Friday, November 30, 2007

Comfort in Sound

Music Rants

The tide that left and never came back
There seems to be a disturbing trend evident in a number of bands I follow. Suicides and seclusion. Taking The Veils and Feeder for instance, here is what Wikipedia had to say.

“They have a small but incredibly dedicated fanbase worldwide with fans often crossing continents to see their shows. Fan obsession with the band has at times been seriously fanatical, with three suicides in Japan allegedly caused by the splitting of the first incarnation of The Veils. Finn has cited these events as being part of the reason for his regular retreats back home to New Zealand to write and escape this increasing pressure.”
[The Veils] Source: Wikipedia

“After their breakthrough year, their drummer Jon Lee committed suicide in his Miami home in January 2002. The band vowed to continue and would then in October 2002 release "Comfort in Sound", an album musically and lyrically focused around the band's emotions at the time which was well-received by critics.”
[Feeder] Source : Wikipedia

There is a plethora of pathos that can be felt deeply in some of their songs, such as “The Valley of New Orleans”, “The Nowhere Man” and “Quick Fade”. The Veils, in particular, have this essense of tiredness in their movements (pun intended), such as in “The Leavers Dance”, where all the world seems to be coming to an end, and that end, proves beautiful beyond all corporeal. They have this ability to take you out of this world, give you a sense of euphoria, and throw you back into reality again. And this reality is all the more compounded by the fact that idealism cannot survive in this world. I reckon Marx and Engels could start a band like The Veils.

Re-Offender
Another trend I find common in my playlist is the appearance of bands who made it big in mainstream for a while, but thereafter, decided that manufactured pop was the disease of individualism, and hence, went back into the depths of seclusion. Taking Jimmy Eat World, Travis and Starsailor for instance, they made it out with tunes such as ‘The Middle’, ‘Flowers in the window’ and ‘Silence is easy’ respectively. Then, after these monster hits, they disappeared from the commercial scene. It proved a good move, as with the subsequent albums that came out from them, you could get a feel of their character and identity growing.

‘Futures’ rocked my world, and I had it on my favourites list for the longest time, with one of the songs even making it to my squad graduation video (suggested by yours truly heh heh). ‘On the outside’ saw me through BMT, when I brought my discman and the cd onto the island, and it would keep my company in whatever free time I had. I just remembered another band that fits this criteria – Goo Goo Dolls. ‘Let love in’ proved a worthy match to the success of ‘Iris’.

In conclusion, I am so bored I am examining my itunes and surfing wikipedia.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Bittersweet Symphony

What happens when you place an idealist in the world?

He dies.

my brain is hanging upside down

I found out something totally amazing about me yesterday. I couldn't quite believe it at first, it's so whacked out!

alright, i was in a stressful situation yesterday, and i was writing some stuff down. and as time went by, i realised that the amount of information coming in was increasing exponentially. it was so intense and i was scribbling so hard cuz i was afraid that if i had missed anything that was said, the pieces would not fit. then, to my horror of horrors, i suddenly realised i could not understand anything i was writing! upon closer inspection (yes, sherlock..), i realised i was writing backwards!!
so for instance, 'november' was 'rebmevon' and 'said' was 'dias'.

os looc thgir?

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Flights of fancy



Welcome back Boss!! You have been missed very much!

Friday, November 23, 2007

only where i'm going



It shouldn't have to be this hard.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Letters to God

every night, i am washed by an ecstasy of euphora,
and I'd like to think of it as God-given strength.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Faith Hope Love

Faith, Hope, Love,
Be Enough?

Monday, November 12, 2007

the world you love

anyone wanna buy me soccer boots?
(:

Sunday, November 11, 2007

there's no i in team

I'm gonna start on an experiment next week. It'll probably last until friday, or maybe next monday. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, here are some nice shots.




Wednesday, November 07, 2007

All that we needed

Allow me first to declare that i have liked/supported Plain White T's since 2005,
because i have a feeling that they're about to be the next Snow Patrol in Singapore,
and all these so called 'fanatics' will be proclaiming their love for them.
If you do meet such people, ask them to name just 2 songs from the band, or just 1 album title.
my bet's on them not knowing.

i'm really glad jimmy eat world went back to the alternative scene, and death cab for cutie to the indie one. and taking back sunday and dashboard confessional never really did catch on here. All the small things i give thanks for (:

I guess I got James Blunt, The Click 5, Maroon 5 and crap like them to thank.

I think you can tell alot of a person's character by the stuff he/she listens to, and the stuff he/she tries to smoke out.

counting blue cars

As an apology for the lack of updates (yeah cuz i know about 760,839 people read my blog and all but 10,348 of them are staging a protest right now), here are 2 nice pictures i took today. yay.


Friday, November 02, 2007

The scientist

I have lost.

This time.