Ramblings on music – Rollingskull

Magdalena…

A while back Curtis said I needed to watch this movie on Net Flix called “It Might Get Loud” and well since he watched “Breer Wars” on my recommendation (and was able to regurgitate timely and topical tidbits from it) I put “It Might Get Loud” into the old insta queue.

It was fucking awesome! (Best watched with the volume turned to 11)

I already had a pretty health dose of respect for these artists before, but after that little documentary The Edge and Jimmy Page have validated their god like status in my musical world while Jack Black has been elevated from minor deity to second only to Johnny Cash in my world.

I’m not going to write more… your just going to have to go check it out.

For the lust burn in hell…

How I know I’m getting old to fast…. I just mumbled to myself “I’m starting to get sick of this CD” in reference to a album I had bought on iTunes a few weeks ago. I haven’t bought a CD in almost 4 years… and that was such a sour experience I doubt I will buy a CD ever again. Just weird I still refer to a group of songs as a “CD”.

Ok maybe it’s just me… but it’s my blog so you have to deal with it.

How do you know you have a f*ck’d iTunes library on your PC and not your Mac?
There are differences between the two folder like this…

Perfect Circle (4 Albums) Mac 45 Items, 3 hours — PC 116 Items, 7.8 hours (Ok if Cody came down to a PC he could probably have that much perfect circle but Cody works on a whole different level then I do)

There is 14 hours of Tool on my PC… there isn’t that much Original Tool material in the whole world (I know I have everything I can get my hands on)

I might as well put my neurosis to work… I’m going to take a page out of the Death by Blog crew… and start something new this month… I won’t do it every month like them but when the mood strikes and I’m pretty sure I can follow through I will do it. We’ll see how well this works. Anyway the change? The tags on the entries going forward will be tagged with artists that popped up while I’m writing… at the very least the artist that I lifted the title from.

So now you don’t have to be on Google talk/skype list to see what I’m listening to.

Even if it is a bunch of CD’s on iTunes…

Covers… sometimes they are worthy

I’m always keeping a eye out for TOOL covers… mainly because I really like the music (if you’ve ridden in my truck anytime in the last 3 years you know this already) and also it seems like they are rarely covered well.

I’ve found two covers that I think do the orginal song justice…. I think…

Staind \”Sober\”

And a acoustic version gotta give it a minute Aaron Lewis \”Sober\” Acoustic

and it would appear that I cannot embed you tube video… now that sucks.

The song remains the same….

It’s not often I get a text message that says “fuck you, I’m going home” it’s even less often when I get that very same text message from my own phone. Needless to say my liver is not real happy with me and hasn’t come out from under the bed for a couple of days now.

The reason?

Oh that’s easy, I spent the weekend in Californa for Kinsey’s wedding. Which I have to say as weddings go is one of the better ones I have been to. The personal highlight for me was the “Super C” theme as done by the “Minibosses” which if you haven’t checked out well you will know very quickly if you will like them or not. As always the groom looked his damn goofy self and the bride looked stunning… Congrats guys.

And is true for all people in their late twenties when someone gets married it’s a reason to spend money and abuse your liver… Which is why mine is snoozing rather soundly under the bed. Along with the drinking there was much discussion on everything under the sun, but the discussion that sticks with me the most is the one about music.

Basically it went something like this….
Nick… I usually give the iTunes store $12 a week, but I haven’t been lately since nothing good has come out.
Tom/Scott/Cody…. it’s not you nothing good has come out recently.
Curtis was there but he was more interested in the either the magazine or the basketball game it’s hard telling with him.

That one conversation sent me down a deep dark path of thinking of what have I bought recently that is good?

The last album I bought was Bauhaus, which is a 80’s new wave band that has put out their last album ever. It’s ok I don’t like it as much as I thought I would. This was all in the last two weeks.

Before Bauhaus, the last album I bought was the remastered Led Zeppelin Collection “Mothership” which I have been listening to alot since I bought it in November.

And as I look at the iTunes emails from the last year or so with very few exceptions I have mainly been buying “Bests Of” Talking Heads, Social Distortion, Led Zeppelin. Along with some older stuff… Pink Floyd and a couple of missing pieces parts in my Soundgarden/Pearl Jam collection.

The new music I’ve picked up has been real hit and miss….

