SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Live from the Vault-Volume 4 (2009).
Faithful reader will recall that this disc got trapped in my car’s CD changer. When I had it the player replaced, they sent the old one back to mysterious Toyota offices far away. And, about a month or so after sending it out, I received a package from Toyota with my three lost discs (this one, a Black Sabbath disc and, a promo disc I took from the library to try and wedge into the player to get it to eject the other discs (that doesn’t work, by the way) which was, embarrassingly, Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne doing a duet of something or other).
Thank you random Toyota person for keeping this disc, which is not easily replaced, in good condition.
So this concert is from 1994 and was recorded in Brussels on the Day for Night Tour. I think many fans feel that this is a high point in The Hip’s recording career, and this concert attests to it. The band sounds fantastic, energetic and really tight. And the music from this era is just great: dynamic and dramatic.
This disc also adds to speculation that lead singer Gord Downie is a weird guy. His between song banter is quite peculiar, to say the least (apropos of nothing: “Do you think of your pet as a pet or a member of the family?”). Which also leads me to wonder if fans in non-English speaking countries (and yes, I know that many people in Brussels do speak English) think or care or even mind when lead singers babble in English to them. Just curious.
I don’t have any other Vault discs from The Hip, but this one is certainly great.
[READ: During an ∞ of minutes during December 2009 & January 2010] Everything and More
As part of my pledge to read all of DFW’s works, I skipped the fiction and moved straight to this. I hadn’t heard all that much about this book, except that it was pretty dense. And, yup it is.
I’m going to give a comparison for any other DFW fans who are thinking about reading this. If you have read Infinite Jest (and if you’re interested in DFW you should certainly read that before this book), and if you recall Endnote 123: Pemulis’ high tech math formula for calculating Mean Value w/r/t Eschaton, then you will have a fair idea of what you’re in for with Everything and More. So, if your eyes glazed when you started to read that endnote, you’ll likely want to skip this book altogether. However, if you plugged through with that endnote and you didn’t care that you didn’t get it, but you kind of enjoyed it because despite the math, it is very funny, well, then you might enjoy this book too.
If you’re a hard core math dude and you understand what things like: ∃ and ∈ and ∉ and ∏ and ℜ and even ∀ then you’ll have no problem with this book.
But math aside, there’s a lot of funny things in this book. And DFW is in full conversational tone, with several places where he says things like “not sure if this has been mentioned in the book yet” implying that he never proofread the thing, which we know he did. There’s even a funny observation as to the placement of a picture (“it’s not entirely clear to me why they put [this pencil sketch] here”). There’s also tons of footnotes. And most of them are labeled IYI (meaning If You’re Interested), and he totally lets you off the hook if you don’t feel compelled to read these. Although as with most things DFW does, the footnotes are always tons of fun.
He also shows his great undying affection for his math professor, Dr. Goris (Dr. G). He quotes liberally from Dr G’s classes, citing examples, funny quotes and the amusing joke that Irrational Numbers are called ‘surds. There’s also great joke about schnitt (which I’ll explain later). It even opens with a hilarious (or maybe not) section about the inability to get out of bed in the morning when you think about infinity.
As in for example in the early morning, especially if you wake up slightly before your alarm goes off, when it can suddenly and for no reason occur to you that you’ve been getting out of bed every morning without the slightest doubt that the floor would support you. Lying there now considering the matter, it appears at least theoretically possible that some flaw in the floor’s construction or its molecular integrity could make it buckle, or that even some aberrant bit of quantum flux or something could cause you to melt right through. Meaning it doesn’t seem logically impossible or anything. It’s not like you’re actually scared that the floor might give way in a moment when you really do get out of bed. It’s just that certain moods and lines of thinking are more abstract, not just focused on whatever needs or obligations you’re going to get out of bed to attend to.
And but so, what is this thing about?
Okay, so it’s about ∞ and the history of ∞. It begins with a great section about the ancient Greeks (Zeno’s Paradox and all that) and slowly moves up through to Aristotle. I myself have always been a Platonist (yes, in fact, I have made that distinction in my life, which may say more about me than many people know), and have always been kind of anti-Aristotle. And, for the purposes of this book, that’s a great position to take. Aristotle turns out to be like the arch-nemesis of ∞. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: BRITISH SEA POWER-Do You Like Rock Music? (2008).
I’ve heard a lot about British Sea Power over the years, and I’ve enjoyed their smarty-pants attitudes. I think that their first album is most highly recommended. But I was able to get this disc with an autographed booklet from my favorite record store of all time, the long-missed (since they have no locations near me) 
SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Live from the Bowery Ballroom (2003).
EP released just after Failer. I assumed that the Bowery was the New York one, but I just leaned that it is a Ballroom in Vancouver. The CD has three live tracks, two from Failer and a cover of an AC/DC song (!).
SOUNDTRACK: NO FORCEFIELD-God is an Excuse (2001).
I was looking up what Larry LaLonde, guitarist for Primus, had been up to while Primus seems to be on hiatus. I hadn’t heard a word from him, so I was surprised to see that he had released two albums with a band called No Forcefield.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Ten Revisited [VH1] (2009).
This 30 minute special about Pearl Jam’s Ten album (or more specifically about the remastered edition) was a fine few moments of TV nostalgia. The most interesting nugget of information was that the “Jeremy” video originally contained a scene of the boy putting a gun in his mouth. That was cut prior to airing. (Although they show the footage in the special).
SOUNDTRACK: TOM WAITS-Glitter and Doom Live (2009).
Sarah bought me Tom Waits’s 3 disc collection for Christmas last year and I was sure it would be another Waits Xmas since this was nicely timed for an under the tree gift. But no! I had to buy this one myself (she says she forgot, but as punishment I may just make her listen to this one).
SOUNDTRACK: SARAH HARMER-I’m a Mountain (2005).
I first heard Sarah Harmer in 2000, with her “Basement Apartment” single (which always made me think of my friend Ailish who, at the time, lived in a basement apartment in Brookline, Mass.)
SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).
I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs. They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.
SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-Austin City Limits (2007).
esomeness of Austin City Limits. And in the two or so years that I’ve been watching, I’ve seen some great live shows (even is most bands are reduced to 30 minutes). This re-broadcast of The Decemberists, however, just blew me away.
SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS–Static Journey Volume 2: Melville (2008).
At this stage, I realized just what the fine creator of this box set has set out to do: he is basically recreating the Rheos’ discs with live tracks, demos and other cool things. Initially I assumed that everything would be chronological (live concerts only from that tour, for instance). But he has gone beyond that simple task and is selecting the best version he can find. So a concert from, say, 2007 which features an awesome recording of a track from 
I Just Read About That... 