Liner Note #26

ctan: Okay, a bunch of stuff has been amusing us lately, and we decided to do this Liner Note together.

Daron: yeah, I felt I didn’t have enough chances to have my say. (*snickers*)

ctan: You’re a dumb-ass.

Daron: Never claimed not to be. Okay, first off, ctan asked you all a bunch of questions, but from looking at the reponses to the last liner note, she left out one really crucial question.

ctan: I did?

Daron: Yes. You forgot to ask how many people are from New Jersey.

ctan: It’s true, the comments make it seem as if a lot of people have first-hand experience with the Garden State.

Daron: Okay, so let’s ask:

ctan: Sort of…?

Daron: Yeah?

ctan: That’s not how you make a poll.

Daron: No, that’s not how YOU make a poll. It’s perfectly clear to me what I meant. What other category would you put the people who were born there but didn’t grow up there, or who passed through living there at some point, but who can’t say “yes” to being “from” there?

ctan: Whatever.

Daron: Speaking of New Jersey… There’s an indie rock band from New Brunswick called Screaming Females, and though only one of the three is female, they all play women in the following NJ-set video:

Daron: New Brunswick is smack in the middle of the area we mapped last liner note, due west of Perth Amboy (where Ziggy, J., and I found that diner). And speaking of maps, here’s one someone pointed us at, which at some point The Star-Ledger/NJ.com published, but it came from the Internet. Sad/funny but like most things that are kinda offensive, kinda true, too:

ctan: According to the Star-Ledger, the map was created by 22-year-old Westfield resident and Rutgers graduate Joe Steinfeld, who posted it originally on Reddit. (Here’s a link to the original Reddit post. The comments on the original are pretty funny, too.) And then it went viral.

Daron: Isn’t Westfield the town next to Scotch Plains?

ctan: The town that always beat us in football, yes. Here’s another map for your amusement. Posted by one of the most infamous gay men of our generation, Andrew Sullivan, who was for years a conservative politics and culture essayist and the editor of The New Republic, who came out in the 90s (by publishing a book) and has since gone on to be an Internet instigator of sorts through his blog/column/website, The Dish:

The Saddest Map in America:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/02/21/the-saddest-map-in-america/

Daron: God help me if I’m ever reduced to cruising Wal-Mart. Can we talk about music now?

ctan: You’re the one who brought up New Jersey!

Daron: And now I’m changing the subject. Okay, 146 million views on Youtube probably means most of you have seen this already: Five Peeps One Guitar! (aka the group Walk off the Earth covering Gotye’s “Somebody I Used to Know). Trust me, even if you are sick of the song (I’m not) you’ll want to watch and hear this:

ctan: Reminds me of the Music for Bowed Piano. Stephen Scott came to Brown and did a performance with the Ensemble at the music department when I worked there. I have the albums on vinyl, but it’s almost impossible to describe to people what was going on in the performance. Now, though, we have YouTube! Voila:

Daron: Amazon sells the CDs and MP3s of it now, you know. Here: New Music For Bowed Piano CD/MP3

ctan: Thanks.

Daron: You think that’s cool? In the world of YouTube, you can have parody videos spawn their own parodies. If you can think of something, someone will think of a way to top it. So from Five Peeps One Guitar, to Six Guys and a Ukelele:

Walk off the Earth have some other cool covers to enjoy, too. Here’s another one with shared instruments, a Beatles cover:

ctan: Check it out! Here’s one covering that all-time great song about suburban conformity, “Little Boxes” !

Daron: You found a way to drag it back to New Jersey after all?

ctan: Can’t help myself. Like an old music professor of mine used to say, Everything is Everything. Hey, someone asked me the other day what your playing in the park sounded like.

Daron: It sounded like… me trying to play all the parts on the guitar, including the melody to a song, since I didn’t sing. Plus Bart on the bongos, when he was there. Why?

ctan: Well, I went looking for a YouTube video that I could show to people that would give them the idea if they couldn’t picture you doing that. And I ended up stumbling across another YouTube star, Sungha Jung. He’s currently 16, but his videos of “acoustic fingerstyle guitar” started taking off when he was like 10 or 11. I don’t know exactly how old he is in this one, but he’s young enough to be playing a 3/4-size guitar. The Beatles “Come Together” has never sounded more complete on an acoustic guitar:

That was him five years ago? Here he is four years ago with the Pirates of the Caribbean Theme:

And just recently (my, how he’s grown…!) doing the nearly obligatory Gangnam Style:

And then because Everything is Everything, here’s Sungha Jung. Playing Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know.” On a ukelele.

Daron: Okay, you win. Everything IS everything.