The Head and The Heart – Lost In My Mind[Live On Conan]
Posted: April 22, 2011 Filed under: Random, Videos | Tags: Conan, Conan O'Brien, Davis, Music, Sacramento, Sophia's, Sophia's Thai Kitchen, The Head and The Heart, The Hub Comments OffI missed seeing The Head and The Heart last October when they played the Sophia’s porch and it looks like I missed my chance to see them at the venue. For those of you who are not aware, Sophia’s really can pick ‘em. Here is the Seattle band playing on Conan O’Brien yesterday. A higher quality version of the video can be found here.
This is not the only band to get the nationwide bumb, Dawes, when they came to the porch, had played Craig Ferguson a few weeks before and a multitude of Sophia’s bands have played Tiny Desk Concerts for NPR, Pokey LaFarge just did one. And it’s not just Sophia’s, The Hub has also grabbed up great bands like, Wild Flag and Davila 666, that have been featured all over the place. There is a lot of great live music coming through the area, and some great local ones,so go out and see it.
Weird Al Makes Parody of “Born This Way”, Lady Gaga Says “No”
Posted: April 20, 2011 Filed under: Random | Tags: Born This Way, Lady Gaga, Music, Preform This Way, Weird Al Comments OffHonestly this whole thing irks me a little. You can read the gory details on Weird Al’ blog, but the short of it is that Lady Gaga snubbed a parody of “Born This Way”, though it sounds way more disrespectful in the posting from Al. I grew up with Weird Al and remember sitting around, watching MTV, and waiting for the video for “Fat” to come on. The fact that Al has gotten the okay from so many of pop music’s juggernauts makes Lady Gaga look as if she looks down on those that came before her and participated in Al’s shtick. It definitely does not help people’s case for her when they tell me they like her. Hopefully this is all some planned publicity stunt between the two of them and not what it actually seems to be [ED: A heartless and pompous rebuke]. Al posted the song that would have been his new album’s single on Youtube and I’m re-posting here to show my solidarity with the pop-legend. [Update: Looks like Lady Gaga and "her people" have reversed course and will allow the release of the song after all.]
KDVS Fundraiser 2011
Posted: April 18, 2011 Filed under: Random | Tags: Davis, Fundraiser, Fundraiser 2011, KDVS Comments Off
It’s that time of year again. It’s time to open your wallets and donate to your [ED: Well, my] local freeform radio station. Those who know me know that I have had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with KDVS, but for us much as I make fun of it from time to time, I still have donated to keep it running almost every year I have lived in Davis. As much as I may not like some of the programing or people involved in the station, community formants like KDVS are rare and import to keep alive in the world of commercial crap. Stations like KDVS are only think keeping radio from becoming just like your “local” news.
For your donation, KDVS is offering a fine selection of t-shirts, compilation CDs put together lovingly by the DJs, other knickknacks, and, if you are feeling really generous, you can host your very own show live on the radio. So head over to the fundraiser website and keep local freeform radio alive. The fundraiser is lasting through April 24th so get over there and donate.
Looking Forward to 2011
Posted: December 22, 2010 Filed under: Random | Tags: 2011, dubstep, in the year 2011, Midpoint Music Festival, MPMF, Music, Pitchfork, reverb, Sophia's, The Seedy Seeds Comments Off
2010 is in it’s closing days and that means it’s time to get ready to do it all over again in 2011. Here are a few things I’m looking forward to and several I promise never to do in the new year. It’s not that exhaustive, but it’s the general idea of the good stuff that I’m looking forward to currently. I think for the wants I will rank them mostly above trivial things like world peace and for the promises, well, like always, those are meant to be broken, just like Santa Claus does every year to the poor kids.
In 2011 I’m looking forward to:
- a new The Seedy Seeds Record.
- Sophia’s Presents at Oddfellow’s Hall in the winter/spring.
- the new Sophia’s summer music series.
- going to another Midpoint Music Festival.
- band’s dialing back the reverb.
- the death of the “Hitler Youth” haircut (Fuck you Win Butler)
- “dubstep” losing its luster. (will be replaced by a different setting on a keyboard, the cycle continues)
In 2011 I promise to never:
- be like Pitchfork in any way.
- repost a band’s press release word for word and call it content.
- make pointless lists.
- say anything good about “dubstep”.
- put up with any lip.
The Blog’s Year In Review
Posted: December 21, 2010 Filed under: Random | Tags: Crossbill Records, Music, Sophia's, The Shack Comments Off
It’s been a fun and interesting first year in the existence of The ScoliosisRacoon. In the course of a year, the blog has gone from averaging two hits a week (mostly spammers) to thirty hits a day (only some of which are spammers). It has gone though a rough patch and almost became another ghost town in the dust bowl of the internet, due to frantic preparation for my PhD Qualifying Exam. The blog survived, however, and it came out on the other side stronger and more focused.
My baby has been retweeted and used on the press pages of a few bands, something I never would have imagined happening. It’s certainly flattering to an extent. Also in the vein of positives coming from writing here is that, through the blog, I ended up meeting a lot more people who are actually passionate about music as opposed to the “cool kid” crowd that mostly uses live music as an excuse to get high or drunk. This is not to mention that, because of the blog, I saw a lot of great live music and bought a whole lot more really good stuff.
I’d like to thank everyone who linked or clicked on the blog this year. I’d also like to thank Kevin at Sophia’s, Cat and Lauren at The Shack, and also Michael at Crossbill records. If you guys didn’t put on and out such great music I think I would quickly lose the drive to write about it, so thanks for putting up with me. See ya next year.
