Finally getting back on the Music Monday thing. This week it’s Janelle Monae who I would best describe as Andre 3000 meets Jackson Five meets Lady GaGa. Fierce lyrics, incredible vocalist and dancer, visually unique, and totally awesome.
Pendulum - Propane Nightmares (official site)
Pendulum is some hot and long-standing music. Originally drum-and-bass (shit like this - give it until 1:37, there’s a build here) they now do more electro-clash-muddled-with-rock-and-hey-doesn’t-he-kind-of-sound-like-that-dude-from-the-offspring-esque stuff (the above-linked Propane Nightmares), both of which I like.
Here’s your Monday music dose, some Temper Trap for your ears: Science of Fear. And for funsies, I’ll toss the Filthy Duke’s Remix your way.
At some point I might comment on my holidays. Let it be noted that Christmas miracles occurred in the shape of my parents not being dreadfully embarrassed of me. The rest of my family still independently diagnoses me with Asperger’s, but what can you do?
Before I go into World Fantasy Con (which promises to be a long post, as it was my first and I like to chronicle such things), I must get the Music Monday out of the way.
Check out the song I Used To Play the Euphonium, featuring some rad guitar, tap dancing percussion, and — of course — a euphonium.
Moneypenny on myspace — really digging on “Destroy”
Synthpop duo from Chicago whom I would have gone to seen on Thursday if I didn’t have class until 9pm sucking the very marrow from my bones. As such, I can’t report them as a live show, being that all youtube is giving me is Bond clips. (This is where I come out and tell you I’m not a fan of Bond. Sorry.) But I’m digging on them to point them out to the blogosphere.
Apologies for not having done the Music Monday for the entirety of August and September. I can’t even begin to communicate how busy I have been.
New track from MUSE.
Hear it here while it lasts!
U.N.K.L.E. - Burn My Shadow (official site)
Trip-hop duo from the UK, around since 1994. I’m also a big fan of Restless off their 2007 release War Stories.
The main event of my Saturday — weekend in general, really — was attending Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival.
Just so you understand, this was the drive I took, having to pick up Kat in San Francisco.
Pro tip: If your friend says she is somewhere near Fisherman’s Wharf (let’s say, for funsies, Pier 39), tell her to start walking in the opposite direction and you will meet her there.
Pro tip two: Taylor and California is steep. Burnout here is likely, and absolutely terrifying when the car behind you is riding your ass. Seriously, guy in the Mercedes. My tires are spinning and screaming, and you think, “I shall come closer, this Civic looks like it’s handling the 60-degree angle well.” I really wish natural selection worked.
Pro tip three: There is a Kinko’s open relatively late on Geary and Stanyan, should you forget to print out your tickets.
On the way, Kat related a story to me about having seen from her window, a man in a tophat, speaking, “But there was no one there to talk to,” and pulling things out of the walls, “But there was nothing in the walls to pull out.” I asked if he was insane or a magician. After all, he had a tophat, so that might make you wonder.
“Well, he didn’t really act like a magician,” Kat said. “But if he was insane, then how did he get the tophat?”
Solely by the aid of our toy phones, we were able to get to the fairgrounds. Oakland has the market cornered on large, open spaces. The line to enter the festival was obscenely long, but once we got inside, the place was large enough not to seem overly packed.
The shows were really entertaining. I observed them from a distance as we walked and stared at art. There was the giant Mouse Trap making another appearance. My splurge purchase of the evening was a lovely staff from Trick Concepts, and they were kind enough to let me experiment with many of the staves before I came to my choice (5′3″, 3oz weight on either end).
Then Amanda Palmer played, and she was fabulous as ever, and she and Neil Gaiman signed books and both persisted in being fabulous. During the concert, Kat and I nosed our way to the front, and found two others who were as big fans as we were. If you were at the show, we were the obnoxious people singing near the front.
I’d have to say the highlight of Amanda’s set was the soulful cover of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean, accompanied by an interpretive dance revolving primarily around the Napoleon Dynamite dance as performed by a pregnant cheerleader. That’s rather tough to beat.
After the show, we spotted our co-singers again, whom we officially met as David and Lynlee. Holding our spot in the signing line, I guided Kat to them by shouting, “Right in front of you, I swear to god, she’s right– You just passed her. Turn around. Turn around. Okay. No, you just passed her again.” They took the BART in. I volunteered taking them back, as they live in SOMA and well it wasn’t that far out of my way. Plus I got to see Lynlee get her rack signed by Amanda Palmer in shiny gold paint.
I said, “Tomorrow you’re going to wake up, hung over, asking ‘Why do I have gold paint on my boobs?’”
“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to ask that question…”
I thought the end of the evening would be marked by the four of us singing Dresden Dolls over the Bay Bridge. Which was lovely. But it was not.
I thought perhaps it would be marked by being in a fancy-digs SOMA residence with the classic Devo hat introducing them to the Polysics. Not that either.
Then I thought it would be on the way back home, when I saw a shitty little car — think if a Ford Pinto and an old Volkswagen Rabbit had a baby, and let’s just say it had a face only a mother could love — with police lights duct-taped to the top of the car. Part of me wishes I was kidding. Most of me is glad I’m not.
But no, it was finally concluded by the man backpacking the 101S-680N interchange. Backpacking. Shit you not.
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