Scar tissue that I wish you saw

I suppose at the moment, I'm figuring I'm more likely to share my lonely view with the birds rather than a mate or a community to belong to. Ah, but that's mostly just the depression talking, and a good way to take the edge off that old bug is...

Music...because music rocks.

Let's start it up with:
1. Scar Tissue - Red Hot Chilli Peppers from their classic album Blood Sugar Sex Magic. A delicate song, with immense feeling, but a gentle acceptance. It well captures that sad but understanding attitude of being alone, not by anyone's fault but just by circumstance. The lyrics sketch a picture of a man striving to end that loneliness with romance, but accepting his current failure and looking a bit gloomily at his continued efforts. Then there's that guitar rift that cuts in the middle right into your soul. It's the signal that this reluctant acceptance doesn't come without a passionate protest, but the rift never bursts into an electronic fury as it seems tempted to at times, as the acceptance wins out, but is intertwined with sorrow that the man cannot shake, and which lingers in your heart long after the song has ceased in your ears.

And here's the AMV from the good folks at FLCL. The hyper-energy of FLCL somewhat clashes with the meditative song, but FLCL's combination of humor and darkness, joy and pain, psuedo-philosophy and psuedo-pop matches well the sweet and bitter strains, that look at the birds as brothers, if only to express an alienation from the rest of the world.

But don't let that alienation get you down, because even with that you can still be singing...

2. Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, a great song with a marvelous simplicity in its energy and sentiment (the lyrics too to a degree), but also a marvelous complexity its multiple competing parts and different voices and different tones and...

DUDE: I GET KNOCKED DOWN AND I GET UP AGAIN YOU AIN'T NEVER GOING TO KEEP ME DOWN

You can't stop the music when it hits you that true and strong. Especially when it goes well with a lovely anime called Love Hina. While this anime may not be the best in the harem anime genre, it is a quintessential example, with a hero with a never-say-die attitude and an always-say-die luck which matches the song as well (plus Love Hina has plenty of examples of people drinking heavily which also hits the bells of the tubthumping way (oh I could explain to you what tubthumping means, but I'm not going to))

But to mix it up a bit, as I am inclined to, let's take the energy of the second and the bittersweet of the first and we end up with something close to...

3. Lovefool by the Cardigans - The essential sentiment of the artist in love, rejected but so broken by the lost that she's willing to cling to any thing her love can give her... Well, it's a classic. The tone switches amazingly seemlessly between honestly distraught and flippant to a degree where you can't tell whether you're being too cool for love or too in love to be cool, all you know is you're out of sorts and you don't know what to do and if only you could just have the illusion of love...well, that touches a bit too close honestly. Let's move along...

4. That's right Move Along by the All-American Rejects. This song has a decent deal of lyrical/musical complexity, but not a huge amount. It's biggest claim is the driving push of its energy. And then there's the sentiment, and then there's just the way the voice and music mixes excellently with the sentiment, because it is the loser yelp and the semi-emo, sort-of-punk rock jangle, yeah, these are the All-American Rejects, but isn't being a reject part of being an American? And isn't it glorious?

This AMV might not hit all the right notes. Sometimes the images are a little too spot on, sometimes they're just cool images without the right sentiment, but what the video editor got here is the need for an immense variation of imagery and colors to hit that energy flow perfectly. Plus the characters, like all good heroes, got a nice loser-y look from some angles, and you gotta love a loser...

Because losers are the ones who know how to rock.

I think that's the sentiment to end the night on, and if the loneliness ever gets too hard, just remember music is awesome. It won't take away the pain, but meh, pains not so bad and music, as stated before, is awesome.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Highly distractible, but nigh industructable

While the latter may or may not be true (time will tell if I am nigh industructable), I certainly am highly distractible, especially when I'm in still a semi-vacationish mode. In fact I'm right now more distractible than I was while I was in full-vactionish mode. Alac, Alac, Alac.

So anyways:

Here's some tunes:

LISTEN!!!!

1. Devil's Haircut - Beck - From the album Odelay - Weird, weird, weird song. The free association lyrics, the nonsensical constant refrain, it's all madness really it is, and I truly doubt there's a straight forward understanding one's supposed to get from all of it (although there are claims of a straight forward meaning to it on the internet, even one by Bob Dylan, but even if Beck were to tell me himself, I'd be like dude, whatever it's supposed to say, it's not saying that in a fashion that anyone should be expected to directly understand). But if I were to guess, and I am inclined to, I'd probably say it's all madness. The lyrics recite a list of crazy bad (eyes ripped from sockets!) stuff happening with the repeated line my mind is fadin', but the tone is all detached, not quite cheerfully so but with a bit of almost amusement, maybe fascination or interest. Then at the end you get an intensity to the voice and something like rage but perhaps more akin to adrenaline rush. Maybe it's all just madness. Least that's how I'm thinkin' of it.

