Is almost certainly one of the best albums ever made. Quit not owning it. That is all.

I went to the Texas State Historical Association annual meeting this year in Austin. Took some alright pictures. Here’s a few, check out my Flickr page for more. If you like.

Also this is awesome, if you’re into either the Flaming Lips or Madonna. For the record I only really like one of those things.

As you already know, that is if you’re read the last few posts, I spent the last few days in  Oklahoma visiting a friend and finally getting a chance to see the Flaming Lips live. As you also probably already know I enjoyed myself. Here are some more details that you also probably don’t care about.

• I ended up driving both ways from the Houston area of Texas to Stillwater, Oklahoma, including a round trip to Oklahoma City from Stillwater. I’m not sure, exactly, why I didn’t have anyone else drive for a while, especially since Steve asked me multiple times throughout the trip if I wanted him to take over. I guess I just wanted to see if I could make it.
• According to my GPS, I drove a total of 1,246.5 miles over 19 hours and 32 minutes of “moving time.” This places my moving average at 63.8 mph.
• I had never heard of the Bruam’s chain of ice cream/fast food places before. Despite my ignorance these things are all over Oklahoma and parts of northern Texas. There seem to be almost as many of those places there as there are Starbucks down here. I would complain about this, but the ice cream was good and also real cheap so hey. Would go again.
• Toby Keith owns a bar and grill in Oklahoma City which goes by the clever name of “Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill.” We did not eat here. We did, however, park in their lot.
• Based on the one Mexican food place we ate at I have a hard time calling Oklahoma Mexican food “Mexican food.” Maybe some kind of new word can be dreamt up for it, sort of like Tex-Mex but for Oklahoma. Okie-Mex? I dunno. Anyways the main difference between  Okie-Mex and actual Mexican food (or even Tex-Mex) is that in Okie-Mex nothing that is close to being even moderately spicy is allowed near the food. Not even the hot sauce. Also queso is called “cheese sauce,” I guess to keep anyone from getting confused. People from Oklahoma seem to enjoy Okie-Mex. It is a mystery to me. Regardless, eating there was an interesting cultural experience and worth the price of admission.
• Watching a man you don’t know throw alchohol up all over himself (and a little bit on the guy next to him) right in front of you is as amusing as it is disgusting/terrifying. I can’t say I reccomend it but at the same time I don’t regret seeing it. 

Ended up being great. I posted quite a few pictures on my Flickr page, here’s a few good ones. Click to enlarge, of course. 

Is the name of Brian Eno and David Byrne’s new “electronic Gospel” album. It’s their first collaborative release since “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” an experimental thing that came out in 1981, which was great, but pretty weird (which is probably why I thought it was great). I’m going to have to listen to ”Everything” a few more times before I know how much staying power it’s going to have, but so far I’m enjoying it. It’s very folksy, but also feels thick and full, if that makes any sense. It’s more straight forward than “Bush of Ghosts,” but the aura of ambient experimental electronica sort of floats around the whole time – something you can sense but that doesn’t punch you in the face like it usually does with Eno. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Anyhow, the album was released independently by them and only on their website. You can stream the entire CD on their page for free, and download one song for free as well. You can also buy the digital version for $9 in DRM free 320kbps mp3s, with an FLAC version available for no extra charge if you’re into that kind of thing. Of course, there’s a super expensive version with a sweet case, a few extra songs, hardbound book, and some other stuff. If, you know, you have $70 that you really hate and want to get rid of. I sure don’t.

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

A video remix of the Radiohead song played by old electronic equipment. Xiu Xiu on the n-philes forums brought it to my attention.

I was never a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails – even when I tried to get into them a few years ago it only took a couple weeks for my interest to wane almost completely.

Then Ghosts I-IV came out, much to everyone’s surprise, in a very high quality, successful, impressive example of digital distribution done right a few days ago. I heard it was all electronic and instrumental, which sounded pretty good to me for a few reasons, the main one being that I like the idea of music that’s strong enough to stand on it’s own without a singing “front man.” It forces the music itself to be more interesting instead of relying so heavily on a familiar voice. Also, like Derrick and I were talking about earlier, Trent Reznor’s lyrics are historically embarrassingly angsty. Never the less, even with the nice release of an entirely electornic instramental album I was somewhat apprehensive about caring.

Then people started talking to me about the release, most of them talking about how they wish Reznor was singing, and almost everyone mentioning mixed feelings about it all. Finally I decide that I want to hear it for myself. I download Ghosts I, basically the first disc of the four disc set, which was released absolutely free via a torrent. Much to my surprise I liked it quite a bit and paid the OUTRAGOUS sum of five dollars to download all four discs.

While it’s far to early to tell if the release will stand the Adam Test of Time, which is perhaps the most rigorous test any piece of music can be put through, I can say that for now I’m really loving it. If nothing else I love the idea of so many people downloading and listening to it simply because it’s Nine Inch Nails, regardless of the fact that much of it sounds more like Brian Eno or Boards of Canada than Nine Inch Nails.