I have always tried to keep current with music because 1) I love good music, and 2) I love good new music. I can only hear the same thing so many times and be satisfied (minus most Queen, Sarah McLachlan, Queens of the Stone Age, a few 80s albums and anything by Otis Redding). And no matter how some music seems to be slowly leaving me behind, I can always rely on one type of music to reach me.
Rap is out because I don’t go to clubs anymore and because I don’t completely, culturally understand all rap, even if it is poetry. No one’s fault, that’s just the way it is. Same goes for the current heavy rock-n-roll, or at least the kind that requires guttural screaming, or something I read as a ‘death howl’? I could be remembering that wrong. Melody is a big thing for me, but also storyline, which requires that I am able to understand what the singer is singing/saying. So, all that’s left me in the “new music” area is Alternative, Pop (nooooo!), Hip-Hop (nooooo!), and Indie music.
Indie music is the closest to my heart. It’s a bit subjective, because most of it is classified as Alternative, but I find it’s usually rather simple music-wise, a bit odd, and definitely interesting. And don’t get me wrong, I love almost everything else, but where current music is concerned, it must be somewhat rock-ish and youthful. And again, interesting.
So, here are my favorite Indie songs from the past ten-to-twelve years. If I included everything from the early 80s on, the playlist would be way too long. Enjoy!
You may share this site's content if you link back to the original entry with credit to © Lydia Ann Lee. Merci beaucoup!
This site is dedicated to photography, watercolor art, knitted things and my Francophile tendencies. I also post light technical support ideas for neat web design tricks and fixes, and I have been known to occasionally rant about nonsense.
The company name is Don’t Brake My Art. A command and a cute turn of phrase.
Would my F.E.P.U. (For Educational or Personal Use Only)for Film Students Pink Floyd dubbed 2001 DVD to many Megabytes to make a file out of and share?
I don’t know. Is it a movie? It could be broken down into parts possibly.
Actually, right after I hit “submit” it occurred to me that my audio dubbed version of 2001 is probably like the length of 20 music videos back-to-back. So I guess it would take up quite a bit of file space.
Go back and look through the Birthday package I sent back in February with “Life of Brian” and “Brazil” and see if there is not a FEPU DVD or two in the mix.
Did you find the FEPU DVDs?
Yes! Found it.
I thought I sent you a copy. Been wondering if Doug ever saw the “Le Mans/Porsche” music videos.
Sorry. I’ve been distracted. As if that is somehow surprising.
No, but I’ve got it keyed up to show him. I love Pink Floyd set to 2001: A Space Odyssey! Soooo cool. Shine on you crazy diamond!
I was telling a friend that I don’t get Kubrick, and he explained that he was a visual artist. Now I totally get it.
The hard part is getting people to sit still through the “Dawn of Man” first part of 2001 before the music begins.
The video/audio screw-ups are not a DVD problem, the original 1982 “master” VHS tape got eaten by the video recorder.
And since these are FEPU, For Educational or Personal Use Only you may share them with any one.
Over on your “Top Links” bar to the right there is no calendar or listings for archived posts. This post should have a “Favorite Posts” category or “Lydia’s Playlist” link so a couple of weeks, or months, from now we don’t have to go searching for the Green-eyed Indie Faves jukebox.
Yes, that part of SO is pretty boring. lol
Dawson, you are a genius! I’m looking into plugins for most popular posts right now!
It took some doing (two plugins and password configuration with a separate account, blah, blah, blah…) but Top Posts should appear under a new widget in half an hour or so.
Yeah, yeah–takes one to know one.
Besides the “Le Mans” DVD there should be one that is side 3b. of “Montage For Frying Only,” with the alternate “2001″ ending.
You may find it somewhat makes up for the disappointment of that non-musical reality-programming Nickelodeon/BET generation “MTV 30 year Anniversary.”
Part 3b. of “Montage For Frying Only” even has the “Penis Dimensions” song from “200 Motels” of Zappa’s posted in the Doug Hawk Blog topic “Welcome to my new blog (for anybody besides Jim Mazzouccolo who hasn’t yet discovered this).”
It does have a little musical xxx in it as I thought a Music Video showing how the 2001 Star Child is conceived should be included, which makes it the “2001″ alternate ending, to some Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” You may even recognize some “Industry” acquaintances from the “Body Double” section. And yes that is Catwoman trying to control Batman’s urges and bust his balls.
It too is FEPU and may be shared and is but part 6 of 6; there are 5 other parts: 1a. & 1b.; 2a. & 2b.; and 3a. to the complete set “Montage For Frying Only.”
