The latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine actually did something I found interesting. They called it the "Playlist Edition" and had a bunch of artists pick their top 10 songs from various entities; a particular artist or scene. Mick Jagger picked his favorite blues, Tom Morello picked his favorite protest songs, Tom Petty picked the best of the British Invasion, Rick Rubin picked his favorite Led Zeppelin songs, stuff like that.
You all know how I love to make lists, so I figured I'd pick "playlist" top 10s for the artist I unquestionably know best, and my latest fling.
Tenzwift's Top Neil Young
Neil's the best, it's as simple as that. Condensing his catalog down to 10 tracks is like choosing one organ out of your body and discarding all the rest. But this list covers the basics very well. It's only problem is that it leans a smidgen too heavily towards the acoustic material. His electric stuff is better in general, but what that means is that the great acoustic songs actually stand out moreso among their lesser brethren, and are therefore easier to pick out. If I could pick a runner up, I'd have gone with Fuckin' Up.
1. Cowgirl in the Sand
-- Crazy Horse debuted a new kind of sound. One that was fierce but plodding, like lightning shown in slow motion.
2. Cortez the Killer
-- Immaculate from the first note to the last, Cortez is a sonic trip, the one that proved the new Crazy Horse was a formidable beast.
3. Out on the Weekend
-- There isn't anything good about Harvest that isn't better in this track than on any other.
4. Tell Me Why
-- Perhaps the most gorgeous folk-pop song Neil ever penned, perfection describes it well.
5. Mellow My Mind
-- When his voice cracks -- that's it. That's the moment when shit gets real. The desperation of yearning for a simpler world overcomes him at that moment.
6. Prime of Life
-- This song comes from another world. It's like 3am personified, it oozes with the mysteries of darkness.
7. Will To Love
-- Chilling, haunting, inspired strains of grim wanderlust. A genuine lo-fi track.
8. Ambulance Blues
-- The existential nihilism of the ditch trilogy gets so bittersweet on this track that it makes me ache.
9. Thrasher
-- The most beautifully poetic and enchanting "diss track" ever crafted, where Neils spins a quiet dissertation on exactly why his pals C, S, & N are soulless corporate blowhards.
10. Slip Away
-- Broken Arrow is Neil's most underrated record, and that's saying something. Slip Away does justice to its name with ether-transversing, shimmering escapades of electric waywardness.
Pop Music
My pop fixation, though newly burgeoned, has been very long in the making. I've come to realize that much of the rock music I love harbors a very pop-like mentality (Petty, Stones, Dylan, even Neil), and that a lot of pop music cultures a very rock-like aesthetic (see below). Nothing could ever replace rock music in the very center of my heart, but occasionally I've got to admit that the pure form of the stuff -- pop, that is -- is sometimes better at wielding those pop music attributes that are present in all forms of music. Even a lot of noise music has hooks!
I once considered pop an unkempt and unseemly perversion, delegated to the outskirts of music. Now I realize that it's the epicenter of music. Not the pinnacle, but an essential influence. Without pop forms, we'd all be listening to pure white noise. Pop is good at certain things and bad at others, just like each genre has its individual attributes. And just like with any style of music, I find the select few artists that move me, and all the rest can go to hell.
1. Hand In My Pocket -- Alanis Morissette
-- This song is the embodiment of youth. It covers the dichotomous turmoil of young life like no other song can.
2. Love Story -- Taylor Swift
-- This song convinced me that pop music was onto some serious shit, some formidable glory. When she goes "oh oh" before that one chorus, that's when I knew Taylor knew what she was doing.
3. Misery Business -- Paramore
-- Paramore has so many good tracks to choose from, but Misery Business is just gorging itself on personality, and it's catchier than the fucking bubonic plague.
4. BAM -- Miranda Cosgrove
-- The crunchy keyboard riff and stark force of the vocals empower me, and make Miranda sound like a much older woman (in a good way, believe it or not...)
5. Torn -- Natalie Imbruglia
-- I like to take the line "You're a little late, and I'm already torn" to imply that she's so vibrantly emotional that all the beautiful angst of the song is caused by her man being like 3 minutes late to get home from work.
