Stacking Fault

Music Non Stop

I have some relatively "open" taste in music. If it's melodic and has a good beat, I can find something to like in it. If it's chromatic and arrhythmic, I'm like totally all over it. In my old age I've taken a liking to the more ethereal stuff. I guess I've finally caught up with Bill Laswell and early Eno. One of the more recent artists I like is J. Ralph ( http://www.jralph.com/ ). He's the guy that did the "Million Miles Away" song for that Volkswagen Jetta commercial a couple years back. You've probably seen it: girl waiting at the altar, guy in a tux desperately rushing to the church, encounters all manners of obstacles, reaches the church to find she's wed the best man. I just loved the music. It's now available on his CD "The Illusionary Movements of Geraldine and Nazu." No. I don't know what the title's supposed to mean. I just dig the music.

Now related to all things ambient. Every couple of years I go back and re-view Tron. The 20th anniversary edition was released a couple years ago and there's an ad on the DVD for Tron 2.0 which is apparently a video game designed to capitalize on the anniversary and DVD re-release. So I did a little bit of web searching, and the game looks okay by modern standards, but keep in mind that I still love to play the old Infocom text adventure games. But I found the Tron 2.0 website ( http://www.tron20.net/ ) and noticed it's got this great little background music generator. I suspect it's a Flash something or other, or maybe it's a WAV file. I'll eventually figure out how to turn it into a Dashboard widget so I can have a nice background drone all the time.

And what discussion of music would be complete without a reference to Morrissey's recent concert at Earl's Court ( and all this time I though Earl's Court was just an underground station. ) iFilm has a video of the world's saddest boy singing "First of the Gang to Die" (one of my personal favorites.) You can find it at http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2644115?refsite=7063&ns=1.

And for everyone who enjoyed Pat Boone's "In a Metal Mood," you might want to check out Paul Anka's ROCK SWINGS. I've already ordered my copy, heaven knows you won't see this at the local FYE's. ( http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/product.aspx?ob=n&src=art&pid=11276&fp=qt ) Go to this web page now. Download Paul's interpretation of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

posted by Matthew S. Hamrick @ 12:25 AM