Pigeons and Regina Spektor

Kudos and huzzahs to me for posting furiously for 3 days and then forgetting about it again.

This past weekend, I didn't see Blonde Redhead (rained out), but I did see Regina Spektor. She was great, but it was rainy, and I was distracted.

On Friday afternoon, before the Regina Spektor show, I was on my way to the venue (McCarren Park Pool), walking on the sidewalk, when I saw a pigeon flailing around, with a clearly injured wing. Unsure of what to do, I picked him up off the sidewalk and put him under a nearby tree. It was pretty obvious, however, that he was extremely vulnerable. Since I'm no pigeon expert, I couldn't determine his overall health, age, or whatever, but I could see that if I left him there, it was unlikely that he'd survive the afternoon. I called a number of vets and animal hospitals, but it was late in the afternoon and no one would be willing to actually come out there to pick up the pigeon.

Thankfully, there was a lady there with a kind heart and a cat carrier - I packed him up with a towel in the carrier and Jackie came out there to pick him up and take him home to our apartment. I was then free to go to the concert. Review to follow (maybe).

To make a long story short, the pigeon passed a restful night in the cat carrier, and we took him to a bird rehabilitator in Manhattan, where we learned that he was very young and healthy, with no diseases. The wing injury was actually the result of a congenital vitamin B12 deficiency that had left his left leg partially paralyzed - when grounded, he had to pull himself around using his wings, and had subsequently injured one of them (not broken it though, which is what I was afraid of). She gave him a vitamin injection, and he should be good as new in a day or so. Once his wing has healed a bit and he's able to fly, I'm going to go pick him up and release him back where I found him (since that's presumably where he's from). Hopefully, he's got a long, successful pigeon-y life ahead of him.

All in all, a happy ending.

4.10.2008 l Gnarls Barkley at The Highline Ballroom

Back at the Highline last night, this time for Gnarls Barkley and Santogold (official site/myspace here and here, respectively).

Since I've seen a few shows at the Highline Ballroom now, at both ends of the "show" spectrum (full band rock shows and quiet, intimate acoustic shows), I feel that I can make a qualified judgement on the quality of the venue. That said, while the Highline is awesome if you want to pay $7 for a can of Rolling Rock, it's still a pretty good place to see a concert. Better than a lot of other similar places. But I digress.

Santogold was good, and while it's tough for me to really comment on her performance (and cite song titles - can't find a set list), I can say without hesitation that the first, second, and last songs were terrific. Seriously, she was tough to categorize. She performed with two back-up singers/dancers and a DJ in what I guess I could describe, stylistically, as fusion R&B/Soul/Hip-Hop...ish. Her myspace calls it New Wave/Dub/Psychobilly. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. She was a good choice to open, and her performance was intriguing enough that I'd go out of my way to learn more. She had a great voice.

That brings me to the real draw - obviously, Gnarls Barkley. I should preface this by saying that Gnarls could pack a much larger place than this one without any problems, so the fact that I was able to snag one spot here is actually pretty amazing. Nevermind the fact that this was, in Cee-lo's own words, an "overpaid dress rehearsal" (the dress, in this case, being a white leisure suit and an impressive black pompadour-style wig) - it's their first concert following the release of The Odd Couple last week, and the first time a lot of the new songs have been played live. Here's the set list, courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan (a great site, incidentally. You can go there for another review of the show and a lot of great pictures too!):

Charity Case

Surprise

Gone Daddy Gone

Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)

Who's Gonna Save My Soul?

Just A Thought

Going On

Boogie Monster

Whatever

Storm Coming

Crazy

A Little Better

=========

Blind Mary

Smiley Faces

I think the reason I was as excited as I was for this show was for the same reason I was so keen to finally see Chris Cornell last spring - I had to be sure that the voice that I attribute on the records to Cee-lo Green actually issued from a human being. Really, it's that good. And what's better (and this can't be said of a lot of my favorite performers), he can deliver live. His vocals were spot-on, and considerably more incendiary than they are on the album (hard to believe). The set they played was strong, too - it affirmed my rarely-expressed but long-held belief that if an album is great, it's usually even better live. The highlights - by a healthy margin - were "Run," "Crazy," and "A Little Better." I was pleasantly surprised to find a newfound appreciation for the songs "Blind Mary" and "Whatever" (which were, as you might recall, my two least favorite songs on Odd Couple. They're actually still my two least favorite songs, but I like them more now that I've seen them live. I was pretty ecstatic to hear "Storm Coming" (still my favorite song) and "Smiley Faces" was a great way to close the show. The band (including Danger Mouse) was practiced and comfortable with the new material. They put out on a great performance.

In the coming months/years/whatever, I think it will be pretty rare that most people will get the opportunity to see Gnarls Barkley in as cozy a setting as The Highline. We were ten feet from the stage. However, regardless of the venue....see 'em. Do it. It's really good.

