So yeah, I'm over here now.
Okay, I can't deny it anymore (I've never once denied it). I have a little crush on the girl from the Zyrtec commercial. With the bicycle. There. I said it. I think we may be kindred spirits. I can see us together already. We would go on happy bike rides together (cycling is already my exercise of choice, since I'm a very poor runner) to a green, hilly, tree-filled park, and share a picnic of bacon cheeseburgers and orange pop, with chocolate donuts for dessert. The afternoon sunlight would shine in her pretty red hair as I tucked a loose strand behind her left ear, and we would talk about our shared love of banjo music and Kansas basketball. As the puffy white clouds passed lazily above, we would fall asleep in the grass together and dream the dreams of contented souls.
As you were.
Seems like about half of my posts here anymore are music-themed in some way, so why not one more?
Just thought I'd mention that Coldplay's "Viva La Vida - Prospekt's March Edition" is the Amazon mp3 deal of the day today. $2.99 for all 18 songs. Oooh. Makes me glad I procrastinated on that one and failed to buy it in the past.
I don't know how I can wait until September the 8th. How will I make it? Yes, that's the day the 5th season of The Office is released on DVD (the Best Buy gift pack is tempting, hmmm), but that's not it. No. It's (broken record alert) release day for A Fine Frenzy's "Bomb In a Birdcage" CD. I don't know if I'll make it or not. I won't buy any of the individual songs released on iTunes, because I'm pre-ordering the album from Amazon. I want the whole thing. But this means I'm stuck right now listening to "Happier" over and over again through someone's YouTube upload. Which is great, but OMGHURRYUPSEPETMBEREIGHTH.
It doesn't help that I so love checking in on Alison Sudol's Twitter page. No, I do not Twitter, don't have an account, quite likely never will (you have to feel like the things you'll be saying there may be of some interest to SOMEONE, even if it's just yourself, and I don't really think that will ever be the case for me; also, I barely feel comfortable having THIS much of an Internet presence [this can explain to some extent why I don't love allowing comments on most posts, even here], and Twitter really, really doesn't feel like me at all), but still, I enjoy following a handful of people there. Alison's Twitter is fun. I've been following it for a good long time now. Relatively speaking, anyway. Good stuff.
I just love parentheticals that are long enough to have their own parentheticals!
Anyway.
"Happier" is so good. "Blow Away" is so good. And I've only heard live versions of "What I Wouldn't Do," but duuuude. I know for an absolute fact that that's destined to be one of my very favorite songs. I think sometimes about compiling a personal list of my 100 favorite all-time songs, and yeah, I'm confident that that'll make the cut one of these days. It's fun to anticipate an album to the extent that you just *know* it'll make your day. Week. Month. And you know it'll be something you'll listen to endlessly. I cannot wait. I'm still listening to "One Cell In the Sea," like, a lot. I love it so. Prepare to be played a ton, my copy of the new album. Get ready, wherever you are.
So today's Amazon mp3 deal of the day is one that I've kinda sorta been hoping for. It's another of their big "99 Most Essential..." classical music compilations. Today, it's "The 99 Most Essential Bach Masterpieces." I bought the Beethoven one ... just after it was super cheap several months ago. But I had some mp3 discount thingies at Amazon at the time, so yeah, I spent, like, $5 on it, and dude. I know these aren't "definitive" performances, and I know the pieces are incomplete, just featured movements of larger works, but for me? It has been a great purchase. I enjoy classical music very much, but I know I'll never be an aficionado of any kind. I just enjoy listening to pieces I like now and again, and it's nice to discover something good that I didn't know before occasionally. So yeah, 99 songs, nearly sixteen HOURS of music? Some of it spectacularly famous, some less so, all very good? It's awesome.
SO, yes, I've been waiting for another similar Amazon special. Today's Bach thing REALLY appealed. I knew as soon as I saw it that I would be dropping three bucks on it. But before I did, today, while I was sketching some stuff, I sat and let all 99 half-minute previews of the songs play at the Amazon website. Aaaaaand... hmm. A few songs, I really like. But mostly, I just kinda felt like, well, like maybe I'm not so much a Bach guy after all. I have definitely determined that I don't care so much for the harpsichord. It grates after a while, ha. And so many of the songs in that compilation feature harpsichord. I feel like I'm in some kind of daft 17th century French drawing parlour when that particular instrument plays. I don't generally want to feel like that. But I digress. The point is, though I do like SOME of those songs, and though I have no doubt that it's a pretty good compilation, and something I would be well advised to buy (I mean, three dollars!), I just ... don't wanna. I think I'm a Beethoven man first, a Mozart man second. And I DO need some Mozart. And some Handel and Schubert and Vivaldi and whatnot, but not today.