6. What's Been Going On -- Amos Lee
-- Few songs mean more to me than this. It tells the story of my private life in 2008/2009, and how once-friends become total strangers.
7. What's Up? -- 4 Non Blondes
-- Oh god this song is just so powerful. The chasm between being an adult and still feeling like a child, epitomized in under 5 minutes.
8. Build Me Up, Buttercup -- The Foundations
-- Ingenious Motown impersonation of epic wonderfulness. The way he holds back the "you" is how I knew this was true art and not just paint-by-numbers.
9. Soak Up the Sun -- Sheryl Crow
-- The quaint, girlish, subdued melody here takes what's good about chorus-driven indie rock and does it better.
10. Because The Night -- Patti Smith
-- A more beautiful song about sex is likely never to exist.
"The moral of the story, is try not to get too old." -- Neil Young
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Notable Neil Young & Crazy Horse setlist from 1997
I keep Rust Radio on my twitter feed so I know what shows they play. Certain stuff I'm just not interested in, but when something good comes on you know I'm on that shit like butter on bread. My favorite Neil Young shows are the Crazy Horse (and "Echoes") shows from 1996 and 1997 because they had a unique fluidity to them that makes a lot of the songs sound particularly distinct from their studio counterparts. Though, of course, there are an awful lot of absolutely incredible periods and live shows from Neil and I'll probably discuss a lot of them on this blog eventually.
In any case I was lucky enough to catch a '97 show after the very first song, and here's the setlist (provided by the amazing Sugrmtn.org which chronicles all of Neil Young's setlists), it's from San Fransisco at the Torcadero,
1. Hard Luck Stories
2. I'm The Ocean
3. Razor Love
4. Crime In The City
5. Truth Be Known
6. Piece Of Crap
7. Don't Be Denied
8. Throw Your Hatred Down
9. Downtown
10. Hippie Dream
11. Mellow My Mind
12. Rockin' In The Free World
---
13. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
14. Slip Away
15. Big Time
16. The Losing End
17. Sedan Delivery
18. Throw Your Hatred Down
19. Razor Love
20. Cowgirl In The Sand
21. Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll
The main thing notable about this setlist is that it contains songs from all 3 of Neil's electric rock albums from the mid-90s: Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, and Broken Arrow. This is unique in that while Neil was releasing all of these jaw-dropping records in rapid succession, he tended to drop them from the set rather immediately. In other words, '94 shows would include material from Sleeps With Angels, '95 shows would include material from Mirror Ball but not Sleeps With Angels, and '96/'97 shows would usually only contain material from Broken Arrow (of the three).
This has always perturbed me because, although certain songs like Pocahontas, Like a Hurricane and Danger Bird were lifted to their greatest heights in 90s shows, there was so much great material from the 90s, which to me crafts its own place and station. If Neil's 90s material constituted its own unique band, it'd easily be another of my all-time favorites up there with Neil. So my ideal 90s Neil Young set would include vast quantities of material from Neil's mid-90s records, perhaps bookended with classics from Ragged Glory, and an encore from Landing On Water (My choice: Touch The Night, played in a slow electric dirge version).
Other unique attributes of this set include "Hard Luck Stories" and "Hippie Dream," great tracks from my #1 Neil record of the 80s, Landing on Water, as well as a mellow electric version of "Razor Love" which wouldn't see release until Neil's 2000 record Silver & Gold (possibly the best song on that album), and finally "Don't Be Denied" from the illusive Time Fades Away is also featured... can't wait to hear how they play it!
What I really need to do is found out how to get into the Neil Young bootleg trading community. I really need to find out how to do this...
In any case I was lucky enough to catch a '97 show after the very first song, and here's the setlist (provided by the amazing Sugrmtn.org which chronicles all of Neil Young's setlists), it's from San Fransisco at the Torcadero,
1. Hard Luck Stories
2. I'm The Ocean
3. Razor Love
4. Crime In The City
5. Truth Be Known
6. Piece Of Crap
7. Don't Be Denied
8. Throw Your Hatred Down
9. Downtown
10. Hippie Dream
11. Mellow My Mind
12. Rockin' In The Free World
---
13. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
14. Slip Away
15. Big Time
16. The Losing End
17. Sedan Delivery
18. Throw Your Hatred Down
19. Razor Love
20. Cowgirl In The Sand
21. Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll
The main thing notable about this setlist is that it contains songs from all 3 of Neil's electric rock albums from the mid-90s: Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, and Broken Arrow. This is unique in that while Neil was releasing all of these jaw-dropping records in rapid succession, he tended to drop them from the set rather immediately. In other words, '94 shows would include material from Sleeps With Angels, '95 shows would include material from Mirror Ball but not Sleeps With Angels, and '96/'97 shows would usually only contain material from Broken Arrow (of the three).
