Let’s see how long I can manage to keep up a vague theme for these posts. This week I wanted to throw out some videos with some fancy “science-y” themes. I use that in the vaguest since, because at least one is kind of a stretch but it’s certainly nice to look at.
Also, it’s a bit “Music Monday-ish” as well, since it’s Tuesday, because yesterday I posted about the Alanis Morrisette Concert. (Unless for some reason I didn’t go and forgot to remove that line, wait, now I need to remove this line if it does happen….)
Lusine – Just a Cloud (feat Vilja Larjosto)
I am completely fascinated by this video every time it comes up on y playlist. I really like the sort of layering of patterns that is present across the entire length of the track. It does a nice soft build as the song goes along. What I really like though in this video is the use of light.
I mentioned those patterns, and they essentially each also have their own light effect in the video. It’s about as close as you can get to “seeing music” without, I dunno, dropping acid or something, I’ve never tried that I can’t really say.
Wintergaten – Marble Machine
This guy has essentially made a career out of this crazy marble machine. He’s got a whole series of videos about the process he is doing to continually update and upgrade and basically build a more perfect device. I still really love this version though, with all the shaky jank going on. It’s a nice pleasant little song too.
The Engineer part of my brain loves all the technical planning and design that had to have gone into making this all work as well as it does, and the work being put in on the updated device.
Nigel Standford – Cymatics: Science vs Music
I mentioned about about being the “best way to see sound” and I guess I was wrong, because this video is the best way to see sound. Quite literally. Most of the experiments featured in this video are sound based experiments. The vibrations in the water pans, the way the water curls with the base, the funny patterns made by the graphite on the trays, the way the flames pop up and down in patterns. It’s all matter reacting to sound in a clean enough way that we can see it.
Sound travels in waves, most of these are just the sound waves visualized.
Except the Tesla coil at the end, that’s just, “cool science” that doesn’t really have much to do with sound.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.
Alanis Morrissette, singing Ironic, the first song she has actually heavily encouraged audience participation in, and her mic goes out. The audience had already been doing like 50-75% of the song without her so the band just continued and no one noticed until it came back a few seconds later.
It’s it Ironic?
Don’t cha think?
Last night, I went and saw Alanis Morrissette perform at the Illinois State Fair. In traditional fashion, I’m going to ramble on a bit about the whole night’s experience. For the sake of simplicity, you can get a bit more highlights about my love of Alanis in my recent post about Jagged Little Pill.
A couple of years ago, I almost went to see Alanis and Garbage during their tour together, She was going to be in Indianapolis, and I have family over there I could see, I checked into tickets and they were, a bit more than I cared to spend, for where they were located. Plus it was still kind of “The middle of COVID” so it seems like maybe it was best to just not. Then a few months ago, she was announced as coming to the Illinois State Fair this year. Each year the fair has a large show, I think every night, maybe races a few nights. I hopped on over and signed up for her mailing list to get in the early sales window. My wife wasn’t interested and my brother was interested but that fell through. Since it was just me, I bought tickets for the standing area on the track. Later I learned the fair offers a “Pre Show Party” for pretty cheap, which includes early entry and a parking pass. That seemed like a good deal, so I spring for that.
I’m glad I did.
I opted to go right to the “wait in line” part of the Pre Show Party after buying a bottle of water (which cost me more than an entire case of water normally, but hey, it was some charity group running it). I was like, 25 in line I think, and people kept wandering out and back for more drinks. The only other time I’ve been to a show was like ten years ago for Toby Keith, my wife and daughter wanted to go. This was my view.
When we went in, I had a notion that most people would pile in on the right side of the stage since we were let in on the right, so I shuffled around past to the left side of the stage and ended up pretty much right in the center, I was next to the dude who had been at the front of the line. So this was my view.
Perfect.
Around an hour later, and some light rain, which threatened to become worse, the opening act started. I actually didn’t realize there was an opening act, nothing really mentioned it.
Tenille Townes
I don’t know what it is about opening acts, but it’s like they are required to do SOME cover songs. I don’t mind covers, but her set included I think 3 covers. Oddly enough, I could see the setlist taped to the floor and the second song listed, “Come as You Are”, was NOT a cover of Nirvana. It’s was a Tenille Townes track. She did do covers of U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and The Beatle’s Come Together.
I am not familiar enough with her song’s to remember what most of them were called and Setlist.fm isn’t helping me here. Funny enough, I am pretty sure I have heard her music before because Somebody’s Daughter was very familiar when they played it.
For the most part, I enjoyed her set. They work the crowd well and she was pretty chatty the whole time. The whole band really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Based on her style and twangyness, she is a country singer, but it’s a very “Rock and roll” kind of country.
Alanis Morrisette
After the usual “tear down and swap over” it was time for the main event.
Pretty much as expected, most of the setlist consisted of songs from Jagged Little Pill. The recent tour was for the 25th anniversary of the album, and most of her well known songs are from that album. In face, the setlist included ALL of Jagged Little Pill, including the hidden track, Your House. It also included several of her other more well known singles as well as some of the less known tracks, though many of those were simply, brief interlude moments, and not the whole songs. I’ve embedded a neat little Setlist from Setlist.fm, but it’s deceiving because 7 of the tracks (Hands Clean, Diagnosis, So Unsexy, Nemesis, Losing the Plot, Sympathetic Character, I Remain) were not full songs.
Anyway, the show, was awesome. I can’t say it was the best show I’ve been to, but it was damn good. The music was of course, all very very familiar, but at the same time, as is usually the case, the live versions are different and just generally better. There was so much going on at times too, it was kind of hard to know what to choose to focus on, there was a large screen that was showing some interesting videos to go along with each song. Alanis herself, dancing around stage quite a bit, including that sort of, long stride walk she does (I’ve seen it in some other videos).
Then also the band. Man, the band was amazing, especially the bass player, Cedric LeMoyne, but I’ll say also especially the lead guitarist, Jason Orme. I am assuming lead, there was also a second guitarist, Julian Coryell, playing on several interesting looking small guitars, but he seemed, I dunno, less active in general, not just in stage presence, but also in his playing. I may be totally wrong though. The drums, Victor Indrizzo, and keyboard, Michael Farrell, were also very good, though of course, the nature of both of those means they are quite a bit less showy.
I do want to throw out my one complaint, since it’s related, the rest of the band was very often, in the dark. I couldn’t remember their names, though they were introduced, and finding them was actually kind of difficult. Or at least, it took a lot more work than expected. Like, I love you Alanis, but the these guys were amazing, maybe give them a little bit of that spotlight. Looking at a few other videos this doesn’t always seem to be the case so I almost wonder if there was something going on with the venue’s lighting, though this wasn’t an issue in the Tenille Townes set and if they needed more lights, they could have dropped the weird back of the stage spotlight that basically just, were blinding.
Back to the show though, and the band, that bass player, Cedric, dude was absolutely amazing. He had several moments where he did little solo parts and his playing was great, his stage presence, what you could see, was great as well. I am going to have to check out his previous/other band Remy Zero a bit to see if any of what he was doing here shines through there. The band name actually sounds familiar, so maybe I’ve heard of them at some point.
Alanis herself was amazing as well. There is a phrase “Eat the Mic”, which is to say, hold the mic so close you’re lips are touching it, because you’re too quite. I see this literally quite a bit on some of the videos I’ve seen of artists. Alanis, does the opposite, by a long shot. I mean, it’s kind of her entire style, the very loud screaming sort of singing, but she often had that mic feet away and she still came through fine. I do wonder a bit why she uses a corded mic though, as much as she is back and forth across the stage, it seems like the cord is kind of a hazard, plus cords are prone to failure with that much moving around (they actually swapped out her mic about 3 songs in, and it completely cut out during Ironic briefly).
I appreciate the use of some of the lesser known tracks as interludes. Understandably, she would go get a big drink between almost every song, and often would do a sort of, subdued little bit from a song, just standing in place near the back. I don’t know a ton of her feeling on it all, but i suspect that after 25 years, it gets a bit old singing the same album constantly, especially because she has had several albums since. There wasn’t any of the latest album at all, though that’s kind of understandable since The Storm Before the Calm is an electronic music based meditation album. It’s decent, but you don’t really want to put your crowd to sleep with calming meditative music.
Some highlights, Wake Up where they break out ALL THE GUITARS was pretty good. I do wonder a bit just how many guitars it takes to be “too many” sometimes.
Forgiven is already a pretty intense song, made way more so with the live performance, with all the drama of the song brought out for the stage.
Uninvited and Smiling both start out light-ish but build into an intensely chaotic but well done ball of energy and sound and guitars. Smiling may have been my favorite of the night.
As mentioned above, she really encouraged the audience to sing along to probably her most iconic song, Ironic, I think the audience would doing at least 50% of it with her holding the mic out to the crowd to sing.
The encore performance of Your House was so hilariously good. She kept stopping the band in feign disgust and they would start again doing a different style of music as the backdrop, all not anything like her normal style, like funky or jazzy riffs.
I will throw out there, I kind of wish there was a bit more audience interaction. I guess I’m used to some really talky artists, but I am also a bit more used to smaller venues, so maybe that’s just, not a thing at this level?
A few last wrap ups, the rain tried to come, and it sprinkled a bit before the show, during Tenille Townes, and between sets, but it managed to hold off despite the ominous overcast. The early access pre show ticket was 1000% worth it for a good spot. Bring right up front is so amazing, I strongly recommend some good concert earplugs though. For Alanis, the Encore was especially loud.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.
