Friday, December 17, 2010

Between Two Lungs? Oh, Florence!

"I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you're being sucked down into the ocean and you can't breathe"- Florence Welch

Florence And The Machine Official Website News Gigs Music Blogs - Biography

It's well worth a read and at the very least you should check it out just for the baby's head...

Thursday, December 2, 2010

World Domination? Peace and Cake


These boys already had the rest of the world in their back pockets by the time they fully turned their third eye to North America. It was only ever a MATTer of time before the States would be slid seamlessly into the dress-shirt pocket. For all their years of hard work and supermassive performances - and the rabid ravings of MUSErs the world over :D - they are finally starting to recieve the American recognition they have so long deserved.

The nominations for the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards were announced last night and MUSErs will be happy (but not surprised ;) to see the band nominated for three categories:

Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
READY TO START - Arcade Fire
I PUT A SPELL ON YOU - Jeff Beck & Joss Stone
TIGHTEN UP - The Black Keys
RADIOACTIVE - Kings Of Leon
RESISTANCE - Muse

Best Rock Song
ANGRY WORLD - Neil Young, songwriter (Neil Young)
LITTLE LION MAN - Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford & Country Winston, songwriters (Mumford & Sons)
RADIOACTIVE - Caleb Followill, Jared Followill, Matthew Followill & Nathan Followill, songwriters (Kings Of Leon)
RESISTANCE - Matthew Bellamy, songwriter (Muse)
TIGHTEN UP - Dan Auerbach & Patrick Carney, songwriters (The Black Keys)

Best Rock Album
EMOTION & COMMOTION - Jeff Beck
THE RESISTANCE - Muse
BACKSPACER - Pearl Jam
MOJO - Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
LE NOISE - Neil Young

The awards will take place at the Los Angeles' Staples Center on Sunday, February 13th 2011. Congrats boys! As you told them last year: "we will be victorious!"

Here's to hoping that the, hem, interviews will be a little more aMUSEing a little less juvenile. Let's try and avoid this >.<

http://www.examiner.com/rock-music-in-los-angeles/muse-wins-an-ama-and-the-press-manage-to-annoy-muse-fans-11-19-10

Monday, June 21, 2010

Forget Luke Skywalker!

YouTube - Ode to a Post-it® Note

A heartwarming tale of self-discovery and hitchhiking... AND a really good explanation as to why I once saw a man crossing the street with a Post-It® note stuck to the side of his head (a true story!). You see, I wasn't being completely ridiculous when I asked if you would wear one on the first day of summer!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

A Scuffle in the Chicken


YAY for random LOL-cats!!!


The first day of summer is Monday, June 21st!!!!
SO, what are you gonna do about it???

Release a bouquet of balloons from the top of a tall rock?
Blow tons of bubbles in a park?
Wear your brightest colours all at once?
Eat three freezies at the same time?
Ooo, eat a quadruple-deckered ice cream cone before it drips all over you?
Share a Churro with a friend?
Read a good book under a tree... by the side of the road?
(thought that once was going to be normal didn't you? :P)



yes, calm down Dommeh! XD

Walk around all day carrying not just one, but a bunch of banana's?
Stare at your crush all day long with a stupid grin on your face while wearing lens-less 3D glasses? (Don't do this unless your crush can actually see you... so put down that gilded-framed picture of Matt! err, guess this one applies to me >.<)
Call Lady Gaga?

i.e.,


Wear a Sticky Note? (Use your imagination!)
Skip down the street?
Dance down the street?
Sing on the street?
Wear crazy coloured socks?
Grab the nearest cutie and plant a big wet kiss on their cheek? (ummm, I'm gonna say "eww" on their behalf - maybe don't do this... unless they know you?)


Okay, so this is a bit random (not that everything else here isn't) but I Laughed Out Loud at this one!

Whatcha gonna do???? :D Comment below!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

W.O.W.

These ladies have some wicked skills and creativity! It boggles the mind all the potential I never realized nails could possess.

*The following photos are NOT my own. They were sent to my by a friend and unfortunately, I don't know who they belong to but they probably came from the lovely ladies at MakeUpAlley






Maybe I'll try that next week...>:D *muahahaha*



This one may require more practice, methinks...

