500 posts! Wait, only 500 posts? Hasn't this blog been truckin' along since, what, 2007? Well... when you go thru the usual messes in life sometimes it pulls you away from the inane and insignificant.
I like to look back every now and then on previous posts and all the types of music I've consumed. For the most part since 2007 this has been an EDM blog. Yup, another electro blog born in the heart of the late-aughts blogging era. But I loved the outlet, giving my own opinion on popular tracks of the moment, remixes from hyped up dj's and producers, ogling over the big acts rolling thru the great city of Chicago on any given weekend. It had its perks. I got plenty of free full quality music, tickets and backstage passes for shows in the city, even made it to #1 on hypem for a few days.
But all that's behind me. When I get the time or the urge, I hardly know what to post. Being a dad rocks, but is hard work. Working live a good life, but its not a dream job. I keep this blog as an outlet for nobody else really but myself to blab and vent and put words to a page and keep a history of how things progress from week to month to year, usually by the tone of the music I post. Maybe I'll expand this into all the pop culture things that peak my interest... movies, tv, android, comics (even real big person books!).
The picture I posted is a rendition of my new favorite show, Rick & Morty, characterized as Doc and Marty from Back to the Future. I chose this picture for this post specifically because it represents the transformation I've had. From a typical city dwelling electro-bot into a (somewhat-responsible) single dad wanting nothing more than to protect and provide for my son. But like Rick and Doc (in somewhat different methods) sharing their interdimensional time-travel with their paternal cohorts, so do I wish to share all the cool shit in my life with my son--and just be a good dad.
Blarrghhh, enough. Here's to another 500+
First is one I'd love to put up on a #TBT, but those are harder and harder to muster up the energy on a random weekday. That'd mean I'd have to prepare? What? But Wilco has long been one of my faves, and this is what I think is their best track off their 2002 release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. "Poor Places" starts off somber but builds and builds itself using bits and pieces of its own background, not using the familial song structure but instead deconstructing itself from a folk song to a--noise? Yea, noise. I'll be looking to post more favorites from my growings ups in the next 500+.
Wilco - Poor Places
Forward 10 years in time. Noise is still noise. Genre's always have and always will change, evolve, meld/mix/match insto other inspiring sounds of the next moment. Not much has come since from Beat Culture, no wiki page, no discogs release, no soundcloud profile. But his 2012 release "Useless" is the best 5 minutes of music I've heard to that point, or since. Okay a bit hyperbolic, and no it's not the best track of all time... But it delves into some of my favorite sub-genres of chillwave, electro pop, shoegaze, experimental, etc. and construes an addicting, ethereal vocal track over chest deadening basslines in ever building intervals from verse to bridge to chorus. I'll be on the lookout for more like this in the next 500+.
Beat Culture - Useless
Art by Mike Walton
Oct 25, 2015
500 + [/b]
Aug 13, 2015
Obadiah Parker + Koni [#tbt]
Remember this? Remember when this was covered by this guy? Now remember when this was covered by that one guy and remixed by this new guy. TBT! LETTERS!
Picture by Jane Long
Jun 25, 2015
Snow Patrol + Thero [#tbt]
Stressed out. The computer labs have an especially quiet resonance to them tonight. Evacuated of warm bodies that might share in my anxiety. This ever expanding pad of empty pages is a reflection of how far behind this semester has fallen. That living nightmare of neglect. This relic of technology is my escape. Not to redemption but to artificial comfort. A fake notion of accomplishment that osmosis might affect these ailing neurons. Yet nothing but a blank stare is accommodated when the earbuds are plugged in. Hours of potential wasted as thoughts run thru the mind of a 22 year old with no ideas about how the real world yet works. As they say, ignorance is bliss.
Photo archived at Purdue
May 28, 2015
Kid Cudi + Steve Aoki [#tbt]
An endeavor is defined an attempt to achieve a goal. What goals do I have in life? What goals for my kid... for this blog... for this apartment.. my job.. my family. And of what purpose does achieving those goals do for my well being or betterment?
I could continually get raises at work by overachieving and outperforming my peers. For what though? To be turned away at the next promotion opportunity and set aside for another bright upstart?
I could look at improving myself both in self image, physical well being, and expected life longevity. But why? For my son? So he can take care of me in hospice as I wither away slowly. Ever so gradually losing grasp on today's ever accelerating world?
I could be nice to people in my life, support them in times of need and desperation, laugh with them in times of amusement, hold them close in times of sorry and regret. Or see it all not matter and be washed away like a half gallon of spoiled milk.
So do what it is that makes you happy. That's the only thing that matters. The selfish pursuit of what keeps you going every day. The good things the get caught up are all just big bonuses in your path.
Kid Cudi - Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki Remix)
All art by Craig Davison
May 7, 2015
La Roux + Jack Beats [#tbt]
Starting up a new thing here... trying to stay hip with the youngster hashpound lingo (fuuuuck you kids). But each Thursday we'll be resurfacing some of our favorite tracks of the last 8 years of running this blog.
First up is an old favorite, both in original artist and remixer. Originally posted in our bestuvohnein post well over 5 years ago... i think that fits in the throwback category, at least in the blog world where two weeks is already ancient news.
I picked this track because it features La Roux, whom recently released her second studio album, of which I loved, but not as much as her debut which exploded with singles like Bulletproof, In For the Kill, Quicksand, and our title track, I'm Not Your Toy.
On the other side of the track title, Jack Beats was a favorite for much of the later aughts producing remixes in the stylish and trendy jacked house sub genre. It's a look back at how quickly things transition from one like to the next hash.
art by DevintheCool
