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A Wild Turkey Chase
Jul. 3rd, 2009 09:16 pmToday has been somewhat eventful considering I haven't done much else this week: going to the mall to buy some books -- Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond -- which means even more reading I have to do, but these are ones I've really wanted to read for a while now. And going to an awesome Thai restaurant in town -- I had some spring rolls with the best rice vinegar sauce EVER!, and a main course of shrimp in Panang curry sauce with peppers, apple, avocado, and rice. (Oh yes, and a chocolate lava cake with ice cream for dessert, which was awesome but not exactly Thai. XD) Awesome, awesome stuff, and I will be full for quite a while now. :3
But this week, with Mark Sanford "crossing the line" with Argentinian women who know how to hold two "magnificent" parts of themselves erotically enough, Al Franken FINALLY get that Senate seat, and Sarah Palin resigning? It's such a great time to be an American!! Happy (early) Independence Day, everybody! :DDDDDDDD
All right, this week's song isn't the most joyous out there, but it's from one of my favorite bands EVER (and actually makes the post-rock label they've been given mean something):
This song is off of my favorite album of theirs, 1996's Horse Stories (I actually really wanted to post "Sue's Last Ride," but there really isn't a decent video or link out there) -- if you're interested (and I hope you are!), that's the album to start with. What makes these guys from Australia stick out in my mind is not only how they use diverse influences -- folk, rock, classical, blues, jazz, etc. -- to create their own unique style of music, but also how their performance and song structures are very loose and ever-changing. No, the songs aren't completely random (there are always memorable parts in each of their songs), and drummer Jim White does just enough to keep a beat going, but if you notice in the video (and other Dirty Three videos you might come across featuring them performing), White has a very loose style of playing the drums, which is an integral part of the song rather than acting as an outside force dictating how the song should go like in most rock songs. And guitarist Mick Turner (who also does most of their album art) doesn't play riffs -- that would be violinist Warren Ellis, not to be confused with the comic book guy -- but adds enough texture to contribue to the overall effect and keep the song moving. The result is a sound that is highly expressive, and more focused on getting to the "heart" of the song, getting at and exposing the emotions it contains, rather than being mere ear candy (that's not to say their songs aren't -- far from it!). It's a very interesting approach (helped by their lo-fi output in the 90s), and one I think pays off well.
The Dirty Three haven't released any new material in five years, and considering all the members are living on different continents right now I'm not holding my breath. Ellis has collaborated closely with Nick Cave in recent years (not to mention getting a copy of Alan Moore's beard); he's a member of the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, and has worked with Cave on soundtracks to movies like The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, and the upcoming movie The Road (which is appropriate, given that the D3's music always reminds me of the American Southwest, even though I've never been there). Turner also has worked solo, and goes by Tren Brothers when he just works with White.
All right, enough of that. I've been meaning to post an Iran linkdump for a while now, and I finished reading Watchmen a couple of nights ago and I want to post my thoughts on that too -- I'll get to it all soon, I promise!! ;-)
But this week, with Mark Sanford "crossing the line" with Argentinian women who know how to hold two "magnificent" parts of themselves erotically enough, Al Franken FINALLY get that Senate seat, and Sarah Palin resigning? It's such a great time to be an American!! Happy (early) Independence Day, everybody! :DDDDDDDD
All right, this week's song isn't the most joyous out there, but it's from one of my favorite bands EVER (and actually makes the post-rock label they've been given mean something):
This song is off of my favorite album of theirs, 1996's Horse Stories (I actually really wanted to post "Sue's Last Ride," but there really isn't a decent video or link out there) -- if you're interested (and I hope you are!), that's the album to start with. What makes these guys from Australia stick out in my mind is not only how they use diverse influences -- folk, rock, classical, blues, jazz, etc. -- to create their own unique style of music, but also how their performance and song structures are very loose and ever-changing. No, the songs aren't completely random (there are always memorable parts in each of their songs), and drummer Jim White does just enough to keep a beat going, but if you notice in the video (and other Dirty Three videos you might come across featuring them performing), White has a very loose style of playing the drums, which is an integral part of the song rather than acting as an outside force dictating how the song should go like in most rock songs. And guitarist Mick Turner (who also does most of their album art) doesn't play riffs -- that would be violinist Warren Ellis, not to be confused with the comic book guy -- but adds enough texture to contribue to the overall effect and keep the song moving. The result is a sound that is highly expressive, and more focused on getting to the "heart" of the song, getting at and exposing the emotions it contains, rather than being mere ear candy (that's not to say their songs aren't -- far from it!). It's a very interesting approach (helped by their lo-fi output in the 90s), and one I think pays off well.
The Dirty Three haven't released any new material in five years, and considering all the members are living on different continents right now I'm not holding my breath. Ellis has collaborated closely with Nick Cave in recent years (not to mention getting a copy of Alan Moore's beard); he's a member of the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, and has worked with Cave on soundtracks to movies like The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, and the upcoming movie The Road (which is appropriate, given that the D3's music always reminds me of the American Southwest, even though I've never been there). Turner also has worked solo, and goes by Tren Brothers when he just works with White.
All right, enough of that. I've been meaning to post an Iran linkdump for a while now, and I finished reading Watchmen a couple of nights ago and I want to post my thoughts on that too -- I'll get to it all soon, I promise!! ;-)
