What is going in my iPod...(cont'd)

Here are some albums that I recently dusted off the shelf and loaded to my iPod to give new life. I love the shuffle function to go thru and pick all these old songs that I haven't listened to in a while. There is no rhyme or reason to the order in which I pick these albums.


Beth Orton - Daybreaker
I picked up this album in the Summer of 2002 at the Virgin Megastore on Michigan Ave in Chicago. Listening to these tunes remind me of that Holiday.

Cocteau Twins - Stars and Topsoil: a collection 1982-1990

I love dreampop, what can I say? Basically this is a collection of songs showing their progression of sound during the 4AD years.

Charity Empressa - Self-Titled
I am very lucky to have this in my possession as it is sought after and hard to find. This is Eric C (Cupie) of the Prayer Chain, Lassie Foundation, and Cush and his brand of drone, post rock noise dreaminess with a wide guest of vocalist and musicians including Jason Martin and Wayne Everett.

Chapterhouse - Whirlpool

Their first two songs "breather" and "pearl" are some of the finest to come out of that early '90's shoegazer/dreampop era.

Bon Voyage - self-titled

Starflyer 59 plus Julie Martin. Anything Jason Martin works on is magic and Julie has a golden voice.

Belle & Sebastian - the boy with the arab strap

I have bought many albums because of one song. I first met Belle & Sebastian many years ago in Border's at a listening station. The band was relatively new and the album cover had that "Smith's" look to it. Anyway, on listen to "Sleep the Clock Around" and I had to have the album.

Joy Electric - The Tick Tock Treasury
I have every single Joy E release and then some. I am a fan and always will be. I haven't listend to this in a while.

Joy Electric - Robot Rock

I have a lot of Joy E albums still to upload. It has been years since I have listened to Robot Rock.

Jesus and Mary Chain - 21 singles

Noise pop maybe, but not quite dreampop.

Curve - Doppelganger

Another dreampop/shoegazer album with dreamy female vocals from the early '90's.

The Cure - Staring at the Sea

A classic singles album.

U2 3D

I saw the U2 3D movie this weekend and I am happy to report it is amazing.

I don't think I need to go into detail about the U2 side of things, because U2 as always gives an amazing performance.

The 3D was visually stunning and unlike any 3D movie I have seen before. I think it is a new technology for 3D and U2 were the test subjects. All the other 3D movies I have seen before used the 3D as a gimmick to have objects come out at you, but this felt different. It was like you were invited into their world and you were standing in the crowd, hovering above the crowd, or onstage with the band. The world on-screen was richer and deeper as a result of the 3D. Also, I did not have any trouble with the glasses or eyestrain or headaches that sometimes results from a 3D movie.

They also used another really cool technique (and I don't know how to explain it) of layering images. The best example I can come up with is the Theatre when they use a scrim with images on the scrim, yet you can see the acting beyond the scrim.

After a few songs into this performance, I was wishing this technology was available during the ZooTV tour, because they seem to achieve visually what is happening on stage with all the graphics. Fortunately, we are given a taste of what that might have been like when U2 performs the Fly. The screen becomes bombarded with the post-modern word images that were very much a part of the ZooTV experience.

I hope this is the future of movies. It would definitely make the cinema experience worthwhile.

The movie/concert performance flies by quickly and I would totally go see it again.

P.S. Don't leave when the credits start to roll. The music of Yahweh is another live performance that kicks into gear about midway through the song.

New ipod and what I am uploading (or downloading)

This will bore most of you, but maybe a couple might find this interesting...and I really don't have anything better to post about. (Because you really don't want to hear my thoughts and opinions on mundane things or stories about my personal life.)


Is it uploading or downloading - when I put music on my ipod?


First off, I recently purchased a new ipod classic 160 gig. My original 20 gig classic was maxed out. I saved money, won a gift certificate and combined it with christmas and birthday presents to afford this beauty.


I love it. I feel like I won the lottery and I have a ton of gigs to spend. With my 20 gig, I knew the funds (gigs) were limited compared to the collection of cd's the I have. I had to choose wisely which of my old cd's to upload to my ipod. I reserved much of the space to the new music I have purchased in the last 4 years.


But now space is not an issue and I have been having a good time going through my old albums and downloading them into itunes.


And know I am going to keep you up-to-date with my recent downloads from my collection.



At the Foot of the Cross - Clouds, Rain, Fire



This was the first CD I bought. Christmas 1992, I got a cd player and my switch from cassette to disc began. At the Foot of the Cross is a worship album put together by the folks from the Choir (Derri Daughtery and Steve Hindilong.) I believe these are original and anchient songs and you probably won't here them in any contemporary service. They gathered a talented group of artists to sing and perform. Over all the mood is mysterious. Michael Knott is one of the performers and I was a huge Mike Knott fan in the early '90's.

City on a Hill - Sing Alleluia and the Gathering

Again, these are Worship albums brought to you by the guys in the Choir (Derri and Steve) along with Marc Byrd (Common Children, GlassBryd, and Hammock.) City on the Hill series contains many of the same ideas that came from the At the Foot of the Cross series - good instrumentation, a collection of artist that contribute to the whole and not the individual, and mostly original songs. I am really not a big fan of modern worship music, but I do like these albums, mostly because I respect the artists assembling these collections. The COTH series is a bit more commercial than ATFOTC. It is geared to a wider CCM audience and features some of the top names in CCM.

I am trying to put together some music to play in the background for my art and worship class. I'll eventually have to put together a playlist.

(more later.)

December music

Justice - "cross"
Listen here.

No, this is not the christian rock band from the '80's. I could swear I had an old Justice cassette with an album cover that featured a drawing of muscular viking type of guy with a big sword that just cut the head off of a huge snake.

This version of Justice is a couple of French guys and the music is like an electro-funk. I think they marked the beginnning of the backlash to the minimal, cold sounds of laptop electronica and brought back to the big beats of electronic dance music. The music is messy, real messy, and is sample heavy with a lot of feel and flavor of the urban '70's. (I have no idea what I am talking about.) I think I heard one music critic refer to them as "heavy metal of electronic music."

A Familyre Christmas - Vol. 1

This was a free download album from the record label Sounds Familyre. The label is home to Danielson and Sufjan Stevens. Basically, they had each of their artist record a christmas song, traditional or original, an made a new song availble each day leading up to Christmas. The collection is fun and quirky.