Funtastic Friday Five!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope that it was a good one for you! Anyway, I'm back (on time) to present the my 5+ videos for the week! I even got this done early too! I'm on vacation for a week, so keep checking back often so you can read my latest music related posts! I don't know if I'm going to write album reviews, my thoughts on bands and and the current music world, or just do some mini reviews on the latest albums that I've just bought. Anyway, I'm sure that you all will enjoy it.

St Vincent - Actor out of Work. This is a rehearsal video. I've been listening to a lot of St. Vincent recently. I think I'm going to buy one of their albums over vacation, so I can have something new to listen to.


GBH - Go Home. I'd thought that I would change things up a bit. (Don't kill me if I say that I don't own this album)


Pixies - Bone Machine (Live 2004). I've also been playing this song a lot. Who wouldn't? It is so enjoyable!


Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane. I'm trying to find more live footage of the Cocteau Twins to share. This footage is pretty grainy and old, but it is brilliant. It really showcases the early Cocteau Twins. If you look really closely, you can see a Killing Joke Poster. Did they open for them?


Free Kitten - What is Fair live 1994. I'm going to sound crazy, but this might be the first all female super-group (Kim Gordon, Yoshimi P, Julie Cafritz, Mark Ibold. Fine, you have to subtract Mark Ibold on the early albums) not Wild Flag (Go ahead and  kill me). If I feel like it, I'll prove my point in a later blog post. Anyway, this is a really good track. Listen to the lyrics, they will enlighten you.

MORE WILD FLAG!

I'm having Wild Flag mania although they haven't officially released anything yet. But if you have the time crawl Youtube and watch some of their live videos. It is everything that a S-K Fan (or non fan) would enjoy. Heck, if my Mom enjoys Wild Flag, then you sure will.

Wild Flag - "Arabesque" live 11/18/10. They are awesome and funny at the same time! How rad!

Pixies: Surfer Rosa

I had a strange urge to listen to the Pixies Surfer Rosa this morning. I don't know why, but when I first bought Surfer Rosa, I thought that it was a "alright" album. Not soon after that, it sank to the bottom of my listening library. Eventuality, I wanted to listen to Surfer Rosa more and more, so I downloaded it on my computer and started to listen to it again.


Believe me or not, this is one of the Greatest Albums of Alternative rock. Without it, we wouldn't have crazy, insane offbeat sounding rock as we know it. To be honest, I really don't understand why 4AD picked up The Pixies in the first place. Back then, 4AD was known for bands like the Cocteau Twins, Lush and Dead Can Dance. All of them, by the way, sound nothing like The Pixies. So for them to take this leap while recording showed some serious Courage by the label. And to top it all off Steve Albini recorded it! (If you don't know who he is look him up now!). Whichever way you see it Surfer Rosa paved the way for 90's rock. PJ Harvey, Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan cited this as a very influential work.

Track-By-Track Review.

Bone Machine
I really like the sound on the opening track. It is "very crisp" and somewhat "boxy" or in other words, this is stereo music. The fluctuating guitar playing the melody in the background is something that hammers this album home. The lyrics will make you laugh, and just putting it on the first track is awesome.Overall, a nice start to this album.

Break My Body
The guitar and the bass really gives this track legs, but it is mostly the bass that does it. The bass grows on you about one minute in and just want to keep listening and singing the chorus "Break my body, hold my bones". The drum break near the end of the song just ties everything together.

Something Against You.
Big Black is the first thing that comes into my mind when I hear this song. It must be Albini's influence again, because you can hear the same effect on PJ Harvey's Rid of  Me album.The rhythm section really picks up with the feedbacked vocals to give this song some punch. It is a little on the short side, but listen to it for lyrics.

Broken Face.
Musically, this song is similar to to the previous track, just more distortion, and better lyrics.

Gigantic
This is one of the songs that you just have to listen to  on this album. I really can't find anything wrong with this song, everything is solid musically and I'm just going to leave it at that.

River Euphrates
This one opens pretty well and is a pretty good song that talks about getting stuck in a Jeep by the Euphrates Rive.

Where Is My Mind
This is the other song that really stands out on this album. Just like Gigantic, I really can't break this song down. it is fine the way it is.

Cactus
"Cactus" is the one quiet song that every album has. Usually, when I run into the one quiet song, I have to just tough it out and finish it. I'm happy this time around because Cactus gets better as it goes on. Doesn't get very loud, but it works.

Tony's Theme
"This is a song about a superhero named Tony and its called "Tony's Theme"". I wish I got a cool super hero theme from the Pixies. I might have to ride around on my bicycle to get one.

Oh My Golly!
When I hear the drums on this song, I finally know that something epic is about go down. Oh My Golly is one of those songs that you just have to sing along to, even if you don't speak really bad Spanish. I'm happy that they picked up the tempo on this one. You can hear the extra song "You Fucking Die" if you let the song play.

Vamos
Vamos starts off kind of quiet and with more broken Spanish, but at 22 seconds or so the drums kicks in and this song starts to gain speed. Vamos has my favorite lyrics on this album and the one that sounds best music wise. Seeing that this is the longest song, I must guess that it is there to round out the album because the other two wind Surfer Rosa down a bit. The noise break adds a nice touch to this song.

I'm Amazed
This one has a great opening. To be honest, I would skip this song if it was on shuffle. But, if I was in the mood to listen to it then I would. Don't get me wrong, this is a good song, It just isn't at the top of my list for this album.

Brick Is Red
Things slow down some more on this one. I just listen to this for the lyrics, but just like the song before it you have to listen to the album in order to appreciate this song.

Overall, Surfer Rosa was a pretty awesome listening experience. I highly recommend this album, so go buy it/ download it now. It is around 30 minutes, so it is a quick, fun album.

Friday Five Finds something new.

Happy Friday everyone! This week, I'm showcasing videos that I have personally never seen before. I was quite suprised because I never thoght these things existed!

Cat Power - Nude As The News. It is weird to see the video for this song. It brings another mood to the song itself.


Sonic Youth - Making The Nature Scene - Live in Poitier 1983. This is awesome. Look how old it is (or just look at Kim's glasses). I wonder what the audience was thinking when they seen this.


Big Black - Strange Things. This song is only found on the Atomizer EP. I wonder why. It sounds like it would fit anywhere else on Atomizer EP.


Pixies - Vamos. As my friend would say; "The Pixies are bad ass dude!". They happen to be right and this song proves it.


Extra! Pixies - Bone Machine. This is one of my favorites from them.






Mika Miko - Sev. Heck, I didn't even know that they played this song. Talk about new...




Classic Sleater Kinney - Start Together. As with all videos featured this week, I have never seen this video. It looks like it is taken from some bad talk show, but I could be wrong. I like this video because the song works well with the lighting and sets the mood for the video but it does kind of get annoying at times.The only bad thing is that the sound gets kind of jumpy halfway though (Oh how I miss VHS). But other than that, awesome video.