Estelle "American Boy ft. Kanye West"

Estelle - "American Boy" ft. Kanye West




Okay this song is just too awesome. It only further reenforces my theory that Kanye West is bringing the 2005/2006 French house sound to the American masses. It's funny how two years ago, I was really diggin' this sound and then it got kinda stale by the middle of 2006 (by the third Kitsune compilation and fifty-millionth spazz-hop beats of Ed Banger songs, their formulas seemed to obvious and dull--not to mention each of the labels' initially cool, retro-future/animated-graffiti graphic designs became too much of a brand once Justice got their videos out on MTV).

Anyway, what's great about this estelle song is that it takes out all the annoying "art-school project" aspects of the Kitsune/Ed Banger sound and makes really (E)stellar pop-music out of it. Where as that French house music began as a sort of ironic pastiche of early 1990s club music, Kanye seems to be making a pastiche of the pastiche and turning the music back into just regular, mid-brow pop without pretensions or aesthetic statements (actually, Kanye is a bit pretentious sometimes). Whatever, this song is a perfect example of everything Kitsune and Ed Banger Records have long forgotten about, in each of their respective attempts to maintain like an art-school cred and wallow in (and settle for) making twenty million boring remixes of the same bad, trendy trash tracks that won't matter 1 year from now.

Atomic Tweed Playlist for 04-30-08

Okay, so I haven't been on Atomic Tweed since April 9th. But it felt good to be back this morning as well as feeling a little bad since I had to call-in sick to work and request a substitute--hopefully all is going well at school. Anyway, I don't think I had much of a theme going here, this is a pretty classicist Atomic Tweed playlist for me. It was an indulgent set in that I mostly played a bunch of songs I love and make me feel good for one reason or another.

'Atomic Tweed' Wednesday 6:00:00 AM-8:00:00 AM DJ: Omar

Song Name	Artist	Album	Label
Love Is Evil - The Prequel 29	Architecture In Helsinki	Do The Whirlwind Ep	---
Sea On The Full Moon 28	The Wave Pictures	Catching Light	Moshi Moshi
Since She Started To Ride 27	Jonathan Richman	Jonathan Goes Country	---
How Did We Forget 26(new)	El Perro Del Mar	From The Valley Of The Stars	Tcg
M79 25(new)	Vampire Weekend	Vampire Weekend	Xl Recordings
Guess Who I Saw In Paris 24	Claudine Longet	The Very Best Of Claudine Longet	---
God Only Knows 23(requested)	Beach Boys	Pet Sounds	----
Shirin 22	Jens Lekman	Night Falls Over Kortedala	Secretly Canadian
Cemetry Gates 21	The Smiths	The Queen Is Dead	Rough Trade
We Are All Accelerated Readers 20(new)	Los Campesinos!	Hold On Now, Youngster	Arts And Crafts
Welcome 19(new)	Sarandon	Kill Twee Pop	Slumberland
Louise Louise 18	Orange Juice	The Glasgow School	----
Fly Trapped In A Jar 17(requested)	Modest Mouse	We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank	Epic
These Days 16	Nico	Chelsea Girl	---
Femme Fatale 15	Velvet Underground	Velvet Underground And Nico	---
Crash 14	The Primitives	Buzz Buzz Buzz	---
Washington Dc 13	Magnetic Fields	69 Love Songs (disc 2)	---
The Windmills Of Your Mind 12	Noel Harrison	Thomas Crowne Affair Soundtrack	----
Cold Hard World 11	Daniel Johnston	Don't Be Scared	---
Maggie's Farm 10(requested)	Bob Dylan	Bringin It All Back Home	---
Airwalker 9(new)	Jeremey Jay	Airwalker Ep	K Recs
Ceremony 8	New Order	Substance	Factory
Incinerate 7	Sonic Youth	Rather Ripped	Geffen
Foam Hands 6(new)	Destroyer	Trouble In Dreams	----
Melody Day 5(new)	Caribou	Andorra	---
Softly Through The Void 4(new)	Elf Power	In A Cave	Ryko Records
Le Petit Coeur 3(new)	Peter Moren	The Last Tycoon	Astralwerks
Stop Killing Me 2	The Primitives	Buzz Buzz Buzz	---
Godsend 1	Beat Happening	You Turn Me On	K Recs

