Tag: music

FIRST LINES OF SONGS: Identify them! And win nothing.

They’re all first lines, or first two. Name the song and (at least one) artist for fun and no profit. Not responsible for minor lyrical errors or pasting one of these twice. I still wet my bed. Cheese is made from milk.

Edit: Edited with successes so far

Dark alley, black star, four turkeys in a big black car
Brian Eno, “King’s Lead Hat”

When I’m alone in my room sometimes I stare at the wall / In the back of my mind I hear my conscience call
LL Cool J, “I Need Love”

Shattered dreams, worthless years / Here am I encased inside a hollow shell.
Stevie Wonder, I believe when I fall in love with you

Another hungover morning in the bottom of the Black Lagoon

I once had a life, or rather life had me.
Funkadelic, “Can you get to that”

It’s that summer of the evening, get ready and roll the cassette
Billy Bragg, “Lovers Town Revisited”

Who’s that woman on your arm, all dressed up to do you harm?

Tired of all this crawling around / realising the joke was on us

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears while we all sup sorrow with the poor.

Baby was a black sheep, baby was a whore, baby got big and baby gets bigger
Patti Smith, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger”

9 to 5 and 5 to 9 / ain’t gonna take it, it’s our time
Ramones, “Airwaves”

Small town, bright lights, Saturday night; pinballs and pool halls flashing their lights

there’s a girl in my yard reading to me Tarot cards

What was sent to the soldier’s wife from the ancient city of Prague? From Prague came a pair of high heeled shoes.
Brecht/Weill, “Ballad of the Nazi Soldier’s Wife”

Have you ever had to ride in a light blue car?

Well I’m loaded and ready, calmly holding steady, looking for a sign to show me when.

Deep in the south of Texas, not so long ago

Laocoon and his two sons.

Lacy things the wife is missin’ / didn’t ask for her permission

No blind spots in the leopard’s eyes / can only help to jeopardize the lives of lambs, the shepherd cries
Wire, “Outdoor Miner”

We got the message, I heard it on the airwaves. The politicians are now DJ’s.
Re-Flex, “The Politics of Dancing”

Excuse me madam, you are standing in a non parking zone. If you don’t move that body I’ll be forced to give you a ticket.
Midnight Starr, “No Parking on the Dance Floor”

She gave me the queen, she gave me the king.

I hope it doesn’t show, it’ll go ‘way / It’s just a passing phrase, it’ll go ‘way
Sparks, “Angst in my Pants”

GONE VIRAL IN THE WILD FRONTIER OF YOUTH ORIENTED ONLINE MARKETING

Here is a paragraph from TechCrunch today:

Sprout Commerce, the company behind MyPickList, has launched a new product today, called FavoriteThingz. A widget for social networking sites like MySpace, FavoriteThingz lets users identify their favorite bands, movies and other branded products and display those brands in a nice looking slideshow. Their readers can click through to purchase the same goods and affiliate revenue is split between FavoriteThingz and widget publishers.

You can’t say that paragraph without your soul leaving your body, so I don’t recommend reading it aloud. I’m sure glad that I will be allowed to display my favorite branded products and split the revenue with someone for displaying my favorite branded products on branded websites with co-branding.

Here is the second paragraph of that article:

After identifying a product category, users select between hundreds of bands, for example, with press photos to display and affiliate revenue percentage listed next to each. Widgets can be customized a bit, which is liable to be appealing. Press photos can also be replaced by any image you chose – which seems like a branding disaster waiting to happen.

Oh it sure does. Wait until the Somethingawful Goons get hold of that. Goatse always wins, and half the Internet is going to end up joining the Lemon Party. I am glad, though, that I’ll be able to choose from musical artists by affiliate revenue percentage just like the big record companies do, instead of just doing something stupid and Web 1.0 like listening to music I like.

I’m going to skip a paragraph here and go right to the end:

Will this type of service take off? Sprout Commerce and many other people think that social commerce is set to be big in the future, not because of the affiliate revenue it generates for users but because of the existential opportunity to associate ourselves with brands. Sounds pretty vapid to me, but if brand association is an important part of being a teenager then FavoriteThingz could be a winner at monetizing it.

This service is easy to use and the widget can look quite nice. Its success will probably come down to marketing. Who can guess what will go viral in the wild frontier of youth oriented online social networking?

I already have a lot of existential opportunities. I can, for example, die. Also I can reinvent myself consciously in every moment in a world without a priori meaning, without God, without others. But in the end, as Kierkegaard and Camus both said, it comes down to marketing.

The last sentence of the article is also, of course, the last sentence in Beckett’s Happy End. Or at least it should be.

HELLO NEWPORT BEACH. ARE YOU ALL READY TO ROCK TONIGHT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

Eddie Money is playing at our shopping mall tonight..

Your chance to hear “Two Tickets to Paradise” in the Bloomingdale’s Courtyard at Fashion Island. Other things you can do tonight include stabbing yourself in the face and head, drinking a glass of warm vinegar, and looking at photos of skin diseases.

It’s Wednesday night in Orange County. What are you all waiting for? THE NIGHT IS CALLING YOU

Welcome back to the human race

I’m warming up to Ruba. There’s no where else to go that late, so this is a good thing. This evening’s entertainment included some personal history about being a Marine and a felon simultaneously and how that worked out, someone’s idiotic $500 plastic sunglasses, and a guy named Bilbo who wore too much fringed stuff and a mullet.

