Shuffleboard 2

This time, we're going with five random songs from my iTunes, along with why I have them, and why I like/dislike them.

#1 "Etude No. 2" by Philip Glass from Glass: Etudes for Piano

Man, Philip Glass is another one of those severely underrated musicians out there today. He's a composer and classical pianist that I almost got the chance to go see in Lawrence last April, but missed out on. I regret that immensely.

Some may say his music all sounds the same, but he is REALLY good at minimalist and surreal piano work. Even orchestral work, as evidenced from his work on The Illusionist and the odd documentary Naqoyqatsi.

This track is from an album of just him and his piano, and it's a great mellow listen. Very unique and modern style, and interesting and complex enough to listen to both passively and actively.

I apologize for the random video, but it has a chunk of this piece in the background.

#2 "Mess Around" by Ray Charles, from Ray soundtrack

In keeping with the piano theme, this is one of my favorite Ray Charles songs. You can't help but start dancing and singing to this classic, and the piano work is creative and a lot of fun.

And it has a pretty sweet tenor solo. I used to play sax (alto, actually), so I'm always partial to sax features.

This song is just plain fun.

#3 "Charles In Charge" by Relient K from Relient K

Ah, old school Relient K. Back when they weren't popular, they were...well, still awesome. Certainly a less polished sound than they have now, but still fun, random, and surprisingly musically talented. Everyone thinks that punk/rock bands just know three chords and one drum beat, but Relient K has proven themselves to be unique time and time again with each new album.

In fact, I used one of their songs to propose to my wife. But that's another story for another time.

This is one of their short punk songs, and I think it's a remake of a crappy 80s sitcom. It's fun, and has a sweet solo I learned in high school and played with my friend Jeremy, who was my best man a month ago.

So, at the part when someone yells "Hey this'll be Matt Thessian on solo guitar! He's a bomb!" just replace his name with mine.

I miss high school sometimes. And sometimes I say crazy things.

#4 "Molussus" by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, from Batman Begins soundtrack

Gotta love me some Hans. While one of the most yawningly consistant composers out there today (everything is the same, drum beats, bass, electronic this and that, etc.), when he's paired up with a melodic guru like Howard, good stuff comes out. The score for Begins and Dark Knight are two of the darkest, moodiest, and most fitting scores to a movie I've every seen. Sure they're poppy and predictable, but their stuff is memorable and fitting to the movie. Batman doesn't need more than two notes for his theme, because Batman is not a musical character, he is a moody darkness.

And they really capture that.

As for this particular track, I couldn't tell you where it is in the movie other than it's quite entertaining and capture the movie's main themes, Zimmer's electronic bass and drum beat, and Howard's eerie string use.

And as for the name, it really bugs me that they named all the tracks on this album after bat species. Cool idea as a subtitle maybe, but annoying as all get out when you're trying to remember which track is which.

#5 "As Long As You're Mine" by Idina Menzel and Leo Norbert Butz from Wicked

I know, I have some musicals in my iTunes. Whatever. They're catchy.

And Wicked is pretty darn catchy. Genius work tying it to a childhood story that everyone knows, giving it some adultish content, and voila, you've got a non-sucky prequel.

This is a love song, and one of the most intense ones I've heard. The pounding chords and tight duet make it seem like they're about to get to it right on stage, and makes for a great song.

Sadly, I've never seen the whole musical (I only got the soundtrack from my sister), so I don't get the full effect, but it's still pretty entertaining as far as epic-sounding songs go.

Reactor Flashback 2

Here's a post I wrote on September 15, 2008 called "Chill Out."

