Holes In Thoughts

Monday, May 18, 2009

The New Star Trek's glare aesthetic

I'd like to point out that U2 was the first pioneer of the effect that I'm aware of when they released the video for Staring at the Sun waaay back in 1997. Be sure to watch in high quality (too bad they don't have HD).

You can see the effect I'm talking about as part of the Star Trek official trailer. It's most obvious at ~1:00 (the shots of the bad Guy), and ~1:17 (the bridge).

Of course, I thought that the movie was awesome, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a bit of trouble for the pretty excessive use of the cool effects:

Labels: movies, music, u2

posted by Steve @ 11:22 PM 0 comments

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Why bands get less popular as they age

Climactic moment in Type O Negative's hit Love You to Death, where the singer soars with the lyric, "Am I good enough for you?" It was spine-chillingly glorious when I was a teenager, rife with self-doubt and insecurity. "You," in that line, became about a dozen girls I'd had a crush on through all of high school and later in college. I think my wife eventually was included in that thought, as well.

But it's not something that many guys past age 30 will find themselves singing. Then again, the line "I would do anything to make you cum," is repeated about a dozen times over a minute and a half in the following song, and that isn't something normally associated with the 'settled' man, either.

Also, success has its own draw away from inspiration. Back in 2000, when the Smashing Pumpkins were breaking up, Billy Corgan noted in Rolling Stone that "when we had no money, no nothing, there was nothing else to do but be grungy and be in a band. Now there are many other options: 'I could be skiing.'"

So I suppose it's not such a shock that many bands lose their luster well before age thirty. It's a rare band that's so happy with each other and so hungry for improvement that they stay together and relevant (U2 comes to mind).

Labels: age, music, teenagers, u2

posted by Steve @ 5:43 PM 0 comments

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Torture

My government is willing to torture me, hold me in prison without telling me why, and ship me off to faraway lands where Amnesty International can't find me, in order to prevent other countries from torturing me, holding me in prison without telling me why, and shipping me off to faraway lands where Amnesty International can't find me.

Forgive me if I'm not swooning in affection for my nation.

Rachel bought me the U2 DVD of their Vertigo tour concert in Chicago. The liner notes say exactly one thing: "Do not become a monster in order to defeat the monster." It's like Friedrich Nietzsche as an activist.

I also got a chance to truly blast my stereo system, for the first time in years. Ozzy Osbourne seemed an appropriate choice, followed by the Foo Fighters.

Labels: music, philosophy, poliics, u2

posted by Steve @ 12:54 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Recent obsession

Some of my latest obsessions.

I've begun to try to finish my U2 collection. This is a long time in the making, going back to when I bought my very first CD: U2's Rattle & Hum album. Since then I've gotten every album and a considerable amount of the singles.

The thing about the U2 catalogue is that it is almost impossibly vast. The boys in that band are never at rest, I swear. Over their 30-or-so year career, they've written about a thousand songs, and participated in innumerable others.

And I'm enough of an idiot to try to collect them all. I've actually got the majority of it, but there are certain kinds of things that stump me pretty well, such as ultra-obscure remixes of the Goldeneye Theme, (the Bond movie theme) that Edge and Bono wrote.

My want list is here.

In addition to that particular obsession, I've been designing a dream home with my wife for quite some time. Ironically, it's been the source of roughly 2/3rds of our arguments in the last year or so. I'm the dreamer and nutcase that comes up with all sorts of crazy things I'd like to see in our home. She's the one who brings me down to reality and tells me whether or not the idea is practical or just insane.

Today, I think we've managed to get the basics down except we're still not sure what to do with the washer/dryer...
Recent

Labels: collection, mp3, obsession, u2

posted by Steve @ 10:55 PM 0 comments

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Exciting Event No. 4: U2 Mp3's

So, briefly, here is my thing on Mp3's: download the music, buy the album if it's good, and definately go to the concerts. If it's a small band, donate directly and download the music. They make more money that way anyway.

That said, I've been trying to complete my U2 MP3 collection. This ... is hard. Most people don't know just how prolific that band is. I already own all the albums on CD - that's easy. Oh, no, the U2 discography is much deeper than that. There's 125 songs on their 10 albums, there's more than 200 b-sides from the singles, 100 or so from various compilations and such, and I'm not even including any live b-sides or concerts or anything like that. If you include all that, these guys' discography includes about 700 songs, all told. I'm at 470. I need another 96 to feel like I've gotten the stuff I'm really anxious for - primarily it's the studio recordings, edits and remixes.

I can hear you think: "Why would I want the five different mixes of Please?"

To me, it's really interesting to hear all these different versions of the same song. It shows, if you look carefully, how the band felt about all of the different parts of the song. In the case of Please, which is from the 1997 album POP, there were different edits for the U.S. and European markets. The album version was quite different from both, and there was another 'regular' single version as well. Also, the live version was different from the other four studio versions. I think it's well worth my time, as a musician, to study how these very successful musicians make their decisions about editing, and that's how I do it.

Unfortunately, most of the remainder is out of print and/or hard to find. Up until today, I was looking for a remix of MoFo (also from POP) called the Matthew Roberts' Explicit Mix. The LP itself sells for over $100 It was a one-sided black vinyl promo-only single pressed in very limited quantities. Hell, I was lucky to get the vinyl 12" single when it came out. And that was an easy one.

Still, I think it's worth it for the above reason. And I don't feel too guilty looking this stuff up in Mp3 simply because I can't buy it from the band (not even in the 'complete' U2 from iTunes, which has a 'mere' 398 songs). And I'm a fan. That has something to do with it, too.

Currently listening :
Mofo Remixes
By U2

Labels: mp3, music, obsession, u2

posted by Steve @ 3:45 AM 0 comments

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Random Thought no. 2: U2 reminds me ...

This is a bit random, but here goes.

I have a lot of U2 music - MP3's, albums, singles, you name it. I have a lot of their concerts, in particular the ZooTV tour. Tonight I got home from work (~3 am) and played one of the concerts. By the time I got to Love Is Blindness, one of the last songs, I was yet again entranced.

Every so often I question myself over why I have these concerts - they're not all very well-recorded - and I just figured out why. Wow.

Labels: concert, mp3, music, u2

posted by Steve @ 4:09 AM 0 comments

About Me

Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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