/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

I’ve been doing this list on Facebook for the last 4 days. If you want to as well, copy and paste the text below.

The idea is to share a little bit about yourself by choosing one song a day, for 30 days.  Introspection is required, but it sounds like fun.  Looking at the list, I can tell that some songs will be easy to choose, while others will require a little bit of thought.  See the list below and if you’re up to the challenge, let me know in the comments below.  Let the sharing begin!

The 30 Day Song Challenge

Day 01 – Your favorite song

Day 02 – Your least favorite song

Day 03 – A song that makes you happy

Day 04 – A song that makes you sad

Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone

Day 06 – A song that reminds of you of somewhere

Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event

Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to

Day 09 – A song that you can dance to

Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep

Day 11 – A song from your favorite band

Day 12 – A song from a band you hate

Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure

Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love

Day 15 – A song that describes you

Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate

Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio

Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio

Day 19 – A song from your favorite album

Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry

Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy

Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad

Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding

Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral

Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh

Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument

Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play

Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty

Day 29 – A song from your childhood

Day 30 – Your favorite song at this time last year

My first 4 songs are:

  • Rush – Lock and Key
  • Los del Rio – The Macarena (that song just pisses me off … I don’t know why, but it gets under my skin and burrows like a tapeworm ulcer and festers until my mind erupts in pustules of putrid loathing and disgust)
  • The Weepies – Be My Honeypie. You cannot listen to that song and not smile uncontrollably. It’s a beautiful feeling!
  • Ugly Kid Joe’s version of “Cat’s in the Cradle. I swear, I want to be the best parent ever, but this song … Jumping Jehosephat on a hot tin roof sundae. I can’t make it through without having to fight the urge to bawl uncontrollably. Maybe it’s because I never had a good, solid father figure growing up, and now that I’m in charge of two kids, it scares the squishy shit out of me because I do not want them to go through what I went through. Don’t get me wrong–my mom was as saintly and wonderful as it gets, and God bless my step dad’s heart … he tried, but how do you dive in with a 14 year old and a 10 year old? That would be so mind-bendingly insane to try to adjust to! I give him credit for trying, but … I don’t know. Gah.

Anyway, there’s the list so far. It’s a fun list!

Saving the World, One Strange, Incongruous Item at a Time

/ / rantings

I have been tasked to find a way to keep people from dying. Not sure how I got the tap, but tapped I have been. I will not shirk my world citizen responsibility!

In light of my new task, I have amassed a cursory list of potential items to be used in saving at least a life:

  • Spoons
  • Mayonaisse
  • Peanut butter
  • Cheese
  • Paper clips
  • Duct tape

Because let’s face it … what life-saving list would be complete without duct tape?

In my non-medical/engineering mind, there must be a way to combine those items to make something that will indeed save someone’s life. At first glance, I imagine that the spoon/peanut butter combo would be the most effective spring board, but then again, the duct tape and mayo might be equally useful. I’m not sure how cheese comes into play, though I’m sure I’ve seen some MacGyver or CSI ep where cheese was used to do something BIG. I just can’t remember which show it was. And yes–it does indeed matter because obviously that will make a difference. If cheese were used in CSI, then somebody died of fromagian bludgeoning. If it was used on MacGyver, then it was probably transformed into something like C4 and used to blow a hole in the side of a bank vault to free a group of hostages from the Sandanistas. Or something.

But I digress.

Meanwhile, I have broken out my iPhone whiteboard so I can start drafting instructions on how to use the aforementioned items to save a life. In the interim, everybody quit dying.

More New Music

/ / New Music, Opinion, rantings

My machine won’t update my iPhone OS. Every time I try, my phone bricks. Something about the USB ports not having enough power to juice the phone back to life once the iOS install starts. Instead, I’m greeted with some weird screen where I get a picture of an Apple dock cord and the Apple logo. Nice, eh?

The option I exercise is to take my phone to the local Apple store and have them install it for me. Lame, I know, but it’s what I have. Most AT&T stores won’t do it because they don’t want to risk bricking the device. Not the best customer care, as far as I’m concerned, but whatever. Anway, each time I go in, it takes about 15 minutes, which gives me time to peruse the store.

