Chanukkah is ending tonight, and with it the excuse to gorge myself on latkes and applesauce. The end of Chanukkah also means continued subjection to the hundreds of awful Christmas songs that pervade the airwaves this time of year. One of the nice things about Judaism: no proselytizing and no great cultural imperialism make it very unintrusive. The canon of Chanukkah songs appears to be growing, though. Or, rather, replicating. Because Adam Sandler's song about Jewish celebrities wasn't quite good enough to stand on its own, we now have a glammed up cover version by none other than Neil Diamond. [...]
I've been a Jimmy Fallon hater for a while now. He was always the weaker half of the 'Weekend Update' duo on SNL when he was opposite Tina Fey and his acting career after leaving the show has been uniformly terrible. However, I'll give credit where credit is due and say that his Neil Young impression is spot on, and the choice of 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' is inspired. New computer should be arriving in the next couple days so I can get back to more music, but until then, enjoy this.
After a long weekend full of food, booze, football, and most of all friends for the Harvard-Yale game, on Monday night I went into New York City. Fortuitously I was flying out on Tuesday morning, Royksopp was playing at Webster Hall on Monday and Tuesday nights, and two separate groups of friends were going to the show. I've loved Royksopp ever since I first started listening to them four and a half years ago, but had never had the chance to see them live before, so I was beyond excited for the show. I'd asked a [...]
My computer has been in the process of dying lately, so I haven't been able to access my music very often or even do simple things like writing documents without dealing with constant crashes, so the blog has been taking a little break, and posting will be sporadic, if at all, until the beginning of December when I get a new computer. Here are a few good tracks I've gotten lately, though: Hot Chip are coming out with a follow-up to the excellent ' Made in the Dark ' and have released the [...]
Heading into New York tonight to see Simian Mobile Disco at Webster Hall . Definitely looking forward to seeing them perform and hearing some of the new tracks from Temporary Pleasure live. In the interests of getting myself amped up, here are some remixes of SMD by Allez Allez , Shit Robot , and The Lowbrows . I am prepared to see so many dancing circles tonight. Simian Mobile Disco - Audacity of Huge (Allez Allez remix) [ divshare ] Simian Mobile Disco - It's [...]
Adjusting back to life in the States hasn't been too difficult, and quite enjoyable overall, though it still feels a little surreal, especially since I'm only planning on being around for a few months. After the first weekend of October was so warm I went to the beach in Rhode Island and went bodyboarding, now New England fall is in full swing, with cold grey skies and a lack of motivation to head out of the apartment. I made it into New York last weekend and then out to Long Island for a few days, and despite life generally being [...]
I've moved back down to New Haven for a bit, though describing myself as moved still feels a bit weird, considering I'm crashing on friends' couches for now. Work has started up in earnest, which is certainly good for the wallet, though it's already starting to impinge on my concert-going schedule. What is it that I was hoping to go to? New York DJ duo (Pretty) Girls and Lasers are starting up a monthly residency tonight at Arlo & Esme in the East Village. These boys throw down slick mixes of the latest indie and electro [...]
After over four months away, I am back in the U.S. While it didn't feel like it, that was the longest I've ever been out of America at a time. My second summer spent in Lisbon was good. There was a lot of work, but I was happy with my productivity; there were a lot of visitors, but I was happy to share the city with them; there weren't nearly enough concerts, but I will remedy that soon. From the 9th of September I was traveling around Europe and had an amazing time. Started off in Berlin where [...]
Image from scrapetv I'm taking off in the morning for Berlin for a conference and then a couple weeks of traveling around through the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Amsterdam, and Paris, so I most likely won't be posting for a while. Or, who knows, maybe I'll get inspired. But hopefully I'll be too busy soaking in the local cultures and sucking down the local brews. Here are a couple tracks I've been digging lately before I hit the road. Just going to be quick with this so I can get [...]
So that's where Sam Sparro went. After his self-titled debut album last year, there hadn't really been anything heard from him. My hope had been that he is working on a follow up album that will fulfill his true potential, matching up his impressive voice with some better songwriting. Turns out, he's been hanging around with Beni , formerly of Riot in Belgium , and working on his best Prince impression. The video also contains the hands-down winner for "cutest kid in a music video in 2009," being the kid in the [...]
Linus Loves has been a favorite producer of mine for a while now. Sure he does some stuff that I don't really approve of at times ( Britney Spears remix, anyone?), but overall, his production is always amazingly smooth and they feel well-composed, rather than some tracks today where it seems like the producer just got on the a laptop and midi controller and started throwing things together like an episode of ' Will it Blend? ' Linus is dropping a new single, 'Prom Night' (out now on Beatport and iTunes), and remixes from [...]
