Captura el Gringo

(via @calle13oficial)

Hace Que Salga el Sol

I'm listening to Julieta Venegas on Morning Becomes Eclectic and am reminded why I have admired this gal for years now. Her roots stem across Long Beach to Tijuana to Mexico City--her life must have wild juxtapositions unknown to most. With an excellent sense of melody and a voice unlike any other female vocalist I know, everything she does pretty much turns to gold. What probably endears to me most is how she is able to accurately capture nostalgia in every situation. A few years ago, "Me Voy" was a life-lesson-anthem for me--realizing it's better to let go of dumb decisions and yeah, I might deserve some of that pain that goes along with it. I have some of her lyrics firmly ingrained in my head to offset my romantically-challenged worldview. It's no surprise she reads Dostoevsky or jets off to Buenos Aires to experiment with songs. That's exactly what she reflects: a contradiction of beauties, una mezcla de mundos y sentimientos, a simple love of intricate shades and balances.

Bite-sized Booyakahh!

Interpol - "Lights"

Wow, excited vocals! It can almost past for an off-Broadway musical number. Enter: Paul Banks, romanticizing. I'm not a fan of this side of him. I miss the familiar stoic, doomsday tone of "Into the Bright Lights" Interpol. Also vanished are the throbbing bass lines that so endeared to me when analyzing the fate of doomed relationships. I suppose I should keep my mind free from past regret and focus on the evolution. Perhaps this time, the lights reflect a saved-by-grace Banks turning off the bright lights to hold the heck out of the one he loves? I'm already on my third listen, but it has yet to convince me it's going to be something more than a one-night stand. Yeah, I miss 2002 like I miss an ex.

Sleigh Bells - "Tell 'Em"

This is getting so good. Each time I listen to another Sleigh Bells tune, I get giddy. "Tell 'Em" is like getting blasted by lasers and at the same time, healed by the magnificent prospect of a fresh tune to invent a new dance to. How about a spastic, wigged-out Kid-n-Play? A Pon-de-Floor-style Roger Rabbit? The possibilities are without end!!!

a classic dance move i aim to claim

I just believe that even attempting this outside of Brazil would defeat its purpose.

for the munchies

Photo: Dave Gillespie

Broken Social Scene - "World Sick"
Begins and ends in watery, sun-glimmering-off-the-sea-surface guitars. You can definitely find parts of it awash with Do Make Say Think-ish riffs. It's a gradual formation of undulating swells until you hit mid-song where a crash of tides bring it all to a soaring crash of everything we love about rock. It even sets off a car alarm, or so my ears hear each time it subsides. I love this song for it’s wanting to rock out. It totally wants people to shake their heads in unison, making whole venues leap for what’s still right in this sick, sick world. <3

M.I.A. - "Born Free"

Ah, M.I.A. What can I say? I watched this song’s video one morning prior to feeding time and immediately misplaced my appetite. If I had anything at all inside my belly, I think the yammies would have taken care of all that. But we’re talking about the song here, not the tummy-churning visual prop. I’d say I’ve liked many of her other offerings above this, but you know, it’s effin M.I.A.! Her bombastic, cap-lockin’ charm is where it’s at. She yells into a loudspeaker like PSA doing you a true service. “You might try to find ways to be happier you might end up somewhere in Ethiopia.” It may all sound a bit anti-autotune but the best part is when she flips her hair like that. No one, I mean no one can do it the same. Trust.

Sleigh Bells - "A B Machine"

Tough boombox beats warping ‘round looping western guitar. Lift up that rift and say: HOOOoooOH! This can sound off nicely in a car-ride bound for desert or dessert, whatever fits your bumping fancy. Its sweet voices make my ears ache with equal bouts of admiration and envy. What’s it like to have M.I.A. on your side? Must be n.e.e.t. Also check out the contagious “Crown on the Ground” which I assume has no relation to the freaky-leaky offensive tune “Pants on the Ground”. I like my beats hard, and by the end my tympanic membranes are fully satiated. If this is what “Bionic riff missiles” sound like, I’m ready for more superhuman auricle fatalities. Make way for the future, are ya listening? Ho ho ho!

