Local talent? We have local talent?? Of course we do! I received this invitation and might just go to check it out:
Laredo is not just a piping hot border town and endless amounts of mexican and/or texmex restuarants…it is the home of many emerging and talented artists…in which we bring you…L.E.A.F. Laredo Emerging Artists Festival!
On Saturday April 3, 2010 at Casa Blanca Ballroom, you’ll witness 20 multi-genre performances by:
BACCHANALIAN BLISS (Ska/ Rock)
SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN (Indie/ Experimental)
MECHANICA INFLEXIBLE (Latin Rock)
SOTO ACADEMY OF MUSIC GUITAR ENSEMBLE
NEVER AFTER (Rock)
EREBUS (Experimental Rock)
FOR THE TAKING (Metal/ Hardcore/ Electronica)
FLAT 5 STUDIOS ROCK BAND ENSEMBLE
FRIENDLY TRANSMISSIONS (Pop Rock/ Indie)
ABOVE REPROACH (Christian Metalcore)
BENEATH THE FLAMES (Metal)
J.A.M. STUDIOS CHOIR
BLIND QUEEN (Hip Hop/ MC)
THE CLOSEST THING (Alternative Rock)
THE REEN (Singer/Songwriter/ Pop/ Rock)
ELITE (Hip Hop)
CORPSE KIN (Horror Punk)
CLOUD 9 (Pop Punk)
TWO LESS CROWS (Indie)
PROM WOLF (Electronica)
Today’s entry comes from the influence of a track I was handed last week. I’ve tried to put together some complimentary music for it but I don’t know if any of it lives up to the first track. I’ll let the guest reviewer speak for himself:
I found this song almost by fluke, on one of my ever so often music searches, and was pleasantly surprised. It’s a classic Citizen Cope song, with his instantly recognizable drawl that though filled with horrid articulation, is incredibly easy to identify with. With a few different tempos, and a bluesy, soulful feel to it, it has the makings of a song for any occasion. The lyrics are well constructed and clever, and the music, though simple, has an interesting beat and sound to it. I hope you enjoy this song as much as I did and still do! – Walker Brown
Citizen Cope – Healing Hands
Thanks Walker, I do enjoy. Here’s some other music that fits into the same vibe.
Black Keys – Lies
If you like the Black Keys sound check out their album Attack and Release and also one forthcoming on May 18th. Wish I had a new track off of it but nothing yet.
Take look at a collaboration they did with 11 hip/hop and r&b artists called BlakRoc.
BlakRoc – On the Vista (ft. Mos Def)
And finally let’s go old school soul with some Otis Redding
Ever since December 1972-January 1973, people have been trying to piece together the meaning of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” The problem is that everyone wants to know WHO the song is about, as if everything in that song is so straightforward that all that’s needed is the final clue to know what it’s about.
I would suggest instead that maybe people pay attention to the chorus. It brings out a definite color to the words, and gives meanings that have been missed for many years.
(but then, I’ve been way off before. I took one word that was meant to be a filler word, took it as intended and totally misread the lyrics; so take this blog with however much salt you feel safe with).
(Note: All lyrics come off the song page on The Official Carly Simon Website)
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf – it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner
They’d be your partner
If you notice, it’s about a guy who seems very much focused with impressions. His focus on his entrance, his dress, the scent of his scarf, his movements; everything calculated to impress. He even thinks that he’s impressing the girls, as well. (or, if we’re talking with Geffin, with the guys and Carly Simon felt the need to edit so that everyone could understand her).
Then we come upon the chorus (yeah, I transferred the “and” from the verse to the chorus):
and….
You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?
And the songwriter is smirking. At the guy.
The song isn’t about HIM, it’s about WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT HIMSELF. We don’t know if the guy was actually a dud, but from the above verse, it’s obvious the guy’s a bit too taken with himself. And the song’s about that. Not Him, but what he thinks about himself.
On to the next verse:
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
and that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee and….(chorus)
Was this some boy she dated for a while in the past? Warren Beatty (who WOULD wear an apricot scarf and know how to Gavotte)? David Crosby? David Geffin? Some guy who thinks that if he writes enough lovesick letters that he’ll win this woman? Her father, maybe (remove “you said that we made such a pretty pair” and you have the picture of someone whose ambition led him to give away everything for the sake of success. Include the line, and you have a record of her parent’s divorce, maybe?)? Herself?
