RIP Alvin Lee

Weird. I hadn't heard this song in years until this afternoon when the small radio that my boss keeps tuned to LA's resident classic rock radio station The Sound kicked it out and started us talking. John - who is extremely well versed in music of the 60's, 70's and 80's (dude has the BEST stories about seeing great bands in his native 70's NY) had always thought I'd Love To Change the World was Blue Oyster Cult. I corrected him and we had brief discussion about Alvin Lee and Ten Years After who I know NOTHING else about except this song and that I LOVE the guitar in it, the chord progressions and the lead.

Years after becoming emotionally attached to the song I realized it seemed to have a rather homophobic undertone (well, undertone might be a bit kind). I can't support that, but I also had some great experiences to this song as high high schooler, not paying attention to the words other than the chorus, more focusing on that wonderful guitar line. Whatever its meaning/politics I can't turn my back on it completely. Either way, Alvin Lee died today. Weird, eh? Rest in Peace

Meet M83 Video/Oblivion Soundtrack

I'm stoked on M83 again lately - the novel I'm working on is laregely inspired by their Saturdays=Youth record and since hearing that album I've pretty much been in love with their music (you can read about my religious experience at their live show last November here). Then this mornning I see on Pitchfork that the new Tom Cruise movie Oblivion has original music by M83 and a score composed by Anthony Gonzalez and Joseph Trapanese. Nice! Even though I'll probably never see the movie (I'm not against Cruise out-of-hand, I actually like quite a few of the movies I've seen him in and think he's a pretty damn good actor) I'm always up for new M83. Anyway, I went to M83's website and found a few things I'd not seen before, like the video posted above. And although it's locked from being embedded, if you follow the link to Back Lot Music's Soundcloud page here you can hear the first track from the aforementioned Oblivion soundtrack (or go here and hear it and read about it on Pitchfork)

And Now Some Slayer

Enough beauty, someone posted Haunting the Chapel in its entirety - Chemical Warfare!!!

LISTEN TO YOUR HEART ~ Mike Rowland, Film by Ruedi & Priska Abbühl

Okay, it's all well and good to be totally rock and roll all the time but sometimes you just gotta chill and indulge in beauty. For that I go to my Wife, my Cats or... penguins.

Enjoy, this is GRAND.

How To Destroy Angels The Loop Closes

Pitchfork posted a link to HTDA doing a Reddit Q&A earlier today. I don't normally go in for Reddit - the site always feels too crowded with text for me to discern what exactly I'm reading. However this one's worth the effort, as especially Reznor and Ross are fascinating as usual.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/19q0r9/we_are_how_to_destroy_angels_mariqueen_maandig/

Mike Patton Scores "The Place Beyond the Pines"

I'd almost forgotten about Patton's involvement in this. I'm curious about the flick, but MORE curious about the soundtrack, which was composed by none other than Mike Patton and is scheduled to be released on May 7th. I'm a big fan of Patton's other soundtrack work, most especially for the short film A Perfect Place staring Bill Moseley and Mark Boone Junior, which I believe is still available from Ipecac records as a DVD/CD set. Here's the trailer:

Sequestered

I hadn't checked my email in a couple of sdays and lookee here, the White House emailed me! I didn't even know they knew I was alive.

Seriously, I'm never going to go political with this blog, but I figured I'd post this, as since I don't know any rich cunts the sequester will probably effect people immediately around me, if not directly in my social circle (which is about ten people in diameter).