I heard an interview with Lisa Ray on a podcast a few days ago. They played a couple of oddball tracks from her, “Tennessee Waltz” and Tori Amos’ “Winter”, both translated into Japanese. They were both pretty cool. I just got around to checking out her web site and listening to some of her original music. It’s really good. “Girl in a Bubble”, in particular, sounds a lot like vintage Kate Bush to me.
Category: music
Interpol
I’m kind of hooked on Interpol’s song “Evil” right now. The video is pretty odd, too.
Chris Whitley R.I.P.
I just found out that Chris Whitley passed away a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been listening to him since Din of Ecstasy, which came out in 95, so it’s been about 10 years. He put some great stuff out there over the years. Dirt Floor is my favorite — just him, a guitar, some banjo, and a bunch of raw, honest music. I really don’t know much about him personally; I don’t think I’ve ever even read an interview with him or anything like that. I know I’ll miss him, though.
Beatallica
Went to see these guys in Philly last night. Very amusing. Check out some of their lyrics.
Superman Returns
Seeing the Superman Returns trailer yesterday brought back fond memories of the original Superman movie soundtrack. They used the original theme in the trailer; I’m not sure if they’ll be using the original John Williams music in the actual movie or not, but it would sure be nice if they did.
There’s a version of the soundtrack on iTunes by the Royal Scottish Orchestra instead of the LSO, by the way. I haven’t listened to enough of it to know if it’s better or worse than the original LSO version.
8Bit Joystick.com: Why You Should Buy Used CDs
You should definitely buy used CDs. I’m stumbling across a lot of used CD links today. I’m on a quest to find a CD copy of the out-of-print Nick Lowe CD “Nick the Knife” (for less than $50). I want to toss out my old cassette copy.
Castoffs and Cutouts: The Top 50 Most Common Used CDs
How many of these CDs do you own? I’ve got maybe 5 or 6 of these in my collection.
Silly Copy Protection Tricks
Sony is doing some crazy things with DRM. There’s a good write-up at Sysinternals. I don’t know if this specific “rootkit” DRM is on the new My Morning Jacket CD, but I know a lot of people are peeved that there’s *any* DRM on it — including MMJ’s record company. This guy has a good write-up on it. And more info at East Bay Express.
I bought the CD myself from Best Buy without noticing the DRM stuff on the back. I’d be really ticked off about this if I didn’t have a Mac. I ripped the CD to iTunes, no problems, and now I can happily listen to it on my iPod. Apparently, Sony isn’t worried about Mac users; either there aren’t enough of us, or they figure the DRM would be too difficult to do on Mac OS X.
Fountains of Wayne Hotline
“Fountains of Wayne Hotline” by Robbie Fulks is a great, funny, song. It’s available on iTunes now, and there’s a live version on eMusic.
I’m so mainstream
I just bought the new CDs from The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and Coheed and Cambria. Okay, the last one isn’t quite as mainstream as the first two, but it’s still way more mainstream than some of the other stuff I’ve been listening to lately!