The Raconteurs… not as good as I expected, but not bad
Silversun Pickups…. Crap
Chris Cornell’s new album….. mostly crap
Chemical Brothers…. weak compared to their older stuff
Smashing Pumpkins…. weak and completely forgettable (in the interest of full disclosure I find 98% of Pumpkins stuff to be crap)

Mind you I had to look through my old email receipts from iTunes to tell you what I bought. So on the whole pretty forgettable.

The only band I have nothing bad to say about is “The Yeah Yeah Yeahs” and that is pretty much it.

Of course looking at the new music on iTunes I saw that “Fall Out Boy” has covered “Beat it”

I really hope that works out as well for them as it did for that band that covered that other Michael Jackson song a few years ago.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go try and coax my liver from out under my bed.

The one with alot of words…

No I haven’t been watching friends… there is no gratitous nudity in that show. And I’m on a Led Zepplin kick so it’s kind of hard to use a line from one of their songs.

Why?

Because there are 3 other posts in the last 4 years with some sort of Led Zepplin refrence. Ok here’s a game for you, find two of the three titles with lines from Led Zepplin songs and you will win dinner on me… and when I say on me I will meet you at like a Chilli’s in a strip mall some placy buy you a beer and dinner. I’m not really going to let you eat dinner on me unless you 20 something cute and female in which case goto town.

Now your probally asking yourself why only 4 years for this game Tom? Well that’s easy that is about how long I’ve been on blogger you don’t honestly expect me to expect you to search all 8 years of this shit do you?

Wait 7 years? Oh good lord it has been 7 years… December 1, 2000. I started blogging in the 20th century! There has to be some sort of award for that. “And now to present Tom with the award for the most pristine and occasionally amusing pile of shit on the intertubes is Kate Beckensile” (and if Kate Beckensile isn’t around snag Cylon Model Eight aka Boomer aka Athena to present the award) This pile of crap is older then some of my friends kids and is defitnaly older then all of their marriages.

I wonder if it’s time to graduate from blogger to a honest to goodness domain name and some sort of open source web2.0 social networking esque website with a content managment system that would allow me to blog in real time as I thought of something, post pictures when ever I saw something that was amusing to me!

Or I can have another beer and go get some books packaged together for more friends having their first peanut.

I think I’m going to do that, personal jesus would be proud.

Blackhole sun, won’t you come?

Soundgarden was a great band, but you really have to wonder about what kinds of drugs they were on. You know between the lyrics and the Iron Butterfly esque guitar solos, I would be willing to bet it was a great live show.

As all of 3.2957838 (<– almost to 3.3 loyal readers!) know in addition to thinking that Soundgarden was the best band to come out of Seattle in the 90’s I’m a pretty big Pearl Jam fan. So when Eddie Vedder comes out with what is basically a solo album I take notice. The rub is the “solo album” is actually the soundtrack to the movie “Into the Wild”. OK Eddie did a movie soundtrack so I go and read about the movie. This guy gives up all of his worldly possessions for a life as free of trappings of modern life where he eventually ends up in the Alaska wilderness living off the land. Which appeals to me because I’ve always had this desire in the back of my mind to drop off of the grid totally and disappear. Problem is the only person who would notice would be Kristina since there would be leftovers and beer for Curtis all of a sudden.

And how did I know all of this about a movie that I hadn’t heard of up until two weeks ago? Why Cody of course! So Cody and I go see “Into the Wild” at what I call a “Art Theater” because it’s the first theater I’ve been to in Phoenix that has less then 20 screens (it only had four?!). Of course when you goto the movies they have the commercials before the movie now instead of just the trailers… don’t get me started on commercials before movies that is another rant in of itself. The last set of commercials are for Team Fortress 2!!! It’s a fucking brilliant commercial (click the link to see them all, the one that was in the theater was the “Meet the Heavy”) I thought it was a brilliant commercial.

So the movie finishes which was also excellent you need to go see it! And I’m looking at all of the people in the theater… Cody and I are the youngest ones in their. Wow they must have been really annoyed by the Team Fortress commercial. It’s a great commercial from a gamers perspective but if your not a gamer (Cody) then I can understand your annoyance.

So as a somewhat direct result of that commercial I purchased the Orange Box and have been playing Team Fortress 2 on and off all weekend. Holy cow that game is fun!!

So looking back at the title of the post it is rather true, because Team Fortress is a “Black Hole Sun”.

And oh yeah to top off a great weekend the Cardinals offed the Steelers!

Like Suicide (Acoustic Version)

I’m a pretty big Soundgarden fan.

