VAGUE SPACE

Movie (Never Made)

 

let's kill first the banker
with his professional demeanor
let's televise and broadcast the raping of kings
let our crowds be fed on tear gas and plate glass

'cause the people united is a wonderful thing

• Download A Silver Mt Zion - "Movie (Never Made)".mp3

Kollaps Traditioxales

The new album from Silver Mt. Zion is titled Kollaps Traditioxales.  Below is a song.  It's awesome.  They're awesome.  I've got to admit, sadly, that I'm just discovering the band's awesomeness apart from Godspeed! You Black Emperor, but both Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward and He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms have dominated my playlists since the start of the year and it's not just because so many of their songs are about disillusionment with corporatism and politics and governments and greed.  Well, that's not the only reason at least.  I have a post later in the week of the song "Movie (Never Made)" from He Has Left Us Alone..., because the spoken line "let's kill first the banker" is just the absolutely perfect line about the state of our economy and our world and our life, today, in 2010, even though it was written ten years ago, in 2000, by a group of Canadian anarchists who were much better known at the time for instrument-fueled anthems for G!YBE that basically created the genre of post-rock music.  But you don't have to love their politics, or even understand it, for I can't even consider that I have a clue yet what they're singing about yet.  But their music is wonderful.  And sometimes that's enough.  The new album is out February 16th.  Let's kill first the banker.

Tra-la-la

Jon Stewart on Bill O'Reilly

I'm sorry for some of this post, but the YouTube videos were posted by a conservative guy, so you have to suffer through some Bill O'Reilly without Jon Stewart at the end of "Part 2" and at the start of "Part 3," but it's worth it for the greatness of Jon when O'Reilly gets around to interviewing him without whining about how "Fair and Balanced" Fox News is, which is so laughably laughable that the only people who would say it with a straight face are crazy people who don't "believe" in scientific facts, like you know, gravity or evolution, but do base their whole lives on "faith" in some magic being in the sky who judges whether or not your thoughts are sinful.  Oh wait, I've probably gone a little too far.  Just listen to when Stewart comes on.  It's funny stuff.

Part 1.

Two New Tracks from Joanna Newsom

Drag City has released two tracks from the upcoming 3xCD Joanna Newsom album Have One On Me.  Seriously, it's 3 CDs!  Wow.  I was wondering how she could possibly follow up her 2007 5 song masterpiece Ys, and I guess this is how.  With almost as many CDs as there were songs on the album.  You can listen to the mp3s for the first two leaked tracks at the Drag City website, or at the links below.

• Download Joanna Newsom - "'81".mp3

• Listen to Joanna Newsom - "Good Intentions Paving Company".mp3

School Record for Wins to Start the Season

Derrick Coleman.  Carmelo Anthony.  Billy Owens.  Sherman Douglas.  John Wallace.  Lawrence Moten.  Hakim Warrick.  Rony Seikaly.  Gerry McNamara.  Jonny Flynn.  Stevie Thompson.  Preston Shumpert.  Etan Thomas.  I've seen all these superstars go through Syracuse since I started following Orange basketball circa 1988.  I've seen the amazing John Wallace-led run to the Final Four in 1996.  I've seen the more amazing Melo/GMac/Warrick run to the NCAA championship in 2003.  I've seen Gerry McNamara win the Big East tournament two years in a row, all by himself.  I've seen Jonny Flynn struggling to walk at the end of a 6 OT win over the hated UConn Huskies.  I've seen Jim Boeheim lose in early rounds with top-seeded Derrick Coleman/Billy Owens teams.  And I've seen him make long runs in the tourney with undermanned squads (a la 1996).  But I've never -- and no one else has ever -- seen a Syracuse team start a season 22-1.  Twenty-two wins.  1 loss.  After destroying Providence last night on the Jim Boeheim Court at the Carrier Dome, that's exactly what the Orange record is.  And it's fucking amazing.

This is already a year for the ages.  Wes Johnson is a top 5 pick in the NBA Draft this season, but this is not a team that looked, at least at the start of the season, like one of those great Coleman/Douglas teams, or even the more recent great teams that have gone far in the tournament.  This is looking a lot more like 2003, a perfect storm of talent and teamwork and the absolute perfect players in the zone defense to make it one of the toughest defenses to score on in the country, but also leads to a ton of fast-break opportunities, fueling one of the top 10 scoring teams in the country and the #1 FG shooting percentage team in the nation right now.  Somehow we're not even first in the Big East (Villanova remains undefeated in the league), but I have never been more impressed with a Syracuse team that I've watched at this point in the season.  Which makes sense.  They've never had this good a record before. 

New Music Tuesday

I just picked up tickets to see Shearwater, along with Wye Oak and Hospital Ships at the Bowery in March, and I can't wait, I'm really loving The Golden Archipelago, the latest album for them, to be released in February.  I saw that the second track from the album "Black Eyes" has been leaked to the blogs over the past two weeks (while I've been stuck working insane hours) so I thought I'd join the fray.  It's my favorite song from the album and one of my top 10 songs of the week.

• Download Shearwater - "Black Eyes".mp3

Basia Bulat's second album was released last Tuesday, and it's as wonderful as her breath of fresh air debut, Oh My Darling.  Heart of My Own shows some additional maturity and shows a full-fledged band acting as a full-fledged band, with stronger arrangements but the same magical pop sensibility that made her debut so refreshing.  Check out "Go On" and go find a copy of the album.

