Archive for the 'Music' Category

Look Into The Air

Finally, I am done with my Guatemala blogging! Interesting post script - I was watching Nova last night and they had a special on Mayan hieroglyphs, which was fascinating. You can watch the entire special here. When we were in Tikal, the guides there said that the language had been lost, but the show explained that they had deciphered many of Mayan hieroglyphics, if not completely broken the code. It reminded me of this picture I took (at left). Recent scholars have deciphered much of the code, and generally stelae like the one pictured at left was a historical account of kings and their family. Anyway, if you get a chance to go to Guatemala, take as many pictures of the glyphs as you can! I didn’t take as many as I would have liked and now I regret it.

Now, on to other things. I’ve been going to a lot of concerts lately. First, I saw Jose Gonzales at the Highline Ballroom. The line went from one end of 11th avenue to the other (11th is a long block)! We managed to get in and score a table with a great view. Here are some pictures I took from the event.

The concert was great. He played a lot of his new stuff, including one of my favorites off his new album, Cycling Trivialities. Have a listen.

This man has unbelievable control over the guitar - it is practically an extension of him when he plays.

More recently, we went to the Explosions in the Sky concert. It was raw and awesome. They proved that they are not a post rock band, they are a rock band. A friend of a friend took some terrific pictures of the concert here. They played a lot of great songs, but not my favorite (and my friend’s) song, Your Hand In Mine. Check it out.

It was a straight set with no encore. Being entirely instrumental, many worry that the band will be boring, but I can tell you that fear is unjustified. The music was hypnotic, and EITS are experts at building their music and the crowd into a frenzied crescendo. It was blisteringly loud - at points I could have used earplugs. My friends joke that setting the radio to a moderate volume is a sign of old age.

On that point, I am turning thirty in 9 days. Christ.

Finally, I put together a little mixtape of some songs I’ve been enjoying lately. If you want to, you can check it out here. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Mice Parade

Thanks to Wes, my imaginary band-mate in The World’s Fattest Twins (f/k/a Motion Picture Soundtrack), I have been turned on to Mice Parade, a fantastic real band. It has influences from all over, including atmospheric, hard-rock, electronic and flamenco. They’re absolutely brilliant. I recommend listening to the track “Steady as She Goes,” but pretty much all of their tracks are awesome. You can listen to any of their tracks on Amazon’s listing for Mice Parade. Check it out. You can thank me for dropping this musical gem on you by replying below.

The World’s Fattest Twins will likely make a showing at Mice Parade’s upcoming concert in NYC. More info here.

Sweep the Leg!

So the site went down for a while. My host said that I was using too much memory. But I think it was a corrupted database or template. In any event, I recently saw something cracked me up - a music video with all the old characters from the Karate Kid. The music is meh but the video is great!

Amazing Fingerpicking

The only thing you are amazing at fingerpicking is that giant sebaceous hook-nose on your that ugly mug of yours. Not so with Andy McKee, who is a master of fingerstyle guitar. This video is one of his most impressive, though you can find more on You Tube. In addition to his technical skills, his music is pretty good.

He also does a pretty damn good rendition of Africa (Toto):