My mind works best with the appropriate music in the background. Lately, I've been working on a sequel to a novel that I'm currently shipping out. Both novels deal with the forces of good and evil in the form of angels and demons (with nary a hint of Tom Hanks to be seen... cue rimshot). The characters involved include a noir detective and the obligatory half-human half-demon heroine. So what does this have to do with the price of rice in China? Well, nothing, if you want to take that question literally. But, my point is that the CD I'm currently listening to is called Demon Crossing by a band called Yellow #9. If you haven't heard them then the best way to describe them is this.
Imagine a nightclub, circa 1945. Onstage is a woman in a sultry red dress, with a sultry voice that has been weighted down with whiskey and cigarettes. The band is unobtrusive, as the singer is front row center with her sparkling red gown and elbow length black gloves.
You know, your typical film noir type nightclub scene.
Why do I ask you to imagine this? Simple. Because this is exactly the scene I picture in my head, down to the smoke rings circling the toughs in fedoras and shoulder holsters in the front row, every time I throw this CD in. Don't know why, either. It's just one of those things that happens every time. The song Lust in particular sounds like something that the sultry songbird would sing in a tough-talking detective story. And I've actually built a scene in my head around a song called Jackie to put into one of books in the series I'm working on. The song actually has nothing to do with the scene other than the demon that my detective runs into at the bar is named, in fact, Jacky.
Not everything on the album is perfect, however. You can safely skip over Bad Girl, one of the few missteps on the album. Bad Girl is a 30 second bit of what sounds like a drunken hobo saying, “She's a bad girl. Don't know why she's bad. She's a bad girl.” That's it. Whee.
Hair of the Dog puts the album back into strong form, although it keeps up the pace with a few other notable mentions (ICFCFBM, despite the fact that the lyrics are terrible, and Seven Addictions are both strong entries, although without the same feel that inspires little film noir movies to run in my head). Hair of the Dog in particular has an interesting jazzy, nightclub-just-before-closing-time feel to it. So, if any of this fascinates you, or you think that you want to write demon-oriented noir as well, check out Yellow #9 and Demon Crossing. It's interesting, to say the least. And if you don't like it, well...
Tough shit.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Opening salvo...
I've decided that I'm going to start a musical blog. Now, by that, I certainly don't mean that it will play a happy little tune for you every time you open this thing up. Fuck that. I don't want this to turn into the 21st century equivalent of that music box that sat on your grandmothers nightstand that you hated growing up. Even were I to pick a song to play on here that I thought was the best damn song in the world (or even “Tribute”, the self-described best song in the world), someone would come along and sniff at my musical taste. That's fine, I don't really care if somebody wants to dismiss my musical tastes as puerile, nonsensical bullshit. They may be right, they may be wrong, but in either case, I don't really give a rosy red fuck. Really, all I want to do with this is just shoot the shit for a while, let people know what I'm listening to, spout off any non sequiturs that spring to mind as a result of what I'm listening to, and basically open up the channels for anyone to sound off on this shit. Do you like what I'm recommending, do you hate it, have you never heard of it, do you wish you'd never heard of it? Eh, no matter what, it's all cool.
That being said, let's get this party started. For the record, how many of you have ever heard of a band called Witch's Hat? Offhand, I'm guessing there's about three of you out there that are saying you have. You three get a cookie. Everyone else, give them a listen. They're certainly not for everyone, and their album is hard to find, so you're probably going to have to go to their Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/witchshat) to give them a try. My internet is acting funny right now, so I can't actually tell you which songs are on their playlist right now, but if they're on there, I highly recommend listening to “Huzzah!”, “Glodyany, 1972”, and/or “Popsicles”. All three of these songs are catchier than syphilis in a Bangkok whorehouse, and, love 'em or hate 'em, you're going to have them stuck in your head for the next three weeks. Minimum.
“Huzzah!” is probably the most easily accessible of the three, assuming that you can get over the fact that it is just about the nerdiest song ever written. The song describes the adventures of a knight (referred to throughout as “a hero oh so bold”) and his quest to save a virgin princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. Despite the fact that the narrative is nothing more than a very basic bit of nerd bait (with the video centering on a lowly office worker who becomes the aforementioned hero each night when he logs onto his World of Warcraft account), but once you get past that bit of off-putting business, you find one of the best party anthems ever. With an awesome bass line, some pretty nifty-although-not-godlike shredding on the lead guitar, and a chorus tailor-made for those drunken singalong nights, “Huzzah!” is one hell of a song to nerd out to.
“Glodyany, 1972” is cut from the same cloth as “Huzzah!”, albeit much darker in tone. The narrative of this song follows a young man setting out to see the world when he is seduced and bitten by a “tall, pale vixen”, turning him into a vampire. He is then forced to live in a “weary, run-down castle” for the next three hundred years, preying on the villagers even as they try to bring him down. In the beginning, he cowers from the villagers and ponders his fate. By the third verse, though, he's accepted who and what he is, and taunts the villagers by saying “Come and take me if you can/ I'm ready/ I'm waiting”. Although this one lacks the party atmosphere of “Huzzah!” as well as an instantly joinable chorus, “Glodyany” is definitely the equal of “Huzzah!” in terms of ass kickery, with an interesting guitar line and a strange, almost dreamlike quality lent by what sounds like a ten dollar Kawasaki synthesizer providing back up for most of the song.