Of course, she’s always said this was a composite, although it’s likely that she used one person as the main inspiration for the song and sprinkled other people’s foibles into the mix to make things harder.
Next, the third verse:
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you’re where you should be all of the time
And when you’re not you’re with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and…. (chorus)
This reminds me of Charles Bukowski’s self-characterization – Better than everyone else, and thus deserving his good luck. Granted, Charles made no attempts at self-aggrandization; indeed part of his pose was that he knew himself and kept to his strengths: Finding jobs when he needed them, always good with the ladies who saw underneath his exterior, smart with the horses (and knowing that horses were the best way to gamble), no nonsense with his poetry, loved his drink, had good taste in various things he could afford, and lived to write (of course, the guy worked for the USPS so he was able to do all this without the constant seeking of work that would have wore him down in truth). Add in the idea of always being at the right place at the right time (unless you chose to do something else), and you have the perfect self-image of someone who thinks everything about thmselves.
Hence, again, my thought that the chorus skewers the subject of the song by basically saying “What you think of yourself is SOO mock-worthy.”
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
That, of course, would leave the question of WHOM Carly’s talking about up in the air, but it would make for the possibility that the guy was some small-potatoes person who thought of himself as more than he was. Not exactly uncommon.
Ok, so i told you that i was comming out with a new song but even though it was finished i lost in an accident. so i am finally writing a new one. it is called “Make her mine” and it has a lot more of a pop touch to it. i decided i needed something that was filled with energy because my other songs just don’t seem to grab attention like i want. i like them more for what it in them and not what they sound like. this song is different then all that i have ever written, it is faster paced, it has meaningful lyrics, and i like where i am going with this new turn in style. i will put it up as soon as it is done. Thanks for looking.
p.s. when i do get it done you could all help me out by linking to me on YouTube or on a blog of your own. if you couldn’t tell, i am trying to make something big out of my singing and to make that happen i will need as much help as i can get!
an acoustic version of “BE THE ONE” by THE TING TINGS…
lyrics: You say it’s not what you do,
It’s what you’re thinkin of
Well I think it’s just an excuse
It’s what you put across
And I don’t wanna be the one
Only overjoyed
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
Makin all the noise
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
So make sure you’re thinkin it through
You’ve let me down again
Offer me somethin
I know you really meant
Cuz I don’t wanna the one
Only overjoyed
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
Makin all the noise
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
Hey!
What you gonna offer now?
I don’t wanna be the one
Only overjoyed
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
Makin all the noise
Yeah I don’t wanna be the one
Hey!
What you gonna offer now?
What you gonna offer now?
What you gonna offer now?
This was not my idea
Don’t you keep me waitin
This was not my idea
Don’t you keep me waitin
This was not my idea
Don’t you keep me waitin
I love Spotify, yet still don’t understand how it can possibly work. The record labels seem to be perfectly happy to keep working with it, though – there’s a ton of stuff available on it now, from the mainstream to the super-obscure. There’s even some movie soundtracks on there – after a throwaway comment regarding the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack the other day, I checked to see if it was on there, and it was. Score. Assuming you like Disney soundtracks.
The best thing about Spotify, though, is it gives you the opportunity to “try out” music you wouldn’t think of walking into a shop and buying. Actually, I’ve been known on a number of past occasions to walk into a shop and buy an embarrassing album simply because I either found one of the songs repeatedly played on the radio just a little bit too catchy, or I quite fancied the singer, or both. I haven’t done that for a while, now. In fact, I can’t remember what the last CD I bought was. It was certainly a long time ago now – if I’m buying music these days, I’ll tend to buy it from iTunes or Amazon.
Anyway, two irritatingly catchy things that have been stuck in my head thanks to the stagnant playlist on Radio 1 are Ke$ha (who needs a slap for doing the “dollar sign as S” thing) and Owl City (who I thought was actually a guy called Al City, and was notable for being a recent UK number one that actually had something approaching a decent tune). Now, neither of these artists are ones I particularly felt the need to rush out and buy the albums for, but the songs they’d released were just the right side of the “catchy/annoying” spectrum to warrant a bit of further investigation.
