Saturday, February 28, 2009

taking it a bit further. (or too far?)

just to take Novak's initial opinion on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' new album It's Blitz! a little bit further for the sake of pure fun (and boredom) and as a means of facilitating thought from you the (3 or so) readers, I have to say that I for one welcome the fresh sound of electro synths and funky dance beats the trio are pumping out on this fine new record. I am not the biggest Yeah Yeah Yeahs' fan there is (don't get me wrong I do like them, but I've found that I tend to like a select few tracks from each record rather than the effort as a whole) but I have to say that from start to finish, this record is more cohesive, feeling more like a seamless collection of songs than their previous efforts. I'm not saying these songs are better than say, "Gold Lion" or "Maps" etc. (that is still to be determined), i'm just saying that as a whole it's a better listen. Maybe you can say "shut up derek, you have no idea what you're talking about, their previous stuff is classic blah blah fuckin' green to white technology." but from a non-fanboy/girl perspective, I almost prefer the new sound. I suppose thats a good thing for a band releasing their third LP when they could have so easily gone down the path of countless others and released the same old shit packaged differently that only the hardcore fanatics would fall for. Well, Bravo.

Alas, its arguable that "Zero" isn't the strongest track to represent as first single, but then again, who cares when the rest of the album delivers.

opinions?
--end transmission--

sticking it to the music man.

i figure if i can manage to see most of the bands i like live, and pay $30-$100 for a ticket to see said bands, then i have made up for the thousands of albums i have 'stolen' from the interwebs. i haven't bought a cd in years, and i don't think i'll ever buy one again. i don't see how paying $20 for an album, 2 cents of which will go to the actual band, is any more just than downloading it. anyway, that's not a new opinion on the subject by any means. this person has some great points though. --> http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-kill-the-music-industry-090227/

speaking of which, i downloaded the leaked yeah yeah yeahs LP called "It's Blitz!" i was pretty shocked at how dance-ey some of the songs sound, namely the first single "Zero". at first i was almost put off by this new aspect of their sound, as my favourite YYY songs are all their more intense, guitar driven numbers (Date With The Night, Y Control, Man...). however, once i got over the beats and synths, it proved to become pretty darn catchy. anyway, the jury's still out, i've only listened to it a couple of times.

and yes, i am at work at the moment, hence why i'm posting another random post so soon. i suppose this will only become more frequent and random, as i'll no doubt be in this position most days. hopefully it will thus become less random. probably no more coherent though. oh well.

Friday, February 27, 2009

all quiet on the blog-ern front...

it's all too understandable that no one should actually want to read about what i have to say about nothing. especially since i am not traveling or doing anything of interest at all. nevertheless, if all the blogs i rely on to keep me sane during my days spent in the dungeon at work refuse to update on weekends (and often throughout the entire week), then i figure i might as well fill that void with meaningless ramblings of my own.

i have been bitching about my current weekly outlook; uni two days, fbi two days and sbs three days. but i'm not going to complain about being at work on the weekend though, for i'm here on my own accord really. and hopefully am getting paid extra moneys for my blood, sweat and tears. so it's all good. there's just going to be an unfortunate byproduct with me being the grumpiest man alive. oh well.

but anyways, here's a list of what i've learned in the past week or so:

- 7 hours of sleep does not suffice.
- beecroft is a beautiful, completely reachable place.
- accounting is the devil's profession. our poor bastard of a drummer, lach, works his bum off and still gets forced to stay on until past 10pm.
- red riders are back, in pog form. their gig at spectrum was super. i'm looking forward to their album and hope they smash SXSW in a few weeks.
- disney was right, it really is a small world after all. i dare you to prove that you don't know someone who either works at sbs, fbi, went to barker or tara (sp).
- (uni) societies are for suckers. well, a lot of them are. scottish dancing? really? women engineers? alright, fair enough. it is a bit random though, no? not that there's anything wrong with that.
- cargo bar had a stall at usyd oweek. and it was probably the busiest stall of them all. cargo bar.
- i'm still not sure if the people at subski can actually ski.
- i have to get my reading hat on. that's what you get for doing english at uni.
- twitter is good for something. i'm still trying to get into it, but it's got a point.
- liverpool are a different team when they play in europe.
- the strokes side projects are actually proving to keep my satisfied until the next LP. little joy are brilliant(www.myspace.com/littlejoymusic). as are megapuss (www.myspace.com/megapuss), regardless of whether or not they're kidding.
- the go roll your bones are balls to the wall fun (http://www.myspace.com/thegorollyourbones). the only disappointing thing about their mum gig was the douche in the blue jeans who kept stealing the mic and bouncing around like a fool.
- boats are fun. don't let anyone tell you otherwise. mum's boat cruise was really fun, despite tentative people with barcaphobia. the bands were great, the john steel singers were a rad mix of beirut and port o'brien. and bird automatic (or chris birdstreet and the automatics, as i was calling them on the day) were cute in their matching sailor suits.