Joanna Newsom & The Ys Street Band E.P.

I love Joanna Newsom madly. She and her music are quirky, oldworld, gorgeous. The Milk-Eyed Mender is easily my favourite 2004 album, and this new EP exceeds every promise made. (You know how apprehensive you get when your favourite artist does something new, especially with a new band in tow.) I feel so lucky to be one of the folk who 'got' Newsom's voice, or I'd have missed out on the first song of this album, 'Colleen'...


And these lyrics from the last, 'Cosmia':

...though I tried so hard my little darling
I couldn't keep the night from coming in

If you couldn't get over Newsom's toenail curling voice from her other stuff, I still think you'd like this EP. It's mellower, yet still distinctive, unusual, and beautiful.

I've also been listening to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. Azparently this is the album Pink Floyd hate. I like it. Summer '68 is fast becoming my fave PF song, enough to make up for any other weirdness on 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' and the title track. I know, I'm a pretty slack PF fan. Weirdness, that's what they do, right? But I like Summer '68 for its catchy piano and brass sections; I like 'Run Like Hell' (from The Wall) for its blatantly disco beats; I like 'Comfortably Numb' for its... well... I just like it, but it isn't weird.



Is it okay that I don't read books anymore? I'd much rather sit and listen to some good music than read a book (good or otherwise). Oh, well. I guess it'd only make me pseudo-intellectual if I started now.

new blog post!

My best bud Julia's got a new blog over at lainujam.blogspot.com, so I figured I'd update this one a little more regularly... well, I'll update it at least one, i.e. now... then we can comment on each other's blogs, which would be quite the novel event. Of course this could thwart all conversation we have in RL, but I'll take that chance.

So, what's bin going down in AmyLand?

I am potentially at war with the UWA student guild. They want me to pay for a membership I never activated. I don't. When I clicked the box in my enrollment form at the start of the semester that said I would join the Guild, my understanding was that I wasn't actually a member until I filled in the form and paid the money. So when I changed my mind and decided not to join the Guild, I figured that was the end of the matter: I'm not a member, I don't pay the membership fee. Not so! Apparently, clicking that box has obligated me to Do Stuff. Okay, so I should have read the fine print. But be fair, folks. I'm just asking to retrospectively cancel my unactivated membership so I don't end up paying sixty bucks for, well, nothing. Hrrf. Stay tuned.

On to brighter, better days, I saw the Tales from Earthsea anime movie last night. I didn't know I liked anime! Wow! Great movie. Lots of malarkey about Life and Death. Lovely scenery. Beautiful music. Awesome.

Oooh! Hair shaving photos! Dijana gave me a cd with all the photos she took from my Fully Wicked Sick Hair Do. Ah, the memories. I've uploaded a few to my Flickr account. This is one of my favourites:



My mum was so brave.

And now for my non-regular report from YouTube. Latest, greatest find... Famous Five! Super! I love the FF books and I am surprisingly enheartened with the 1978 children's television series. I guess because it's just so cheesy. The tv version suits the books, the way the first tv version of HitchHiker's fitted the books.

youtube round up

YouTube round up for the week that was, is, and is to come. So, you know. April's listening/visual pleasures.

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen: the final episode of M*A*S*H, uploaded in twelve 10 minute segments. Still packs a punch, even on a 4"x4" screen. I think good tv, film, literature, music, art, whatever, will blur your perception of fiction and real-life. You know Hawkeye and BJ and Charles and Margaret and Klinger and Fr. Mulcahy and Col. Potter are characters played by actors, but somehow it just doesn't make sense to call them fictitious. They've become real to so many people, they've got to exist somehow. Somewhere.




All I want is you: Final song on U2's Rattle and Hum album/concert dvd. Dude, even when I know how this video clip ends, I still cry. I remember the first time I watched it, but. I wept like a baby, and then the punch line came, and I was totally disturbed. Like... huh.



Bad: more U2. I love love love this live version.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU!


Bridges and Balloons. Ah, Joanna Newsom. Love her harp, hate her voice. Actually, I love her voice. (There's a lot of love in this YouTube round up.) Sure, it sounds like a squeaky hinge... like somebody strangling cats... off-tune, off-kilter... atonal sqawk... Bob Dylan on helium... but I wouldn't want it any other way. I don't listen to her because she has a nice voice. I listen to her because she has a seriously weird voice but she sings anyway, and no other voice could fit her music. So there.
But! In my musical adventures on YouTube I found this guy Scott Harsington/doublewuzzy who, being something of a genius himself, has transcribed (?) Joanna's harp to piano. If it wasn't obvious to you before, Joanna Newsom writes is an incredible musician.
Bridges and Balloons is one of my favourite songs from The Milk-Eyed Mender.

We sailed away on a winter's day
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible I say
And the nautical, as all things, fades

Darren Hayes on Spicks and Specks. Who knew Darren Hayes could be funny?



That is all.
(Wow. Just previewed this post, and boy, do embedded videos suck for picture quality.)

Window in the Skies

This is my new favourite video clip. My U2 fandomness is based on their early stuff, but this song is growing on me, and just this clip is SOAWESOME.



Love love.

Time Lord of the Rings II

Time Lord of the Rings now has a logo!



Background image: Newline Cinemas
"Time Lord" font: FuturistCondensed
"Rings" font: Ringbearer

...and don't you just want to make a tissue box cover of it?

Dude! Photoshop skillz! Not!
I don't have photoshop and I don't have skillz, but nonetheless...



Actually I'm thinking now that Tom Baker is waaay too small. Also character-wise he doesn't make a very good Pippin and he looks like he's about to be sick. I couldn't get the colouring right. But the hair, scarf, and expression still suit, I reckon.

Time Lord of the Rings

The Doctor Who/Lord of the Rings crossover is the brain child of Nuroreiel and the Walk to Rivendell discussion board. Rae's going to write the story, and I've christened the project Time Lord of the Rings, which is now the umbrella for my creative endeavours. Such as this: Gandalf's Regeneration.




Update: I realise, without sounds, this would be much better as an animated gif. But I find gif animators just so darn fiddly. So sucks boo.

Crunching vinyl

new year: new media console.

Some statistics!

I have 19.2 hours of 'rock' music on my computer; 5.4 hours of 'blues'; 7 minutes 'acid' (what's 'acid', precious?); 3 minutes of 'indie' (...and you will know us by the trail of dead); and 2 minutes of 'unclassifiable' (MC Lars. I think he'd like that).

5 star rated songs include: That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore (the Smiffs), Monster (Kate Miller-Heidke), and Barney's Tune (the Grimethorpe Colliery Band)

2 star rated songs include: Meat is Murder (the Smiths again-- too right, I can't stand this song), Mr Oysterhead (Oysterhead), and the entire original Blues Brothers soundtrack-- but I love that album!!!

By year:
Oldest: 1967 (Beatles)
Newest: 2006 (Yonder Mountain String Band)
(not including all the 'unknown', which goes waaay back)