Duuuuuuuude! Cool!

Random tidbits for the day, most of them Eisley-related.

1. I've been complaining for a while about lack of new music to hear in the Triangle. (Thanks to David for pointing me toward a new band. I'll have to check them out.) In response to the terrible radio in the Triangle and my strange unwillingness to download music, I've been latching on to a few bands and hanging on for dear life.

Mike, Jeff and other recipients of my mix CDs must really be sick of hearing Eisley, Relient K, Nellie McKay, and SpencerAcuff. Nonetheless, here's a bit more about Eisley. (Note: The Eisley site was down last I checked. Darn.)

They're a band of teenage brothers and sisters (plus one cousin....bassist used to be the boy next door but he left and now it's their cousin). They've got a really dreamy, melodic, sincere sound, the kind of music that (a) sounds like it was written by teenage girls and (b) isn't really annoying. Actually, here's how they try to describe their sound in their myspace account:

Here's a lame, irresponsible stab at this: Indie but not Independant. That's a style vs status issue. Emotional but not Emo (stop saying emo), Pop but not Popular (Warhol did pop but was popular), Soul-ful but not Soul (cuz...no booty), Dreamy but not a Dreamsicle; wait... if dark chocolate replaced the vanilla interior...maybe, Alt - (because AP magazine says so), Haunting but not like an evil, scary clown, Folkish but not...really, Catchy - not flashy, Moody - yes, Melodic - very, Rocks? - sure, you take them out of the rocktumbler after 3 days, Radio Rock? Not so far; they say it's not "broad" enuf - lyrically, College Radio? - yes! Modern ?? - hmmm... Modern Art began late 1800's and ended in the 1970's, modern rock... hmmm - a tombstone with Creed enscribed? Organic: if an organ - maybe a heart (aww...), not Punk Rock because yesterday, a punk rock fan left a message saying, "your music sucks, eat s___ and die".

Isn't that awesome and whimsical?

2. Non-Eisley tidbit number 1: Interested in philosophical debate? Are you someone who's NOT Judeo-Christian or a liberal? David Barzelay, Jacob Grier I'm looking at you. Come join us at the debate over the government's role re: morality at Matt Novak's blog. (I'm sure anybody's welcome.) Once again, those of us who have never met Matt are taking over his blog. So I figured I would invite a libertarian atheist and....whatever the heck Barzelay is.....over to that debate to get some different POVs. Jeff informs us that this debate is "spiffy."

3. My favorite member of Eisley is rhythm guitarist Chauntelle Dupree. The reason I like her is that, even though she's not one of the band's singers, she's always dancing around and passionately singing the songs (to herself, I guess) during concerts. That kind of rocking out is near and dear to my heart. I've been doing that at concerts for 7 years now. Although, for me, the guitar is imaginary, too.

Anyways, I always figured that Chauntelle didn't sing on Eisley records b/c she didn't have a good voice. (Same reason I'm not a pop superstar by now.) Well I was wrong. Check out Chauntelle singing on a demo recorded at a songwriting retreat hosted by Hanson (yes, that Hanson). Chauntelle sings on a lovely little demo co-written by Zach Hanson and some guy who's last name was Crosby. (I'd tell you more details, but the Eisley web site went down while I was writing this blog post.)

4. Non-Eisley tidbit number 2: DUDE, CHECK THIS OUT! Sidewalk artist Julian Beever specializes in making sidewalk art that looks 3D from the right angle. It's really, really freakin' cool. My response to this art is really what inspired the title of this blog post.

5. Eisley's coming to the Triangle on March 25 at Cat's Cradle! Who's with me? (Ok, so yes that invitation's mainly to people in the Triangle....although anybody's welcome.)

Update (11:02 AM): I should so be reading a trial transcript right now, but I couldn't resist showing y'all this from Ebert's review of Final Destination 3 (another in the series where a bunch of teenagers escape gruesome death at the beginning of the movie, only to die creatively one-by-one in the order they would have died had they not escaped at the beginning...not my kind of movie):

"Final Destination 3" is good-looking and made with technical skill. The director is James Wong, who made "FD1" and was once a writer on "The X-Files" and "21 Jump Street." He and the cinematographer, Robert McLachlan, do an especially good job of evoking a creepy sense of menace on a carnival midway. Has there ever been a carnival midway in a movie that didn't look like a sadomasochistic nightmare? The rides look fatal, the sideshows look like portals to hell, and you know that game where you slam down a big hammer to make the weight fly up and hit the bell? One kid pounds so hard, the weight crashes through the bell and flies off into the air. I expected it to land on somebody's head, or maybe on the roller-coaster tracks, and maybe it did and I missed it, because there was a lot going on. But as nearly as I can figure, the weight is still up there somewhere.

Editor's note: Ebert's review was cut short when a weight from a carnival game crashed through the window and wiped out his computer. Dann Gire, president of the Chicago Film Critics' Association, has sent out warnings to the next six reviewers scheduled to write about the film.