Thursday, October 28, 2010

A Thousand Suns: a review

Happy Thursday. A while back, I was asked if I even bought cds anymore. I thought about it, and my answer was a qualified "yes": I buy novelty cds (Big Band/standards compilations from department stores) and I'd buy "the next Linkin Park cd." The latter being some hypothetical and perpetual occurrence.

I hadn't had the chance to test my assertion until a few days ago, when, armed with a paycheck, I went and put money out on all sorts of things. One of which was a cd. It's probably the first cd I've paid for since Big Band Salute. It was the new Linkin Park cd.

It's been out for over a month, but it came out quietly. The first I even saw of the promise of a new album was from one of those sidebar ads on Facebook, of all places. I new it would be something different, since you have to expect something different ever since Minutes to Midnight, which was released two and a half years ago.

I went into it with an open mind (which it turns out I didn't even need), and I've never been so proud to be a Linkin Park fan. On top of that, I've never spent money so well as on A Thousand Suns.

GUYS I LOVE THIS ALBUM.

Hybrid Theory, their first studio album, was released ten years ago. This is not that album. What they've done in ten years is what the Beatles did in five and what Bob Dylan did in three: simultaneously reinvent the sound of the band and release their highest achievement to date.

It's their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Highway 61 Revisited, combined.

I don't know if it's my dalliance in the backlog of popular music that has attuned me to appreciate this album, but I think it helped me...helps me recognize effort, recognize...greatness in my time. It's all well and good to look back and see the effect Sgt. Pepper had on the late 60s, to look in awe at how far those lads from Liverpool had come, musically and literally. But to get this Thousand Suns and listen to it for the first time when no one else has listened to it and analyzed it and seen what comes next...this is the band of my generation--of my youth, personally--and to be in the stream of time as it happens, rather than looking back at the big picture....

Listen to this song. I Saw Her Standing There, the first track on the Beatles' first album, recorded in 1963. You like it. Everyone likes it. It's of the time, outside the time, drawing you in with its perfect simplicity. It's everything that made the Beatles the biggest act of their day.

Now listen to this. A Day in the Life, from the 1967 concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Do you like this song? It doesn't even matter. Is this song a landmark of musical ingenuity and skill? No two ways about it. Is it a turning point for the band? Of course, there was nothing like this ever before, anywhere. Is it greatness? Undoubtedly. You don't even need time to tell.

Start over.

Listen to this song. Song to Woody, from Bob Dylan's first, self-titled album, released in 1962. One of the very first songs he ever wrote for himself. It's simple, it's folksy; just Dylan, his words, and a guitar: it's everything that made Bob Dylan great.

Now listen to this. Like a Rolling Stone, from the 1965 full electric album Highway 61 Revisited. Is it different? Oh yeah. Did it stop him from being among the greatest songwriters of the 60s and all time? Didn't I just see him perform this in concert a few months ago? And how many times have you heard this song in your life? How many times have you heard "Song to Woody?"

(Further listening on the change of Bob Dylan)

This history lesson is my preemptive strike against the doubters, the people who didn't bother to or regretted spending money on A Thousand Suns.

Listen to this song. In The End, from 2000's Hybrid Theory. Is it good? It's what made Linkin Park great. To this day, if I even see the words "Linkin Park," I get the piano riff instantly stuck in my head. It's of the time, outside the time. It's new (nu-metal, The Man dubs it), it's overflowing with raw teen angst.

Now listen to A Thousand Suns. As great as Hybrid Theory is, the magnitude of difference between it and the new album is the same as the difference between the songs and albums mentioned above.

If Minutes to Midnight was a shock, a shocking change, that's only because it was a stepping stone to what they were really trying to do. The title of the previous album comes from the Doomsday Clock, by which scientists anticipated the proverbial End. It was a politically charged album, raging against the establishment instead of just against post-adolescent injustices.

It was an angry album. They all have been. Angry at ones own frustrations, situations, insecurites, the ones who wronged you, the oppressors, the government. It was very much a "you and I" battle, these first albums. You've hurt me and I'm angry at you.

I feel like in A Thousand Suns, the anger is still there, still focused at The Man from Minutes to Midnight, but that the dynamic has changed. Now it's "you and Them, and I'm angry at Them for you." It's a much more...sympathetic anger? Angry at the war machine on behalf of those it hurts.