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"The GOP is disgusting."
"If you vote for this guy [Obama] you are an uninformed political idiot and an intellectually lazy moron period."
These are just some of the statements flying around these days. The election, which is supposed to be the shining moment of American Democracy, has become a time for people to hate each other and become extremely polarized.
America is supposed to be a place of harmony and democracy and of people working together. With each election, it seems like people hate each other more and more.
In an article in the Washington Post from March of 2006, a study was done to test American's "vitriol" that "accompanies party politics."
"These data show that on balance, Democrats' and Republicans' evaluations of a president of the other party have steadily soured," authors Shanto Iyengar and Richard Morin said.
And that was two YEARS ago. Imagine if they did the same study today. The study was related to how people affiliated with either party ranked the incumbent president, and the study showed that people are moving more and more towards the extremes (i.e. "strongly approve" or "strongly disapprove").
It's time, to borrow a superbuzzword from this election, to have some change.
How about we DON'T yell at each other about how the other side is stupid?
How about we DON'T tell each other to "go back to school?"
How about we DON'T base our votes simply on who Oprah says is awesome?
How about we DO research the issues?
How about we DO have civil discussion with our opposites and see their point of view?
That is what is supposed to make America so great; this melting pot of ideas.
As I've heard recently, but I forget where, America is supposed to be a melting pot, but it's more like a pot with a whole lot of ingredients that hasn't melted yet.
Get a fire lit under our butts and let's actually work together to choose he who is best for our country.
I know who I'm voting for, but I'm not about to yell at the other side for not agreeing with me.
Chill Out, everyone.

Music I Want: Muse-The Resistance

As promised in the intro post, I will be talking about anything and everything on this blog. That includes music.

Who This Is:

Muse is one of the most severely underrated bands around today. I think they're big in the UK, where they're from, but they could certainly be bigger here in the States. One can only listen to "Kids" by MGMT so many times on the radio.

Muse, to quote a DJ on the same station that plays the above linked song at least four times a day, is one of the few bands that does the epic arena rock feel and consistently kicks your a$% doing it.

I couldn't agree more.

Their first album, Showbiz, was released near the end of 1999, to little critical acclaim or anything, really. They've since released 3 other albums, "Origin of Symmetry," "Absolution," and "Black Holes and Revelations." Their new album, "The Resistance," is set to come out September 14th.

And yes, those albums are indeed as weird as their titles suggest.

To accurately describe Muse's style would be like trying to describe Coldplay's serious shift in style from "X&Y" to "Viva La Vida." The same elements are always present, but from album to album, and even song to song, the style changes so dramatically that it's hard to categorize. In my iTunes, however, I simply have Muse categorized as Epic Rock. This video will explain that.

What I want:

That song was off their "Black Holes and Revelations" album. And they consistently sound that huge, epic, and heavy. And there's only three guys in the band.

Their new album, "The Resistance," certainly looks to be a lot more political than their previous albums, and even those were pretty strong at times. And I really want it.

Only two tracks are available yet, and I have gotten a hold of both of them.

Why I Want It:

The first to be released was "United States of Eurasia," and what a trip it was. It starts much the same as Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," with the lead singer, Matthew Bellamy, singing over a mellow piano and strings part. Bellamy, in addition to having an unnaturally large range, is also an accomplished classical pianist and incredible guitarist.

Then, in a very Queen-y moment, the band splits into three-part harmony and wailing guitar riffs with this line: "Why split these states, when there can be only one?"

Then, in true Muse-what-the-@#$#-are-they-doing, they break into some Arabic stuff, and then back to piano-themed, one-noted bass-line verse.

Bellamy then sings about the unification of something (the world maybe? it's very tongue-in-cheek about America and Britain trying to push its stuff on every one else), and just before a Chopin outro complete with children playing and bombs dropping, the band chants "Eurasia! -Sia! -Sia!"

Here's the video, and yes, it's as weird and eclectic as I described.

The other song that's coming up on the album is the first track, actually. "Uprising" starts with a weird synth intro that's strangely reminiscent of the opening theme of Doctor Who and a bass and drum part that's very Marylin Manson/Family Force 5.

The clapping fits in perfectly. You automatically start bobbing your head when you hear it.

And then come the lyrics. It's very political, and obviously very anti-status-quo, and as a conservative, I am expected to hate it. But given the political climate these days (Obama is the best!!!!!!! WOO!!! Barf.), I actually agree with it, so here are the full lyrics along with the YouTube embed.

