While I'm neck-deep into the new job, I've been sampling some pretty killer music... some old and some new (well, new to me). Ever since I watched Watchmen a while ago, I've had a few songs from the soundtrack in my head. The first would be the Nina Simone cover of Pirate Jenny:
Funny how your subconscious gives you signals: I had this song on heavy rotation when I worked on The Bachelor back in '04. Should I say overworked and grossly overpaid. After reacquainting myself with the song, I now realize why I was listening to this over and over again. It's about a put-upon lowly worker at a hotel, abused by her bosses who eventually wreaks revenge on everyone with her pirate minions. Funny, no?
Also from the Watchmen soundtrack has been Philip Glass' "Pruit Igoe and Prophecies", both original tracks from the amazing Koyaanisqatsi (which deserves a blog post all on its own) that are used brilliantly in Watchmen.
Last Tuesday I was driving to work after pulling a very long shift, and I was driving down Gower street right by Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. A white Escalade was right in front of me and stopped in the middle of the street. In my lack of sleep haze, it hit me that the Escalade -- currently pumping some awfully generic hip-hop -- was going to make a left and didn't signal. Of course. I honked my horn in disgust and pulled up to the red right at Sunset. The Escalade, foiled in its attempt to make a left turn into a strip mall parking lot, then pulled up next to me in the left-hand turn lane. The three white guys inside the SUV then cranked up their shitty bland hip-hop. In turn, I was listening to this Philip Glass track. I stared ahead, tired and crabby from my former 16 hour work day. Then, I smirked. With the Escalade's sound system booming to my left, I put my finger on the humble CD player in my silver 2003 Saturn Ion, and cranked my Philip Glass all the way up. Oh yeah boooyyeee, I was booming that shit. Within 15 seconds, the Escalade turned off their music completely. I slightly turned in their direction and out of the corner of my eye I saw their slack-jawed faces. The light turned green and off to work I went.
The final song that's been infecting my brain lately has been a dance track. Hercules And Love Affair is a dance-music collective from Brooklyn that's been on the edge of my awareness for a few months now. A good chunk of this is due to their DJ Andrew Butler looking like this:
I am not made of stone, people. Helloooooooo, Andrew! So, I started listening to their stuff on YouTube and it's pretty fantastic. They rotate different vocalists and below is the video for their song "Blind" with vocals from Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. Please, to enjoy:
Too much fun, right? Yes, I'm right.
Philip Glass' "Kundun" score (a classic) is playing now, and I'm laughing in recollection of this blog entry. I heard about it first from my brother, and when he told me about it I said: "Blasting Philip Glass while driving? Doesn't your car start going around and around and around in circles when you do that?
Posted by: DEC | August 20, 2010 at 07:58 PM