Now here’s the good news: Panera’s putting in a location on 17th, apparently in the former Rite-Aid. Hurray for the imminent arrival of good free wifi, lots of power plugs, decent coffee, and food.

I was listening to “Sultans of Swing” on the radio in my car and realizing that what I like about that song is the bassline, although it’s supposed to be a Guitar Asshole Song.

Finally, the National Weather Service agrees that our weather has been all fucked-up:

The heat that scorched Southern California this past weekend was not only record breaking…but largely unprecedented in recorded history. Strong high pressure centered over the southwest United States sent easterly flow and strong sinking and compressing motion into Southern California that maximized the heating. Monsoon moisture also contributed to the heat by keeping the minimum temperatures up…and numerous daily high minimum temperature records were also broken for much of the last week.

Several high temperature records on Saturday were the all-time highest for the entire period of record (see details below). This is particularly remarkable in Escondido since the record dates back to 1900. At San Diego Lindbergh Field the temperature peaked at 99 degrees…becoming the hottest day since September 25 1989…which is still the last 100-degree day on record.

Also remarkable for areas near the coast was the time of year for this extreme heat since several daily records were not just broken…but shattered (by 16 degrees in Escondido!). normally onshore flow with a marine air presence dominates the weather near the coast at this time of year…so record high temperatures are not as high as they are during the late Summer and early fall…when Santa Ana conditions are usually the cause of high temperature records and are more likely to occur.

the flat foot floogie, vouty

Yep Roc Heresay, by Slim Gaillard

Yep ruk hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish u mak voutee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
U luh mish wey u luh mish voutee
U luh mish u ruenimoa
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish uv oa voutee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Oa voutimoa
Kibi’sini kibisee voutee kibisee voutee
Kibisee vuetee
Uee chiku chiku chiku chkie
La ho mak vuenimoa
Mu’saan bu or’uenee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish u mak voutee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Aluh mish vuetee u luh mish o’reenee
U luh mish vuetee u lu mi rueneemoa
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish u mak voutee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
U luh mish wey chilee un tu’meytoa saus
Ou voutee hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish u mak vuetee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Lu hom la ho mak votimoa
Ki’bisee ni kibisee voutee kibisee ruetee
Kibisee lam no ruenee ue o’ruetee
La ho vueteemoa
Ie suepu vueteemoa ku
U litul spies o mak vozee
Yep ruk hu’reesee
Ku’bisinee e kubu’ba
U’lu hu’mish u mak vuetee
Yep ruk hu’reesee.

Yep Roc Heresy (.mp3, 4.9M)

celebrate good times?

I think I’m going to Mt. Washington for Greg’s 4th of July party. His band is going to play (Rough Church). It’s a block party, street closed off at 3 pm, etc. It should be relaxed and pleasant, because Mt. Washington is a neighborly neighborhood.

The Fourth is a weird time for me for the last few years, and especially a Costa Mesa 4th of July is something I don’t much want this year.

If anyone else feels like going, ping me. It’s a nice buncha people.

And yes, I am listening to the Very Best of Hall & Oates. I’m not sure why, because I usually hate hate haaaaate this kind of slick R&B pop, but I’ve always liked those guys.

neko case @ the belly up

Saw Neko with her band in Solana Beach. salome_st_john and I agreed that it was the whitest bar ever. It looked like a rock ‘n’ roll bar from a sitcom. The sound was good and the waitstaff were pleasant and efficient, though.

The two opening acts stank. There was a roots rock combo apparently fronted by Meat Loaf with someone from the Jesus & Mary Chain drumming. I could not stop looking at the drummer’s hair, and I cannot remember one song they did.

Then this asshole played for 45 minutes or so. He was trying to do that Woody Guthrie/Phil Ochs/Early Dylan thing, but it was all show, down to the button-down shirt and the 1930s haircut. Faux naive singing, lots of long pauses, and a tarted-up Oklahoma flat drawl. I wanted to say mean things to him and hit him with a board. I don’t much like Jeff Tweedy’s stuff or Steve Earle, but they at least aren’t just playing dressup.

Neko was great. She was obviously exhausted but warmed up pretty quick. Her band is fuckin’ SMOOTH, too. Jon Rauhouse on steel guitar, banjo, and Hawaiian guitar: YES. Kelly Hogan is so good in her own right, that with her doing backup for Neko it’s like you’ve got two leads.

The set was good. No “Guided by Wire” but we did get “Set Out Running” and the best tracks from the last two albums. “Maybe Sparrow” is even better live.

That Drunk Guy was there, of course. In this case it was a tall, skinny beardo with close-cropped hair and the permanent grin of the deeply intoxicated. He was a head taller than everyone, specifically a bobble-head taller. He loved both opening acts and danced to his own mad rhythm, hands waving a la Deadhead.

When Neko went on stage he produced a stuffed animal and began waving it in her face. It appeared to be a fox (likely a reference to her new record) and had the tag still attached. At this point we realized that he’d reached the apex of drunkenness, the place Bob Trout calls “I AM INVISIBLE.”

There was also a woman in an Inexpicable Magenta Showgirl Wig, sort of like Katey Sagal from Married With Children but with the contrast turned way, way up.

Everyone else was really white and really drunk. North San Diego County is like that.