Rugrats Theme on Glockenspiel

I Found it on Craigslist! #1

Okay, so if you know me (and I know you do), you know I buy everything on craigslist. I believe it both supports the local economy and promotes recycling by passing old things to new owners rather than into landfills. Anyway, I'm going to maybe start an ongoing post series I'm calling "I Found it on Craigslist!" Hopefully, I'll stick to it rather than just do one post and then never post again like I did with my last recurring series, "Blog Hunter," with only 1 official post thus far (although in all fairness, I've continued to post blog finds without using the title "Blog Hunter" so in a way that has continued.)

Okay, well here goes the first "I Found it On Craigslist!" for the week of April 13th through the 19th.

Item #1 - Fender CG-7 Classical Guitar ($40)




The dude who sold it to me earlier this week (It was wed, I think), a very nice guy, recently got married and is wife gave him a newer, better classical with a piezo-electric pickup and he no longer needed this. While it doesn't have the best tone in the world, it's actually quite okay. I didn't have a nylon string guitar until now and it's a nice departure from steel string, since the nylon is much easier on the fingers and the fatter neck allows for much more precise finger-picking and fretting.


Item #2 - Angel 1955 AX-27K Glockenspiel - Made In Korea ($5)



Okay, I've been looking for a Glockenspiel for a loooooong time. But I had no idea where to find one. I was thinking of going to elementary schools and asking if they had any old ones in their now unfunded music classes that the school planned on throwing away. However, I never get around to it since I work during school hours. I did manage to ask a SamAsh guy about one of these, but the only one they sold was like $100 "student model" which seemed way overpriced to me.

So then yesterday this ad came up on the Orlando Craigslist yesterday and it made my day. I e-mailed the anonymous e-mail address with my phone number and a friendly lady with an English-accent called me back. She asked me if it would be for a child and I told her no, but simply a childish amateur musician like myself. She seemed satisfied with the answer and met with me at the Altamonte Springs Target, showed me the little glockenspiel. I played the melody of "Fur Elise" on it to test it out, gave her $5--not a typo, it was really five dollars--and I thanked her. She wished me luck and said, "Who knows, maybe someone could write a good song on one of these." And I told her, "Well If you ever hear about Omar DeLaRosa writing a hit glockenspiel song, then you know what happened."

And now, I'm off to write my hit glockenspiel song.

Matisse and Carrots (Correction Appended)

I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy, I guess. Anyway, I got my rejection letter in the mail today from SUNY Purchase's Studio Composition program so I've also been down about that. I guess this is my official rejection from music-academia, as well. After reviewing my songs "Healthy Addictions," "Candy and Rum," and my little random dance music thing, they have concluded that I am just not that good.

Oh yeah. Since I no longer need to maintain the aura of being a somewhat legitimate solo artist, I'm going to change my "omar delarosa" myspace to a real functioning sort of music project myspace (y'know, one without like all that ego and some sort of abstract name that means some thing only the members of the music project and is usually some sort of obscure reference to some old children's book from the 19th century or something). Anyway, I've decided to go with:

Matisse and Carrots

Future Perfect

I just added the following blog to my blog links, Future Perfect.  After reading about this guy Jan Chipchase in a NYTimes Magazine article today, I realized I would love this blog--and you might too.  His job is to travel around developing nations and find out about uses for cellphone technology and send information back to his employer, Nokia.  There, they use his advice/observations/photographs to improve their designs to meet the needs of people in these countries he visits.  His blog Future Perfect is full of the photos he takes and the observations he makes about life in these nations--fascinating, stuff really.  Just check out this aerial photo of Dubai:

Atomic Tweed Playlist for 04-09-08

Today, Caeley joined me in the WPRK Studio and helped select some songs.  Try to guess which ones.  Also, the 1/8" inch hookup for iPods and stuff seemed to be broken and I had to DJ from CDs only--and only ones from the WPRK library.  I had to constantly run back and forth from the library room to the mixing board. It was hard, to say the least, but it worked.  I now have appreciation for how DJs must've done things way back in the early to mid 1990s.  Anyway, check it out:

