ULC Ordination, part 2

http://verdict.justia.com/2011/11/21/can-laypersons-ordained-online-as-universal-life-church-ministers-or-the-like-officiate-at-weddings
Joanna Grossman has posted the second part of her column on the (in)validity of ULC marriages, which I first mentioned a bit ago.

New York state is one of four states identified as having challenges and potential legal problems for ULC marriages.

A Conservative Essay Worth Reading

I don't post politics here, much. I figure most of my readers aren't interested, and those that are either largely share what they think are my beliefs(*) or they've already hashed it out a million times on That List.

But with the ongoing implosion of Google+ and the utter worthlessness of Facebook for anything of substance I find myself with no place to put the occasional political thing. So I may put things here from time to time. If people want warnings I'll try to put them up.

With that preamble, I think it's worth reading this: http://nymag.com/news/politics/conservatives-david-frum-2011-11/

It's David Frum's latest essay on WTF is wrong with the Republican party and the utter acidic disintegration of what used to be an at least intellectually respectable conservative movement. Much as I'm having spine-tingling waves of schadenfreude over the Repubs tearing themselves apart in pretty exactly the way I expected, it's still sad that a whole spectrum of respectable opinion has vanished. Frum is what I'd call a conservative apostate, and this essay touches on why and how, from Frum's point of view, he hasn't changed what he believes but the political landscape has shifted so much that he finds himself standing in a wilderness.

(*) If you want to know what I actually think, politically, you're always welcome to ask.

It's music, deal with it

(I've had a muttering or two that I post too much music stuff. I'm not likely to stop, but if people don't want to read this I don't feel compelled to post it or maybe I can make an opt-in music filter. Opinions welcome.)

First up this time, a trio of new-to-me voices that I think are worth keeping an eye on. Then a couple remixes and finally we'll close out with a long-form item of awesomeness.

http://www.reverbnation.com/monicarichards
Monica Richards has done front work for a number of indie and unknown bands. She was (is?) part of Faith and the Muse (http://www.myspace.com/faithandthemuse or http://www.mercyground.com/), a dark folk/goth rock duo that's been around for about 8 years now. Her solo stuff shares some of those influences, but has more rock stylings and some tribal steals, too. For example, "I Am Warrior" is a pretty straight-up goddess tribal piece, though it gets kind of audio-cluttered in the middle. Still, worth a listen.

http://www.myspace.com/elizabethharper
Class Actress is a trio fronted by Elizabeth Harper, a sultry deep-voiced nu-disco queen. She gets compared a lot to early Madonna, which is not musically apt, but conceptually I see the comparison. Remember early Madonna played heavily off sexual themes and musically stole quite a bit from disco? Yeah, that. But there the similarity ends. Harper is much more of a torch singa, as well as being more delicate and wistful than Madonna ever was. She's still early in, with one EP and one full LP just out. I love this line from her MySpace page: "Class Actress is [...] Depeche Mode meets early Madonna and Five Star as played on KTU Radio in the leather backseat of a cab".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n1wAzuXAKU
Lindstrøm's new "De Javu" is a high-energy fun dance piece off his upcoming album. There are some minor vocal bits, but mostly this is carried along by a wind-ey, bouncy combination of keyboards, rhythms, and some phat horns. Much liking.

New voices out of the way, let's take on a couple remixes...

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/dj-shadow-ft-little-dragon-scale-it-back-party-ben-remix.html
Party Ben (http://www.partyben.com/) does a fine, low-key job of remixing "Scale it Back" by DJ Shadow. The original, which has a fun video (http://www.okayplayer.com/news/video-premiere-dj-shadow-x-little-dragon-scale-it-back.html) is a light and wistful piece with jazz riffs and lovely harmonies and is not at all a dance piece. So Party Ben speeds it up, gives it a disco beat line, and does some vocal clip-mixing. By the time he's done it's almost a wholly new piece, which is a fine kind of remix.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/illegal-sunday-dj-y-alias-jy-another-one-bites-this-way.html
DJ Y alias JY (http://www.checkdissout.de/) takes three classic rock tunes and mashes them up

Finally, your awesomeness of the day...

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/illegal-sunday-amerigo-gazaway-fela-soul.html
Amerigo Gazaway has put together a 9-track remix album under the name "Felasoul" that combines work from pioneers Fela Kuti and De La Soul. Kuti was an influence on De La Soul, just as he influenced pretty much every hip-hop act ever and it's beautiful to hear his pioneering jazzy horn- and soul-filled works combined with the complex and smart rap items from De La Soul. If you only have time for a couple, I recommend "Breakadawn" and "Ooh". The latter, done originally with Redman, was one of De La Soul's few crossover hits later in their career; the former was one of their early hits and gets props for being one of the first "jazz-hop" tracks. Gazaway lovingly picks up the best elements and builds his tracks around them, with bonus vocal samplings mixed in.