I really hate how every post has to have a title.

I AM SO ANNOYED THAT THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD CONCERTS THIS SUMMER AND I WON'T BE HERE FOR ANY OF THEM.

Also, this is the second time this week that I have stayed up late enough to catch the sunrise, but on both occasions, I could not actually witness said sunrise because it was so cloudy.

Did you know that I have an aversion to using the Caps Lock key? I usually just hold Shift and type awkwardly.

life goals, 4/21/09

Since it's the end of my sophomore year of college, I thought I would enumerate some of my life goals, in the spirit of reflection and personal growth.

1) Work in a record store.
2) Be enough of a pretentious f*** to get into the Radiohead Decal at Berkeley. AND THEN, openly admit that I infinitely prefer Pablo Honey over OK Computer, which is true, but also apparently very blasphemous.
3) Never own another car besides my '97 Nissan Maxima, which is so undesirable that once, I accidentally left my keys in the ignition, and no one bothered to steal it, but which I love regardless.
4) Become really good at something really useless. I haven't decided what yet.

I used to want to change the world, but this might make me equally happy.

Campus Music Invasion 2009

Well, CMI, it's been fun. After spending this entire semester promoting these 16 bands, it's hard not to have a favorite, and also many that I really don't care for, to put it nicely. But I won't talk about the latter today, maybe some other time. I'm actually really glad, though, that I'm a part of this project, because otherwise, I probably would not have discovered The Gin Riots. They are an amazing punk rock band from England, which is probably sort of a cliche by now, but they are sort of in the tradition of The Clash, The Ramones, etc. Their influences also include The Pogues, The Velvet Underground, and The Cure, which automatically gives them a few million bonus points in my book. They have a very upbeat and energetic sound, which is best displayed on the songs, "I Didn't Mean It" or "Polka." They're pretty big in the underground music scene in London, but their popularity hasn't really spread to the U.S. yet. So here comes the sales pitch: go check out their music, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Now if you'll excuse me, there is a spider in my printer that I really have to attend to.

my war on clutter

So after a hellish week of not having internet, all is well again. I had a bit of a "Welcome Back Wireless Connection" celebration, which basically consisted of downloading a whole bunch of shit onto my computer. Mostly music, but also 4 seasons of the Justice League. How awesome was that show, right? :)

Which brings me to my next point: I have decided that I am going to do some spring cleaning for my music collection, which currently stands at 34.13 GB, and 22.39 GB of it has never been listened to! I think I have a problem of keeping too much music I don't like, in hopes that it will grow on me, because some music is like that. I’m especially reluctant to delete bands that receive a lot of hype, since I can’t help but feel that there is something I’m missing that allows everybody except me to appreciate it. But this ends today, or sometime in the near future! So I hereby vow to give a fair listen to the following bands, and if I still don’t like them, to the Recycle Bin they go. Regardless of what all the music critics in the world think.

1) The Decemberists

2) Bright Eyes

3) Arcade Fire

4) Arctic Monkeys

5) Architecture in Helsinki

6) Band of Horses

7) Beirut

8) Au Revoir Simone

9) Black Mountain

10) Broken Social Scene

11) Dinosaur Jr.

12) Drive-By Truckers

13) Eels

14) The Flaming Lips

15) Hot Hot Heat

16) Husker Du

17) Metric

18) The Residents

19) Sonic Youth

20) The Soviettes

21) Sunny Day Real Estate

22) Tunng

23) The Unicorns

24) Vampire Weekend

Was that necessary, enumerating all of them? I’m sure you don’t think so. Admittedly, when I started, I didn’t think it would be such a long list. If I legitimately obtained all my music, I’d be pretty unnecessarily broke.

an indie music movie soundtrack

Looking at my past posts, I think I've been using the word "love " a lot. I mean it 100% though, always. For instance, I love it when books I...love...get turned into movies. Or more accurately, I'm initially excited. I suppose I don't always love the end result nearly so much. For example, EVERY DR. SEUSS BOOK SO FAR that has been made into a live action movie has thoroughly creeped me out (Jim Carrey as the Grinch?). And Coraline was sort of disappointing too. It was really beautiful, but too kid-oriented. Yes, I know it was a kids' book, but that's no excuse, and if you read the book, you'd understand. SO A QUICK AND SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC THING, I just discovered that in 1970, a movie version of The Phantom Tollbooth was released, and I am absolutely going to watch it, and it should be amazing. But the actual point of this was, Where the Wild Things Are is coming out in theatres later this year(!). Maybe you've seen the trailer? It features an Arcade Fire song, "Wake Up." This is apparently a big deal in the music world. I'm not a big Arcade Fire fan myself, but I do love it when movies feature indie musicians in their soundtracks. I never understood people who like keeping really great bands to themselves. Like all those hipsters who got upset when Garden State came out, and all of a sudden mainstream America loved The Shins. I think it's fantastic when a band I like succeeds, because they absolutely deserve it, and I think it's pretty immature and selfish to want to deny them that just so I can have an unwarranted sense of superiority. I really despise indie kids sometimes, and I don't by any means consider myself to be one. I don't even like Animal Collective, which is basically the indie community's prodigy this year, right? But despite all this, here is my--you've been waiting for this since you read the title of this post--indie music movie soundtrack. It's not perfect, but I actually chose it myself instead of falling to the temptation of setting iTunes on shuffle. Which produces some pretty fun results, but I guess that's for another time.

Opening Credits: Rilo Kiley - "A Better Son/Daughter"

Car Chase: Stars - "Soft Revolution"

Love Scene: Stars - "My Favourite Book"

Ending Credits: Dizzy Balloon - "Young Love"/Badly Drawn Boy - "Four Leaf Clover"

That was pretty fun. I'd like to have a job where I can just sit at a conference table and talk about music I like. I could make movie soundtracks, or choose songs for Rock Band. "I LIKE THIS SONG," or "FALL OUT BOY IS LAME, AND NOT IN A COOL NOSTALGIC WAY BECAUSE THEY'RE FAIRLY RECENT." Maybe I'll go make up some business cards offering my services as a Music Consultant. No, I probably won't. I just Googled it, and the title is already taken for a less-cool job.