Evangeline

Superdeformed: Matthew Sweet’s Altered Beast Demos

Seth, , , 2 Comments

This is not a music or mp3 blog, but I am a huge fan of Matthew Sweet. His Girlfriend album was one of the first CDs (not tapes) I bought with my own money and we named our youngest daughter Evangeline after the song of the same name on that album.

Needless to say, I like his music a little bit.

Now I come to find that he’s almost finished with a new album, Modern Art, which appears to feature album artwork of his cat sculptures. I can’t wait. But the thing that got me thinking about Matthew Sweet this week was listening to his unreleased demos for the Altered Beast album, code-named Superdeformed 1 & 2.

I’ve had his Son of Altered Beast EP for some time and I’m pretty sure I’ve had various mp3s of his copious demo albums for both Girlfriend and Altered Beast at some point but for whatever reason I’d nearly forgotten them.

This week I’ve re-discovered both Superdeformed 1 & Superdeformed 2 thanks to The Hype Machine.

Standout tracks (for me) are “Long Way To Go (Speed of Light)” and “Born in Sin” off the first CD.

So many of the other unreleased tracks are so good, you can see how they informed subsequent albums. “Bovine Connection” seems like “Cats vs. Dogs” off of Kimi Ga Suki Raifu, “It’s True” steals a riff from “Girlfriend”, “You’re Mean” could be a track off “Living Things” and “Girls” is a straight up tribute to Big Star’s “September Gurls”

The second CD has some more well-known tracks that weren’t on his full-length albums. Tracks like “Ultrasuede” and the eponymous “Superdeformed” are both good but I really enjoy the atmospheric trippiness of “Money” and the effects on “Eskimo”. Those latter songs really remind me of “In Reverse“.

Superdeformed 1 & 2 are really great additions to your music library if you’re a Matthew Sweet fan. They really show how prolific and experimental he was/is.

Here are track listings (courtesy of Jon Relph):

Superdeformed 1:

Superdeformed 1
Superdeformed 1
  1. Long Way to Go [Speed of Light]
  2. Dinosaur Act
  3. Devil with the Green Eyes
  4. Reaching Out
  5. Do It Again
  6. In Too Deep
  7. Evergreen
  8. Bovine Connection
  9. Time Capsule
  10. Born in Sin
  11. Put It Together [Finding Out]
  12. Fantasy World
  13. You’re Mean
  14. It’s True [Something’s Got to Give]
  15. Girls [Cobra Girls]

Superdeformed 2:

Superdeformed 2
Superdeformed 2
  1. Ugly Truth
  2. Falling
  3. Eskimo
  4. Ultrasuede
  5. Money [Marnie]
  6. Superdeformed
  7. Wait And See [Open Eyes]
  8. Idiot Child
  9. So Blue [Finally So Blue]
  10. Weekend Outlaw
  11. What Do You Know [What Do You Know?]
  12. The End
  13. Trace Of Love
  14. Drugs

Happy Listening!

Evolution of a Nickname

Seth, , , 1 Comment

Follow the bouncing ball and sing along. (Doesn’t really matter what tune you pick; no one can hear you sing on the internet.)

Evangeline
–>
Evie
–>
Evie Peeves
–>
The Peeves
–>
Peeves

Now I’m stuck thinking about my failed Harry Potter blog (too late/too crowded) and ghost stories.

The real lesson: you never know what’s going to happen when you name a kid. Terms of endearment develop over time OR you can’t legislate nicknames.

😉

Lost: The Substitute

Seth, 3 Comments

After a lengthy hiatus (both between seasons and after the birth of Evangeline) I’m back.

A day late.
A dollar short.
Until something else gets in the way. 😉

Here’s a brief recap of things we probably all saw (The Numbers) and some of my pet theories.

Things we all saw/Things that relate to previous storylines:

  • The Numbers

    • 4 – Locke
    8 – Hugo
    15 – Sawyer
    16 – Sayid
    23 – Jack
    42 – Jin

  • Music

    • Search & Destroy by The Stooges. I’m an Iggy Pop fan but I think we can all see the foreshadowing of what that means for the Man in Black and Sawyer.

  • Don’t Tell Me What I Can’t Do!

    • That statement from Man in Black (over Locke’s lips) coupled with Ilana’s statement to Ben that maybe MiB can’t change the way he looks makes me wonder about the secondary effects of MiB fudging the “rules” suggested by the little kid.

    Bets on who that kid is anybody? Reborn Jacob? I’m open.

Things I think I think:

  • The Substitute

    • Obviously Locke is a substitute teacher so that’s one meaning.

    Locke’s body as a substitute for MiB’s original plans, if ever he had any.

    Sawyer as a substitute for MiB’s original escape. Same caveats as above.

    Any other hidden double meanings I’m missing?

  • Zipper Time

    • Folks on Lostpedia are calling this narrative device a “flash sideways” and note some of the audio characteristics of the transitional sounds used in the Season 6 episodes. Judge for yourself.

    I have my own, similar pet theory: both timelines are working towards a combined resolution that probably/likely turns on another “incident”.

    We’ve been told by the producers that the timelines aren’t alternate realities but I think Daniel Faraday’s metaphor of a skipping record (pre-“incident”) is still at play, only now the needle is either playing both sides of the record or two records or ping-ponging spots on the same record.

    Hey, it’s not perfect, but it’s what I’m thinking.

    Anyhow, I contend that both storylines are true, accurate and even concurrent.
    Maybe one is even influencing the other.
    Maybe not.

    Either way I think that the choices in both stories are somehow playing us towards a resolution that leaves us with only ONE of each of our characters.

    Hence: zipper time

That’s all I’ve got tonight.

Better timing next week.
Better thinking next week.
Better blogging as we know more.

Oh, and DAMN ABC and their “the time for questions is over”! I have more questions than ever and we’d better see answers in the last 12 episodes.

Season 6 is 25% complete!

Until next Tuesday!

A Conspicuous Lack of Lost Blogging

Seth, , 6 Comments

There will be NO Lost blogging tonight.

I REPEAT: There will be NO Lost blogging tonight.

You see, Jenn & I welcomed a new addition to our family today: Evie

Full stats:
Evangeline Ann Miller
Born @ 10:41 AM on Tuesday, February 2, 2010
7 lbs., 7 oz.
20 in. long

Mom & Baby are doing fine, but we won’t be in our normal routine (though we *may* watch the premiere) so NO LOST BLOGGING (OR SPOILERS).

And to answer the most obvious and oft-repeated question: NO, we did not name her after Evangeline Lily who plays Kate on Lost.

We named her after one of our favorite songs: Evangeline by Matthew Sweet.

Have a nice night.
Enjoy Lost.
I’ll see you all on the flipside, later in the season (maybe even next week).

Oh, and a more thorough, proper post on our Evangeline (with many more pictures) is coming very soon. I hope.

G’night!