Instead of "I tried so hard and got so far / but in the end, it doesn't even matter,"[In The End] it's "You say / you're not gonna fight / 'cause no one will fight for you" [Robot Boy].

From Given Up [Minutes to Midnight]
Wake in a sweat again
Another day's been laid to waste
In my disgrace
Stuck in my head again
Feels like I'll never leave this place
There's no escape


to Iridescent
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go
Let it go


And beyond the lyrics, there's the musical experimentation, bold Sgt. Pepper stuff. The first 13 minutes, five tracks, are a solid block of...sonic experience. There's also a whole song--I'll show you:

Jornada Del Muerto
持ち上げて
解き放して


Bold. Bold statements being made here, musically. And the end, there's a whole, like, suite to wrap it up, touching on a bunch of things you've already experienced...it blows my mind. It's narrative, almost, this album. To listen to just one song would be to watch just one scene of a movie. To put it on shuffle would be to watch the episodes out of order.

And there's clips of historic speeches and statements, anti-war the lot of them, set to a beat between "real" songs. The first track has the Sputnik peep offset with this piano beat. The same piano bit comes back in Waiting for the End, and the Sputnik peep comes back in Jornada Del Muerto.

It's a very dark album, gives me the image of post-apocalyptica. Like this comes from a different time, where Midnight's come and gone, it's already too late. Maybe it's just because I was just playing Fallout 3 the other day. Maybe it's the BSG tones I hear in a particular piano riff, or the crazy drum intro to When They Come For Me. Or the opening to Catalyst, which gives me vibes from Akira's wind-swept Neo-Tokyo.

My least favorite track is Wretches and Kings, because it sounds the most like the old stuff. Personally, it serves as a reminder of just how much more I like the new stuff. There's still Mike's vicious rap, there's still Chester's epic screaming, but more than that there are songs where one or both of them sing with the smoothest, most melodic voices of angels you EVER heard. And the harmonies!! There are no words.

Okay, so this turned out not so much a review, but I just needed to express myself on this subject. It's...something more than just "the new Linkin Park cd." It's history in the making.

Forget being bigger than the Beatles. How am I supposed to beat this?

Maybe it's just the right sound at the right time, and I was in the right mood to hear it, but I think it's just perfect. If your opinion differs from mine on this, I don't want to hear it. Because if you don't see what this album is, if you don't think that this is amazing, I will remember you. And perhaps time will fade my grudge, but until then I won't be able to take your musical opinion very seriously.

Maybe you only like traditional Irish lute music, though. Maybe that's your thing. That's okay if you don't like the way this sounds. But if you like good music, regardless of label, you have no excuse.

And if you're looking for the old Linkin Park albums, you know where to find them.

-Steph

Thursday, October 21, 2010

More little pies

Happy Thursday! Super rainy week! Thunder rattlin' windows and lightning everywhere. It's exciting.

This week I did a lot of odd projects. I sorted a big pile of coins (literally a pile) and tucked some away into my coin collecting books. YEAH I COLLECT COINS. Found some pennies in there from 1959 and a bunch from the 60s and I collect everything from the 60s.

Went online and found a recipe for copper cleaner, lol. Powder detergent, vinegar, lemon, flour, salt, water. The vinegar and detergent did the whole science fair volcano explosion, it was epic. And then I scrubbed pennies all afternoon. With a travel toothbrush. Hang out with me, dude, I'm loads of fun.

But now I got $8.50 of pure pennies to take straight to the bank. The $54 of silver I gave to my mom for cash monies. AND I still have another Kleenex box full of change. Yes. Another. I don't know why I chose that method of storage.

The next day I put together a fingerprint dusting kit, which was mostly just smashing up a bunch of mechanical pencil leads. It worked okay, but the dust could have been finer. Or my fingerprints more greasy.

One of those days I made some candles out of other candles?

Yeah that was the day I wandered around downtown and passed the same hippie twice, and it was raining and then it got hot, and then it rained again. And later it hailed? It was a strange day.

One day I baked some apples. I guess that was yesterday. Today I baked some little apple pies. Crans and apples, and walnuts and pecans on top. Probably coulda used less than 400 degrees, they came out kinda dry. They taste good but not amazing. I'll work on it.

