Today I remembered that SNL recently did a news segment with Her Wackness (played by Kristen Wiig) explaining Iceland’s economic crisis, and I realized I haven’t checked out Hulu in a long time, so hey: Two birds, one stone, no waiting:
The absolute bestest part: “Right now, Iceland gets all of its revenue from three sources: Fishing, dragons, and screaming.”
Ha ha ha haaaa! That’s pure comedy genius!
Because it’s Bjork all over.
Don’t believe me? here’s her “Bachelorette” video; discruminating film enthusiasts will detect Michel Gondry’s fingerprints all over it:
I’ve newly discovered this great girl band out of Montreal (hey, you know me and girl bands!): They’re called Pony Up, and they’ve got a really great sound. Check out this cool song of theirs (but warning, the video’s kinda twisted, although the beginning with the ambulance reminds me of the classic Bjork videos by Michel Gondry):
GREAT band name, btw … Check out more of their songs on MySpace …
Over the past year, DJing in Second Life, I’ve been exposed to a lot of Indie & Alternative music, and I’m liking a lot of it (especially the girl bands) every bit as much as my native classic rock. And blogs like these are a great place to dive into the subject, especially Blalock’s, since he has huge lists of recommended music.
Aside from the usual jobhunting, I’ve mostly just been DJing in Second Life (hey, it’s free, plus I’ve been earning some miniscule tips), which is not only teaching me new skills, but also serves an informal networking functionality.
I’m currently DJing four regular shifts at three clubs right now: Rockers, Club Siren and Belar Inshan Social Club, with the Orion available any time I want to open it up, and an offer pending for the club I previously managed, Midnight at the Forum. (The reason I quit managing was because I was trying to fill 2 clubs — and they just gave me a third — in exchange for a small (virtual) house. Now I just DJ for tips, and I takes me just two shows to pay rent on a house that’s twice as big!)
As I’ve mentioned, I used to DJ in college, and never imagined I’d be doing it again, but thanks to the miracle of internet, I can inflict my musical tastes on the musical public! I’m also meeting a lot of interesting folks from all over.
One of the coolest new people I’ve met is Tamra Hayden, the real-life Broadway actress/singer/songwriter. She performs live concerts in Second Life, reaching a worldwide audience thanks to, you guessed it, the miracle of the internet.
Here’s a video of her singing in REAL life, performing “Eden Will Bloom”:
And Tamra’s not the only musician I’ve met in the virtual realm: At my DJ gig Monday night, several of us noticed a young lady hanging around on the fringes of the dance floor, unsure what to make of everything, and it turned out that it was her first night in Second Life. A few of us at the club began talking to her and giving her things we had previously gotten for free, and letting her know some good places to get more.
We also found out that she is the lead singer of the North Carolina band, The Situationals. They’ve got some really great music, and she’s got a good powerful voice, reminiscent of The Motels and Pat Benatar — but the songs (and the band) are much better than those too. Here’s a sample of their work:
The reason I’m mentioning her today is that she recently sent me this joke:
St. Peter is at the Pearly Gates checking up on the people waiting to enter Heaven. He asks the next one in line, ‘So, who are you, and what did you do on Earth?’ The fellow says, ‘I’m Barack Obama, and I was the first black to be elected President of the United States ‘ St. Peter says, ‘The U.S.? A black President? You gotta be kidding me! When did this happen?’ Obama says, ‘About twenty minutes ago.’
She also added that McCain “is a right cock”, and that Hilary “needs a good beating”.
It’s good to know that the people in other countries take an interest in our democracy …
(Click the picture to view the large size for full effect.)
Well, I finally did it: I finally broke down and checked into Second Life. I heard about it a couple of years ago, but never really got motivated to check it out, and lately I’ve been hearing that it’s over the hump, and was never really all it was cracked up to be.
Besides, I’ve done the Everquest thing, so I know how involving those virtual worlds can be, and I needed to put my time into other projects..
And I’ve done the There.com thing, so I also know how UN-involving virtual worlds can be. So I blew it off.
But now, Second Life happens to be intersecting with one of my other projects — and it’s free, and I’m unemployed, and on Friday it was an alternative to driving an 80 mile round trip — so I finally took the plunge.
As it turns out, it was a great time, both Friday night and all day Saturday, with several RPMers and even a few civilians gathering their avatars in a virtual nightclub and having those avatars boogie down, as shown in the above picture, to music that WE wrote and recorded.
A great feeling it is, to see people (virtual in this case) dancing to your music.
The dancer in this case is not one of the fellow musicians, but rather a lady named Mazzie from Australia. (I’m posting this particular picture because she didn’t believe that her normally silver outfit was giving off a distinctly green hue for an hour or so.)
I also promised several people a shout-out, including Mazzie, Gwenette Writer (another non-RPMer, but something of a mover-and-shaker within Second Life), Fence Flatley (our DJ for the evening and an RPM musician in Omaha, whose artist name is One Inch From Midget), Ruby’s Cannon (who wrote me a very complimentary email about my music), Jigjaw from London, England, Sister Savage from Bristol, England (I told her, “We have a dog named Bristol!”)
and … well, I can’t remember the others right now, but there were lots of us, and lots of strangers getting exposed to our music.
