Top 100 Songs of the Decade: “Furr” – Blitzen Trapper

Furr
by Blitzen Trapper (2008)

“Furr” was one of those songs that I discovered completely by accident.  Somehow I had downloaded it, and it was on my iPod, but I had never really listened to it until early 2009 when I made a couple of Genius mixes to listen to , and it started appearing regularly in those.  And then once I played it a few times, I was completely obsessed with it, and later I got their whole CD, also called Furr.

Top 100 Songs of the Decade: “Funny Little Frog” by Belle & Sebastian

Funny Little Frog
by Belle & Sebastian (2006)

Belle and Sebastian formed in Glasgow in 1996.  They were a band that I had always heard of, but didn’t really OWN anything by the band until ten years later.  In 2006, they released their most recent CD called The Life Pursuit. I don’t really know what prompted me to purchase that disc, but it went on to be one of my favorite CD’s of the year, if not the decade.

There are a lot of amazing tracks on the disc, but my favorite has to be “Funny Little Frog.”  According to Wikipedia, the song went on become their highest charting single in the U.K.  I had this song on my old MySpace page around the time that my wife and I had taken a trip to Vegas.  For some reason, to this day, I still think of that trip whenever I hear this song.

Music Video Of The Week: “When I’m With You” by Best Coast

Best Coast is the new band fronted by L.A. singer/songwriter Bethany Cosentino. While her debut CD won’t be released until sometime later this year, the first single “When I’m With You” has been getting a lot of airplay on Sirius XMU.

I’ve been enjoying the song over the last couple of months. But now that there’s a video, featuring Ronald McDonald of all people, the song just got even better. Check out our music video of the week, for the dreamy “When I’m With You.”

Top 100 Songs of the Decade: “Fred Meyers” by Glen Phillips

Fred Meyers
by Glen Phillips (2001)

Glen Phillips is best known as the lead singer of the band Toad The Wet Sprocket. They had several hits in the 90′s, before breaking up in 1998.  In 2001, Glen released Abulum, his first solo album, which included the song “Fred Meyers.”  Living in California, I had never even heard of the department store, Fred Meyers, which are located in the North Western United States.  

Coachella 2010: Day Three

The weird thing about Coachella every year, at least for me, is that even though it’s a three day festival, it never really feels that long.  You would think if you’re spending 8-12 hours a day at a concert, in the sun, doing a lot of walking from stage to stage, that time would go by fairly slow.  But as they say, time flies when you’re having fun, and by the time we got to our last day of Coachella this year, my wife and I were already having a hard time believing that it was almost over.  I started compiling my thoughts on the 2010 Coachella Music and Arts Festival last week.  My reviews of days one and two are still available, if you want to check them out.

After getting to the festival fairly early on our first two days, we decided to sleep a little later on Sunday.  Normally, in the past few years, we would always stay at our hotel from Thursday night to Sunday morning, and check out before heading to the festival for the final day.  The problem with that is that by the time the day was over, we would have to drive home, which is about two hours away, and I would always have trouble staying awake for that drive. This year we decided to stay one extra night, and I’m glad we did.  It really helped out, and made the weekend even more enjoyable than it already would have been.

I Hate That Commercial! – Crocs

Let’s face it.  Most commercials these days are pretty bad.  For everyone good one, there are probably another 100 bad ones out there.  But some stick out more than others.  Some  are bad, but you can still tolerate them.  Others are so bad that you cringe every time they come on.

And for some reason, most of the commercials that we’ve featured here are not only bad, they fall under the creepy/disturbing category as well.  And that’s definitely how I’d describe this new commercial from Crocs.

Now, I don’t think that it’s because I hate Crocs in general.  This commercial is just plain disturbing.  I know it’s not real, but if I owned a pair of Crocs and one day I came home to THAT, I don’t think I’d ever have a good night’s sleep ever again.  Most of the people commenting on YouTube seem to think the commercial is more cute than creepy.  Personally, I have to disagree.

What are your thoughts?

Coachella 2010: Day Two

If you haven’t yet had the chance, please read my review of Coachella 2010 day one… All caught up? Alright, let’s get going.

After a very packed Friday at Coachella, in terms of music AND people, we had originally planned on getting to the polo fields a little later on Saturday. The first act we wanted to see didn’t even go on until 3 p.m., but despite leaving a little bit later, the parking wasn’t nearly as bad and we made it there around the same time. Being a 3-day only festival this year, there were a few differences from past years. The most noticeable difference was that instead of three separate tickets for the whole weekend, you instead redeemed your one ticket for a wristband that you wore for all three days.

Another difference is that because of the wristband, they were allowing ins and outs. In past years, if you left, there was no getting back in, so you had to make sure that you were ready to leave.

Coachella 2010 : Day One

Well, it’s a been a couple of weeks, so I finally decided to sit down and compile my thoughts about this year’s Coachella Music and Arts Festival, which took place April 16 – 18, 2010 in Indio, CA.  This was the sixth time that I had attended the festival, and it was the fifth year in a row.

From a logistical standpoint, this year’s Coachella was FAR from perfect.  Months before the festival began, people were already upset that there were no single day tickets this year.  If you wanted to attend, you had to purchase a 3-day pass for the whole weekend.  Then, when the first day finally came around, there were problems with parking, ticket/wristband exchange, bands who had to cancel due to the Icelandic volcano, and a huge sold out crowd (75,000 people as opposed to 60,000 or less the last few years).  If you want to read complaints, there are other sites for that, including the official Coachella message board.  While this year WAS a bit unorganized, for me it was one of my favorite years overall, so I’ll focus on the (mostly) positive instead.

This year there was a ferris wheel!

I Hate That Commercial! – Six Flags

Okay, let’s just face the hard truth here… the commercials for Six Flags’ theme parks have been pretty bad for years. Sure, the old guy dancing to that song (apparently “We Like to Party” by Vengaboys) was maybe mildly entertaining when the advertising campaign started back in 2004. And that was mostly because it was one of those weird commercials you couldn’t really turn away from. It had catchy music, and that crazy bald dancing man (apparently named “Mr. Six”). They got rid of the commercials a few years later, turning instead to a new slogan (“Six Flags. More Flags, More Fun.”) which doesn’t even make any sense in the slightest.

Well, after that didn’t work out, they brought good ol’ Mr. Six back for new advertisements in the last year or so. And now, well, they’ve really topped themselves again, by bringing out one of the most disturbing commercials ever.

Music Video Of The Week: Hot Chip – “I Feel Better”

I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit biased here, as Hot Chip are already one of my favorite bands.  I’ve seen them in concert twice, including earlier this month at Coachella.  They’ve also just recently released a video for “I Feel Better,” the second single off of their fourth studio album, One Life Stand.   We featured the video for the CD’s title track awhile back, but even though it is a great song, the video just seemed to be lacking in the creativity department.

On the other hand, their new video for “I Feel Better” is simply amazing, thanks in part to the video being directed by British actor/comic Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun Of The Dead, Spaced, Look Around You).  I’m a big fan of Peter’s.  In fact, he is easily one of the funniest people on the planet (just check out his twitter account if you don’t believe me).  So when I heard that he was directing the video for this song, I knew it just had to be good.

The song relies heavily on auto-tune, which is a first for the band.  I know some people don’t like auto-tune as a whole, but I’m fine with it if it’s used for effect.  The video features a fake boy band, who are the type of singers who might NORMALLY use auto-tune on their recordings.  The guys from Hot Chip appear in the crowd scenes, in this amazingly funny, insane video.  Check it out…  It’s also the free iTunes video of the week right now, so make sure to grab it for your digital device!