Steamed my pumpkins and froze the gloop. Four cups for pies and cookies. But I'll probably go get another or two before the pumpkin season is over, freeze some more for the rest of the holidays. And beyond.

Today at guitar class I practiced and learned the last of his curriculum. 9-Year-Old wasn't there so I had free reign to strum and strum. Today it was just me, Quiet Girl, her sister, Confused Dad, Overzealous Mom, Thinks She Can Play, Chatty Uncle, Youth Group Guy, Blind Girl, College Guitar and Dad. It still took an hour for him to go around and listen to everybody.

Then we learned a new song, which was actually a bass part, so I was all dootdoodoo perfect, I got this. And then I played my bass songs until it was time to go.

Two more classes in the next month, and he's got nothing left to teach me. At this point I'd say I'm conditioned to learn how to play the guitar. From here on, I can basically teach myself, or have Beth show me. But now I have the callouses and the coordination to move around the guitar, and I've seen just what forty minutes of repetition can do, I just gotta keep it up. Cool. I'm comin' for you, Eric Clapton.

Speaking of. The note he bends at 6:26 just makes my heart stop. Augh. Genius.

Other than all that, this week was mostly work and trying to beat Borderlands again. We're so close.

Oh me and Carolyn and Jacqi also hung out at the mall (?!) where I bought this cute AWESOME cat astronaut shirt. A cat face in an astronaut helmet. I love it. I'm wearing it right now. It's brown. It's perfect.

I also have a catfish in my tank that I'm raising for Carolyn. It'll hopefully get up to 6 inches, so it'll be less of a target for her turtles and then can nom on all the stuff on the bottom that no one else nommed. Hooray fish.

Yep that's about it. Imma go play video games. Peace.

-Steph

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Epoch Round Two

Happy Thursday! Weather update real quick. So it was cold and wintry all summer, right? And then September comes along and it's like, heat wave city. Then that ended and I thought it was all over. But October has surprised me, it's been nicer than summer ever was. But it does crazy things, like be in the 70s, then the fog rolls in, then the night is clear, then the next day starts foggy and clear up to like, rain clouds, then the day after that looks like rain clouds and then gets hot and then the fog rolls in.

Last night I saw the fog swirling around the door outside of work, I could see the fog particles. But by my house an hour later it was just regular fog. Today was dark but not cold. I guess I'm just surprised that winter didn't jump right in like I thought it would. It's great.

It is pretty dark pretty early, now, though, so walking to guitar class is in pitch darkness, whereas two weeks ago it was sunset.

When he went around and had us play the chord sequence we'd been practicing, he told me to play it stronger (typical timid me), so I was strumming and strumming for the next hour so my buddy didn't really have the chance to chatter. It's sort of shocking how fast an hour goes by when you're just playing seven chords over and over. Next week we're going to be playing the melody and the chords for Camptown Races, in partners. That's the idea, but I'll be paired with 9-year-old, who spends his time in this class the same way I spent my time in Orchestra, which is to say, it wasn't his idea to be there.

Oh yes, the roster this week. Eleven of us. Me, 9-year-old, Overzealous Mom, Dad, Youth Group Girl, Confused Dad, Middleschooler, College Guitar, Talkative Uncle, Youth Group Guy, and Thinks She Can Play.

But even with this hour and a half of practice every week, I can see some improvement. What I was playing today was G B7 C G A7 D7 G. Last week I was only just playing the one on the list right before this, G C D7 G, G and C being the hardest for me so far. So this time I learned B7 from scratch, and kept at G and C, and I was doing preeeeetty well by the end of the hour. I felt encouraged.

9-year-old asked me if I played any other instruments so I played him a bit of the bass blues line, and he liked that. The funniest movie he's ever seen is Killers, and the first dance is next Thursday from 3:00 to 4:00 (so he'll be making it to class), his favorite color is purple, and he only has like twenty minutes a day to do his homework.

Did I tell you I got some more pumpkins? When was that? Since the first pie, me and my mom went back and got some more pumpkins. One to carve, one to cook, three to serve stew in. My mom told the guy I made the best pie with his pumpkin last time, so he gave us two more to make some more pies and bring him one.