Oh, and Domestic Science wasn’t there at the party, but she also gave me a nice compliment about my music in an email, so I’m giving her a mention and a link as well …
Go to the RPM Jukebox, click Library, and check out these artists and others. You’ll be glad you did.
(Note to old college buddy Terry: Find Ruby’s Cannon in the Jukebox and listen to their stuff, especially 442, and see if it reminds you to Pat Travers.)
Okay, we’re going with the “5″ bullets because nothing else has struck me as being worthy. (You DO remember I’ve been blogging for 5 years, right? Just checking …)
Okay, let’s do it:
First off, for Yay Kim: I’m assuming you know about February Album Writing Month — but since you just did this kind of thing, I’m also assuming you’re going to take a pass this time around.
I’m tempted — really, really tempted — but I think for now I need to work on my other projects (there are at least three that need my attention, chief of which is job-hunting.
Not that I couldn’t take on another project, but the fact is that in the three weeks until the contest starts I would have to become much, much more musician-like than I am at this point in time in order to do the project in February without putting everything else on hold. That’s what I don’t have time for.
Speaking of Chicks with Guitars, I’ve run across some sites and tunes for Rocket, the all-girl semi-punk band that I remembered from The Next Great American Band on Fox a couple of months ago. The reason I bring it up is because they sound a lot better than they did on the show. I really should have looked them up earilier, because I already knew that TV networks don’t know how to make music sound good, especially when it’s musicians performing on reality shows, especially on Fox.
Anyway, check out their site, linked above, and their MySpace site, which has probably the coolest design I’ve seen of any pro musicians on MySpace.
Here’s their music video of “Cougar Rush”, the best of their videos on YouTube:
Speaking of music videos, Boing Boing had some links to lots of old videos today, including one song I had been thinking about for some reason, from the 8th grade year: Green Tambourine — and now here’s the music video that I’ve never seen before:
There was also this one from about 15 years later, the height of the MTV craze:
And now for something completely different, not music or video at all:
Continuing now with my Five-Year Blogiversary commemorations, here’s more yammering about personal things that nobody cares about, just like bloggers used to do it during The Golden Age:
I have several long-sleeve dark t-shirts that are among my favorite things to wear in the winter, because they’re comfortable, they’re relatively warm, most of them have pockets, and even I look better in dark colors.
The reason I bring this up is that, as of last night, I have one fewer of those shirts.
Well, I still have the shirt, but two places on the collar — right in the front, very prominent — have big chunks torn out of them.
Yes, Bristol Destructodog has struck again. We keep thinking that he’s over that phase, then we turn around and find something of ours with huge chunks forcibly removed by tiny but powerful little jaws.
Here’s a picture of some of his early work, along with a picture of the artist (inset):
You can click here to view a gallery of more of his destruction.
Speaking of pictures … But first, here’s a bit about one of my favorite films, Koyaanisqatsi. Throughout the movie, Hopi Indian prophecies are sung in their native language, and those songs are translated at the end. One of the prophecies is:
“Near the Day of Purification, cobwebs will be spun back and forth across the sky.”
Well, here’s a picture that I took on Christmas morning:
Click on the picture to see the large view, and click here to see all the pictures I took.
Pretty strange, huh?
“Day of Purification”, remember those words.
I made stuffed mushrooms tonight, for the first time in at least three years, and they were wonderful, probably my best ever.
No pictures, though, sorry.
We watched another movie today: Open Season (the one about the domesticated grizzly and the one-antlered elk [Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher] trying to get back to civilization on the first day of hunting season. It wasn’t bad, but it’s no Pixar work. It seemed very derivative, and of second-tier works like Shrek and Madagascar.
I’ll bet you’re wondering what music I’m listening to right now on my Logitech USB headphones as I labor over this mess.
Well, since you ask, little Miss Nosey-Nose, I’m listening to Luscious Jackson’s Fever In Fever Out.
‘Cause you know how I feel about Chicks with Guitars.
Here’s a video of their biggest hit, Naked Eye:
Well, that should be enough pointless Blogiversary blogging just to prove that I’ve still “got it”.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a New Year’s date.
My wife has always described me as “eclectic” — that is, when she’s in a good mood; I can’t mention how she describes me when she’s not …
BUT SERIOUSLY: She especially refers to my musical tastes as eclectic — and as if to prove her point to the world, pictured at right are the four CD’s I checked out from the library last Sunday. They are, clockwise from upper left, Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues (their first post “Mersey Beat” album, and one of the few I don’t have on CD); a faux-exotic New Age compilation double album called Krishna Beats; a fairly new band with their self-titled album Morningwood (Get it?? Get it?? Ha!) — not exactly Chicks with Guitars, just Chick Lead Singer Who Really Rocks; and finally (Texas in the house!), Willie Nelson’s magnum opus from 1977, Red Headed Stranger.
A fine collection, all told. Who says the unemployed can’t have fun?
But let’s go back to Morningwood (heh!) for a bit: The album’s really great, and I’m really, really fond of one song in particular, To the Nth Degree, even though I usually shy away from songs based on cliches.
And now you can hear it for yourself, decorated nicely by this cool album-cover video. Enjoy!
First off, for 
Continuing now with my Five-Year Blogiversary commemorations, here’s more yammering about personal things that nobody cares about, just like bloggers used to do it during The Golden Age:
My wife has always described me as “eclectic” — that is, when she’s in a good mood; I can’t mention how she describes me when she’s not …