*NEW STUFF!!
Hey folks! I realize that many of you have come to this page looking for more info on the craziness also known as rainbow nails. I'm still looking for more specific info/tutorials on how to create the rainbow, but in essence the technique is called "water marbling" and here is a video that shows you one way to marble your mani:

If you would like me to research other types of nail art just comment below! :D

Casinocaster Manson Makes It's Debut



"On the 16th of April 2010, Bare Knuckle Pickups' twitter feed announced that the company had "just" finished building "Twin P90 bridge soapbars" for a "custom Manson double neck guitar" being built for Matthew Bellamy... The guitar features two necks, the bottom neck standard and the top neck fretless. Both necks incorporate a Fernandes Sustainer and two Bare Knuckle P90 soapbar pickups... This guitar was first played live at the 25th May 2010 Paris Casino gig [for Uprising and Resistance]."
taken from MuseWiki http://www.musewiki.org/Casinocaster



To a non-guitar player, it looks a bit ridiculous but when you look beyond the guitar and see the master wielding it ... doesn't look so bad after all :3

Saturday, April 17, 2010

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning



MARCH.30.2010

The only comparison:It's like standing on a balcony...



... with your toes hanging over the edge...



... your arms spreadeagled...



... and as you raise your head and look up into the sky...



... your stomach falls 360 feet to the ground.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010

Friday, March 19, 2010

HOW TO MEET MUSE...

I will keep all these in mind/test them out in 11 days ;) ...

http://board.muse.mu/showthread.php?t=43354

(Sry, hyperlink is not working right now, bugger)



Saturday, March 13, 2010

Gustave, I Am Your Father...



Kudos once again to Andrew Llyod Webber! The world fell in love with his "The Phantom of the Opera" in 1985, now the world's longest running musical based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. On March 9th, 2010 the sorta-sequel/stand-alone musical "Love Never Dies" premiered in Adelphi Theatre, London. Of course there are naysayers, LND is essentially Cinderella II, the story after "happily-ever-after" BUT there never was a happily ever after for Christine and the Phantom...
Ah, such musical mastery! It can never match the original but it is beautiful in its own way; like a younger sister in the shadow of the elder, she too, can find her own spotlight. If you haven't read/watched/heard Phantom, I encourage you to listen to "The Phantom of the Opera" as sung by Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford. The 2004 movie adaption with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum is good too but... ehem, I will point out that King Leonidas is not a trained singer.
Long before Muse it was Phantom... let it all begin again!

Ok Go - No, Wait!



What better way to celebrate another beautiful Saturday than to share two exemplary music videos? Ok Go is living proof that not all creative genius has been stifled by monetary greed and the invariable search for coolness. I love to see people express themselves without having to don shades and do the head-bobbing-toe-tap that keeps them within the realms of safety. Step outside the box and look beyond the truncated icosahedron ... there is a world full of glitter and black holes waiting for us to make of them what we will!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Our Hero

This brings tears to my eyes!
(It does take a while to load... about 99 seconds to be exact :P)
Make a thank you movie!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Terminator: MB

Can't wait to see this!
YouTube - Muse Spoof Trailer - The Terminator

The Flaming Towers of Ilium...

Just imagine Hector, Paris, Achilles, Agamemnon...
Pictures, Photos of Troy, Turkey

No Time to Think

Wow...
YouTube - No Time to Think

Warm and Sunny Daze.


Part II

Helium, Hydrogen gasses. Solar neutrino, planetary masses.
Organism – breathing in breath out.
Water and oxygen, but...
How should I ask the hamster or the trout?

The sun pats me on the back as the wind kisses my check,
Birds are talking the fallen leaves are laughing,
Snow melting into the soil – a green sprout amid the skeletal arms of bushes.
I smile as I watch the plane fly through the calm coloured ceiling of the world.

Radiometric dating, P wave, S wave – wave goodbye.
This is your half-life in the natural fission reactor.
Decay, decay, away. Why does uranium turn to lead?
Can lead be promoted to uranium? Demotion...

Walk.
I walk – always walking never stopping. Walk up, walk down. Walk to get me from one place to another, get there and walk back. Walk forward. Walk fast. Walk slowly to watch the flowers. Watch the trees, touch the bark. Smile at the rabbit, the bird. They blink, I walk on.
Walk on concrete walk on grass. Walk on the moon.

Why is the moon? Glancing collision vaporized Earth’s crust. OR
Artemis and Apollo – Moon and the Sun
The huntress, chasing her brother across the sky. That’s better.

Walking, walking, walking on ice. Break the surface, walk on water.
Then walk on...

