Music

Angry Teti shared this with me this morning. This is the sort of thing that makes the internet worthwhile. Uh, spoilers for Predator. ‘Cause you wouldn’t want its intricate plot twists wrecked for you.

If I weren’t already married to the beautiful, deadly Angry Teti, I think I would want to marry this band:

It’s Abney Park rehearsing their song “Airship Pirates.” Full mp3 here. A taste of the lyrics:

Flying Jib is filled with air
East India ships filled with despair,
we even up, her broadsides bare
…our cannons flair but it’s just a show of muscle.

Expendable crew starts to reel her in.
Our swords are sharpened and we’re ready to sin.
I’m 3 miles up, we’re about to swing aboard.
My tether’s made of leather so I’m not about to fall here.

A swish of air and my boots hit deck.
No cash, no fuel, no – not a speck!
Grape shots made this bird a wreck.
And a glance below deck shows a crew of nuns and orphans!

Chorus:
With a crew of drunken pilots, We’re the only Airship Pirates!
We’re full of hot air and we’re starting to rise
We’re the Terror of the skies, but a danger to ourselves now.

They totally get points for namechecking the East India Company. Everybody now, sing along! And now I’m going to have to go re-install Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura….

So Be Kind Rewind is coming out in a few short days, and I’m really looking forward to it. I think this the first movie of ‘08 that I’m excited about, in fact.

The premise (two dudes accidentally erase all their VHS tapes, and decide to re-shoot them all by themselves) might seem either far-fetched or hokey to you, or maybe you’re not a Jack Black fan. Even if both of those hold true (and I can understand being annoyed by Black at times, though I really think he’s good in quite a few things), I still think you should approach the movie with an open mind.

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I’d seen the trailer for this movie enough that I had a pretty good idea what it was about. I also knew that I should see the movie soon, because the repeated viewings of the trailer before other movies was souring me on it before I’d even seen it.

So Mrs. Vendar & I made our way to the wonderful cheap theater to check it out.

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Apparently a lot of people get depressed at Christmas. Is it possible they’ve been listening to the wrong Christmas music?

Oh man, I can’t believe I let Halloween go by without sharing this music video with you guys. I’ve been saving it up all year to watch on All Hallow’s Eve. I guess it doesn’t make for very good Thanksgiving viewing, but what the heck:

This video seriously has everything. I double-dog dare you to deny that you fantasized about this in high school: a hot goth chick gets persecuted by all the uppity cheerleaders, but then teams up with a band of Scandinavian zombie necromancers (Skeletor and a kobold on guitar, Undead Bossk on drums) who then use an army of the living dead to cut a swath of bloody vengeance through the ranks of the jocks and bullies. All to a hardcore a-rockalyptic soundtrack. The video doesn’t say for sure, but I assume everyone involved in this video has statted themselves up in Dungeons and Dragons.

You did fantasize about that in high school, right? It couldn’t have just been me.

Two Yutes’ review of the latest Bruce Springsteen album reminded me of an article I read recently about why protest songs these days suck. (The article suggests that “Last to Die” on the Springsteen album is actually one of the better protest songs to come out in a few years.)

Almost all of the bands I’ve listened to heavily in the last year or two—Pearl Jam, Dream Theater, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Queensryche, Arcade Fire, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the list goes on—have put out anti-war or anti-Bush songs at some point recently. And while they’re not all as bad as the New Republic article claims, they do tend to suck more often than not. I’d agree that most of the political protest songs I’ve heard since 9/11 have ranged from “meh” to unlistenable. And I swear it’s not just because my political views are the ones typically being protested; I actually have a secret respect for a good socially subversive, countercultural song.

The article argues that most protest songs these days suck because the musicians get so worked up writing Fight the Man ™ lyrics that they forget to write good music to go along with it, which may be the case. Certainly there are a lot of protest songs with good lyrics and bad music (some are cited in the article), and some with bad lyrics and good music (Muse’ “Take a Bow” and Queensryche’s “Thank You”), but a lot of them sound like the musicians just hauled an unreleased-for-a-good-reason tune out of their archives and used their latest angry liberal blog post as the lyrics (Pearl Jam’s subtle masterpiece “Bu$hleager”).

I think a lot of them fail for the same reason that contemporary Christian music so often fails: when you are more concerned with preaching a message than with writing music that people can enjoy and relate to, you rarely produce great art. And there’s also the fact that when you’re preaching a viewpoint that’s shared by 99.5% of the art-producing world, you are not exactly risking your life with a bold, unique countercultural statement, and part of the thrill of a good protest song is participating in something that feels genuinely subversive.

So I guess I’m curious: what good protest music have you heard lately, and what makes it good? I think my favorite piece of recent protest music is the Black Angels’ album Passover; both the music and the lyrics evoke an era of indignant, anti-establishment anger (there’s actually a song on the album protesting the Vietnam War, and by implication the Iraq War), but it never devolves into blustering rage. The album trips up at the end with a painful anti-war song that falls into the “terrible lyrics, mediocre music” category, but the rest of the album is provocative enough that I can forgive it.

