London Olympic 2012 Is About to Start

Although this blog of mine rarely publish post about sport…but you can still see SPORTS in my category. Writing about sport is not as easy as writing about books, movies and music…but it doesn’t mean that I have forgotten that category.

I don’t remember since when I became an Olympic fan, all I remember is that 4 years ago, I did some short posts on Beijing Olympic. I enjoy watching almost ALL sports in Olympic…whatever sport the TV showed us and if I wasn’t busy, I watched it all…I even watched man wrestling match…I don’t understand the rule at all but watch it nevertheless.

Here are the posts I made 4 years ago:

• Olympic Spirit 1 where I shared about the opening and the first 3 days.
• Olympic Spirit 2 where I shared about sports I watched in the next 3 days.
• Olympic Spirit 3 : Go Indonesia where I focused on the first gold Indonesia received from Badminton. Thank you Hendra Setiawan and Markus Kido
• Olympic Spirit 4 where I shared another 3 days of sport watching.
• Olympic Spirit 5: Basketball is The Best where I focused on the final match between USA and Spain.
• Closing Ceremony

There’s something about Olympic that I found magical, I think the spirit of togetherness and glory is one of the reasons I enjoyed Olympic.

Take a look at this song by my favorite band, Muse.

5 Bands/Musicians – Concert – I Want To See Before I Die

Click this button to see my other top-5 list

As I have mentioned it early this month, I will be seeing David Cook concert on July 17…and somehow that post reminds me that I haven’t written 5 concerts I want to see before I die. While the atmosphere is perfect to talk about concert, I hereby present my top 5 concert I want to see plus some honorable mentioned.

I always did a countdown for my top-5 post, but now is an exceptional because I bet you know which band I want to see so bad…They are all over my blog

Here are 5 bands I want to see LIVE before I die:

#1 L’Arc~en~Ciel

I love this band above all bands ever created on earth past, present and most likely future. For the past 10 years, I life in a dream and sort of lost hope that I would ever see them live…maybe if I find a super rich husband who could take me to Japan to see them. I love all their DVD concerts which I have seen over and over again. Thank God, on the 11^th year of love, my dream finally came true. Last May, they came and performed incredibly perfect.

Teaser Tuesday – 1984

Teaser Tuesday is a fun bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Everyone can play along, all you have to do is simply take the book you are currently reading. And then share 2 ‘teaser’ sentences from any page in the book. I often share more than 2 sentences

Please avoid SPOILER!!

Finally! I have found the perfect time to read this book. Been wanting to read this since I found out that Matthew Bellamy of Muse was inspired by this book when he was writing Muse latest album The Resistance.

Here is my teaser.

From page 80

For, after all, how  do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of  gravity works?  Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external  world exist only in the mind, and if the mind  it-self is controllable –  what then?

From page 81

Freedom is freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that  is granted, all else follows.

If you are  wishing me ‘hope you enjoy your read‘ … The answer is: I am enjoying it A LOT.

What is your teaser for this week?

Invasion of The British Bands

Click thi icon to see my other top-5 list

It’s time for my Top-5 post of this month (November)

I have just realized that I haven’t done any music related top-5 before (except for Muse and Laruku). So…I have decided to do it this month and I will start it from the country that has produced a lot of great bands over the century. That country is England!!! England has been producing one great band after another since The Beatles shocked the world. No other country in this world has more amazing bands than England.

As far as I can remember, the first band that I listened to came from the Great Britain. My father used to love that band and played their songs from time to time and I grew to like that band too. Now, I play their songs more often than my father. That unforgettable band is The Beatles. For me, The Beatles remains as the number one greatest band ever produced on earth.

But…

I’m not talking about the greatest British band in the world, the greatest doesn’t mean the one we like the most. Take example of Elvis Presley, I regard him as one of the best iconic rocker, but I don’t like his music, out of all his songs I only listen to less than 20 songs. I know my example is not from England, but I couldn’t think of any other example that I admit as a great musician but I only like few off their songs. Back to the topic, this top 5 British Bands is talking about Bands from The Great Britain that I like the most.

I hope whomever stumble upon this post will also share their version of British Bands they like the most.

Top 5 of EVERYTHING

Out of nowhere…this idea came to me, I want to write all my top 5 of everything I like (or maybe dislike…if I have the mood for it). I want to do it once a month. The top 5 I’ve written before were L’Arc~en~Ciel top 5 video and Best B-side Track by Muse. After writing my Muse post, I want to write more on this kind of rating. It was really fun writing those 2 posts.

So far, here are my Top-5:

1. L’Arc~en~Ciel top 5 video (Dec ’09)
2. Best B-side Track by Muse (May ’10)
3. Men to Drool-on (June ’10)
4. Subarashii Manga (June ’10)
5. It All Comes in Three (July ’10)
6. The Greatest From Keanu Reeves (Aug ’10)
7. Top 5 TV Characters (Sept ’10)
8. Best pictures of my Sweet KameChan (Oct ’10)
9. Top 5 Favorite British Bands (Nov ’10)
10. Top-5 2010 Teasers for Teaser Tuesday (Dec ’10)
11. Best Five In cinema 2010 (Dec ’10)
12. The Best Book in 2010 (Jan ’11)
13. River of Tears: top-5 that make you cry (Feb ’11)
14. Best Pictures of my Sweet Kroten-Chan (Mar ’11)
15. The best from Radiohead (Apr ’11)
16. Top 5 Best Movies by Cillian Murphy (May ’11)
17. Top 5 Horror Movies (Jun 1’1)
18. Actors/actress I always Watch (July ’11)
19. Top-5 Female Singers (August ’11)
20. Top-5 Actors I don’t get the appeal for (September ’11)
21. Book Characters into movies (October ’11)
22. My All Time Favorite Dorama (ドラマ) – Japanese TV Series (November ’11)
23. 5 things/person I am Obsessed with (December ’11)
24. Best 5 Movies I watched in 2011 (January ’12)
25. Top 5 Books of 2011 (January ’12)
26. 5 Movies I Rewatched so Many Times (February ’12)
27. Top 5 Kroten’s Expression (March ’12)
28. 5 Movies With Beautiful Human-Animal Relationship (May ’12)
29. 5 Men To Drool-On Part 2 (June ’12)
30. 5 Bands I Want To See Before I Die (July ’12)
31. Top 5 favorite TVSeries of all time (August 2012) >> Needs to be updated!!!
32. Top 5 Favorite British Entertainers (November ’12)
33. Top 5 Best Books I read in 2012 (December ’12)
34. Top 5 Movies and TVSeries I watched in 2012 (December ’12)
35. Cillian Murphy Movies I am Not Too Keen About (January ’13)
36. 5 Super Addictive Slow Music (March ’13)
37. 5 Reasons Why I Like Noel Fielding (May ’13)

Here are my plans, it might not be written on this order, but it’ll surely be written one day…. one Top 5 per month (I’ll change the order once I had posted it)

1. Top 5 Dorama Soundtracks
2. Top 5 Haruki Murakami’s Short Story (will be written after I read 1 more short story collection by Murakami)
3. Top 5 Haruki Murakami’s books
4. Top 5 Muse’ Videos
5. Top 5 L’Arc~en~Ciel Stage (will be part of my Tribute for Laruku)
6. Top 5 Movies by and Tom Hanks
7. Top 5 J-Literature
8. Top 5 J-Bands
9. Top 5 Stephen King’s books
10. Top 5 Stephen King’s short Story
11. Top 5 American Bands
12. Top Toga pictures shot by me
13. Top 5 Onepiece Characters (will be part of my Onepiece dedication)
14. Top 5 Ghibli animation
15. Top 5 Hyde’s Hairstyle (will be part of my Tribute to Laruku)
16. Top 5 L’Arc~en~Ciel live concert (will be part of my Tribute to Laruku)
17. Will think about it later

All these top 5 posts will be updated when I find something better in the future.

I enjoy writing monthly post since I start writing my monthly tribute for L’Arc~en~Ciel and that’s why I’m going to do this monthly till I run out of favorite things

I will be using this icon on each post, except for those which will be part of my laruku’s tribute.

Best B-Side Track

Lately, I have been engulfed by my tribute to my number one band, L’Arc~en~Ciel and have abandoned my other number 1 band, Muse. It’s true that my love toward L’Arc~en~Ciel is a step higher than toward Muse…but a total abandonment is totally unacceptable…therefore, I NEED to write this post

I’m going to share my favorite B-Side Track from Muse. B-Side Track Songs are songs that didn’t make it into their album…They release the songs as a B-Side on their single. The way I hear it, some of these B-Side Songs are much better than some of their songs that made it into their album (Showbiz, Origin of Symmetry, Absolution, Black Holes and Revelation, and The Resistance).

It’s so hard to choose because all the songs have their own interesting part. I finally able to squeeze them into 20 songs, they are (in alphabetical order) : Can’t Take My Eyes of Off You, Coma, Con-Science, Dead Star, Easily, Eternally Missed, Fury, Glorious, Hypochondriac Music, In Your World, Instant Messenger, Map of your Head, Nature_1, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, Recess, Shrinking Universe, Shine, Soaked, The Groove and Yes Please.

Out of those 20 songs, here are my Top 5:

#5: Can’t Take My Eyes of Off You

Yes, this is not their song!! I don’t even remember who sing it for the 1st time because there are so many version of this old song. But Muse’s version of this song is the best!! It started very slow with some oldies percussion and then it evolves into something more like Muse. We can jump up and down to this song…it’s cheerful and still rocked. Youtube link

Muse @ Helsinki, Finland

I didn’t go to Finland to watch and record this….but I wish I had lots of money and was there to see this amazing concert.

This concert awed me so much…it mesmerized me…tooo damn incredible. So I decided to put it in my blog in spite of the fact that this is only an amateur shoot.

Overture

Then I kept on searching for more great videos in Helsinki

Uprising

Unintended

Plug in Baby

========================================

This isn’t in Helsinki but it’s called Helsinki Jam

 

Muse’s The Resistance : Reviewed by Me

I have put the articles from other media about the review of The Resistance… Now, I will write down my own review. I’m not a musician and therefore this review is simply based on the ears of an ordinary people that happen to be Muse’s number one fans.

Previous reviews by pro> By a French Magazine and by MusicRadar

1. Uprising

This is MUSE!! This song is Muse song and no other. The smell of Muse is all round this song. I love the beat and I feel that it will be an amazing Live. There are a lot of claps. You can moved your body to the song’s beat without even trying to synchronize it.

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not enslave us
We will be victorious

2. Resistance

This song is beautiful…my favorite of all. It started with the sound of wind (or maybe something else) and then an intro by using the sound of a keyboard that reminded me of old petshopboys’ song….you know, so 80′s. The sound of the drum is very fun and liberating. Started with a slow tune to an upbeat tune. Very interesting and captured my heart instantly. I almost cried listening to this song for the 1st time and my heart beat as fast as Dom’s drum.

My favorite Phrase is in this part

Love is our resistance
They’ll keep us apart and they wont to stop breaking us down
Hold me
our lips must always be sealed

3. Undisclosured Desire

The way I see it, this song is the most easy listening kind of song. A beautiful that will be easily accepted. The weakest of this album but still enjoyable.

4. Guiding Light

Started with the sound of drum and then Matt started singing with his high voice. Is it just me or someone else feels the same, this song sounds like a national anthem. It takes 2 or 3 times for me to fall for it.

5. Unnatural Selection

I have fallen in love with this song since the 1st time I hear it in their LIVE at Teignmouth, a one hell of an awesome song!! The guitar riff is crazy, the bass is a wow and the drum is amazing. the ups and downs of the song is captivating.It kinda reminds me of Citizen Erased. I can easily imagine my self jumping up and down watching it Live.

There’s a part that I like the most, but unfortunately I can’t write the lyric down because I can’t find the lyric yet and Matt’s voice is hard to hear. (I’ll update it again next time)

6. MK Ultra

This song can easily described as Amazing guitar riff!! A powerful song that take me out of this world. I simply Love it!!

7. I Belong to You (Mon Coeur S’ouvre à Ta Voix)

It started with the sound of piano and hands clapping. The tune is very cheerful but it changes drastically in the middle of the song, the part where Matt started singing in French. It seemed like they are trying to touch your heart with this part. In the end, they went back to the first tune. It reminds me of an old song.

8. United State of Eurasia (+Collateral damage)

I have written about this amazing song when it first came out >Here

……As for the music, everyone can easily recognized how it is deeply influenced by The great QUEEN…I don’t know music note so forgive me if I make a wrong interpretation.

In my ear as a non musician, although it sounds like Queen but some parts remind me of Khasmir by Led Zeppelin. It has a thick essence of 70s and 80s kind of rock.

Muse closed the song with a solo piano that sounds like Chopin style. It sounds beautiful.Arabic sounds mixed with Church Choir and closed with Chopin, what an amazing combination!!!…

9. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)

I can’t say much about this song…it’s a truly captivating song.

10. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)

This one sounds more classic than part 1, maybe because of the way Matt played the piano. The part has a lyric, the kind of melody that has the same pace as Ruled by Secrecy. I really the piano part.

11. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)

This last part is sort of like a closure…so sad and so deep.

Overall, I can say that Muse is able to make another record that sounds different from their previous albums (as all Muse’s albums are different to each other). We can easily hear the influence of Queen and 80′s music in this album.

I can’t wait to hear their next album and be blown away by it….But for now, pray to God they will come to Jakarta again and give another unforgetable Live.