Here’s another album for the “This is already so popular” list of albums, Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. Per Wikipedia, it’s the 13th biggest-selling album, ever, and the 3rd biggest put out by a woman. There is a good chance that you’ve at least heard a song from this album, somewhere. It’s an album that really sort of embodied a lot of the 90s feel at the time. It’s an album that I listened to a lot in High School and beyond, and it’s a strong strong contender for “Most listened to album”. I like to track music as much as possible these days with Last.fm, but there are a lot of gaps in that record, from the before times, and this is one of them. Others include Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits, and probably a few Aerosmith albums.
Why cover this album now? Because in a few days, I’m going to see Alanis in concert at the Illinois State Fair. I don’t really have a “bucket list”, but if I did, going to an Alanis Morissette concert is one of them, even if it’s 25 years late. I have not really picked up on a lot of Alanis’ later music, though I want to. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is the only other album I have really listened to by her and it’s ok, but not quite as good as Jagged Little Pill. Something I wasn’t aware of until recently after watching the documentary Jagged, is that Alanis actually had a few albums before Jagged Little Pill that were essentially just regular boring pop music.
Which was part of what made this album blow up and become a huge hit. There was plenty of angry rock alternative music by dudes out there, but not a lot by women at the time. The whole album is this crazy ball of angry rage for a lot of its tracks. The first single from the album You Oughta Know has long been rumored to be about her former boyfriend Dave Coulier (Joey from Full House, the goofy guy) but it’s never been confirmed. With such lovely lyrics as
Cause the joke that you laid in the bed that was me And I’m not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes And you know it And every time I scratch my nails Down someone else’s back I hope you feel it Well, can you feel it?
– You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette
The lyrics in general are part of what really makes the album appealing. It’s all so poetically blunt at times, full of anger and trauma. It also becomes self-reflective and vulnerable in other places. It starts out very in your face with All I Really Want, You Oughta Know, and Right Through You. Even the slightly more subdued of the early tracks Perfect has a built to how it’s all just too much trying to be perfect. As the album goes on it becomes a lot more subdued, but still tells a string of stories about broken history and broken relationships.
Probably the most well-known track on the album is Ironic, which is an extremely popular and enjoyable song, but it’s also the subject of ridicule and jokes as most of the scenarios in the song are more straight tragic than actually ironic. Rain on your wedding day, ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, that sort of thing. The real Irony I suppose is a song called Ironic without any irony in it. I doubt it runs that deep though.
Probably my favorite tracks on the album are Hand in My Pocket and Mary Jane. I really like the whole building optimism of the former, and how it almost feels like it travels through stages of a life with it’s slightly evolving Chorus lyrics. Mary Jane is a nice slow ballad where Alanis really throws out those vocals.
This is also the other reason this album became so popular I think. It’s not just the lyrics, but the way they are delivered. No one thinks twice about scream-singing with male bands, but Alanis helped bring this concept to her music. She has a very distinctive almost yodeling screech at times in her voice which feels like it should be off-putting but instead, it just drives the whole energy of the album. It pushes the rage when needed. It pushes the 90s alternative “who gives a shit really?” vibe when needed. There is also a lot fo interesting almost folksy feeling to her tracks
There’s probably a reason Alanis Morissette never really ended up with a ton of staying power on her future works, because Jagged Little Pill just really embodied the times, and left an influential legacy on music, but released any other time, probably wouldn’t have even taken off at all. I definitely am not saying it’s a bad album, I am just saying that it probably just doesn’t resonate with people who weren’t there, so to speak.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.
So I’ve been doing album write ups on Fridays, but sometimes I do still listen to singles and one offs and songs not on albums. So here’s a new series, starting here in Blaugust, where instead of doing albums, I just talk about videos and songs I enjoy. Also I’m calling it “Music Monday” because it’s not very original and I am a sucker for alliteration.
The Chemical Brothers – Eve of Destruction
Look at me, cheating already by just doing Aurora videos (well not all of them). I once made a comment on the Aurora Discord that my “favorite Aurora song isn’t even an Aurora song.” That’s not really true, though this track is pretty awesome. This is definitely my favorite Aurora video. It’s possibly my favorite video in general actually, there is just so much appealing here.
There’s Aurora, so that’s a bonus. But it also has this amazing cheesy Super Sentai thing going on. What is Sentai? Well it’s…. what’s in this video. It’s popular and originated in Japan. Thought the easiest example for most people is, Power Rangers, which is a remixed and American-ized version of the series Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.
The Chemical Brothers – Wide Open
This is such an interesting and fascinating video to watch, though I also do like the song. It’s very simple on the surface, a long shot of a young woman dancing around a room. But the effect of the vanishing body parts is really quite interesting and makes for a neat effect. The effect itself is actually pretty complex and the behind the scenes mentions they created special software to achieve it. Essentially they scanned her body to create a matching 3D model. Then she does the long take dance. The software extrapolates the entire scene out using LIDAR so they can sort of, recreate everything as a 3D model, which allows for the body replacement effect, that matches her movements.
