friday filler fun

Well, we were sup­posed to have a new mix up for you by now, but, well… Mike left the coffee pot on and when it died a fiery death in the wee hours of the morning, no one knew how to cope. I mean, the fire put itself out and no one was hurt—or at least, not directly. But unable to get their caf­feine fix in this sad state of affairs, Mike, Niina, Joel, Jason, and the home­less guy who’s been crashing under Joel’s desk var­i­ously lapsed into comas and/or delirium. The hardiest of the bunch, Niina man­aged to crawl down­stairs and around the corner to Star­bucks, using her dying strength and the chipped and cracked edges of her fin­ger­nails to drag her­self toward a $4.99 Amer­i­cano. This she gra­ciously shared with the rest of us, caring soul that she is. Well, except for me, because I don’t drink coffee. So while the rest of the crew are on the DL, here’s some wacky internet shit I’ve dug up to hold you over:


First up we’ve got this curious and heart­breaking Youtube video in which a group of brave, mis­guided teens from the frost­bitten wastes of Canada go on public access tele­vi­sion to give you their vision of the sub­lime. As the uploader put it, “The band is called Mental Note, and they appeared on a show called Johnny Sizzle’s Enter­tain­ment Watch, which aired on the Win­nipeg Public Access channel in 1992.” Enjoy! YouTube Preview Image Wow, what an incred­ible solo, amirite? Rem­i­nis­cent of Creed Shreds 3: You Shit Here With Me, don’t you think?


Up next is a gem of a remix—a reworking of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” by long­time hipinion.com boarder j_brooks. Now, I hate brooks as much as the next guy, but this remix… well, it’s good. Someone in the thread where brooks outed it described it as “shits like audio ambien,” to which brooks replied, “ambien is like my main musical influ­ence.” Thrilling, no? It sounds like exactly what you’d expect, given that exchange.

Lady Gaga — “Paparazzi (Élite Gym­nas­tics Remix)”


And actu­ally that’s all we’ve got for today. I have to go tend to the sick and wounded (I think I hear Jason calling for a mocha drip), and get that mixed fin­ished up for (we hope) tomorrow. Please send all get-well-soon cards and/or packets of instant coffee via overnight ship­ping to Girl­pants, Inc., at the address in our Con­tact Us page.

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2 Comments

  1. Jason

     /  March 5, 2010

    Ben, it’s not cool to make fun of bands just because they have no talent or pas­sion. Every band that takes the time to pick up some instru­ments and prac­tice their hearts out for twenty min­utes before the public access talent show starts deserves at least one serious pre­ten­tious blog review to encourage their poten­tial by high­lighting the pos­i­tive. Now, I’m new around here, and I haven’t fig­ured out all of the intri­ca­cies of the job, like finding con­ve­nient parking that doesn’t end up incur­ring $200 in towing fees, but this is what we do here, isn’t it? So let’s have at it!

    Mental Note is an up-and-coming six person band from Canada best known for their song “When You Run Out of Gancha.” Their lineup con­sists of two vocal­ists, two gui­tarists (one of which appears to pro­duce music), a drummer, and an intently focused bassist. The music itself might be described as… sparse, with occa­sional notes from the gui­tars and kicks from the drums inter­rupting the silence like occa­sional oases dot­ting a vast desert, or suns blazing at great dis­tances from one another in the end­less night of space. One of the vocal­ists works his way method­i­cally through the lyrics, wearing a wry grin that tells us he is aware of the edgi­ness of his lyrics and the shock his audi­ence must be feeling at the brazen words. The second vocalist, despite evi­dent dis­ori­en­ta­tion, adds his own pow­erful voice to the mix after some subtle prompting. The song winds down with an inspired guitar solo that, without words, seems to say that this man is def­i­nitely playing his guitar. Then, with a gradual fal­tering that must be charm­ingly tongue-in-cheek, the song ends without fan­fare or pre­ten­sion. This band can’t help but catch our atten­tion with their no-frills, unapolo­getic approach to the art of music, and we eagerly look for­ward to their next offering.

    I’m tired now.

    Reply
  2. Ben, when you punish a person for dreaming his dream, don’t expect him to thank or for­give you. 

    Reply

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