Registering your-own-name.com is something we’ve all thought about it. I think matt even tried once, but was too late.
Kirby Ferguson, formerly of IslandEdition.com fame, will now be referred to as KirbyFerguson.com.
Keep an eye on the site over the next while.
The phone rings at my house. On the first ring everyone in their separate rooms and separate activities goes silent. Will someone answer it? It rings a second time. You could hear a pin drop as everyone holds their breath waiting to hear footsteps marching to answer. By the third ring it’s obvious that no one else is going to answer it and a stampede erupts (I suppose that would be a mixed metaphor). Every member of my family performs dangerous leaps over couches and lazy-boys. They stub toes on floor-board heaters. Anything to get to the phone before it goes silent. What if it was for me? Of course, if it’s missed (a situation that, as you can imagine, seldom arises) it’s everyone else’s fault.
The phone rings at a friend’s house. It rings again. And again. A few of them look up from their activities in the direction of the phone then back to whatever it was they were doing. A few more rings pass and the answering machine picks up.
Her family owns a phone. Our phone own us.
For some reason it seemed important to write this at the time (4:45am).
The Barn was only midly interesting. The person I was hoping to see most did not show. The Groove Gurus were incredible (especially their lead singer) and had a much smaller audience than they desrved.
The party afterwards (unlike the party before) was slightly less interesting.
Odd to have your faith in humanity restored by a cab driver who had nothing but common sense to offer (fuck the money, and do what makes you happy). A fitting paradox somehow, as he obviously did not want to be a cabbie.
I swear, this is the last of the self indulgent posts for the near future.
Cheers.
The first of many eventual permanent features on aov, we present to you: Mike Lecky: an aov interview.
One thing has become apparent to us since the inception of aov: there are legions of talented artists out there. Though we should have known better we were prone to fits of despair and the occasional throwing of our hands into the air. “Nothing happens here. This place is dead.” But we know better now. And rather than shamelessly promoting only ourselves we will attempt to lift the community as a whole upon our broad shoulders and present it to the world.
Mike Lecky is the creator of the mighty Boxlor, as well as an artist, man-about-town, and generally clever person. Read the interview »
My opinions on Our Lady Peace vary wildly. On one hand, songs like Julia and Naveed from their first album, Naveed are truly great songs. They have impressed me in concert when I expected to be bored on several occasions: Letting six thousand people sing 4AM from start to finish; Hearing them cover the late Jeff Buckley’s song Eternal Life at dusk under a full moon; Playing a piano version of Julia they heard from a fan (this one is on schmaptser if you are a thief). These are good concert moments. The last time I saw them, I felt like I was an oldie-olson, since everyone else in the arena was a big-pants 14 year old (most of them passing around one communal joint). As we waited for the concert to start, I was seriously regretting attending, but once they took the stage, they impressed me once again.
On the other hand, I find Raine Maida (OLP’s singer) to be a pompous Bono / Thom Yorke wannabe. He is quite good at handling a stadium (a noteworthy skill for a rock star). However, he sometimes goes a little too far. At one concert, he had the audience in the palm of his hands until he went on an aside about how “it’s all about the music”. Dude, look in the mirror and repeat three times: “I am not Bono”.
I can assure you that my opinions are not at all swayed by the time Raine closed an elevator door in Matt’s face (ask him about it, he’ll be glad to tell you).
Anyway, Now that you have my personal history of Our Lady Peace, I am going somewhere with this. Their new album, Spiritual Machines, is based on the book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil. This guy has an impressive resume:
Kurzweil has also written on the subject of artificial intelligence. While I haven’t read Spiritual Machines yet, it’s in the mail. The flash animation currently on the front page of ourladypeace.com elegantly illustrates the transition point at which the resolution of a digital medium exceeds our ability to perceive. View the animation »
Our Lady Peace has also made a Napter-savvy marketing move. They have seeded Napster with full copies of the new album, only with a few voice-overs (from Ray Kurzweil himself, actually) identifying the album in each song. It’s not so much that you can’t enjoy the song, but enough that if you wanted to keep it, you’d still have to buy the real thing.
My point, if I have one, is that Our Lady Peace have done something somewhat interesting in their interpretation of Kurzweil’s book in a pop album.
I should also thank Our Lady Peace for bringing me the unlikely opportunity to see the worlds greatest and most underrated band, Catherine Wheel, at Summersault in Halifax last year.
Check out Clem Snide. Actually a trio named after a William S. Burroughs character, they play laid back country/folk/mellow/whatever (I have no gift for identifying musical genres). All their songs are very simple, beautifully played, introspective pieces.
I suggest you listen to “Your Favorite Music” (available on thier website), “I Love the Unknown” and “African Friend” (available from less reputable sources). “I Love the Unknown” makes me want to pack up and follow the sunset, the jetstream, the horizon.
How are you doing these days? I realize I don’t ask you how are are very often. This stems from a general lack of interest in your state of existence, but right now, at this moment, I am genuinely interested.
How was your Christmas? Really. Be honest. Did it live up to the two months of hype, songs, shopping and preperation? That’s probably an unfair question. Was it at least pleasant? Stress-free? Spent with loved ones?
I have to confess that I normally hate the Christmas season. The day itself is fine. Good even. I dislike the season for all the typical reasons: disgustingly rampant commercialism, soul-crushing music carols as well as other reasons which are none of your goddamn business.
In any case, this Christmas was better than most. As bizarre as it may sound I actually enjoyed my stay in the hospital – and not just for the morhpine, either. Always exciting to do something different I guess. Certainly nice to be waited on and have people concerned about you. Nice that is, when there’s no real need for the concern. Maybe I’m just starved for attention (as this note seems to confirm)?
I have no real point here. I know I’m hopelessly out of character – don’t worry, I’ll soon be back to the bitter, sarcastic self you all recognize.
Here’s hoping whatever you did over Christmas was, if not fun, at least nice. Memorable.
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Crusaders for simplicity (is than an oxymoron? I don’t think so). Jason Fried from 37signals talks up simplicity and I couldn’t agree more: