Steve's 600th Post Extravaganza

Yay... I have been doing this blog thing nearly 4 years now. Well... over 3 1/2. Started over me bitching about some headaches.

I just trimmed all the plants in the front yard and the back yard and made my big pile in the street like everyone else does down the street on the weekends. Left hand and arm is shaking like crazy while I am typing this. What the hell? I don't know what it is to this day why I have been hurting and in pain so much. All started after that wicked concussion I had in 2002 but every doctor says it is unrelated. I guess they are right with all those MRI's and spinal tap. What 3 MRI's... 2 Cat Scans.

Some days I would like to forget pain and for parts of the day, I can. It could be when I am out driving the Porsche, playing with Elijah or just simply going for a walk.

Hmmm... I'll change the subject... all of you regulars I see on my statcounter that visit each week know about this stuff anyway. I had some dude come from Iran the other day. I am banned in China but not Iran. Righteous!

When I was in college I had to take choir to get my degree. It was kind of interesting. I wasn't singer at all. I couldn't do much with it. And I was shy about it. So getting up and belting it out wasn't easy for me. But I needed to do it to complete my degree in music. So I grew the balls and went for my tryout. There were two choirs. The good one with all the opera types and the one where they put the rest of the crap. I, of course, went for the rest the of the crap. And of course, I made it. I sat with the bass singers when I was probably a baritone at best. Lowest note I can hit on a good day was a #g (g sharp) when I was really required to get to the d below that. But fuck it...

So my first year was a great experience. We did the Ave Maria for the holidays. But was cool is was that we did it as a historical thing. We started way back in Gregorian Chant... all the way through to like Mozart style stuff. And we also got to perform with Dave Brubeck which was quite cool. I had such a great time that year, hiding in the back of the choir, I said fuck it, and reloaded for my senior for a second tour.

This year our small little school with like a 100 students took on something big and pulled it off. Beethoven's 9th. We rocked the house. I was so lucky to be part of something like that. I could not believe the hours we put in to pull that off. We merged the two choirs and had the full symphony at the school. It involved all but like 5 or 6 students in the school and if I hadn't of signed up, I would have never have done it. I would have been one of those out casts. All the German diction we had to do. I had taken a lot of German so it was easy but man... Singing Beethoven's greatest piece of music... if not the greatest piece of music ever was just awesome. We performed it I think 3 times that year. It was a blast.

A Not So Accurate Reflection Of My Musical Tastes

I think it is interesting what our iPods can say about ourselves. I found this little application that can pull lists off your iPod and create little text files for whatever. I tried creating a list of all 4490 songs now on my iPod (which is for sale at the bargain price of $2500, I figure I can take $500 of that and buy a new iPod touch and be totally in the black $2000 and you would not only have an iPod with every Led Zepplin, U2, Green Day, Beatles, Social D, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine, Metallica, Dave Matthews, etc. song on it, but you would have it for under 50 cents on the dollar. Fucking cool if you ask me. If you are serious, I will strip the DRM off every song in one weekend for a $2000 profit.) I digress... must be the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder the psychologists are warning me about.... When I tried creating the list of 4490 songs, it crashed my Mac. Shitty G4 processor. I need a new Mac.

Anyhow... this list is misleading. One... I listen to a lot of albums so I don't target one song. And when I am gone on planes I shuffle a lot which makes me wonder where all of my Elvis and Buddy Holly music is because that never seems to come up here. No idea when Ben Fold's version of Tiny Dancer is on here but I posted the video at the bottom for your enjoyment.

Two... My favorite Bad Religion song is "I want to conquer the world". I must fast forward the end of the song a lot because it has only been played 7 full times. I put it on when I am pissed a lot. Surprised none of my other punk stuff is prevalent either. Where is MxPX? The Ramones? The Clash? Samiam (which is now up to 100 songs)? Jawbreaker? At least Greg Graffin appears first. I must love that song.

Three...where is Johnny Cash?????

Here is the list...