This has always perturbed me because, although certain songs like Pocahontas, Like a Hurricane and Danger Bird were lifted to their greatest heights in 90s shows, there was so much great material from the 90s, which to me crafts its own place and station. If Neil's 90s material constituted its own unique band, it'd easily be another of my all-time favorites up there with Neil. So my ideal 90s Neil Young set would include vast quantities of material from Neil's mid-90s records, perhaps bookended with classics from Ragged Glory, and an encore from Landing On Water (My choice: Touch The Night, played in a slow electric dirge version).
Other unique attributes of this set include "Hard Luck Stories" and "Hippie Dream," great tracks from my #1 Neil record of the 80s, Landing on Water, as well as a mellow electric version of "Razor Love" which wouldn't see release until Neil's 2000 record Silver & Gold (possibly the best song on that album), and finally "Don't Be Denied" from the illusive Time Fades Away is also featured... can't wait to hear how they play it!
What I really need to do is found out how to get into the Neil Young bootleg trading community. I really need to find out how to do this...
A Past Not Too Distant, For Fear
I enjoy things that creep me out and fill me with wonder. Though an ardent skeptic at heart -- and one who never slips past that line into actually believing any of the wonderful hoaxes and conspiracy theories out there -- it all ties into my desire for there to be something "more" left in the world. Everything real is flawed by virtue of its reality, but we can still dream of amazing, magical things. Of course these aren't good magics I accost here. These are terrifying forces.
Aliens, medical oddities, mythical creatures and cryptozoology, all good. Though my standards would be called into question by some (I tend to find the hokey b-movie creations more convincing than that damnable CGI, which scarcely looks genuine), a sense of realism is important to my fascination.
To that end, you could say my favorite 'setting' for these creatures and anomalies is the relatively recent historical record. Not the 60s or the 50s, but the 1900s, late-1800s... Mankind is as we know them, but the world is a much, much smaller place. The beauty of this time period is that everything seems so much more genuinely plausible. Today the world has been scoured, and the great mysteries have been definitively debunked. The Coelocanth's extraordinary rediscovery was surely made possible by its ocean-home. It's unconscionable that we could find a new prehistoric living creature of any good size living among us on land today. But in 1889, it seems, if not plausible then possible that a 'lost world' could be found, or that a "Rex" dinosaur could be roaming the bowels of Kasai, or that hobbit-sized barbarish homonids could cohabitate with human beings, or that strange creatures had been found, and their skeletons preserved.
Everything seems more plausible in that volatile period of last discovery between the 19th and 20th centuries. Before the world wars. The Aurora Crash somehow seems more real than similar stories that occur in the glow of modern day. Even ghosts and ghouls, which I tend to dismiss more readily than other oddities, seem so much more alive and genuine in the dim magic of recent past. There's just something magical about that time period for me, something that allows my imagination to go wild.
I don't like the trend in recent times for cryptozoologic and oddity-themed programs to attempt a scientific and clinical viewpoint. Shows like MonsterQuest invariably come up with the answer that these creatures don't exist at all, and they never give you anything truly awe-inspiring to view, or much of a good fright. The ghost-themed reality shows are painfully feigned, and they don't even utilize their fakeness as an excuse to get dramatic like the old show Real Scary Stories, whose "kids with a camera" scenes mirror those used in modern shows but always included ten times the amount of action and scares.
The clinical angle just doesn't do it for me. There used to be such a craft put into inventing a scary atmosphere, a powerful mood. When I was a kid you would see tons of incredible documentaries on Discovery Channel following old-world expeditions to find Bigfoot and they always had an incredible feel to them. Today's serial programing can't compare to the likes of Sightings and Beyond Bizzare.
