2005年 Aug 22日 Monday, 2:12

Having recently returned from a lovely excursion to California, I awoke to find that my semi-beloved AudioScrobbler had been transformed overfortnight into something vaguely futuristic and anomalous. A journal? No more listening to last.fm over iTunes? Geometrical outlines for all the songs and artists? Hm….

Anyway, before I departed for my vacation, I ordered two of the few Bob Dylan albums I didn't already own. So as I write this, I'm listening to See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, or rather, I was listening to that song, but I tried putting in all these fancy linky things, so now I'm all the way up to Freight Train Blues. Of course, the album is playing in reverse because I have iTunes set on Date Added, so the songs come up in the order they were added, and, my goodness this is boring, isn't it?

Hey, whilst vacationing, I stopped by Bend, Oregon, to witness the indie fest-o-rama called "Summer Camp." This year's edition featured Death Cab for Cutie, but of course, they were fairly dull live. No knock on Ben and the boys, but when you're following The Decemberists and Built to Spill, what chance do you have? Anyway, both those bands rocked the crowd thoroughly, though in completely different modes of audience interaction. Our nautical friends from the north were all about witty banter and crowd singalongs, which delighted everyone, while Doug and co. remained aloof and intense, refusing to play any of the old favorites the crowd yelled out and ending with the oh-so-cool, old school indie trick of not really ending the last song, just sort of walking offstage with the guitars still holding the last chord. The drummer even took half his kit apart before the song was over. Fantastic.

Something else to consider: the most entertaining thing at Disneyland by far was the Beatles cover band. I kid you not. They were, pardon the expression, fab. Normally I don't go in for the whole dead-Elvis thing, but for some reason this worked for me. If you go, check them out. Let yourself go, pretend it's 1964 (yeah, I wasn't born yet either, smartass), and have a ball.

OK, going to check and see if they've gotten the Mac player fixed yet. Ugh.