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2008:06:29:09:42. Sunday. BYE POD. After 3+ years my iPod finally gave out yesterday. Luckily there were no songs on there that I didn't have backed up elsewhere, but it does appear that I've lost all my ratings, unfortunately. In a last ditch effort to be able to get them off, I am currently freezing it in the hopes that I can get 20-30 minutes of working time. The silver lining is that the 80GB iPod Classic I got to replace it is really nice. The interface isn't quite on the level of the iPhone, but the addition of Cover Flow and the half-screen menu is pretty terrific, and the display in general looks better than the one on Emily's iPod Video. Unfortunately, we're throwing a party tonight, which means I've got to spend most of the day copying stuff back over to this thing so that we can have music.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:21:11:34. Saturday. BARACK OBAMA DRINKS YOUR MILKSHAKE. Something kind of amazing happened yesterday. After several days of pregnant silence, Barack Obama released a statement on the reprehensible new FISA legislation that essentially affirms his support for the entire enterprise, minus the retroactive telecom immunity, which he will "try" to remove in the Senate, but will vote for anyway when he can't. Russ Feingold, the man who should've been our nominee, had this to say: The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration.
Republicans, for their part, said that they got more than they even thought possible. The upshot of this is that Obama's biggest and most monolithic source of support in the blogosphere, Daily Kos, is undergoing a sudden case of No One Could've Predicted. E.g.: When it comes time to fight global warming will we be regarded as day-old pill bugs?
Sure, there's an election on, but what will be the excuse the next time a corporate giant's income stream is threatened? If Hillary issued the verbatim statement that Obama did, this site would be lit up with FPs and diaries calling her a traitor and worse. And I'm willing to bet that you'd be right up there.
what you mention is a huge issue, one that is no different than ending the war or the economy to me. And for posters and diarists here to brush that aside, call Obama and the rest of the capitulators mere "politicians" and state they were merely being "political" is a downright insult to our intelligence.
Of course I'll still vote for Obama, but what he said was insulting, and that needs to be recognized. And the only way I know how to tell them about this that will make a dent in their world is to act on my frustration. Meanwhile, long-time DKos editor DHinMI: Seriously, please explain how FISA changed anything like whether one gets a job or whether Obama was supposedly spied on.
Can you explain why the initial FISA vote in the House last Summer wasn't a problem for most people, why the Senate vote was, and what two provisions that got added by the Senate made it a problem? Do most of you ranting about FISA even understand what is objectionable, or are you just addicted to histrionics? Guess what, Democrats. This is what Unity looks like, and it's Unityman's party now. Expect many more House votes that pass with the support of all the Republicans and 46% of the Democrats.
2008:06:20:08:00. Friday. NO!: R.E.M. (#417, JUN 6 2008).
This was one of three album-closers included in the set -- it and "Electrolite" both got terrific receptions, while Accelerate's awful "I'm Gonna DJ" brought the main set to an awkward close. Other highlights included an excellent acoustic arrangement of "Let Me In," the Kurt Cobain memorial from Monster, and a version of "Fall on Me" with Johnny Marr of Modest Mouse (and late of the Smiths) during the encore. All in all, an incredible show and an experience I hope to be able to have again -- here's hoping their next good album and big tour isn't 12 years away. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:19:08:00. Thursday. NO!: R.E.M. (#416, JUN 6 2008).
This song is the last one from R.E.M.'s last great album, and the last one from the original line-up era. It's been one of my favorites since the first time I heard it, a terrific synthesis of the Automatic and Monster approaches. In a lot of ways I think of it as a cap on the whole 90's alt. rock era, and listening to Michael Stipe's introduction and the way the crowd reacted to it, I felt like a lot of other people see it the same way. Has it really been 12 years? [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:18:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#415, JUN 6 2008). My first time through Accelerate, I hated this song and nearly let it ruin the album for me. Probably my least favorite R.E.M. song is "Final Straw," the ham-handed Iraq War protest song they released on their website in 2003 (and the only Around the Sun entrant played at this show) and from the opening line I thought this was going to be the Katrina version of the same song. Instead it turns out to be a tight and compelling dirge, and like the rest of the album it doesn't belabor the point. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:17:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#414, JUN 6 2008).
We were in New York last weekend, and the torrential rainstorm that washed out the second half of the first day of Emily's craft show also delayed R.E.M.'s performance at Jones Beach by a couple hours. The next morning it was all over the news, which leads me to think that they're "back" in a way they wouldn't have been had a 2004 show been delayed. Which is an interesting reminder that it wasn't so long ago that they needed to make a comeback at all -- "Man on the Moon," the Andy Kaufman biopic named after one of their songs and including this then-new single came out in 1999, when it seemed their first Bill Berry-less album was just a blip rather than a herald of several years in the wilderness. Their return to greatness couldn't have been more welcome. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:16:08:00. Monday. NO!: R.E.M. (#413, JUN 6 2008).
