Threw it out the window

Happy Birthday to fantasticpants! Well, it was still your birthday here in California when I started typing this…

A song I’ve really been into these past few days is Dr. Dog’s version of “Heart it Races,“ originally by Architecture in Helsinki. You can download it at this site. It’s really hard to find soft songs I like, but this is catchy and pleasant enough to be one of the best summer songs of 2007.

Try this out! Follow the instructions on the picture: when it says drums, and you hear the drums kick in, click on the picture. If it says vocals, and the vocals start, click on the picture. Cool stuff will happen. It’s an interactive music video!

More music: The Raveonettes make a nice cover of John Lennon’s “One Day at a Time” for a Save Darfur campaign, while Spinner has posted Cold War Kids live performances of “Hang Me Up to Dry,” “We Used to Vacation,” and “St. John.” The group has been classified as "suburban angst soul," with an earthy, funk-folk-rock sound full of thick Southern atmosphere- although they’re from L.A. claennis pointed me towards their live performances for La Blogotheque, the leaders in putting indie artists in weird places to perform (They put Sufjan Stevens on a windy rooftop!). Anyways, the first video on that page has the Cold War Kids performing “St. John” while moving around in a parking garage, using cars and wine bottles and more as instruments. IT IS SO COOL YOU MUST WATCH. There’s another video there, but I haven’t had time to check it out…

Speaking of Sufjan Stevens, he let his rock out on In the Words of the Governor. Give it a listen.

Via logovo: 80’s music macros. HA.

I thought up this weird Sylar mashup that has Muse’s “New Born.” Klaxons’ “Totem on the Timeline,” Arty Fufkin’s “Liar in a Brianstorm (Beyoncé feat. Shakira vs. Arctic Monkeys), the actual “Brianstorm” by the Arctic Monkeys, “El Tango del Pecado” by Calle 13, and “Sick, Sick, Sick” by Queens of the Stone Age. Really, I marked all the music and lyric snippets and breaks on a piece of paper. Now, if only I had the time, data, and software to actually make it into a video…gaaaah…
Speaking of “Sick, Sick, Sick,” I don’t agree with most other blogs that it’s not as good as 3’s and 7’s another song off QotSA’s newest album, “Era Vulgaris.” Actually, I think the number track sounds boring. But then again, I don’t like the blog indie gods Arcade Fire (oh no! They’re going to steal my basketball now!), so…yeah.

Anyways, I watched the video for “Sick, Sick, Sick.” twice now. It took me a while the first time to figure out it was about cannibalism. Watch it if you don’t want to eat afterward. But that video is so much better than the (CAUTION NOT WORK-SAFE) “German video” for the song. The alternate sick colors and stretch effects are cool, the weird T+A are not.
You can watch the live Channel 4 performance of the song, sans The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas’ guest vocals.

By the way, there’s this German band, Fotos, that sound scarily like The Strokes. Except younger. And German. The lead singer even does that wide-eyed thing that Julian does. They sound more fresh than derivative though.

Finally, ( there are some weird things I’ve said/thought over the past month )