we inherited a new 3rd year medical student at the clinic. he gets to share the work burden. this means my day is easier, which means more boring, which means more time to surf the internet on my preceptor's dell laptop from the 90s. today i spent a good chunk of time looking up NYC running clubs (word to the brothers and sisters in the korean road runners club) and trying to decide if my next phone is going to be this nerd-tacular beast (it's tempting, it really is), or something more... sensible (aka smaller). i stay busy during the day, clearly.
that is not me in the bottom left or wearing the cowboy hat. big ups to asians in cowboy hats though. rocking the bowtie too, natch. looking like an oriental colonel sanders an' shit.
Islands (Official Site) // Islands (myspace)
of course the unicorns were a lot of fun. they combined goofy, tongue-in-cheek lyrics with lazy bedroom production, and sing-song melodies that sounded as if they were sung by creaky voiced 14 year olds pushing the pubertal envelope. i thought they had one of the catchiest and entertaining albums of 2003 with "who will cut our hair when we're gone?" (which is a rather existential title if you stop and think about it, i haven't). they caught some hate for their "2014" ep, which, to be honest, wasn't as great as WWCOHWWG (nobody calls it that) but i found enjoyable nonetheless.
the unicorns imploded in 2004, and lucky for the rest of us, the islands are here. the two holdovers from the 'corns are frontman nick diamonds and drummer j'aime tambeur, and the rest of the cast and crew consist of various members of other hot indie rockers from canadia (arcade fire, wolf parade, wooden stars - although i wouldn't be surprised if broken social scene were somehow connected to this).
the islands preserve the unicorns' brand of psychedelic, experimental basement rock and gentle, urgent melody - which gives them an A+ in my book. the main difference here is that the sound is tidied up much more, with cleaner, sharper production, and more developed (as in, post-pubescent.. just kidding. not really) songwriting. they (the islands) have described this album as having "some dancehall influences, some calypso... It's more diverse and sprawling and ambitious.. A bit more mature than The Unicorns... More of a Neil Young / Brian Wilson vibe running through it."
the track "swans (life after death)" sounds like classic 'corns - dirty guitars and keyboards occupying the upper registers, under earnest lyrics and simple harmonies - but it sprawls (in a good way) over nine minutes (this is the opening track, mind you) into an epic of canadian proportions. "don't call me whitney, bobby" is a bouncy little ditty about skeletons (maybe). on "rough gem," the keyboards dance around a melody that almost sounds like an interpolation of may or may not's "when you were mine," (famously covered by prince in 1980 on his album "dirty mind") but then a second later it doesn't and then there's a plucked violin. "where there's a will there's a whalebone" is another matter entirely, very reminisicent of the unicorns' "tuff ghost" (famously sampled by Tha 446 for the syrup sippin' club banger, "prince of the rodeo"), with the centerpiece being a couple rap verses spit by busdriver and subtitle (most likely influenced by the islands' involvement with th' corn gangg) that has debatable merit. "volcanoes" is my favorite track on the album, with its creepy answering machine intro, swelling slide guitars and bluegrass rhythms giving way to singing violins and those soon-to-be-classic diamonds melodies, and ending with another over-the-top rock and roll flourish.
Islands - Swans (Life After Death)
Islands - Rough Gem
Islands - Volcanoes
04 May - San Diego CA @ Epi Center
05 May - Los Angeles CA @ El Rey
06 May - San Francisco CA @ Slims
08 May - Portland OR @ Loveland
09 May - Vancouver BC @ Mesa Luna
10 May - Seattle WA @ Neumo's
12 May - Salt Like City UT @ Kaya Gallery
13 May - Denver CO @ Larimer Lounge
14 May - Lawrence KS @ Bottleneck
15 May - Omaha NE @ Sokol Underground
16 May - Minneapolis MN @ First Ave
17 May - Chicago IL @ Metro (psst... stv... guest list...)
18 May - Cleveland OH @ Grog Shop
19 May - Toronto ONT @ Opera House
20 May - Montreal PQ @ Le National
22 May - Ottawa ONT @ Babylon
23 May - Waterloo ONT
25 May - Quebec QC @ L'Anti
this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 7:51 PM |
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i have 3 friends with razrs and they all say that they suuuuck.
dropped by 
on 03 May, 2006 23:38 [*]
~$$$~
I got the razr. All the razr gots going for it is sexiness. Depends on your carrier, though, and what kind of shitty software they put on it. Verizon cripples the bluetooth funciton, but you can hack their software and work around it.
dropped by on 04 May, 2006 03:45 [*]
~$$$~
who else hates the razr? all ye razr-hatrs, step forth and voice your displeasure!
this goes for the treo-haters too.
lovers of either are also encouraged to share their opinions.
dropped by on 04 May, 2006 09:12 [*]
~$$$~
PSST, you wanna come down for that show?
dropped by on 06 May, 2006 15:30 [*]
~$$$~
drop some science: