New Music Found

I really enjoy finding entirely new music, both new artists and new forms of music. This is usually especially good when found in the context of a live show. The energy and sound from a live show is still unmatched by any recording medium I have found.

Last night, I took Shannon to a concert by Patty Griffin. I have discussed her recently in my 5 of the now album post. Her portion of the show was tremendous. Her band was awesome, the Englert Theater in Iowa City is a great place to hear a small show, and her voice made perfect use of that setting. They ranged from slow, bluesy numbers, to soft folk ballads, to some rocking guitar licks. All great stuff.

Her drummer for the evening happened to be a member of her opening act, Terremoto. I knew absolutely nothing about these guys coming into the night, but they were awesome as well. The band is just 2 guys, but they play a wide assortment of instruments, ranging from the stand-up bass to bongo drums. Their music is primarily Latin and Cuban, with strong Brazilian influences. They also did a very cool New Orleans Jazz number. Primarily their songs are instrumental, but both members also have vocal portions for several of the songs. Great stuff, definitely worth a listen.

Update: Ryan nicely points out that their music is available from iTunes.
I believe their next album will be on CDBaby as is their current one, so I may go that route to try to pad their pockets a bit more.

Negative Feedback

No, not Ebay, a bank. I do plan to create a financial advise blog very shortly, as I have a fair amount of experience in that area. Until I do, I will have to let some of it leak into this blog.

For tonight, enjoy my response to a certain large banking company who requested that I fill out a survey after a recent loan application. Keep in mind that I am glad to see companies requesting feedback of any kind, but I was particularly annoyed with them.

I did not have any problems with a recent mortgage through Countrywide, so I assumed I would not have problems with an equity loan either. Since I had the offer on my online account, I assumed it could be done more cheaply and easily than somewhere else also.

Instead, while I wanted to be closed within 2 weeks of my loan application (about 2 weeks before the end of the year), it was a few weeks into the new year before I received anything in the mail.

Once I did receive the package, I was expected to fax/mail an exorbitant amount of paperwork. My emails to my designated loan officer about this went completely unanswered.

Moreover, the closing costs were $600, compared to my local bank, who were able to close within 3 days, who had costs of $48.

So, a company that had just recently obtained all of my information and advertised this service to me (Countrywide), was completely inattentive, slow, and wanted to charge me over $500 more than my local bank for the privilege.

Congratulations. That is a spectacular formula for generating negative word-of-mouth and pissing off existing customers.

5 of the Now - Long and Varied

Something different this time. 5 albums rather than songs (that's the long part), and in a progressively different range of music (that's the varied).

This will start with rock-influenced rap, to rap, to rap + orchestra, to folk. Dig? (I aplogize, I can't get iTunes to very elegantly link to just an album. I did try to link to my favorite songs on each of these.)

1. Lyrics Born - Overnite Encore: Lyrics Born Live!
It's no secret that this guy is hands down one of my favorite performers. This performance blows the doors off about anything else you might hear too. Find somebody else with more energy in their performance. Seriously, because I want to hear them if they exist.
I would suggest listening to some of his other stuff first though, as this is almost better as you hear him improvise with his existing material. Rock/rap cannot be combined better than this.

2. Dilated Peoples - Expansion Team LP
I discussed in a previous 5 of the now track how I found out about Dilated thanks to Evidence being on a track with Lyrics Born (check out that smooth segway..). Shortly after that, I actually bought all 4 of their albums, mostly unheard. I liked their stuff that much.
I'm actually recommending their initial release from 2000 as the one to get if you can get only one. Check out the final track, "War", especially. The 'Dubya should be required to have this as his bedtime music (or the asshole from Diebold...but I digress).

3. Nuttin But Stringz - Struggle from the Subway to the Charts
This stuff is crazy good. These brothers are equally adept at rapping or playing classical violin. I first saw them while watching Noggin with the kids, but it turns out they were recently in the movie "Step Up" which I watched as well. Fantastic stuff.

