I had a good record shopping sesh the other day in Mystic, CT. My life is generally missing 20 years of music technology since I prefer to only listen to records or ya know itunes/ipod. Most of my records are at studio and so for the last few months I've only had two albums at home... The Roches: Nurds and a three album box set of Rush. Both of which are highly recommended.
Anyhow, I had such a good time at Mystic Disc......wouldn't it be cool if they were called Mystic Spiral like Trent's band from Daria.
Suzi Quatro : If You Knew Suzi and Your Mama Won't Like Me
I was pretty excited to see that Mother's Pride was produced, engineered, and mixed by Todd Rundgren who is an all time favorite of mine. So far all 4 albums rule and I'm excited to be able to afford their other Fanny album in the future and hopefully find some of Suzi Quatro's earlier albums sometime soon.
Oh and I also got the B52s album Whammy! which has my favorite song by them on it.
The late career of Nico is something I think about a lot. If Nico had been a man her later career would have been taken far more seriously and she would have been heralded as a groundbreaking artist then and now. And yea she was doing drugs and spacing out and being difficult I'm sure, but honestly what dude musician of that time wasn't. That behavior is seen as a sign of genius in a man and the sign of a hysterical lost cause in a woman. Nico's late career was dark and creepy and amazing. She was making music that went with her mood- even when she was younger and in the Velvet Underground she was always holing up for weeks lighting candles all over her apartment and introducing Jim Morrison to leather pants or chewing out Lou Reed for being a little twirp. In the later years of her career she made some far more experimental music that foretold the careers of goth girls of the next decade. She also collaborated with some amazing musicians and filmmakers, really contributing to some of the best works of that time.
You've really gotta check out this amazing album. Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Brian Eno, Nico, and Mike Oldfield on drums. That is arguably the best lineup of the 70s. If I was in the audience at that show I would have cried.
Must Say I'm excited for this one. I love Michelle Rodriguez and yes I'm happy Lilo is getting some real screen time. Its great that Robert Rodriguez is really taking on contemporary racism directly. Hell yea!
Yesterday my grandma was asking me what I thought as a New Yorker about the whole mosque in lower Manhattan controversy. New Yorkers tend to have a lot of opinions so I'm sure there are enough of us to cover every single base on that topic. As a whole I feel like the U.S. is really into New York when it comes to any issue surrounding 9/11 but when anything else happens politically, say an election, New York becomes the evil "liberal media elite". Considering this topic of the mosque though I was really relieved to hear Rachel Maddow's opinion. Maddow said: "Participating in the discussion of this, as a political matter, is playing right into the hands of the people who ginned this up." (By "the people who ginned this up," she means Fox News and its allies) "Adding to the volume--in both senses of the word--of the coverage, um, grosses me out a little bit." Maddow who had been avoiding the topic all together decided that everyone really needed to be brought back down to earth and devoted 14 minutes of her show to exposing what this issue is really about. As she puts it its about "scaring white people for fun and profit". This is what Fox news does over and over again and its good to hear someone go straight to the truth of it. Many other news shows have picked up this topic and ran with it using data collected from racist groups such as SANE who have among other things done studies on the innate violence of black people. In the words of Really! With Seth and Amy . Really ! Really! Please watch the whole Maddow clip, she goes into the many other dubious stories Fox has covered as well as the idiot groups they're collecting data from.
Ugggggg, they canceled one of my favorite shows! Starz decided not to renew Party Down for a third season. What the hell Starz! Honestly, I feel similarly to when they canceled Freaks and Geeks or Arrested Development.
Party Down had an amazing cast with Martin Starr, Casey Kaplan, Ken Marino, and Adam Scott. The first season had the amazing Jane Lynch but then I think she got wrapped up in Glee and had to back out. But they awesomely didn't back out of having women over 35 on the show cause she was followed up by the also epic Jennifer Coolidge and then a whole bunch of Megan Mullally! Among the great writers and creators of the show were Paul Rudd and Fred Savage. Party Down is based around the cast of characters working at a catering company in Hollywood. As usual many of them are actually actors, comedians, and writers, all just waiting for their big break. So of course they really don't care much about the catering job which changes set each time for a Sweet 16, Funeral, Porn Star Awards Party, Football Draft Party, and many more. Almost every episode manages to be rated TV-MA. I really loved that the show gave awesome lines to Martin Starr who everyone should give way more roles too (check out the Not On Your Wife Opening Night Episode....I almost died laughing). They also never pigeon holed the "hot guy" Kyle Bradway, as just being a "hot guy", he delivers an amazing comedic performance. But mostly I was so into the awesome Lynch, Coolidge, Mullally combo and Lizzy Caplan in her best role since Mean Girls. I really like her and I don't know why she doesn't get more awesome stuff. Her character on Party Down is possibly the only character I've ever identified with after Lindsey on Freaks and Geeks. Caplan's character Casey could easily have fallen into the role of manic pixie dream girl given her status as "hot approachable girl" on the show. However the episodes where she flips out at the guys when they have to cater an orgy are both funny and realistic girl behavior - not like a manic pixie who would be up for whatever. She's also charmingly lazy instead of manically vacant. I was recently psyched to find out Caplan and I share a birthday which means I will be rooting even harder for her in the future. Screw you Starz! You don't know a good thing when you have it! Also to everyone else- both seasons of Party Down are on Netflix.
I'm baaaack! Finally back in the U.S.! In good ole' NY where there is Thai or Mexican food and you can buy beer after 6 and a "double bed" doesn't mean two twin beds pushed together. Though it was a lot of fun roaming around for a while.
So to get back in the swing of things here is a smattering of random stuff.
Marine Girls - A Place In The Sun
Also some useful products you didn't know you needed.
The Living Theater performing "A Woman Who Knows Something About Love". The Living Theater was an experimental theater group founded in 1947 by Judith Malina and Julian Beck.
Also on a funny note, have you guys seen this parody of The New York Times wedding announcement videos. If you don't know what I'm talking about click here for an example of a normal one. Now here is the spoof...
So stay tuned for more posts and here is a little something fun to leave you with.
Unconscious and Irrational is named for the media's common presentation of girls and women as being either "out of control" or simply "passed out". In movies there aren't many female roles that won't show the girl either passing out, being knocked unconscious, or going totally crazy (usually with a car, credit car, or depressed dude).
On this blog I want to show the zillions of other things we do - whether it be music, art, comedy, or politics. I aim to provide you with a variety of gals to look up to- from Romy and Michele to Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug.
I had a good record shopping sesh the other day in Mystic, CT. My life is generally missing 20 years of music technology since I prefer to only listen to records or ya know itunes/ipod. Most of my records are at studio and so for the last few months I've only had two albums at home... The Roches: Nurds and a three album box set of Rush. Both of which are highly recommended.
