Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in boyhowdy's LiveJournal:

Thursday, March 20th, 2008
10:02 pm	Literary Devices: folk and (mostly) coversongs To be honest, I wasn't planning on kicking in for this theme. And the result of my lit-scavenging has been a sprawling post, much less cohesive than the type of set I prefer to post, and do, over at my own folk-focused coverblog Cover Lay Down. But you gotta hear these. ( From Hardboiled Brooklyn to Kiddie Lit, via Shakespeare and The Bible: Deb Talan (of The Weepies) pays tribute to Jonathan Lethem, plus a handful of folk-tinged coversongs based in literature. ) As always, all artist and purchase links go direct to artist and label websites, that we might best channel our resources towards those who make music, and away from those who are only in it for the profit. Please, folks: if you like what you hear, buy it. And don't forget to stop by Cover Lay Down for recent features on Celtic Folk, Sinead O'Connor, Spring coversongs of hope and renewal, and more covers from the folk world! Current Mood: rejuvenated (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 26th, 2006
5:20 pm	They Might Be Dead And now for something completely different: As promised in my earlier post (Death Cab For Cutie's I Will Follow You Into The Dark, now with a working audiolink), here's two They Might Be Giants songs on today's theme. First up, the simply titled Dead, a somewhat bored-sounding funeral dirge (if funerals usually featured grandoise piano and accordians, that is) off Flood. "You're dead, the funeral wasn't bad, but I'm still alive and kind of mopey" seems to be the basic premise, lyrically speaking; sonic-wise, the music never really goes anywhere -- what with the nasal harmonies throughout, and the otherwise-constant plod of keys and tune, the end result manages to be pleasing and fun while somehow sounding more like a dorked-up glee club performance in high school, if that's possible. Next up, You're Dead, a song which manages to cover the same basic conceptual ground while goes into an entirely different direction -- you're dead but the world's still spinning sort of covers it all. The music builds from a tinkle, adding a synth drumbeat for layering, and then turns into this sort of fuzzy guitar thing with harmony before flying into almost-rap. The resolved-then-unresolved tension in the instrumentation wobbles, speaking to a complex set of emotional underpinnings about death and the world in general. It's a bit like the Eels meet Hanson, if that's even possible. In case you can't tell, I have mixed feelings about both of these tunes, though both stay on the playlist for TMBG fans, and You're Dead is truly fun to listen to. Still, worth a shot if you're fans, and worth the novelty if you're on the fence about the good old Johns. Buy Flood, though, because it is a pretty stable, oft-hilarous album. And buy (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
3:39 pm	New Riders of the Quirky Title Over-perusal of the old iTunes playlist reveals that every song title looks quirky if you look at it long enough. So before my brain melts, and because someone already posted the Sufjan & Keller tracks I would have chosen, (and also because Negativland doesn't really make songs, per se, as much as noise collages), I present two of my favorites by They Might Be Giants, a band that pretty much defined the quirky title phenom long before, say, Iron and Wine or the Decemberists came along to claim the crown anew. My favorite TMBG track, Nightgown of the Sullen Moon, brings it on with phat slamming bass, a jerky rhythm, alarm clocks, and lyrics which are odd even for the two Johns: And you're nothing but air/ with your hand in the air/ and your shoelaces tied/ all together with care/ there's a feeling of boredom/ fire alarms go/ off in your head you live/ in the nightgown of the sullen moon... Forgot where the original was first released, but I've got it from their B-side/rarity/remix album Miscelaneous T. Then, of course, it gets weirder. Shoehorn with Teeth features end-of-album-ish sax blats, multivoice melody with little harmony, tinging bells, and more weird lyrics. Off Lincoln, which is not -- as most people suspect -- a tribute to Nebraska or an ex-president, but the name of the small Massachusetts town where the two Johns grew up together. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
10:04 pm	(note: written for mock_the_stupid, but saved here until the MTS moderation queue isn't full...) First time poster, long time lurker, with plenty to come for sure (I'm a middle school teacher)....but since none of my own stupidity trumps this one, I'll hold back on my tendency to confuse the authors of Lord of the Flies and the Princess Bride in front of students. Scenario: it's 1997, and I'm finishing my thesis work on the way technology changes the way people share and create knowledge (this will be relevant later). Regular meetings with a sociology Prof, as he's one of two thesis advisors; the Prof is one of the last remaining old guard in the field, an ex-communard whose primary interest is in industrialization and education, and who picks up the mouse and waves it at the monitor when I try to show him the hypertext component of my thesis, but that's been posted here before and is in my post just for context... See, Prof is known for being a technophobe, but I didn't realize how much until one Spring day I notice he's got a new phone. I make nice about it -- you know, how nice to see you joining the info society, ha ha, etc. -- Prof comments that the school made him get it, but he likes the color (PC beige) and we move on. Three weeks later, I'm in his office and I notice the phone is gone. Why? Seems after about a week, it developed a "blinking red light that wouldn't go away, and it was annoying..." so Prof ripped the phone out of the wall and returned it to the IT office. Notably, a good thirty pages of my thesis -- which he's been reading in draft for a year as it evolves -- is about telephones and their evolution. Including voice mail, and the ways in which phones signal that they have a message. I didn't have the heart to say anything, but I have always wondered if he actually understood any of the damn thing, or was just pretending all that time. This does explain why he never called me back about a meeting I thought I had cancelled via voice mail during that time frame, though. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 6th, 2004
2:07 pm	LJ is giving me a hard time with my account ...because I don't post in here much. So here's a post. For my REAL blogging, try Not All Who Wander Are Lost. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 18th, 2003
12:02 pm	This Is Not My Beautiful House... Well, I've started a livejournal. But I only did it so I could have access to some of the communities without having to comment anonymously, I swear. If you want to know about ME, then check out the blog: http://mediakit.blogspot.com (Comment on this)