Minutia, and an Idea

So I wrote a Gnarls Barkley review. It's under this post. I added some links. I'm gonna write about how great they are, and why they are as great as they are, some other day. I removed some stupid, melodramatic posts from a couple of years ago, in case people actually start coming here. No one wants to read that. Since I deleted those two posts, I also want to point out that the title of this blog is from a Matt Good song, "Near Fantastica" on Avalanche. It's a good song. Pun possibly intended.

This morning, I was sitting on the subway, on my way to work, when I had a fantasy/daydream/vision/whatever which may just point me towards my true calling.

I want to start a Tom Petty cover band.

I think this pretty much encapsulates the degree of fame or notoriety that I crave. I want to play and sing in a Tom Petty cover band. We'd play at bars around Brooklyn. Maybe we'd peek our heads out into Manhattan occasionally. We'd be popular because Tom Petty writes great pop and rock songs (which is the hard part) and our perfomance would be solid.

In keeping with typical cover band form of deriving the name from some aspect of the original band - like a play on the name, or one of their songs or lyrics - we'd be called The Insiders, after the duet Petty did with Stevie Nicks. It's a good song, and it would be a staple of our repertoire, assuming I could find someone to sing with me.

And I would sing. In high school, at nearly every show we did, we played a little-known Tom Petty song called "Crawling Back To You." Little-known referring here to us, mainly. And Jon and Ryan were the only ones who really liked it. This song (and the one or two other Petty songs we attempted but never really played) was pretty much my domain - I would sing Tom Petty. Ryan and Keith sang everything else. I hope it was because I was good at singing Tom Petty. I still think I'm good at it. Obviously, we'll find out when I start the band. We'll play that song too.

I thought about what we'd play. He's got a lot of hits, and a lot of terrific songs that weren't huge hits. It would have to be a decent retrospective of Tom Petty's career, but we'd have to stay current, since he's still releasing albums. I might try to bookend the set chronologically (play a few early songs at the beginning, later songs towards the end) although the main portion of it would not organized as such. A typical set list might look a little something like this:

Anything that's Rock'n'Roll

Breakdown

Honey Bee

American Girl

Free Fallin' (We're playing at a bar. We'd get kicked off if we didn't play it)

You Don't Know How It Feels

Out In Cold

Walls (it was a hit from the movie "She's The One")

Jammin' Me

I Won't Back Down

Runnin' Down A Dream

Saving Grace (as of now, it's his most recent hit, so it would be fairly fresh on people's minds)

Encore! (Although there likely wouldn't be an encore, because we'd be background music at a bar until people see how great we really are)

Insider (BAM - assuming I can find someone to sing Stevie Nicks' part)

Mary Jane's Last Dance (off-topic - I once saw a video of a guy with no arms playing this song on the guitar with his feet)

But there's plenty more to choose, and we'd obviously take requests too. The good thing about his brand of simple, stripped down rock is that it's not particularly difficult to pull off. In fact, the only thing I think we'd have to pass on is "Don't Come Around Here No More" - simply because it requires a lot of work. I, along with a lot of other people, love that song, of course - but the synthy instrumentation, vocal pyrotechnics, and lady backup singers would be hard to do well.. The important thing is for a cover band is to do justice to the source material. We won't be able to take too many liberties, for the most part.

I really think this could work. I'm the only member so far though. Maybe Ian would be my drummer.

Gnarls Barkley l The Odd Couple

Disclaimer: Zomg, an honest attempt at a credible album review!

After two days of assimilation, I'm listening to the new Gnarls Barkley record for perhaps the tenth time through. I figured this would be a good time to set down my thoughts about it for two reasons:

1. No time like the present.

2. I just got a tingle from "Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)"

3. I'm at work. If I write these things in Outlook, I still seem busy.

So, three reasons.

I had pretty high expectations for this album going in - St. Elsewhere, their 2006 debut, was one of my three favorite albums of that year - strong, catchy, and consistent. I'm happy to say that, all in all, The Odd Couple is a worthy successor. Cee-lo and Danger Mouse have done it again.

Even after repeated listens, it's difficult to judge the better songs against the first album, which I've had two years to digest, because the novelty throws me off - I'm so familiar with the old songs that I derive an entirely different kind of enjoyment from hearing them. Additionally, the songs on the first record that struck me as "bad" initially (only a couple - like "Gone Daddy Gone") I've long since started to enjoy. So even then, things are subject to change - so "bad" songs on The Odd Couple might not strike me as bad a few months down the road. I only write this because there are about three times as many "bad" songs here - which is to say three. Art is subjective. The album is still really good.

In fact, it starts off strong - the first four songs are terrific, and include the aforementioned single "Run." They effectively recall the energy and groove of opening tracks of St. Elsewhere. Track three, "Going On" emerges (still!) as the hands-down winner, hitting the listener (well, this listener) the same way that "Smiley Faces" and "Storm Coming" did the first time around. "Open Book" manages the same slow, unsettling crawl that characterized one of my favorite songs, "Necromancer" (and does so more successfuly than what might be considered that songs successor, "Would-Be Killer"). Mixed in with the other highlights of the record - which include "Surprise" and "Neighbors" - are the other two (present) disappointments, "Whatever" and "Blind Mary, songs I can only describe as clowny and kind of dumb. It closes incredibly well, with "A Little Better," an excellent song that has no real analog on the first one - just a good, solid, catchy song.

The Odd Couple has a lot to live up to. Gnarls Barkley's first single two years ago, "Crazy," was huge, and deservedly so. All in all, St. Elsewhere did what many might consider to be impossible - it offered a fresh, eclectic, new take on pop music. This record upholds St. Elsewhere's legacy admirably, with great music and very few low points. It's definitely something that any fan of the band can get behind.

A-.

Gnew Gnarls Barkley Album out today!

I'll be back later with more.

Happy April 1st. Don't go to Adam's web site.

A (Matthew) Good Show...

...But not great show.

So last night I saw Matt Good play for the first time EVAR at the Highline Ballroom. I wasn't really sure what to expect going in - I'm a pretty big fan, and I guess I can trace my infatuation back to late highschool (although I clearly remember seeing the video for "Apparitions" on MuchMusic soon after I moved back to CT from Canada. Not sure if I cared though). My band at the time practiced and performed (only once, at the Outback Teen Center) a lackluster rendition of "Strange Days" - which I liked, a lot. I really, really started listening to him the summer of 2004. White Light Rock'n'Roll Review had just come out, so excitement was high, and I was looking for something new. Matt Good Band provided, with very few low points, from the opening lines of "Alabama Motel Room" (Last of the Ghetto Astronauts) to the closing notes of "Sort of a Protest Song" (Audio Of Being). Avalanche, Matt's 2003 record, is in my mind one of the finest solo debuts from someone coming off of a successful band - equal at least, possibly superior to Chris Cornell's excellent Euphoria Morning. White Light, in all honesty, kind of went right over my head (with the notable exception of "Blue Skies Over Bad Lands"). I could devote an entire post to his latest album, Hospital Music, released last July. I'll just say that it's pretty much great.

So anyway, I didn't know what to expect. Adam, Keith, and Alex had all seen him a few times this past year on the "Nothing To Hide" acoustic tour (as well as a memorable night in someone's Vegas living room) and pretty much unanimously agreed that it was a little underwhelming. Great to see him, at long last, but definitely not what they were expecting. That's where I fall, too. Great to see, but not what I was expecting. Here's the set list, from Matt's site:

I’m A Window
Suburbia
99% Of Us Is Failure
Born Losers
Tripoli
Strange Days
Load Me Up
A Silent Army In The Trees
Black Helicopter
She’s In It For The Money
Avalanche
Apparitions
True Love Will Find You In The End

Encore

Champions Of Nothing
Metal Airplanes

Thinking back, I guess the only real issue I had with the show was the arrangements. As I mentioned earlier, it was acoustic, but he didn't seem to make much of an effort to adapt the songs to that format - mostly, it just seemed that he was playing the acoustic guitar part of that song. There were a lot of blanks where you definitely missed the presence of a band - maybe even just another guitar. The only downright cringeworthy part for me was the opening of "99% Of Us Is Failure" which was sung acapella. I didn't really like the end of "Avalanche." In "Load Me Up," he actually did offer a different arrangement, which Alex thought was one of the better songs he does acoustically - I didn't really like it, but I like the original version so damn much that it is probably just me being stubborn. If I were seeing him play in that small, casual Vegas setting, all this would have been fine - great, even - but for a public performance at a real venue, it doesn't really cut it. There were some mic issues also, but I'm not going to count those as strikes against the performance.

All this is not to say that there were no highlights. "Apparitions," "Strange Days," and "Champions Of Nothing" all lend themselves very well to acoustic performance without any finagling (did I spell that correctly?). "Black Helicopters" was excellent. His voice was in top form. I'm really happy I was able to see him play, and I want to see him again soon. With a band. Because that will be even better.

Also, I kind of hope that the eternally-connected Matt Good (or one of his buddies) does not find this post and respond to the criticisms (it happened to Adam!).