Click the links only if you're ready for a fright! O.O
Aliens, medical oddities, mythical creatures and cryptozoology, all good. Though my standards would be called into question by some (I tend to find the hokey b-movie creations more convincing than that damnable CGI, which scarcely looks genuine), a sense of realism is important to my fascination.
To that end, you could say my favorite 'setting' for these creatures and anomalies is the relatively recent historical record. Not the 60s or the 50s, but the 1900s, late-1800s... Mankind is as we know them, but the world is a much, much smaller place. The beauty of this time period is that everything seems so much more genuinely plausible. Today the world has been scoured, and the great mysteries have been definitively debunked. The Coelocanth's extraordinary rediscovery was surely made possible by its ocean-home. It's unconscionable that we could find a new prehistoric living creature of any good size living among us on land today. But in 1889, it seems, if not plausible then possible that a 'lost world' could be found, or that a "Rex" dinosaur could be roaming the bowels of Kasai, or that hobbit-sized barbarish homonids could cohabitate with human beings, or that strange creatures had been found, and their skeletons preserved.
Everything seems more plausible in that volatile period of last discovery between the 19th and 20th centuries. Before the world wars. The Aurora Crash somehow seems more real than similar stories that occur in the glow of modern day. Even ghosts and ghouls, which I tend to dismiss more readily than other oddities, seem so much more alive and genuine in the dim magic of recent past. There's just something magical about that time period for me, something that allows my imagination to go wild.
I don't like the trend in recent times for cryptozoologic and oddity-themed programs to attempt a scientific and clinical viewpoint. Shows like MonsterQuest invariably come up with the answer that these creatures don't exist at all, and they never give you anything truly awe-inspiring to view, or much of a good fright. The ghost-themed reality shows are painfully feigned, and they don't even utilize their fakeness as an excuse to get dramatic like the old show Real Scary Stories, whose "kids with a camera" scenes mirror those used in modern shows but always included ten times the amount of action and scares.
The clinical angle just doesn't do it for me. There used to be such a craft put into inventing a scary atmosphere, a powerful mood. When I was a kid you would see tons of incredible documentaries on Discovery Channel following old-world expeditions to find Bigfoot and they always had an incredible feel to them. Today's serial programing can't compare to the likes of Sightings and Beyond Bizzare.
Click the links only if you're ready for a fright! O.O
Friday, November 5, 2010
Nick Versus Disney
Been watching "Hannah Montana Forever" on Youtube all day. I was crazy about this show... riiiight up until I discovered iCarly. And yeah, it's still fuckin' l33t.
I never realized until very recently just how much a connoisseur of kid's television I am. I mean, fuck it, I'm pretty familiar with this shit. I despised Nickelodeon and Disney when I was a kid, but I still watched them 24/7... 'cause it was better than Cartoon Network. And what else was there for me to watch? So I grinned and bore most of the shows that now constitute my generation's favored nostalgia. *shrug* Buncha kooks if you ask me, that shit was decent at best.
As a youth I was fond of sitting in a pitch black room watching Noir... I was obsessed with being grim, because my life WAS grim. And it was a beautiful synergy, just what I needed. But like Neil Young going from 60 to zero, the older I got, the more I was able to relax, and the more I appreciated the kids stuff. Quite obviously... this trend has yet to ebb!
NICK v DISNEY
Overall I'd say Nick brings a much higher level to the game than Disney. Disney's programming frequently relies on slapstick comedy and ultra-typical sitcom fare. Nickelodeon, on the other hand, seems to craft a unique identity for itself and employ genuine absurdist humor that rarely seems too childish or contrived. Comparing Nick to Disney is a lot like comparing Seinfeld to Two and a Half Men, or Futurama to Ugly Americans. I wouldn't mind watching any of those shows, but the vast distinction in quality and craft between them is obvious.
Nickelodeon wins the battle hands down just by its three greatest shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Victorious, and iCarly, each of which being some of the finest television I've yet had the pleasure of viewing. However, beyond that, I would definitely say that Disney & Nick are about even. They both have a few watchable cartoons (though nothing to write home a bout), and a handful of decent teen sitcoms.