It’s also kind of spooky when the video passes by the mirror and she’s watching herself, though I’m not real sure why.
Qing Feng Wu, AURORA – Storm (English Version)
I actually keep forgetting this collaboration exists, which is a shame because it’s really good. Qing Feng Wu fits well with Aurora too, better than the previous collab she did with Sub Urban. I have no idea if Qing Feng Wu’s music is normally this stylistic or not (a brief sampling suggests it is), but the ethereal nature of his voice and the natural themes and feel of the video are definitely right up there for Aurora.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.
I figure I should just continue on from Infections of a Different Kind with the follow-up album, A Different Kind of Human. These are, in theory, two parts to a greater whole, though it’s not clear if there will every actually be anymore of that whole, I personally hope so. Aurora’s fourth album, The Gods We Can Touch, has grown on me since it was first released, but I still don’t enjoy it as much as her previous albums and it definitely has a slightly different feel to it overall.
Of the pair, I think overall I prefer A Different kind of Human to Infections of a Different Kind, but they do fit together very well so it’s hard to really go with one more than the other. I do prefer more of the tracks on this, album versus it’s precursor. It opens with The River, which is less directly about a flowing of water and more about the idea that it’s ok to show your emotions and to cry (the river) if you need to, to help rid yourself of your sadness One thing I have always really found interesting in this track is the lyric “Drinking your eyes”, which is both an interesting sort of metaphor, but also really feels like one of those occasional “Aurora-isms” that pop up in a few of her songs. It’s one of my top tier Aurora tracks though.
The second track, Animal, is another really fun track, about the primal urges and needs of humans to need and want each other. It has another fun metaphorical lyric with “lost in a concrete jungle”, representing the idea that the modern world and life (the city, the concrete jungle), conflicts with this primal need. Track three, Dance on the Moon, is a fun little lighter track. I particularly enjoy the little “da da das” at the end that start running along in the background near the end of the song.
Next up comes Daydreamer, a track that has a nice build over time and really feels like it embodies a lot of Aurora’s overall mood in one song. A desire to encourage everyone to be their best selves, to not dwell on and become these negative things when people should be able to be their best selves. That people should be the daydreamers and enjoy what they dream about being. It’s a pretty upbeat and inspiring song. It’s actually a pretty good follow-up to Dance on the Moon which almost feels like it has an underlying message of someone who wants to be free and dream but can’t because they are trapped. Which also works when you slip in Animal before, the person with suppressed primal needs and desires, desperate to be free.
Aurora continues the crusade for the underrepresented people with Hunger, not so much hunger for food but hunger for agency and power. The follow up track, Soulless Creatures is an interesting almost balladlike track that honestly almost feels out of place in this album. It’s a good track, it just has a slightly different almost eerie sound going for it that doesn’t quite match the feel of the rest of the album. In Bottles, I always want to confuse it with In Boxes, which is an older track that isn’t on any of Aurora’s albums. The two tracks don’t even sound anything alike, but I like both, and they have similar names, and sometimes my brain just gets broken a bit that way (In Boxes is the superior track).
The album’s title track, A Different Kind of Human, I always want to call this track Mothership, which is also a track, but just not, THIS track. I think that’s mostly because it talks about aliens coming to take you away on their Mothership. There are a lot of regular underlying notes to a lot of Aurora’s music, the environment, letting your feelings show, everyone is worthwhile, and occasionally, “maybe Aurora is secretly an alien.” I would not be surprised actually, she has a lot of interesting eccentricities.
Next up is Apple Tree, which, is an interesting track. It comes out of the gate moving and just keeps going. Like The River a bit lyrically, because it has a lot of those odd Aurora-isms to it’s grammar at times. I mostly mention this again because it’s just something I’ve noticed it several tracks, often where tensing or plurals comes off as a bit off. I actually really LIKE these little eccentricities in the lyrics though, so it’ not really a complaint or anything. I also want to say i really like the little brief interlude moment near the end of this track where the vocals drop back briefly.
The last real track on this album is The Seed, which, I really really like, but it’s also extremely repetitive so over time I find I enjoy it, a bit less. It’s essentially a statement about how the environment and planet are being destroyed. It has some excellent layering and build to it. I absolutely love the structure. The lyrics are mostly repeating the saying (of unclear origin, seems to be Native American) about how you Cannot Eat Money. I like the track, I just find the single line repeated actually does get a little well, repetitive. The last track Mothership is hardly a full actual track, and more of a quiet interlude moment that is mostly instrumental.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.
Ramen Junkie 
