Why I love Rock and Roll May 9, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Irrelevant, Music , add a commentThe other night we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. They were playing these mournful Mexican ballads and the service was really slow. The music was endless moaning and wailing, it started to seem like a ghost in a haunted house. We came home and put on rock and roll and played scrabble.
You see, rock and roll just doesn’t fuck with you like those Mexican ballads do. Rock and roll is there for you. It’s like your bad friend who mocks your soft middle class ways and takes you out on an adventure. Before your night is through, you look like Frankenfurter and the cops and the mafia are after you.
This is why I love Rock and Roll.
Phineas Foo, Age 45.
Day of the International Solidarity of Workers May 1, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Irrelevant, Music, Political/Editorial , add a commentWell it’s May 1, Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, so be sure and find some way to stick it to the man when you can, and spend a little time with The Internationale.
Der Golem April 26, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Film, Music , add a commentLast night I saw the great film The Golem: How He Came Into the World at the Castro Theater in SF. It was scored by Black Francis which made it all the more amazing. The film is incredible — the set designs, the costumes, every visual aspect was just memerizing. Frank Black’s original songs and live performance were awesome. The emcee felt obliged/permitted to make what he must have thought were clever witticisms throughout the film. Really lame, un-comic material like “this scene is on youtube — heh heh.” Really stupid and annoying. That created this goofy atmosphere of incessant chuckling. This being the San Francisco International Film Festival, I would have expected a more reverent tone. We’re here to celebrate cinema, not make fun of things which are unfamiliar to us. OK, maybe the Castro is not where you go to be reverent, but still laughing at an outmoded style of acting, treating everything as camp is so missing the point of that specific movie. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, beautiful film, not some silly relic from Grandma’s memento chest.
But all in all it was a really cool venue and great film and a fun way to see it. This makes the fourth time I’ve seen Mr. Black perform, I’m slightly embarassed to say.
Paris 1991 April 20, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Lyrics, Music, Poesiac , add a commentRain drops smack upon the boulevard
roof tiles crackle in the sun
I don’t think I’ll ever go so far
as I did in Paris in 1991
I don’t know who was President
I don’t know what war we were in
but it was all going on
in Paris in 1991
The Parisians were so busy
and the tourists were so busy
and the immigrants were so busy
but me I had a revelation
in Paris in 1991
You ain’t seen Paris
unless you saw Paris
in 1991
The Thrill Of It All March 22, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Film, Irrelevant, Music , add a commentI’m enjoying the heck out of the Roxy Music DVD “Thrill of It All: A Visual History 1972-1982″
I read about it in The New Yorker and don’t have a whole lot to add to that. But it’s just beautiful. I love Eno’s various machines, hairstyles and blouses. I also enjoy how incongruous the low-tech video production quality is juxtaposed with these energetic, brilliant, outrageous musical compositions and performances. The songs all rock. Plus I think Bryan Ferry is flirting with me.
Children of Men January 8, 2008
Posted by Phineas in : Film, Music , add a commentI watched this film on cable the other day. It was enjoyable. I always enjoy the bleak, near future sci-fi stories. But the main thing that thrilled me was a long sequence featuring King Crimson’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King” for no obvious reason other than it sounded cool.
Television December 14, 2007
Posted by Phineas in : Music , add a commentDigging this old vid. That is all.
Freedom Requires Music December 7, 2007
Posted by Phineas in : Music , add a commentJust as music requires freedom.
Just some random music notes.
Reading a playlist is *nothing* like listening to it. What a list of song and artist names evokes is so pale compared with how it feels to spend the time listening to the songs. Pleasure in music is about time, I think, mainly. Identities and genres and lyrics and histories and personalities are just not really what it’s about.
Sometimes I will be listening to a stream of music, whether on my mp3 player or over last.fm or whatever, and I get kind of stuck doing it. I keep wanting to hear this song to the end. I keep wanting to wait till I find out what the next song will be. If it’s good, I want to listen to the end. And so on. I’m often grateful for a crappy song to come along to break the spell. Otherwise I’d be doing nothing but listening to music.
Christmas songs categorically all suck. I’ll just come right out and say it. I don’t care if it *is* Dean Martin, or Louis Armstrong, or the Beach Boys, or whatever your idea of a cool artists is. They just can’t save “Little Drummer Boy.” There’s no cool way to sing “Let It Snow.” I’m sorry. I have this mix on my ipod which is like 50% of my favorite cool rock and roll, %15 random rock and roll,%20 my favorite Jazz, and %15 of the most tolerable Christmas songs I could find. Sung by my favorite artists, etc.
Guess what? %15 of the mix sucks. You’re grooving along three, four songs at a time, then some damn jing-jingaling-jing-jing bullshit comes on. It’s a crappy song, but it’s Jonathan Richman. It’s a crappy song, but it’s Ella Fitzerald. Somehow that’s almost worst than if it were Perry Como or Mel Torme.
The many other things about Christmas which suck are for another post.
Music is awesome, otherwise. I prescribe it for what ails ya!
Does this exist? November 29, 2007
Posted by Phineas in : Irrelevant, Music , 1 comment so farI don’t think it exists, but let me know if it exists.
One thing I enjoy about Pandora or last.fm is its ability to turn me on to music I’ll like, or allow me to set my mood. So I can create a “station” that consists of music like the Clash — and I can expect some Clash plus a lot of other music I’ll probably like — some new to me, some not.
The thing I don’t like about these services is that they are low-fi streams for the most part, and require network connection.
I have a fairly large music collection on my hard drive. I can browse it, create playlists, etc. But that’s work and I’m lazy. I’d love to be able to have folksonomic behaviors applied to my own collection. I’d like to be able to tell itunes or whatever player I like to play songs “like X” and let it build a nice playlist for me. iTunes has a “smart playlist” feature but it’s not that smart.
The idea would be to draw upon the community out there which builds up these relationships. Your player could download just the relationships you’re interested in, and apply what it learns to your own collection.
I guess we’re almost there. Maybe it’s just around the corner. May be it exists and I’m revealing my ignorance. That’s probably it.
Fausse 2007 November 12, 2007
Posted by Phineas in : Alcohol, Environment, Irrelevant, Music, Outdoors/Travel, Photos, Wild Animals , 1 comment so far 
Lake Fausse 2007 Wrap up:
Gators? Check.
Pelicans/herons/loons, etc? Check.
Varmits? Check.
Paddlefish? Check.
Turtles? Check.
Lizards? Check.
Owls? Check.
Midnight kayaking into the infinity? Check.
Blazing constellations? Check.
Orion pursuing the Pleiades? Check.
Shooting stars? Check.
Copious quantities of expensive beer? Check.
Rock and Roll? Check.
All parties present and accounted for? This was our main failing this year, as the Arcturus was with us only in song.
Saints victorious over the winless Rams? Not so much.
Musicological/sociological experiment? Isolate four drunk middle-aged men away from their googles, wikis and twitters but with the entire Pink Floyd music collection on MP3 (no credits) and pose the question: Who sang what? David Gilmour or Roger Waters? Song by song/line by line. (Why is this hard? Listen to “Mother” from the Wall album. Consider: Waters sometimes sounds like Gilmour, but other times sounds like no one else.)
Photos? Check.
Videos? Check.
