Readers of my blog (i.e. Zach) are probably already aware that I’m on a Greg Dulli kick at the moment.  This culminated a couple of days ago in my purchase of the Twilight Singers’ most recent album, Powder Burns, which when it was released in 2006 got consistently positive reviews and was almost universally deemed Dulli’s best effort since his days fronting the Afghan Whigs.  The normally parsimonious/obnoxiously tough Pitchfork gave it a whopping 7.9/10, while Interview magazine went as far as to call Dulli “one of our nation’s greatest unsung songwriters.” 

As a lyricist, frontman, and general creative force Greg Dulli is an acquired taste, I think.  The range of his voice, inevitably damaged by years of chain-smoking and hard living, has its limits, though his ambition seemingly does not.  This can make for rapturous moments of serious music, like the Afghan Whigs’ epic “Faded,” as well as some others in which Dulli’s aspirations outrun his ability, as in the case of an in-concert cover of Kate Bush’s meticulous, probably impossible-to-duplicate “Cloudbusting,” now circulating on YouTube.  Dulli’s artistic personality is composed of an intriguing, potentially toxic stew of obsessions and interests: his own addictions and battles with depression, the cool of film noir and detective fiction, the moralistic quandaries imposed by his lapsed Catholicism (“A lie? The truth? Which one should I use?”), the vitality and expressiveness he so obviously finds in a range of African American-derived musical forms (most notably classic soul), the earthy charm of New Orleans, his sometimes adopted city, and perhaps most prominently, his enduring fascination with women – as co-conspirators, as objects of desire and frustration, as antagonists, as others, and maybe even as manifestations of himself.  

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What with iTunes ability to create random playlists sorted by all sorts of ridiculous metrics, including I think even playlists of things you haven’t listened to in forever, this next suggestion probably seems antiquated at best. But, I never really got into the habit of using iTunes for anything except ripping my cds onto my computer. All of my listening is done through window’s media player. Mark is probably scolding me for not using winamp with a Garfield skin, but there it is.

As I was telling Ross a few nights ago, his recent foray into what he dubbed “high-school ambient” (i.e.: ambient shit we were into in high school) inspired me to dig out a few of my own long-lost gems. One of the albums was this compilation I bought in 1996 called “Ambient Extractions, vol. 2.” It’s been in pretty steady rotation the past couple nights, and one song in particular triggered some memories of thinking it was like the most mind-blowing thing in the universe when I first heard it: Boymerang’s “The Don.” I was going to play the song for Chu and typed “The Don” into WMP’s little search bar. Instead of just pulling up that song, though, it pulled up every song which contained the word “the” and the character sequence “d-o-n.” What I was left with was a list of about 30 songs all connected by that somewhat random thread.

For whatever reason I find this so much more compelling than simply putting the playlist on random. It’s like being given a themed mixtape by my computer (“to Zach, with love, Dell Optiplex”) at a moment’s notice. In any case I don’t know how many of you guys keep your library indexed like I do, but if your own digital library allows this I cant recommend it enough.

Finally, here’s what I thought was a shit hot track in 10th grade:

Big 28.

Most nights since I’ve been in Davis, CA, as the coyotes howl, whimper and sometimes bark outside my apartment complex, I’ve watched some sort of movie, whether on DVD or in the theater.  Chalk up my accelerated film consumption to being out here by myself, or to the need to relax after days filled with a number of move-related projects (unpacking, car shopping, etc.).  I’ve also been on a big Akira Kurosawa kick lately, so be warned.  Here’s a summary of what I’ve been seeing: (more…)

As the economy wraps up one of the most gut-churning, frightening, and just plain dramatic weeks in its history, I’m interested in sounding out the Roaring Shark community.  What the hell happened, and what happens now?    Whether or not you’re sympathetic to government intervention, I would propose that the last few days have seen a fundamental paradigm shift: the era of deregulation is, for the foreseeable future, over.  The so-called free market is surely not dead, but it seems certain to me that the economy that will rise from the ashes of this one (if we can assume even this much), will inevitably be more tightly regulated than was the case in the 1980s and 90s, with the government playing a much larger role in it.  So are we entering the sort of New Deal redux I wistfully called for in my last economics-themed post, or something more sinister?  

I thought I’d post this as an addendum to the “double-standards” Daily Show clip that’s been making the rounds. If you spend enough time poking around the conservative blogosphere and you’ll undoubtedly come across a site that syndicates Chris Muir’s comic Day by Day. Ostensibly about three very reasonable and earnest conservatives and one unhinged, also earnest, liberal who date and have babies and work at various jobs. Most of the time it’s less about the dynamics of the characters than about proving a political point, somewhat in the Doonesbury mold (sans the epic cast). For me the comic is mostly characterized by genuinely strange (as in confusing or unwieldy) artwork and, for the most part, sloppy arguments. However, even knowing this, it’s still a little startling to see the same sword cut both ways as sharply as it has in today’s and Wednesday’s strips:

RS has been kinda quiet the past few days. I’ve been trying to think of stuff to post but I guess I’m having some kind of writers block.

I’ve actually been trying to think of some stuff to do a video log about ever since seeing some short clips from when I went home last winter.

All the ideas I came up with though are hard to pull off in practice and kinda short.

Examples:

• Telling the story of how my grandmother called like big bumblebees “dive bombers”
• Trying to imitate the speak and math voice
• Doing a review of take the money and run
• Showing how I like to sometimes trace smudges on my monitor with that like window border thing

I have to say. I think I thought this was coolest thing on the planet when it came out.