26 posts tagged “music”
I've been listening to David Bowie's Space Oddity over and over this last week, possibly because I hadn't updated the Isabella (yes, I'm going to refer it like a ship) with my ginormous MP3 collection from the desktop (which isn't officially named, but I think is the Camille)
Some lyrics from it just resonate greatly within me.
This is major Tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here, am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can doThough I'm past one hundred thousand miles, I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much,
(she knows)
Oh, and if late 1960s' music videos is what you like, then here's one of Space Oddity courtesy to the Tube of You.
Amirul, who is most well known for his extreme unpunctuality, arrives here only two weeks late for a post on the 4th Open Mic Night he attended at The Dance Space with Tabby on the very very generous invitation of Alan McLean.
It was a great and casual event with impromptu and planned performances in the realms of Music, Dance and Poetry. Seeing I can hardly hold a tune, and my legs are as dextrous as wet cement, my contribution to the night was some self-penned poetry entitled An Art Form In Distraction.
The entire atmosphere was awesome, and now I have come to the altogether-too-late realization that wearing the white jacket with my grey trilby shouts out "Pimp!". It seems, dear readers, there are times when the persistent shouts of others regarding my costume should be listened to. Regardless, I enjoyed my pimp look, and it gave me an opportunity to shout ridiculous slogans such as "Ah bitchslap ya, ho!"
The Blantons, Gary and Paola, awesomely nicer people there never were, hosted the event for their parents returning to America. Paola truly enthralled everybody with magickal belly dancing, and Gary was no less awesome with his bass guitar playing.
Okay, so Big-O-Vision beckons.
Thanks to how badly my Sony DSC-N1 takes night photos, I had to rely on flash. Thanks to the GIANT WALL OF MIRROR (Yes, as in singular), all my night photos looked like this because the flash bounced straight back at me.
There was so much guitar-playing, I almost felt ashamed I can't play. Almost.
There was lots of singing too, very entertaining ones, some involving Bulgarian Idol ("Kennnnnn Liiiiiiii! Libi dibi dauchu!" - an attempted transliteration there, ha) and some involving the tragic tale of a Gay Eskimo, all were completely worth-seeing. Imprinted onto the synapses of my brain.
Tabby... she stealses my hat!
At last, when pointing away from the GIANT WALL OF MIRROR, I could take a fairly-resemblant photo of how the nicely dim lighting was all like.
GIANT WALL OF MIRROR = reflect man with hat.
This particular bit had all of us sitting on the floor, eyes closed (at first) in tandem with the hypnotic beat of the drums, plus the mindwarpingly excellent strumming of the guitar. It was spiritual.
There were acoustic guitars, and there were electric ones. Here, Alan is playing - I'm guessing here - an electric one. There were so many guitars sometimes you even might wonder, "Are they giving them away?" Okay, maybe I was wondering that. I want to learn, honest.
Some of you may have heard I performed some poetry, and in the absence of photos (though I believe Tabby's blog has some) I must present to you with about two minutes worth of video. Tabby's camera, and crappy sound I know, so GO BLAME HER.
But even excellent events like these must end, and at 1.30am me and Tabby reluctantly let out the minute yawns. The crowd had thinned but poetry still played. I had a great time. Alan McLean, Forensics Director, guitar-player, math-teacher and all-round nice guy, poses with me in the last photo of the night.
Awesome. I can't wait for another one like this.
My newest music discovery comes pleasantly thanks to Anthony Liekens' beautifully excellent Last.fm thingamajigs: his Music Recommendation music tag cloud generator in particular.
I plug in the details of my Last.fm account - just the username - and it tells me a bunch of things, depending on which script you're in for. The Recommended Artistes generator is my favorite, because out of the fifty that come out, perhaps one of them I might enjoy. Maybe even two.
Depressingly, either the music becomes more mainstream-and-already-listened-to, or it's just not as good. But sometimes I get lucky. I'll try a few from this list, once I decide which ones to randomly try out.
Speaking of getting lucky, I was going through that list when I discovered Metric.
Wow, I like them a lot. I got hold of a few of their songs at first - Combat Baby, Too Little Too Late, Monster Hospital - and wow, I like them a lot.
Great stuff.
Because Darling Violetta are playing, damn it, and it's the first gig since 2004. So that makes it like a reunion or something. This is, of course, a very good thing.
This kind of thing makes me wish - albeit, for a very short time before reality set in - that I lived in the US and could make to such events with the most minor of inconveniences.
Of course, if I had my own personal plane none of this begging would ever appear online, as would if I had some sort of long-distance jetpack.
