the oh so quiet show

“The iTunes Music Store is unable to process purchases at this time. Credit card processing is temporarily unavailable. You may continue to browse the store. Please try to make your purchase later.”

Since I’ve gotten this message for the past three days, during which I upgraded my iTunes and re-entered my Paypal account details to see if they would make any difference (nope), I’ve come to conclusion that this just isn’t going to work…ever. Any suggestions? I’d buy a CD but this is faster/cheaper.

UPDATE: Nevermind. There’s no paypal lovin’:

bq. PayPal processing has been temporarily disabled. Please use a credit card or iTunes Music Card to make purchases on the iTunes Music Store. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I’m surprised they couldn’t make an error message that said that though.

The new “beck.com”:http://www.beck.com is up, redone by “Hi-Res”:http://www.hi-res.net/. It looks nice initially, but there are some problems and “the fans”:http://www.stewoo.net/beck/forum/index.php?s=611ad001ffa87cb54d45d7b3a455bd8c&act=ST&f=2&t=2913&st=0 aren’t all that “happy”:http://www.becktabs.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7 due to various mistakes and loss of user-friendliness. Discobox? _With a “c”?_ [shakes head] Hi-Res does make nice websites, but in my opinion their style is better fit for websites that aren’t terribly information-heavy. It’s okay to mess around with “Donnie Darko”:http://www.donniedarko.com/, but flash-ifying everything is a pain when you’re looking for a specific piece of information, like news, tour dates, discography, everything on the old Beck site. Someone’s already putting together a fansite at “thepixelateddoctor.com”:http://www.thepixilateddoctor.com/. One of the best site for Beck information right now is “whiskeyclone.net”:http://whiskeyclone.net.

The music player is one of the good things There are some new songs that might rotate….or not. “Untitled Song 2” is the favorite, although I don’t see it on the page now. Hm.

I guess it takes getting used to. They’re probably still working out the kinks on the site and will add more stuff. I’d hate for everything on the old beck.com to have vanished. What happened to the previous webmaster, “Truck”:http://movingunits.com/?

Ooh you love flash player-things, right? O-kay. Here’s the “Guerolito player”:http://www.bandbuilder.com/beckremix/.

[Did anyone else pass out from Thanskgiving? Yeah. O-kay.]

“Styrofoam”:http://styro.be/ has a “blog”:http://standaard.typepad.com/styrofoam/ (or “tour diary”, which I suppose sounds like a better term). It’s almost completely non-English (Dutch, yes?), but there are plenty of photos to stare at, like POWDERED DONETTES! Mm, donettes! Styrofoam is playing at the Knitting Factory next Tuesday and if I didn’t suck, I’d go by myself instead of staying home by myself wishing I had someone to go with. It’s only $10! GO! I saw him perform once a few years ago opening for The Notwist, but that was before I knew I liked his music. Overall, that night was a bit of a bust; the Notwist went on so late that I only got to see them perform a few songs before I had to catch a bus home (but I got to see all of Styrofoam’s set, hehe). That’s just one of the reasons why living in NJ = crap.

…yet now I live about 15 minutes from the Knitting Factory, and I’m still a homebody. Oops. 🙁

Last week one of my friends asked if I heard the new “B. Fleischmann”:http://www.bfleischmann.com/ album. New album? What huh?! How could I not know about this album? I’m not a super-big BF fan (seriously, I need to shorten the name) but besides the Nico 7″, over the past four years or so, I’ve accumulated all his releases (…okay, maybe I am), plus a few compilations (and don’t forget “Duo 505”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D9ERA/). Yes, I enjoy the Fleischmann, thus I was horrified when I realized I didn’t know about his new release, “The Humbucking Coil”. However, it doesn’t come out until February 2006, so perhaps I won’t feel too bad. You can download the first track from the album at “music (for robots)”:http://music.for-robots.com/archives/001229.html:

B. Fleischmann – Broken Monitors

My first impression (besides that I really liked it) was that it’s less electronic-y than his other songs, but that’s not necessarily true. So. Screw what I think. While I would describe his music (it would make sense in a music blog), I really haven’t gotten the “describing music” thing down. His music is the kind of electronic music I like: playful (although not in the “rainbows & unicorns” sense), layered, blippy, soft, repetative, and soothing. Kind of like a really good dessert, except for the blippy part.

