I can sum up my whole life in 9 points

[antpower]

1. maegunnbatt is alive and not dead! This makes me the happiest girl in the whole world!

2. 300 is just as awesome as I hoped it would be. What is it about David Wenham's voice that totally pwns me?

3. I am not in love with Cassadaga like I'm in love with Lifted and I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning. But still, if anyone wants me to upload it, just let me know.

4. Went to see The Lemonheads last night. 15 years on and Evan Dando is still the perfect man.

5. Am up to season 4 of Smallville. Was starting to hate Lana less until she climbed all over Jensen. Lois freaking rules though.

6. Have only got one episode of Angel left to watch. Will probably write some sort of meta-y thing when I'm done about the Buffyverse in general and the awesomeness of Christian Kane Spike.

7. Speaking of point #5 and point #6, last night I dreamed I was at the Kryptonian branch of Wolfram & Hart and they were doing experiments on my brain.

8. I miss Sam and Dean.

9. My hair is especially good today.

Comments

[klave.livejournal.com]

I am so so so so pissed off because I preordered Cassadaga along with the new Maria Taylor album 3 WEKKS ago, and they said they would ship all the preorders ON THE 26TH OF MARCH and now it's the

[klave.livejournal.com]

EASTER FUCKING WEEKEND AND STILL I HAVE NO CDS. FUUUUUUUCKING POSTAL SERVICE!!! (Not the band, they are love. And also in my rage, I accidentally pressed enter, hence the double-comment!)

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

That freaking sucks, man. Do you want me to upload Cassadaga for you, or would you rather wait?

Also, your Conor icon kills me with its beautifulness. I don't care what other people say, I LOVE THE NEW HAIR!!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

No! I am going to be a Cassadaga virgin until it comes! Mmm, the hair was so sexy in Oxford, it was all not very clean and pretty...he is sooo pretty in RL, so much smaller and more delicate than he looks in photos...mr pretty. And such bright eyes!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

OMG you saw him! I am so jealous, they're not going to tour here forever! I want details, girlie!

[klave.livejournal.com]

I made my dad drive 400 miles! It is 200 miles to Oxford, and 200 back, and I saw him in the Students Union of Oxford Brookes University, which is for people who are too cool (read: stupid) to go to the actual Oxford University, and there were only about 200 people there, and I stood right near the front, and Neva Dinova supported, so I felt cool because I was wearing a Neva Dinova t-shirt when half the people there din't know who they were, and I met an American girl who had the same name as me, and enormous teeth, and then the band came on and it turns out Mike Mogis used to go to Oxford Brookes University which is why they played there, and there were plastic palm trees on the stage, so I was hoping at the end the trees would all get wheeled away, only they didn't. They played a lot of new stuff, and some old stuff, and Mike played pedal steel, and Nate Walcott the trumpet and keyboard guy looked suicidal all night, which is hard to do when you're playing the trumpet, but then I've never seen him once in a photo where he is smiling, and the guy playing the violin, Anton, like the violin bit in Four Winds was really sweet, and the drummer was a girl who used to drum for The Decemberists, and she was really shy, and I liked her. Conor is so...delicate, all small and skinny, with all that hair and pale skin, and he wore tight girl jeans and a jumper, and then he took off the jumper and had a t-shirt advertising San Miguel beer, and he asked the audience if they liked to get high, and we did, apparently, and he broke a guitar string, and I had a coke that tasted like earth, and it was less than one degree warm, and on the way home it began to snow.

[klave.livejournal.com]

In other news, Cassadaga came this morning! I adore the album art.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Oh! Yays! What do you think? I am liking it better with every listen.

[klave.livejournal.com]

Well, I haven't managed to listen to it all the way through yet, because people came to my house (grr) and it was apparently antisocial to listen to BE rather than admiring their baby...but I really like 'If the Brakeman Turns My Way', and I've loved 'No One Would Riot for Less' since I first got the bootleg a little while ago...it sounds like the apocalypse in my ears.

I don't know why, but it sounds like a record by a completely different band who are somehow the same...there's a lot less of the bleak, confessional edge that the early stuff has, and obviously they have the money for proper musicians and production and recording equipment now, and in a way their sound has totally matured, and I love what they're doing, but I love it in the way that I would love it if it was the first album of theirs I owned...I mean, maybe that's because it's the first new full-length that I've actually anticipated, since I didn't get into them until just after Digital Ash/Wide Awake were released. I don't love it like Bright Eyes, I love it like something else, and it's a love mixed with a strange sense of loss...I don't think Conor is floundering any more, he seems to know where he's going as an artist, as though all those years of growing up publicly through music have finally paid off, and whilst that's great I almost miss the angst and insecurity...Cassadaga sounds like some people's debuts do, when they haven't been recording their whole lives, despite the fact that his songs are so much more grown up, and that's lovely. But I miss the mixed-up kid.

In fact, in songwriting terms it reminds me of his work with Desaparecidos, with social commentary rather than introspection, only deeply mellow and very countrified, and since I love country and Desa, that's wonderful.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

OMG, how did you do that? That is exactly how I feel about it, only you said it with real, proper words! I miss the mixed-up kid too. It's like Cassadaga is brilliant, I can see that quite clearly (well, hear it, technically), but it doesn't gut me with its desperation in the same way that most of the songs on Lifted do, for example.

And, you know, the rest of what you said too :P

[klave.livejournal.com]

I know! Shit, Lifted was amazing. And Fevers and Mirrors! I mean, all my favourite saddest songs are BE, but whilst it used to be explicit, now you have to read into it to get the same sadness...in a way that's good, and I'm used to doing that with other songs anyway, but one of the things that used to set BE fans apart from other people was that in a sick way they fed off all the fucked-up-ness, which was unhealthy but also a little special...there was something very connecting about listening to a 19-year-old screaming for the sunlight...his voice has definitely improved, but that was another thing...you could only be a BE fan if you could deal with the bad vocals and all the intensity of emotion - like the two kinds of Dylan fans: people who think the songs are amazing but better when someone else, like the Byrds, sing them, and people who know that they're best when Bob sings them because he *feels* them too.

I mean, No One Could Riot for Less is a song that sort of rips me up inside, but it's turned outwards now, it's the madness of the governments, it's what happens when the oil runs out, it's no longer what happens when all the life drains out of a young man and he tries to claw it back through music, which I guess would have been the lyrical content if he'd written it five years ago. Hell would have been here inside his head, rather than a sweeping metaphor for our collectiv future.

With Cassadaga, anyone could be a Bright Eyes fan, and whilst they wouldn't have the same connectedness that someone who is familiar with the backstory, the last however many years, Cassadaga is still an album they could enjoy. And I like that. But I'm mourning the publicly depressed, the anxious, the mixed-up, the drunk, the cokehead Conor in a way as well.

And it's reassuring that you feel the same!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Yay for solidarity!!

one of the things that used to set BE fans apart from other people was that in a sick way they fed off all the fucked-up-ness, which was unhealthy but also a little special

That is exactly it! It was like being told it's okay to be this screwed up and to love your pain and whatever. I don't know, it was sort of like all these messy thoughts in my brain were being articulated so perfectly, you know?

No One Would Riot For Less is beautiful, in that same sad way, and I also really love Cleanse Song and Lime Tree and I do appreciate the political aspect of the album. I guess it's a natural thematic progression from songs like When the President Talks to God and The Trees Get Wheeled Away and At the Bottom of Everything (and so on) and I appreciate the... musical evolution of it. (That sounds so wanky, doesn't it!) I guess it just feels a little impersonal. But it's a creeper, you know? I like it more every time.

I totally need new Bright Eyes icons.

Oh, while I remember it, you totally need to friend me on last.fm!!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

I totally friended you back this morning! The thing I hate about lastfm is how it scrobbles all the shitty music my sister listens to as well, and I don't know how to turn that off...it makes it look like I have poorer taste than I do.

I know what you mean about being impersonal, but I'm also liking it more the more I listen to it...a bit like A Collection of Songs.

You do, and I do too, and then we would win at icons. Also, sorry for taking up so much space on your LJ...I think that was the most I've said in several days...it's the Easter break from school, so life is basically sleeping, eating, driving, TV and the internets. Like a technologically-empowered bear. With a motorcar.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

You can turn the scrobbler off, and I think there's some way you can edit your music in last.fm, but I haven't worked out how to do that yet. And it seems a bit like cheating.

I have new icons! It's hard to find good Conor icons, which is weird.

I like you taking up space on my LJ! It makes me look all popular and stuff.

I am also like a technologically-empowered bear, but I don't have a car. I have slippers though!

[klave.livejournal.com]

I am liking the new icons! I can't work out how to edit it either, so I will have to look like I have sucky 13-year-old taste forever.

Well, of course you're popular...if by popular you mean 'has one weirdly talkative friend who posts over and over again'.

I am a bear who borrows her mum's car! I drove to the supermarket today, and then home again...I had to park in parking spaces! And turn the car around in our street! It was really exciting!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

That sucks. I set my alarm on the computer so it opens up iTunes and plays songs to wake me up, so if I happen to sleep through it, I end up scrobbling all these wacky songs that are sometimes embarrassing because I can't even blame them on my sister.

Yay for being popular!

I am a bear who makes her sister drive her places because she forgot to renew her licence and can't even drive herself. Yay for parking spaces though! I used to like reverse parking, because you feel like you're being all tricksy. :P

[klave.livejournal.com]

That is such a good plan! I would love to do that, only my computer is not in the same room as my bed, so it would only work if I fell asleep on the sofa in the study, and whilst the sofa in the study is very comfy for sitting on, it isn't very long so wouldn't be much good for sleeps.

Yay!

Sneaky plan! I find it a little embarrassing to drive, because I have to wear L plates so everyone knows I'm a learner but the insurance company and the government won't let me drive unless I do...and actually other drivers behave worse towards learners, cutting them up, pulling out in front of them and driving too close behind them instead of thinking 'hey, that person's trying to learn to be a good and responsible driver, and will hopefully not cause me an accident in years to come, unlike all the naughty drivers who never take their driving test, so maybe I should back off and let them take their time'. Still, I am calm, I am zen, I do not get roadrage because it is counter-productive.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

OMG, that sounds like the most awesome day ever! I heart Neva Dinova too, it's awesome they were playing as well. You are just too cool in your t-shirt!!!

I am so jealous. They're not going to come here forever and ever and that makes me sad. The closest I can get is last night I had this wicked cool dream where Conor Oberst and I were doing goofy dances to Four Winds and every time we moved all pretty sparkles and things came out of our fingertips, sort of like a cross between that Bjork clip (Venus as a Boy, I think?) and the iTunes Visualiser thing. It was a great dream. But not great as going to see Bright Eyes!!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an awesome dream! Have you seen the video on YouTube where Conor is doing the YMCA? If you search for 'conor oberst' it's pretty near the top of the list. His dancing is actually very goofy...he tried to rock out a few times but failed.

Neva Dinova were awesome, even though they didn't play my favourite somg (I did shout for it, like one of those assholes at concerts who shout for their favourite songs, but he still wouldn't play it. He did play the great song about the frog, though...it ain't easy being green...). I could not believe that I was able to see my favourite band ever plus another one of my top ten all on the same night!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

OMG LOOK AT CONOR DOING THE YMCA! That is the most adorable thing I've ever seen! That is hilarious, I can't stop laughing. Also, that is exactly how he was dancing in my dream!!!

OMG, Neva Dinova did it aint easy being green? I bet that was a total moment!!!

I have to go watch that Conor clip again. Seriously. That is the most awesome thing I have seen all day!!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I thought you'd like it...I like the kids, the dog, the plastic furniture, the barbecue food...it's all reassuringly normal.

That was a really good moment! Another good one was when Jake held up his setlist, which was written in shaky biro on a paper plate, and said "I've got a lot on my plate", and also when he confessed that he'd never been to Europe or England before and that we were his first English audience, but he liked us because we were cool.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

It really is so normal, it's awesome. I don't know, I guess I imagined Conor living in some bleak sort of hovel and sitting with his blanket all day and crying or something**, so it just makes me happy to see him doing normal stuff and being all smiley.

Yay for being a cool crowd!! Dude, you can't imagine how jealous I am!

**slight exaggeration

[klave.livejournal.com]

He lives in a tiny emo hole somewhere in Woe, Nebraska.

I was really surprised when I read interviews with him where he said he liked hip-hop, because his roommate was really into it, and when he came on the radio over here talking about how much respect he had for Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas...I was like NO! CONOR IS PURE! But he isn't. And seeing him sort of helped clear up my Conor-is-God complex...I saw that he was a real guy, a little short, a little geeky, with skinny girl arms and skinny girl jeans, who drinks beer and breaks guitar strings just like I do.

I can imagine how jealous you are! You are as jealous as I used to be of everyone who ever saw Bright Eyes, and if I had put all that jealous rage to contructive scientific use I would have won a Nobel Prize years ago...I think that you should write to him, explaining your dream and demanding that this is suitable grounds for him to go over there and hang out with you. You could listen to cheesey music and have vegan BBQ!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Dear Conor Oberst,
101 Sad Street,
Woe, Nebraska

If you come to my house and do the YMCA it will make the whole world sparkley and that would be very nice. I will also play you some REO Speedwagon because I have a feeling you would like that too and I will cook you tofu burgers and let you share my cookie dough. We can paint each others nails and watch Molly Ringwald movies and you can say how if you were in the Breakfast Club you would be Judd Nelson and I will laugh and say 'you wish, Conor Oberst, you are totally Ally Sheedy'. It will be good times for all.