At one time this was a demonstration prototype to try and sell the idea for a new cable Music Video channel where we would not only have the best of the old Music Videos, but take pre-music video songs and dub them over old movie scenes so listeners could have like a classy FM radio with classics like King Crimson’s “Twenty-first Century Schizoid Man” dubbed over a “Johnny Mnemonic” data download scene without all the “Dig Me I’m Kool teeny-bopper” MTV type VJs. It’s still on my To-Do Bucket List. I call it IF-TV, the Imagination & Fantasy Channel branch of New Renaissance Films (which was the Production Company for “Hard John’s Nuclear Hit Parade”).
But what ever you do don’t watch “Montage For Frying Only” while you’re fried on medical marijuana–I suggest a good little Merlot instead if you can’t find any Heavenly Blue Morning Glory wine. I usually have to break out the Wild Turkey so I can recalibrate my mind to try and look at “Montage” fresh as if watching through my guests’ eyes the way it captures their imaginations the very first time they view it. But I do that with most any movie, like “Brazil” or “Life of Brian” or “A Clockwork Orange too.”
If Pete and RePete were sitting on a fence and Pete fell off, who is left?
RePete:
Just in case it was missed, or just too fucking long, here is the Pink Floyd/2001 synopsis:
2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY: REVISITED
To go back and shine a little light upon what I was doing in 1982 when I made my Pink Floyd audio dubbed Music Video version of Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” in case it is ever dug up and watched and listened to again.
By the way: My Audio Dubbing “Film Student Demo” is FEPU: For Educational or Personal Use Only which are clauses in the Copyright Law allowing for both Educational reproduction and Personal reproduction of “Copy.” The term “Copy” in Copy-right is a noun meaning “Legal Fiction Text/copy,” in the case of “Video,” and not a verb meaning to “Reproduce,” as the Entertainment Industry wants you to believe (re: “The Nature of Copyright: A Law Of Users’ Rights;” University of Georgia Press). So anybody can have a FEPU reproduction of this video if they ever find it.
You have to remember that MTV had just been launched in August of 1981 and the “music video” 3 minute single format really wasn’t a consideration for me at the time.
However I was hanging out in Southern Cal with some friends who liked to Trip and Discuss the “Meaning of Life” and all that kind of stuff.
An ex-Marine Pal, and My Best Man when Dawn and I got married, Scott, now in Film School, came to visit and so I dreamed up this “Version” of “2001: A Space Odyssey” that would allow me to show the, for it’s time, excellent science-fiction cinematography, set to music that was a whole heck of a lot more fun to watch it with than the original, somewhat mundane, Cinerama travelogue sounding soundtrack.
I took a VHS tape of the movie and transferred it to Scott’s Betamax video tape machine, and then took that and transferred it back to my ancient Mono Hi-Fi VHS top loader, and after having picked the music pieces that matched the action, both musically and lyrically and recorded them from vinyl LPs (albums) to cassette tapes in a twin deck Boom Box, I timed out and Audio Dubbed the Boom Box cassettes onto the my ancient 50 lbs. video tape machine. The only remote the VHS had was a little box with a “Pause” on/off switch with an actual wire that you had to plug into the front of the VHS panel, “Pause” was its only remote function.
Since making this and copies of it getting around and being shown in Southern Cal, over in Japan when I was there 1983 – 1984, and then Scott using it and some other audio dubbings I did (e.g. “Le Mans”and “Grand Prix”) as Teaching Aids, when he was a Teaching Assistant at the University of Maryland’s Film, Television and Radio Department, so students could better get an idea how to create soundtracks; over the years it has got back to me in a statement form, “Did You know you can take Pink Floyd’s album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and start it as you start the movie of ’2001: A Space Odyssey’ and it is just like Pink Floyd wrote the music for the movie.”
Well, no it’s not!
Because I experimented with “Dark Side of the Moon” and a number of other combinations as at the time I did this project, really just for Scott and me, I had a collection of over 200 LPs.
The main audio dubbing soundtrack came from Pink Floyd’s album ”Wish You Were Here” which music matched the action, but lyrics really went well with this movie about “Doctor Heywood Floyd” and his cover-up of indisputable proof of intelligent life off of planet Earth, probably Extraterrestrial, with the finding of the Monolithic “Sentinel (Arthur C. Clarke’s title for the original short story)” beacon on the Moon.
But I also use Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and a Jean Luc Ponty piece appropriately titled: “Cosmic Messenger.” The only “Dark Side of the Moon” piece was “Time” which fit very well with the very end of the movie.
I played around with Jethro Tull’s “Bungle In The Jungle” for the opening of the movie of Early Man-like creatures discovering the use of “Tools and Weapons” after a little Extraterrestrial Monolithic prodding. But the Stupid Dancing Naked Apes were not in the “Jungle” they were in the desert. So I let the “Dawn Of Man” sequence stand “As Is,” thinking someday I may find some piece of music to put there, and just never did.