4. Phish - The Story of the Ghost
Time to chill. Most people would not be surprised in the slightest to see a Phish album pop up on the blog of somebody with some pretty obvious interest in Pink Floyd. However, I'm actually not a big Phish fan. This is one of the few exceptions. I recently found this CD buried in a box, and began listening to it again. Smooth, flowing tracks.

5. Patty Griffin - Flaming Red
Shannon was the one who found this, which makes sense because this is very much her style of music. A cross between Sheryl Crow and more folk-influenced singers such as Loreena McKennitt. Very mellow music. The track, "One Big Love" was the one I originally helped her track down, and is probably my favorite as well.


Let it never be said that I don't listen to a wide range of music...

Random Dumbness

It's Sunday night. Bear with me as I hit you with some mostly random stories of stupidity.

I was going to post about the stuff on Slashdot from today that just plain made me angry. Especially the comment from the guy who said, "I'm smarter than most other people (98th percentile)...", but I just couldn't contain my rage long enough to write about it.

Instead, I'll start you with this gem. This guy lives near an International border and doesn't bother to check if he can build a 4 foot wall? I would check on that for my own private property lines, which come nowhere near the border of even a small municipality. Moreover, why did they need a $15,000 wall to contain erosion? I could have set them up with a few hefty bags strung together like the DOT uses, and pocketed the rest.

Next, less pure stupidity, and into the scary stupid category. How do we have government agencies that are setup to be so dumb? "Hey, let's kill the golden goose, because that's what our process says to do." I'm sorry (not really), but I completely disagree with this type of thinking. This is wrong and should be stopped/blocked/killed immediately.

Man, I see why Lewis Black finds it so easy to come up with material and get worked up over it. Because of that, I will leave you with some great quotes of his:

"Metal detectors don't work. I went through the metal detector and they said, 'we're gonna hafta check you.' 'I just went through the metal detector. That should be it.' Then they check you again. That means, that doesn't fuckin' work, does it? All right, so then, they got a thing called a wand. It's the same thing. It's like a metal detector for your hand. And they go, woo-wooo, and then you're clear and then they say, 'well, we'll pat you down.' Well that didn't fuckin' work either then, did it? And if what you really need to do is pat us down, then pat us down. Pat us the fuck down. Don't do this bullshit. Don't send me through two fake things that don't work."

and now a long one...

"When from behind me, a woman of 25 uttered the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life ... She said, 'If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.' I'll repeat that. I'll repeat that because that's the kind of sentence that when you hear it, your brain comes to a screeching halt. And the left hand side of the brain looks at the right hand side and goes, 'It's dark in here, and we may die.' She said, 'If it weren't for my horse...' as in, giddy up, giddy up, let's go - 'I wouldn't have spent that year in college,' a degree-granting institution. Don't! Don't think about that sentence for more than three minutes, or blood'll shoot out your nose. The American medical profession doesn't know why we get an aneurysm. It's when a blood vessel bursts in our head for no apparent reason. There's a reason. You're at the mall one day, and somebody over there says the dumbest thing you've ever heard and it goes in your ear. So you turn around to see if your friends heard it, cause if your friends heard it, and you can talk about what the jackass said, then it'll be gone. But your friends are over here, pretending they're gonna buy a cellular phone, and they're not gonna buy a cellular phone, because they don't even understand how the rate structure works. So you turn back, to find the person who said it, because if you can ask 'em a question like, 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?!' then it'll go away. But they're gone. And now those words are in your head. And those words don't go away. Cause the way I see it, 7% of our brains functions all the time, because 99% of everything that happens is the same old stuff. We get it. All right. Move on. Get it. Right. But every so often, somethin' like that happens: 'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.' So your brain goes, 'LET'S FIGURE IT OUT! Son of a bitch! I wonder what that's about!' I wonder, was she riding the horse to school? No, she wouldn't be riding the horse to school. Maybe it was a polo pony; she had a polo pony scholarship. Maybe she sold the horse and that's how she - she was betting on the horse! WHAT THE FUCK?!! And then you realize that anybody who went to college would never say anything that stupid in public. And as soon as you have that thought, your eyes close and the next morning they find you dead in your bathroom."