• Download Basia Bulat - "Go On".mp3

Teen Dream, the second album from Beach House, was the first leaked 2010 album I had, back in November and December, but it finally got its officially CD release date last week, and is definitely a contender for early (very early) album of the year honors.  My favorite track among an album full of great tracks is "Silver Soul" and I've been waiting a while to be able to "legally" post this.  But please go get a copy of the album to hear the full length yourself.

• Download Beach House - "Silver Soul".mp3

Heima

Last night I watched a little of Sigur Ros's DVD Heima, I don't know why, I just think I needed something peaceful and warm after the month I've had at work, working long hours and every Saturday in January and early mornings and caffeinated days and I know a lot of people live their whole lives with jobs like this so I shouldn't complain and I don't mean to complain but I'm fucking glad January is over.  I have one more week at the client -- this week -- and then I'm done there.  I don't know what the future holds for me and my career after this, I really feel at a crossroads after this experience, but I hope that I will be able to get back to regular blogging, or at least have a moment to breathe.  I apologize for the somewhat sporadic and perhaps not compelling postings here this month (and since October, really), but February marks the 5th year anniversary of Vague Space, a milestone I never planned to reach, but now that it's here, it's something to be proud of and I hope you'll keep reading if you've always been reading.  Tomorrow will at least have a New Music Tuesday, just like the old days, and hopefully by next week I can get back to regular posting.  What does any of this have to do with Sigur Ros?  I'm not sure.  I can't even remember why I started this post.  I can't even remember why I started this blog.  But something about the calm of this music and the beauty of Iceland helped me forget the stress of my last month of work for a moment and now that it's nearly the end, I am just trying to breathe again.

Survive and Advance

Holy shit.  This is what the NCAAs will be like I fear.  Highly favored, coming out cold and then scratching and clawing to somehow scrape out a victory.  Winning games like this is how you win an NCAA title.  And Syracuse just won what was easily the most exciting (if not best played) game of the year, beating DePaul 59-57 this afternoon.  Syracuse came into the game riding a 7-game winning streak, a #4 ranking in the country, and a Monday defeat of rival Georgetown (who beat Duke today) by double digits.  DePaul on the other hand, had lost 20+ straight Big East games before a last second miracle win over Marquette (who beat UConn today, who beat Texas last Saturday -- yes, in college basketball, especially the Big East, any team can win on any given day -- except Rutgers), and the Demon Deacons came into the game with a lowly 1-7 mark in the conference.  But they jumped out to a 16-6 lead and then extended it to an 18 point lead with some poor play from the Cuse and some great shooting by DePaul.  But then Boeheim put on the press, DePaul got all kinds of frazzled and a 16-0 run late in the 1st half ended up cutting the lead to 2.  DePaul went into the half with a 35-31 lead but at that point, I wasn't very fearful that the game would even end up close, let alone that we might actually lose.

The iPad

Apple has just revealed details on the iPad, which looks just like a big iTouch.  It has all the same capabilities of the Touch, including videos, games, Internet, apps, iTunes (it's a big iPod), YouTube, mapping, calendar, etc. PLUS it will have a Wi-fi and a 3G version (using AT&T) with pre-paid (no contract to AT&T!) data plans ($15 for Wi-fi only and $30 for 3G) that will allow you to surf and use the iPad from anywhere at any time, getting email and everything, just like an iPhone, only bigger (and minus the phone).  It will also challenge Amazon's Kindle as an ebook reader, as the announcement today included a description of it's e-reader capabilities and an iTunes-like bookstore, which for a writer like me, is a pretty big deal.  If we can get more young people to start reading in between videos and video games on their new iPads, then it's a good thing for everyone.

Overall, it's pretty much what everyone was expecting the iPad to be, but seeing it all big up there in Steve Jobs' hands made it look all the more wonderful.  The price points are reasonable -- starting at $499 for Wi-Fi only 16 GB and up to $829 for 64 GB 3-G version.  The Wi-fi versions will ship in 60 days, the 3Gs in 90 days.  It's sort of between an iTouch/iPhone and a laptop and with a portable plug in keyboard it can double as a laptop for email/iWork applications/Internet surfing, plus the portable large-screen video/Internet/gaming device that the iTouch is.  Check out CNET's live blog (that's where I got all these screen shots from) for more information.

 

#4 Syracuse 73, #11 Georgetown 56

Here's a recap of my day yesterday:

 

1) Power goes out in my neighborhood at some point overnight Sunday, somehow I woke up at 6 am and noticed this so I didn't miss work

2) Batteries in my flashlights didn't work (because I can't tell you the last time I used a flashlight), so I had to get dressed, shave, and eat breakfast using the only two candles I could find in the house

3) Fearing my order from Whole Foods from the day before would go bad if the power didn't come back on, I put my chicken, eggs, and milk in the freezer on ice, assuming worst case I'd be home by 3 or 4 (as scheduled) and deal with the power problem

(NOTE:  In the 10 years I've owned this house, not once has the power gone out for any extended period.)

4) Due to the rain, it took me an hour and a half to get to work, so I was late arriving to set up for the first class (I've been teaching a software system for a client for the past month, pulling ridiculous hours, including working from 6 am to 4 pm on Saturday, even though I'm getting fired from my position when this teaching job is over, regardless of how well I do or how much time I put in... seriously, let's just move on)

• Download Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)".mp3