Beyond the Blog

Mew-tastic

nobody@vox.com(Eric Lunt) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:52:29 -0500

Fantastic show at the Double Door last night. Those great Danes known as Mew rocked the house with fantastic fidelity, staying very true to the sound of their recordings. Even though I was half-hoping they'd just get up and play And The Glass Handed Kites all the way through, it ended up being a good mixture of songs from that album and Frengers. Lots of surreal visuals behind the band throughout the performance.

The opening band Oh No! Oh My! (or as my brother Blake kept calling them, "Oh me oh my") was pretty good. I'd describe them as 50% Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, 40% Wolf Parade, 20% The Decemberists, and -10% original. That might not be quite fair, but the songs were a bit hit-or-miss. Note to bands everywhere: when the drummer says he's got a song he wants to perform, politely deflect the request. I missed them when they came to Lollapalooza last summer, but I'd see them if they came back this year.

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Los Lobos Acoustic En Vivo

nobody@vox.com(Eric Lunt) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:15:18 -0500

I saw a fantastic show last night ... Los Lobos at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, IL. The venue only seats 350, so it was a fabulous opportunity to see them up close and personal. Of course, by the end of the evening, no one was sitting in those seats -- they turned it into quite a party. They were awesome.

Here's my crappy Treo photo:

Loslobos

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Lullaby Tool

nobody@vox.com(Eric Lunt) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:51:14 -0500

Thank you Boing Boing. I'm looking forward to this compilation from Baby Rock Records in particular:

Rockabye-tool

Track05_Schism

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Eurobeat Rabbit Hole

nobody@vox.com(Eric Lunt) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:20:08 -0500

I mentioned in the "My Sweet Banana" post yesterday that we were listening to some Japanese music stations to get us in the mood for some group Internationalization work at FeedBurner. Earlier in the day, the music was very "Japanese Idol"-like, but then towards the end of the day we were slammed into a bunch of music that sounded like Happy Happy Hardcode-esque rave music. Being fans of the >155BPM genre, we were intrigued, especially since we didn't recognize any of the music, and the lyrics had a very Engrish feel to them.

After some research, I now realize we had been unwittingly transported to the world of Eurobeat music. I love stumbling into rabbit holes like this. It turns out (according to this history) that Eurobeat (and it's slightly slower sibling Eurodance) is exclusively produced in Italy, but then only released in Japan. It starts out on vinyl and then ends up on compliation discs. So, for example, the My Sweet Banana song from yesterday was found on the compilation "Super Eurobeat: Vol. 170". Yes, 170.

That's so cool that there's this whole big genre that I had no idea existed. Steve, you're heading to Japan next week. Would you mind picking up a few compilations for the office? And some Dir en grey too?

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Why no peppers on Y!ME?

nobody@vox.com(Eric Lunt) — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:30:32 -0500

Can anyone tell me why Yahoo! Music Unlimited still isn't offering "Stadium Arcadium" from the RHCP? That really bites.

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