“Popsicles” (pronounced pop-sick-lees throughout) seems to be both a song about a mythical crew of air pirates or something like that, who are content to “fly by yelling hey there suck on this”, as well as a thinly veiled homage to Otter Pops. I know, that doesn't make any sense to me either, but the connection is definitely there in lines like “You're only fodder for the Otter/ We're gonna slaughter you and leave you in our wake”. And that's the thing about Witch's Hat. They never seem to take themselves seriously enough to ruin their fun, but they're also not as in your face about the fact that they're having a bit of a laugh as people like Weird Al. (Yeah, I know, no one as in your face about it as Weird Al, but he's the first one to come to mind. Lay off) If you're willing to get past the fact that some of their songs sound as though they were written during an all-night session of some intense D&D games, then Witch's Hat proves to be one of the rockinest bands out there, especially if you like your bands with a pinch of humor in the mix. And, if by some chance you happen to stumble across “Dance Machine” while you're looking these guys up, trust me, try it out too. It's worth it just for the “binary solo” in the middle of the Dance Machine's soliloquy. Not to mention that it's, fittingly enough, about the toe-tappingest song on the album.
Other than Witch's Hat, I've been going through some of my old albums, and actually solved an age-old mystery. You see, I'd heard my brothers quote what I thought was a line from, say, Heathers, maybe, or perhaps Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Seeings as how I've never seen either movie all the way through to the end credits (and cue the incredulous WHHHHAAAATTTT comments right about... now), I really had no idea where the line, “All I know, is that there were rumors that he was into field hockey players”, came from. Turns out it's just Kim Deal talking at the end of one of the songs on Surfer Rosa. Huh. Who knew?
That being said, let's get this party started. For the record, how many of you have ever heard of a band called Witch's Hat? Offhand, I'm guessing there's about three of you out there that are saying you have. You three get a cookie. Everyone else, give them a listen. They're certainly not for everyone, and their album is hard to find, so you're probably going to have to go to their Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/witchshat) to give them a try. My internet is acting funny right now, so I can't actually tell you which songs are on their playlist right now, but if they're on there, I highly recommend listening to “Huzzah!”, “Glodyany, 1972”, and/or “Popsicles”. All three of these songs are catchier than syphilis in a Bangkok whorehouse, and, love 'em or hate 'em, you're going to have them stuck in your head for the next three weeks. Minimum.
“Huzzah!” is probably the most easily accessible of the three, assuming that you can get over the fact that it is just about the nerdiest song ever written. The song describes the adventures of a knight (referred to throughout as “a hero oh so bold”) and his quest to save a virgin princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. Despite the fact that the narrative is nothing more than a very basic bit of nerd bait (with the video centering on a lowly office worker who becomes the aforementioned hero each night when he logs onto his World of Warcraft account), but once you get past that bit of off-putting business, you find one of the best party anthems ever. With an awesome bass line, some pretty nifty-although-not-godlike shredding on the lead guitar, and a chorus tailor-made for those drunken singalong nights, “Huzzah!” is one hell of a song to nerd out to.
“Glodyany, 1972” is cut from the same cloth as “Huzzah!”, albeit much darker in tone. The narrative of this song follows a young man setting out to see the world when he is seduced and bitten by a “tall, pale vixen”, turning him into a vampire. He is then forced to live in a “weary, run-down castle” for the next three hundred years, preying on the villagers even as they try to bring him down. In the beginning, he cowers from the villagers and ponders his fate. By the third verse, though, he's accepted who and what he is, and taunts the villagers by saying “Come and take me if you can/ I'm ready/ I'm waiting”. Although this one lacks the party atmosphere of “Huzzah!” as well as an instantly joinable chorus, “Glodyany” is definitely the equal of “Huzzah!” in terms of ass kickery, with an interesting guitar line and a strange, almost dreamlike quality lent by what sounds like a ten dollar Kawasaki synthesizer providing back up for most of the song.
“Popsicles” (pronounced pop-sick-lees throughout) seems to be both a song about a mythical crew of air pirates or something like that, who are content to “fly by yelling hey there suck on this”, as well as a thinly veiled homage to Otter Pops. I know, that doesn't make any sense to me either, but the connection is definitely there in lines like “You're only fodder for the Otter/ We're gonna slaughter you and leave you in our wake”. And that's the thing about Witch's Hat. They never seem to take themselves seriously enough to ruin their fun, but they're also not as in your face about the fact that they're having a bit of a laugh as people like Weird Al. (Yeah, I know, no one as in your face about it as Weird Al, but he's the first one to come to mind. Lay off) If you're willing to get past the fact that some of their songs sound as though they were written during an all-night session of some intense D&D games, then Witch's Hat proves to be one of the rockinest bands out there, especially if you like your bands with a pinch of humor in the mix. And, if by some chance you happen to stumble across “Dance Machine” while you're looking these guys up, trust me, try it out too. It's worth it just for the “binary solo” in the middle of the Dance Machine's soliloquy. Not to mention that it's, fittingly enough, about the toe-tappingest song on the album.
Other than Witch's Hat, I've been going through some of my old albums, and actually solved an age-old mystery. You see, I'd heard my brothers quote what I thought was a line from, say, Heathers, maybe, or perhaps Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Seeings as how I've never seen either movie all the way through to the end credits (and cue the incredulous WHHHHAAAATTTT comments right about... now), I really had no idea where the line, “All I know, is that there were rumors that he was into field hockey players”, came from. Turns out it's just Kim Deal talking at the end of one of the songs on Surfer Rosa. Huh. Who knew?
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