On this particular upgrade last Thursday, I used the time to check out what music was installed on some of the demo devices. I threw on the headphones and listened to the first song that came on. I didn’t jot down the name of the song, but I did take note of the band: Sea of Bees. I was instantly struck by the singer. A blend of Karin Dreijer tuned up an entire octave and Harriet Wheeler. Musically, they’re semi-similar to Cranes, which is *always* a good thing in my book.

Speaking of Cranes and pretty tangential, I had an extra copy of their latest CD sitting around–a self-titled gem. My sister in law’s birthday is tomorrow, and we got together as a family for dinner in honor of her special day. We gave her the CD. She looked really happy to get it. I told her that if she likes it, I have a ton more of their stuff that I’d love to get her hooked on. 🙂 We’ll see.

ANYway, so that was Sea of Bees. Excellent music from a one-woman performance in Julie Ann Bee. Ambient, soulful, folksy, beautiful … it’s fantastic.I picked up a copy of Songs for the Ravens. I’m pretty sure the song I listened to isn’t on it, and I’m okay with that … just means that there’s more of their work to hunt down.

The other band I listened to was The Whitsundays, a Canadian band out of Manitoba. Some further digging around led me to the fact that some of the members are also in LCD Soundsystem, a high-energy electro-pop band with some pretty catchy tunes. Again, not sure what Whitsundays song I heard, but it’s not on the CD I got. More sleuthing and hunting. LOVE it!

A buddy of mine wrote to me the other day and suggested that I check out Lykke Li. This buddy … frick. His musical tastes are just to be accepted as gold. Not once has he ever let me down, this time being no exception. She has a kind of Scarlett Johannsen quality to her music and voice. It’s really soothing, mellow stuff. Check it out!

The Melding of Two Loves

/ / Classical, Opinion, rantings

Outside my family and friends, I have two passions: music, which I think is a given, and the Buffalo Sabres hockey organization. I’m a fan of the sport, but the Sabres are “my” team.

That being said, yes–I’m *extremely* stoked with what Terry Pegula plans to do with the team. He’s already shown his commitment to making the organization a world-class place to play in removing the old locker room carpet and replacing it with new carpet with the logo emblazoned into it. It looks great.

One of the other changes that they’re planning on making is to the theme music of the pre-game show. I don’t know the name of the band who plays the intro to the Sabres broadcast, but it sounds like the Buzzcocks. All distorted guitar, and that’s it. Not a bad version, but … I don’t know. I guess it’s getting stale.

Rumor has it that they’re replacing it with a new song–something more classy. Wanna hear it? I’ll do ya one better. Watch it.

I present to you Vanessa Mae–violinist extraordinaire:

EH?! Yah? See that? Sabres new pre-game them song. Filed under “shiver” for the goosebump-inducing chills.

She has plenty of CDs to pick up. My favorite is her rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. She makes “Winter: Allegro non Molto” sizzle.

Mother Nature and Devestation

/ / Opinion, rantings

Last night, I passed out on our couch watching “Bones.” My wife and I love that show! My intent was to write a post after the show was over, but instead, I fell asleep. Erg.

So I woke up early and came in to work, hoping to knock out a short Friday. As is my custom, I came in and checked email. I had one from a co-worker whose travelling in Australia, informing us of the earthquake that hit Japan. Wondering what the scope of the earthquake is, I checked out msnbc.com’s website. The pictures have changed, as has the banner news headline, but the message was the same: 8.9 earthquake rocks north east Japan; tsunamis are devestating coastal areas.

The imagery is shocking. Even the Indonesian earthquake from December 2004 didn’t have this much coverage. The advances in technology in those short 6 years have granted us unprecedented coverage of the destruction taking place–many of which looked like they were live feeds from various sister news sites overseas.

As you all know, this blog is supposed to be about music in various and many aspects. Today … no. Today, this post and possibly others are dedicated to two topics: my condolences to any who lose loved ones due to the quake and/or tsunamis; the incredible, awesome power of mother nature.

Now … by “awesome,” I do not mean “wicked cool!” or “Holy shit, did you see that insane earthquake in Japan?!” By “awesome,” I mean the dictionary definition of “awe.” I can’t watch the videos and see the pictures without being completely taken aback by the sheer force and power behind the earthquake and tsunamis. It blows me away that our planet’s crust is a) only about 20 miles thick, b) that crust is made up of plates that shift and roll around–sometimes with extreme violence, as evidenced today.

