Monday, September 18, 2006

Wait, is this another post about Andrew Bird?

Well... yeah... it is.

My laptop is sadly broken and I have no internet at my home, which means that I'm limited to when I'm able to come down to the computers available at the aparment building common rooms. Not that I'm complaining! The mere fact that our apartment offers computers to use is amazing. However, once jobs are secured and the massive amounts of money that a journalist and a teacher earn start rolling in, we'll be back on our internet feet!

But in the meantime. Andrew Bird fun is here! His tour began this weekend, and he'll be hitting the lovely Northwest next week! You should hop on buy to one of the following shows in the Oregon/Washington area, or else be shunned as a hater.

Sept. 26 at the Wow Hall in Eugene, Ore.

Sept. 27 at Aladdin Theater in Portland, Ore.

Sept. 28 at Chop Suey in Seattle, Wash.

Sept. 30 at The Nightlight in Bellingham, Wash.

But more immediately, you can run off to his MySpace page to hear a new track (that's right A NEW TRACK) off of Fingerlings 3! It's the track titled "Sythian Empire," which we can only hope will appear on the album out next year.

Fingerlings 3 is out super soon, so you'll be hearing about that whether you like it or not.

Oh, and if you're obsessive and insane (like myself) Fingerlings 2 is available with a new snazzy cover, available at his website. HOT!

Excited? Cuz I am!

UPDATE: Over at Dosh's myspace page there's a new track titled "Um Circles and Squares" with some tell-tale violin loopin' therein.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Musical Melodies

It's funny that I would stumble on both of these things on the same day. But there it is. This YouTube is a hilarious lesson in how to write a Fugue. This is definately humor in the P.D.Q. Bach style, so I hope it's your thing. It's pretty funny either way.

If you're a huge nerd, like myself, you might also enjoy this NPR feature I stumbled on called the Piano Puzzler, where this performer picks a common melody (like "This Old Man" or "Rock-a-bye Baby") and performs it in the style of a famous composer (like Bach, Bizet or Brahms...). Call in guests try to figure out the mystery tune and composer style. I freaking love it.

Listen to the Piano Puzzler

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Sufjan Claus...

Christmas is about excess. We eat too much, buy too much, and spend WAY too much time with people we feel oblidged to visit. Christmas is, if anything, a giant experiment that annually proves that there is in fact too much of a good thing.

If I were to find one person that could possibly represent this culture of excess, it would be Sufjan Stevens. Now wait! Don't hurl tomatos and rotten veggies at me! I love Sufjans as much as the next blogger (and the next, and next, and next) but really. The man is putting out a full album for each of the 50 United States. I've loved the first two albums, but in all honesty I can't see myself keeping interested in Sufjan's antics for however long it takes him to create the next 48. (At the rate he's cranking them out, I'll probably be dead by the time they're done)

Keeping with his excessive releases (I mean, this year we got ANOTHER CD of Illinoise material) he's putting out a FIVE (repeat it for emphasis FIVE) CD set of Christmas music. It collects the short EPs he's put together each year (except for 2004) for the last 6 years.

Now I like a good Christmas album probably a slight bit MORE than the next blogger. Christmas albums are typically hated, typically because they're slapped together and you get freaking SICK of them after December. But still, Megan and I run out and pick up an album each year to rock around our own little plastic Christmas tree. So when I heard Sufjan Stevens would be releasing his much-pirated Christmas material, I was overjoyed... UNTIL I FOUND OUT IT WAS A FIVE-CD SET!

I have to ask, Sufjan, why not do 12? I mean, you could make a full LP analyzing each of the 12 days of Christmas! (THAT WAS A JOKE! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! DON'T DO IT SUFJAN!!!!!!!!!)

For those of you thinking "HA! I already have them!" one of the CDs is new material for this Christmas. And of course, in the grand tradition of excessive christmas joy, it comes with stickers, booklets, and enough goodies to make it way too freaking expensive. Each CD is packaged individually as well, or so I'm told. Oh, and there's a total of THREE versions of O Come, O Come Emmannuel.

O come, O come, O COME ON SUFJAN! A music fan can only take so much! Can you look at yourself in the mirror knowing that your output could financially cripple a poor music fan!

I'm still teetering on whether in the end this is a good thing or a bad thing. My Christmas wish (aside from my two front teeth) is that Asthmatic Kitty will have the sense to release them individually as well, so we can pick and choose, or just by the one with the new material.

Anyway, for more details, peep out this Pitchfork news item or you can hear it straight from the asthmatic horse's mouth.

(I'll post a few of Sufjan's xmas tracks later tonight)