甜死人不償命的 Sally Seltmann

其實好想貼這幾張 Jens Lekman 白目的照片好久了。
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Harmony to My Heartbeat from Sally Seltmann on Vimeo.

Dream About Changing from Sally Seltmann on Vimeo.


最後一個雖然是BSS混音的，可是Kevin Drew?聽起來有點怪怪的，應該不需要把他自己的聲音搞成這樣吧？不過音樂很好聽。她的歌都好甜美喔。

上次她來，我卻不在。還好，音樂祭有把她加入名單。她的歌沒甚麼好說，當你聽完你已經被她融化了。天阿，還有十個小時就會看到她本人！

Splendour In The Ass

Damn... this weekend is going to be disastrous.

一頁台北

老實說，我並不知道這片在台灣這麼紅。而且還在柏林影展拿下最佳亞洲影片獎。這部片好看嗎？真的還好。但真的有些還不錯的笑點，特別是那些配角們。只是這部電影感覺太天真了。而且是完全可以猜得到的情緒和故事情節。這方面讓我少了些享受電影的樂趣。不過看到後面工作名單上的監製： Wim Wenders。真的有嚇一跳。

Se7en

This movie is brilliant. Great script. Great thriller.
Se7en (1995)

Prince

Prince Tribute (BET Awards 2010)

Janelle Monae "Let's Go Crazy"
Esperanza Spalding "If I Was Your Girlfriend"
Alicia Keys "Adore"
Patti LaBelle "Purple Rain"

或許是這段表演讓我喜歡上了 Prince。這段表演真的太棒了。四個都是才藝驚人的黑人女生。詮釋 Prince 的歌也都有他們自己的風格。而且我覺得表演的安排真的是太好了。剛出道一鳴驚人的 Janelle Monae 表演了 Prince 最嗨的歌。特別適合她天生愛表演的舞台風格。我剛認識的 Esperanza Spalding 用她最擅長的爵士風格演唱 Prince 這首非常有流行爵士 Feel 的 "If I Was Your Girlfriend"。R&B 界的第一女伶 Alicia Keys 來唱這首 "Adore"，既性感又感性。最後一首也是 Prince 最經典的 "Purple Rain" 留給了最資深的已經高齡 66歲的 Patti LaBelle 來演唱。如果我是 Prince，能親眼目睹這樣高水準的獻唱，人生真的過的夠滿足了。但我覺得 Prince 真的值得這樣讚譽。他的歌，雖然是流行歌，但卻能變出這麼多的花樣，光是曲風就跨越了 R&B，放客，搖滾，爵士，電子舞曲，甚至是饒舌。最近才剛開始聽，我知道還有二三十張專輯要聽，但我要說，我喜歡的不得了。特別是這首Purple Rain。

Yusuf (Cat Stevens) @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre 26/6/2010

Yusuf takes the stage to thunderous applause, the diverse all ages crowd clearly thrilled to see and hear this composer of so many beautiful, poignant acoustic pop songs performing live again. For all the press outrage and misrepresentation that has accompanied Yusuf’s Islamic faith (could this explain the type of security outside the venue normally restricted to metal shows? I can only hope not.), tonight he’s a jovial, light-hearted and crowd-pleasing performer. His voice is just as you remember from your parents’ worn out copies of Teaser And The Firecat and his band are simultaneously superb musicians and modest enough to keep Yusuf’s voice and personality centre stage. There are a few tunes from his most recent work, including the excellent Boots And Sand and some lesser-known older gems like a rocking Bad Brakes. But he’s savvy enough to know why the BEC is absolutely packed tonight. So there are hits aplenty, including his most blatantly Kinks-esque song Matthew & Son (incorporated into a fairy tale-like narrative section which also utilises Remember The Days Of The Old School Yard), as well as Where Do The Children Play?, Wild World, Father And Son, The First Cut Is The Deepest, Morning Has Broken, Moonshadow and Peace Train. The crowd laps it up, getting a generous two encores. A thoroughly humble and engaging presence, Yusuf’s performance tonight is a triumph. (from Rave Mag)

基本上就像review寫的一樣，我看這場看得非常感動。距離上次Cat Stevens來澳洲已經是三十六年前的事。我都還沒出生。所以不管怎樣，我一定要看。這場應該是我看過目前規模最大的，音樂祭不算的話。觀眾的反應大多都很熱烈。我很喜歡最近這一兩年他發行專輯的歌，因為宗教的關係，他的歌總是有種很誠懇的正面力量。但不是那種很天真的正面，而是瞭解這社會的黑暗，每個人的寂寞後，希望我們更積極更正面的面對每天的生活。真的推薦他改名成 Yusuf 後發行的專輯 "An Other Cup" 跟 "Roadsinger"。當然他七零年代的那些耳熟能詳的經典金曲，當然是演唱會的最精彩的地方。不管年紀的差別，種族的差別，每個人都跟著Yusuf一起唱。還有Waltzing Matilda，也是演唱會的 Highlight，至少對我來說，我聽的感動不已。這場演唱會真的好好看，真的好溫馨，真的好好聽。



Act 1
Lilywhite
The Wind
Midday
Where Do The Children Play
Cat Medley (I Love My Dog / Here Comes My Baby / First Cut )
Fill My Eyes
Boots and Sand
Miles From Nowhere

Act 2
World of Darkness
Maybe There's a World
Matthew & Son
I Might Die Tonight
Remember the Days
Doors
Road to Find Out

Act 3
Road Singer
Don’t’ Be Shy
Just Another Night
Waltzing Matilda
Bad Brakes
Sitting
Morning Has Broken
Wild World
Father & Son

Encore
Ruby Love
All Kind of Roses
Moonshadow

Encore 2
Tuesday’s Dead
Lilywhite (New Version)
Peace Train (Blues version)
Peace Train

Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions @ Tivoli 24/06/2010

I have a very mix feeling about this gig. It might be my worst gig ever.

Hope Sandoval, the voice of Mazzy Star. I don't know what that means to other people, but for me, it's huge. Her voice is something else, something above. Knowing that she's coming was such a big news for me. Finally I had a chance to see her singing live. Perhaps this strong anticipation leaded to a huge disappointment.

The supporting acts were Dirt Blue Gene and Mick Turner. I don't understand their music. I'm always a pop person. I just don't like this kind of ambiguous, weird post-rock shit. Still, I managed to sit through the whole thing. The announcer also mentioned about ABSOLUTELY no photography, so I didn't take any. After a long waiting, Hope Sandoval, the one I was so eager to see, finally came out, greeted the audience with a sweet "Hello". I guess that was the only interaction she had with the audiences. Nonetheless, my heart was pounding fast to see her sing. But the gloomy feel of her songs soon covered my heart with darkness. I thought she was an angel, but now she sounded like a devil herself. Now I know why her new album is called "Through The Devil Softly". Cuz she's devil herself. I don't know what got into her. I never liked the new album much, but now I hate it. I don't think I would want to pick up this devilish album, and reminded myself of this terrible gig. She only played like two songs "Around My Smile" and "Suzanne" from the first solo album. I loved that album so much. But clearly she doesn't want to sing those songs again. Not even my favourite song, "Charlotte". More disappointingly, there were no Mazzy Star songs at all. She was on the stage for like 40 mins, and walked out in the overwhelming darkness of "For The Rest of Your Life"(this song actually sounds like an incantation) without goodbye, without thank you, nothing. And never return, without encores. Partly I blame other audiences, their poor behaviours, I remember one woman was shouting "Come out! Play something! Don't be selfish!". Oh well... I write this to put this gig behind me.

Farewell, Honeydrips

As a band, what had The Honeydrips give us?
A fantastic album, couple of singles.
And a very funny skit featured in Jens' Mixtape.
I love all of the stuffs Mikael Carlsson has done.
Too bad, that he called an end to The Honeydrips.
So, that's that. But I always love your music.
If you haven't heard of him, check out Here Comes The Future.

Videodrome

I'm never much of a TV person. For that, I'm thankful to my dad for prohibiting me from watching TV from a very early age. Thus I do not have the habit of watching TV. It's an addictive substance, much like games, filling up the idle time, hardly taking any thing in from such act. I often think that, the invention of camera is something truly a wonderful achievement. The technology store the imagination and brilliance of human beings. Only the great stuffs should be shot and be reshown on the screen, not your everyday activities. But television, "the idiot box" abuse it. It empowers, overstimulates and empties our minds. 

The film explores this aspect too, only in its "a-clockwork-orange" way. Sick as it can be. But just  to warn you that television is a mental disease. When people are heavily exposed to the freaky, sick stuffs. Our minds tend to be freaky and sick too. It is rotting its viewers from the inside. People lose their perspectives, and blindly follow what's on the TV. TV has transformed itself from entertainment to daily routine, amazing achievement. To sum up, quoting from the movie, "Television is reality, and reality is less than television."

Videodrome (1983)

Loves of a Blonde (1965)

lovely. and heartbreaking.
while i was watching it, the film restored the world to a past time. precisely 1965, Czechoslovakia. vaguely when we were innocent.
the ending came to me as a shock. i didn't want it to end so soon.
i saw the following clip before the film, and it's so beautiful that made me want to see the film.

Lásky jedné plavovlásky (1965)

Rabbit Redux

Finished this book during two days on a train. Read it in golden sunlit. Read it in a dining carriage while everyone was deep asleep.

While reading this book, it kept reminding of The National, especially from the new album High Violet. With keywords like, bathing suit, New York, morality, army, run away, let it get so far out of hand, silver girls. My conclusion is Matt must like Rabbit to some degree.

Unlike the Rabbit, Run, Rabbit has let it go so far out of his hands this time. Sleeping with a 18-year-old girl, and living with a crazy negro. The craziness of a middle-class middle-age loser guy, who lives alone somehow reminds me of Haruki Murakami's boku (the protagonist).

Enough said, I surely enjoyed reading it. It's too much fun, and too disturbing at the same time. Though on a different level, but just as brilliant as Rabbit, Run.