'Atomic Tweed' Wednesday 6:00:00 AM-8:00:00 AM DJ: Staff

Song Name	Artist	Album	Label
The Glow Pt.2 28(new)	The Microphones	The Glow Part 2	K Recs
That's Because You Drive Me 27	Acid House Kings	Sing Along With	---
Shady Lane (krossfader) 26	Pavement	Shady Lane	Matador
The Dirty Dirty 25	Tapes N' Tapes	Walk It Off	Xl Recordings
You're A Waste 24(new)	Be Your Own Pet	Get Akward	Universal
Fly Me Away 23	Goldfrapp	Supernature	Mute Corporation
La Pour Ca 22(requested)	Nada Surf	Let Go	Barsuk
Es Como El Pan 21(new)	Jonathan Richman	Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild	Vapor Records
Flowering Spade 20	Sean Hayes	Flowering Spade	---
Silver Tiles 19(new)	Matt And Kim	Love And Circuits	Cardboard Records
Gardenia 18(new)	Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks	Real Emotional Trash	---
Nancy Sin 17	Beat Happening	Music To Climb The Apple Tree By	K Recs
Hello Blue Roses 16(new)	Hello Blue Roses	The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty	---
Social Competence 15(new)	Peter Moren	The Last Tycoon	---
A New City Life 14(new)	Pants Yell!	Allison Statton	Soft Abuse
This Is How You Spell "hahaha.... 13(new)	Los Campesinos!	Hold On Now Youngster	Arts And Crafts
Overnight 12	Gonzales	Solo Piano Compositions	----
The Chills 11	Peter Bjorn & John	Writer's Block	Almost Gold
Jessica 10	Adam Green	Friends Of Mine	---
Corazon 9	Bishop Allen	The Broken String	Dead Oceans
Ruby Tuesday 8	Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston	The Lucky Sperms	Jagjaguwar
Frankenstein 7	Jad & David Fair	Monster Songs A-z For Children	--
Again And Again 6	The Bird And The Bee	Again And Again And Again	Metro Blue
Too Young 5	Phoenix	United	Astralwerks
Black Cab 4	Jens Lekman	Maple Leaves Ep	Secretly Canadian
Fireworks 3	Animal Collective	Strawberry Jam	Domino
Foam Hands 2(new)	Destroyer	Trouble In Dreams	Merge
Our Secret 1	Beat Happening	Crashing Through	K Recs

I forgot my headphones (again)

Several posts ago (and at least 1 job ago) I forgot to bring my headphones to work and could not effectively listen to my iPod. Fortunately in this job I my computer has a set of speakers with an 1/8" jack that I almost never use with the computer itself. Still, not having headphones seems to take away my little indulgence of a private music break. To me the experience is perhaps closest to what smokers must experience when they go outside for a cigarette when things get hairy. Forgetting my headphones is like leaving my good cigs in my other jacket and only having like Marlboro lights or something (the light cigarette being inferior to the regular ones and serving as a metaphor here for the Dell computer speakers I have to use instead of my headphones). However, I'm not a smoker so I'm not sure how well this analogy holds up. Smokers?

Still, today I have managed to listen to Jeremy Jay's Airwalker EP many-a-times and I am even more eagerly awaiting his new album. I only heard of this guy a few months back when "Beautiful Rebel" popped up on the web and... wow... I can't believe I didn't check him out any sooner. Like the rebel he sings about he seemed to come out of the woodwork (woodwork here is used as a synonym of nowhere, whether it is a synonym of nowhere or not). Anyway, totally amazing stuff. Though it might me more amazing via headphones.

BMV 232 (my 100th Post!)

So a friend of mine from Venezuela, who currently attends film school in Buenos Aires, made his first film-school short film.  It's like a sort of micro-thriller about a guy walking to a car in a parking garage and hears some guys voice coming out of the trunk of another car.  Anyway it's called BMV 232 (after the license plate of the other car) and it's pretty awesome.  Check it out:

Compare it to this storyboard he made for it a few months back:

P.S. - This is my 100th post for Plastic Impossible, and I just want to say thanks for reading all those posts.  And special thanks to Brian Feldman, Sam Metro, my mom, and music critic Marc Hogan (he left a few comments a while back when I argued with him about his choice of records to review in Pitchfork).  I appreciate you guys leaving comments on many of these posts, since it makes the blog feel more blog-ish and like a dialogue and less like the monologue it kind of withers down to sometimes.

