June 2006 – Page 4 – The Designer Monologues

June 23, 2006April 19, 2010

Friday Music

Six years ago, took me to the Guinness Fleadh for my birthday, and we spent 12 hours in a park on Randall’s Island (a sliver of land in the East river between Manhattan and Queens) listening to bands on 3 stages….and drinking Guinness. The Fleadh hosted bands like The Prodigals, Black 47, Shane McGowan, and one of my favorite bands from Ireland, The Saw Doctors. If you haven’t listened to the Saw Doctors they do a almost country-tinged pop, featuring some traditional Irish instruments, and many of the songs are the wistful reminiscences of an expat, thinking about the people and places they left behind. Here is one of my favorite songs from them — an ode to the highway (‘major route’) that heads to their home town of Tuam. The Saw Doctors – “N17”

I hope that you’ll forgive the 70s easy-listening nature of this song, but it’s always been one of my favorites, and never fails to make me think of summer. My brother and I have sung duet on this more than once at various gatherings — Looking Glass – “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”

Another new band in the Neo-new-wave style, whom I discovered this past week. 2006….1986….what’s the diff. The Modern – “Seven Oceans.”

Folks have really liked the previous tracks that I’ve posted from Midlake (“Young Bride” and “We Gathered in Spring”), so here’s another track from the same album (“The Trials of Van Occupanther,” which was just released): Midlake – “Bandits.” “Did you ever want to be overrun by bandits?”

Just to get your butts moving, here’s the Scissor Sister’s cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”, which they brilliantly re-imagine as a Bee-Gees-esque disco tune: Scissor Sisters – “Comfortably Numb.”

Another effort on my part to expose you to the lesser-known good-quality hip-hop out there. This is a track by The Roots, a hip-hop group who *gasp* actually play real instruments….and this particular song shows how you can do a love song in hip-hop. The female vocals are courtesy of Eriyka Badu. Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson’s drumming on this track is brilliant, especially in the last third of the song, when he starts doing some great jazz fills. The Roots – “You Got Me.”

Yeah, it’s sunny and hot, and the summer is in full bloom. So let’s hear something for the “Goffs.” My favorite track from Peter Murphy and Co. Bauhaus – “Dark Entries.”

The kids are going crazy for the Gnarls Barkley (get it? Crazy? Heh heh … Oh, I just KILL me) — so here’s another track from the album (which is excellent, by the way), asking the question “when was the last time you danced?” Gnarls Barkley – “The Last Time.”

Enjoy folks. More next week.

June 22, 2006

World Cup

…and, in a single day, two of the teams I was pulling for are out of the running.

European readers will have to understand — for the American fan, we’re just not used to being able to root for our own country in the World Cup, and so we usually fall back on supporting the nations of our ancestry. So for me, this year, I had hopes for not only the US, but the Czechs and the English as well.

After today’s matches though (Italy 2-0 over the Czech Republic and Ghana 2-1 over the US), the only team I have left is England.

Who play Ecuador next.

Hurry Up, England!

June 21, 2006

Things We’re Not Being Told….

Ron Suskind has a new book, “The One Percent Doctrine”, which details things going on behind the scenes in our administration’s “War on Terror.”

Recently, the Washington Post reviewed the book, bringing to light an incident from its pages that I find particularly disgusting.

Naturally, I felt the need to share.

The US captured Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in March 2002……whereupon it was discovered that Zubaydah was mentally ill and used by Al-Qaeda for minor logistical matters, such as arranging travel for wives and children.

The President was briefed on all of this by the CIA…..yet still insisted, two weeks later, on describing Zubaydah as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.” A big media splash was made about capturing one of Al-Qaeda’s “Top Operatives.”

When CIA director George Tenet disagreed with this assessment, Bush told Tenet “I said he was important. You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?”

Under White House orders, the CIA would make Zubaydah the first test subject for harsh interrogation methods. Bush asked “Do some of these harsh methods really work?”

The methods — torture — were applied.

Naturally, Zubaydah began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. As he spouted off these supposed plots, the US would dispatch thousands of uniformed men and women to each “target.”

There’s the “War on Terror” in a nutshell, kids.

As Suskind sums it up:

“The United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.”