Cris's blog

Procrastinating so kindly

Right now I should be doing something that I'm supposed to finish Monday - but I'm not. Instead, I'm obsessing over The Spinto Band's song "So Kind, Stacy". I've been listening to it non-stop since Friday, since I re-discovered it as one of my thumbed up songs in Pandora. 

I usually want something blaring in my earphones when I'm doing work. But then, whenever I hit a roadblock, even  minor ones ( how do I store values in an array in ASP.net, again?) - I tend to easily call 'breaktime' and Google up anything that comes to mind. Yes, I'm that geeky - my form of relaxation is to surf the net and get my mind some useful or useless trivia. Since this song was playing, I googled up the band to find  some interesting new facts to add to my plethora of trivia odds and ends. This is what I found out:

"So Kind Stacy" was actually an entry to the weekly online song contest at SongFight! It was an entry from a band called Carol Cleveland Sings who later became the Spinto Band. The Carol Cleveland Sings version is a cute little electronica number. Hearing the new Spinto Band version - I'm glad they remade it. Not that the old one's bad, it was actually really good the first time around (even though it didn't win) but much much better the second time they did it (so I've got two songs to listen to now!). I'm actually craving more for this band and I already got me a copy of two of their songs - the Stacy song and Oh Mandy (no relation what-so-ever to Barry Manilow's dog song). Now I wish I could download their whole album. I already used up my downloads for the month at eMusic and my favorite Russian-mafia run mp3 download site suddenly disappeared from the face of the internet world without any trace. Now, I either wait for my downloads to refill, which will take a few days or find another mp3 download site. I do miss that Russian site though, they have selections that even eMusic doesn't have -  the Foals, the Concretes, I'm from Barcelona... I wish I should've dowloaded them before that site dissapeared into thin air :P

 

So Kind, Stacy (Carol Cleveland Sings Version)

In any case, here's the Carol Cleveland Sings version of "So Kind Stacy" and the Spinto Band one. You should also try checking out SongFight.org - they've got quite an interesting music selection there. All entries are downloadable. I was listening to the challenge of the week entries and couldn't help but laugh out loud to some of the entries. It's like the being a judge at the early elimination phase of American Idol. It's also provides a nice music fix for music junkies like me whose mind's always saying - new music, now! grumble..grumble (that's like a tummy grumbling, but it's just my mind going through music withdrawal).

 

The Spinto Band - So Kind, Stacy

Oh, and yes - this is how bad I'm craving for new music...if you guys want 50 free downloads on eMusic you can send me your email and I can send an invite. I get 50 new downloads too if you do decide to open an eMusic account. I know this is kind of a longshot since (1) nobody really reads this blog (2) if somebody does, eMusic requires you to place a credit card on file to register (which nobody really likes). The credit card on file is in case you do decide to continue your subscription, since you can cancel it once all your free downloads are used up. I've actually done their free music thing  (you get 25 downloads free to sign up) and cancelled after using up my downloads. It was pretty easy and painless. However, a few months after, I decided to sign up again since I found some tracks in eMusic that I couldn't find anywhere else. Help the needy if you want - send me a message and I'll send you the invite for the 50 free downloads - don't worry, I won't spam ;)   

Music for Kiddies

As I'm writing this, my son's making meowing noises - he just read the title and thought kiddies was the same as kitties.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've written..more than a month I think. Let's just say, things got busy and I hate writing about bad stuff that's been going on with my life. But right now I've got reason to rejoice - I just discovered that my son and I have the same music taste! Forget the fact that I've been brainwashing him with my own music whenever he's in the car. He's actually telling me what songs he likes and requests for it!

It's a great jump from totally being into singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to humming songs by Architecture in Helsinki. Yes - that's the band, his first favorite band (which will be my most memorable favorite band for years to come). 

 

Tiny Paintings

Every so often I burn a CD of different new songs and listen to it in the car. My son usually ignores it and does his own little thing in the car - like telling me the colors on the traffic lights or mention a car, tree or flower we passed by. One time I threw in a CD with a couple of Architecture in Helsinki songs. They're always so fun to listen to and I've sworn off depressing/angry music for the time being lest they bring me thoughts of killing myself - though I'm sure Architecture in Helsinki has a couple of depressing lyrics too (but they make depressing topics oh so light and upbeat!).  The song Tiny Paintings came up - I've only been able to hear it once or twice and just threw it in to the mix so I could listen to something new. My son immediately loved it. It was the Tuba and that air releasing tiny piston sound the song had at the beginning. He laughed and laughed and requested it again and again.  So I thought, I should burn a copy of the whole Architecture in Helsinki album and listen to it. He kept requesting number 3 (since it was the third track in the album). 'Tiny Paints!' he'd say. I keep telling him it's 'Tiny Paintings', but he still keeps on calling it that. Which reminds me - he's got a lot of his 'own version' words like 'porkymine' for 'porcupine' and 'airpork' for 'airport' (I'm not sure what it is with pork). Anyway, 'Tiny Paints' was his first ever song-that-love-to-hear-that-i'll-keep-playing-it-again-and-again-until-i-get-sick-of-it song which is actually a nice good start for my budding music lover. 

 

Wishbone

Sometimes he'd forget to request the song again after it finished, so the next song, 'Wishbone' would play. As with all albums, the next song that's on the playlist after your favorite song is the one you'd usually like next - which is exactly what happened .  Now he's all about playing the song 'Wishbone' everytime I'm with him. Now, I'm hoping he'll get addicted to the song that comes after too - which is my favorite Architecture in Helsinki song of all time ('Maybe You Can Owe Me'). With 'Wishbone' he loves that it begins fast and slows down in the middle of the song and then picks right up again. He actually makes it a game to say 'Wake up!' just before the drums begin to play when the song start to become upbeat again.

At the moment, he's got three AIH songs that he keeps requesting to hear. The third one's Hold Music (the one in my last blog entry). He likes how they're all noisy singing 'Hey-yaya-hey-yaya-hey-yayaya' . As for me I love the fact that at 1:50 minutes into the song, the singer sounds exactly like Bert when he gets all crazy-angry with Ernie. Listen to it, I think it's the part of the song that makes it totally endearing to anyone who gets hooked with it.

Yeah, I get amused easy - but really, it is a great reason to rejoice, now I have my own little 4-year old music buddy. I might give a shot at teaching him how to play drums next. We'll see :) In the meantime, here's a cool clip from AIH's Take-Away show. They asked a couple of people from the street to sing with them and positioned themselves to peer out from the windows of an apartment building to facilitate the whole sing-along bit. Pretty fun stuff.

 

Architecture in helsinki - #58.1 -Heart it races
Uploaded by lablogotheque

AIH Take-Away Show - Heart It Races

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I did mention that the Postal Service was my son's favorite band before..but Architecture in Helsinki's his first real favorite band . With 3 favorite songs and counting...he also likes to draw pictures of the singers too. :)