February 16 is also the day I fly off to Kuching for my Great Independent Holiday To Commemmorate Eighteenth Birthday, so, well, sucks. But I shall watch Darling Violetta one day. If I have to commission them myself for a private performance, then so be it. I shall see them live!
After all, I have sworn abstinence from concerts or such until a group I really like performs here, or somewhere I can attend. 'Til then, I suppose, young folkies.
One day, people, one day.
At least I've still got my three CDbaby-purchased albums. To savor, and to listen over and over again until perhaps Cami uses her magic psychic powers to bring DV over to Malaysia..?
There's a reason why this album is one of my unofficial favorites (after Poe's Haunted, Darling Violetta's PARLOUR, Poets of the Fall's Signs of Life, and The Cardigans' Life)
It's a single song, called Happy Home. I've liked Garbage's stuff for some time now but I'm only really familiar with Bleed Like Me. That said, Happy Home is teh win.
THE ULTIMATE FLING
should damn well be great.
It's Poets of the Fall's first single off their third album!
Now, I've already said this before, haven't I? Well, I'm going to say it again.
THE ULTIMATE FLING
should damn well be great.
====
I'm listening to a sample of the song from their website. No doubt only thirty seconds long only or something, but still.
Sounds like more of Carnival of Rust, which can only be a good thing, right? Though I did love the Late Goodbye days a little more.
Whoo! Late in the night and I'm screaming in happiness! (Well, happiness and silence, too, because it's late and everybody's asleep)
I also didn't scream. But let's not think I was not happy, yes? I AM HAPPY AS HECK.
The Ultimate Fling, released on Feb. 6, will be their first single off the as-yet-untitled album. Now, Carnival of Rust was brillimazing, and even bested their superdebutalbum, so I am slightly displeased that they are still not yet the superband they should be by now.
Oh well. Brillimazing, my words.
Me and Roslyn have reached an age where we realize that the future is a rather big place. Our parents have swapped ideas for how each member of the House of Ruslan would marry, with a rough idea on when, how, and where as well.
Now, the most concrete decision is the choice of song to be sung at the wedding.
Lately, now that he'd been set free on the dangerous plague that filesharing is, my father has decided to download a bunch of songs, and one of them he keeps playing over and over again is Changes by Ozzy Osbourne. There's another version, which he downloaded, which has Kelly Osbourne singing along with the ol' Dark Prince.
So that's the song to be played on Roslyn's wedding.
That's also when I decided I would sing a song for her wedding too, if and when it happens. My song would be infinitely cooler than a father-daughter duet.
I'm going to sing Radiohead's Creep. (You might not guess or understand why. It's an injoke between friends: I liked the song so much, one time in Langkawi I actually crossed several very congested lanes of traffic at night to listen to a live cover of it by some restaurant musician band) I'm going to do one very, very strongly over-emo cover of it, too.
"I'm a creeeeeeeeep... I'm a weeeirdooooo... What the hell am I doing here???... I don't belong here... oh no, oh no..." Before going onto the high-pitched bits, which is sure to cause severe dysfunction in your aural tracts. I suspect it will all be over before I finish the second line in the chorus. Quite likely, by the time I get to "What the hell am I doing here", most of the visiting crowds would have remembered some extremely urgent appointment they had completely forgotten about, quite likely involving a dire need to head to the airport and fly to Iran.
God bless Thom Yorke and all he's ever done for ruining weddings.
...Except that I actually don't, of course. Love glasses, nor have hurt eyes.
At the library, studying. Exams start on Thursday, with accursed accursed Bahasa Malaysia (I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE JOKES ABOUT IT!). Then it restarts proper on Saturday with Hubungan Etnik. After that, it can't possibly be any worse, right? Let's hope on it.
New listenings: I have come to enjoy very much some B-sides on The Other Side Of The Moon, which I pretty much liked anyway, but now wholeheartedly love. Especially Country Hell and the basic version of After All.
Been doing some anagrams today. "A Watchman, She" is the best I can come up with after tampering with a few names and variations - I did so wonderfully last year when I was compiling my list of Laura anagrams. They were amazing. Too bad I can't remember them now. LAURA! DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR ANAGRAMS?
(Some people may ask who Laura is. Others will know she is unborn daughter, and others yet will expect a comment from her on my Vox. Why, there she is now! Hi, Laura!)
This has been very, very fascinating. I've never watched Season One nor the Miniseries, so now I can! Wheeeeeee! Yeah. Whatever.
Alright, I'm going to send in the bank draft for the hostel second semester fees thing.