People all around me – but here I sit alone. Alone? All Alone? All one, Al.
Here I sit – looking out the window. I see trees, the sun sees me.
I wave, he smiles. I’m happy.

Listen to the music, feel the sun, write the words. I smile with all my being because I am right here, right now - perfection. Bliss? Maybe not quite, but close, I think.

I see a guy – face painted like a mime, why is the mime crying? Or maybe he is waiting for the Twilight. Where is his Bella? Over the cliff... going, going, found! By That Guy. The Other Guy. Him. Poor mime.

I paint my face to make them laugh. I wear hats, and silliness on my head – to make them happy, make you laugh and smile. Are they happier? I’m happier – wearing big pink headphones on my head now. Listen to the February playlist, over and over.

Momentum, momentous, moment. This moment, perfect. Vivaldi’s spring is just around the corner.

Oh, goodbye mime!

I Don't Know - I Yes.


PART I
(Preface: I wrote this last night (or very early this morning) but I was in a very peculiar frame of mind. In retrospect it must have been a paint-chipping-away kind of frame but what I wanted to do was try something different - to write completely free-style without any thought for punctuation, spelling or grammatical norms. It was refreshing to be sure, but I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. There is a bit of a darker undercurrent even if it does sound like a load of gibberish.)

Sand, sandy, sandiest.
Dripping through your fingers, blowing through your hair.
It’s all around us, it is nowhere.
I own it, but I have nothing.

There is too much, too little, always. Never.
Like antipasto and past – are you still hungry?
How can you be full? What is full? What is empty? What is it?

We try to control everything, always, sense of comfort, sense of familiarity.
(Stream of consciousness)
The aberrance drives us nuts, one small defector from the plan.
But:

Maybe we should stop.
Stop.
Stop.

Let it all go. Go right, go left, go wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
All wrong.

Is this right?

The world is too structured. Subject, object, verb, stop. Sentence, stop. Paragraph, stop.

Can we think without the backbone? Can we conceptualize without the map?

What happens if we are left with nothing. Then everything. What difference does it make. Does it make it the same.
So...

Is this still a question if it doesn’t have a question mark.

?

When it all goes wrong then, and only then, can it finally go left.
Left.
Left.
Left behind.
Left in front. Preposition in apposition. Why is the dative sympathetic?

Why why y?

Y, x, w

W?
W!
Who, whose, whom. Huh?

Lol... rofl...brb...ttyl... our new lexicon

As empty as the space in the middle of the o. Oh, oh?
Uh oh.

Onomatopoeia. Pffft. Psh. Pshaw. Ugh. Argh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh......

Ellipses... or Stop.
.
.
.
Then go.

Go.
Go where?
Here + w, that’s where. No, that’s here. There – t. Pess-optimism.

Naw

Hey... hay is for horses.

I didn’t see the plumber but I saw the Culligan Man crack.

Bottled water, bottled air, where is the bottled peace? Piece, peas.
Snow peas, chick peas, black eyed peas, cheese please.

Is this still my poetic licence to write what I want if I’ve not registered and I am no poet?
Is this still art if it lacks artistic license?
Is this still writing if I haven’t written anything?
Writers block. Blocked, block, block of cheese.

In my way.

Let’s see how long this gets, are you still reading?
You don’t have to read this. I had no other ideas. The light bulb is in my closest – the station light is still flickering. Maybe I only imagined that I got on the train. Maybe it did fall. Fall, winter, spring summer... onto my head. How do I know? I didn’t hurt.

Should I post this grand mess of a blog post? What if you stop reading now? What if no one follows? Will I still write? Right? Wrong.

I hope you laugh, this if funny. Fun, funny, funnier, funniest. Fun sounds funny when you say it so many times. Times, times, Times New Roman. My font. Font. Elephant.

This irritates me. Iratus... means angry in Latin, I think. Ire. Ire. Iron ore. Or. Or?

Why do I keep writing this if it makes me mad? Mad. Crazy. Insane? Outsane?

Hmmm... hummmm... mhmmm...

Oh, I hear the geese honking outside. Must be too late and now it’s early. Where’s the logic in that. Stop.

Geese, goose, gooses. Goo. Goop. Google. Goggle. Go. Gag. Gaggle of Geese.

