From the monthly archives: March 2011
The Crystal Method – Blowout: Fun, bouncy track, albeit a little less gripping than a lot of tunes from Tweekend
Snog – Old Atlantis: Slow, haunting song from the electronic savior of the world.
The Flaming Lips – Oh My Pregnant Head: I suspect that would hurt.
Laibach – Anglia: From Volk, the haunting industrial covers of nation’s anthems of the world.
The Clash – Red Angel Dragnet: Yep, that’s the Clash.
Black Dice – Miles of Smiles: From the world of everyday sounds and looping noise, the Dice keep running for an easy 12 minutes with this one.
Alex Chilton – What’s Your Sign: Mellow song from a live recording.
Sonic Youth – Washing Machine: Here’s a quarter.
Cranium – Untitled: Manic randomness from this experimental band.
Tom Waits – Falling Down: Another great tune from Tom.
Crainium – New Hormones: Strange duplication of a band with one album on the Random Eight…and this one stranger than the last.
Carter USM – Prince in a Pauper’s Grave: Slower song from Carter.
Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music Part 2: Noise noise, enjoy the noise.
Genesis – Get ‘em Out By Friday: Silly old prog song about the selective elimination of tall people.
Salaryman – Inca Picnic: The synth-alter ego of the Poster Children.
Radio Thailand – Blow-Dried Pop Collage: Weird way to end a weird Random Eight.
Sorry, no Pogues to be found.
Archers of Loaf – Floating Friends: Fun band, song lyrics that don’t make much sense.
Carter USM – Final Comedown: Subtle tune from the generally bouncy guy.
Faust & Dalek – Dead Lies: Dark, trippy mood (as it was intended to be).
The Replacements – Answering Machine: Great song, nearly obsolete technology.
The Red Krayola – 6-5-3 Blues: So, secretly I’ve been hoping for the day when the Random Eight appear in alphabetical order. This might have been the closest I’ve come, having the first four songs go A, C, F, and Rep. Red ends the streak.
Boom Bip – Closed Shoulders: Spacey and kinda quiet for a band that tends to be more all-over-the-place.
Boredoms – Ear? Wig? Web?: Noisy strange little track (even more than normal for the band).
Pit er Pat – Moon Angel: A typically simple yet manic song.
As the weather grows warmer (including the upstairs “bug room”), creatures in the terrarium are slowly showing themselves in the evening.
If I had to bet, I’d guess there are hundreds of sow bugs in the two terrariums. They tend to hide well, but sometimes I can spy hoards of them crawling under the dirt but against the glass.
This millipede was half-hiding from me, but coiled while exposed on a broken piece of tree.
I almost missed this little guy.
Turns out he is a new little member of the millipede family.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is a hidden gem less than a two hour drive from DC. With a diverse collection of Asian, American, African, Greek, modern, and ancient art in the permanent exhibits, the museum is worth a visit even if there is no other compelling reason to head south from the nation’s capital. After a few years of disruption due to a massive renovation project, the museum is now ~90% open and quite a sight to see.
Images swiped from the VMFA website
For a few months, VMFA is hosting a Pablo Picasso collection (technically, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris). With a collection of 176 works from paintings, drawings, and sculpture, the exhibit spans Picasso’s life and shows his fantastic technical ability as well as his distorted view of reality.
Nicole and I took a day to visit the show. Consuming a better part of the museum basement, the exhibit was beautifully displayed, comfortably spaced (for the most part), and most of all, pretty nifty to look at. I wouldn’t go as far to say that I really thought much of the artist who is mostly known for his cubist works that seem more like an f’ed up collection of Mr. Potato Head toys than works of art, but like a lot of displays I’ve seen, witnessing the work in person exposes the remarkable talent Picasso had, even if he chose to create works that sometimes masked this fact.
Recently, at a used book sale, I found a collection of Picasso’s sculptures. I had no idea he had done much sculpture; however, the book boasted many works that he had completed over his life. The exhibit had its fair share of these from wonderfully realistic works to remarkable likenesses of his paintings using cut sheet metal. I’ve had a bit of a sculpture fascination lately, so seeing these was very interesting, especially next to a lot of his study-drawings for the same pieces.
Obviously a major coup for the city over the more obvious DC landing point for such a show, VMFA advertised the exhibit throughout Richmond with street banners and other advertisements. In Cary Town, the trendy part of the city, many shops took the museum’s lead by putting Picasso prints in their windows. One clothing store created heads similar to those drawn by Picasso and hung them in the store windows as makeshift mannequin heads for their goods. It was fun to see the city embrace the event and added to the enjoyment of the visit.
The touring exhibit was made possible because the Paris museum is undergoing a $28 million renovation. With the tour opening in Seattle and moving next to San Francisco, and as far as I can tell not appearing anywhere else in the US, I think we were very fortunate to have it appear so close to us. It certainly felt like an once-in-a-lifetime event.
The substantial rain on Thursday made for a sloppy hike today. It was interesting; I stumbled across many salamanders (which are posted on Facebook ) and, most oddly, this grub (or grub-like thing):
It almost appears I caught it in some sort of metamorphosis. Or, possibly, it was drowning. Whatever the case, it was thrashing out of the mud like an Orc in The Fellowship of the Ring.
And there is my geek reference for the evening.
Chainsaw Kittens – She’s Gone Mad: One of Tyson Meade’s quieter songs.
Hella – The Mother Could Be You: The wackiness of a Hella morning.
Mission of Burma – All World Cowboy Romance: Fun instrumental from the band’s great Signals, Calls, and Marches.
Isis – All Out of Time, All Into Space: Low drone.
The Fiery Furnaces – Chris Michaels: I recently bought the live Remember album where this track calls home. It is a pretty manic collection; the band has a very unique way of making songs sound a lot like intense stories.
Sonic Youth – Eric’s Trip: A well-aged song from Daydream Nation.
Slayer – Blood Red: Loud. Angry. Rainy morning.
Dead Milkmen – Punk Rock Girl: Appearing after Slayer makes this song even more comical.
The Kinks – Do It Again: Starting off old today.
Tom Waits – Way Down in the Hole: The fantastic Tom at his best.
Pigalle – Ches Rascal Et Ronan: A bit of a traditional sounding song, although I couldn’t say what tradition.
Old Man Gloom – Christmas Eve Parts 1, 2 and 3: As the title might expect, this is a long one from the stoner-rockers.
Chainsaw Kittens – Sounder: Never a bad tune from the Tyson Meade led efforts.
Gang of Four – History of the World: At least, the history as it was years ago. Wonder if it has changed much.
Stereolab – Peng! 33: Great tune from the first album.
Enablers – Mediterranean: Fairly wacky tune starting of with a monotone spoke word rambling and moving into a crazed assortment of pounding instruments.
Contemplating Silent Wishes
Contemplating Silent Wishes, the second release from Fertanish, presents minimalist, experimental rhythms and sounds that patiently travel through a complicated and mesmerizing composition.
Zero Zero Three
Stray
