Tecmo Super Bowl news: I broke 100 total points in a game. 79-21, 49ers over the Falcons. It was thrilling.
Tecmo Bowl news: I scored four touchdowns in a single quarter. This, too, is very hard to accomplish. Seahawks against the Giants.
I did not know the sad recent history of Nepal until I read this Guardian article:
The King of Nepal seized power yesterday when he sacked the government, put senior politicians under house arrest, declared a state of emergency and put the army on the streets.
King Gyanendra promised to restore democracy and order after nearly 10 years of civil war between Maoist rebels and government forces.
Gyanendra became king in June 2003 [more likely 2001, as stated later in the article] after his nephew, Crown Prince Dipendra, opened fire on his assembled family.
Drunk and high on drugs, he killed his parents, Queen Aishwarya and King Birendra, his brother, a sister, an aunt, two uncles and two cousins, then himself. Gyanendra was in western Nepal at the time.
Nepal has a gross national income of £128 ($225?) a head and is the world's 12th poorest country.
Wow, am I ever into Devendra Banhart's Rejoicing in the Hands. It's one of those things that I've had for a while and listened to before, but it didn't catch my ear until this week. Maybe eventually I will write something longer about it for the other blog, but for right now, I'll probably just play multiple tracks from it tonight on my radio show.
If I were writing something longer, I would compare Banhart's vibrato with M. Ward's, which I think they both use to achieve an old-fashioned sound. Having just listened to the new M. Ward record, which was not very highly praised by the music director who reviewed it, I would say it is very good, if different from Transfiguration of Vincent, and hopefully I will play some of it tonight as well.
I took the database file of my albums sorted by year and put it into an HTML page using a table. It wasn't too hard; it involved a few find/replace runs through the document to format it, but nothing too stressful. I also made another sorted by artist.
I wonder if next year I will go to any indie rock festivals. I'd say it is unlikely this year, but if I'm in San Francisco I could certainly go to the Noise Pop Festival in February. Then there are also Coachella and All Tomorrow's Parties a few hours to the south. The Field Day Festival, which may still exist, would be in New York.
I'm quite taken with LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge". Also I listened to the Death from Above 1979 album really loud on headphones today, and that worked pretty well.
Even though one of the CD players wasn't fully functional, there weren't any technical errors on the radio show other than a few extra seconds of silence here and there.
Now that the radio term is half over, my thoughts are turning, as they often do, to what sort of spectacular finale I can have for ninth week. One idea would be to play the whole Arcade Fire album and intersperse other stuff in there to make it into a 90-minute show. There are probably a lot of other, better ideas.
I managed to get hold of Koyaanisqatsi, so hopefully we can watch that this weekend in preparation for our DVD Fest video.
Also, I worked on my record collection a little bit and saved it under a different file. It will take some while to go through and correct the mistakes.
As this is my space to publish whatever I want, how about I publish this:
Let's hope I never again have, in the space of three days: a mid-term exam, a paper, a comps presentation, and a lengthy math assignment.
Remember 2004? No? Well, you can relive it with the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll. Is it even relevant in February? I'm not sure. I don't think Robert Christgau is all that relevant at any time of year.
I tried to implement an index for my record collection page, but it didn't work because apparently you can't use intra-page links with a table. I had no idea about this, and am skeptical that this is really the problem, but I don't know how to fix it.
February 11 has been a great day. A Richard Thompson bandemonium, my belated discovery of ourTunes, and the triumphant return of Mark Richardson's Resonant Frequency column, of which today's is number twenty-two. I think I've read all of the first twenty-one of them at least three times. I actually downloaded all of them, just in case Pitchfork messed up and lost the archive.
Also, my iTunes library got mentioned in the Carl, which was nice, except that apparently I'm requiring a password now to connect to my library. I think that is actually not the case, since I don't check that in the Options, and sometimes people do connect to my iTunes, but I have been having problems for a while. Like how I can't see any shared music for hours after opening iTunes. And like how when I do see playlists, I often only see about three of them.
This should continue to be a great weekend due to Rag P & Ollie at the Cave, Last Tango in Paris at St. Olaf, and Tokyo Story and The Third Man in my room. Also, I mostly only have to read for Film Theory for class, which I would probably do even if it wasn't assigned.
It looks like instituting a password for my iTunes playlist, and then stating the password in the title of my playlist, has succeeded, since there are four people connected at the moment. Thank you, Carl.
Lots of posting going on at the other blog.
Also, there may a new reason for you to listen to the radio from 3 - 6 am (Central) Saturday mornings. I will be doing 3 - 4:30 for the next 3 weeks because it's open and I feel like doing it myself, and Kevin Jackflaps will be doing his thing, hopefully, from 4 - 6 on WXDU.
