rustic cabin, and sepia tinted old pictures. Also her voice is nice and a little different.
(Click the artist names above for their website. And to download now, just click the link, rather than right click and save as.)
Jul 13, 2008
I am so jealous one moment although that first physical pang of jealousy stays in my stomach for hours. Then I am realizing what emotion I always feel. Unfulfillment. I guess it's not a real word in this form but it works because whatever it is, it is. It is something that won't leave, it's always here. It makes everything lacking, dull, graphite pencil. I'm avoiding "empty". It has been used too many times before with not quite the level of meaning I wish to convey. Words won't help me now though. Only pictures and songs can try to explain so here is what I heard when I felt something:
Then I felt like listening to this song because I remember it taking over me this one time I was parked in someone's gravel driveway sitting in the car looking at the raindrops falling on the windshield and then putting my head on the steering wheel and thinking about the air in my lungs, feeling sort of alive. Then thinking about how someone used this song to get over a relationship and they listened to it on repeat and I wanted to remember them and think about how much I missed them and how jealous I felt about some petty thing having to do with them.
The Dandy Warhols The Last High Welcome To The Monkey House
Then this came on and it closely matches whatever it was that I felt. It reminds me of Waking Life, of floating through the air, feeling aimless and lost, in a never ending pattern, and not caring much more about it for any longer. And because this reminds me of Waking Life I might have to find my favorite part in the movie and show it to you.
This Sigur Ros song followed right after to pick up on my emotions more. Like that strange floating feeling, and the feeling that some truths are unfolding, and some dark days are going to come and some hard rain is going to fall, and then boom I'm jealous, I'm conflicted, I'm missing him terribly, I'm terrified of what my existence has come to mean, I'm scared of days ahead, I'm so blank, and all is quiet and I'm floating again, forgetting what I needed to remember and pay attention to.
A few hours later the feelings subside. I have someone to talk to. I am feeling a little better. And there's a part about "pretty soon I would be in your arms" and a comforting voice and sort of reminds me of myself if I was happier and had someone to see when I am feeling like this. It's a song that is like the next morning when everything is forgotten or thought of as silly and pointless and the sun is out.
Yar. The other week I bought a 1993 Mercedes Benz 300 CE coupe. It's super nice, and in really good shape with low miles. But alas, I think it's a gas guzzler. I didn't really have a choice at that point though. My parents were pushing me to get it because it's heavy and safe and reliable and whatever else it is that parents care about.
Now if you listen closely, I'll tell you what I know, Storm clouds are gathering,the wind is gonna blow. The race of man is suffering, and I can hear the moan, But nobody, no nobody, can make it alone.
--Alone by Maya Angelou
It's been a while since an update. I'm not sure why. I'm supposed to have more free time in the summer but alas. Work sucks up my life and time. So here's a buttload of things I've enjoyed when I've had time to listen to music.
Grandaddy A.M. 180 Under The Western Freeway, 2001
Sigur Ros Gobbledigook Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, 2008, coming out June 24th (This is Sigur Ros? Wow. Also it starts out sounding like this Dave Matthew's Band song)
I learned today that I really like this artist despite him being sort of a pervert (or at least in his time he was considered to be one). It makes me want to sketch and paint and this is annoying because I seem to get into inspired artistic moods when I have to do something that has nothing to do with art. I have to write a paper for anthropology right now. Anyways Egon Schiele, he was a coolio.
Here is a song about him. He did lots of self portraits. Rachel's First Self-Portrait Series Music for Egon Schiele (1995)
Lately I've been contemplating where I fit in the context of the whole and why people don't care or want to know about the rest of the big world out there and the many ideas circulating around it. This kind of stuff seems like a life mission to me and I thought for everyone, that it is good to learn, experience, love as much as possible. Anyways part of this starts with the fact that I went to this world music festival happening at my school last weekend. Not a lot of people showed up and this saddened and annoyed me. Anyways I heard some groovy sarod and tablas. Here's a video to give you an idea about that.
I was in the throes of despair not long ago but then something happened that was hopeful and reaffirming. Now I am too busy to feel one way or another. I might be winding back down into sadness. Here is some music. I don't know what I mean by it. I don't know where I am. But everything sounds good somedays.
This picture is probably really inappropriate for the mood of the songs I've chosen but in my view that makes it appropriate, appropriate for being inappropriate. If that doesn't make sense it's okay. Just listen to music.
These paths all have the common aim of seeking to overcome the problem that arose when the individual entered into dualism, developing a spurious 'subjective self' or 'ego' that experiences the world as separate from itself, external and objective, and which continually tries to manipulate that world in order to obtain satisfaction and security. In truth, one will never manage to attain satisfaction and security this way, because the cause of suffering and dissatisfaction is none other than the fundamental sense of incompleteness that is the inevitable consequence of being in the state of dualism--and, moreover, all the seemingly external phenomena on which we try to base our satisfaction and security are impermanent.
--From The Crystal And The Way Of Light: Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you.
I wish I knew what you wanted. You block the road and won't give me rest. You pull my lead-rope one way, then the other. You act cold, my darling! Do you hear what I say?
Will this night of talking ever end? Why am I still embarrassed and timid about you? You are thousands. You are one. Quiet, but most articulate.
Your name is Spring. Your name is wine. Your name is the nausea that comes from wine!
You are my doubting and the lightpoints in my eyes.
You are every image, and yet I'm homesick for you.
Can I get there? Where the deer pounces on the lion, where the one I'm after's after me?
This drum and these words keep pounding! Let them both smash through their coverings into silence.
I'm quite busy lately with school work (6 hours spent on a painting, many more to come reading an ethnography, about 8 chapters in a text book not read yet, and the rest of a book on a complicated concept, Dzogchen) and yet I'm most active here when I have no time to be. Seems like I'm being pushed very quickly while I'm in this state of busyment into a spring and summer full of uncertainty. I hate that but I want it to come so this semester can be over with. Anyways, I'm also actively listening to music along the way to classes everyday and especially when I'm barricaded in the art building for many hours, therefore here are some favorites of the week:
HEEE. This used to be one of my favorite songs when I was little.
Feb 19, 2008
I have some news and a buttload of music to share.
My news: Ben Folds is coming to play at my school(Berry College). I just bought my tickets yesterday. While I don't listen to him that often this is still pretty darn exciting to me because he doesn't suck and it's quite a big deal to get him to play at our little school. So here are two of my favorites:
Ben Folds Gracie Songs for Silverman Ben Folds Five Philosophy Ben Folds Five
Phantom Planet I'm not sure why this band is not more popular. I know California was a big deal but they have plenty of better stuff. I am honoring them today because I lost my Phantom Planet CD and decided to order it. I got it in the mail today so there must be some sort of celebration. That means you should do some downloading here and buying of their CDs.
Phantom Planet LeaderTour EP Phantom Planet KnowitallPhantom Planet Phantom Planet By the BedPhantom Planet Phantom PlanetLonely Day The Guest
It's about time I said something about this group of musicians. I started listening to them a while ago and then more recently and I should have said something then. But alas. Anyways they combine all sorts of forms and influences of music and they travel in a bus running on vegetable oil and they only take donations (you can email them and receive their albums for free) and they are close friends with my favorite band, mewithoutYou and they are essentially psalmists. I don't know much else about them except that their music is powerful, human, and rich. You might not like it at first, but then they're not really for everyone anyways. They say, "You can come along if you're a miserable wretch...but unfortunately if you are generally a good person there is not enough room for you."
Also, “We are the cry of the exodus. there is no home for us here. we are a nomadic tribe of psalters, walking in the footsteps of ancients past to the far corners of the present, united as one voice against the oppression within and without. one more echo in the eternal song of our First Love, our Hope, our Pillar of Fire.”
Psalters Badlands Psalters Turn Me Round Psalters Banner You are my Beloved and no matter what happens I want nothing more than to stand next to You.
This blog primarily serves to share songs I happen to enjoy with others, mostly friends. If you like what you hear then by all means go support the artists by buying their music. If you find that I have posted a track that you own please email (cookemi@gmail.com) me and I will take it down.
