Top 5 albums of 2006

I'm putting this together a bit early this year because as far as I'm concerned the year is over. So here it is. In no particular order (despite the numbers):

1. The Comb-Overs: Emergency Response

Yes, its not a "real" album. But it still is better than the vast majority of music that "real" bands put out this year. Plus, its one guy. Even more amazing.

2. Mogwai - Soundtrack for Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

This is more Mogwai than Mr. Beast. That's why it's here and the other one isn't. Plus, Mr. Beast really isn't that good.

3. AFX - Chosen Lords

Yea, it's a collection of songs from 2005. But it was realized in 2006. And since it is a "best of" for 12 albums, it whittles it down to the finest of the entire Analords set. It is a bit discongruent because of this, but, hey, it's IDM; it isn't really that coherent to begin with. "Reunion 2" is still my favorite song of the bunch.

4. The Appleseed Cast - Peregrine

I want to start by saying that I am very glad that this is on this list. I was very very worried when I saw the AC had signed to Militia records, home to low-grade emo of all sorts. I was expecting them to be the next big thing. Etc. etc. But luckily, their album was too ambient for the masses, and was really good too boot. It is much better than Two Conversations, which is a pretty decent compliment in itself. The album is certainly less ambient than the Low Level Owls, but probably moreso than Mare Vitalis. The two are in different veins of ambience, so it is hard to compare them. And that brings me to the point of this entire paragraph. They changed their sound around quite a lot; Peregrine is much more electronic-based than any of their previous albums, but still is distinctively Appleseed Cast. I must admit, I wasn't that fond of it at first, but it grew on me as I listened to it more.
5. The 101 - Numbers

See my joint review with Thom Yorke's The Eraser here.

Yay Democrats!

Remember how during the election Iraq was such a big issue? The voters wanted out (if not now, then at least soon), the Democrats promised to get us out, and the voters voted for the Democrats. And now?

Well, many (most) Democrats are supporting adding more troops to the forces already in Iraq, but only for a short while. But in Vietnam we had a number of "short-term" deployments which turned out to be permanent increases. The Democrats haven't even convened the new Congress and they're already breaking their campaign promises. Even with Colin Powell saying he doesn't think more troops would help out any, the Democrats want to dump more in. And of course you have the right-wingers like Lieberman who want more troops but are at least honest about them not leaving Iraq for a very long while.

Once again, vote third-party. PLEASE.

Loose Change: September 11 Government Conspiracy?

Let me just start by saying no. There was quite a lot of hack-work involved and many of their key points don't hold up. However, it does point out some interesting discrepancies that should be investigated. The points made about Flight 93 (the one that crashed in Pennsylvania) are especially noteworthy.

I'm going to focus on the World Trade Center and motive arguments because their Pentagon and Flight 93 arguments are actually relatively solid, at least as far as my knowledge of things is concerned. But that more likely means that I just don't know what I should about the relevant facts.

But, anyway...the WTC. The argument they presented is either that the planes were flown into the building by government agents or that they were radio-controlled drones. They did not specify which. Regardless, the center of their argument is that there was a series of controlled explosions in the towers that brought them down. One of the central bases for this argument was a number of eyewitness and media accounts describing "secondary explosions." I think we can dismiss the media reports out of hand (Gore wins Florida! Gore wins th- oh wait, we were too quick, nevermind...) as mindless chatter to fill time. The eyewitness accounts can either be acknowledged or ignored, but it should be noted that the film makers were not going to include accounts that did not support their arguments.

Secondly, the arguments about controlled explosions. There was no evidence (as far as I was concerned) for this. The films they have in which they pointed out "explosions" are real enough; it is the explosions that are fake. Anyone not looking specifically for the explosions will see that they are just dust plumes from the collapse and look nothing like the explosions in the films of demolitions they showed just moments earlier. But they frame the plumes and call them explosions, and one certainly is being led to believe that.

Another common theme through the film was the suspicious movements of security-type personnel around the timeframe mentioned. Security in the WTC was brought off 12-hour shifts just before the attacks; what they dont dwell on is that the personnel had been working overtime shifts during that time and the system was being normalized, not reduced. They also pointed to the preponderance of training manuevers going on with Air Force jets on September 11 (as opposed to them being on guard duty) as evidence the government was controlling this. They don't mention that the military is always running exercises. And the quote that "14 aircraft were left to defend the entire United States" is complete shit. There were more than that many aircraft at Bradley IAP on that day.

Motive-wise, it also does a poor job of establishing connections. First off, they bring up Larry Silverstein, who bought the WTCs for $3.2B in July 2001 and took out an insurance policy against terrorism for $3.5B; after the attacks he tried to collect double since "two planes each constituted a seperate terrorist attack." First off, this sounds like some sort of "International Jewish Banker" conspiracy thing, since I doubt that the government would go through all this so Mr. Silverstein could make a few billion. Secondly, the fact that he took out a policy against terrorism specifically was cited as damning evidence in the film. Glossed over was the fact that less than 10 years earlier the WTC had been bombed, so terrorism was certainly a major worry. Finally, he lost the lawsuit and only got $2.2B in the insurance settlement, a net loss from the purchase. If the government went to all that trouble to destroy the WTCs in the first place, wouldn't they make sure their man at least won the court case?