One last 2004 top ten list, this one from Keith Fullerton Whitman:
birchville cat motel beautiful speck triumph (last visible dog)
blithe sons arm of the starfish (family vineyard)
glenn branca lesson no.1 (acute)
luciano cilio dell'universo assente (die schachtel)
nicholas collins pea soup (apestaartje)
greg davis somnia (kranky)
dna dna on dna (no more)
end. the sounds of disaster (ipecac)
tim hecker mirages (alien8)
glenn jones this is the wind that blows it out: solos for 6 and 12 string guitar (strange attractors audio house)
minit now right here (staubgold)
rosy parlane iris (touch)
philip samartzis soft and loud (microphonic)
subtle a new white (lex)
john wiese magical crystal blah (kitty play)
brian wilson smile (nonesuch)
wolf eyes burned mind (sub pop)
The record collection is beefing up due to ourTunes, eg. I just got Godspeed You Black Emperor's Lift Yr. Skinny Fists after several unsuccessful tries. I won't be able to go all the entries on the record collection page until spring break, but it's in pretty good shape at the moment. Eventually I want to get the label information for each record, but that will take some time. I'm trying to go through all the hosts individually, since it's the only way I think I can count what I've checked and not checked for which albums I might want.
Also, I've really been enjoying the new Antony and the Johnsons album lately. Antony's voice is both unique and enthralling, and the lyrics seem worth paying attention to. Lou Reed makes a brief appearance, and the music doesn't seem far removed from a Velvet Underground-lite aesthetic. (Apparently Antony covered "Candy Says" at Lou Reed shows for a while.) I'd take more time to try to describe it, but I have music to download. Probably I'll try to play some on my radio show this week.
And, I had an idea that for the end of this term I should do a compilation of my favorite music from 1950-2000, and then next term for my last show I would do 2001-2005. I'm not sure about this yet, but it's a thought.
Tonight was easily my least favorite show of the term. The music wasn't bad, and there were a few nice moments, but over all I just couldn't get it together. I think I'd forgotten how hard DJing can be sometimes if I don't think about what I want to play beforehand. Next week I can probably take some time to prepare between my comps presentation and the show.
Two more thoughts: one is that it's kind of depressing how little I can distinguish the music I have from other people at Carleton since so much of the new stuff I have is from the record library. I presume this will not be an issue after graduation.
And: I really want to do an afternoon radio show next term, which would mostly consist of electronic, ambient and instrumental music, and I would take no requests. This strikes me as slightly obnoxious, but also as potentially fun. I don't know how I feel about the restriction, both on content and style, especially since I won't have any more radio shows after this year. Probably I will just end up doing the same slot I've done for the past three terms, which is nearly ideal for me anyway.
This weekend will feature: Dracula, Delicatessen, perhaps Ray, probably karaoke, a late-night radio show, perhaps Kevin's early-morning radio show, a sufficient amount of work on my comps, some games of NES Play Action Football, probably racquetball, some laundry, groceries, and a trip to the Rolvaag Library to check out a copy of Timothy Corrigan's Cinema Without Walls for my paper on the films of Wes Anderson in the context of the (economics of the) contemporary art cinema and auteur structuralism, the one I basically outlined here after seeing The Life Aquatic.
The late Friday night radio show was vastly superior to Thursday evening's, since there weren't any awkward periods where I was searching for a song as I talked and I didn't have to play anything I didn't want to due to disorganization, which is a hallmark of a bad show in my opinion. Also, I found a new electronic/ambient album on Kranky by a band called Windy & Carl, or at least it's new to me. I thought I'd already caught all of their CDs by looking for the distinctive looking promo liner notes in the record library, but this one popped up in the returns pile, so hooray, hooray, hooray.
Okay, this is really the last 2004 best-of list. Unless I find more.
The Wire 2004 Rewind
50 Records of the Year
# Albert Ayler - Holy Ghost: Rare & Unreleased Recordings (1962-70) (Revenant)
# Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse (Geffen)
# Deathprod - Deathprod Box (Rune Grammofon)
# Animal Collective - Sung Tongs (Fat Cat)
# Devendra Banhart - Rejoice in the Hands (XL)
# Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind (Sub Pop)
# Wilco - A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch)
# PG Six - The Well Of Memory (Amish)
# Einstürzende Neubauten - Perpetuum Mobile (Mute)
# Arthur Russell - Calling out of Context (Audika)
# Ellen Fullman & Konrad Sprenger - Ort (Choose)
# Brian Wilson - Presents Smile (Nonesuch)
# Akira Rabelais - Spellewauernygesherde (Samadhi Sound)
# Radian - Juxtaposition (Thrill Jockey)
# Bark Psychosis - Codoname: Dustsucker (Fire)
# Dizzee Rascal - Showtime (XL)
# Keiji Haino - Black Blues (Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'ACier)
# Björk - Medulla (One Little Indian)
# Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld (Drag City)
# Zeena Parkins & lkue Mori - Phantom Orchard (Mego)
# cLOUDDEAD - Ten (Big Dada)
# Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Rare Wood (Spirit Of Orr)
