Rivers Cuomo… YES, MAN!
December 29, 2008
One of the gifts I received for Christmas this year (in addition to my new Sony HDTV, Lost season premier party anyone?) was the new Rivers Cuomo solo compilation, Alone II: Home Recordings. I almost enjoy this album a little more than his first home recording compilation. I especially enjoyed reading the narrative liner notes he wrote for it, which go into the stories behind the songs and give a little more insight into his odd life. Weezer’s first two albums were a major part of my formative years and those songs will always resonate with me in a very awesome way. Even though their new material is… well… awful in comparison, I will always be interested in what Rivers is up to, and always keep an open mind to his new material. He is now happily married, though, thus I doubt that he’ll ever write anything good again. Too much contentment and happiness does not lend itself to good songs. With that, I give you this video I came across on You Ain’t No Picasso of Rivers doing an acapella version of the Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby, with a group of backup vocalists. He included an early demo cover of this song on the new home recordings album as well.
While on Stereogum, I also found this video of Rivers in the studio doing a new song he co-wrote with Jermaine Dupri, (a different version of this also appears on Alone II).
Megan and I saw Yes Man yesterday, and it did not dissappoint. I was definitely in the mood for a more entertaining movie, and it really hit the spot. Don’t go into this movie expecting anything more than just pure entertainment… there are no deep meanings nor is there anything remotely intellectual about it. I must say that this is one of the best performances I’ve seen from Zooey Deschanel. Her looks and personally fit her character perfectly…. and I can’t think of anyone more perfect to fill that role. Jim Carrey is… well, Jim Carrey. I’ve enjoyed him in every movie of his that I’ve seen.
Just a tidbit of space news for you: NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. through 2016 to fill the need to carry cargo to the Internation Space Station. This is the kind of thing NASA needs to keep doing- the future of space exploration lies in the combined efforts of goverment and the private sector. Link via Bad Astronomy.
I leave you with this:
Awesoments and psychics
December 22, 2008
So New York was a blast. I’ll post a link on here to the pics once I go through them and get them uploaded. It snowed about 4 inches in the city on friday, which was beautiful. CSS rocked Webster Hall thur. night, and Prabir & the Substitutes rocked Sullivan Hall Sat. night. The Met was awesome sunday, and the American Museum of Natural History was naturally awesome on Friday.
Today I bring you pure awesomeness in the form of the Periodic Table of Awesoments. It’s a list of all things that can be described as “awesome.” The awesomeness of this awesome table cannot be overstated. I just tried to say “awesome” as many times as I could in that paragraph. Awesome.
Stereogum did some digging around and found the earliest known appearance of Zooey Deschanel in film. It’s an old Offspring music video. Classic.
In this video (1 of many… I haven’t yet watched all of them), Richard Dawkins and Derren Brown talk about the techniques used by psychics and astrologers to fool people into thinking they actually know something about their life or the problems they’re going through. Just watch. If you’re someone who even slightly believes in the so-called “powers” of psychics or palm-readers, etc… hopefully this video will help you see the light. Via Boing Boing.
Spaceport America now has clearance from the FAA to conduct spaceflight from its soon-to-be built facility in New Mexico. In a time when severe budget cuts loom for NASA, the era of commercial spaceflight can’t come soon enough. I seriously doubt we’ll ever see our government have as much interest in space exploration as it did in the 60’s, so we’re going to have to turn to the private sector to see any serious, well-funded endeavours into manned spaceflight. Hopefully NASA can eventually work out a deal with one or some of the many private spaceflight companies that are currently testing/building rockets and spacecraft. Hell, they already contract out many aspects of space shuttle maintenance and launches.
Obama has assembled a kickass team of real scientists to tackle the energy crisis, global warming, and hopefully create a lot of new, secure jobs in the process, thus helping to revitalize the economy. Jan. 20th can’t come soon enough!