Phantom Limb Wipes Out The Eraser

Atoms for Peace at Santa Barbara Bowl
April 17, 2010

Surrounding us: trees high up above and around, a cool sea breeze beckoning. It is an ordinary Saturday afternoon that would soon turn into an extraordinary evening at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Atoms for Peace were about to possess the stage and make us kneel in wonderment. Which begged the question: What on earth could Thom Yorke and friends do with quiet, bedroom-electronica? I wondered about this through the traffic-ridden tortuous-ass ride from LA. The Eraser, I admit, was not a direct hit to the heart. It had the soft, hypnotic beats I enjoy from electronic music, but not the soul-shattering melodies of say, Kid A. I suppose it was not meant to shatter, but soothe, and it would occupy a space in my ipod, but leave a small, distracting hole in my Radiohead-shaped heart. Perhaps my expectations were misplaced. For all my Yorke-obsessed rantings, I decided that the effort was, as a whole, all right. To be fair, I did enjoy a few tracks, namely “Harrowdown Hill” and “Analyse”. Usually it had been raining, and I had just arrived home from a long work day, ready to turn in.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, I would wake up startled at familiar yet remodeled architecture of sounds. Eyelids wide open then closed in euphoric disbelief. My body, too, engaged in various strings of unexpected behavior: Jumping and shaking to the hardcore drumbeats. I could hardly contain myself. Layers were laid and molded to sink itself perfectly into my ears. Each song that seeped through those speakers, seeped inside me--It shook my blood into a coagulated blob of bliss.

Thom introduced his teammates with sincere affection: “This Flea…This Joey…This Mauro…This Nigel…This (finger pointing down above his head) Thom!” You know you were in for a treat when Thom wears a smile. We spotted wild arm-flailing from Thom and ceaseless head-spasms from Flea. The blue-haired, red-hot bassist banging his brain until I swear it would turn to porridge. Flea seemed to have a genuine affinity to this music, and he was delving into its depths. Thom fed off of this energy and manically shifted his feet off the floor like two polar-charged magnets coming together. Swaying, swinging, soaring, swoon.

“The Clock” struck us all with tribal-like pulsating beats, enough to make the sky open up and weep. Nigel working magic on keyboards and a maze of other instruments--he remained stooped behind a curtain of sound--a wizard of gadgetry. Mauro and Joey on guitars and percussion from hell. Flea all the while, still fully engaged in fitful head-swirling, drawing imaginary blue lightening. The audience, denizens of a restless night, fall back appeased.

Another sweet surprise: “And it Rained all Night”. The dark, gritty bumps dumped us into a grooved-out underground tunnel rave. I could destroy floors dancing to this music. I wanted to stomp on everything, keel over and do somersaults, then assault the instruments that made those sounds. The blur of zigzag blue lights only added to my daze-ment. You almost forget Thom is even singing--while dancing he could be making incoherent proclamations in tongue and you couldn't care less. You'd still want to give him a bear hug when at last he sings: “I can never reach you."

Encore time. A pink brazier floated down landing just in front of Thom. He paused a bit, walked away chuckling and then picked it up: “I’m still puzzled how they can do that.” Enter: "Give Up the Ghost". A recorded falsetto vocal loop and light guitar strum following. This is wistful Thom. This one is for those and thems that never did you any good.

Thom may wish to do side projects and he may wish to create something apart from the over-analyzed entity that is Radiohead, but one thing is for certain: He cannot completely separate himself from it. If Radiohead is the body, then this project is its phantom limb, it’s familiar yet haunting member--it’s ghost. Thom sits down at his piano and plays a few instantly recognizable notes: “Videotape”. Let me just indulge myself further in saying that few other songs can reach out and grab the insides of you (heart, kidneys, lungs--all of it) and then returns them to you in the form of multicolored longing…in red blue green. It is just perfect on tape, a sweet eulogy for the mourning. But hearing the song live--it takes on an ethereal form that brings the newly departed down to hell and forces them to look back up at the still-living ashes of regret.

It is raining now as I write this and I’m reaching for my Eraser disc that spent too much time hibernating. This time, I am nowhere near the end of the day and I’m ready to dance again.