So we come to the famous, often satired, scene where the ape-like creature throws his primitive bone/tool/weapon up in the air and the movie “transcends millions of years of technology” and the bone turns into a nuclear powered satellite out in space to the famous tune, also often satired, of “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” A piece of music which sent many of us looking for Nietzsche’s book by the same name–we did that kind of thing in the old days, “Wonder why he picked that song with that name to use there in that movie?”
That music had to go and that is where I started the Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here” music with the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” because of lyrics that mentioned, “Now there’s a look in your eyes, like Black Holes in the sky.”
Since this referred to Pink Floyd original band member Syd Barret’s dilated pupils when he was dropping acid (a lot of Floyd’s lyrics are actually about Syd Barret’s influence on Roger Waters) I thought of the pupils as “Black Holes” and the Eyes as the “Windows of the Soul” watching this outer space movie scene while the Ears, which I guess are the “Headphones of the Soul,” got to hear this new spacey soundtrack. And since the underlying theme about whatever the heck it was where Syd Barret’s mind had gone and others attempted to follow with their own “Electric Kool-aid Acid Tests,” it would be about perfect music for my friends who liked to Trip and Talk about whatnot and whatever.
And, of course, we the movie viewers were headed for “the Moon” of the lyrics.
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND: PART 1
Remember when you were young, You shown like the Sun
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Now there’s a look in Your Eyes, like Black Holes in the Sky
Shine on You crazy Diamond
You were caught in the Crossfire of Childhood and Stardom
Blown on the Steel Breeze
Come on, You Target for Far away Laughter
Come on, You stranger, You legend, You martyr, and Shine
You Reached for the Secret too soon, You cried for the Moon
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Threatened by shadows at night, and Exposed in the Light
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Well, You wore out Your welcome with random precision
Rode on the Steel Breeze
Come on, You Raver, You Seer of Visions
Come on, You Painter, You Piper, You Prisoner and Shine…
Then… After the 1st astronaut has to change out the Antenna Black Box unit after the H.A.L. Artificial Intelligence computer has gone schizophrenic with the conflicting computer instructions of “Mission First, Crew Always,” which I set to Beethoven’s 7th, 2nd Movement (haunting theme from the Sean Connery movie “Zardoz,” by the way); when the 2nd astronaut takes his space walk I used the song “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s LP “Meddle.”
Here after H.A.L. caused the accident that made the other astronaut race out to save him in his space pod, but without his air helmet, I thought these lyrics were interesting about how some primitive lifeform crawled out of the ancient ocean waves towards the light and began the land-living chain of life that now is You that is an unbroken stream of progeny, that could never have been interrupted or else you would not be here reading this right now this very moment. Strange thoughts that might be flashing, along with your life before your eyes, through the astronaut’s mind as he faces his own mortality at being outsmarted by H.A.L.s Artificial Intelligence, which had “Read their lips,” that they might disconnect (i.e.”kill”) H.A.L. And the music fit the action.
ECHOES
Overhead the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In Labyrinths of coral caves
The Echo of a Distant Tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and sub-marine
And No-one showed Us to the Land
And no-one knows the Where or Whys
But Something Stirs and Something Tries
And starts to climb towards the Light
Strangers Passing in the street
By Chance Two Separate glances Meet
And I am You and What I See is Me
And do I take You by the hand
And lead You through the Land
And Help Me Understand the Best I can
And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one Flies Around the Sun
Cloudless everyday You fall upon My Waking Eyes
Inviting and Inciting Me to Rise
And through the Window in The Wall
Come streaming in on Sunlight wings
A Million Bright Ambassadors of Morning
And no-one sings Me Lullabies
And no-one makes Me close My Eyes
And So I Throw the Windows Wide
And Call to You across the Sky
Then… We come to the “Star Gate” scene where the astronaut, who only has a limited supply of Oxygen falls into “The Light” of the giant monolith floating around Jupiter. Actually, he is dying and going towards “The Light” and becomes the 1st astronaut to fly a space pod to Heaven, to the “Other Side,” to fly right into his own Afterlife.
And since Nobody seemed to pick up on this sort of “Tibetan Book of the Dead” theme, I thought the lyrics, “Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far,” were fitting. And, of course, I was piling on my own many more Layers to this, just for fun, project.
