Our Two’Fer Tuesday post today is the final one about the 1oth anniversary edition of Death Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism album. Today I’m featuring the title track. As with the past few posts…..first the demo and then the version as released in 2003. I really like this album and I’m sorry to end see this series of posts end.
I hope this series of posts has convinced you to buy the 10th anniversary album but……if they haven’t……listen to the complete original album below and I think you will be convinced. Enjoy!
As promised, here is another taste of the 1oth anniversary edition of Transatlanticism. Today I’m featuring We Looked Like Giants…..first as a demo and then as released in 2003. As with Title and Registration, this is really good stuff that I think you will enjoy……
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Two’fer Tuesday post when I will feature the demo and released versions of the title track from this great album.
On February 8 of this year I made a post about American Gods, a book by Neil Gaiman , that I read. Late in American Gods, Bleak House (a novel by Charles Dickens) is mentioned and I decided that I needed to read it. Nine months later, I finally completed it and thought I would share my thoughts.
The book is very long, coming in at around 1000 pages. In addition, it’s not an easy read…..the plot is incredibly convoluted and there’s an amazing large cast of characters which, for a good portion of the book, seem to have no relation to one another. The fact that it took me so long to read the book is no surprise……on an average day I have about 10 minutes for pleasure reading right before I fall asleep.
The most amazing thing about Bleak House is that its major themes are as relevant today as they were back in the mid-1800s where the story took place. The rich rule the world (today’s 1%), the multitudes of poor are virtually invisible to most of society, and a corrupt legal system preys on people’s misery while enriching itself. In many ways very little has changed in the years since Bleak House was written.
Somehow, in the midst of all of this, the main character in the book (Esther) who is faced with many challenges of her own is able to remain centered, find happiness in her life, and maintain a focus on helping others that are less fortunate. There is a lesson for all of us in this character! I will be building on this theme in an upcoming post regarding the music of Jackson Browne.
Other than the above, my main take away from the book is a true reverence for the power of the words of Charles Dickens. As I was reading Bleak House I frequently ran into passages that caused me to stop in my tracks, absolutely staggered by the power of the words. When this happened I would stop reading for the night to ensure that I could come back the next morning, find the passage, and capture it in a book of quotes that I maintain. Here are a few of my favorites….I hope you enjoy them….
“Thus night at length with slow retreating steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh, whether or no.”
“I must travel this dark road alone and it will lead me where it will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it.”
“For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey’s end and drags over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road.”
“But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat.”
“All partings foreshadow the great final one.”
“A word in earnest is as good as a speech.”
Amazing stuff!
So……Death Cab For Cutie is another group that my son introduced me to. He’s been a fan for a long time and has seen them live multiple times. I’m a more recent convert but have since become a big fan. The band recently re-released their album 2003 album, Transatlanticism, in a special 10th anniversary edition. The cool thing about the re-release is that they included the original demo version of each song on the album, hence the name of this post….New-Old Music. The demo versions are amazing and in many cases I like them as much or more than the released versions.
Over the next couple of days I will feature demo versions of songs from Transatlanticism along with their matching released versions. I hope you enjoy these posts and highly recommend that you buy the special 10th anniversary version of the album. I got it in MP3 format from Amazon and only paid $6.99.
Today let’s listen to one of my favorite songs, Title and Registration. First up is the demo version followed immediately with the originally released version.
My son turned me onto Ballet School, a Berlin based trio that is on the verge of hitting it big. When I listen to their latest song, Heartbeat Overdrive, I ‘m transported back to the 80’s. Some people might look at that as a backhanded compliment but that isn’t how I meant it at all. The band captures the best elements of the 80’s and to be honest I miss that sound in today’s music. Take a listen and let me know what you think…….
I’ve recently finished up my months long reading of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I will be posting my thoughts on that soon. In the meantime, I have started to ready read Linda Ronstadt’s memoir, Simple Dreams.
I’ve talked about Linda in my Southern California Sound series of posts last year. As I mentioned then I had a huge crush on Linda and was in love with her voice. I was devastated when I recently learned that she has contracted Parkinson’s Disease and is no longer able to sing. Here is a recent interview with her……..
In celebration of her wonderful voice and incredible career let’s listen to one of her best songs…..
As I read Linda’s memoir you can look forward to more posts featuring her in the near future!
In today’s world it’s hard to find things that are truly amazing but I found one today. If you look closely at the picture above you can see a tiny blue dot and that dot is our earth. This picture was taken by the NASA Cassini spacecraft which was positioned in Saturn’s shadow. Here is how the Cassini Team website describes the picture….
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn’s shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings — and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.
With the sun’s powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini’s onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn’s orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
I hope you agree with me that this picture is indeed amazing and gives all of us a unique perspective of our place in universe. I encourage you to visit the Cassini Team page, using the link provided above, to view some much higher resolution versions of the image at the top of this post.
Since this is a music blog, I feel like we need some music to go with this amazing picture….how about a little Space Truckin from the amazing Deep Purple……
So I guess it is time to confess that I’m an airplane nut. I grew up on air force bases all over the US never living in one place more than a year. The flight lines seemed to always be close to our base housing so I was constantly exposed to military aircraft. I was fascinated with all of the fighter jets and bombers on the bases and this grew into a fascination with WWI and WWII aircraft as well.
I tell you all of this because it might help explain my obsession with Public Service Broadcasting, today’s featured band for this Two’fer Tuesday post. Public Service Broadcasting is an electronic music duo that takes samples from old public information films, archive footage and propaganda material, and uses it as the basis for incredible electronic music videos. I really can’t explain it any better than that ….. you really need to see it to understand it! So……without further ado…….here’s Public Service Broadcasting with Spitfire……
If you’re like me you might be thinking…. Ok that’s a pretty cool gimmick but how can you translate that into a live performance. Here’s an answer to that question in form of a video of Public Service Broadcasting playing Spitfire live……
I realize this might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I really like it. If they’re ever anywhere close to Northern Alabama I plan to see them live. If you’re interested in hearing more, check out their debut album released last May, Inform-Educate-Entertain.
Sorry not to have been more active in the past few weeks. To be honest, I’ve been too exhausted to deal with the blog. Work has been, and continues to be, very intense. It may be a while but before I can get re-engaged with the blog at the level that I always want to maintain but I pledge to do my best to build up to that level by the end of the year. In the mean time let’s all rock out……