# Ramnn Sender - Worldfood (Locust)
# Alvin Curran - Lost Marbles (Tzadik)
# Madvillain - Madvillainy (Stones Throw)
# Steve Harris & Zaum - Above Our Heads The Sky Splits Open (Slam)
# The Hafler Trio - How To Slice A Loaf Of Bread (Phonometrography)
# Electrelane - Thu Power Out (Too Pure)
# Deerhoof - Milk Man (Kill Rock Stars)
# Antena - Camino Del Sol (Numero Group)
# MV + EE - Lunar Blues (Child Of Microtones)
# Kazuo Imai - Far & Wee (PSF)
# The Streets - A Grand Don't Come Free (697 Recordings)
# Kanye West - The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella)
# Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun (Warners Japan)
# SunnO))) - White 2 (Southern Lord)
# Arcade Fire - Funeral (Merge)
# Anthony Braxton Quartet - 23 Standards (Quartet) 2003 (Leo)
# Rammellzee - Bi-Conicals of the Ramm:ell:zee (Gomma)
# Jack Rose - Raag Manifestos (Vhf/Eclipse)
# Stereolab - Margarine Eclipse (Duophonic UHF)
# Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Mute)
# Comets On Fire - Blue Cathedral (Sub Pop)
# Keiji Haino - 'Next' Let's Try Changing The Shape (Swordfish)
# Niobe - Voodooluba (Sonig)
# Soft Pink Truth - Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Soft Pink Truth? (Soundslike)
# Thalia Zedek - Trust Not Those In Whom Without Some Touch Of Madness (Thrill Jockey)
# Tucker Martine - Broken Hearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica From Southeast Asia (Sublime Frequencies)
# Black Dice - Creature Comforts (DFA)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to the Prefuse 73 show at Carleton on May 14 either, but apparently Grinnell booked them, so we're left to go see/hear Autechre at the Ascot Room instead, I guess.
I have finished my comps talk, so I feel like the term is ready to start winding down. Although we have the option of turning in our math exam tomorrow and thereby getting to leave a question unanswered, I think I'll put that off until the weekend.
I have now downloaded all the albums I need from ourTunes. Now I will check for singles.
I have come up with a rough, but fairly accurate, draft of my playlist for this week's radio term finale. It consists almost entirely of stuff released since the end of last term. I'm counting "Losing My Edge" since it was on the LCD Soundsystem album's second disc, a live track from Loscil that is unreleased, and a Stars of the Lid track that hasn't yet been released except on the Kranky compilation. I'll burn them all to a single disc except one that I have on CD already. It will not be the most exciting show to DJ, but I will enjoy listening to it anyway. That, and I can spend time communing with the record library while I still have my key.
Death from Above 1979 has been added to the spring term calendar, which continues to fill out in a satisfying manner. I think I'll be able to put that in the sidebar of the other blog pretty easily, and just hide all except the five most imminent shows. Assuming I'm not that concerned with keeping my record collection database online, I'll only have to worry about what to do with my archives once I am done with Carleton.
I was also talking with fellow digital music fiends Nick and Adam today, and remembered that my 80 GB hard drive (actually more like 76.3) is filling up fast. I deleted everything but music and I still have only 4.55 GB left. I suspect there are extra files or duplicates in there somewhere, but it will take some serious searching to find them. This means that I will have to either stop putting music on my computer, start burning straight to CD and not keeping everything on the hard drive, or find stuff I'm not really that into and delete it. I've spent most of my music-listening life trying to find out what I'm into, and while there is more of that to come, it may be time to find out what I don't like. Not that it's not good to enjoy a wide variety of anything, but I'm pretty sure I care more about being able to download or rip a hard-to-find Krautrock album than storing six (SIX!) Pavement albums, because I'm pretty sure I don't like Pavement that much, at least not to the tune of six albums. [Side note: Nick stated his distaste for My Bloody Valentine today, which I found more interesting coming from someone who enjoys extended instrumental freakouts, sound texture, and ambience than if the same opinion were from someone who's more into pop songs. He claims to really dislike the vocals.] I guess I will have to try to both listen to stuff I don't know about and get rid of stuff that doesn't seem worth hoarding, because it seems like trying to manage a 250 GB drive like Adam has would be kind of ridiculous if it were anywhere near full, at least with my current amount of knowledge. At some point I might want to upgrade due to sound quality or space concerns, but for now it would probably make more sense for me to get rid of what I don't need; that's more my style anyway.
Also, the Go! Team album sounds really good, so I might have to add that to the urgent music wishlist I'm pulling out of my larger permanent wishlist.
Finally, I was thinking that, since Charles has asked me multiple times if I think I will frequent coffee shops next year (who knows?), I would definitely frequent a coffee shop if it was like the record library except with more couches and beverages, and they played new and obscure albums on a really good stereo, and you would sit there and listen and talk about what you were listening to the other people in the coffee shop. It would be like a cross between a music store and a coffee shop, except the emphasis would be on the experience of sitting and listening carefully rather than rifling through stacks and stacks of albums or just drinking coffee and talking to your friends about non-music related things. I think the place would charge a ton for drinks in order to fund what would have to be an incredible record collection. Maybe this is really obvious and already exists, I haven't checked.