THIS POST IS NOT OVER YET! Ohh no. From looking around “Morr Music”:http://www.morrmusic.com/, I found that I likeed “Electronic President”:http://radicalface.com/6928/22173.html. My initial impression of “Poppy, happy music” is about as unhelpful as a description can get, so check out this song instead:

Electric President – Good Morning, Hypocrite

I’m done with music blogging for now. Time to food blog!

Huh? (Requires windows media player.) “Prussian Blue”:http://www.prussianblue.net/ supports racism. I agree that everyone is racist in some way, but there’s a difference between…say, me, and people who participate in a game of “dance around the swastika.”

Do I have to say anything else? Nah. If you’re really bored you can make your own judgement.

Oh, disregarding the content of their songs, their music doesn’t sound very good. That’s just my opinion, of course.

I’m gonna start a band that sings about waffle supremacy. Waffles are awesome.

(Boy, I’m really slow with this one.)

So I’m sitting here, as I have been for the past few hours (someone, please remind me that ensuring that your legs are receiving adequate blood flow is a good thing), not really doing anything productive but not twidling my fingers and staring into space either. All of a sudden, “The Bees”:http://www.thebees.info/ pop onto my playlist. Not spontaneously–they were always on it, I just never listened to their songs.

…Which is absolutely ridiculously, because I love this song:

The Bees – Chicken Payback [removed]

My simple description of the song: you’ll either love it or hate it. It’s overly upbeat and bouncy, which I suppose is the best way to sing a song that goes “PAY THE CHICKEN BACK BACK, PAY THE CHICKEN BACK, ETC” until you realize you’ve heard the same nonsensical phrase over and over again. Actually, this is one of those “high risk of annoying the hell out of me” songs, but I like it so far. Let’s not kill the mood.

“Black Moth Super Rainbow”:http://www.blackmothsuperrainbow.com is a catchy band name, eh? …well, it’s interesting, and I wouldn’t say it fits or doesn’t fit the music they make from what I heard off their album “Start A People”. What is the music they make? Uh. Um. Dude, I can’t even describe _normal_ music. It’s not like this band’s music is _ab_normal, but…here’s what “Cycle Defrost”:http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/review.php?review=820&q has to say:

bq. Welcome to queasy listening… The intriguingly monikered Black Moth Super Rainbow manage to evoke the giddy sound of some imagined childhood, bathed in golden sunlight – spinning in circles until tumbling to the ground, eyes flickering back and forth in dizzy fits. It’s a feeling that’s part nausea and part euphoria, and is imbued with such manic optimism that it’s hard to resist the temptation to bliss out in its presence.

Yeah. See, I’d never come up with that. Would you like me to try? Fine.

bq. Listening to Black Moth Super Rainbow makes me feel like I’m watching some old educational film, grainy and rough, with desaturated colors. And then this vocoder-ed robot voice comes out of nowhere and I’m in the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland, circa 1970s, watching people ride that Astro Orbiter thing confusedly because the ride looks boring. And then weird bright splotches of color appear in my eyes and…my god, I must be dehydrated. Either that or someone slipped something in my water.

They’re kinda trippy with this weird, warm, retro sci-fi feel. But not really. Check out this song:

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Count Backwards To Black [removed]

They have more mp3s from on “their website”:http://www.blackmothsuperrainbow.com/mpthree.htm. Or perhaps I’ll just directly link to some here? OKAY:

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Trees And Colors And Wizards
Black Moth Super Rainbow – I Am the Alphabet

I like them, but I don’t know why.

You can buy their album from “Graveface Records”:http://www.graveface.com, which has a crapload of great artists that I’ve never heard of before and shall listen to, consume, and blog about some more. It might take a while since I digest music slowly, unlike “all that chocolate I ate this weekend”:http://flickr.com/photos/roboppy/sets/1352190/, which has formed a new subcutaneous layer of fat.

