You know what would make a classic album cover better? Replacing the humans depicted on them with kittens. Thank goodness amyvisuals rectified this problem with The Kitten Covers!
From Bowie to Ol’ Dirty Bastard to the Velvet Underground, amyvisuals does a great job of selecting worthy albums for inclusion in the series and then pretty seamlessly Photoshopping the kittens into the cover images with the same picture quality as the originals, from the back-lit graininess of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. I to the stark, crisp clarity of New Order’s Low-Life!
(Via Flavorwire.com, by way of Chris [who is not actually a fan of kittens]!)
One of my goals for Ex-Boyfriend this year was to in some way film myself working on a design and create a time-lapsed clip of it to post on YouTube. I finally got around to starting this project about a week and a half ago, and finished the editing last night. It features most of the process that my newest design required—I had some camcorder issues, so I apologize for not including the actual sketching of the design concept. Just as well, since most of that footage probably would have featured more of the top of my head than the actual paper.
I also have to thank my good friend Gary for permitting me to soundtrack the clip with his band The Outdoors’ song ‘I’m Just Drifting’. If you like the track, feel free to become a fan on Facebook and visit their website. Their EP is excellent (Amazing? Sure, that works.), and if you live on the west coast, check them out live—they’re currently on tour!
Anyway, this one is for you guys, the fans—I hope you enjoy it
So as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, one of the things I’m looking forward to most as the weather gets warmer is new music. A lot of my favorite artists have new stuff coming out in the coming months, and I thought it would be cool to do a top ten list of the albums I’m most looking forward to hearing in the near future.
10. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Tao of the Dead: Despite my dismay that singer/guitarist/graphic artist Conrad Keely has decided to release this as only a two-track album (one song clocks in at 35+ minutes, the second at almost 17 minutes), I know I can count on two things from him and cohort Jason Reece—awesome heavy, melodic music and really cool sleeve art. No vids up yet (and there probably won’t be, given the length of the songs), but here’s a great one from 2005′s Worlds Apart.
9. Cut Copy, Zonoscope: Despite taking forever between albums, I love the constant evolution of the Aussie band’s sound. If early leaks are any indication, this one will sound nothing like the first two, but still be very great.
8. REM, Collapse Into Now: As bad as Around The Sun was, it did serve a purpose, as it allowed the band to get a lot of experimentation out of its system so they could put out late-career Renaissance album Accelerate, as well as this new one.
7. Telekinesis, 12 Desperate Straight Lines: I <3 power-pop.
4. Asobi Seksu, Fluorescence: While I liked their last one, I’m glad this brings back a little of the guitar crunch from their first two albums. Yuki’s singing is totally psyching me up for my trip to Tokyo!
3. The Twilight Singers, Dynamite Steps: Because the year just isn’t sleazy enough without new music from Greg Dulli.
2. Elbow, Build A Rocket, Boys!: It’s always a good idea to temper spring-time enthusiasm with a little sad rainy-day music from Manchester.
1. Arctic Monkeys, TBA: I really fell in love with 2009′s Humbug, so I’m very much looking forward to the new one due out this year.
What about you guys? What are some artists/albums you’re looking forward to in 2011? Lemme know in the comments section below!
I love a lot of things. But near the top of that list are pizza, puns, music, and making lists. So if you’re like me, chances are you’re about to have your mind-grapes squished. Sizzle Pie is a just-opened Portland, Oregon pizzeria whose menu is comprised of music-themed pies, most of which derive their names from truly awesome songs and musical artists. It’s kind of awesome. A lot of the names also make me think of the song ‘Murdertrain’, used throughout the series How I Met Your Mother. Here are some of my faves from their menu:
10. Napalm Breath-Because there is nothing quite so metal as garlic breath. Especially if it’s on fire and being spewed by a dragon.
9. Heart Attack Man-Perhaps my favorite throw-away Beastie Boys track, because it’s short, sweet, catchy as hell, references Happy Days/Father Dowling actor Tom Boswell, and now has a pizza named after it. Sure, I’m a vegetarian and can’t really appreciate the presence of steak, bacon and BBQ sauce on a bed of cheese and dough, but this is such a pitch-perfect combo.
8. Eat The Rich-One of two Motorhead songs I really dig (the other being, of course, ‘Ace of Spades’), you know you’re in for something rich when there’s a creamy caramelized onion spread involved.
7. Girth Crisis-There’s a lot of metal, proto-metal, and punk in this list. Sorry. But changing Earth Crisis to Girth Crisis is hilarious, especially when you realize this is a double-decker pie with TWO crusts joined together with melted cheese and then topped with three kinds of meat.
6. The Jam-My favorite punk band, repped by a cheese pizza featuring a creamy basil cashew spread.
5. The Four Horsemen-Not metal, just one of the many awesome tunes from The Clash’s London Calling album. A four-cheese pie, of course.
4. Bad Lieutenant-While New Order guitarist Bernard Sumner did start a band called Bad Lieutenant after bassist Peter Hook left the band, I’m thinking this is actually derived from the film of same name. It’s loaded with onions and sausage, and in the movie there’s a lot of crying and Harvey Keitel’s man-parts.
3. 36 Chambers-Not sure what this has to do with the Wu, but it’s a classic album. Maybe it brings a ruckus of flava to your dome piece?
2. Meat Is Murder-Just like The Smiths’ sophomore album, a classic: cheese pizza with vegan pepperoni.
1. The Slaughter of the Soil-The name just cracks me up. A veritable butchering of veggies!
Earworm. We’ve all had it. That pesky pop song that lodges itself between your ears for hours, sometimes days on end with no sign of stopping. Why, just the other day I heard a few bars of ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ over the course of maybe 10 seconds, and that was enough to have me humming and whistling the melody for the rest of the evening. And, thanks to that memory, it’s back. The things I do for you people.
Anyway, the folks at Liftoff Media have a bridge to nowhere to sell you: UnhearIt, the new free website and mobile app that promises to remove said earworm, at the expense of replacing it with an equally catchy one. Think of it like nuclear escalation, but in your mind grapes. But given that two of their sonic “curatives” are Charlie Daniels’ ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ and Billy Ray Cyrus’s ‘Achy Breaky Heart’, I think I’ll take my chances with Tchaikovsky.
This is possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Kitties? Check. Awesome, thumping music from Canadian electro-rockers Holy Fuck? Check. Footage from the greatest car chase scene ever (from Bullitt)? Check. Fire? Check. Cats that bear a striking resemblance to my own driving cars, playing drums, and playing bass? Check.
Have you ever wondered about the physiology of music? Not the actual physiological make-up of music, but the body parts most often sung about? Well, the good folks at fleshmap.com have done all the heavy lifting for you, compiling data gleaned from over 10,000 songs (genre-independent) to create a pictographic body rebus. The diagram illustrates a genre by genre breakdown of body parts mentioned in song lyrics and their frequency. It’s pretty interesting. For instance, 77% of all songs feature the eyes as the most dominant lyrical body part. 22% feature the hands (blues and gospel). 11% (the percentage of hip-hop songs studied) featured the butt most prominently-in fact, within genre, the butt takes up the largest piece of the pie, with 20% of hip-hop body references relating to the booty (they like big butts and they cannot lie.) That said, hip-hop also offers the most physiological variety in terms of lyrical topics, with nearly twice the number of discrete body parts mentioned than any other genre.
I was a bit surprised that the eyes won out within the metal genre; I thought for sure the pictogram at the top of that list would feature a dragon, or maybe Satan. But I bet if the researchers went back and listened for context, the eyes in question would belong to dragons and/or demons. Glenn Danzig would happily grudgingly lend his personal library for cross-referencing this, I’m sure of it.
So this got me to thinking: what body part(s) do my commenters’ favorite artists/songs favor? Please respond below with artist, title, and excerpted lyric quoted.
I am in love. Today while cruising the web I discovered Captain Dan & The Scurvy Crew (via Indie Parade blog). They’re a highly amusing novelty hip hop crew with a pirate theme. If you’re into Paul Barman or Kool Keith or Ugly Duckling, you will find these guys delightful. Even if you’re not normally a novelty rap fan, you kind of have to admit that pirate rappers make sense. I mean pirates are the original gangstas, no? For your viewing pleasure, there are even videos!
Sadly, their Myspace indicates that they won’t be in my town any time soon so I will have to stick to interweb stalking them for now. What’s all the more disappointing is that my enthusiasm for show-going has been weak these days, and pirate rappers are obviously what I need to get back into gear. Hopefully these guys will be going on a lengthier tour in the near future.
Tuesday nights, my girl and I go to a fitness class at the gym. I am always the only guy there, but I don’t care, those classes will kick your ass and I need the exercise. Actually, single guys would be smart to hit up aerobics classes at the gym, the ladies could be all yours. Anyway, the woman who was teaching our class has the most atrocious taste in music.
First let me paint you a picture: This woman is any where between 30 and 50, I say this because years at the tanning salon have given her skin a leathery appearance, that makes it impossible to detemine her age. This woman has obviously done time on a cheer leading squad, the pageant circuit and definitely could be some sort of stage mom, or at the very least she could be the Sparklemotion Mom. She is the kind of person who springs out of bed every day at 5am and runs 20 miles. She has a tramp stamp, bleached hair, a navel ring and 0% body fat. She usually wears a sports bra and some sort of mini skort. She is the perfect walking cliché for an aerobics instructor.
As for her taste in music, it is somewhere between American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman and a thirteen year old boy. This is to say that our workout mix included both “Radar Love” and that Evanescence song that was all over the radio not long ago. It’s not bad enough that we had to do 30 jumping jacks, followed by 30 push ups, rinse and repeat. We had to do it to the beat of “Hip To Be Square”. I felt like we should have been wearing leg warmers.
Speaking of comically bad music, I was listening to Ride on my iTunes the other day, which totally confused iTunes. Trying to be helpful, it suggested I might instead be listening to a band called Razor Ride and gave me the track listing for their hit album Nuclear Monstrosity. Choice cuts from Nuclear Monstrosity include “Infernal Devil Sex,” “Abortion Witch” and “Inject the Insect.” I wonder if Abortion Witch is a pro or anti-choice tune. It could go either way.
Death metal songs and metal bands always have amusing names. I sort of wish I liked death metal so I could join a band and make up song names. Other death metal song titles that are amazing:
1. Unleashing Devilment by Warmaster
2. I Cum Donut Filling by Spermswarm
3. Pipewrench Papsmear by Viral Load
4. Goddess Of Sodomy byDark Funeral
5. Bukkake-Style Embalming by Amoebic Dysentery
Actually, what would be better is if I started a twee band with song names like this. I Cum Donut Filling could be twee, couldn’t it?
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