Love Ant.

PS. Plz don't be ruining the dream with your crazy hip-hop listening, kthx.

[klave.livejournal.com]

Dear Ant, someplace in Oz,

That would be totally cool. Also I would like to visit the set of Neighbours if it would be possible for us to go to Melbourne. I will bring my favourite sparkly pink-and-purple nail polish with glittery bits, and I will leave all my 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg records in Woe, Nebraska.

See you soonz!

PS. Plz can I have ketchup with the tofu burgers? I like ketchup.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Dear Conor Oberst,

I live in Melbourne and there is a Neighbours bus that you can go on and they take you to see Ramsey Street and you can visit with Toadfish and Harold. It will be dandy.

I don't have ketchup but I have tomato sauce. I think it's the same thing and it comes in a squeezey bottle which is handy.

I shall bake you a cake that says WELCOME TO MY HOUSE, CONOR OBERST!

Love Ant.

[klave.livejournal.com]

Dear Ant,

Having known you so long, I feel ashamed that I couldn't remember where you live. However, I GET TO MEET HAROLD!!!! And that is totally the coolest thing ever. Although it would have been good to meet Madge too, I was so sad when she died.

Yay! Can we squeeze it into pretty patterns on our food? I want to make a heart and a flower. Also I'm really excited about the cake. I love cake. If you go here (http://www.saddle-creek.com/news/moviesbody.html) and click on the entry for the 14th of February, you can see me and my friends make a cake. It was a pretty tasty cake. I wish I could have saved you a piece, only we ate it all and cake doesn't travel very well!

All my love,

Conor

PS. Is it still illegal to bring cocaine into other countries???

[entwinedangels.livejournal.com]

oh i loved 300.
(david wenham kicks so much, although he always reminds me of someone else who i cant quite place)

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

When I first saw him in 300 I was like OMG I DIDN'T REALISE SEAN BEAN WAS IN THIS! And then I chuckled to myself because, you know, brothers of awesomeness.

[keeplistening.livejournal.com]

HOW AWESOME IS LOIS OMG. She is the coolest EVER EVER.

And also, Jason Teague is fucking beautiful. And an awesome boyfriend. And did I mention beautiful? In the fist episode of the season, when he went to meet Lana at the chruch and he pushed her against the wall and started kissing her and she MOVED AWAY I was like. My jaw was on the floor. WHO DOES THAT?!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

LOIS IS SO AWESOME OMG! Up until now I was like if Clark has to be with someone not Lex then it should totally be Chloe, but now I am fully on the Lois bandwagon. Which is probably a good thing, considering you know, she is Lois Lane.

Lana is so much a stupid. How does she get these awesome guys to fall all over her, I don't understand. She looks like a bobblehead.

[keeplistening.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Chloe is made of win, but Lois is just SO MUCH AWESOME, no one can beat her particular brand of awesome. NO ONE.

SERIOUSLY. Lana is the town ho. She has been with every single guy on the show, wtf! LOL a bobblehead!

[sonicbookmark.livejournal.com]

Spike eats Chris Kane's Cheerios for breakfast.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Spike eats CHRISTIAN KANE for breakfast!!!

[sonicbookmark.livejournal.com]

But that would give him evil warts!!!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

But Spike would defeat the evil warts with his BUCKETS OF AWESOME!!!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

LOL, it seems like I have a thing about hot guys and violence in a neat little package!

I've started watching season 2 again because life is too sad without the Winchesters!

Jared's face in your icon totally kills me!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

Spam spam! What this guy says is interesting too... (http://www.thediyrockstar.com/?p=684)

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

I love to be spammed!

I agree with that guy says, but I wouldn't have said it so harshly. I don't think the production is terribly vanilla though, I don't really have a problem with the production on it, it's more the level of emotion, I think.

[klave.livejournal.com]

That's true, everyone keeps going on about the record being overproduced but I'm a technical n00b and can't really tell the difference between well produced and overproduced I don't really mind it. I thought he got the bit about the emotion of the album right, though.

That being said, I have had If the Brakeman Turns My Way on repeat for two days now...I really like that song.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

I mean, it's slicker than previous stuff, but I don't think it's heavy-handed or anything. It was still produced mainly by Mike Mogis, wasn't it? It wasn't like they flew in Butch Vig or something.

I really like 'If the Brakeman Turns My Way' too, and there are a couple of others that have really grown on me. I think it's just one of those albums that takes a while.

[klave.livejournal.com]

That's true. I love Mike! He really enjoys himself when he's playing pedal steel.

Yeah, I'm liking it more with every listen, musically. Maybe it will move me later?