SO MANY SUAVES

Hey kids, it's been a little while since my last music post, so I'll make this one thick. Don't worry, though, because there'll be plenty of pictures.

(Disclaimer: I'm used to writing about jazz music, which is a little pretentious to begin with, so I apologize if I butcher writing about rock music, a subject I know fairly little about.)

First up is a band named 25 Suaves, which I picked up because. . .well, because the band is named 25 Suaves. It was just sitting out on a shelf at the station, like it was meant to be.

The music itself is very guitar and drum driven, to the point that there's really no bass to speak of. Lyrics are there, but are damn hard to distinguish, even more so than most rock music. When you can hear him, the vocalist seems very similar to Blood Sweat and Tears, but with more yelling.

The guitar and drum work is quite heavy, almost industrial, but never without energy. The instrumental parts seem darker than the lyrics, when you can actually make them out.

While this stuff certainly isn't bad, I'd say it would be unremarkable if they weren't named 25 Suaves. Oh well.

Back to jazz, with Urban Reception, a release from the Aoki/Wong/Pavkovic trio, a local Chicago group. I've been a fan of Tatsu Aoki, the bass player, since my first day at the station when I randomly picked up a CD of him because he had an asian name. He has an impressivly diverse range array of recordings, from upright bass and laptop duo to a full japanese taiko drum section.

Musically, Urban Reception is another great album. The tracks are accessable enough to be listenable by the public, and experimental enough to be interesting. Instrumentation is varied, featuring mostly sax, with touches of violin and clarinet.

While not related to the music, per se, I also like the badass cover. Imagine it without WNUR JAZZ scrawled all over it with a sharpie, an attempt to prevent people from stealing the CDs. You can't really tell by the picture, but the paper is a sort of matte graphite color, like dark gray clay with irridescent particles suspended in it. The inside cover also features a poem, which I originally thought was just a really cool artistic addition, but then realized it contains all the track names, like "Rice Cake," "Welcome Home," and "Wheat Thin." What I don't know is whether the track names or poem came first. It's a mystery.

I haven't listened to these next two albums, but I feel like I have to say something about their covers.
Any band named Menstruation Sisters deserves a mention, especially if they're Australian.

Art Ensemble of Chicago is pretty badass, in general, and this cover supports that finding. Two things stand out to me: I never want to get on the third guy's bad side, and I really want a pair of glasses like the first guy.

Damn, that is one thick post. Ok, Bob out.

Most Unpleasant

For some reason, my attempts to complete my differential equations homework at 2:14 in the morning are hampered by this nagging sensation in my brain that says somewhere, probably somewhere close, people are having sex. I do not know if these people exist, nor do I know for sure if they're even having sex, but still the feeling lingers. It's thoughts like these that make me really hate differential equations. Plus, it's TOO FUCKING HOT.

guh so busy

LOUD NOISES

Boy, do I have another awesome cover to show y'all. Considering the vastness of the collection at the radio station, perhaps this will be a regular thing. This CD is from the duo Le Doigt De Galilée, and is entitled Object 5. If you can't see the cover clearly due to my poor camera skills, that is C-3PO's head from a Pez dispenser on what I can only assume is an African fertility statue with an erect penis. The main showcase of the album is the 27:45 track "My Sun Reverse Your Mailman" and let me tell you, I listened to the whole thing. It is noise. Noise indeed.


This find is, of course, in addition to the album Listen Big from Rich in Knuckles, an avant-garde saxophone quartet. Right now, I'm listening to the track "Let's Just Sit in the Car," and I like it.

Seriously, I do.

Flying Sharpened Metal

Check it, yo: throwing stars!

Radiorama

So I've started apprenticing at WNUR, Northwestern's radio station. I'm probably going to be hosting a slot of the Jazz Show sometime next year, so I gots to learn me "the ropes," or whatever they call them. I was looking through the stacks, which basically consists of tens of thousands of records and CDs, and I randomly came across this gem from 1969:


Must. . .play record. . . during. . . Jazz Show. . .

Mo' Dreams

So I was being chased by Roy Scheider because he was an unwitting agent of an oppressive government regime, and I had to get out of Washington D.C. because I had pissed off the wrong people. Robin Williams was my ally, and we tried to escape through the underground tunnels. We got lost like 5 times in this one part with a lot of enemies and had to restart the level. Eventually, we got out from underground by following this trail of desserts randomly sitting on the floor and climbing a brick wall, but we were still on the wrong side of the Potomac. We made a run for it, Roy Scheider still hot on our heels. Eventually I caught up to Robin, and he was clinging to the top of a miniature version of the Washington monument, looking serene. I crouched down at its base and waited for the inevitable. When Roy found us, I made a run for the river, and evaded all the government archers who kept firing ineffectual arrows at me. I made it over the first electrified ditch by jumping, but I think the river itself had alligators or something in it so I couldn't make it.

That's when I woke up.

Still don't know what happened to Robin.

Fun with Words

. . .all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

That little gem is from the Declaration of Independence. Reading it at face value, it seems to indicate a preference for the status quo. It could be argued that this is a very American trait, at least in America as it is today. I won't get into that.

I would argue that the better interpretation of this line would be a message of confrontational avoidance. We seem to live in a culture of confrontation. We advocate confrontation in virtually every situation, whether it's foreign policy, class-action lawsuits, or personal relationships. While there are certainly times when it is the best, or even the only morally acceptable action, there are far more times when it's outright inappropriate. Sometimes, people just need to chill.

Personally, I don't really like confrontation. Perhaps you feel differently. That's cool, too. It's all part of my philosophy of "chillness." Spread the word.

Also, it has come to my attention that I use far too many "words" and not enough "purty pictures." This is true. I was planning on putting up a pic of the various iterations of batarangs I have assembled in the machine shop over the past few days, but the camera I was going to use doesn't seem to be up to the task. The future, then.

The future.

Hoop/Dreams

Note: I'm writing this about 5 days after the events mentioned took place, which will undoubtedly lead to oddities. Huh. That'll teach me to update sporadically.

I went to a Northwestern basketball game on Wednesday. We lost by 3 points, and we were ahead for quite a while. None of the major NW sports are particularly good (with the exception of the national champion girls' lacrosse team), so it's a big deal if we stay alive that long. One thing that I always notice when I go to games is the "team spirit" or whatever, that takes the form of incredible hostility towards people you have never met before. Being a college game, you have fewer spittle-emitting parents, but you have even more spittle-emitting coaches. Them guys is scary. Good game, I guess, but watching grown men scream at each other always unnerves me a bit.

Also, I had a really weird dream last weekend. I don't remember everything, but I remember Hitler was there, and for some reason he really liked me, almost as a son. There was a little group of people my age, and I had a bible strapped to my chest, because that was what he had decreed, and he was talking to me, when I noticed I had carved out the middle of it to hold a gun, very Shawshank-esque. I kept trying to close the bible so he wouldn't see my blasphemy, and I don't think he noticed.

Suddenly, I was back in my dorm room, but it wasn't my actual room. My dream roommate had been involved in a RPG-esque magic battle, and I think he was dead, or waiting to respawn, and he had made some silver flax for me. I don't even know what flax is, but I'm going to look it up right now. I guess they're plants of some sort. Weird. Anyhow, I lay down on my bed, and then Matt came in and said something to the effect that Hitler was coming and we had to leave right now. And that's when I woke up.

The most important thing I learned in that dream is that getting hugged by Adolph Hitler feels really bad.

Deep Stuffs

I've been thinking about spirituality for the past few days. I've known for some time that I'm not one for religious faith. I don't know if it's a result of my upbringing or brain chemistry or who knows what else, but I cannot believe in some higher God when He chooses not to provide us with some sort of evidence for His existence.

My train of thought generally leads to a sort of strange half-regret that I don't feel this way. If so many people achieve a great fulfillment in their lives due to this faith, what could I be missing? This is a somewhat disturbing feeling for me, because I generally pride myself in being independent of religious "interference" in my life. The thought that this independence might be damaging rather than helpful just feels wrong.

But then I was thinking again. I don't have blind faith in some magical man who lives in the sky, but I do seem to have a general faith in humanity. Time and time again, reports indicate that many of us don't seem to learn our lessons about responsibility, tolerance, and the dangers of our own weaker natures. (For reference, see "Fox News, Entire History of") Sure, there are plenty of instances of true compassion and goodness, and it is on these that I concentrate. And it's nice to know that some of these acts are based in other forms of faith.

The fact is, it's not entirely our choice whether we have faith in our lives. Either you believe that there is always the potential for betterment, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, or you cease to live in the true sense of the word.


Reading back over that, I seem to make a few huge leaps between my thoughts. Makes sense to me, anyhow.

The Gang