Now I’m not the worlds greatest Soundgarden fan, I’m not a “back in the day before they blew up Soundgarden fan”, I’m not “crazy about Chris Cornell like some people I know are about Kurt Cobain Soundgarden fan”

I’m just a pretty big Soundgarden fan. To the point that of the 90’s rock bands that came from Seattle Soundgarden is my favorite of these bands (though Pearl Jam does rock Eddie and CO can’t hold a candle to Soundgarden).

So you now have my thoughts on Soundgarden and how they rock.

The only people who rock harder then Soundgarden is Tenacious D.

So for whatever reasons I was looking through iTunes this evening and found an acoustic song of my favorite Soundgarden song.

“Like Suicide”

It was never released as a single and is 7+ minutes long. If you’ve known me for any amount of time then you know that a song must be at least 7 minutes and feature generous amounts of high minded guitar playing (thank you Kim Thayll)

And yes “Like Suicide (Acoustic Version)” I would highly recommend it for anyone who has ever listened to music.

Except for Curtis, he doesn’t like Chris Cornell…

And before you say I should get some newer music I would like to point out that there has been no real music of note that has come out in the last 10 years that I haven’t already talked about.

Are you there Beer? It’s me Tom…

Inspiration level… still not there…. But I’ve had two things pop up in the last 24 hours that have spiked my built in inspiration level. So come with me if you will down that deep and dark path that is my head and I’m sure along the way we will find a couple pounds poo or so.

Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming out….

Yes I know I checked the calender too it’s not 2010 it’s 2007. I don’t know what’s up with Trent but he must have become inspired or something like that. Normally it’s 5 years (give or take) between NIN albums…

1989 Pretty Little Hate Machine…

1994 Downward Spiral….

1999 The Fragile (Great Album can’t tell you how many times I listened to it)

2005 With Teeth.

Now this is just the new material this is not including the live stuff or reissues anything like that. So with that list you can see why I’m a bit concerned…. This new album is coming much to soon. I have great hope and great fear for it.

The second thing that I came to my attention was actually posted by Brandi… and well since Brandi keeps her blog password protected, locked, DNA sampled, and Voiced ID’ed behind serveral layers of barbed wire and a helliacious mine field I will just give you a link and you can read it your self.

Recruiting the self centered

I saw a blurb on CNN earlier this week about the college students of today being more self centered then previous generations but I hadn’t read it… I read this article. You know I got to say that I’m just about offended that I’m apart of this generation after reading this article.

Not because there is anything wrong with the article, but because it is so dead on and it pisses me off that people who have no reason think that they are the greatest thing since Moses or at the very least Joan of Arc (you know the first woman to get a job outside of the home). I really see it in people my own age and it pisses me off. Of the people in my age group I know some that are work workaholics… some that are students (still)….. some that skate by…. and still others that are so wrapped up in their own lives they can’t see past themselves.

Where did this come from? I’m going to pick on the one cultural touchstone that everyone has been through… School… school taught you that you were a unique snowflake… just like everyone else. When schools started coddling children instead of teaching them that is where the trouble began. Yes I know there are things like no child left behind and insufficient funding for school and lord forbid we use corporal punishment to discipline children.. hell teenagers even. Because giving them a couple of good swift kicks to the ass might hurt their feelings and we can’t do that now can we?

While we are at it… I need take down my parents generation a notch or two also… but I need to work on that one… those old people are wily.

TOOL Covers….

So while searching youtube for a clip from the daily show where Lewis Black goes off (Lewis Black go off? Never!) on Fox news about the that damned dancing penguin movie.

I was unsuccesfull but for some reason I decided to go looking for TOOL cover songs… and well now you get to ignore the glory that is TOOL covering another band.

Covering the Ramones
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y82eYsAfXGc”>

Covering Led Zepplin

Oh no… I’ve been listening to the radio again….

So I’ve been listening to the radio a bit more then usual.

My usual is the drive into work while listening to either The Morning Ritual on 103.9 (which is actually stand able now that Heather is on maternity leave) or The Morning Sickness…

Anyway I miss mandatory Marley at 4:20 but I will get over that. What I am hearing though is a lot of Evanescence… talk about drivel, the subject matter is trite, the musical style has been played to death over the last 10 years, and aside from being catchy in the moment it doesn’t stay with you.

Even with all of that I still find Amy Lee very hot. So their maybe hope for them yet.

These views are mine and mine alone… if you don’t like them don’t read this drivel and go listen the drivel I’m bitching about.