What do you think? Who do you listen to when you need to rage against the machine?

I haven’t been a huge fan of The Boss’ output recently, stretching back into the 90s, but “Magic” is his best effort since “Tunnel of Love.” The E Street Band is along for the ride this time, and it shows. Strong songwriting, playing and vocals push this album into the stratosphere of his best works, including “Born to Run” and “The River.”

Some highlights: “Livin’ in the Future” recalls the jazz/rock fusion of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, and “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” and “Your Own Worst Enemy” are just flat-out gorgeous.

“Magic” is definitely worth at least a listen-through if you have access to Rhapsody (Mac users, alas, do not), or the 30 second previews through iTunes.

Ayreon is less a band and more of a prog-music project—each Ayreon album is a “rock opera” composed by Dutch musician Arjen Lucassen. Lucassen then assembles a cast of top-notch singers and musicians (often recognizable faces from the prog-rock scene, but sometimes relative newcomers as well) to play all the parts in the musical drama.

The Human Equation is the latest Ayreon project, and it’s one of the most rewarding albums I’ve listened to all year. Unlike most Ayreon rock operas, which tend to involve elaborate (and somewhat cheesy) sci-fi and fantasy storylines, Equation tells a much more personal and grounded story: a man who has fallen into a coma after an accident (…but was it really an accident?) relives milestones in his life, confronts his guilt and other personal demons, and works his way to an understanding of what really happened.

The storyline is not staggeringly innovative, and is a bit difficult at times to follow, but that’s OK: it pales before the music, which positively soars. Lucassen is a prog-rock musician at heart, which means Equation has a good share of pounding guitars and space-age synthesizers, but he pulls out all the stops to make this album a diverse one. Depending on the subject matter at hand, the music ranges from heavy and serious to light and breezy; instruments ranging from violins and cellos to flutes to bassoons to a didgeridoo weave in and out of the album throughout its 100-minute playing time. The singers Lucassen cast are great: James LaBrie (of Dream Theater) has the part of the main character, Marcela Bovio plays his wife, and a slew of other vocalists show up as different voices from the main character’s past and subconscious.

All of the songs are tightly focused around the album’s concept; it’s the sort of album that really demands a full-length listen to really appreciate it, although several of the songs quite well on their own. “Day Two: Isolation” (download it from the Ayreon site) opens the album with a terrific, guitar-heavy intensity; “Day Seven: Hope” is a lighthearted, nostalgic song perfect for cranking up on a summer road trip; “Day Eleven: Love” swings majestically from dreamy vocals to hammering guitars and back; “Day Seventeen: Accident?” flirts with an ambient electronic keyboard groove. Most songs feature at least two or three different characters (male and female) singing in dialogue, which keeps the vocals varied and interesting.

If I sound like a raving fanboy, I suppose I am: I loved this album. It hits most of the spectrum of progressive rock, from crunching guitars to quiet flutes, from cookie-monster growling to ethereal female vocals. (It does ultimately lean toward the heavy side, though.) There’s a great deal of musical creativity packed into this one. I’d heartily recommend it to anybody who wants a good introduction to prog rock, or to anybody who just enjoys hearing a troupe of highly skilled musicians all doing what they do best.

At the risk of looking like a fanboi, I’m offering my thoughts on the new Radiohead album about eight hours after it dropped last night.

• This is summarily a Radiohead album. The very first track, “15 Step”, is an adept melding of Kid A fuzz and ambiance with Amnesiac timing (5/4 is my guess, 5/8 is my son’s… and on further listening, I think he might be right) with melodies reminiscent of “Talk Show Host” or “Paranoid Android”.
• Speaking of melodies, they are fabulous and, in many places, simpler than on past albums.
• I’ve never been a huge fan of Thom Yorke’s voice by itself, but this album reminds me how well it cuts through the thick, luscious layers of sound in the music.
• Of the ten songs, only one stood out to me as a particular “throwaway” (”All I Need”). On the other hand, the breadth of sound is simply astonishing. The band shows that they don’t need to rely on hyper-produced songs with 32 tracks of noise to make great music; “Faust Arp” is a beautiful track with nothing more than voice and two guitars, while “Videotape” is just Thom at a piano, playing hypnotically along with minimal, almost ambient drums.
• From time to time, I could use a break from the “singing in the middle of an empty Albert Hall” vocal effect. Also, if the dude who does the voice for Herbert ever needs a break, Thom can surely step in. (Seriously, listen to something like “Nude” and tell me he couldn’t do a great, “You like popsicles?”)
• Early favorite tracks: well, just about all of them. I immediately love “Bodysnatchers” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, but so much of the album feels fresh, yet familiar.

I got to the end of the album ready and excited to listen to it again. I didn’t skip any tracks and didn’t get anxious during any of the songs to do so. Four (preliminary) stars.