Posts tagged “Leeni”

There are a bunch of musics that I really should pick up. This post serves a dual purpose:

1. It serves as a reminder to me of what I might otherwise forget
2. It lets you, dear readers, see the kind(s) of musics that I am currently diggin’

By the time you read this I will have most likely gotten some of these. So, y’know, there’s that.

So what am I missing, folks? What other musics should I pick up?

Link of the Month:
Comic Book Resources
It’s weird; I have a strangely encyclopedic knowledge of comic books, especially from the Marvel universe. Here’s where I go to get all my comic book news.

Album of the Month:
Leeni: The Only Now
Sometimes I think I’d like to meet Leeni, but then I think I might inadvertently creep her out because (1) I also make chiptune music, (2) I also play the ukulele, (3) I also do improv comedy. I’m like a guy version of her except I can’t sing. Fortunately she can. In this album, her third full release as a chiptune musician, her silky, ethereal, dreamy vocals are smoother than ever, and her chiptune compositions (with some added enhancements) are intricate and lovely. There were a dozen amazing albums that came out in the past few weeks, but Leeni ends up winning this month.

TV of the Month:
Community: The Complete Second Season
Still the funniest TV show currently on the air. The 2nd season did not perhaps have as strong of an overall arc as the first season. There were storylines that seemed like they were gonna be important or go somewhere that ultimately ended up fizzling or going somewhere it didn’t quite seem like they belonged. But this season still has some of the best episodes of any TV series ever (yes, I will go on record with that), the highlight perhaps being the D&D episode. Just unbelievably creative television making by everyone involved. It’s inspiring and a bit depressing because I know no matter how hard I tried I’d never be able to make a TV show this good.

I decided it was about damned time that I made myself a new mix CD. For your convenience, I’ve included (when I can) links to where you can get these songs for yourself, should you so desire!

1. Things I Think About On Planes – Palmdale
2. An Open Letter to Stephen Fry – Molly Lewis
3. All The Same To Me – Anya Marina
4. Airbrushed – Anamanaguchi
5. Career Advice – Open Mike Eagle
6. Common Scents – Spot Two – JP Inc.
7. Dark Dark Eyes – Marian Call
8. Deer God – Busdriver feat. Open Mike Eagle
9. End Of Line – Daft Punk
10. Stay The Same – Bonobo & Andreya Triana
11. Haircut – Open Mike Eagle
12. The Internet – JP Inc.
13. Juicy Fruit – Mtume
14. Meet The Future Downlow – Palmdale
15. The Mating Game – Bitter:Sweet
16. Sentimental Heart – She & Him
17. Nothing in Between – Celene Ramadan
18. Lieutenant Custard & His Banger Of Time – JP Inc.
19. Promise – Cocorosie
20. Three Is a Magic Number – Molly Lewis
21. Your Woman – White Town
22. Original Butterscotch Confection (Three Ninjas Remix) – Open Mike Eagle feat. Busdriver
23. Bucky Done Gun – M.I.A.
24. Nothing Unusual – Three Ninjas feat. Geli Wuerzner
25. Twice As Nice – Pomplamoose

I especially like how I have a Busdriver song featuring Open Mike Eagle AND an Open Mike Eagle song featuring Busdriver.

This video for Leeni, probably my favorite chiptune musician, was animated by James Franzen of Radio Gosha. Hey, I know that guy!

As a follow-up to my Festivus Round-up, creative collective The Beta Society has posted the entirety of the movie portion of A Very Alan Thickemas. It features the real voice of Alan Thicke, and also an impersonated voice of Alan Thicke. It’s directed by Celene Ramadan, who you might also know as chiptune musician Leeni. Yes, it’s a puppet musical.

Happy Festivus, everyone! I hope you get to air some good grievances. I hope the plain aluminum pole is not too distracting. And I hope you win the Feats of Strength!

Here I’m going to round-up a big random heaping of things I’ve found interesting recently. Artists, websites, musics, games, whatever. In random order:

Michaela Eaves

I saw her at a studio open house where she had some paintings and prints out for display. I really dug the way her paintings have heavy outlines, and the way the lines break up the colors in such a way that her paintings almost look like stained glass.

She also had an adorable painting of a rocket ship, done in a soft, children’s book style of painting. I dug it, but I can’t find a picture on her website (which is mostly about her graphic design & illustration business):
www.michaelaeaves.com

8-Bit Jesus

I thought this was pretty spectacular. Not only did Doctor Octoroc (sic) make 8-bit chiptune versions of many Christmas songs for his album 8-Bit Jesus, but he also wrote them in the specific styles of various 8-bit video games. My favorites are definitely “Carol of the Belmonts,” “Bubbles We Have Heard on High,” and “8 Days of Master Robots,” which very excellently captures the essence of the Mega Man experience. Also, “Icarus! The Herald Angels Sing” is quite accurate. Check it out:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/8BitJesus/

Machinarium

Machinarium is a beautifully done, old-style, point-and-click adventure video game, unbelievably done entirely in Flash. I like it ’cause it’s about robots. But more than that, the world is completely enthralling, and the puzzles all involve robot logic more than real-world logic.

The art style is pretty much spectacular. You can play a demo for free, or buy and download the full version here:
http://machinarium.net/

Kaiju Dance to Thriller

Just what the title says: a bunch of Kaiju dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Wonder Woman Pumps

This woman takes shoes and tastefully collages them with pages from Wonder Woman comic books. She tends to use mostly monochromatic images, so the effect is a little subtler than you might expect.

