You know those guitars that are, like, double guitars?

I celebrated pay day a little early this month. Instead of dutifully waiting until the first, I went whole-hog into the "last day of lecture" celebration (31st) by having a tasty dinner at Chipotle with Math Rock and the Turtle, and then skipped over to Tower Records where I purchased "True Stories" by the Talking Heads, and "Boston" by Boston. The first album is notable not only for its musical content, but also for its sociological import: it contains the song "Radio Head", which apparently is the source of Radiohead's name. Now, this song is really cool, and interesting for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it is the polar opposite of the song you would expect Radiohead to be the namesake of. I mean, think about what the song that Radiohead, Radiohead, for god's sake, might have named themselves after must sound like. This song sounds nothing like that.

Boston, of course, is that majestic statement of corporate rock. Quite tasty, all the way through. I'm most impressed, I think, by the vocal harmonies. No hint whatsoever of wavering intonation even for a second. I mean, this guy has either got to be the greatest singer ever, or was produced by someone who definitely knew what the hell he was doing. Or both. But more likely the latter. I mean, he's singing in 5ths almost all the way through! You've got to be right on to manage that one. 3rds can be fudged a little, 5ths are seriously hard. My favorite moment on the record is at 2:28 in "Peace of Mind" when the double guitar line comes back in after the dueling solos. Sweet.

We went back to the Turtle's place and I bored everyone trying to claim that the best music ever written for a video game is the music from Castlevania level 3. That's seriously some good stuff. Check it out here. It's in a bunch of crappy MIDI files, but you get the gist.

After that, I had a few drinks and a gaggle of us watched "Here Come the ABCs" by They Might Be Giants which, I have to say, is to be avoided unless you can't stand going another second without digesting every possible thing that They Might Be Giants has done, or if you're three years old. And as I don't really fall into either of those categories, well, it was a little lost on me. It's nice for the kids.