Universe Today takes on the 2012 comet/distaster/end-of-the-world bullshit head-on in this article. Nothing is going to happen, people! As the article says, there is nothing more profitable than fear. This is no more evident than in the upcoming movie, 2012. These people will be making millions, even billions, off your fear. Don’t do it!
New LOST trailer/Obama- keep the scalpel away from NASA
December 3, 2008
A sneak peek from the new season of LOST. I’m officially excited. I might even try to start having LOST viewing parties. I don’t really have people over to my place very much… if at all, so here’s to trying something new.
What does Obama have in mind for NASA’s Constellation program? Ok, I get it, we have budget problems… but we can’t just throw away all the hard work NASA has put into the successor to the space shuttle- the Constellation program. We have to see Ares I, Ares V, and the Orion capsule through to their completion. As quoted in the article, those programs are years ahead of any alternative. Changing course now would only widen the gap between the space shuttle and its successor. Mr. Obama, I love you, but please leave Constellation alone. For that matter, leave NASA’s budget alone… I’m all about your “scalpel” approach to budget cuts, but take the scalpel elsewhere. Too many people see space exploration as “unnecessary” or think “oh, it can wait.” The science that NASA does is VITAL to the progress of the human race. It’s more of a “big picture” mentality, but we’ll never achieve the goals of putting men on Mars, and eventually colonizing other worlds if we keep putting off the first steps toward them. NASA has been put on the backburner with increasing budget cuts ever since the end of the Apollo missions. The nation must get out of the mentality that space exploration and scientific discovery are secondary to the problems we face here on earth, because the scientific breakthroughs/discoveries that come as a result of said exploration will probably help to solve many of those problems- the biggest of which is the energy crisis and global warming. Sorry about the soap box, but I feel like I need to start including more of my own thoughts into this blog rather than just posting lots of links.
I was unaware of the legislation that passed in 2007 to phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2014. I’m glad it passed… but this article points out that the mercury contained in the new compact fluorescent bulbs will pose a major environmental hazard if people don’t dispose of them properly.
In local music, The Features have a special Christmas package deal going at their website. You can get their latest album Some Kind of Salvation and a new Tshirt as a package deal. Get it while it’s hot.
Some links… happy Turkey Day
November 26, 2008
Disclaimer: Posting may be pretty sporadic over the next few days as Megan and I head to east TN to visit my family for thanksgiving.
Today I just have some links for you. No rants. Just some links… mainly because Kottke.org had my RSS feed full of goodness this morning. The following three are from Kottke.
Photography is for Jerkoffs.
A very clever way to put the impressiveness of a magnetic hard drive into perspective.
Chinese use rockets to get the cables for a bridge higher than the Empire State Building across the gorge over which it is being built.
Via NME: It’s finally official. They’ve teased us for over a year now, but Blur is reuniting for another album. Let’s hope they tour too. I’m skeptically excited.
The Boston Globe’s website continues to post amazing hi-res photographs of even more amazing things, such as this series of International Space Station.
And now, for your daily dose of WTF?!?!? Blowjobs as performance art:
Enjoy your thanksgiving!
And The Relatives release “Animals”/Space Shuttle mission underway
November 17, 2008
And The Relatives, a local indie rock trio featuring my friend and fellow Scene contributor Patrick Rodgers on drums, have released their first proper EP “Animals.” Their EP release show was this past friday at the 5 Spot, but I was unable to attend due to a huge conference at work. I highly recommend checking them out this thurs. Nov. 20th (I may be there- it’s my birthday afterall) at the End with The Ettes, The Howlies, and Mean Tambourines. For a couple of free mp3’s, head over to Out The Other. They are part of a new collective of bands/artists known as Holly House. I’ve heard this name a few times over the past year or so, and recently I checked out their website to find that they have quite a lineup of bands associated with them. They seem to be onto something good here- a collective of bands just trying to make good music and help each other out with booking, etc… Basically it’s like Movement Nashville, but not so focused on the commercial/business aspect. The artists/bands associated with MN are very commercial sounding (and sometimes acting), and I think that leaves a bad taste in many mouths amongst local bands who really just want to make good music, regardless of the commercial appeal. I have nothing against a band trying to make a little money doing what they love, but sometimes it’s just too blatantly obvious that they’re making their art fit into a certain formulaic mold, at which point I usually say “no thanks.”