Lyrics

Beck's Music Video - Beck's not one to shy away from the weird is he?

Devil's Haircut AMV - tv show : The Tick - Made by (since making good AMV's takes good work, I've decided to start crediting the AMV makers, in this case an outfit called:) Brilliantwerk (the guy seems to be in a lot of online communities, although I checked the website at the end of the video and that goes no where (the link here goes to his (or could be her) youTube site)) - Now really the whole reason I took this song is because I found this AMV and since I'm using in my title nigh industructable I had to include some Tickige. But the song and the video are actually a really nice match since both are slightly off-kilter in a weird direction. Moreover, by starting and ending with the bomber dude, the video manages to match the tone of the song which isn't quite as cheery as the Tick himself and his cry of "Spoooooooon!"

2. Parallel Universe - Red Hot Chili Peppers - From the album Californication - Some semi-Transendentalist mystic mombo-jumbo (also see the mention of Oversoul in By the Way) + rockin' triumphantcy + Red Hot Chili Peppers = Awesome, awesome song. Few songs are this intense and this triumphant. That made it easy to tweak into my own version which I called Dravidian King, as a song it might be less than great, but as a webpost session it has the spontaneity, emotionalism, etc., let's not go into webpost theory right now, let's not go into music theory right now either, let's just rock out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Lyrics - For a long time I didn't realize it was California King, I don't remember what I thought it was, but California King is that lyric that's just spit out full force in the refrain, and we all know California likes to rock triumphant

Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert Video - There's no music video for this song, but this is a pretty nice concert video, all the way from the good folk in Brazil.

Parallel Universe AMV - anime : Kiddy Grade - Made by Charles Fontillas - I'm not a big fan of the anime Kiddy Grade, but this AMV is pretty awesome. It's as energized, colorful, and full of life as the song, plus it even captures the Red Hot Chili Peppers psychedelic flavors. The characters are nicely trotted out but not idolized or fan-serviced, the action is brisk but does not detract from the song, etc., overall very great. A nice comparison would be to another AMV of Parallel Universe, this one made with Gunslinger Girl (an anime I haven't seen much of, but which seems pretentious). The second AMV isn't bad but it isn't as good as the first, the whole video is too static, both in subject and shot, and even when there is action, the scene itself is focused on, dragged down the momentum of the video. Admittedly I might think this way due to my biases towards Gunslinger Girl, but then again I'm no fan of Kiddy Grade, then again... then again, it's time to move on to our next contender (for no prize, title or position what-so-ever!!!! (Wooo, what-so-ever!!!!)).

3. Bad Reputation - by Thin Lizzy, but covered more famously by Joan Jett - From the album Bad Reputation - This is a punk shout, so I'm not going into much detail about it. Especially since I did go into more detail about it before in a previous session. So let me just say:

I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT MY BAD REPUTATION!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the Lyrics

Here's Joan Jett's Music Video.

And here's an AMV of Bad Reputation using for the anime the 3rd Series of Digimon focusing on everyone's favorite bad-asses Rika and Renamon (made more subject-worthy by the fact Rika, despite loving her bad-assness, was worried about her mother's reaction for parts of the series). Digimon rules!!!!! (actually I wasn't thrilled with the 4th series and I haven't seen the 5th one, and the 2nd one, while good wasn't as good as the 1st or the 3rd ones.)

Just to cap things off to an off-form entry, let me point you towards the intro credits of Freaks and Geeks which featured Bad Reputation, since Freaks and Geeks was awesome.

4. Saturday Night's Alright - by Elton John - From the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - You know when you look at craftsmanship, some of these older rockers who now have turned into adult contemporary staples, used to be real rock craftsmen. Now I'm all for raw power, but there's also something to be said for craftsmanship, and Mr. Elton John says it well.

Lyrics

A concert video with Elton John

Saturday Night's Alright AMV - (note: the song here is actually covered by Nickleback and Kid Rock)- anime : Love Hina - Made by CrashOverRide83m - A splendid little AMV I must say. Fast as the wind through the lyrics, nice imagery, over-the-top action on the video front to match the over-the-top energy in the song as well as the exuberant embrace of fighting, also nice that the fan-service implications of Love Hina play well with the date connotations of Saturday Night. So overall, a well crafted piece, Mr. Elton John could have probably done better, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this AMV was done very well.

So usually I do 5 songs, but usually I'm not this tired, and even usually the 5th song gets a little bit of the shaft when I'm writing it up and everything. So for now I'm only doing 4 songs, and I might actually make that a new policy. Perhaps. PERHAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.