Any Color You Like - Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - 1973

So my ladyfriend and I did the diabetes walk yesterday, as we both have a fair number of family members that are affected by this. All in all, it was a quick and easy five miles and they gave us lots of snacks. The walk was basically just from the South Street Seaport up to the Brooklyn Bridge, over the bridge, around the courthouse, and back. We both took a great deal of amusement at the number of guides positioned on the other side of the bridge, basically at every corner, to make sure timid Manhattanites didn't get lost in the "horror" of downtown Brooklyn. But hands down the funniest bit of the day occured when we were walking back.

Being the impatient NYC-ers that we are, we didn't wait for the starting gun, but instead just started walking. This meant that we were coming back over the Brooklyn Bridge just as the bulk of the walkers were heading over. Standing in the middle of the observation deck at the midpoint of the bridge was a smallish camera crew. The object of what they were shooting was standing a few feet away; a perma-tanned russian girl in booty shorts and a frilly top. She was standing on top of an equipment case and attempting to lip synch through whatever bad euro-tech song she was trying to shoot a video for...however, niether her nor her crew seemed to be aware that today might have been a bad day to shoot a video on the bridge. The waves of people coming over the bridge seemed to terrify her and annoy the camera crew to no end. I didn't even make an effort to not step in front of the camera when I passed...cause seriously...fuck those guys.

Anyway, Pink Floyd doing an instrumental from Dark Side...either you like it or you don't.

Anticipation - Cut City - Mammoth - 2007

Here in New York it is CMJ week. For those of you not familiar, allow me to explain. CMJ weeks is sort of the music business equivalent of sweeps week. For one week all of the music press and record label talent scouts descend down onto New York City. In order to accommodate all of the bands that will clamour for the attention of these music industry luminaries, every single bar that has anything remotely resembling a stage books bands all day long. Indie record labels book the bigger clubs in order to showcase their talent stable, and smaller bars take the unsigned masses.

This will be my 9th CMJ week since moving here. My attitude towards the festival has evolved in stages characterized thusly:
Stage 1 - "CMJ is one of the best parts about living in this city! I can't believe I get to check out all of these awesome bands"
Stage 2 - "These CMJ shows are kind of a pain in the ass...you have to deal with a truck load of tools, drinks are expensive, and the band you want to see is going to play a short set cause they gotta fit in those other bands. But I really want to see this band, so I guess I'll deal.
Stage 3 - "There is no fucking way I'm going to a CMJ show"
Stage 4 - "Fine, I'll go to a CMJ show, but I'm showing up five minutes before the band I want to see and leaving immediately after"

So, Wednesday night my roommate had talked me into going out to Southpaw and seeing his friends' band. Now Southpaw is in reasonable walking distance to our apartment and the show was at 830 so I figured it wouldn't be too bad for a cold Wednesday night's entertainment. But we showed up only to discover that there was a $20 cover. Okay...now I've been here long enough to know that everything is more expensive than you think it should be...but seriously, if you want to attract attention to your band, making people pay $20 just to walk in the door is not the way to do it. Alex and I decided the only appropriate response was "fuck that noise" and we went and got a few beers at a local bar. It was the only reasonable solution to that.

This is that band that I thought was Interpol and is not. I still like it better than Interpol.

Anthony Boy - Chuck Berry - The Ultimate Collection - 1959

I have a little bit of a cold, so my head is too foggy to give you much in the way of coherent blog postings these days.

Not that I have much to say about this Chuck Berry nugget, other than a mild amusement at the blatant Italian stereotypes on display here and Berry's brief attempt to impersonate the accent. Otherwise, it's all pretty cut and dry.

Anyway, back to watching my lungs fill with fluid.

Another One Goes By - Mazarin - We're Already There - 2005

Sorry if updates are even laxer than usual this week. I leave for a little vacation to Mexico Thursday morning, so my mind is most definitely elsewhere. Anyway...

It seems appropriate that I'd be writing about this song today anyway. It's the first really autumnal day we've had this season, and this song just screams fall. Without really sounding in anyway like R.E.M.'s Reckoning it has the same sense of turning leaves and breezes with a hint of frost in them.

I suppose it's fair to say that the fall is the most contemplative of seasons. With the end of the shining summer, and the inevitable approach of cold and gray winter, it's easy to think of the impermenance of everything. Of human life, obviously, but somewhat less morosely of any good thing. From the way that every milkshake has a last sip, to the way that the passion of young love eventually mellows into the warm affection and concern of a relationship, Autumn speaks to both the passing of time, and to sucking the last bit of sweetness from the well.

I've listened to the song over and over to try to determine what it is about the song (which if I haven't made it perfectly clear, I think is damn near perfect) that makes it seem so fall-like. Perhaps it's the general sad yet laid back vibe, or perhaps he combination of the piano and the strummed dulcimer also work well to create the sense of a cold wind through dying leaves, or Quintin Stotzfus' Brian Wilson-esque vocals. All in all, it's a really wonderful construction.