This is so far my favorite song from the unexpectedly good Accelerate. It combines elements of the both the hard mid-90's and jangly mid-80's versions of the band. In the live set it actually seemed to fit more with the older stuff, and like most of the new songs got a terrific reception from the audience. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:12:08:00. Thursday. NO!: R.E.M. (#412, JUN 6 2008).
Though "career-spanning" is a good description of this show -- their second and third songs were both from Lifes Rich Pageant -- it doesn't quite hit the depth of the material they pulled. I had no clue what this song was when they played it, and figured it was either one of the forgettable tunes from Around the Sun or one of the bonus tracks from the deluxe version of the new record. Instead, it's one of the two new old songs (Pageant-era is what I've read) they recorded for their 2003 best-of-the-Warner-era release. It was overshadowed at the time by the single that was released from that compilation, "Bad Day," which they played later in the set. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:11:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#411, JUN 6 2008).
I don't think I could overstate how important R.E.M. were to my musical taste-development as a tween and early teen. Along with Nirvana's Nevermind, Out of Time and Automatic For the People helped to open up a whole world of alternative rock, both directly and by opening up channels to music's mainstream for subsequent acts like Radiohead, the Breeders, Weezer, the Cranberries, etc. Until I moved to Madison I was never within 200 miles of the sort of venue they might play in the superstar phase of their career, so that I was planning to skip this show is kind of a big deal. When the show was announced, I was just starting to get into their new record, Accelerate, and while I appreciated that it was much better than their last three albums, it still wasn't great. On top of that, $45 upper deck tickets + $60 to drive to Chicago and park + we'd have to come back that night so Emily could work the next morning meant it was a non-starter. But then we found out a couple of friends were going, so travel costs were halved, and I found myself getting more and more into the album. I'd also been hearing good things about the career-spanning sets they've been playing and I thought, you know, they're on The List, and we should just do it, so we did. This was the first big single they played, the song that launched the hard rock version of the band and began their short reign as perhaps the world's biggest band. With the stage all lit up, the video quality on these clips is quite a bit better than those from the openers, thankfully. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:10:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: MODEST MOUSE (#410, JUN 6 2008).
I was looking forward to a rousing mid-show set from Modest Mouse, but something seemed off about them the whole time. Contra Muzzle of Bees, they sounded really thin to me, and even their newer, bigger arrangement stuff didn't fill up the arena the way it should have. I was also surprised at how much they didn't play from Good News -- not just hit single "Float On," which you'd think they'd play for an audience that probably doesn't know them for anything else, but also "The World at Large" and "Bury Me With It." Still, it left me curious what they could do in a smaller space, and the next time they come through to someplace like the Orpheum I may check them out.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:09:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE NATIONAL (#409, JUN 6 2008).
Even though I've been disappointed with so much of their material from the past decade, R.E.M. has long been on my list of bands to see if the opportunity came up. It finally did last Friday, and they had some pretty decent support on the bill in the National and Modest Mouse. The only problem is that big arena shows are no good for whipping out a camcorder and microphones, which meant I had to fall back on the old camera for this show. As a result, the sound is pretty good but the video largely stinks, especially from the opening sets before all of R.E.M.'s big lights came on. We got to the show just as the National began their set, and spent their first three songs wandering around and getting some really bad United Center food. Unfortunately, my two favorite songs of theirs, "Slow Show" and "Mistaken For Strangers," were in those three, but I like this one a lot too. They were really well received by the still-small crowd and got more applause than Modest Mouse did when Michael Stipe thanked them both near the end of the show.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:06:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#408, MAY 31 2008).
As the show wore on, it got to be too loud and too hot to stay inside. Luckily, the sound carried out onto the sidewalk just fine, and I was able to record through the storefront windows. This set-closer actually sounds a little bit better than my clips from inside, I think.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:05:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#407, MAY 31 2008).
With gas prices going totally bananas these days, the Box Social is off the road for the summer. Instead they'll be sticking around Wisconsin and Illinois, including a June 28 set at Summerfest. They'll also be continuing to work on material for their next album -- this show had several new songs, including this one, that ought to become set staples as the summer wears on.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:04:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#406, MAY 31 2008).
It tends to be hard to record these guys, because I've seen them so many times that there aren't many songs left that I haven't gotten yet. Both parts of this two-song medley qualify, though, so that helps.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:03:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#405, MAY 31 2008).
So last Saturday we went to the Project Lodge for the first time to see the Box Social, whom I think we hadn't seen last fall. It turned out to be a pretty weird show, so it almost made sense that they opened with the theme song from The Kids in the Hall as a birthday request from somebody in the audience.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:01:20:53. Sunday. MUXT. All right, so Muxtape is fixed, and here it is. This first one has got some of my favorites from 2008 releases. I'll probably not update it that frequently, certainly not more than once a month, but I'll be sure to post when I do.
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