Best Best, the Missy Elliott single that got posted on Prefix the other day, is sort of alarmingly dull. It was produced by Danja, because Timbaland was apparently too busy making songs for Ashlee Simpson, Chris Cornell, and Russia’s Eurovision entry.
I wasn’t particularly into Ching-A-Ling (or its foolish video) or Shake Your Pom-Pom, so I think I can say for sure that I won’t be getting Block Party when it comes out later this summer.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cranston, fife and drum, gaspee days, mummers, photos, rhode island, Uncategorized, warwick
Yesterday I went to Gaspee Days, which takes place every June in Pawtuxet Village, about a mile or two south of Providence. It’s a parade and 5K and craft fair and revolutionary dress fashion show and re-enactment of the time in 1772 when a bunch of Rhode Islanders set a British ship on fire in Pawtuxet Cove (about six months before the Boston Tea Party.)
Here’s some pictures I took. There’s more on my 23 page, and more than that on my flickr.
Not that I’ve ever actually seen this before today. Pay close attention to the first two or three seconds.
Filed under: music | Tags: boobies, booties, david byrne, dizzee rascal, fatboy slim
The video for the goofy and terribly-named Toe Jam by Brighton Port Authority (aka Fatboy Slim) fits the song’s silly tone, and I’m all for using a roomful of naked people as a video concept, provided it’s a little classier than that stupid Spank Rock video from a few months ago.
I just found it on Thought Theater while looking for info on the new Cyndi Lauper album that I didn’t know existed until today.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: distracting plantlife, portishead, Thom Yorke, thom yorke's forehead, Uncategorized
Thom Yorke and his giant forehead (and Jonny Greenwood) are doing a Portishead cover! It’s good, although I think just about anybody could sit in their neighbor’s rec room and make that song sound good.
[via: Every blog I've looked at today, which is a lot of them.]
Providence is thirty to sixty minutes away from the beach, depending on what sort of beach you’re into. The ones I like are a little bit farther out of town and a little more deserted–not that many of you reading this are in Rhode Island, probably, but Third Beach in Charlestown is totally worth the amount of time it takes to get there. It’s the state’s longest public beach, but there’s only lifeguards watching a little tiny part of it. That means that all the kids are in one little area and the rest of it is just wonderful empty sandy space.
Anyway, depending on traffic, this mix (all 79 minutes and 40 seconds of it) was planned to be long enough to blast in the car on your way to the coast. Which is where I’ll be spending some of my summer this year, hopefully. Beach trips aren’t the same without current pop hits, so there’s a lot of those on the mix, but I’m not posting mp3s of those songs because, you know, I don’t want to get shut down or anything.
This is the happy “yay it’s summer and all of a sudden everybody’s happy and half-naked” mix; in six weeks or so expect the “oh my God will the summer just hurry up and end already because I can’t take the humidity anymore” follow-up.
1. Champagne Riot, Scandinavian Warfare
2. Cyndi Lauper, Hole In My Heart (All The Way To China)
3. Kalomira, Secret Combination
4. Olivia Newton John, Till You Say You’ll Be Mine
5. Glasvegas, Daddy’s Gone
6. PJ Harvey, C’mon Billy
7. Biff Bang Pow!, Fifty Years of Sun
8. ESG, Erase You
9. Karina Pasian, 16 @ War (imeem)
10. Ladytron, Ghosts (Modwheelmood Remix)
11. Alizee, Fifty Sixty (David Rubato Remix) (download via RCRD LBL)
12. Rihanna, Disturbia (it’s a Youtube fan video that I bet will be taken down soon.)
13. Purple Crush, Physical Attraction
14. Lil Mama, Swim
15. Danity Kane, Damaged (imeem)
16. Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris, Dance Wiv Me
17. Expose, Point of No Return (imeem)
18. Sophie Ellis Bextor, Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer
19. Janet Jackson, The Pleasure Principle (imeem)
20. Annie, I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me (imeem)
21. Scarlett Johansson, Town with No Cheer (imeem)
It’s eighty out and supposed to hit eighty-seven before the day’s over, and I’ve spent all morning listening to the first draft of my “Ultimate 2k8 Summer Songs” mix, which my roommate keeps insisting is the gayest thing ever. Whatever. What are you supposed to do when Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Danity Kane and Annie all have really awesome singles out right now. In the likelihood that I’ll eventually post the whole thing here I won’t tell you every song on it, but I think I’ve decided I won’t wait the two weeks until its release to add Sarah Nixey’s new single. It’s a cover of Francoise Hardy’s Le temps d’amour, and while it’s nice enough it’s definitely not as instantly lovable as Strangelove or her cover of the Human League’s The Black Hit of Space. Pitchfork posted the video already, and I’m a little bit disappointed in the production. While Hardy’s version strums along without particularly going anywhere (in a good way), Nixey’s cover is too atmospheric-sounding in a New Age-y way to get away with not building up to something bigger. It’s only two and a half minutes long, but I feel like more should be happening.
Also, Nixey’s biggest asset has always been her icy persona. From early Black Box Recorder singles like Child Psychology to that delightful Human League cover, she’s usually a model of disaffection, the mopey child of Cristina and the Flying Lizards. Her frosty air doesn’t quite translate into French, though, although it probably should.
Like I said, it’s not a bad song. But there’s so much delightful pop coming out of nowhere these days that I’m sure I won’t give it more than a few more listens.
I don’t know if it’s me or the internet, but this has gotten way more interesting in the past few days than ever before. Here’s how people found the blog yesterday:
kalomira belgrade audience screaming her, the dirty picture show, katy perry is fucking awful, cyprus hookers. Apparently writing about Eurovision and having the word ‘hookers’ in your blog title is the way to get traffic.
In case you’re wondering, I’m currently reorganizing my bookshelves and contemplating throwing out hundreds of CDs, just to save space. I don’t want to, but I also don’t live in a fabulous mansion or have much in the way of space-saving media storage. And I could maybe afford some shelves at Ikea, but I definitely couldn’t afford either a) the gas to get there or b) the six or seven Manhattans I’d need to calm my nerves afterwards. So, if anybody wants a surprisingly complete collection of Arnold or Grinspoon CDs, lemme know.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: days of our lives, ludacris, sustainability, Uncategorized
Also on Days of Our Lives today, everybody celebrated the grand re-opening of Alice Brady’s pub, which is now somehow “green” and “sustainable.” In true soap opera fashion, the grand opening was attended by about seven people, one of whom had an eyepatch and all of whom were making blackmail-eyes at one another. Except Alice, because she’s too old to have any major storylines.
But it reminded me of this ad I saw yesterday, where Ludacris and Tommy Lee argue about who’s greener. It’s an ad for the new Planet Green network, which sounds about as exciting (and as stupidly named) as C-SPAN 2.
I was under the impression that Sustainability was the new Breast Cancer Awareness, which would take a perfectly good cause and turn it into a way for companies to market their products in a trendy color and for people to feel good about themselves while buying biodegradable paper plates. But apparently, with its own cable network, it’s already gone beyond that.
I’m not looking forward to the backlash in two years…