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND: PART 2
Nobody Knows were You are, how Near or how Far
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Pile on many more Layers, and I’ll be joining You There
Shine on You crazy Diamond
And We’ll Bask in the Shadow of Yesterday’s Triumph
Sail on the Steel Breeze
Come on You boy child, You Winner and Loser
Come On You Miner for Truth and Delusion and Shine
Then… The astronaut has landed at the Pearly Gates Hilton, all done up in Angelic White. And since this Heaven was sort of a Dull place while the astronaut had to put in his “Time” before he could be Reincarnated, well, timed to the movement of his eyes to the alarm clock ringing…
TIME
Ticking away the Moments that make up a Dull Day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in Your Hometown
Waiting for Someone or Something to Show You the Way
Tired of lying in the Sunshine
Staying Home to watch the Rain
And You are young and Life is long
And there is Time to kill Today
And Then One Day You find
Ten Years have got behind You
No One told You when to Run
You missed the Starting Gun
And You Run, and You Run to catch up with the Sun, but It’s sinking
Racing Around to Come up Behind You again
The Sun is the same in a Relative Way, But You’re Older
Shorter of Breath and One Day closer to Death
Every Year is getting Shorter
Never seem to find the Time
Plans that either come to Naught
Or half a page of Scribbled Lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English Way
The Time is Gone
The Song is Over
Thought I’d Something More to Say…
Then…from the group Kansas for the expanded (xxx) finale 2001 version on My “Montage For Frying Only” video set with the Audio Dubbed video from PBS of the boy’s live birth… Here the theme is Mom never knows if her child will make a difference for Mankind or not, but that Potential is always being born into Existence (Being).
CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON
Once I rose Above the noise and confusion
Just to get a Glimpse Beyond this Illusion
I was Soaring even Higher
But I Flew too High
Though My Eyes could See I still was a Blind Man
Though My Mind could Think I still was a Mad Man
I Hear the Voices when I’m Dreaming
I Can Hear Them say
Carry On My wayward Son
There’ll be Peace when You are Done
Lay You’re weary head to rest
Don’t You cry no more
Masquerading as a Man with a Reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a Wise Man, well
It surely means that I don’t Know
On a Stormy Sea of moving Emotion
Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for Winds of Fortune
But I Hear the Voices say
Carry On My wayward Son
There’ll be Peace when You are Done
Lay Your weary head to rest
Don’t You cry no more…No!
Carry On You will Always Remember
Carry On, Nothing equals the Splendor
The Center Lights around Your Vanity
But surely Heaven Waits for You
Carry On My wayward Son
There’ll be Peace when You are Done
Lay You’re weary head to rest
Don’t You cry
Don’t You cry no more…
We watched “Le Mans”. Doug had seen it before, years ago. I have the bit on the history of racing queued up for us to watch next. I’ll read everything you wrote, then go back and watch again, after I take care of some business.
But did Doug realize I’d put all the music on that DVD of “Le Mans?” That’s not the original score. The race/chase scene at the end of the movie actually came from the soundtrack from the Beatles’ movie “Yellow Submarine.”
I had to look something up for the Ol’ Jazz Man, and when he needs it, it has to be done “right this second” as he hovers over your shoulder. Off course, I’m accommodating because when he’s in one of those moods he is like dealing with a 4 year-old. You just have to stop and close down what you are doing and go and take care of his current wants.
And yet he’ll have a few lucid times of the day where you can talk and kid around with him like old times.
I was kidding him the other day about the old conundrum that “If a tree falls in the woods did the squirrel the tree fell on and kill’t hear the tree make a sound?” We went round in circles about that for awhile until he asked me why the squirrel didn’t hear the falling tree, and I told the Ol’ Jazz Man that the squirrel didn’t hear the falling tree because he was too busy playing with his nuts. And Dad got a pretty good laugh out of that.
Anyway, now that I’m back, don’t confuse my FEPU Steve McQueen/Le Mans/Porsche audio dubbed video with the other FEPU Ferrari/Alfa documentary “The Speed Merchants” which I also added all but the theme music too. And anywhere you hear motor sounds without somebody narrating about the track, I’d gone back and added those racing engine sounds and gear shifting from a “sound track” collection of 33 1/3 LP albums I edited together. Usually at the end where I ran out of song but still had some racing action that needed some engine and shifting sounds to complete the video.
A great example of “sound effects not” is the “2001″ Pan Am space Pod landing on the moon with the air locks opening to machine buzzing sounds and then that great swoosh of dust just before the first note of music, as the shock absorbers move, of “Welcome to the Machine” by Pink Floyd. That machine buzzing noise and swoosh is actually from the Pink Floyd album–I didn’t add a thing–I only timed the album to fit that scene, that is not something extra that I added. That’s the main reason I picked that piece of music because it fit the movie scene so well.
Yes, I pointed it out, actually, that the music wasn’t the original score, but he gathered that, anyway. I did not know that about “Yellow Submarine” though.
Good to hear you and your dad getting a laugh in. Your squirrel commentary sounds hysterical.
I’ve been writing a bit at the other blog. It’s draining, though. I’ll have to work in moments where I force in some knitting and Rapture Day buildup. lol When is the next predicted day?