Next is some loose ends about Osama Bin Laden. His letter denying involvement in the attacks was cited as evidence he didn't do it (not evidence that he was desperately trying to avoid having the United States nuke him) and the reason why we "framed" him is never made clear. They mention Afghanistan and Iraq, but don't cite connections. And let us not forget that we invaded Oil Land/Iraq without the help of September 11. We said Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that was good enough for most people. So don't bring up the myriad of oil baron ties in the administration.

Oh, and some of the highjackers are still alive. It isn't possible that these are just people who share the same name as the highjackers.

That said, there are some serious issues about Flight 93 that were raised, most especially the cell phone failure rates from 32,000 feet, which preclude the possibility of outgoing cell phone calls that were supposedly made. This is the same site referenced in the film. I'm not saying the flight/crash was faked, but it is possible that the whole "highjackers get highjacked by patriotic Americans" story is something worth investigating deeper.

Oh, and they insinuate that the passengers on Flight 93 (which was actually flown to Cleveland and landed!) were all executed. That was interesting.

But yeah, that's the story.

Tuesday Edit:

Thought of a few more points I didn't cover in the post above. The whole thing about how no buildings ever collapsed from fire damage and then showing pictures of other skyscrapers burning and not falling, for instance. What wasn't mentioned is that the WTC was built entirely differently than those other buildings. It was supported by the outer walls, while the interior core provided no structural support. All the others were more traditional core-supported structures. If something is supported by the walls, having a huge hole punched through those walls probably is not good for structural intergrity. And they kept talking about how the steel wouldn't melt if it was burned by jet fuel. This may or may not be true; however, they did talk about molten iron found in the basement of the structure a month later, which makes me wonder why it couldn't have melted during the attacks.

And then there was the gold. There was a big part about gold. They never say who was taking it or why. The best insinuation I could get out of it was that the government took it to spend in Iraq. Which is absurd, since they're rather just spend money they don't have.

Appleseed Cast Show

In Hamden at "The Space."

The Space is about the size of a large basement. It has a couple couches, a few bar stools, a stage, and a bar full of drinks and food that appeal to the "I'm straight-edge until I'm 18" crowd. Which was basically what the clientele was.

So there were probably about 200 people there, tops. The good news about that is that this place is small so it looked packed. The bad news is that less than 200 people were there. But whatever, it was a great show. The intro bands were definitely some of the better ones I've seen in a while (and ABABupleftrightLMNOP was a lot better than last time I saw them) and, best of all, there were only two. Then it was Cast time.

Set list (album):

1. On Reflection [LLO-I]
2. Here We Are (Family In The Hallway) [Per.]
3. Sunlit Ascending [Per.]
4. Steps And Numbers [LLO-I]
5. Sunset Drama King [LLO-II]
6. Silas' Knife [Per.]
7. Forever Longing The Golden Sunsets [MV]
8. Fight Song [TC]
9. "Song written for Peregrine that was too heavy to fit on the album" (my words)
Enc.
10. Peregrine [Per., derrr]
11. Woodland Hunter (Part 1) [Per.]
12. The Clock And The Storm [Per.]

As you can see, it was quite a Peregrine heavy show. But, that can be expected, since the idea is to promote the new album. And Peregrine is a lot better album than Two Conversations (see the one TC song at the show), which I think helped to make this show better than the last one I saw. The encore selection was very solid, and I came to realize what a effective closer "The Clock And The Storm" is. It was really an excellent venue for the show, even if it was small. The sound quality was quite good, and we were ~20 feet from the band. And the set list definitely was very solid; as was their playing. No sick Crisci this time either.

That said, there were a few minor issues. The first couple songs were absolutely soaked in delay, which made them mildly inaudible. They snapped out of it by "Steps And Numbers" though, and the heavier stuff was done very well.

Oh, and the morons at the show don't understand how an encore works:

1) THE BAND LEAVES.
2) YOU CLAP.
3) THE BAND COMES BACK AND PLAYS A FEW MORE SONGS.

Not "Band leaves then you leave." Asshats. I think five of us understood how it works.

Edit: The name of the venue was "The Space" not "The Place." It seems I can't read the stamp on my own hand.

Let's stop with the dictator rhetoric, k?

Hugo Chavez: America-hater and socialist dictator.

So he won the election they had in Venezuela 61%-38%. The CNN headline is instructive in how this will be treated by the American press. Instead of "Chavez wins Venezuelan election" or something similarly neutral, (and, oh, I don't know, newslike?) they title it "Chavez: New 'defeat for the devil.'"

The article is similarly full of anti-Chavez agit-prop. The guy basically just reads a Chomsky book and puts it in his own words and the US goes ballistic at him. If people get past the pandering rhetoric they see the points he is making are legit. His statements are definitely loaded with moronism, but so are Bush's. You don't see CNN headling articles about Bush's latest initiatives with "Bush: 'God said that global warming is the shit.'"

I mean, c'mon, the guy thinks some supreme overlord talks to him. He isn't nuts?