Streetball Soundtrack a.k.a. The only way to make white guys whiter is listening to black music

1. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion* - Calvin
2. Public Enemy - Welcome To The Terrordome
3. Jay-Z - D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune)
4. Beastie Boys* - So What'cha Want
5. Kool & The Gang - Funky Stuff
6. Brassy* - Play Some D
7. Arrested Development - Everyday People
8. Beck* - 1000 BPM
9. 2Pac - California Love
10. Sly & The Family Stone - Sing A Simple Song
11. Kanye West - Gold Digger
12. Salt-N-Pepa - Shoop
13. The Meters - Hand Clapping Song

* I'm well aware that these aren't necessarily classified as "black music", but you know ... they kinda are.

Under The Table Tennis

A few years ago, I was at the Laneway Festival in Sydney and a friend demanded that we go to one of the stages and catch a guy named Tim Fite. Before I try to describe the show, check out his most well-known song "Big Mistake", the film clip for which he illustrated himself:



But I hadn't seen this or anything else before I walked into the packed room to see him play. What resulted was one of the most bizarre yet perfect shows I have ever seen (which still stands now). During the first song, his off-sider "Sexy Leroy" walked around the whole crowd with a rope and pulling it tighter and tighter so that everyone was squashed to the front of the stage. It definitely beat the age-old and awkward cliche of the frontman saying "There's lots of room down here in the front to dance. Why don't you all move forward?"

Week 1 Of The Album A Day Project

So this project of mine has failed on both accounts. I haven't listened to an album every day and it hasn't prompted me to write more. The plus-side though is that I have been listening to a lot more music than the last couple of months and I have been listening to a lot more albums, rather than just tracks I like.

For the sake of pretence, I'm going to write about 7 albums at a time even if they weren't listened to in a calendar week.

It all started with Radiohead's "OK Computer". Its a little bit embarrassing to think that I didn't like Radiohead until about 3 or 4 years ago, but I'm now so well acquainted with this album that I found myself tuning out until I heard my favourite tracks.

A New Album Every Day

When I first started this blog, I didn't want to make it all about music because that is already such a big part of my life. But in the tour van the other day I decided that I needed to make more of an effort to listen to a wider range of music. I realised that there are a lot of classic albums that other people take for granted, but that I'd never properly listened to. Plus, there are hundreds of more recent albums that I've always meant to listen to, but never got round to doing.

So I've made a commitment to listen to at least one album in its entirety every day for the next year. No cherry-picking favourites or skipping ones that don't give me instant gratification.

Music

This is gonna be a really scattered post, but I can lay the blame on something other than me. My iPod. More specifically, the shuffle option on my iPod. It takes me from one end of the mood spectrum to the other with no warning or sense. And the best thing is that I’m loving every second of it.

I’ve come to realise that music means quite a lot to me. That is probably fairly obvious to anyone that knows me well, or simply knows that I’m in a band and has assumed it to be the case. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter if it is loud, trashy punk or the softly spoken beauty of folk music, if it is angry shouts or anguished cries or sweet nothings, I love it all. Although sometimes a song will bring me to tears (especially late at night), they are happy tears … except when I listen to the Eels sometimes.

But I just wanted to list some of the tracks that I have re-discovered since I started shuffling at the start of my shift at work today:

Beck - Mixed Bizness
The Hives - A Little More For Little You
David Bowie - Heroes
Cake - You Part The Waters
Gang Of Four - Natural’s Not In It
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great

This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for the iPod, but I’m not sure what I would do without it. I certainly couldn’t show up to work day in day out without it, I know that.

Best music of this century

Well. It has certainly been a long time between my 2nd and 3rd blogs. But I’ve been inspired by my good friend Gilbert, who is planning to start blogging about cars. I know nothing about cars, but I still really enjoyed reading his drafts for his blog, so he must be good.

Anyways, I’ve been thinking that since this decade is winding up, what things have really happened since the turn of the century? Obviously there was the 911 attacks, the war on terror, Obama-fever, getting married, Brisbane Lions 3-peat …. but what I’ve been really thinking about is pop culture.

Warner Music

Warner Music really sucks a lot of balls.

I just read an article about how they were in contract negotiations with Youtube about payment for people watching clips on Youtube that had music from artists on Warner (or one of Warner’s subsidiaries). The contract negotiations failed, so Warner Music demanded that any clip with Warner Music had to be either deleted or muted.

Some of the videos that got deleted include:
- a baby dancing to a Prince song
- someone playing piano to and singing “Winter Wonderland”
- Death Cab For Cutie’s official film clips
- Led FREAKING Zeppelin’s official clips