Google Earth already had the earthquake labeled and iconed, along with about 50+ OTHER earthquakes since the initial 8.9 temblor. Most of those were 6.0 aftershocks. AFTERSHOCKS. AT 6.0 or greater?! Shit … you couldn’t pay me to live there.

As I said, my heart, prayers and thoughts are with those who are being impacted personally by this quake. Loss of life is always hard to hear about. The size of this quake … I’m scared to see what the totals will end up being. My wife and I have friends living in Japan. Thankfully, they got on Facebook and let us all know that they’re safe. That brought a huge amount of relief to me personally … but it doesn’t lessen the impact of the situation. If anything, it sharply puts in focus others’ losses, and it makes me incredibly sad.

And now … the flip-side of the coin. In my building at work, we have a little latino lady who cleans our floor–vacuums, takes out the trash, dusts … and she’s just the friendliest little old lady. Such a sweetheart. So every day that she stops by to empty my trash can, we talk the best we can in her broken English and my mangled Spanish. The other day, I told her about my headaches because she said (again, in her broken English), “You no look so good …” It made me laugh. I tried explaining that I never look good, but I don’t think I got it quite right. ANYway, so today, she stopped by to pick up the garbage. She told me that her father is coming from … somewhere. Not sure where. Not important. She continued on to explain that he’s bringing some cream for pain, and that she’s going to bring some for me. How’s that for a feel-good story?! Here we have all this destruction and death, and in the middle of it all, she takes time out of her day to ask about my back and offers to bring me some pain cream. Damn it all if that isn’t just the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time.

You know what that means? It means I get to pay it forward. Not sure how I’m gonna do it, but by crapola, I am.

I’m completely at a loss. That totally made my day. I’m … I’m floored.

Lunch break over. Getting in at 5:30 am has its perks: early lunch, early leave …

Whatever your personal belief–whether its in a higher power, God, karma, universal power … keep these good people of Japan in your thoughts and prayers. They need it badly right now.

Hooray!

/ / review

Oh holy hell. Figured out the severe back pain issue. Ironically, I have to sit in it right now to type this post, but yah–the computer chair totally leans to the right. It’s seriously jacking up my back. If I sit in it for more than 5 mintues at a time, my lower back flares up and gets all sore. So … new desk chair in the works. Good riddance.

Ugh. More later. This back thing is killing me.

Don’t Follow

/ / Blah-ness, rantings

There are times that I enjoy writing a ton. The subject alone is my drug of choice. I’m addicted to learning about new bands and discovering new music. I scour the web in search of bands, blogs, and whatever I can get my hands on.

Tonight is not one of those times …

It is with a bitter sense of irony that my drug of choice leads me to the heart-wrenching news of Mike Starr’s untimely passing here in Utah. He–the original bassist of Alice in Chains–was found dead today in a house in Salt Lake of an apparent overdose on prescription drugs.

What saddens me the most is that he struggled mightily with this addiction, to the point where he had a spot on some celebrity rehab show to hopefully help him kick his addiction. Obviously, that didn’t pan out so well. Where was the love? the support? the help?

I know of one tweeter who I stumbled across while reading various twitter posts about how he and AIC’s music meant so much to so many. He specifically reached out TO HER to help her with her addiction. He tried to help others overcome their demons. This is the kind of soul that was taken from the earth today.

I’m not here to judge. It’s not my place to say how hard he did or didn’t try … mainly because a) it simply isn’t my place to judge, and b) I have no idea how hard he tried. But shit like this burns me up so much because ANY addiction is pure poison–be it heroin, pain killers … music ….. that which you cannot overcome has the potential to destroy you–physically, mentally, spiritually, psychologically … but beyond the self-inflicted is the pain that is felt by everyone within whatever spheres you find yourself. Or would find yourself, were you not so totally and utterly into whatever it is that weighs upon you.

Mike was taken from us way too early. 44 is a ridiculously young age. His talent on bass was undeniable. Want proof? Listen to “I Stay Away” off of Jar of Flies. One of my favorite bass lines of all time. Or “Would” and “Rain When I Die” from Dirt. Amazing bass lines. He PLAYED. He didn’t go all Les Claypool or Flea on his instrument; he made that bass purr and croon.

It’s sad. He was a hell of a bass player. I wish him well in the after life.

