Maybe you are in his book of names

[vovat]

So, I got my car serviced this morning (and into the afternoon). It cost me quite a bit of money, but hopefully it will let me avoid even greater expenses down the road. It turned out that one of my tires was dry rotted. While I don't know for sure which one it was, if it was the one that the garage put on after I got a flat, that's pretty annoying. I mean, that would be two tire replacements in one month! How wasteful.

I got my cell phone in the mail today. Unfortunately, it came with an unexpected and unwanted partner. Yes, I got TWO phones, instead of just one. I had to call customer service, and was transferred to several different departments. My conversation with the person from Internet sales was pretty irritating. Here's a paraphrase:

"So, you ordered two phones?"
"No, I ordered ONE phone."
"It says here you ordered two."
"No, I ordered one."
"I'm looking at the order right now, and it says you ordered two."
"Well, I certainly only INTENDED to order one."

She decided it must have been some problem with the website interface (I accidentally clicked something twice, or something like that), but this kind of problem seems to be pretty typical of AT&T, so I don't know. It took them forever to remove some extra phone numbers from my account. It doesn't really matter, though, since they're apparently sending me a label to let me send one of them back for free. The two phones were the same kind, but one was new and the other refurbished. I'm going to be keeping the new one.

I also got the Losers' Lounge tribute to XTC today. It's pretty good, but I kind of think most of the songs are too close to the originals. The thing is, I don't think I would have a problem with that if I were actually at a live performance, but it doesn't work so well on CD, because, well, if I wanted to hear versions that sound a lot like the originals, I could always just listen to the originals. I guess it's hard to improve on XTC songs, though. So far, I think my favorite is the version of "Scissor Man" by Robin Goldwasser (wife of John Flansburgh, whom you might know better as one of the guys from They Might Be Giants), mostly for the improvisational bit at the end. I was also amused that Michael LeMonde ended his performance of "My Love Explodes" with the "That is the most obscene abomination of a song!" radio sample that comes after the song on the Dukes of Stratosphear record.

Comments

[tisok.livejournal.com]

Grass was done in an interesting way, I thought. You're right though, most of the others were very similar to the originals. That's really how Loser's Lounge works most of the time, though. And it was fucking incredible to see it live, I must say. Especially with the little video thing Andy and Colin did that they showed during the intermission. My favorite versions were probably Sean Altman's Senses Working Overtime and Jedidiah Parish's Helicopter, neither of which made the CD.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I really hadn't heard very many Losers' Lounge recordings before. I heard Robin's version of "Randy Scouse Git," which was certainly different from the original in the choruses. Wasn't TMBG's recording of the Zombies' "Butcher's Tale" also from a Losers' Lounge performance?

[tisok.livejournal.com]

TMBG's Butcher's Tale was kind of odd for a Loser's Lounge performance, as, well, they played their own instruments rather than being backed up by the kustard kings, and they did the busking thing. I'm honestly not familiar with the original of Randy Scousse Git, so I can't comment on that one. Most of the LL material i've seen/heard has been quite similar to the original version, though.

[revme.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much my reaction to that CD. It's good, though, just... really similar to the real records. Although Robin Goldwasser's bit ruled. With the Asymetrical Haircut. Maybe if we could convince the LL to released burned DVDs instead of burned CDs, though, heh. Because, uh, yeah, that sounds like something that's way more interesting live.

Here's hoping the XTC DVD comes out soon, too (even though I've got pretty much all of the XTC videos on tape anyway).

Also -- what was the Andy/Colin video? Was it done for that, or was it somethin' else?

(Speaking of the DVD, I hope they deign to put "The Road to Oranges and Lemons" on it. That thing RULES. Because XTC stopped touring because Andy wanted to stop being a Potato and be one of the Toys.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The only XTC video I've ever seen was "Mayor Of Simpleton," and I didn't even see that from the beginning. I'd love to see the others, even though Andy said he wasn't happy with any of them.

[revme.livejournal.com]

XTC videos actually are typically Not So Hot, really. They're usually more interesting as artifacts of an awesome band than actual, um, good examples of quality music video. Mayor is one of their better ones, because it's got Terry the Car and Barry the Fish. And a pretty lady.

[tisok.livejournal.com]

it was andy and colin talking to us, the people in fez in nyc watching the xtc tribute show, and telling us to keep it down because they were trying to sleep. and they said some other silly things that i don't remember.

i just made a dvd out of just about all of the XTC music videos plus a bunch of live footage and stuff. if anyone's super-interested, i could make copies for blanks plus postage, although i'd be much happier if someone else wants me to make a single copy for them but then they'd make copies for anyone else who wants it, because i'm a horrible procrastinator and i know it'll take me forever to get the damn things in the mail.