Perfect Song 4

Andrew Bird makes beautiful music.
Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs is one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in a long time. It's been out for two years now and I still have it on heavy rotation... when I'm not listening to Grizzly Bear.

This song, from his album Weather Systems is as close to perfect as a song can get.
It gets stuck in my head all the time. From the beginning, with it's violin plucking, to the haunting whistles in the chorus, this song is perfection.

cut 'n paste:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/7/21/139688/Andrew%20Bird%20-%20Action%20Adventure.mp3
Andrew Bird - Action Adventure
Weather Systems 2003

Impress these apes week 7: short film

I'm kind of getting upset with this show.
I don't mean to bitch about it, but I put a lot of time and energy into making this short film. I think it's done very well (and it was made in about 30 hours) - yet I remain in 7th place. Please let me know what you would score this short film from a 1 to 10 and your reasons. Thanks.

Down With Pants!

Impress These Apes: Week 6
my performance art / protest against pants.

Perfect Song 3

I am currently going through a lot of my music looking for a soundtrack to a short film I'm making. This week the Perfect Song goes a little ways back. In 1995 I took a trip from Chicago to San Francisco and back. Along the way I stopped to visit one of my best friends Amelia, in Hooper Utah. One morning, while she was getting ready for work - she was listening to something I would have never expected... Portishead. It was their first album, Dummy. From that moment I was a fan of the music created by these Brits.
Only You is from Portishead's self titled Sophomore album.
This is the video, directed by Chris Cunningham


And here is the version from their concert video at the Roseland in NYC:

Horsing Around

It was better in writing/concept than it was live onstage, but Crescent and I were paired up to make our own clip from a BROADWAY MUSICAL. The music/song was given to us, all we had to do was write the scene leading up to the song - and perform it.
the song was "Your The Top" from ANYTHING GOES. Without putting on the costume I had the song 85-90% memorized. While trying to sing it, dance and put on the costume all at the same time, that drops down to 45-50%.



now I'm down to 7th place.

Tonight is performance art/protest.
I imagine it's gonna get weird.

www.impresstheseapes.com

Perfect Song 2

Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything.


I saw this band play live at a small venue here in Chicago (Schubas) around the release of their album: Apologies to Queen Mary
and walked away a better person.
These guys, for what they do/how they act on stage - should be creating the sloppiest, worst sounding music ever. 3 of them split a bottle of Makers Mark in the first 30 minutes of their set... but the music always sounded unbelievable.
"I'll Believe in Anything" is a raucous love song for art punk lovers.

here's a video:

something crazy

Something fun and crazy is going to happen tonight.

more to come...

Perfect Song 1

I think I'm going to try to do a weekly feature/post about a song that is perfect right here, right now.
For the Premiere post of this feature I have decided that the perfect song for this week - the First week of February is:
Built to Spill's Car


from the album There's Nothing Wrong With Love (1994) which is a great album in itself.

Here's the song and a video somebody made with public domain footage of old filmstrips.