Lisztomania (Classixx Remix)

I'm still trying to upload Coachella pictures and it's not working very well.  So.... here's a little something in the meantime -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7U16stsEmc

I usually hate remixes but this one is amazing and that video is mesmerizing.

Coachella

Here's the skinny:

Shows that I attended -

Friday

New Pants (a wonderful surprise)
Cold Cave
The Drums (YES!)
YACHT
Sleigh Bells
Cut Copy
Crystal Castles
Nosaj Thing (for a bit)

Saturday

Yelle
Bright Eyes
Shpongle (weirdest thing I've ever witnessed)
The Swell Season
Animal Collective
Arcade Fire (so so so so so so so amazing)

Sunday

Health
The National
Chromeo
The Strokes
Kanye West

Shows that I regret having missed -

Ratatat (but I'll see them in June)
PJ Harvey
Gayngs
The Morning Benders
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Tame Impala
Beardyman
Warpaint
Rye Rye
The Tallest Man on Earth
Foals
The Radio Dept
Broken Social Scene
Twin Shadow
Duran Duran

It was impossible to see everything that I wanted to due to schedule conflicts, the need to eat, 100 degree temperatures, fatigue, the desire to stay with my friends, etc.
I'm very very very happy with what I was able to see. Coachella is a beautiful event and I hope to go again and again.

Maybe I'll put up some photos later. My computer keeps crashing right now.

KaossMan

Kaoss

Here's a look at my new stuff. Looks pretty good, right?

Will Do

This is songwriting at its finest.

Let it Burn

Sometimes I feel like losing everything would be a relief.

I'll try to explain.

I didn't have to work at an unearthly hour this morning so I was able to sleep in a bit and wake up slow. I think that I had a dream that my entire life changed. Everything that I knew was gone and I had to begin again - maybe I was transported to a new place, maybe I was thrown into a different time, maybe there was some kind of disaster - I'm not sure what happened. I just remember feeling utterly alone.

When I was fully conscious I really really wanted to listen to this song.



People throwing dinars at the belly-dancers
In a sad circus by a trench of burning oil
People throw belongings; a lifetime's earnings
Amongst the scattered rubbish and suitcases on the sidewalk

Date palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that're crying for everything
(Let it burn! Let it burn, burn, burn...)

So I talked to an old man by the generator
He was standing on the gravel by the fetid river
He turned to me and answered, "Baby, see."
Said, "War is here in our beloved city."

Some dove in the river and tried to swim away
Through tons of sewage; they had written on their foreheads
Date palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that're crying for everything

Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!

Obviously, it would be hyper-dramatic to compare our lives with those of the people in this song, but I can't help but feel the desire to take the people I love by the hand and jump into that sewage-filled river. On the far bank we would look back at the materialism, the over complication, the skewed social hierarchy, the broken politics, the cookie cutter lifestyles that we had left behind and we would chant, "Let it burn! Let it burn, burn, burn...".

We would then taste something different.

Feeling Memory

Today I finally removed my winter snowflakes from my windows. It was a bittersweet moment for me. The removal of winter decorations frees up my large windows for their true destinies; letting vast quantities of light into my life, displaying the springtime explosion of white and pink beauty that is my crab apple tree, allowing the sounds of the outdoor world into my indoor life; birds, bugs, people walking by, the occasional car, lawnmowers, etc. I love these things so much, and yet... I felt slightly sad as I took down my snowflakes and crumpled them into twisting and crisscrossing balls of paper mess. Some of their accidental patterns would not and could not ever be recreated.

Next year will mark the birth of new snowflake decorations. They will be just as magnificent as the dead generation, full of happy accidents and wonderful flukes. I just felt like I should take some time to say farewell to all the paper snowflakes in the world that have died as spring puts its foot in the door. I have already all but forgotten the complexities of your designs but the seasonal magic that you have planted in my heart has become part of a treasured and permanent feeling memory.

Beautiful.

I wish that I could do beautiful things in beautiful places for the rest of forever.



The best part is the cute high-five at the end.

Blank Canvas

Hello world! It seems like it's been a million years.

I had a conversation with a friend about the mood/feeling/emotion that artists can create or give off through their work. He seemed to think that if a person invested enough effort into it then they could experience a feeling that was totally outside of themselves; that they could feel something that was unrelated to their personality and memory. At least that's what I think that he was saying.

At the time I was skeptical. I didn't feel like a person was capable of experiencing anything without having their perception of that experience be colored by their spirit and memories. I told him so.

I think that I have changed my mind. I was listening to some beautiful music today. It was music that I have loved for a long time now, but I was listening to it in a way that I never had before. I felt a way that I never before felt. It was like a new facet was being chipped into the rough gem that is my life. I couldn't connect this new feeling with anything I had ever before experienced. It couldn't be categorized using my current lexicon. This feeling had no home inside my being but I loved it so much that I was forced to make one for it.

I have no idea if these songs will do anything for anyone else. You are welcome to try it. Listen in this order and at a high volume. Listen to them without a goal and with nothing on your mind.

GO! TEAM

New music and videos and CD - Rolling Blackouts. YES!
The Go! Team makes me feel so good. If I ever have a hard issue to tackle a little sip of Go! Team goodness is always helpful.

Google Earth

Is anyone else totally blown away by Google Earth? I can literally spend hours using it without really knowing what I'm looking at. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm taking on a long trip/adventure in India or Russia or something and then I follow a path of intrigue and exploration. I try to imagine the places, people, sights, sounds, smells, foods, traditions, colors, life and beauty of wherever I'm Google Earthing. It's a poor substitute for actually going to these destinations but it will do the trick until fortune smiles more kindly upon my wallet.

Do people really still use their imaginations? I find that I need to allot myself time to imagine. There was a time in my life when I was burning through the books I was reading at such a lightning fast pace that I had no time to imagine. One day, I finished a book and it hit me that I had no mental image of the main character nor could I pronounce her name vocally. I had finished a beautiful and complex story but, because I read it like it was an article in a newspaper, I had not gleaned anything from it. I had completely missed the emotional complexity and involvement. I had entirely missed the experience that the world of this book was trying to provide me. When I read I want color. I want beauty and feeling. I want friends and family. I want life and I want to learn. These things cannot be had without imagination. The words on the page need to become something else in my mind. They need to come together and form a life of their own. They need to spur the creation of my own words, thoughts, and explanations.

I reread that book. I'm glad that I was able to realize what I was missing. I hope to never make the same mistake with any other book again. Imagination can touch and improve more than our books and stories. If people would stop stifling their imaginations I think that many of societies ills would be bettered or even cured.

For Pete's sake - take some time to imagine.

P.S. I really love this video. Rakafeed is insanely beautiful and I love the way the video weaves together three separate events or memories to create a tapestry of emotion.



I found myself wondering if the dark night was before or after the other events. I think it was after. He was alone in the night. I think that he was retracing his memory path and experiencing flashbacks of his memories with his girl. She may have left him or died or something because in the night scenes he seems unstable and upset (almost frantic). The flowers are for her grave?