King Ink

Patrick and I went to Swan Song Tattoo in Marconi (a couple blocks past Trastevere) and got inked. He got the Radiohead symbol from Meeting People is Easy and I gave the guy a freehand drawing of an electric guitar. The guy who did mine was really cool, he had Justice playing in background and we talked about them while he worked.

Covers for a Cause

A cover compilation called War Child- Heroes vol. 1 just came out and the proceeds are being offered to help children affected by war. It's good music and it helps me purge some of my American guilt that it's supposed to be politically incorrect for me not to have. Seriously, I care about the children but I'm no Sheryl Crow fan (I fucking hate her in fact).

I downloaded Hot Chip's cover of Transmission by Joy Division and I liked it a lot. I might even download the rest of this compilation. v

Warm Leatherette

The other day I was listening to "Losing My Edge", one of my favorite songs by LCD Soundsystem. The track is about an old-school music aficionado being outdone by a new generation of hipsters. There's a part in the song where Murphy gives a list of bands that definitely influenced LCD Soundsystem and one he named was the normal. I was like, huh...never heard of them anywhere else. So I searched iTunes and I turned up only one single and I was thinking, crap not another artist that I have to torrent...

But the normal, I found out after doing some research, only produced two tracks: warm leatherette and T.V.O.D. The former of the two is an unsettling synth-pop track about a car wreck that ends with the laughably strange conclusion of lovemaking in the flames. The ladder is about an addiction to TV and bears an unmistakable resemblance in song structure to warm leatherette. The vocals remind me of someone reading a psalm to music; like The Talking Heads or The Modern Lovers the lyrics sound almost more like a story being read than straight singing. The music consists of looped synth samples over drum machine that should sound annoying, but behind Miller it somehow works.

I figured that it's worth bringing up the normal since so few people have heard of them. They are an interesting little project and it will only take you...oh..6 minutes and 16 seconds to hear their whole
body of work.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Last week I bought the soundtrack to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and I'm really pretty impressed. I haven't seen the movie yet and I'm not necessarily in a hurry but I found out about the album after hearing an unreleased Vampire Weekend song called, Ottoman. The song is exclusive so I went out on a limb and bought the whole soundtrack.
I'd listened to We are Scientists, Vampire Weekend, Rogue Wave, and the Shout Out Louds but the other bands were new to me. There are a couple interesting bands on there. Check out Trust Your Stomach by Marching Band. Best track as far as I'm concerned.

How to Disappear Completely

Here are the things I'm doing in Rome to enjoy myself and to not piss anyone off or get myself killed:

-I always try to be very nice to those Italians I talk with, but not in a patronizing remember-which-country-I'm-from way.

-I am committed to learning as much Italian as I can here. I can't even tell you how annoying it is to me when I see someone (an American especially) who has obviously made no effort to learn the language and is visibly agitated when an Italian isn't one-hundred percent fluent in English.

-With a couple exceptions, I try and avoid getting hammered. I love the United States dearly and don't want to soil her reputation by yarking all over the bar. No, thank God, that hasn't happened to me (yet?).

-I don't carry my camera everywhere; I'm going to be here for 3 months so there's no need to be a slave to it.

-I avoid McDonalds like the plague (not that I frequent them in the US either).

-Being a musician, I try be generous towards buskers.

Getting lost in Rome helps me to forget about all the political bullshit going on back in the states. Sometimes it feels good to just disappear.

Dig yourself LAZARUS!!! Dig yourself. . .

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is the latest offering of Nick Cave and the Bad seeds and even though it's been out for a couple months now I only found it after reading Pitchfork's top 100 songs of 08. I am a huge fan of Nick Cave's work in his first band, the dark, twisted, sort-of-sick-in-the-head goth/post-punk group: The Birthday Party. I fell in love with his throaty, warbling voice after listening to the 1982 album Junkyard and up until a couple weeks ago never really listened to his work in the Bad Seeds. While nothing compares to the macabre and humorously screwed-up lyrics of the Birthday Party (especially in songs like Release the Bats) the Bad Seeds succeed as a more accessible and mainstream outlet for Nick Cave's creative genius.

Dig does a good job of mixing fast, catchy tracks like "Dig Lazarus Dig!!!" with slower piano driven tracks like those found on The Boatman's Call. The storytelling and odd images in many of the album's tracks are reminiscent of Frank Zappa and the Mothers or Tom Waits (two of the highest compliments I feel I can pay a rock artist). Lastly, the production is gritty enough to add integrity to the recordings and it doesn't feel overproduced. Dig is very satisfying album, especially after a hiatus of four years, which is normally enough time to really make me worry whether a band is finally going lose its edge.

Roma!

Bought a wireless router yesterday. I've been in Rome since saturday without internet and it probably sounds pathetic, but at times the lack of wi-fi has been crippling. I've been barhopping and studying and smoking like a chimney since I got here and I feel so at home; especially now that I can blog etc. It took me four days with almost no internet access to realize the gravity of my Facebook addiction. When I discovered there was no wireless at the Villa I was cursing and clenching my fists and banging on my keyboard. But now, like a junkie who's found a fix after days of crawling through the gutters in search of tricks and dealers, my cravings have been satisfied. Now back to replying to the long quei of emails inquiring on where I am and if I'm dead or not.