While riding on the train back from Setubal earlier today, it struck me that the summer is about to end. This doesn't have the same meaning as it used to, though. I'm not returning to university next week, I'm not moving in or out of anywhere just yet, and I can keep going to the beach for as long as it's nice out. So not that much actually changes, but it still feels definitively like fall is arriving. I suppose that's just a product of having been in the American educational system for 16 years: its calendar and the one [...]
In spite of my best intentions, this blog has fallen a bit by the wayside this past month. Okay, a lot by the wayside. Thing is, I've had friends and family visiting pretty much nonstop since late July, and that hasn't left much time for anything else, be it work, listening to new music, or writing. And when friends weren't keeping me busy, I've been frequently trying to entertain and placate my overly energetic cat. But, I can't complain. Guests are always fun, and it was a blast getting to show folks places I love in Lisbon and helping them [...]
Since I finally had a free night tonight, I decided to catch up on some of the music I've been missing the past couple months. One of my favorite blogs for this is The Lemur Blog , one of my favorite things from Sweden besides lingonberries. It's a very consistent place to go for the best remixes and new pop. I had heard of one of the bands featured recently , Gypsy and the Cat , but had not yet had a chance to listen to the Aussie duo. Being impatient, I immediately skipped to the band's [...]
Another week and weekend gone by and it's hard to remember what exactly I did with all my time. The weekend itself was plenty fun, though. Some friends from school are in town, so I went out with them on Friday night and probably consumed a bottle's worth of cachaca and a bag of sugar in caipirinha form and had myself a nice hangover yesterday morning. But, it was nothing that a day of wandering around Alfama couldn't cure, especially when the afternoon ended with Pasteis de Belem . Last night was looking like it was going to end [...]
Damn, been a very long time since I last posted. I would keep saying that "life is busy," but this is really just a permanent condition and part of the post-college, "responsibility" thing that I am discovering. Been back in Lisbon for a week now. Paris was a wonderful break while I was there, filled mainly with trips to and from various food landmarks that my brother has discovered there. This included one of the best meals I have ever had, although those of us who ate there swore a death oath not to spread the word. Don't want the [...]
It's been another insane week and a half of work. I've only been sleeping about 4 hours per night, and it feels like for about 16 of the other 20, I'm working. But, thankfully, I was able to get out a bit this past weekend, with my main motivation for non-productivity being the US soccer team's run to the finals on the Confederations Cup. Blowing a 2-0 lead against Brazil in the final was painful, but they were clearly the better team, especially in the second half, as it should be, when futebol is the national religion. In honor of [...]
My song obsession of the past week has been the song that Simian Mobile Disco has announced as the first single off their forthcoming sophomore album, 'Temporary Pleasure.' It's called 'Audacity of Huge' and features vocals from Chris Keating of Yeasayer . I never used to like SMD. It took me a while to come around. I liked the original Simian , although I'll be the first to admit that I never listened to them at all before Justice made themselves famous remixing 'Never Be Alone' into 'We [...]
After a yearlong wait, song-masher supreme E-603 has finally dropped his new album ' Torn Up ,' which is available in 'In Rainbows' or 'Feed the Animals' pay-as-you-please style on his website . The kid from New Hampshire had the audacity last year to put out his first record, the fantastic 'Something for Everyone' (free download) right as Girl Talk 's 'Feed the Animals' was getting loads of hype before its release. I listened to 'Something for Everyone' first, on repeat for a while, and in my opinion, it kicked Girl Talk's ass. The [...]
Life continues to be very busy. I keep meaning to write posts, and then getting caught up in something completely different. I'm working every day of the week, combing through hundreds of pages of documents in a not unpleasant, but not overwhelmingly awesome archive building, and then coming home at night and doing more research and reading. I'm trying to get ahead with my work, so I'll be ready for travel and visitors in July. It hasn't been all work and no play, though. Last Friday was the Festa de São Antonio, Lisbon's biggest party of the year. After dinner [...]
Diagonal Limes
The Shins: “September” (b-side of “Simple Song” 7”)
St. Vincent - 'Cheerleader'
Jay-Z & Kanye West - Ni**as In Paris (Explicit)
OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video
M.I.A. - Bad Girls (Official Video)
Miike Snow – Paddling Out (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
Lana Del Rey covers Lovecat magazine!