Ke$ha produces from her mouth not only the most American American accent I’ve ever heard, but also sounds remarkably like what would happen if you took Kelly Clarkson and forcibly inserted her into a NES. From her recent single (the obnoxiously misspelled “TiK ToK”) I had assumed that all of her stuff would be along the lines of the interminable stream of crap R&B that seems to flood the charts these days, but her album Animal was a pleasant surprise, including a number of different styles of music, many of which feature appealingly lo-fi backings that sound like they were produced by a synth that had never heard the term “wave-table synthesis” before. The tunes are catchy and the lyrics are vapid bubblegum fluff (one song is called “Party at a Rich Dude’s House” and is, as you might expect, about a party at a rich dude’s house, where Ke$ha proudly informs us that she was sick in his cupboard) but the thing I actually liked about the album is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. So much crap R&B (which there are definite leanings towards) ends up trying to sound “dark” or “gritty” but just ends up sounding like an emasculated twat whining about ooh baby girl, I’ma take joo out, oooh, yeah, mmmmm-hmmmm. Ke$ha sings actual words, doesn’t do that stupid Mariah Carey warble and, more to the point, doesn’t stick to the boring R&B sound. I’m not even sure why I keep comparing her to that, as she’s clearly a pop artist.
Anyway, enough of that embarrassment. (She was fun to drive home to, thanks to the Spotify mobile app on the iPhone. I should shut up, as I’m only making things worse for myself, here.)
Owl City – if you haven’t heard of them, you might recognise the song “Fireflies” which hit the UK charts a few weeks ago and proved so popular for a short period that it was even heard on Radio 2 at the same time as it was on Radio 1. It’s a pleasant little song about fireflies (all right, I don’t know the lyrics and don’t really care enough to go and look them up) with a catchy tune and a vocalist with a distinctive voice. The album is much the same – electronic backings, gentle, slightly whiny American voice over the top. It, like Ke$ha, isn’t something I’m clamouring to purchase for keeps, but it was a pleasant enough listen for a little while.
So there’s Half Hearted Music Review Of The Day. If you have a copy of Spotify, why not try out something you don’t expect to like? You might just be surprised.
On a side note, I have three invites to Spotify available, so if you want one, write me a poem including the word “turgid” in the comments and the best three win an invite. No purchase necessary.
Paparazzi este ultimul single de pe albumul de debut al lui Lady Gaga, “The Fame”. E unul dintre cele mai apreciate hituri ale artistei, atat in randul fanilor, cat si in randul criticilor muzicali. Videoclipul beneficiaza de prezenta bad boy-ului din “True Blood”, Alexander Skarsgard.
Lyrics / Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
We are the crowd
We’re c-coming out
Got my flash on it’s true
Need that picture of you
It’s so magical
We’d be so fantastical
Leather and jeans
Your watch glamorous
Not sure what it means
But this photo of us
It don’t have a price
Ready for those flashing lights
‘Cause you know that baby I
I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there’s no other superstar
You know that I’ll be your
Papa-paparazzi
Promise I’ll be kind
But I won’t stop until that boy is mine
Baby you’ll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
I’ll be your girl
Backstage at your show
Velvet ropes and guitars
Yeah cause you’ll know
I’m staring between the sets
Eyeliner and cigarettes
Shadow is burnt
Yellow dance and return
My lashes are dry
But with teardrops I cry
It don’t have a price
Loving you is cherry pie
‘Cause you know that baby I
I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there’s no other superstar
You know that I’ll be your
Papa-paparazzi
Promise I’ll be kind
But I won’t stop until that boy is mine
Baby you’ll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Real good
(We dance in the studio)
Snap, snapped
(That shit on the radio)
Don’t stop boy, rewind
We’ll blast it but we’ll still have fun!
I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there’s no other superstar
You know that I’ll be your
Papa-paparazzi
Promise I’ll be kind
But I won’t stop until that boy is mine
Baby you’ll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