This is slightly old news by now, but the Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off from Kennedy Space Center Friday night at 7:55pm EST and successfully docked with the International Space Station at 5:01pm EST Sunday. You can watch live footage from the mission at NASA TV. While we’re talking about NASA, there’s a little speculation about the future of NASA under the new Obama Administration. Current NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has said that he will stick around only if Obama wants to keep things going steady on the current course of developing the new Constellation program, and retiring the Shuttle in 2010. For more info see the full story at Universe Today.
Some random links:
10 fascinating last pictures of famous people before they died.
Obama plans to begin doing weekly YouTube video updates. FDR 2.0 maybe?
Plasma plants may vaporize garbage while generating power.
Photographs of female body builders. Not for the faint of heart….
And finally I’ll leave you with this bit of inspiration, thanks to the Holly House website:
Brian Wilson/Robert Schneider encounters
November 12, 2008
So the Brian Wilson record signing at Grimey’s was a bit anti-climatic, but it should be expected, I guess. We stood in line outside in the cold for about an hour to get in. To my dismay they’d just sold out of his new album on vinyl, so I had to get it on CD. (The deal was that you had to buy a copy of his new album there at Grimey’s in order to get him to sign it, and you could also bring 1 other item.) My other item was the awesome original mono version that Megan got me for Christmas last year. Mr. Wilson was robotic in his signing, to put it lightly. He didn’t even make eye contact with anyone.
But the man is lucky to be alive after going through all that he has- his father’s treatment of him, drug abuse, mental illness, losing his brothers, the tension between him and Mike Love… the list goes on and on. All that, and yet he still managed to be one of most profound and influential musicians/producers/composers of modern times. He is indeed the “Mozart of rock” as he was introduced on the stage monday night. This leads into my next item of interest- we ran into none than Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo at the actual Brian Wilson show at the Ryman monday night. I saw him from behind and before I knew it, had blurted out “Robert Schneider!” He turned around and was very cool and friendly. I mentioned that I’d seen him perform as Marbles at the End opening for Of Montreal once and he was very appreciative. He seems to be in that sweet zone of moderate fame, where not too many people recognize him, but the ones that do aren’t obsessive about it, and it happens seldom enough that he’s appreciative and always willing to talk/take photos/etc… We took a photo with him and went on our separate ways. The show was nothing short of amazing, and from what I’ve heard from people who’d seen Brian before, it was actually better than other recent appearances. His band the Wondermints are absolutely phenomenal, and nailed every single note of the complex harmonies involved with both the Beach Boys material and Brian’s solo stuff. They recreated the sounds in the recordings (yes even the complex Pet Sounds material) with stunning aural accuracy, and the sound mix was almost flawless. I feel like it was worth every penny, and I got to photograph it for the Scene as well, which made it even better.
Frankly I’m a bit surprised this is public information, but as the article mentions, presedential codenames are a bit obsolete and unnecessary, given the strict security and hi-tech communications used by the secret service.
Barack Obama: Renegade
Michelle Obama: Renaissance
Malia: Radiance
Sasha: Rosebud
Diamonds made from tequila? Yes, indeed. If you told me that before I read this article I’d say you were full of shit, but it’s true.
The Phoenix Lander mission is officially over. They haven’t been able to communicate with it for a couple of days now, and the sunlight will only get dimmer and dimmer as the Martian winter sets in. This article seems to indicate that, while unlikely, the possibility does exist for Phoenix to re-awaken in October of 2009 when the Martian spring begins.
steve cross loves music and science 