So maybe I'll blow $7 on the Mozart "99" compilation. But I think now it's more likely that I'm going to go for an album featuring the complete "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and Mozart's 40th Symphony, among others. Because I love, looove those, and maybe I really ought to go for the complete versions. Plus, hey, $2.90. Rock on.
My apologies, Mr. Bach. I think Wolfgang gets my coin.
... G-Force is tops at the box office for the weekend, supplanting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (which is very, very good, by the way) with just north of $32 million.
Seriously, we're all doomed.
I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really, reeeeeeeaaaaaaally looking forward to the release of A Fine Frenzy's (that is, Alison Sudol's) "Bomb In a Birdcage" CD in September. REALLY. I already loooove "Blow Away," and I'm hearing the occasional live performance of other album tracks here and there, and ooh. I may even pre-order this one. Pre-ordering is fun.
Alison's last album, "One Cell In the Sea" is one of my favorites, and one of my most-played since it debuted. So far, this one sounds equally great.
(There's a live version of "Blow Away" available at Alison's Twitter page today, too, by the way.)
And oh, I also really love A Fine Frenzy's Sinatra cover available at iTunes. Very cool. It's the first song I've bought through the iTunes store (all my money goes to apps these days!) in quite some time. There are moments there where I think, wow, her voice is amazing. It's kinda nice when an artist I love for their songwriting and stuff also ends up being a truly great singer. A perfect voice isn't at ALL a requirement for me (I can think of a few favorites who are just okay singers), but it is nice. In this case, I find myself thinking that Alison could have sung songs for Disney features back in the 50's. Like, you know, Sleeping Beauty. And that's a big compliment.
So. Music. RANDOMNESS. Let's begin.
I haven't bought the Regina Spektor CD yet. I would kinda like the special edition, but I don't wanna spend that much. This CD is officially on the "CD's I will buy eventually" list.
That's becoming a long list. Between you and me, I'll never buy them all.
The Beatles' "The Ballad of John and Yoko" is catchy. And I like John Lennon as much as the next dude. But you know, as I listened to it tonight, it occurred to me that it's awfully self-indulgent. I like the song, but yeah. Poor, poor John and Yoko.
It's not nearly as bad as that awful Kid Rock song, though. What was it called? Ummm ... oh, yeah. I don't care. (Fine. It's "Only God Knows Why.")
I'm actually skipping past all Beatles songs right now when iTunes or my iPod tries to get me to listen to them. Not entirely sure why.
The idea that Ashley Monroe still doesn't seem to have a CD released is just plain shameful. For shame, Nashville. FOR SHAME. Talk about a perfect, lilty country voice. And a great songwriter.
I wonder if Kelly Willis will ever release another CD.
I love Lily Allen's "Him." I just love Lily Allen, I think. 'Specially the last CD.
I have a newfound respect for ukulele music.
I still need to learn how to play my banjo.
From now on when I discuss my favorite songs, I need to remember Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah." It's been a favorite for years, but I often forget it.
Finally, let's play, the next ten songs to play at random with iTunes on shuffle ARE:
1. "How I Could Just Kill a Man" - Charlotte Sometimes (Yeah, I kinda like her.)
2. "One Week" - Barenaked Ladies (Hot like wasabi when I bust rhymes!)
3. "Help Me Mary" - Liz Phair (Old school Liz rocks.)
4. "Fighting Away the Tears" - Mocky (feat. Feist) (Don't know Mocky, but anything Feist is good.)
5. "Things to Forget" - Sarah Harmer (I love Sarah, but this song is a drag.)
6. "Trouble" - Coldplay (Yep.)
7. "It's All Been Done" - Barenaked Ladies (Um, yeah, I don't listen to this much BNL. Thanks, iTunes.)
8. "O Valencia!" - The Decemberists (This would make my all time top 100.)
9. "Sullivan Street" - Counting Crows (This album holds some significance for me, though I like other tracks better.)