Songs in Playlist Top 25 Most Played

1. Don't Be Afraid to Run
Track Length: 4:12
Sung by: Greg Graffin

2. Tiny Dancer (Newport Ri 7/6/02 Newport Music Festival)
Track Length: 5:23
Sung by: Ben Folds

3. Jesus Of Suburbia / City Of The Damned / I Don't Care / Dearly Beloved / Tales Of Another Broken Home
Track Length: 9:08
Sung by: Green Day

4. Sing
Track Length: 3:49
Sung by: Travis

5. House of Gold
Track Length: 2:46
Sung by: Mike Ness

6. Red Dirt Girl
Track Length: 4:16
Sung by: Emmylou Harris

7. Incomplete
Track Length: 2:29
Sung by: Bad Religion

8. Fix You
Track Length: 4:54
Sung by: Coldplay

9. Six More Miles
Track Length: 2:40
Sung by: Mike Ness

10. Reach for the Sky
Track Length: 3:31
Sung by: Social Distortion

11. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Track Length: 4:20
Sung by: Green Day

12. Are We The Waiting
Track Length: 2:42
Sung by: Green Day

13. Miracle Drug
Track Length: 3:59
Sung by: U2

14. The Saints Are Coming
Track Length: 3:22
Sung by: U2 & Green Day

15. Letterbomb
Track Length: 4:06
Sung by: Green Day

16. Original Of The Species
Track Length: 4:41
Sung by: U2

17. American Idiot
Track Length: 2:54
Sung by: Green Day

18. Holiday
Track Length: 3:52
Sung by: Green Day

19. All These Things That I've Done
Track Length: 5:01
Sung by: The Killers

20. Don't Think Twice
Track Length: 3:47
Sung by: Mike Ness

21. Rockin' The Suburbs
Track Length: 4:58
Sung by: Ben Folds

22. When She Begins
Track Length: 5:03
Sung by: Social Distortion

23. The Scientist
Track Length: 5:09
Sung by: Coldplay

24. Somebody Told Me
Track Length: 3:17
Sung by: The Killers

25. Cheating At Solitaire
Track Length: 3:53
Sung by: Mike Ness

I lied... No Ben Folds:



Greg Graffin has looked like a middle aged man the last 20 years...LOL!!

Grunge or what's left of it...

My music tastes are weird. One minute I can be listening to Buddy Holly... the next to Disturbed.

I woke up sometime early Saturday morning and I suddenly had a hybrid of Alice In Chains Down In A Hole and The Day I Tried To Live by Soundgarden running through my brain. I have no idea what that was about. I immediately grabbed my iPod to listen to both songs and shockingly, they were not on there. I had 4300 songs on my iPod and not those two songs. So I spent some time Saturday pulling all the old "grunge" cds and installed them on my computer.

All my Alice In Chains stuff... Old Pearl Jam... STP... Mother Love Bone... you name it, I was installing away. Up to 4500 songs now on the old iPod.

Man... and who forgot STP?? They had like 10 hits or something... They are back together on tour with a new album. I saw them in 1993 here in Sactown. We sat in the back of Arco Arena. I forgot how good STP was until I found this collection of videos on the net. These guys put on a rocking show. And that is what you want to see when you spend your hard earned jack on a concert.

I saw STP, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam...numerous times, Smashing Pumpkins... missed out on Nirvana and Soundgarden. Perhaps Soundgarden will reunite... who knows.

Ah... 1992-1993... out of high school, in college. Flannel shirts, holey jeans... long(er) hair... Blue suede Doc Marten's. I was the shiznit. I bought my first guitar in 1994. Bought my first electric soon afterwards... I think it was the summer of 1994. A white Peavey Strat copy. My first guitar was stolen along with my red Epiphone hollow body I had in 2002. My Fender Tube Amp... twin speakers...300 watts sits behind me. One of these afternoons I need to fire up and cut loose... I am a shit blues rock guy.

Kind of weird... all that shit was 15-16 years ago. Here I am still listening once in a while.

Ha! That's What Ya Thieves Get!!!

See link...

That is what you get for stealing music! I am not sorry if you got this file and it is corroding your hard drive with pop ups and spyware.

