Amoeblog > Tag > high school

out this week 10/12 & 10/19...Belle & Sebastian...Antony & the Johnsons...Sufjan Stevens....Morrissey Bona Drag 20th Anniversary

Posted by Brad Schelden, October 28, 2010 01:16pm | Post a Comment

October is always one of my favorite months. I love when summer starts to go away and it starts to get cold again. We have been having some October rain out here in Los Angeles that has been fabulous! This also means that Halloween is right around the corner! Many labels save their big releases for the end of the year, which also makes this time of year exciting for those of us that love music. October 12th is a big release day -- three of my favorite artists have releases on this date! It's almost too much to handle! Sufjan Stevens, Belle & Sebastian, & Antony & the Johnsons all have new albums -- all in one day! I have been patiently waiting for Sufjan to continue his series on all the 50 States. He gave us the brilliant Illinois and Michigan and then nothing else. I am of course wanting California and New York, but also all the States in between. I am hoping that he has actually been working on them in secret. He just continues to release these other albums to distract us, right? But then in a couple of years he will release a comprehensive 50 state box set. It will have an album for each state and also contain 2 7"s for the commonwealths and it will come with a puzzle. I could even be satisfied with an album of 150 songs with 3 songs for each state -- just give me something, Sufjan! A 7" for each state would also be amazing! His new album is called Age of Adz. I sort of had a strange reaction to it at first. It incorporates some electronics and at times sounds like a Lil Jon album...but it is still Sufjan, and I still love it. I just takes a couple of listens.

Belle & Sebastian's new album Write About Love also belle & sebastian stuart

took a couple of listens to fall in love with. I was sort of still on my Belle & Sebastian high from seeing them in Vegas. And I do love the contest they ran to get fans to write about love. There are some great songs on Write About Love for sure but I really could have lived without the Norah Jones duet. I know this band is both easy to love and hate. Some people are very proud of their hatred of the band. I am one of the lovers of the band and I always will feel the same.

(Wherein we weigh which warble wears weather well.)

Posted by Job O Brother, June 8, 2009 03:11pm | Post a Comment

The last few days in LA have been kind of gloomy – gloomy by LA standards anyway. I mean, it’s still no place for Ian Brady and Myra Hindley to stage a killing spree, but the clouds have been thick, grey and low, and wet, cool swirls of breeze pour through my window as I write this.

This is a good thing. This is a great thing! I did not move to LA for the weather. My idea of perfect weather is something akin to a cemetery scene in [insert gothic horror film here].

Recently, I found myself at yet another pool party where Industry types multi-tasked by schmoozing while sunbathing, enjoying tropical cocktails and posing atop Danish-designed chaise lounges as the desert sun baked their copper hides; the air perfumed with herbal ointments, oils and extractions, occasionally flavored with dissipating puffs of cigarette smoke – sex was in the air and everyone was hoping to be noticed by someone they were pretending not to notice – and all I could think was, “I wish it would rain.”

Inspired as I am by the titillating tenebrous of today, what follows is some of the music I save for a rainy day. These ditties are safely tucked in a specific playlist for whenever the Sun’s obscured and the scent of moisture’s all around.

Siouxsie & The Banshees – "Dazzle"

This song takes me back to the appropriately dark days of the 1980’s. I had just dropped out of high school my sophomore year and the world was a new and wonderful playground of drugs and whimsical fashion choices.

(In which Job reveals holiday party hints.)

Posted by Job O Brother, December 9, 2008 11:25am | Post a Comment

"Ho ho ho! Who needs a pancreas?"

It’s only December 9, and already my body is exhausted from all the sugar and booze it’s ingested. I know, oh my readers, why Santa is a fat man. Santa, in fact, is probably suffering with diabetes. It would explain last year when, as he was trying to stuff the life-sized, life-like Annette Funicello robot I had asked for into my San Francisco 49ers stocking (a last-minute purchase at Target – it was either that or a Hannah Montana stocking that had a glue-gun scar); Santa was working his magic but, in-between “ho ho ho” he was mumbling about polyuria, polydipsia and polyphagia in a manner not so jolly.

That last sentence was epic. Somewhere, the ghost of Proust just got a boner. Can I say boner on the Amoeblog? I’m not well.

My boyfriend, Corey, and I just hosted our annual Christmas party. I was in charge of the food. I went for a “dip” theme. That is, rather than merely offer chips & salsa or chips & guacamole, our dips included:

•    Pumpkin pie & fresh whipped cream dip, served with cinnamon/sugar pita chips
•    NY Cheesecake dip, served with thick graham crackers
•    Chocolate fudge dip, served with fresh & dried fruit
•    Peanut butter / mustard / honey dip, served with pretzels
•    Red wine dip, served with Pfeffernüsse

Our pal Kamran also contributed queso & tortilla chips, because some of the guests were Texan, and I guess their tradition demands queso at every gathering, otherwise they… secede or something.

(In which history repeats itself.)

Posted by Job O Brother, November 24, 2008 06:10pm | Post a Comment

It seems like only a year ago that it was November 24. How time flies. Time flies less often than it did, it seems. Probably due to all the crazy “safety” precautions that airports employ now.

You know, they can make sure I don’t carry-on my switchblade, my flame-thrower, or my collection of vintage anthrax samples onto my flight, but they can’t confiscate my NINJA ABILITIES. Think about that one, my friends. My lightening moves don’t fit in no Ziploc baggie.

It was on this day, in 1963, that Lee Harvey Oswald was gunned down by man-about-town Jack Ruby, which brings to mind a song I quite like by Camper Van Beethoven, which brings to mind an album I rather fancy by Camper Van Beethoven.

The album is called Key Lime Pie and it takes me back to my high school days; though not actually my high school itself, because I never listened to rad tunes on campus. Only the Peanuts-like drone of adults as they lovelessly forced us to recite Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.

From the scene in which Juliet drinks Romeo's blood while clutching her highly-prized, ball-point pen

It’s a wonder I love The Bard as much as I do considering that nothing was more painful than listening to a classroom full of barely literate teenagers haltingly fumble their way through iambic pentameter. It didn’t help matters that these same teenagers called me faggot to my face and probably f**ked with my locker. (Joke was on them, I never once figured out where my locker was.)

3:15 The Moment Of Truth

Posted by phil blankenship, January 30, 2008 11:17am | Post a Comment

Magnum Home Entertainment M861

special thanks to Scott Pellet for loaning me this modern day classic !

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