10. "Supernova" - Liz Phair (Again with the repeat artists, iTunes?)
Okay, because two of those were from repeat artists, we'll do two bonus cuts:
11. "High Above" - Lucy Schwartz (I like this CD. Got it cheap on eBay months ago.)
12. "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" - Starship. (WOW. Haaaa.)
And yes, that's quite enough.
Tuesday was release day for the new Regina Spektor CD, Far, and yeah, I have to say, though I didn't hear a LOT about it ahead of time, I was kinda excited when I did hear it was coming out. The other day I discovered that NPR, as they are wont to do, put the whole album up on their website, so of course, I went ahead and listened while I was sitting here drawing. Actually, that's no "of course," because a lot of the time, when an artist I LOVE has a new album out, I do all I can to avoid hearing any tracks before I buy the CD (and yes, I do still enjoy buying CD's, though I only buy ones I desperately want a hard copy of these days). Anyway, in this case, I listened. And at first ... I don't know. I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't AS blown away as I was by the songs on Regina's last studio album, Begin To Hope. When I heard, say, "Samson" on that album, wow. Goosebumps. So great. Ditto "On the Radio." And "Fidelity." And if you haven't heard "Summer In the City," which I believe was only on the special edition of the album, well, it's one of my very favorite songs. But this time, yeah, the songs didn't leap out at me. I knew, KNEW, however, that with someone like Regina Spektor, I would be well advised to give it some time, to listen more, to let the songs sink in. I think hers are the sort of songs that reward that patience. There's a depth there that I know doesn't always kick in on the first listen. So I've been listening.
And now, it's clicking. Now, I'm excited again.
Here's the song that has me hooked tonight:
That's YouTube, so thanks to whoever posted that there. But yeah, something about that really, really, really, really works for me tonight. Particularly when the hallelujah's kick in around the 1:50 mark, and even MORE at 2:18 when the piano really comes in followed by the swell of strings and voices. I love that to death. I think some reviewers think this CD has some overproduced moments, and maybe that's one of those. But I couldn't like that more. I just can't stop listening to it.
So yeah. Now I'll be buying the disc. I'm not sure there's any artist I like more than Regina now. There's something about her that's just ... I don't know. But it's good, ha. Good, good.
13 now! Oh so close.
So today, let's talk about meadowlarks. I saw one the other day for the first time in forever. And as I WAS born in Kansas City and maintain a deep and profound love and wistful longing and appreciation for Kansas and the Great Plains and those beautiful endless wheat fields, corn fields, towering grain silos and huge skies, seeing that bird - even though it was the Eastern Meadowlark and not the Western (the state bird of Kansas) - was a rather special event. That's a bird that holds some kind of extra significance for me, even though I've seen so few in my lifetime. I just have always lived in areas that are too wooded or too ... well, just not wide open enough to see them. The meadowlark is a bird of, here it comes, obvious line of the day, the meadows! That was very deep and original of me, I know. But yeah, you know, you would expect to find them out in the fields, the farmland, the countryside. They even nest on the ground, not in trees. And SO, what this is leading up to is, seeing the meadowlark to some degree re-awakened my very deep-set desire now to one day live on something resembling a non-working farm. That is, I want to have a house with a lot of land around it, someplace quiet, a place I could maybe grow a little food for myself. Some corn, peppers, maybe some apples? I don't honestly know what the climate will be like at my house, so the menu shall be prepared at a later date. But yes, this place should have a grassy meadow, and if it has an old windmill, I do believe that would just make me the happiest person on Earth. I'm so fond of windmills, I would have to build one myself if one wasn't already there. Or, you know, get someone who knows how to build windmills to come out and build one for me. I'd need a weather vane. A big, copper weather vane. I would also need a nice, open porch to sit out on when the days are warm (or especially when they turn cooler in the fall). I believe this is the sort of place a meadowlark would enjoy (more the fields than the porch, I suspect), and I would certainly enjoy having a few stop by. So thank you, Mr. Meadowlark, for popping up on that fence post long enough for me to see you and hear your call. I saw you for just a moment, but it was a good moment. A very good moment.
It has been far too long since I drove across western Kansas. Sometimes it pops up in my dreams. I-70, I miss you so.
And don't look now, but I JUST now had my very first moment of longing for autumn. My favorite time of year. This will grow exponentially over the next few months. Oh yes.