Adam's DVD Order

So I got a big order in today. Some stuff for Keith, mostly stuff for Adam. A few seconds later, Adam and I have this conversation over AIM:

Pete: I hate you
Pete: Oh god I hate you
Adam: why?
Adam: why?
Adam: what happened?
Pete: Did you order "A Perfect Fake"?
Adam: ?
Adam: haha... why?
Adam: its a documentary
Adam: looked interesting?
Pete: I hate you
Adam: what happened?
Adam: HAHAHA! the COVER!
Pete: Nothing happened. It's just that i'm now on company record as ordering a documentary about sex dolls
Adam: haha
Adam: hahahaha
Adam: its about digital artistry
Adam: and THEN into sex dolls
Pete: So...did you really want this? Or were you just trying to be funny?
Pete: Did you really think this was about CGI?
Adam: I looked online
Pete: be honest. i'm trying to calculate the appropriate level of wrath with which to descend upon you
Adam: no seriously
Adam: i went lookng through the DVDs
Adam: under Documentary
Pete: and when you did this "research" it didn't occur to you what it was about?
Adam: yes
Adam: i read things stating it was about CGI and stuff
Adam: like the final fantasy film, where everyone was CGI
Pete: well, i read a little bit about it too, and one of the first things i gathered about it was the fact that it was about lonely Japanese men building detachable plastic vaginas into latex anime girls
Adam: wow
Adam: yea
Adam: i missed that stuff
Adam: that's funny though

Just in case you were curious, here's the cover:

Writing About Nothing

Whenever I try to commit myself to a blog, it never lasts more than two or three entries. I haven’t looked at this thing since September – or possibly October – I can’t really tell as I’m writing this in MS Word on the train to Boston, and I don’t have internet access.

But since I want to write, and I don’t know what to write about, and I’m not trying to impress anyone anyway, I’ll write about my Paladin.

Ceinwynn (whose name is derived from the excellent Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell) is doing well – she’s on the bleeding edge of useless content, with Artisan Riding and three (!) epic flying mounts – and a number of ground mounts as well.

-The Summoned Warhorse
-The Summoned Charger
-A Silver Riding Talbuk (Requires Exalted with the Kurenai faction)
-A Swift Brewfest Ram
-A Snowy Gryphon
-A Swift Purple Gryphon
-An Azure Netherdrake (Requires Exalted with the Netherwing)
-A Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (Requires 375 Engineering skill to build and use)

Mounts are fun, but my main reason for having so many (six more than I really need) is to give Cein a little bit of much needed individuality among the other 25,000 or so characters on Durotan. Pre-BC and flying mounts, being a Paladin was enough because she had a Charger – a unique epic mount, only available to Paladins. The quest line to receive it was, and still is, the longest of all the Paladin class quests, and deemed annoying enough that many other Paladins frequently passed it up in favor of buying their training and mounts.

After that, I was lucky enough (or patient enough) to save up the money for Artisan Riding fairly early in BC’s life cycle, about three months after release (this was before Daily quests were available – I did it the hard way). At this point, epic flying was rare as it is, and the Swift Gryphon was enough to distinguish her from most other people. But, since amassing great wealth is more or less a joke now, a lot of other people soon picked up the epic flight skill as well. By this time, of course, the Netherwing faction was added – a month of casual questing netted me the Drake. Flying around very quickly on a fucking Dragon is pretty tough to beat until everyone else is doing it too.

Right now, I’m going with the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (also known as a “Roflcopter” because it is hilarious). You don’t see too many of them, as capping Engineering is still sufficiently irritating that only people like me (who consider mastering a crafting profession “endgame”) really pursue it.

There are, however, some serious benefits to being a Master Engineer that outclass even a unique, attractive mount - particularly if you happen to be a Paladin. Patch 2.1 added the epic Engineering goggles for all classes and armor proficiencies, and the Paladin, being one of the two plate-wearing classes currently in the game and a true specialist, is in the privileged position of being able to wear all three versions of the plate goggles – one each for healers, tanks, and melee damage-dealers. As these are Bind on Pickup, and require 350 Engineering to build and equip, they are still fairly uncommon and difficult to acquire, so the stats on them are very generous – they hover somewhere between tier 5 and 6 armor, in terms of quality. I am particularly happy with these because unless my situation and playing habits change dramatically, I won’t replace them until sometime into the next expansion. I currently have two of them – the Justice Bringer 2000 Specs (for healing) and the Tankatronic Goggles (for…tanking). I primarily use the tanking goggles, as I am primarily specc’ed for tanking.

While better gear is never a bad thing, I’m actually very content with the place Cein is right now. She’s sitting at somewhere around 13k armor, with decent avoidance and mitigation – not yet “uncrushable,” but crushability is not an issue, considering I’m only looking to tank basic level 70 five-mans and heroics. She has achieved 485 defense, which effectively pushes critical hits off of the attack table where heroics are concerned, and that is more than enough to satisfy me for the moment. Considering her gear level, her health is particularly high, sitting at around 12.5k before any buffs. Threat output is, of course, phenomenal – Cein actually has a decent bit more +spellpower than is recommended as a minimum for tanking Karazhan and beyond. In pretty much every way, she is actually the ideal choice to tank any five-man or heroic. In short, she’s doing well.

/nerding