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moon hill, originally uploaded by Dan Hewins.

This photo has been making the rounds on tumblr lately. It’s something that hasn’t happened with one of my photos before, as far as I know, so that’s pretty cool.

It looks like a tumblr called “volturius” found it first. I guess there are a lot of tumblr folks out there who just add photos from flickr, among other things, to their blogs (regardless of copyright status, but I’m not worried about that now). Then people like or reblog them. (Yes, you may already know how tumblr works.)

I like the photo, so that’s good too.

Last night I went to see Tame Impala at Webster Hall. It was the first time in a long while that I’d been to Webster Hall for a show. Hillary and I were discussing before the show what we’d seen there and I remembered Modest Mouse and The Shins and I’m not even sure about those. In any case, last night’s show was great! A friend working the dorr got our crew VIP badges so we had access to the section on the balcony (Thanks!).

A band called Yawn opened the show and we caught the last two or three notes, so I can’t comment on them. Yuck was the second opener. I had heard good things about them so I wanted to get there to check it out.

I had listened to some of their songs on Hype Machine earlier in the day so I recognized some of their music at the show. The lead singer had a curly mop on his head and sang out of the corner of his mouth. The rest of the band consisted of a male lead guitarist/backup singer (who sang lead on one song), a female bass player (playing an Ampeg microstack, which was super cute and sounded great), and a male drummer with a magnificent fro. The songs were song-y and catchy at times. They had a good vibration, sometimes getting a but 90′s alt-rock. I commented that one of the songs could have been played in the credits of a Dawson’s Creek episode, had they existed then. I give them a solid 6 out of 10.

Tame Impala was altogether a different story. They are also a four-piece with one lead singer/lead guitar, bass, drums, and a rhythm guitar/keyboard player. The singer, Kevin Parker, is squarely in charge of the whole affair; it’s clear he’s running the show.

They play music that is self-described as “psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music,” which is pretty apt, except for the “hypno” part. They are in my group of bands I keep in an iTunes playlist called “psych-today,” contemporary bands that are playing psychedelic-type music. Their style is more polished, tighter, and less gritty than some of the other bands doing that sort of thing (like Dead Meadow, Black Mountain, White Hills) and have a more happy-tinged mood as well. They have a tendency to jam and stretch things out but they never really get lost or messy. Some of their best songs, “It’s Not Meant To Be” and “Desire Be Desire Go” got live-show embellishments that were welcome in my book. They took the form of a new, semi-related coda riff or an extended section to provide for slight improvisation. They didn’t really jam in the way that a jam band like Phish would, but they did extend parts of songs longer than their recorded versions. I was into it. Many of the songs featured segue-ways between them, some of which seemed like they could have even been mini-compositions in themselves. I’m a big fan of that kind of thing. Song, song, song, without stopping is a good way to keep the energy up.

The elliptical pattern on the backdrop was actually a camera facing the screen of an oscilloscope which was being fed by various instruments at different times. Sometimes it was the guitar, other times the bass or snare drum. I thought that was a good effect. There was a time when Kevin just sat on the stage playing random guitar notes in en effort to evoke different patterns on the screen. That was interesting for about 30 seconds and could have lasted longer had he played something more interesting than a scale. So, they were a but self-indulgent at times, but, on the whole, it didn’t detract from their performance.

A final aspect that served to keep them good in my book (and especially Martin’s) is the no-encore policy. Before the last “suite” of songs Kevin announced the policy and said that after the next group of songs they would stop and leave the stage and not come back. Here is a good article about how silly encores are. Tame Impala gets an 8 out of 10 for me.

Really? Immediate attention required? Condé-Nast, can you please take it down a notch? What would happen if we all acted as if there were other things going on in this world other than just the stuff we’re doing and we care about? Can we put things into context here? Think about what might be important in someone else’s life, not just in your own little sphere. This piece of correspondence might be important to Condé-Nast, but it’s probably not as important to the recipient as they’re making it out to be.

When seeing this letter, the recipient is to be compelled to open this immediately. But it can wait. It has to do with a magazine subscription, probably. It’s not that important. If the recipient cares a lot about their magazine subscriptions, they will open the letter in due time. But this is presented as very important correspondence. Here are some examples of actually important correspondence: Tax-related documents; letters containing checks, credit cards, or other money; a social security card; wedding certificate. Magazine subscription notices are not as important.

Why do I care about this? Well, if the ante keeps getting upped, how will we know what’s actually important? Will the IRS have to send letters with blinking LEDs attached to get our attention? If Condé-Nast recognized it’s place on the importance scale, they would just send a letter with a to: address and a return address. Simple. I’ll get to it, eventually. It’s just that I feel like we’re living in a world where companies are interested our attention so much that they are all competing to get it, no matter what it takes. I get sick of all the ads in my face all the time and this feels like the same kind of attention-invasion. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. But then, again, maybe Condé-Nast will send their next letter in a hot-pink envelope with stinging nettles on it, so I really take notice, and “ow!”-activated glue on the outside, so I can’t put it down. Then it will automatically open and a picture of a naked lady will emerge, singing a jolly jingle about the benefits of some kind of magazine arriving at my mailbox on a monthly basis.