I might put 90s Disney above 90s Nick. Nick had some decent shows like The Secret World of Alex Mack and Clarissa Explains It All. But at this point, Disney was in a more "adult" mindset, with live action shows featuring cute girls and serious plots. While researching for this post, I reviewed some of my old favorites, and... In an otherwise uninteresting episode of Disney's The Famous Jet Jackson, I stumbled upon this interchange:
Person 1: I was just thinking... you guys ever think about your life as you live it? I was listening to my parents talk the other night. They were remembering what it was like to be our age, all the fun they had, all the things they did. They were talking about it in a way that made me think they hadn't really appreciated it while they were having it.
Person 2: I know what you mean. What if we're all having these amazing lives, and we don't really realize until we look back on it when we're old, like our parents?
Maybe it's not Socrates (or maybe it is). But I'm afraid it may (or may not) touch on how or why I'm a 22 year old man who as of late has spent most of his time watching TV shows aimed at 13 year olds. Youth is a LOT more beautiful in hindsight than it'll ever be the first time around. And as much as older people want to tell you how great it is -- it'll never work. Not because kids are stubborn, but because we need all that life experience between then and now before this shit starts to seem poetic.
Now, in the 2000s, both stations stepped up their game. Disney had a lot of shows I dig such as Phil of the Future, Lizzie McGuire, The Jersey, Life With Derek (acquired programming), and Hannah Montana. Nick, in addition to its almighty triumverate, had great fare with Unfabulous, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and Zoey 101.
Nick wins, but... why choose? You can have 'em both.
I never realized until very recently just how much a connoisseur of kid's television I am. I mean, fuck it, I'm pretty familiar with this shit. I despised Nickelodeon and Disney when I was a kid, but I still watched them 24/7... 'cause it was better than Cartoon Network. And what else was there for me to watch? So I grinned and bore most of the shows that now constitute my generation's favored nostalgia. *shrug* Buncha kooks if you ask me, that shit was decent at best.
As a youth I was fond of sitting in a pitch black room watching Noir... I was obsessed with being grim, because my life WAS grim. And it was a beautiful synergy, just what I needed. But like Neil Young going from 60 to zero, the older I got, the more I was able to relax, and the more I appreciated the kids stuff. Quite obviously... this trend has yet to ebb!
NICK v DISNEY
Overall I'd say Nick brings a much higher level to the game than Disney. Disney's programming frequently relies on slapstick comedy and ultra-typical sitcom fare. Nickelodeon, on the other hand, seems to craft a unique identity for itself and employ genuine absurdist humor that rarely seems too childish or contrived. Comparing Nick to Disney is a lot like comparing Seinfeld to Two and a Half Men, or Futurama to Ugly Americans. I wouldn't mind watching any of those shows, but the vast distinction in quality and craft between them is obvious.
Nickelodeon wins the battle hands down just by its three greatest shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Victorious, and iCarly, each of which being some of the finest television I've yet had the pleasure of viewing. However, beyond that, I would definitely say that Disney & Nick are about even. They both have a few watchable cartoons (though nothing to write home a bout), and a handful of decent teen sitcoms.
I might put 90s Disney above 90s Nick. Nick had some decent shows like The Secret World of Alex Mack and Clarissa Explains It All. But at this point, Disney was in a more "adult" mindset, with live action shows featuring cute girls and serious plots. While researching for this post, I reviewed some of my old favorites, and... In an otherwise uninteresting episode of Disney's The Famous Jet Jackson, I stumbled upon this interchange:
Person 1: I was just thinking... you guys ever think about your life as you live it? I was listening to my parents talk the other night. They were remembering what it was like to be our age, all the fun they had, all the things they did. They were talking about it in a way that made me think they hadn't really appreciated it while they were having it.
Person 2: I know what you mean. What if we're all having these amazing lives, and we don't really realize until we look back on it when we're old, like our parents?
Maybe it's not Socrates (or maybe it is). But I'm afraid it may (or may not) touch on how or why I'm a 22 year old man who as of late has spent most of his time watching TV shows aimed at 13 year olds. Youth is a LOT more beautiful in hindsight than it'll ever be the first time around. And as much as older people want to tell you how great it is -- it'll never work. Not because kids are stubborn, but because we need all that life experience between then and now before this shit starts to seem poetic.
