For several years running there has been, by common consent among friends, an official/unofficial, sometimes disputed, song of the summer. After an extended email conversation recently with a beloved former contributor (he who shall not be named), I decided to collect a few nominations. Past songs of the summer have been big and epic with [...]
Archive for the ‘Sounds’ category
Home tour
In downtown L.A., on a street that comes to an end where the Santa Monica freeway whizzes by overhead, architect Michael Maltzan has built a new apartment building called the Carver Apartments. There are a few things that are unusual about this. One is the shape: the building is like a doughnut – a cylinder [...]
Once you have these notes in your heads, you can sing a million different tunes by mixing them up: A participant-observer at the piano bar
Why do gay men love musical theater? There are various “deep” critical-theory-type answers, I’m sure. At least part of the reason, though, has to be simply that musicals are at least a little bit fun for everyone (show me a child who hates Mary Poppins and I’ll show you an unholy demon-spawn), but they’re deprecated [...]
Tim & J-Man’s mix for a cold summer’s day
Summer has yet to come to the Southland. We’ve created a mix to keep us all warm until the sun decides to grace us with its presence once again. Happy listening! 1. Love and Hate – Blitzen Trapper 2. Blown Out – Jimmie Spheeris 3. Let Loose The Horses – Rescues 4. Ok, Its Alright [...]
“The same, safe, sexy route”
Dave and I were both pretty sauced when he suggested that I write this post. We were leaving a house party where there had been a serious amount of dancing, mostly to our new pop crush Janelle Monae. I haven’t danced as much as I did that night in years, and, generally, I don’t even [...]
Shape my summer
So as this is a worldly group out there in Whatsitland, I want to pick your brains. I’ll be spending June traveling, mostly to places I have been before, and I want to see them through new eyes. YOUR eyes. We’re starting with a few days in London, and at some point over the course [...]
Your kids can dance to it while it wins a war
Anyone interested in music, history, technology, and how all three sometimes converge will find Dave Tompkins’s recently published book How to Wreck a Nice Beach fascinating reading. It’s a history of the vocoder from its development in the 30s by Bell Labs as a voice encryptor for the US Military to its infiltration of techno [...]
Art of Noise
When I was a kid my parents took my brother and me to museums all the time. Art was a significant part of how our family spent time together. From our small town in upstate New York we would make forays to Utica, Albany, Binghamton, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Buffalo, etc., specifically to [...]
Ladies
What is it about awesomely danceable pop songs that creates gender trouble? It seems that both boys and girls like to get down to Beyoncé, but it’s not as comfortable for boys to do it. (I reference but do not embed the Justin Timberlake/SNL and gawky Joe Jonas versions.) Boys do get to make nerdy [...]
Friday Fill-in Playlist
Just for anyone who might want something to tide him or her over until Monday, here’s a playlist consisting of the ten most recently played songs from my iTunes library. I’m not entirely sure how some of these songs got in there, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Ten Most Recent Plays Bonus! A [...]
