Party All The Time

Yesterday we managed to salvage a BBQ picnic day in Port Moody. The original plan was to assemble with some friends at Buntzen Lake, cook some hot dogs, eat potato salad, swim in the lake, maybe go for a hike, and generally enjoy what I think was the hottest weekend we’ve had this summer. I’d asked everyone to try and get there by noon at the latest, since on all previous sunny day visits to Buntzen, the parking lots fill up by the lunching hour, and once that happens there’s no (decent) way in.

So after some phone-calling panic, we found a spot at nearby Old Orchard Park, which still offered some cool water to swim in (albeit the less-than-pristine but still-not-gonna-kill-you Burrard Inlet) and we didn’t lose any attendees along the way. It was fun to see Ian and Allana, our friends from PG along with their 10 month old son, along with our usual suspects. I also managed to get a friend from work and her hubby to join us, although I’m sure after seeing how we party (you know, that sitting around and blabbing about nothing important, while drinking water) I doubt I manage to fool them a second time into joining our Mundane Parade. After two-thirds of the group left at about 3pm, the rest of us headed to our apartment for a swim in the pool. Strange but true: mid afternoon on a hot day, our pool was totally empty.

Regardless, we had a great day. Overall this has been a pretty good summer. I’m still sporting a fantastic farmer’s tan, but I doubt that will ever change. Also, since it’s Monday, I’m including the greatest song ever recorded that involves the word Party.

Music Video Monday: Ke$ha + Star Trek

I can’t stand auto-tuned pop music, but when set to clips from Star Trek, it’s almost fantastic.

MVM: I’m a Loser, Baby

I realize it’s foolish to bandy about the term genius when it comes to modern rock, because musical genius is usually associated with people like J.S. Bach or Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix or Vanilla Ice. But let’s face it, popular modern music is generally in a sorry state right now. So I’m calling the subject of today’s Music Video Monday a genius because in my opinion he’s the closest thing to a modern rock genius: Beck.

Beck’s parents were both artists (his mother was part of the Warhol Factory, and his father is a Canadian musician) and scientologists. He was born in LA in 1970 and had his breakout hit ‘Loser’ in 1994, a kind of cowboy-twinged slacker rock anthem. Beck’s continually evolved though, and his music has substantially improved with every album. The music he creates generally defies classification, as it blends country, rock, hip hop, and electro sounds to create something new. Compare this to most mainstream musicians and even if you disagree with the term genius, you can’t argue that Beck has made successfully distinct and well-crafted music.

I shall share with you two Beck videos. The first is the video for E-Pro from the album Guero, arguably his best album to date. It’s a fantastic song with a trippy vector-esque computer generated world.

And here’s video two, The New Pollution, from 1996’s Odelay. It was the follow-up album to Mellow Gold, the album that put Beck on the pop-music map. The video is a fun mish-mash of retro imagery - and I’m a sucker for retro imagery.

MVM: One Day Late

It’s been ages since I made a Music Video Monday post, and it’s mostly been because I can’t remember to do it. I probably should have made my feature a Wednesday thing, but Music Video Wednesday just lacks the alliteration that MVM has.

Anyway, while listening to 80s radio on the computer last night, a song played that I hadn’t heard in years. It’s the theme from Electric Dreams, a movie from 1984 that (as a kid) I probably saw half a dozen times. It’s a preposterous story about a love triangle involving a nerd, a computer, and Princess Irulan Virginia Madsen. Electric Dreams was last released in North America on laserdisc - its only DVD release was in the UK - so clearly it’s not even at a cult classic level of reverence among movie watchers. Normally I won’t condone downloading movies, but it’s really the only way to watch it, unless you stumble across a VHS copy, and even then I doubt the condition of the tape would render it watchable. With a 5/10 rating on IMDB, perhaps it’s unwatchable for other reasons too.

So here is the music video for Together in Electric Dreams, with lyrics by Phil Oakley and music by 80s synth superstar Georgio Moroder.

MVM: Short Skirt Long Jacket

Somehow, amid the grunge and Marilyn Manson of my late high school years, a band named Cake was briefly popular. It’s an alternative-pop-rock band with brass-mariachi influences and usually with spoken word lyrics. Odd, you might say, but also pretty cool. They definitely didn’t hit total mainstream, and haven’t put out a new album since 2004. There’s not many official Cake music videos out there, but I thought this one was interesting: it’s just footage of people listening to Short Skirt Long Jacket, offering their opinions of what they hear. In film class you’d probably call this subversive.

New! Music Video Monday

In an attempt to avoid writing about my mundane life, I’m starting a new regular feature here, called Music Video Monday. If you can’t figure out on your own what this involves, please stop reading this, and get yourself an education.

The first installment of MVM has two videos for your viewing pleasure. First: Funkytown by Lipps Inc., a fine example of why disco had to die. While watching this, I had to remark to my ladyfriend, that there will never be an artistic medium that will suffer through an early, unsophisticated, and experimental phase like the music video did. On one hand, that’s too bad. On the other hand, well, let’s be glad this kind of crime against eyeballs will never be perpetrated again.

Next on the list is, maybe, the contemporary version of Funkytown, from about a decade ago: Better Off Alone by Alice Deejay. It’s kind of the same thing: silly lyrics, dance beat, with some catchy synth lines that stay in your head long after listening. This song will forever be linked to my first tour of duty at EA, as a game tester, since it was totally cool at that time, and one of my coworkers would sing it at least once a day.