Living is Easy with Eyes Closed
Like many other mindless monkeys, my wife and I are completely addicted to ABC's "Lost". This is an important event because I don't think I've been addicted to a network show for a long time.
Basically, a plane crashes and the survivors are stranded on a remote island where strange things happen. Groovy.
I was talking with a friend and I decided to make a CD "soundtrack" for the show. All songs that were about the basic emotions and story points on the show. What I've put together works pretty well, I think. You start in the plane, get stranded, encounter monsters, misunderstood people, violence and finally lose all hope.
It's an uplifting disc, really.
The only thing I was missing was an attempted message to the outside world. A message that would go unheard. Nothing really worked that well. So, I enlisted the help of the Conet Project, which is a haunting recording of short wave numbers stations filled with oblique phrases, static, strange noises and other wonderfully musical, aural treats.
But it wasn't enough. There was no melody. So I took the Belle & Sebastian song "Freak" from their Storytelling soundtrack and overlayed pieces of the Conet Project. All done and said I mixed together about five different Conet pieces that I felt were frightening, haunting and desperate. I enjoyed playing around with the stereo channels in the opening bit. My intention was to give a sense that a message was being lost. To close out the CD with a complete sense of hopelessness wrapped inside an attempt at hope.
I think it works. I kind of like it. I used the most cliched piece of Conet in the middle because I figured it would be easily recognizable to my intended audience and they might hang around throughout the song, until the end, so that they would get the final effect I was going for. So, don't hold it against me that I used it. Okay? I'm fragile. Be gentle.
Anyway, here's the track list. Copies are available upon request, of course. I'm also including the song I mashed together for download. God knows how many people could sue me over it. However, I'm sure both of my loyal readers, who are probably both related to me, won't turn me in.
1. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
2. Beach Boys - Sail Plane Song
3. Pavement - Hit The Plane Down
4. Wondermints - Porpoise Song
5. Joe Henry - Ohio Air Show Plane Crash
6. Death Cab For Cutie - President Of What
7. The Kinks - I'm on an Island
8. Rasputina - Thimble Island
9. Radio 4 - Start A Fire
10. AGK - Neon Dog
11. Aimee Mann - Real Bad News
12. The Roswells - Monsters from the Id
13. Les Savy Fav - Tragic Monsters
14. Wilco - Misunderstood
15. Jim White - Static On The Radio
16. Wilco - Be Not So Fearful
17. Destroyer - It's Gonna Take an Airplane
18. Great Lakes - Become the Ship
19. Tom Waits - Lost In The Harbour
20. Golden Smog - Please Tell My Brother
21. Joe Purdy - Wash Away
22. The Conet Project/Belle & Sebastian - Call For Help (Gary Mix) (2.5 MB)
Comments:
I tried getting into it, I just can't. We watched the first episode and it *was* pretty good. It's just too "Jurassic Park: The Series" for me.
I've seen a lot of people blogging about it, so I can tell it's popular. I just decided that if I want a bunch of mindless fiction, I'll watch more political debates.
Perfectly valid reaction to it. Let's face it, to spend an hour on anything at a given time is a pretty big committment. Normally I don't give in to the temptation at all. But someone convinced me to watch it and I have to admit I thought it was fun.
But, then, I used to love the Bannana Splits. So maybe I'm not objective . . .
There are two shows I'll commit to on a regular basis. "Charmed" on the WB because I'm into all of that weird stuff. I still think ER is a good show. Now that my wife is in nursing school it takes on a whole different life as well.
There are 3 other shows she watches regularly, and I'll watch if there's nothing else going on. But I don't lose sleep if I don't see them.
Most of my TV time is spent on channels like Discovery, History Channel, A&E, etc. Otherwise give me some good music or good reading. I guess I finally grew up and chucked the remote. Truthfully, if it weren't for the decent educational shows for my girls, we'd most likely drop all but basic cable.
