Saturday, January 31, 2009

Meteorological Misogyny?

Now, who could think of a better way to express themselves than through the timeless and tactful words of one Mr. Rush Limbaugh? Not me, certainly. Especially when discussing the sensitive gender, ethnic, and meteorological issues which affect our world. Oh yes, meteorological. Of course, I mean hurricanes, er—hurricane names. Limbaugh, take it away:

“You know it used to be that hurricanes were named only after women because they were destructive and unpredictable…the feminists grew upset about that, demanded that hurricanes be named after men, and so now, the civil rights leaders are demanding black names for hurricanes.”

Oh those crazy feminists, what with the hormones and the evil lesbian witch magic, they are a danger to us all! And even worse, they wanted nomenclature to be changed just because they felt blamed for causing thousands of deaths and centuries of destruction. How dare they! And now we must have ethnic diversity, too? Whatev. After all, Rush Limbaugh tells us that “it is these elected black leaders, the civil-rights coalitions – they're the ones that keep causing all this racial divide.” Srsly guys.



So the next time you hear about the imminence of another hurricane, listen to these marine tunes and remember who you should blame: everyone but white men.



"Oceania" - Bjork
"Calm go the wild seas" - Beulah (coincidentally, Beulah is an official hurricane name)
"Black wave, bad vibrations" - The Arcade Fire
"Sea ghost" - The Unicorns
"Hurricane Jane" - Black Kids

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Tilly and Thom’s favorite things this week!

Tilly:

Continuing on my Zooey Deschanel kick, I have gotten into an all-synth, all-girl band from San Francisco called Von Iva who coincidentally make quirky music with Ms. Deschanel in the recent movie Yes Man. While I do have a soft spot for Jim Carrey’s humor, the movie is pretty stupid. The saving grace is the super-indie (averaging 5 fans per gig) band Zooey and Von Iva portray, called Munchausen by Proxy, and I sure wish it were real. At least Von Iva is!

“Living for It” - Von Iva



Another badass lady making music is Brody Dalle, under the mantle of Spinnerette, along with (seemingly) random others. The song “Ghetto Love” is crazy catchy and full of attitude. I ghetto love it.

“Ghetto Love” - Spinnerette



Lastly, what do you get when MGMT and Cut Copy have a secret child? The answer is the band Empire of the Sun, who sound all set for summer (oops) and infectious indie-fame.

“We Are the People” - Empire of the Sun

Thom:

My favorite thing this week is… Myspace? What? Not for its social networking capabilities (for that facebook is far superior) but because smaller bands have actually acknowledged my existence through it. After a Tilly and the Wall show where Sebastian Grainger was a no show I wrote on their myspace ‘why no show in Austin?’ To my surprise they got back to me.



Built By Snow is another band that has recently communicated with me.



A local Austin band, Built By Snow satisfies my lust for nerd rock (a need left unfilled by Weezer’s latest albums). A band that worships the days of Atari and Pacman, understands the finer side of killer robots, and has successfully brought the word ‘rad’ back, Built By Snow is everything one could need (and so much more). Thus, our conversation on myspace was all the more beautiful.

(you will probably need to click on this picture to get the un-cutoff version)
Photobucket

Although, in the end I was still unable to make it to their CD release show.

"Algometric Touch" – Built By Snow
"All the Weird Kids Know" – Built By Snow

Check out http://www.builtbysnow.com/rad/ for more free Built By Snow mp3s.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Garfield+/-Garfield

As you can see we haven’t blogged for awhile. A blog is like planting a tree. In its earliest stages the likelihood of it dying is highest due to neglect whether it be from lack of water or a tendency to forget about it completely. I have about thirty minutes until my next class so blogging will be a good use of my time.

Today in my comic books and rhetoric class (a comic books class?! Yes, that’s right) my teacher showed us the site www.garfieldminusgarfield.net

As quoted on the site its purpose is “dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle.”


This gave me the idea, what if instead of subtracting Garfield from the cartoon, one added Garfield. And by Garfield I mean James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States!


I really need to go to class now. This post wasn't really about music, was it?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Welcome! Tilly and Thom share their favorites this week.

Hello! Welcome to 2 Girls 1 Keyboard, which you appear to have stumbled upon. Oh, fate! What has brought us here to this moment, this time, this...blog?

We girls would like to give you some music goodness, be it in the form of youtube video, mp3 download, or beautiful prose. We have two editors, the lovely Tilly and the charming Thom. Two native Austinites, Tilly and Thom have been going to shows together since their senior year of high school. (Awwr!) To continue this glorious tradition, they will keep you loyal readers up to date and entertained about all of Austin's best shows!

From Tilly, you can expect self-indulgent feminist rants, musical infatuations of often frightening proportions, and various neuroses which may amuse others. Thom plans to blog about the bands that would form within dystopian societies and other subjects that she finds delightfully absurd, but will probably get distracted and just post random youtube videos.

And now, our favorite things for this week! We hope to make this a 2g1k tradition.

Tilly:
I love two things in particular: Metronomy, an adorable, danceable band from Devon, England (and especially their newest music video), and She & Him, a sweet, nostalgic duo including actress Zooey Deschanel. Metronomy's latest album, Nights Out, is pretty amazing...the standout song would have to be "A Thing For Me," the music video for which is brand new and absolutely wonderful. Check it out below! Also, Zooey Deschanel's voice in She & Him is quite impressive. Her music seems vintage and romantic, but she's such a modern hipster (though one of those rare, nice hipsters). I hope you enjoy discovering these cute bands as much as I did.


Thom:
I recently stumbled upon Jason Schwartzman's solo project Coconut Records.

Poppy, catchy, I'm satisfied. There's not much to not like. My only fear is that his acting schedule will make it hard for him to tour. It's ok, I'll be waiting.

"Summer Day" - Coconut Records