Re: Let's Write A Sawng (Step 4)

Since I'm on spring break now and don't really have any beaches to go to or anything, I decided to record a response video to the aforementioned contest by Rivers Cuomo (aka Weezer's lead singer) going on now on YouTube.  It's response number 23 so we'll see how I do.

The Epic Saga of Rivers Cuomo's song Contest (Parts 1 through 4)

So it looks like Rivers Cuomo is doing some sort of YouTube-based song contest.  Unfortunately, I just tuned in and 4 "steps" have already passed.  Probably too late for me to participate, however, I will post these (odd) videos here.  What can I say?  River's kind of a quirky guy:

How do you forget "fun"?  Sheesh...

Besides the song contest thing happening here, there's also this parallel narrative so to speak of Rivers' growing confidence with his video editing skills.  Notice how the "production" of these little clips gets flashier with each subsequent one.


 By this clip, he's trying all sorts of stuff--besides his little trade-mark speed changes.

And by this clip, he's down right avant-garde...  I guess his videos are also kind of "fun + tough."

Atomic Tweed Playlist for 04-02-08

'Atomic Tweed' Wednesday 6:00:00 AM-8:00:00 AM DJ: Omar

Song Name	Artist	Album	Label
Please Mr. Postman 29	Marvellettes	Hitsville Usa	Motown
Money (that's What I Want) 28	Barrett Strong	Hitsville Usa	Motown
Fingertips 27	Little Stevie Wonder	Hitsville Usa	Motown
(love Is Like A) Heatwave 26	Martha And The Vandellas	Hitsville Usa	Motown
Banshee Beat 25	Animal Collective	Fells	Fat Cat
Eli 24(new)	Caribou	Andorra	---
Chemo Limo 23	Regina Spektor	Soviet Kitsch	----
The Scientist (coldplay Cover) 22(new)	Johnette Napolitano	Scarred	----
Pride (in The Name Of Love) 21(new)	Soweto Gospel Choir	In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2	----
Take Pills 20(new)	Panda Bear	Person Pitch	----
Meet Me In The Garden 19(new)	Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele	A Brush With Velvet Ep	Cats Purring
A Little Lost (arthur Russell Cover) 18(new)	Jens Lekman	Four Songs By Arthur Russell	Secretly Canadian
My Match 17(new)	Peter Moren	The Last Tycoon	---
Screaming Skull 16	Sonic Youth	Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star	---
Hello Shallow (all Night Long) 15(local)(new)	Omar Delarosa	Eight Tracks	Myspace.com/omardelarosamusic
Dustin Hoffman Thinks About Eating The Soap14	Of Montreal	The Early Four Track Recordings	Elephant 6
Bus 13(new)	The Radio Dept.	Lesser Matters	Labrador
The Secret History Of Devil's Paw 12	Tullycraft	Every Scene Needs A Center	Magic Marker
Yes! You Love Me 11	Acid House Kings	Advantage Of Acid House Kings	---
Everybody Supermarket 10(new)	The Sugargliders	International Pop 7	International Pop
Beautiful Beat 9(new)	Nada Surf	Lucky	Barsuk
You! Me! Dancing! 8(new)	Los Campesinos	Hold On Now, Youngster	Arts & Crafts
The World Doesn't Spin On Us 7(new)	The Aluminum Group	Little Happiness	---
Don't Go 6(new)	Forest City Lovers	Haunting Moon Sinking	---
Last Caress 5	The Misfits	Green Hell	---
Daaance 4(new)	The Lambrettas	7" Single	----
Genius Of Love 3	Tom Tom Club (talking Heads)	Stop Making Sense	----
Sea On The Full Moon 2(new)	The Wave Pictures	Catching Light	---
Pope John Paul 1	The Lovely Feathers	Hind Hind Legs	----