Taking money all these years out of Bono's kid's mouthes.

I am glad to see some hacker from "that side of the tracks" has found a way to exploit these music thieves. This is awesome. A taste of their own medicine. Punishment for a crime.

It's great. I hope we can start paying our singers and guitarists in our bands again so the music industry can one day be important again. I once aspired to be a musician so I could afford to drive a BMW Hummer Porsche around. Hopefully this gets more of the kids to legitimately start buying music again.

Coolest Video Ever

It's like a war or something on "It's a Small World"

Unchained

Discovered this video on Youtube last night. Johnny was the man. I have the live version with Willie Nelson on my iPod which if you don't own the unplugged Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash album, you are missing out. (You have my permission to steal it Lawryde :) )

Waiting for the Daytona 500 to start. Only race I watch all year. Busy week ahead...

Anti-Guitar Hero...

Even with a bum left hand I still have time to blow all you guitar hero wannabe's away with my skillz... I even did it by ear foolz. Though I think it is a half step higher... Total time to record: 2 minutes 53 seconds... mixing and making everything sound right... a lot of time.

This song is off of Weezer's second album. One of the best albums they ever created. A must have. Not to sound egotistical but I am about as close to Rivers version on the album. That whole album was about rejection and hate. Was kind of cool back in college when it came out. Mine is scratched and won't load fully onto my Apple. Still plays though...

Bonus: I took the picture of the butterfly at Disneyland.

Should We Talk About The Weather?: Steve's Analysis On Song Writing

A line from some REM... that is where I got part of that title from. I think it was Pop Song or something like that... Anyhow... I think it is a good line that you remember from a song mostly...

Or is it?

See... that is an issue I am debating lately as I listen to my iPod on 10 browsing different things on the net that have no apparent correlation to each other.

The first song I think I played on this latest random shuffle was "Think It Over" by Buddy Holly.

Okay, Buddy I have thought it over and you were like the greatest song writer in pop music history. Why you were so good? Well... You did something exciting that countless people knowingly (The Beatles) or unknowingly (Green Day) copied millions of times over intriguing our psyche over and over. Simple songs... simple progressions... music know how... Hook, line... and sinker (the crazy glasses)

But really is that all a good song needs? A simple 3 chord pattern? Tonic, Sub Dominant and Dominant Harmony played over and over...

Well... then my iPod rolls into the Beatles' "And I Love Here" And yeah... you have the simple altered version of that progression... with a bridge of minor chords separating choruses from verses. Minor chords brought color and emphasis to the standard blues patterned chords from early Buddy Holly or even go back, Hank Williams and Chuck Berry songs... It's the color that hangs us on the more modern songs. The sad emotion of a minor chord in an other wise happy tune influences what we remember. If it wasn't for this then bands like U2 or Coldplay would have nothing to exploit to make their songs sound so big, even if over simple progression with some minor chords because it's those minor chords and melodies that draw us into that anthemic rock.

But then there is the riff. Anyone of us can hum the main riff to "Satisfaction" Riffs make all that I discuss even bigger. As "Today" pops up from the Smashing Pumpkins on my iPod, I can think of thing through the whole song: That riff off of the 11th fret. The one riff that sounds like, unconsciously, like another big riff: Slash's from Sweet Child of Mine. Riffs draw us into a song with familiarity. As a pause and listen again to U2's With or Without You... it's the bass riff you carry away from the song after the melody. Think about all the songs you like? Is it a riff that moves you or the melody?

So you have your major progression, splashed with a minor chord progression bridge and embellishment of a catchy riff.

So what's next?

Well... prog rock screwed all that up because we yearn for themes in our music. Pink Floyd, Led Zepellin and The Who screwed all that up first. They made all that stuff I mentioned above bigger... but really to disguise what they were doing with extra sounds and themes. They still did all the above, but they hid it with different instruments, multiple guitar and piano tracks and finally splash in a little drugs. With all that... you don't get influence for better music... you get the cock rock of the 80's with the big hair, loud guitars and everyone thinking they were the next big thing, manufactured by producers who probably lugged Jimmy Page's guitar cases around the studio.

The rebellion of all this sappy crap brought us the Ramones who had the sense to go back to the beginning with Buddy Holly and start over. Bringing us the punk rock style we all know and love. Catchy melodies and riffs, played faster and faster with some lyrics now resembling some broken home political scam. Three chords, one speed... 2 minutes or less. With out punk... rock and roll would have died. We needed it. Punk brought honesty back from the fakers trying to be Zeppelin. It was new... It was neat. We gotta thank Buddy Holly for it too.


After all that... Add some Elvis Costello and his changes to that punk rock and prog rock and you get alternative rock. A true genuine musician... Elvis took valid Buddy Holly style and punk angst, mixed in his own musical know how to get an awesome song "Accidents Will Happen" just happens to be playing now... More mutations... more chords, add some jazz... And that amazing voice and you get hundreds of copycats throughout the 80's... grabbing onto his sound and adding some dance beats and blow drying their hair out. Without this Elvis, there is no Depeche Mode, Cure or Flock of Seagulls.

The fallout of all this crap brought us REM, Nirvana and the Pixies. The antithesis of all the above. Particularly the Pixies first than Nirvana... They didn't value any rules or stay in any key really... but what they did worked... Kurt Cobain broke every rule with the guitar and if anyone else tries to copy it, they fail miserably. The punk energy mixed with a new kind of rock and lots of screaming. So far from Buddy Holly and yet so close you can feel it. After the Pixies or Nirvana has anything else existed as real in the rock music world? Ever great band after Nirvana runs merely a distant second place.

So what does one do attempting to push love of music into this daily blog of telling you my feelings, generating a song or two out of it? Songwriting is a incredibly hard endeavor to take on. Everything I have written here is at the forefront of my mind when picking up a guitar... even though it's just a hobby... the weight is heavy. Maybe I shouldn't care so much and just do it.... The Dave Matthews song "You Never Know" song blares out my iPod with the line:

I find it hard to explain how I got here
I think I can, I think I can
And then again, I will falter

The Killers...

I am still trying to strategically buy all the right iTunes off my gift cards. I'll probably shelve the rest until I find something I really want. But I bought The Killers' latest today called, "Sawdust". It's a compilation of b-sides. I bought it mainly because I like the band. I think they are pretty cool and entertaining... But before today I didn't know they were a really great band.

Above is a cover they made of an old Dire Straits song called, "Romeo and Juliet". Some real cool playing here. The line that gets me is:

Now you just say, "Oh, Romeo, yeah, you know
I used to have a scene with him"

Smart freaking writing... Wow!! You get the whole song from the author right there. I hate to say it but this is one of those covers that is better than the original.

Steve Pimps Social Distortion

99 to Life... Social Distortion

I was driving back from my parents on Sunday in the Porsche blasting some tunes on my iPod. I was cruising out on this old straight 2 lane road called Liberty Rd. This song came up on my iPod. It's off the Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. Sick song... I found this performance on Youtube. Such great lyrics. Mike Ness always seems to pour so much heart into his songs and into his live performances. You wouldn't hear this one on the radio like "Story of my Life", "Ball in Chain" or like their latest "Far Behind" which seems to be on the radio every time I get in the car. But he writes many songs like this one. I can't wait until they get their next album out. Probably the best band to ever see live the last 25 years...

Uhhhh....?

What was I thinking? DW will laugh all night long... I was bored and I finished work early. I recorded this on my iPod mic which really limits quality. I enhanced it as best I could... I have a whole digital set up but that takes hours... Plus I wanted to play with iMovie.

Guitar Hero Ruins Musicianship

As Stan's Mom points out clearly... "if they spend half the time learning a real instrument instead of learning the game who knows what they can accomplish."

I feel sorry for Stan's Dad when he shows the kids how to play a real guitar and he is called "gay" for it. Though... I am also showing my age. How can you say Guitar Hero is real? It's fake. It's a bunch of role playing, button pushing and quite frankly... It's stupid. You push a couple of buttons for points. What about the energy it takes to sit and learn say, "Lie In Our Graves" by Dave Matthews or "Ain't Talking About Love" by Van Halen? I know what it took for me to learn those songs. And quite frankly (again) it's something I can do at anytime and impress the shit out of my friends. But actually... I think it is more rewarding to know I can do that...instead pushing some buttons. It's different than other Xbox games

Now...something that really pisses me off. This new tid bit from Gibson. Automatic guitar tuners? What the hell is this coming too!! $900 to add this onto an already expensive Les Paul to keep it in tune... I don't know if I like this. This isn't what music is about. I mean... Eddie Van Halen must be shitting on himself because he has said in countless articles that to truly tune a guitar is impossible. All the strings are Perfect 4th apart in pitch which is the easiest interval for the human ear to pick up and learn. (Perfect 4th is the two note guitar part in verses of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana) It's all perfect 4ths except for the interval between the G and B strings which is a Major 3rd. This "problem" causes the B string to be frequently out of tune in certain chords. Eddie flattens the pitch by ear when he tunes his guitars and stays away from playing the open B string with out fretting it some where. I do slightly the same thing because it makes the open C chord and F barre chord, major and minor sound better. It's more in tune.

The other thing I find difficult is how can this guitar pick on the change of air pressure and heat that cause your guitar to go out of tune in the first place. If you are rocking out with a electric guitar your guitar gets a little warmer because your hands are running up and down the fret board. Plus the ambient temperature changes, especially if you play on stage at the local bar. The more people that come it the warmer it gets and the farther flat your strings go because of the heat. That's why when a band like U2 plays, they have like 20 guitars on the side of the stage for Edge to pick from. If you watch there is always someone tuning a guitar back stage when a guitar guru like that is playing. The guitar tech is constantly battling this back stage. Does the guitar get in tune better when a bunch of sweaty frat boys come into a bar to see the local punk band?

Gibson should just leave well enough alone. They make a great product already that is unmatched in sound quality and tone. Why fuck it up with some electronic bullshit that will probably not work.

Also... I have officially banned myself from EVER playing Guitar Hero. It's stupid... lame and really does not make you a better person. It just gives you callouses and bad dexterity and improper posture. Learn a real instrument. It's more rewarding...

One More Hill

Greg Graffin from Bad Religion

It's a cheesy video, but the only one I could find with this song

I think about myself and my own situation. I struggle. I struggle with living a life to its fullest. The way you live is mostly in your control and the rest is dumb luck. When you are a kid you have aspirations. Who doesn't have desire to be a great person? I, at one time, had strong desire to be a successful musician. The desire came when I was 14 years old. I don't know why. Maybe it was the struggles of adolescence or moving to a new place and having to adapt. Something hit me at that age and I just worked at it every. I picked up a brass horn and played it 2 hours a day. I learned. I studied. I worked on rhythm. I shaped myself into something pretty good by 16 and great by 18. I just played and played until I was good enough to be in the California State Honor Band and get a scholarship to college for it. I wasn't necessarily book smart but I made the grades and became something. And then I went to LA to make it with music either as a performer or the business guy behind it. To be that top guy some where. And it all came crashing down in 7 short months. I was 23. The music in me that I grew kind of died. All that energy I amassed in 9 years sort of left and I fell into the comfort position of the job I have now. That was 10 years ago.

I sort of made the discovery the past week that this whole pain thing I am dealing with is possibly psychological. (Teeny is going DUH!!) I believe now that I am making myself hurt. I have hurt for the better part of 5 years. Ever since that concussion in 2002. All those headaches. Even back to my very first post, 472 posts ago. I am not getting better. Drugs aren't making me better. All that acupuncture bullshit I put myself through. The shots in the spine. The MRI's, the Spinal Taps and the physical therapy. I am coming to the realization that it is all bullshit. It's probably some deep seated depression I just need to get the fuck over.

I am going to be 34 in 28 days. I need to somehow go find that guy I was at 23 and wake his shit up. What the hell was I doing? I did everything and anything I wanted from the time I was 14 until I was 23 out of sheer drive. That and I just didn't see to care about the consequences of failure because that was not an option. I don't feel that drive. I am more or less watching the wheels go around. I need to step into a cold shower after a late night of partying. I don't necessarily need the music thing back... I just need the energy I felt being on top of my little world. When I walked out of college I was unstoppable. Naive as all hell yes... but unstoppable. I think getting that energy back will bring back to keep climbing one more hill.

One More Hill is one of my favorite song and Greg Graffin does an awesome performance on the album. "If you think you have reached the top of the world. Just look all around and you'll see."

The album is great. Buy it.

When Old Is The New...

U2 during the "We're poor rock stars, please buy our records" years

Who knew at 14-15 years old when you bought a copy of the "Joshua Tree" by U2, you were buying probably and arguably the greatest rock album of all time. Nothing has sounded like it before and nothing sounded like it sense. (Unless of course you make the pilgrimage to a show when they are on tour and they play songs from it). I probably have bought 4-5 copies of this album due to format changes like tape to CD, or I flat out lost them. I also have an original vinyl release, unopened in my record collection in my basement. I saw it at an old record store and perhaps it will be worth something someday. It's a 10 million seller in the US alone.

Well guess what boys and girls, you can buy it again. This fall, you can spend your hard earned dollars on buying a sure fire hit record, where all the songs are good and not crap, like say the latest Pearl Jam or Britney Spears record. And you can get a bonus.. I bunch of cool shit like photos of the band from 1987 where they look older than they do now, a DVD of a concert from Paris, a digitally remastered version of the album which will sound better and won't have the muddy, analog hiss in the background during the opening song, "Where The Streets Have No Name". The Edge's guitar will jingle and jangle like never before. Each delay effect will be precise. The 'boom, boom, boom, buh da da boom' of Adam's bass will sound so crisp and clear in "I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For". The bass and guitar during Bullet The Blue Sky will sound even more dissonant because the two different keys they are playing will leap from the background in 5.1 Stereo. And Bono... his over-wrought, pseudo Christ-like lyrics will leap into your brain like a preacher stealing hearts in a travelling show for the love of money.

The complete song list is as follows:

Where The Streets Have No Name / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / With Or Without You / Bullet The Blue Sky / Running To Stand Still / Red Hill Mining Town / In God’s Country / Trip Through Your Wires / One Tree Hill / Exit / Mothers Of The Disappeared

The bonus CD gets you outtakes and B-Sides:

Luminous Times (Hold On To Love) / Walk To The Water / Spanish Eyes / Deep In The Heart / Silver And Gold / Sweetest Thing / Race Against Time / Where The Streets Have No Name (Single edit) / Silver And Gold (Sun City) / Beautiful Ghost/Introduction to Songs of Experience / Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland) / Desert Of Our Love / Rise Up / Drunk Chicken/America

The highlights there are the versions of Silver And Gold, Wave of Sorrow and Spanish Eyes.

The bonus DVD gets you:

U2 Live from Paris - filmed at the Hippodrome de Vincennes in Paris, on July 41987, on the European leg of The Joshua Tree tour. The tracklist is as follows: I Will Follow / Trip Through Your Wires / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / MLK / The Unforgettable Fire / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Exit / In God’s Country / Electric Co. / Bad / October / New Year’s Day / Pride (In The Name Of Love) / Bullet The Blue Sky / Running To Stand Still / With Or Without You / Party Girl / 40

WTF? No Where The Streets Have No Name? I'd trade October for that any day. Highlight here should be the live version of Trip Through Your Wires, Bad, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Running to Stand Still

Anyhow... this should be cool shit for any U2 fan if not any music fan period. Buy yours today.

Buy mine for my birthday and/or Christmas. Either way it is the same thing for me... Presents once a year...WTF is up with that bullshit!!

Two Pounds, Forty-Five: The Evolution of a Record Buying Experience

OK...

I seem to remember it went like this. It was 1997. I see this crazy video for "Paranoid Android" on MTV. I go, "Holy Shit!!! That was freaking Radiohead? When does it come out!!"

I wait a month or so for the release date. Drive to some Tower Records and pick up a copy of OK Computer the day of the release. Then I struggle relentlessly to peel the plastic wrapping off the jewel case and pop the CD into my stereo.

I continue to listen to OK Computer for years, thinking that it has some secret meaning to life that I could not find out on my own.

All this before:

• The commercialization of the internet
• The advent of Yahoo! and Google and how mainstream it has become in our lives
• Illegal Downloading and the complete self-destruction of the entire record industry
• The death of Rock N Roll as we know it. (Emo? WTF IS THAT!!!)

Now... roughly 10 years later, this 33 year old crumbling, impotent and feeble storer of inadequate sperm (me)...

Does the following:

• Fires up Foreplay/Longtime by Boston to remember what rock n roll used to sound like
• Sits patiently reloading Radiohead's site to download "In Rainbows" at the lowest price I could honestly pay for it: 2 pounds Site takes forever (3 minutes to load)
• Enter private info for download (1 minute)
  
• Runs full speed up a cold metal spiral staircase into an equally cold metal baby gate, with bare feet to find credit card. (1 minute)..Yells "Fuck!" real loud while grabbing toe. (2 seconds)
  
• Enters credit card and begins downloading ZIP File (30 seconds)
  
• 48 meg download, (2 minutes on my 10mbps)
• Wonders if I can actually open a zip file on a Mac (10 seconds)
• Drags files into iTunes (3 seconds)
• Boston song finishes and I press play on first Radiohead song "15 steps"(Total Time: 7 minutes 48 seconds...exact length of Boston song)

My overall experiences are way different now. Yet... this is the best Radiohead album since OK Computer. Not quite as good as "The Bends" but a really solid album. My personal favorites while writing this are:

• Reckoner
• 15 steps
• Jigsaw Falling Into Place

I loaded it onto my jump drive so I can install it on every computer...

The Scottish Invasion

A month or so a go I wrote about the band, The Bravery. I think I said something about these bands coming out that have these real good songs and stuff. On that one I think I wrote about semi-midlife crises and how you can't go back and fix shit that went awry back in the day or really... (what happened just three minutes ago with the whole dog walking thing), Anyhow... Back in the old days of record buying before lawryde and "his people" screwed up for the rest of us with their Napsters and Limewires, you heard a song, you then searched for the name of the song or who sang it, buy either intently listening to the radio or hanging out with friends to find the name. You stopped to listen to it when it came on and you followed it until the DJ announced who sang it, sometimes two or three songs later. You even, if you were as nuts as me, hung out in the school library searching Billboard looking for the title and how it charted. That was the music industry of the old days like from the beginning of time until high speed internet.

I like this band, the Fratellis:



Something strikes me as both Beatlesque and Ramone like with some serious shot of actually really great songwriting. Given the chance, these songs on this album can be really big. But an album's worth of songs with our high paced lifestyle of "hey, that's great, next" really has no staying power unless you are skinny drunk blonde in an S-Class Mercedes cruising the streets of Beverly Hills like you are a silver ball under glass, at the local arcade. We really are scared of the albums these days. U2 still makes albums, most people make songs. I suspect Coldplay, Rage, Metallica will try and make albums but a lot of the radio are these one song guys like the Bravery. The Fratellis are no one song per album band. This album is load!

I heard the Fratelli's with their real big American hit, Flathead on the radio a lot. I debated to buy the album because you get something sometimes and it's filled with crap. Not always... I can listen into an album deep and pick singles and I am usually right on what the next single is. But man sometimes.... Flathead was too gimmicky with it's off time Chorus. I thought really it was a "one shot" hit and now-a-days, I can pick that up on iTunes no problem.

But then in Tahoe, I noticed my sister in law bought the album so I took a listen. We both were playing with Elijah while she had it on. I still had my ear that sound. I think I told her how great it was like 30 times. Of course I do that with a lot of records. Especially records from artists just by looking at my collection I would not give the time of day (Case in point: Emmylou Harris---Red Dirt Girl, one of the best records you can buy, period) I bought the Fratellis as soon as I got back. I listen to them a lot in the car. It's an album you can rock out in a big way. Definitely influenced by the Beatles.

I think Scotland is place that people are suddenly going to pay attention to with all the great bands coming from there. The Fratellis just jumped into the lead. Besides Flathead, check out Whistle for the Choir, Chelsea Dagger, Baby Fratelli and For the Girl.

The Pixies Invaded This Blog A Couple of Years Back

Ever wonder why I have "If man is five, then the devil is six, then God is seven" on the bottom of my posts signifying comments? And then when you post a comment... on top it says, "This monkey's gone to heaven"

This video sheds some light:



Still sound good even though they are old... Big influence on pretty much everything not related to "Hair Band Rock".

Just got back from Tahoe after 6 days. Elijah had a great time as you can see in the photo below:

The Big "E" Not Wanting Help Off of the Saddle from his Great Great Uncle Harry

Still collecting all the photos from various cameras. There are some cool boat photos of him out there that I will post as soon as my sister in law sends them to me (or she posts them on her blog and I'll just tag them here).

I'll bet you'll NEVER see a Pixies video along side a boy on a saddle on the same post on any other blog. Prove me wrong!!

Time Won't Let Me Go...: Some Analytical Thought

This is a huge mask on reality. Some people will say this an awesome song. Some will say it's okay. Others will hate it.

But I think they have it right in the lyrics. Everyone one of us have regret of not doing something in there lives and that moment past them by. And the rest of their lives they are like, damn... I should have done that.... Especially in those lines, "I never had a Summer of 69, I never had Cherry Valance of my own. All these precious moments you promised me I'd have in time, So where was I when I had mine."

You know something, I had the Summer of 69 thing, but actually it really occurred in 1997 for me. And I married the "Cherry Valance" of my own. (Mushy) But the line that sticks out is that "All these precious moments that you promised me I'd have in time..." There are some ugly things in life that kids go through in there late teens/early twenties years where after high school it's all just "gonna happen" and it doesn't for them. The video really points out how fragile life is, with a card house. Wasting your life watching TV, not getting out there, asserting yourself. You know, being an engineer or a chemical salesman.

I reluctantly took my career job in 1997 at 23. I moved away from home for the third time. During that time, I thought time had passed me by. I thought time wouldn't let me go... back. Go back through college. Choose a different major other than music. Choose something that I would have had more fun with like communication or business (which would have helped in what I am doing now). I could have hung with different people or whatever. But, the reality is I am what I am. I suffered that year out of college between 1996-1997 thinking I knew what I wanted to do and the only preparation I took was to load up my Toyota pickup, head to LA and look for a job. It sucked. I faced a point in October of 1996 where I chose to eat instead of paying a credit card bill. Never want to go back to that time ever. So at 23... did I find myself? Was I stupid though, regretting the mistakes I made for a few years after that? I only realize over the last few years that the year after I came back from LA, I found myself and had the best summer ever. 1997. On June 15th, I had my 10 year anniversary with my company. 10 whole years at one place. Do I sing, Time Won't Let Me Go now? Hell no...

I still love all these songs these guys write. Every band, existing now or up and coming like The Bravery here. Once in a while, these songs make you really think. No matter who writes them, what style they are in or what ever. Its obvious these guys (or gals) come from a more fucked up perspective than I ever will.

(But will my older sister in law actually click on the video this time :) )

In The Presence of a God...

Social D's latest and greatest song. Mike Ness is due for a late in life career much like Cash's

Man... this guy has been on the scene now 30 years and he keeps writing great song after great song.

I stood right in front of his mic a few years back and threw some punches at some dude that was totally bigger than me. Something felt good about that. That and all the Jack I drank before the show!!!

Oh This Will Make You Cry...

Phone Salesman Amazes Crowd - Watch more free videos

Shit... I almost cried!! Also makes me feel small.