With one little pumpkin, like, 6 inches or so, I got two cups of pumpkin goo. The recipe wants three, but it still turned out okay. I used only one can of evaporated milk and only two eggs. Made enough for one full pie (which is promised to Jacqi) and today I used the rest (less than half) to make 12 mini pies in a muffin tin. Used one batch of the best dough (1 cup flour, 1 stick butter, 4 oz [half a pack] cream cheese). Now I need to make so many more mini pies. They're so cute and so hand-holdable.

This pumpkin pie recipe I'm using, I just googled "homemade pumpkin pie" and clicked the first link, which is how I find anything on the internet. Happens that the recipe is from pickyourown.org, which is also the site I'd been looking at in the summer about pickling. Small world. Use that recipe! The page is a little unwieldy, but once you get the idea you can work on your own. Now that I'm a pumpkin pro, I'm just referring to it for the spice quantities and the baking time/temp. Training wheels.

Next imma bake some apples. The holiday season really brings out the baker in me, shoot.

Oh, so. November is like, any day now. Or two weeks. I'm gearing up for continuing(/finishing?) my novel I started for NaNoWriMo last year. Haven't written A WORD for it since December 1st hahahahaha. But I been thinking and thinking and now that I'm sorta will I/won't I/will I about this year's challenge, I've been solidifying a lot of thoughts into what I hope will be another 50,000 words.

Wish me luck!

And a happy happy Thursday Birthday to Melody, who is SEVEN today! Woooo!

-Steph

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Pumpkin

Happy Thursday! I have a horrible pain right in my back. I'm thinking of not spending too much time on this because of it.

Second guitar class was today. Or. Hour and a half practice time I'm paying for was today. We have a list of chord progressions to learn, and so he went around listening to everyone do the farthest one down the list they could do. I was first or second so he was all "Ok, try the next one."

So I tried the next one for the next hour.

For the last half hour I played the "blues scale" in E.

Then we went home.

And for the full hour and a half, I listened to the life story of my new best friend, 9-Year-Old, who is in fact twelve. Srsly. His whole life. Like. Every part of it.

This week our numbers dwindled. So just me, 9-Year-Old, Quiet Girl, Punk Rock Kid, Blind Girl, Thinks She Can Play, College Guitarist (whom my mom picked out across the dark parking lot just based on my description), New Dad, Dad, Little Mexican Lady, Talky Uncle, and Youth Group Guy. Now that I think of it, New Dad might be Confused Dad, who was sitting behind me last week so I dunno.

Yeah it's thrilling.

So the heat wave ended and then it rained a couple nights, which was pleasant. Seems like it'll be sunny for a while, now, but freezing. Fall flipped a switch.

So the other day I walked to the thrift store and picked up The Essential Bob Dylan 2-disc Special Limited Edition Digitally Remastered Classics on 2 CDs! for $2.25. Continued on to Longs for evaporated milk, a pie crust, and cream cheese. Continued back around to the pumpkin patch and selected a pumpkin for the kill. Then I walked home with all my treasures.

Cooking a pumpkin is rather easy. I chose the steaming method, which was simple. Then it needed to be blended, which was not as simple. Then it went into a pie mix and into some crusts. The store-bought one burn burn burned, which made me sad because I love a pumpkin pie with a graham cracker crust*. The second one was an emergency pie because we had a whole pie's worth of pumpkin filling left over. Luckily I had that cream cheese which is 1/3 of the world's best pastry dough.

The emergency pie is a little spicy (I doubled all the spices), a little fluffy (for denser pie use less evaporated milk and only three eggs), and somewhat lacking in pumpkin flavor (? I totes put that pumpkin in there). But otherwise it is a success.

*The last time I attempted a pumpkin pie was a few years back. I used canned pumpkin and tried to build a graham cracker crust from scratch, and overall it was a disaster. I decided to stick to apple from then on. But this week was a pumpkin week.

It's really hard not to type pumpking.

That's about all I can remember about this week. Other than listening to 99.9 KTYD nonstop. Check it out. It'll change your life.

Honestly. I just went there to gather the link and they're playing the Beatles. And right at midnight there's usually a whole Beatles set, like they can't figure out how best to handle heir sudden lack of a DJ. Now it's playing Queen. Perfect station.

-Steph