Blech. Bleach. Blue. Blew. Flew. Flu. To. Too. Two. You, u. Y?
U c?
O, I c. I don’t even need the whole word. SO

Why dno’t I jsut witre like tihs? You can slitl raed it. I can siltl type it. Wrdos are jsut ltetres rgraenraed. (rearranged – i made it too messy.) i don’t want to ‘shift’ anymore. why bother, the document will fix it for me.
i ramble. in shambles. in brambles.

what is an epic fail? This? Peace of writing? That’s not a mistake. I meant it. Peace of writing, world piece. Piece of cake. Psh.
No.

Wow. Ow. W. Y. I dunno. I yes. THAT’S the problem
Where’s my Muse?
Where is my mind?

I’m out of my mind – and I locked the keys inside. Inside, side, slide ,in inn.....

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

How to Stay Awake

zzzz.... sounds promising....zzzz
How to Stay Awake at Work or School - by Dumb Little Man

Do We Need This

Grrr... have you ever stayed up later that you should have?
And then the next day, OH BOY.

Thinking hurts!
(Apparently yesterday was National Thinking Day???) *shudders*

It really does, *painfully thinking of a good analogy* it's like walking through steel wool. Every thought hurts, is kinda fuzzy and vague, and you feel like that little person living in you head is having a field day with a lawn mower.

The thoughts come in the form of green ooze - gross and pathetic without any shape or form. You know, like when you're in the middle of an exam - WHY is it so easy to start daydreaming/fall asleep during exams?? (Or is that just me?) Maybe the brain is just being rebellious and instead of focusing on the task at hand (and a mighty important one at that) it procrastinates and does everything/anything else it can... oh, wait. Maybe that's just me. Ah, well.



There is no real reason why this picture is here - I was looking for something neat (tried NOT to look in any of the 3 Muse folders) and came across this. It's a picture of Alice Liddell or the REAL Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll wrote the book for her and since Tim Burton's take on the classic hits theatres in no less than 10 days I figured it would be a fun deviation from Muse.

Muse Magazine

Huh, sounds aMuseing... what they hey - I'd read it just because!
Muse Magazine

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Popcorn

Only available on the Resistance single (Feb. 22) /:(
YouTube - Muse - Popcorn Tararata (HQ)

Easily


Once upon a time in beautiful Lake Como, there lived a happy couple...



Matt and Gaia <3



On occasion, Matt's friend Dom would come over to visit... and check out the local "chicks”



This sometimes put a strain on their friendship.



Now, Matt was able to do it all: texting, while fishing AND maintaining his awesome hair.



There was nothing that this man could not do. This includes not drowning while sitting on two chairs in a dockside hotel.
(Since it's a bit small to read, the sign on the wall says:
"No Drowning Please.")



Matt always found it aMuseing to eat bananas...



Except when they gave him the itches.



Until one day, a teddy bear (that Dom had abducted), spoke to Matt and said that the true cause of his itchiness was, in fact, the new brand of soy sauce that he had been drinking.



You can imagine Matt's relief when he realized that he would no longer need to use smelly anti-itch cream...



(relief)



So now, Matt has more time to spend doing the things he really loves, like racing in small cars...



... and wearing cool hats.



Hey Matt, what's so funny?



OH.

Figure Skating Exhibition Gala 2010

Such beauty, such grace, such agility! ... and the figure skating wasn't bad either :P
Naw, these two are amazing - the amount of coordination they would need to pull off some of the those moves!
YouTube - Sinead Kerr & John Kerr - Exhibition Gala 2010.mpg

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Raveonettes - Black / White

Amazing animation!
YouTube - The Raveonettes - Black / White

Total Guitar Jan.2010. "Matt Bellamy: Guitarist of the Decade"

Bach 'n roll BABY!
Muselive - Rock For Clever People

Total Guitar 2007-08 – Matt Bellamy: New Guitar Genius

Ah, thank you MuseWiki!
Total Guitar 2007-08 – Matt Bellamy: New Guitar Genius - Muse Wiki: Supermassive wiki for the band Muse

T-Shirt War

Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWdSCt4jGE&feature=player_embedded

In Your World



Just imagine...
You're 14 years old and in secondary school. You're shy and don't really fit it with the popular crowd but you're happy with your own group of friends. You listen to Jimi Hendrix and you're into the grunge scene. You lead an average life, with the exception that your father is a musician, and everything is going fine until the day your parents divorce.

You move in with your grandmother and although music has always been a part of your life, it has never called to as it does now. Music becomes a need, a necessity, an emotion. You started playing piano when you were six, but this year you decide to pick up the guitar.

