I recently got to thinking about The Weight, and remembered this old video of Wilco, Nick Lowe and Mavis Staples rehearsing backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago.
There was something about the song that made it seem a good Sunday evening track. Liz and I were both working on our computers in the office, and it was a period of quiet and slow productivity. Felt like trying to share the moment.
Created by Kijek / Adamski, the stop-motion animation was created with about 2,000 silhouettes extracted from PVC plates using a computer-controlled cutter.
When shifted into a major key, everything sounds much more upbeat, happier. And the disconnect that happens in your brain is a kind of delightful thing, with you comparing what you’re hearing with the version you remember. The sensation is what I imagine a Prozac-forced smile to feel like.
Been going back to this early Tom Waits album, and fixating on a few songs. This one has been looping more than the others, lately.
I’ve been listening a lot to Scarlet Tanager lately, on Rdio. They had an album out recently called American Songbird, and I’ve been enjoying most of the songs so far.
I know I’ve posted this already on FB and Twitter, but I find myself re-watching this video and smiling every time. It’s playful, and makes me feel good each time I see it (the guy that shows up at 0:35 and waves always cracks me up).
A delightfully cute (and only slightly gruesome) video about really bad ways to go out. Reminded me a bit of Happy Tree Friends, but leaning a lot heavier on the cuteness.
It’s hard for me to pinpoint why I seem to like this song so much much, and why I have it looping incessantly. I think a lot of it has to do with the refrain, and the slow, floating cascade that happens in terms of both volume and musical notes.
When he sings the refrain, he’s hitting those top two notes forcefully… and then slowly sliding down the scale, settling into the next line.
It started with a list of 25 songs, voted on by readers. As each group came in to perform a song, they would have to pick one from the list. Once performed, that song was crossed off… which resulted in a smaller list of songs later musicians could choose from. Naturally, this ended up creating some really interesting pairings.
The first 60 seconds or so are exactly what I was looking to do with a song by The Books entitled Tokyo: apply a small animation to a specific instrument or musical phrase, and try to map out the entire song as a series of tiny animated clips.
So you know, this is a kind of commercial (it’s sponsored by Trident, hence all the gum-chewing). BUT. It’s still awesome, and still worth a watch. Normally, I dislike having two video posts back to back… but I was just laughing so much at this, I needed to share it. In case you have doubts…
I happened across this video very randomly, as it was included as placeholder content in a carousel for a random WordPress theme. I’ve seen it repeatedly for some time now, but today was the first time I actually hit the “play” button. Once the animation began, I was hooked.
The lines “And all you need is just one more excuse,” and “I want to hear your very best excuse” are perfect for me. Whenever I feel my energy flagging, I fixate on these two lines and dig in a little more.
As of this second week, I’m becoming more aggressive about our runs – treating them in a kind of combative way. I’m hoping this will change, as I can’t imagine maintaining this mindset for a super long time. But for now, it’s giving me a good kick in the ass, to ensure I keep at it.
Even if you’re not a fan of Breaking Bad, I think you’ll enjoy this great remix video by Chris Lohr. I’ve seen mention that there are some spoilers (from Seasons 1/2), but I don’t think there’s that much here.