I’ll still try to post over Christmas, but it will be sparse and mostly albums that I bought that I didn’t get around to reviewing for various reasons.
Bicentennial Bear – All I Want For Christmas (Is an Afghan Wigs Reunion)
Posted: December 17, 2010 Filed under: MP3, Random | Tags: A Very Ohio Christmas, All I Want For Christmas (Is an Afghan Wigs Reunion), Bicentennial Bear, Music Comments OffFrom the excellent A Very Ohio Christmas compilation. Out of all the Christmas music thats been flooding my way this is my favorite. A bit tounge in cheek and it hates on “bearded folk-rock”, what’s not to like. Jump over to the bandcamp to download the song or whole album and listen to good music while helping out a good cause. Yay.
Washed Up Stars Sing The Beatles for Norwegian Television
Posted: December 3, 2010 Filed under: Random, Videos | Tags: Golden Times, Music, We Listen For You Comments Offvia We Listen For You. The show is apparently called “Golden Times” and I have no idea what the show is about, but I want to watch it. See if you can find your favorite former star in the lineup. I nearly lost it when the singer of Berlin showed up. I also poured one out for Leslie Nielsen. You’re in the arms of the angels now, Leslie. Apparently, due to licensing you can’t watch the video directly from this site but you can click through to YouTube or at the We Listen For You link. Fuck you EMI.
Anthony Bourdain at Memorial Hall – 9/17/10
Posted: September 19, 2010 Filed under: Good, Random, Shows | Tags: Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations, Sacramento, Sandra Lee Comments Off
Not quite the usual thing that I post up on here, but hey it was a show I guess. Anthony Bourdain is currently touring in support of his new book, Medium Raw, his excellent show on the travel channel and a maybe a little bit for his ego. This night brought his one man dog and pony show to Sacramento. The night was full of Food Network bashing (even though his own network is now owned by by them), “preaching” about our food and travel habits or what they should be, and cursing profusely. That last one is my favorite.
So what did I learn on this night? Well the first thing would be that I really hate question and answer sessions. Most end up asking the same questions (“How do you not get sick?!”), being a little self congratulating (“You’re the reason I’m going to culinary school!”), redundant (“I’m a big fan!”) or just plain creepy (“Look what I drew for you!”). Tony rolled with it for the most part and was a good sport about all of it. I guess I should just be happy with him talking for an extra hour or so, we’ll go with that. I kind of wish I would have asked a question that I thought of after the show. He voiced his opinions about other shows on his network Man Vs. Food, “The poor kid.”, and Bizarre Food, “How does he not drink heavily after eating that stuff?”, but I wonder what he thinks of Ghost Adventures. I hope there is some quality snark there.
The second is… well, honestly for the life of me I can’t think of a second thing I learned. Most of his opinions about this or that can be found in the show. Lot of preaching to the choir going around, then again if you are paying a minimum of $35 to get in the door, most of your audience is gonna be self selected. Plenty of vegetarian bashing though that was contrasted with the idea of “Hey maybe we should eat less meat and have more meat as flavoring, like in Asia.” I guess I can say that I learned that he likes Good Eats (Alton Brown is pretty cool) despite what else is on Food Network, and that Andrew Zimmer from Bizarre Food was just as big of an hard living addict as Bourdain himself. Did not know that one. Also the jokes he made about Bobby Flay getting beat in the show Throw-down by a bunch of slack jawed yokels was pretty funny. Poor Bobby Flay.
The last thing I learned was that it’s Sandra Lee’s world, we all just live in it.
All in all I had a fun time. Bourdain is as entertaining as he ever was and even if nothing ground breaking was said, though to be fair I don’t know why there should have been, it was a fun way to spend the evening.
Hot Drinks, They Always Get You Going
Posted: September 4, 2010 Filed under: Random, Videos | Tags: Hot Drinks, Instructional Video, Kate's Random Musings, Music, Wendy's Comments OffThere is no way I’m not re-posting this. Via Kate’s Random Musings, a Wendy’s instructional video teaching all the kids how to make those hot drinks in the most 90′s pop way possible. I kind of feel sad that I’ve never had an honest job that would require an instructional vid. Oh, well. More in the link to Kate’s blog.
What album do you want to be when you die?
Posted: August 30, 2010 Filed under: Random | Tags: And Vinyly, Ashes pressed into vinyl, Music 1 Comment »
Apparently a UK company is giving the recently deceased the option of having their ashes pressed into vinyl instead of the usual urn scene. This begs the question, what album or song would you want to be “immortalized” in? Personally, I don’t think I would go for something to sappy, maybe something a little bittersweet but with a hopefulness to it. Then again just being pressed into a cool album may be enough. Also the album should have a great ending song to it, no question. Without thinking about it too hard about here are a few of the top of my head:
- The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat: Something about being entombed in “Sister Ray” sounds awesome to me.
- Television – Adventure: Because I’m running off to a new adventure right? Plus it’s one of my favorites.
- Talking Heads – Little Creatures: Last song is “Road To Nowhere”, that feels pretty apt if you ask me.
- Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea: Awesome album and it has the sound of Jeff Mangum setting down his guitar and walking away at the end. Nice.
You can also get nothing pressed and have only the pops and hisses of the vinyl present which I’m sure some ghost hunting show would hear your voice in. Anyone got other ideas?
