In which I come up with a lame "In which I..." subject line

Normally, I like to be pretty reserved and calm about things. Notice, I say normally. Currently, I'm about to jump out of my skin in a very messy joygasm because I just found out that Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton are coming to Dallas on Wednesday, May 13th. Color me extremely surprised. The last time they were here, the online ticket vendor that Club Dada was using really screwed the pooch and online purchase was completely unavailable until something like three days before the show. Needless to say, it was a rather intimate show. In addition to that, They had just played in Houston and Austin during SXSW a couple weeks ago, and I didn't think that they'd be returning to Dallas this soon. It's rare times like these that I actually like being wrong.

For any non-geeks reading, Jonathan Coulton is computer programmer-turned-folk musician known for his geek-friendly themes such as zombies, unrequited love, monkeys, and mad scientists. His best known work is easily Code Monkey, though two of his other songs have made it into Rock Band, Skullcrusher Mountain and Still Alive, the ending theme to the game Portal. Example:


Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

Paul and Storm were initially part of the a capella group DaVinci's Notebook, who may be familiar to people who listened to Bob & Tom in the '90s. While they still attract fans from that sort of demographic (their song The Captain's Wife's Lament matches that kind of humor), they've expanded and become very geeky in their touring with Jonathan Coulton, as indicated by their song Live. They also wrote the old-timey theme The Ballad of the Sneak for the Brothers Chaps at Homestar Runner.

Rock Band is the new movie soundtrack

Back when I was in high school and later in the Navy, any money I spent on CDs went to movie soundtracks a lot of the time. It allowed me to get pretty much the songs I wanted without having an album full of crap. That said, they also functioned as a way to get me into stuff I'd not normally listen to. Forgive my complete lack of indie cred, but it was thanks to movies like Grosse Pointe Blank that I learned that there was more to the '80s than hair metal and cheesy pop. Those 2 soundtracks introduced me to The Clash, The Pixies, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and Echo & the Bunnymen. The Wedding Singer introduced me to The Smiths and Elvis Costello. And as un-frakking-believable as it is, Queen was virtually unknown to me until Wayne's World. I blame my father for that heinous oversight.

Nowadays, I'm not buying very many CDs anymore. Oddly enough, it's not because of the economy, I have more disposable income than ever before. No, it's primarily because the RIAA. I won't buy a CD from a band that's associated with them unless it's at a concert (the band gets significantly more profit from those sales instead of a buck or two if I bought it at a record store) If I'm going to get new music, I'm probably going to buy it on CDBaby, since they only sell music from independent artists.

I'm still getting exposed to new music, however. Now I get exposed to it through Rock Band. The interesting thing is that people like me are getting exposed to newer stuff we wouldn't normally listen to, and younger people are being exposed to the great things of the past. Some of the stuff that I enjoy playing on Rock Band I wouldn't be caught dead buying (I'm looking at you Modest Mouse and Panic at the Disco).

As for the old stuff that the youngin's (that apostrophe marks the loss of the letter G, not as a way of making it plural) can get exposed to, I'm thinking specifically of Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue, The Grateful Dead's Alabama Getaway (not to mention 2 whole Deadhead track packs), and Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance. I specifically am excluding The Who and Boston because although they're very well represented in Rock Band, you get to hear a lot of them on classic rock stations. Not so much with The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and Judas Priest.

This doesn't even include the independent and Harmonix bands that are included. I've bought a number of Freezepop albums (Sorry, I think Liz Enthusiasm is truly outrageous) since first hearing them on Guitar Hero 1. Bands like Bang Camaro are able to book gigs all over the country instead of merely New England thanks to their exposure in Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Oh! Speaking of independent music. Check out these pair of Youtube videos. The first is Zoë Keating. She's a cellist who's currently touring with Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls). She uses pedals to loop what she's playing through a MacBook so when she plays it's like a cello quartet (or possibly a quintet or sextet.)



The next person, Kutiman, takes music in existing Youtube videos, cuts them up, and makes something completely different. It may take some time getting used to the jittery video, but it's totally worth it.



Sorry for all the links, but I like to give credit to the people who make such awesomeness possible, and I hope you do at least check out a couple of them.

I woke up this morning, had a scone and a large house blend

It's been an interesting start to the weekend. Instead of coming home and going to sleep shortly afterwards, I decided to go to Cafe Brazil to eat breakfast (only because we don't have a Kiev in Dallas and a thousand geek points to whoever gets that reference). This in and of itself isn't out of the ordinary, as I usually do this once every month or two after I get off work for the week. No, the weird thing is that I actually ordered my eggs over medium (though they came out over easy). I've never had eggs any way other than scrambled or boiled. It was actually pretty good, especially with some of the tomatillas and chicken from the enchilada mixed in.

I decided to switch my car insurance provider. Funny story. They decided to hike my premium up ten bucks. I thought this a bit odd since I've not had a wreck or a ticket or any other thing that would make my insurance go up in, oh, ten years. I sent off an e-mail to them politely asking what the deal was, and while I was waiting for a response I went looking for rate quotes elsewhere. It turned out that I could get an identical policy for about $75 cheaper. That's not a reason for switching since it's virtually guaranteed that Progressive would have matched the price. However, when I got my reply from them, the answer they gave me was kind of weak ("Oh, it's the Texas Legislature's fault that we have to charge you more because of insert bill name here") and worse, the lady made the noun "policyholder" plural by adding an apostrophe S. Seriously? Policyholder's? It's not even a common pluralization mistake, like adding an apostrophe S to nouns ending in vowels (like "Oreo's"). So, I sent them another e-mail telling them why I wasn't renewing my policy with them. I wasn't snarky or anything (which is actually quite the accomplishment when we're talking me and grammar), but I did tell them the grammatical error was the thing that pushed me to someone else. Hey, the way I see it, if people aren't notified that they suck in so many words and if there are no consequences for their crappy grammar, then they'll never learn.

After pretty much having absolutely zero interaction with anyone whatsoever barring co-workers for several weeks, I feel I'm getting that "need to be social" vibe again that I hate so. I hate it because people prove to be nothing but a huge disappointment time and again, and it's absolutely moronic of me to have this instinctual need to be get screwed by them, figuratively, not literally. It's getting so bad that I might even go to The Church. I shudder at the thought.

There are a couple things that I'd like to link to, but this post is getting too long as it is, so I'll talk about them in a later post.