She has an etsy shop where she makes all kinds of shoes and boots (not just Wonder Woman):
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Pachainkapink

Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner Scarf

Taisha McGee sells what she calls “Ugly Scarves.” They’re mostly actually quite pretty, but she nevertheless gives them hilarious names based loosely on their color schemes, names like “Mulched Roses,” “Tidy Bowl,” “Moldy Cheese,” “Mushy Froot Loops,” and my favorite, “Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner.” She also has the sense of humor to take photos of the scarves wrapped around a cardboard stand-up of John Wayne. Bravo!

Check them all out at her etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TaishaMcGee

Alexis St.John

An artist whose work I saw in a tea shop in Downtown Tacoma (Mad Hat Tea, 1130 Commerce Street) and I liked the humor and simplicity in it. I also really appreciated how most of the paintings were really small; a lot of ’em were only like 6″ × 6″, and I don’t think anything of hers gets over 20″ in any direction.

You can buy the actual artwork, of if you’d prefer you can buy frameable prints of it.
http://alexisstjohn.com/Gallery.html

TheSixtyOne

TheSixtyOne.com is a fascinating idea for a democratic music website, where the more people like a song the more popular it becomes, and ANYONE can upload ANY song they’ve created (as long as they’re legally allowed to blah, blah, blah, y’know).

Not only that, but it turns listening to music into kind of an RPG. You gain experience (called “reputation”) and rise in levels. There are quests (like “Listen to 7 recently-uploaded songs” or “Listen to the radio stations of 5 other people for 5 minutes each”) that let you earn experience and “hearts,” which you can use to mark a song as a favorite (i.e., you heart the song). And you also earn experience as other people later heart songs that you previously hearted. The more reputation you have, the more likely other people are to listen to your opinions (in theory at least). So you get tangible rewards for finding new, unheard songs that you really like and then getting other people to like them as well, other than the reward of discovering good music.

Also, TheSixtyOne.com is the only place right now where you can hear Taisha’s musc (yes, the same Taisha that makes those scarves). Just go here:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/taisha/

A Very Alan Thickemas

THE Alan Thicke, Leeni, and puppets. Lots and lots of puppets. And Blake Lewis is somehow involved. It exists, I just have no idea of how to see it. Other than these:

That’s about it for now.

One thing you might not know about me is that I don’t listen to a lot of music, by which I mean I tend to focus on a small selection of music and then listen to it over and over and over again.

One of the things I do is I make Mix CDs that I listen to while I’m driving around—to and from work, to and from Fools Play, etc. Thing is, I only make one Mix CD about every three months and that’ll be pretty much all that I’ll listen to until I make another one.

Traditionally I go iTunes and organize my music by most recently added, then start pulling the best songs over to a new playlist as I work my way back in time through my music collection. This way my Mix CDs tend to have a handful of songs that I’ve acquired recently. I also try not to put in too many songs that were in my previous Mix CD. But I don’t add much music to my collection very often, so doing it that way only fills up a portion of the CD. So then I delve into my list of all-time most listenable songs. Y’know, the songs that I don’t really ever get tired of listening to (the playlist that I call “Ultimate Flawless Victory” in iTunes) and toss in a few of those. Then I look at all of the songs in my collection that I’ve given four or five stars and toss in a few of those.

These Mix CDs are both reflective and projective. I try to incorporate how my musical tastes have changed over the past three months while at the same time trying to predict what I’ll want to listen to for the next three months.

Here are the last two CDs I created:

August 2009:

1. Always Been There Anyway – Julia Massey
2. Around the Bend – The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
3. Brain Problem Situation – They Might Be Giants
4. Buddy Holly – Weezer
5. Cellars by Starlight – Kay Hanley
6. Golden Blunders – The Posies
7. Good Fish – Julia Massey
8. Have a F*****g Baby – Three Ninjas
9. Headphones on Your Heart – Leeni
10. House of Mayors – John linnell
11. The Last Thing On Your Mind – Lights
12. Little Fighter X – Fighter X
13. Lollipop – Mika
14. Lovebite – Order of the Crimson Wizard
15. Me + Yr Daughter – Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
16. Over and Over – Leeni
17. Red Underwears – Three Ninjas
18. Say It Ain’t So – Weezer
19. Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
20. Soft Rocked By Me – Jonathan Coulton
21. Somewhere on This Couch – The Crazy Boy Floyds
22. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
23. You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds (featuring Regina Spektor)

November 2009 (there is one repeat song from the August CD—see if you can spot it)

1. Dance, Dance, Dance – Lykke Li
2. Dirt Bike – They Might Be Giants
3. Doll Partz – Order of the Crimson Wizard
4. Heading Out at Dawn – Terrapin Productions
5. Jenny Towner – Julia Massey
6. Los Angeles – They Might Be Giants
7. Mario’s Café – Saint Etienne
8. Powers – Three Ninjas
9. Pride & Strawberry Wine – The Wastelanders
10. A Quiet Room – Tangentbot
11. Secret Skin – Busdriver
12. Spin Around – Josie & The Pussycats
13. Stairs – Locust Street Taxi
14. Starry Eyed Surprise – Oakenfold
15. Stop – Spice Girls
16. Sun Shower – Busdriver
17. Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus
18. Theme from “Greatest American Hero” – Joey Scarbury
19. True Affection – The Blow
20. Ugly Girl – Fleming & John
21. Vancouver – They Might Be Giants
22. Veronica – Elvis Costello
23. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
24. What’s Golden – Jurassic 5
25. Your Love Is a Drug – Puffy AmiYumi

I have no idea what these songs say about me, so feel free to psychoanalyze me to your hearts’ content based solely on the content of these lists. Enjoy!