Uncategorized – Page 18 – The Designer Monologues

January 8, 2010April 19, 2010

Friday Music

….and here we go: The first Friday Music post of 2010!

We recently finished watching the UK series Misfits, about a group of young offenders in a work crew who get struck by lightning during a strange storm, and develop superpowers. Fun stuff, and some really excellent music as well. The theme to the show, for example, is this track: The Rapture – “Echoes.”

One of the episodes featured a club scene, spotlighting this great example of Grime (the UK’s home-grown electronic/dance-music based variety of hip-hop, which I’ve posted about before): Skepta – “Rolex Sweep (Vandalism Mix).”

Excellent series — give it a go if you haven’t seen it yet.

Track from the Canadian band You Say Party! We Say Die!, from their third album, XXXX, released in late September. Twin Peaks reference, retro-80s sound (seriously — very OMD), and a female vocalist — Sign me up! You Say Party! We Say Die! – “Laura Palmer’s Prom.”

Speaking of retro — for a new year, I’m doing an awful lot of listening to old music. Over the holidays, I picked up a real gem — A 4-CD set of music from the immortal Stiff Records, the label responsible for ushering in the late-70s/turn-of-the-80s post-punk/new-wave movement in the UK. A lot of great stuff on this collection: Elvis Costello, Ian Drury & the Blockheads, Lene Lovitch, Madness… and several brilliant pieces by Stiff’s live-in producer and occasional solo act: Nick Lowe – “So It Goes.”

This is new, but it sounds old — another “super group” has reared its head: Them Crooked Vultures, a three-man jam formed by Josh Homme (Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin). Straightforward 70s-esque quasi-psychedelic cock-rock — for example, check out this VERY Cream-influenced track: Them Crooked Vultures – “Scumbag Blues.”

Listening to that reminded me of the very Led-Zep influenced track from one of my favorite “almost-was” bands of the 80s, Zebra. I really expected these guys to be much, much bigger. I still regularly listen to their first album, which featured “Tell Me What You Want”, “One More Chance” and this track: Zebra – “Who’s Behind The Door?”

Lastly, here’s a symphonic metal track from the Dutch band Within Temptation — I have to admit that I have a soft spot for this genre. It’s almost genetically designed to be the background music for the most Awesome D&D campaign EVER! Within Temptation – “Ice Queen.”

There you go, kids. Copy-and-paste the links if they give you any trouble.

More next week….

December 31, 2009

New Year’s Eve

Thinking about endings.

Yes, yes, I know — there is no “year zero”, so 2010 is technically the end of the decade, not 2009. Same argument that got trotted out in 1999. To which I say bullshit, for three reasons:

1) The whole Western dating system is arbitrary as fuck anyway. (I’m looking at you, Adoption of the Gregorian Calendar…)

2) No, there was no “year zero”, but last I checked, we lived through 365 days in 2000, which makes 2009 the tenth year of the decade.

3) There’s no way you’re going to convince me that 1980 was part of the 70s.

Anyway — I have to say that I’m extremely happy to see the ass-end of the “Aughts” or whatever-the-hell-we’ll-end-up-calling-them. It was, all told, a fucking gallstone of a decade.

With some very notable personal exceptions (marriage to , getting my business off the ground, The Minion’s successful launch into college), it’s been ten years of some pretty bad shit — kicking off with a nasty custody fight, then Bush’s election, 9/11, the all-too-rapid dismantling of my country into something nearly unrecognizable, moving away from NYC, the loss of my Grandmother, financial struggles, Cancer, a growing sense of personal and professional stagnation, the economy kneecapping family and friends, and finally the death of one of my closest friends.

Not exactly the best decade ever. Of the four I’ve had, it’s easily been the worst. I’m very much hoping for better.

I feel like we’ve arrived at a turning point — with the potential for either outcome, really. 2010-2019 could turn out to be the decade when the course was reversed and the promise of the 21st century began to be realized, or it could mark our descent into economic and political meltdown, rife with fanaticism and conflict — the 1930s redux. Personally, despite my nature, I’m hopeful. I feel like things will get better — we just need to shake off the dust of this first decade, and move ahead.

I leave you with the following musical tidbits to mark the day:

The first, I’m happy to report, represents one of my Holy Grails, finally found — a track which some of you may recall I’ve been looking for, for AGES. I suspected that I’d finally find it as the year approached, and I was right. Here is the radio single from the soundtrack to the 1984 film, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, one of the only solo works by the Police guitarist to get radio play: Andy Summers – “2010.”

…and, a track which I still think represents U2 at their very best: U2 – “New Year’s Day.”

Thanks for reading, folks, and have a great 2010.

December 30, 2009

Move Your Money

This is a brilliant idea, so I’m passing it along: A movement underway trying to convince Americans to hold accountable the mega-banks that got us into this economic mess, and yet are supposedly “too big to fail” (which conveniently lets them off the hook for playing roulette with the world economy), by moving our money from accounts in those banks, to small, locally-owned banks that had no part in the meltdown (or the ridiculous bailout payments).

Watch the video:

…and then visit MoveYourMoney.info to find high-rated locally-owned banks near you.