The paranoia is in bloom, the PR
The transmissions will resume
They'll try to push drugs
Keep us all dumbed down and hope that
We will never see the truth around
(So come on!)

Another promise, another scene, another
A package not to keep us trapped in greed
With all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on!)

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Interchanging mind control
Come let the revolution take its toll if you could
Flick the switch and open your third eye, you'd see that
We should never be afraid to die
(So come on!)

Rise up and take the power back, it's time that
The fat cats had a heart attack, you know that
Their time is coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Hey .. hey ... hey .. hey!
(repeat)

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Hey .. hey ... hey .. hey!
(repeat)

I really cannot wait for this album. I'll do a full review when I get my hands on it.

Reactor Flashback

I had a purely political blog back during the election season last year for kansan.com. It was for an opinion writing class I was taking at the time, and was a lot of fun. I wrote a lot about the issues during the election, issues elsewhere in the world, what my thoughts as a conservative in an incredibly liberal-land were (I've heard KU called the Berkeley of the Midwest), and how I thought we as American citizens should have reacted.

Needless to say, a lot of my posts went on to be severely criticized. I was called an idiot, a bad journalist, and even a racist at one point.

I'll post a few of my old posts here on the new Reactor. It's interesting to see my opinions back then, how much they've changed, how much they haven't changed, and what people were saying.

So here, from September 10, 2008, is my first Reactor blog post, "Who Watches The Watchmen?"

I've attached the comments, but sadly my own comments answering some questions were lost.

Enjoy, and as always, tell me what you think.

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Welcome to the Reactor. I am a conservative in a liberal land, a Republican where Republicans fear to tread. In this blog I will present a conservative reaction to the events in our world.
Ahh, election season. That magical time of every four years when people hate other people for no apparent reason at all and the media tries to play the middle of the field.
Believe me, I'm the last person who would want to criticize the media. I am part of the media and I hate it when the media is accused of spinning everything and just out to screw with us. People with no experience in the field assume they know everything about how the news process works and attack it for being one-sided.
Usually I disagree with them.
Now that I'm watching the current election coverage, I begin to see what those angry people are talking about.
The news seems to be hailing one particular candidate as the savior of our country, able to magically fix all the wrongs in this world. The news seems to be tilted towards covering everything that candidate does and only a little of what the other one does.
When I did I normal Google search for McCain, 86,600,000 hits came up. When I did the same one for Obama, 161,000,000 hits came up. Maybe he's just more popular.
But when I did a Google News search, 351,174 for McCain and 380,343 for Obama came up.
30,000 hits is nothing, right?
On CNN.com, 15,700,000 popped up for McCain and 27,000,000 appeared for Obama.
Hmm. 11 million hit difference now.
This may seem like a simple fluke, but in reality, it is a sign of something more. The media is obviously leaning towards Obama as a favorite. The coverage of him and his campaign coverage is more prominent, and has been going on for far longer than the coverage of Republican hopefuls before McCain stepped up.
Every time you turn on the TV it's talking more and more about how awesome Obama is and how he's going to single-handedly save America. I was listening to the radio, and on a commercial for some Rock The Vote thing (a decidedly BIPARTISAN thing, mind you), they used a clip from an Obama speech. The clip? Something along the lines of this:
"And in November, the name George W. Bush will not be on the ballot!" *big cheer*
Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of that statement. That's a whole other blog entry. The fact is, the media is all but ENDORSING Barack Obama. Sure newspapers do it all the time, but what happens if CNN, FOX, MSNBC, heck, even the BBC endorses a candidate?
In other words, the media's credibility is going severely downhill. If a network endorses a candidate, which I don't see as too far away at this point, then where will people get their balanced viewpoints? I realize they don't exist from any one source, but a conglomeration of unaffiliated sources provide the American people with the big picture. With the way the media is heading this election, what is the big picture?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the Watchmen?