RIP, Mike.

 

New Music Monday

/ / New Music

So I got some new CDs. Not a ton–just some. Here’s the list:

  • Elefant – Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid
  • The Good, The Bad and the Queen
  • New Roman Times – On the Sleeve
  • Copperpot – Chapter Seven
  • Killswitch Engage – As Daylight Dies

Great CDs. Good mix, too. Killswitch Engage isn’t at all what I thought it would be, since I found it in the Indie section, but whatever. Still a great find. Heavier than I anticipated.

 

Where Were They Then?

/ / Opinion, rantings, review

Okay, sorry for the ridiculously awful post title, but after you check out the vids, you’ll see why.

We all know Trent Reznor is the driving force behind Nine Inch Nails. Have you heard of Slam Bamboo? No? Don’t worry … not to many people have. So imagine my surprise when a Google search popped up this video.

I almost feel sorry for the guy, ya know? Surrounded by … that? And he’s … he’s Trent Reznor. It just cracks me up. Well, we all have to start somewhere.

Just ask Maynard.

It makes you wonder how these quantum leaps are made. Going from a new wave band to the industrial music king? And how do you transform from a Richard Simmons leotard to Tool?! Cracks me up. Hey … we all have to start somewhere, right?

Sorry for the semi-lame post. I’m still battling a wicked headache/back ache combo that’s kicking my ass from here to Asia. I used to get these with alarming frequency, but they dissipated for about 2 years. This week, they’ve come raging back, and it’s severely pissing me off. No amount of Advil helps. I’m contemplating going to the doctor and getting some heavier help, but I’d rather avoid that if at all possible.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Glad To Be Back

/ / Opinion, rantings

Sorry for the absence the last couple of days. A bit about me: I get *wicked* serious tension headaches and back aches, to the point where they’re actually debilitating. I’ve been hospitalized for these in the past for the most severe cases–twice in about 20 years, but still … having to go to the hospital because of a headache is kind of ridiculous. Fortunately, I’ve discovered some techniques to combat these without having to check myself in at the local emergency room. Yesterday and Thursday though … holy crap. It felt like hundreds of knives were digging into my shoulders, middle back …

and of coures, after that HUGE Sabres win against the Flyers IN PHILLY isn’t helping me any. Too much cheering, jumping, thrashing and celebrating. Okay, maybe not TOO much of any of that cuz hey–how is there too much celebrating when the win is THAT huge?!

Anyway, now you know the reason for being in abesntia for the last couple of days. And now, back to your regularly scheduled post.

So I actually started writing this around 7 am. I was up, I hadn’t written in what seemed like forever, so I thought I’d jump in. The first thing I did was hit my “Stumble” button and see what popped up. This is what greeted me. If you’re a Van Halen fan, this … this may hurt to read. Not in a painful, “Kill me now; my life is over” kind of way … but in a “Dude. Dude …” kind of way. Read it, then come back.

All done? See what I mean? I mean, even if you’re not a VH fan, that’s still tragic. There is hardly a honest to goodness musician who would not tell you that Eddie Van Halen was a virtuoso with the guitar. He innovated some playing techniques that were simply out of this world. He constantly tweaked his sound and tinkered with different ways to get different noises. My favorite was finding out that he used an actual drill on his strings to achieve the sound at the beginning of “Poundcake.”

You’ll notice that the video is from the 1991 MTV awards. This was the opening performance, and did it ever set the tone for the rest of the evening. There were a ridiculous number of amazing performances from just that show. Queensryche performing what I consider to be the best live version of “Silent Lucidity” ever; Guns & Roses performing “Live and Let Die“; Metallica performing “Enter Sandman“; L.L. Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out“; EMF performing “Unbelievable” … of course, there were some “less than” performances too, like Mariah Carey doing some stupid ditty, so it wasn’t all highlights. But man.

Yah, that Queensryche performance was just mind-blowing back then. Even this evening when I watched it for the first time in probably 19-20 years, it floored me how pure and precise Geoff Tate’s voice was then. Even today he can still belt it out. I saw another video of him and a couple of the other band members doing “Killing Words” from an acoustic set in May 2008. NAILED it. As if he had just recorded Rage for Order and decided to do an in-store performance for kicks. There are few voices in music that hold more power than his.


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