[Thanks Dominic for the recommendation!]

Last night’s “Broadcast”:http://www.broadcast.uk.net show was great. But since I’m tired and my head feels like cotton, I can’t think of many ways to expound upon this description. They played a bunch of songs I love. The drummer did stuff that, if I were at the helm of the drum set, would make me pass out. There was much bleepy happiness. Trish Keenan’s voice makes me feelt melty. She wore a shiny silver jumper. A young woman on my left periodically rubbed against my side–maybe she was drunk. They played loads of stuff from Tender Buttons (almost half, maybe?), a few songs from Haha Sound, and four songs that I didn’t recognize at all. Oops.

I don’t remember all the songs they played, but hearing “Ominous Cloud” and “Winter Now” made me super happy. Those songs give me the feeling of frolicking in the snow and sipping hot chocolate. You probably shouldn’t frolic and sip hot chocolate at the same time unless you like burning yourself, but that’s my description and I’m sticking to it. (No, I’ve never _done_ it before; I’m just imagining it.) They started with “Pendulum”, which is the first Broadcast song I heard that made me into a fan, even though it’s not one of my favorite songs.

“Gravenhurst”:http://www.silentagerecords.co.uk/gravenhurst/ were good, although I probably would’ve enjoyed them more if I had been familiar with their music. I liked how they ended their set with some random electronic mashing/burping (ye know, electronic burping…yes, you do). They could make a whole set of JUST THAT to make me happy. They were just sitting by the merch table after the show, which made me sad for some reason. I had _just_ enough money to buy a Broadcast t-shirt (it’s American Apparel poop brown, thus it is good in the wardrobe of Robyn) and their Microtronics CD. NOTHING ELSE. DAMN. Funds. I don’t recall having bought anything from a concert in years.

Tralala were good too, although nothing like Gravenhurst or Broadcast. Very happy, stuff you could dance to, which is a completely pointless description as it can be interpreted in so many ways. Imagine four girls singing in harmony, with handclaps and tambourines. I think they deserved a bigger crowd, but eh.

Lastly, here is “Poptone’s interview with Trish Keenan”:http://www.poptones.co.uk/index.php?/questions_of_doom/more/trish_keenan/, which I’m linking primarily because it’s called “QUESTIONS OF DOOM”, the best name for an interview section I’ve heard.

I just really like the word “doom”. Amused, I am.

Sleep, I need.

What the heck am I listening to right now?

bq. Bits and pieces from hundreds of vintage children’s records mix with modern beats for a deliriously fun time. Bizarre kiddie music mash-ups for adventurous listeners. You’ve never heard kiddie music like this before!

It’s Twink’s latest album, “The Broken Record”! Twink is awesome because he makes music out of toy pianos and bloopy stuff. And now, music from bits of children’s records.

I have no idea what kind of mood I’d have to be in to crave music that has a bunch of animal noises in it or little kids saying random stuff. “High” might be a possibility. Still interesting to listen to though.

“BAD CDS!”:http://www.fatchuck.com/z3.html Not “I can’t stand this music” bad, but “I literally can’t get this CD to play” bad. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve never had this problem. [via “boing boing”:http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/08/lists_of_corrupted_c.html]

They’re coming back for moooore. “Sigur Ros”:http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/ is doing a US tour in February (schedule at “brooklyn vegan”:http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2005/11/sigur_ros_2006.html), hitting NYC on February 9th at The Theater @ MSG.

_NOOOO!_ Well. It’s probably fine if you’re in the pit but the venue makes me wonder, “Do I _have_ to see them again?” Of course, many people would exclaim, “YES, HOW COULD YOU THINK OF NOT GOING, YOU MONSTER” or something like that, but I don’t think I could take it sitting in the 300 section. The venue makes me feel like the ceiling’s going to crash down, perhaps with spikes à la Indiana Jones.

A friend told me that “Franz Ferdinand”:http://franzferdinand.org is coming back in February also. Anyone have details? No more MSG! Ahh!