Working on Saturdays isn't all that bad. Not that I want to work them regularly but I only work until 1:30ish and then I get to go home and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Plus on the weeks that I do have to work a Saturday I usually get to come in late one day and leave early the next (overtime is a big no no) so that's a tiny little perk. When I was working at the movie theater I used to dread working the weekends. Well, that's not entirely true I just hated the fact that I could only spend four to five hours with Shea before I had to head off to work until three a.m. or some ridiculous hour, and dinner (the best part of the night) wasn't until eleven o'clock. So working one Saturday until 1:30 isn't so bad.
The only bummer about working today was I was supposed to do Habitat For Humanity with Shea and her office but obviously I couldn't make it. It's too bad, it always makes me feel so accomplished. It also worked out in my favor because Shea said it was wicked hot. While Shea was roofing in the heat I was at work digesting the song of the day (we'll get to that in time) and learning that one of my favorite graphic novels/animes, Berserk, was being re-done in order to cover the full story (the only season of the anime covered the first 14 books). Truth be told I'm not really big into anime. If you're talking comic books and graphic novels and the like than the answer is a big yes, but I had a hard time transitioning into the anime genre. That was until my senior year of college where my room mate Jason introduced me to the awesome that is Berserk. The story is incredible, the character development is brilliantly done, the animation is a bit weak but it doesn't matter. The story is that good. Jason used to work at Blockbuster so my senior year we had full reign over movies, so we watched a lot of Berserk. So the learning that the series was going to get a revamp is kind of exciting. There is a massive story to be told that wasn't explored enough the first go around.
Thinking about Berserk had me thinking about the music. There are some truly wonderful pieces of music that come from that series (Behelit, Gats, Forces) another thing that reminds me of college. I remember the spring break of my senior year we went up to Canada for a long weekend (or was it long night?). Let's just say $.25 shots are as much trouble as they are brilliant. The night ended with Jason and I ate a Subway at some random time in the night/morning singing Forces from Berserk as loud as we could while quoting the Chappelle Show ("I'm Rick James bitch"). It's not so funny if you don't know the song. It's just cheesy Japanese anime music I suppose. Yet it's awesome.
All that and we still haven't gotten to our song of the day. Trust me we're getting there. Today is also a pretty sad day for rock music. A little while ago I saw on the news that Claraence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fame passed away of stroke complications. It wasn't until I got older that I came to fully appreciate the awesome that is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The passing of Claraence Clemons is sad day for music. I love his playing in Tenth Ave Freeze Out ("When the change was made uptown/And the big man joined the band"), he kills it in Born To Run as well as his Santa Clause laugh in Santa Clause Is Coming To Town. The Boss has been quoted as saying his meeting of Clemons was Biblical behind the back drop of the thunder storm outside. The Big Man will be missed.
Now finally we get to our song of the day. I really got into the Pixies about two years ago. By got into I mean appreciated. They were always in the background of my 90's grunge days but they never made it to the forefront because I was too busy playing a broom like a guitar and head banging in my room to Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins (ha-ha that never happened). I knew of the Pixies but I defiantly did not know the Pixies.
Alec Eiffel comes off the album Trompe le Monde althought my copy comes off of Wave of Mutilation (or their greatest hits album). I've listened to it three or four times now today and I hear the grunge influence just oozing out of it. Is this the most memorable Pixies song? Probably not (although it is good enough to make a greatest hits album) but it doesn't mean that it's sound still didn't influence the likes of Nirvana, Weezer, U2, and David Bowie (that is a pretty awesome resume of kick ass bands that stemmed from your awesomeness). I was reading on the interwebs that it was these bands saying how much the Pixies influenced them helped to bring them to the forefront. I think that's part of it but how can you deny the overall excellence of Doolittle? That album alone is enough to put any bed on the map.
Well Shufflers I'm going to finish watching this episode of Beserk and play around with my Want To Hear It Now playlist. I've got some changes I'd like to make. Do yourself a favor and play tribute to one of the greatest sax players who ever lived and try and listen to Born To Run or Tenth Ave Freeze Out. The best way to celebrate a musicians life is to listen to it on record. Cheers Clarence Clemons.
No comments:
Post a Comment