Why describe Eiffel 65’s gay video for their song “Move Your Body” when I can show you?
For those concerned about the blue-skinned girl that is abducted early in the video, please don’t worry for her. The aliens just need her to teach their aerobics class.
No, I’m not kidding.
The concert that I wanted to attend has happened.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Rock, where is thy Sting?
Every little thing they do is mellower now, but fans are as well
The denizens of Wrigleyville, accustomed to bars and baseball, are choosy when it comes to rock shows, unwilling to let a band with overly raucous followers invade their friendly confines.
So when The Police’s reunion concert arrived Thursday night at Wrigley Field, there was excitement but not mania, a comfortable buzz but a distinct lack of edginess.
More here.
Tribune rock critic Greg Kot also weighs in:
The members of the Police are now multimillionaires, men of leisure who played leisurely versions of many of their hits Thursday in the first of two sold-out concerts at Wrigley Field.
“Sold out” is a relative term, as scalpers were dumping tickets at well below face value outside the ballpark. Inside, the Police occasionally played as if they were mentally counting up the $100 million they will pile up on their current tour, the band’s first in 23 years, rather than focusing on the task at hand. The crowd took its time getting into the show as well; while waiting for the Police to heat up, the fans applauded the hits politely and otherwise made as much noise as a typical summer theater crowd.
More of Mr. Kot here.
I spoke with my coworker (I’ll call him “B” for sanity’s sake) about his efforts to sell his tickets. He confirmed that it was very difficult to part with them. He said to me he had been a little concerned about his success in selling them, as the crowd that was going to the show was probably not made up of people that are going to go on the night of the show to score some tickets.
I joked, “Honey, I’ve got a wild hair I need to scratch. What say we drive down from Barrington to Wrigley Field, park the minivan, get something to eat, then score us some Police tickets? I’m feeling a little crazy tonight.”
“B” ended up selling his four tickets to a scalper. The scalpers had a racket, where they would give you money for two, then turn around and try to severely undercut you on the remaining ones, figuring you were just trying to unload some tickets and were still going to the show. The first scalper tried this on “B”, but he wouldn’t sell his remaining two tickets for the price the scalper wanted.
So, the scalper then tries to get his money back, saying he is a cop! “B” wasn’t buying that, but the guy was several inches over six feet, so he did give the money back.
All told, after over an hour wandering around the outside of Wrigley Field, “B” sold his four tickets for a grand total of $100. But it’s all rock ‘n roll, idn’t it?
We’re proud to start yet another fine feature at this esteemed blog — Who’s In Charge Here?
The goal — ascertain a band’s leader by analyzing one of their publicity photos.
First up:
Band: The Number Twelve Looks Like You
Genre: Hardcore
Website:http://myspace.com/tntllu
The Verdict:
“Just An Illusion”, a song by the UK band Imagination, was used in the end credits of F/X. I have loved it ever since.
The only thing I have to say about this video is, “Wow.”
I think the next music I’ll be uploading to the local jukebox will be dedicated to “The Gay Side Of Splotchy.”
See you in July!
Music is very, very important to me.
In my life thus far, there have been several instances where my musical tastes have broadened, hit a plateau, then broadened again.
By plateau, I mean that I was enjoying music still, but I wouldn’t be listening to any unfamiliar music. Maybe I would come to the rather silly conclusion that there was nothing more out there, no more music that I could find to like, or no music that was worth the effort in searching out.
The last plateau happened when our eldest kids were born back in January of 2003.
This was a little different kinda plateau. It was more like all the sudden I had kids. I couldn’t necessarily play just any of the music I wanted. I couldn’t play Song X because its dissonance would make one of the kids cry, or couldn’t play Song Y because it had the word “motherfudger” in it — stuff like that.
Don’t get me wrong, I have played and still play a helluva lot of good music for the kids, but there *was* a limit to what I could play.
As I think about it, just the sheer upheaval that having children causes is probably the core reason why my musical tastes were put on pause. Yes, that last sentence rhymed. No, it wasn’t intentional.
So, my tastes languished a bit, until I started getting into music online. I feel that my exposure to unfamiliar music has grown exponentially with the use of the computer, and the use of a portable MP3 player.
In this post, I thought it would fun to share some of the songs I have only recently been exposed to with you, gentle reader.
Many of these songs are not new. You might know them, you might like them already, you might enjoy them if you give a listen. That’s the music player, over on the right. Pipe up and say something, dammit. Let’s talk about music, alright?
Long live music. Without further ado, here are some songs from my most recent taste-broadening. The links are just to the bands’ respective Wikipedia entries — the song “jukebox” is on the upper-right of the blog.
The Raincoats – Fairytale In The Supermarket
— from The Raincoats (1979)
Wow, this song is so damned snotty. I love it.
Boubacar Traoré – Duna Ma Yelema
— from Macire (2000)
It’s not in English. I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s still incredibly powerful, even without knowing the words. Amazing guitar-playing, an amazing voice. It is the musical equivalent of melancholy, I think.
The Clean – Twist Top
— from Unknown Country (1996)
If I could be in any band, I’d be in The Clean. A pop band, but a pop band with great sensibilities, inventive musical playing, and the undeniable power of THE HOOK. “Three million people can be wrong, three million people can be wrong.”
Pugh Rogefeldt – Colinda
— from Ja dä ä dä (1969)
You won’t find this guy on the English version of Wikipedia. You haveta go on the Swedish one. This is such a pretty song, with a nice dissonant freakout at the end. Finding this artist was the equivalent of running into a movie theater to get out of the rain, only to discover a foreign film that affects you on a deeply personal level. And no, the foreign film isn’t dubbed in English, and it doesn’t have subtitles.
Can – Moonshake
— from Future Days (1973)
I had listened to German experimental bands like Faust and Neu!, but for some reason never gave these guys a try. Which was a mistake. Moonshake is a shorter, poppy song of theirs, but it’s all good, people. It’s all good.
We Look Like Girls – whap
Well, what the hell, I might as well as put a song recently done by Tim and myself, right? Tim and I have about ten or songs in progress, which are actually nothing like this one. But I like it, and I hope you do, too. No warbly vocals from either Tim or myself in this one! w00t, as the kids say.
The Police were my favorite band back in 7th and 8th grade.
On a nightly basis, I would sing along with the songs on Outlandos d’Amour, Reggatta De Blanc, Zenyatta Mondatta, etc. During my 7th grade year, they played in the Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois as part of their Synchronicity tour, about 80 miles east of my hometown of Springfield.
I sooooooooooo wanted to go, but I was not allowed. My brother *did* end up going, and brought me back a shirt.
It was nice, but you can imagine how it wasn’t quite the same as being there.
Earlier this year, there were rumblings that The Police were reuniting for a tour, and were going to roll into Chicago at some point in the summer, playing the best ballpark in the world, Wrigley Field.
As you are probably already aware, sure enough, the rumors were true.
I didn’t get around to purchasing tickets for the show, and figured they were sold out.
But yesterday, a coworker came up to me and said, “Hey, do you need tickets for The Police?”
“F*ck you!” I enthusiastically replied. “Are you serious?”
He was serious. He had four tickets he was willing to sell to me for four hundred and fifty bucks. Now, that sounds like a lot, but he was selling them to me for what he had paid for them.
I called my wife all excited about it, then she got all excited about it. As I was riding home on the train, the excitement kind of wore off.
$450.00. That’s a lot of cash. Plus, who were we going to get to babysit our three younguns? The show is at 7:00pm on a Thursday night, and we would probably have to leave Brookfield at least a couple hours earlier than that to make sure we could get there, park, all that crap.
We have had babysitters before, but it’s a big deal trying to get someone to feed your three under-fives and put them to bed.
After briefly discussing it, we both decided to call my coworker and regretfully decline his tickets.
My wife calls me today, finally at wit’s end with all the dirty dishes produced over the course of a kid-filled day (our dishwasher broke about six months ago), especially since she is busy taking a summer statistics class in preparation for her starting grad school in the fall.
So, we’re getting a dishwasher, which will probably cost about the price of the four Police tickets. I’m thinking a Synchronicity sticker would bring some color to our new, drab white appliance.
For better or worse, when I think about Target, I think about The White Stripes.
Here’s some alternative fashion choices that could potentially break this connection in my mind.
SamuraiFrog has posted a song of the week, Hello, It’s Me by Todd Rundgren.
I guess I’m pretty Rundgren-deficient or something. I don’t really know any of his work — I only know that he occasionally wears crazy sunglasses.
I liked the song.
Its title is the same as the last song of Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs For Drella.
The Songs For Drella version is more of a song about saying goodbye.
Here’s a video of it. I believe that with the hair helmet Lou Reed is sporting in this performance, I have now satisfied the mullet quota for my blog for the remainder of the year.
Elvis #1 – “That’s All Right”
Elvis #2 – “Radio, Radio”
The Specials, “Too Much Too Young” on The Old Grey Whistle Test