... flash forward two years. You're attending community college and you've just successfully auditioned for the part of guitarist in a band. You and your two band mates enter into a local "Battle of the Bands" contest. You've got long hair and baggy clothes and you're on stage just having fun. But then, you win...

Suddenly things change. You decide to take the band seriously and the first step is a new name. Thus, you become:




Muse.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

My Plug in Baby




What is a man? That is the topic of today’s philosophical discussion. How do we, as humans (or monkeys if you prefer) define ourselves in this day and age. Well...

A person very close to me said something this morning that shook me up a bit:
“I want you to be careful... you’re only happy when you’re online [on Facebook or looking at Muse].”
And while this may be correct, my first reaction was denial. Now, not only did that make me a typecast of ‘a person who absolutely refuses to see the truth even when it is right in front of their noses' but it made me think. How is it that technology has risen up out of the depths of our sci-fi imagination and virtually taken over our lives? Is it even physically possible to go 1 day without using some sort of electronic device? It’s not just Facebook, or YouTube or MySpace or [insert another/one of a gazillion other online networking websites] but it’s our iPods, our cell phones, laptops, televisions, radios, cars, remote garage door openers and car starters, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, etc...

The conclusion: unless you live in a log cabin or an igloo you cannot live without electronics or technology. It has become our life-support sans the hospital. I’m not bashing technology (heck, I’m writing a blog!) it has been to humanity what the Canadarm is to the International Space Station, letting us reach farther than we ever could on our own. But on the reverse side, what happens when you remove the electronic from the man?

Well, we’d be hollow. Not hollow like the hole in the oak tree but hollow in the sense of that feeling of emptiness, of wanting more that what you’re getting from your life. Are we really happy when we’re watching our favorite shows on TV, or is it just acting like a momentary BandAid for what we’re really yearning for? Which, is exactly where Muse comes into play; Muse will fill your hollowness with a sweet cacophony of guitar riffs and soaring falsetto.
And so...

Now it’s time to plug Bellamy and his genius! One of the ‘classic’ Muse songs generally accepted to be the magnum opus is none other than Plug In Baby. On the Musewiki website (the ultimate compendium of Muse knowledge!) they state:
“It is...rumoured that the meaning of the song is Bellamy's love for his guitar, or it could be criticizing todays new technologies such as the internet, which are supposed to be encouraging people to communicate when it really separates them.”
A frightening thought at first and one could easily argue that it allows us to communicate immediately (fbook chat anyone?) with friends whom we wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity to speak with. But are we using it as a scapegoat to stay within the safe and comfortable confines of our homes?

There is still more!
“As you bang your sweaty head to Plug In Baby’s monster intro, you’re actually listening to a bastardisation of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Bach ‘n’ roll, baby...”
From the article, “Guitarist of the Decade: Matt Bellamy” in the January edition of Total Guitar. Ah, virtuoso indeed!

And now a sampler of the first verse:
“I've exposed your lies baby
The underneath's no big surprise
Now it's time for changing
And cleansing everything
To forget your love”.
So, forget the false love that technology gives you, it’s a lie. Make the change and cleanse everything in your life of this false love.... ERR, maybe I’ll take little teensy weensy baby steps and start by spending less time on the internet this week...

And in closing, just as my thoughts were leading me down a very depressing road, I saw the silver lining... naw, I just saw a man walking down the street – with a BANANA sticking out of his jacket pocket! So all is not lost after all :D

Word of the day: rabble rouser

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Time Is Running Out! ... in a mannner of speaking

Hello all! ... isn't that funny, I made this blog to write and now I don't know what to say >.< Pretty much, blogging is my way of justifying the inordinate amout of time I spend online. This is what I was thinking at about 1:30am last Saturday:
"Oh, the irony! After spending 6 consecutive hours online - a pitiful combination of sleep deprivation and watching YouTube blogs (vloging?) - my weariness led me not to reconsider my priorities and effective usage of time, but instead to this conclusion: I needed to make a blog. Where else could I ramble on about random things in a random fashion at random times?"
To be specific, I needed an outlet. And yes, I do have a slight (ever so slight) obession with the band Muse but then again who doesn't?... [no snarky comments yet, plz]. Well, what better way to end this off than with an awesome MUSEic video ;)


(oh, by the way, this is just the beginning mwahahahah.....)