Now, in the 2000s, both stations stepped up their game. Disney had a lot of shows I dig such as Phil of the Future, Lizzie McGuire, The Jersey, Life With Derek (acquired programming), and Hannah Montana. Nick, in addition to its almighty triumverate, had great fare with Unfabulous, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and Zoey 101.
Nick wins, but... why choose? You can have 'em both.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Carnosaur
"The Earth was not made for us, it was made for the dinosaurs. It was scaled to their dimensions. Human beings are ants crawling through their livingrooms."
This movie gets monstrously panned. The near-universal consensus appears to be that it's "crap." But I think it's a decidedly decent film. A horror monster movie is allowed to be a little campy... I mean if you apply no-camp standards to zombie movies then you would decimate the genre. Plus there's the incredible novelty of this being Jurassic Park's horror-themed counterpart. The darn thing made over a million and a half dollars at the box office and Amazon.com doesn't even stock it.
It's very low budget, and low tech, which doesn't perturb me at all. Cat Power and GG Allin get panned for their lo-tech immaturity just the same, and I love them, so I guess it's no surprise I wouldn't be off-put by those same qualities in a movie. At least it's not one of those 1930s films that feels like it's from another world. Carnosaur is low-tech but it's still relatable.
The saving grace of the film is its old-world charm, a stark and minimal early 90s film without the overpowering glitz and glamor that overtake anything released in the 00s. I can't remember the last time I've felt something like this, watched a movie with this kind of aesthetic... I don't know if it was two years ago watching Sci-Fi at 4am or if it was 15 years ago watching 90s horror films on Fox at midnight on saturdays but... it was definitely in the middle of the night.
I guess, for me, the selling point is the fact that I find the notion of dinosaurs roaming across the modern landscape to be absolutely irresistible. The dinosaur here is just a puppet, but I find it scary in its starkness. Jurassic Park is all too real, an adventure film. Carnosaur is filled with dimly lit, bleak horror settings and to see the Deinonychus puppet emerge from these is just... it's a glorious sight. It's not thrilling because it looks real, it's thrilling because it taps into a primal, horrifying dream...
Can't wait to read the novel. Apparently John Brosnan (the novel's author), wrote a complete screenplay for the movie but it was rejected. I have half a mind to try and attempt the writing of a post-apocalyptic novel in which Carnosaur's antagonist's goals reach fruition.
This movie gets monstrously panned. The near-universal consensus appears to be that it's "crap." But I think it's a decidedly decent film. A horror monster movie is allowed to be a little campy... I mean if you apply no-camp standards to zombie movies then you would decimate the genre. Plus there's the incredible novelty of this being Jurassic Park's horror-themed counterpart. The darn thing made over a million and a half dollars at the box office and Amazon.com doesn't even stock it.
It's very low budget, and low tech, which doesn't perturb me at all. Cat Power and GG Allin get panned for their lo-tech immaturity just the same, and I love them, so I guess it's no surprise I wouldn't be off-put by those same qualities in a movie. At least it's not one of those 1930s films that feels like it's from another world. Carnosaur is low-tech but it's still relatable.
The saving grace of the film is its old-world charm, a stark and minimal early 90s film without the overpowering glitz and glamor that overtake anything released in the 00s. I can't remember the last time I've felt something like this, watched a movie with this kind of aesthetic... I don't know if it was two years ago watching Sci-Fi at 4am or if it was 15 years ago watching 90s horror films on Fox at midnight on saturdays but... it was definitely in the middle of the night.
I guess, for me, the selling point is the fact that I find the notion of dinosaurs roaming across the modern landscape to be absolutely irresistible. The dinosaur here is just a puppet, but I find it scary in its starkness. Jurassic Park is all too real, an adventure film. Carnosaur is filled with dimly lit, bleak horror settings and to see the Deinonychus puppet emerge from these is just... it's a glorious sight. It's not thrilling because it looks real, it's thrilling because it taps into a primal, horrifying dream...
Can't wait to read the novel. Apparently John Brosnan (the novel's author), wrote a complete screenplay for the movie but it was rejected. I have half a mind to try and attempt the writing of a post-apocalyptic novel in which Carnosaur's antagonist's goals reach fruition.
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