music

Panic On The Rocks

2 Comments | ,

Jamming JB

I hit up my second Red Rocks show of the summer this last weekend. Widespread Panic did three full days there, I caught the Friday show. It was magical. The moon was out and mercury was shining brightly. Panic rocked everybody and their new guitarist, Jimmy Herring, was really really good. Though, I thought he actually soloed a little bit too much. I’m sure most would disagree with me. I don’t really feel like blathering on about the show so I’ll just go ahead and link you to a bunch of other peoples reviews.

Brownie Yer Doin’ A Heck Of A Job!
Family Style!
Cold Leftovers
Tsunami Publicity Office Diary
Mothwing Dust
Barefoot Adventures
Bathtub Gin
Stillisstillmoving.com

And if that is not enough for you, you can stream the entire show off your computer.

State Of Commercialization

Leave a Comment | , , , , , , ,

I just got that excited/bummed out feeling you get when you see one of your bands on a major corporate TV commercial. I just saw an AT&T ad featuring Mates Of State. The ad features the beautiful song For The Actor. When my emotions boil down, I really am happy for their exposure though. Now Mates Of State have done ads before, but it didn’t faze me the same way because it seemed like it was for a good cause and because Jason and Kori were naked (sfw) in it. Anyway, listen to and download Mates Of State’s wonderful cover of Phantom Planet’s California while your here.

Update: Youtube has the commercial up at this link

Manu Chao At Red Rocks

1 Comment | , , , , , , ,

About a month ago I was giving my girlfriend a hard time about never taking me out on a date. Well it turns out that she actually took my pestering to heart. I’m surprised she bit, I was really just needling her, trying to get a rise out of her. (Wow there was a lot of slang in that last sentence) Because of my prodding, she surprised me by taking me to my first Red Rocks show of the summer.

Gogol Bordello opened up for Manu Chao (I love his crazy website). Both shows were really good. I really want to see Gogol Bordello at a smaller venue but I couldn’t imagine Manu Chao in a small setting, he feeds off the audience and the crowd feeds off of him in return. It just wouldn’t have been the same in an “intimate setting”. I hadn’t heard of Manu Chao until a couple of weeks before the show, so his whole thing was totally new to me. I was even more shocked to learn he is one of the worlds best selling artists.

Man, what energy! Him and his band ended up doing something like four encores, and the stage nearly got rushed during one of them. Manu sings in French, Spanish, Arabic, Galician, Portuguese, English, and Wolof, and he’s often mixing them in the same song. His sound is a strange crossbreed of reggae infused with UK punk (The Clash) with hints of salsa, raï, ska and good old rock and roll sprinkled throughout.

Unfortunately I missed a half of Gogol Bordello’s set while helping my brother finish a flask of Southern Discomfort in the parking lot before the show. Oh well. Next time.

If you’re interested in more cause=time has a great review of the show in addition to some bootleg mp3s. There is another (Romanian) review of the Red Rocks show on this blog. There are some great photos of the show to be found on Flickr too. Below you’ll find a couple Manu Chao songs to listen to (and download) if I have piqued your interest.

Manu Chao – Me Gustas Tu
Manu Chao – Welcome To Tijuana

Blue Ribbon Glee Club

5 Comments | , , ,

The 25 singers in The Blue Ribbon Glee Club are Chicago’s (first?, only?) finest punk rock choir. You can download their versions of “Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies, “Waiting Room” by Fugazi, “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric, and “Spanish Bombs” by The Clash, on their website. There is also a video of them singing “Where Is My Mind” (youtube).

If you are interested in joining a similar project, some punks in Colorado Springs are looking for members to join their Anarchists Marching Band. Sounds like a blast to me.

Nickelback, You Lazy, Talentless Bunch Of Wankers

18 Comments | , , ,

When you simultaneously play the two Nickelback songs “How You Remind Me” and “Someday”, which were released two years apart, you will soon discover that they are 90% the same song.

Nickelback, you lazy, talentless bunch of wankers. What, did you think nobody would notice that you’re recycling your hideous dirge and selling it all over again to your deluded fan base? You bastards, you’re taking advantage of those tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats who are too thick to notice you’re releasing songs that are EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones you recorded earlier.

NPR has a great take on this as well.
Here is a link to an .mp3 of the combined songs by Nickelback.
As an added bonus, this is a link to two Linkin Park songs played over each other.

But all this song similarity stuff is really nothing new. If I have any advice for a budding guitar player, which I don’t, it would be to learn how to play “Louie Louie”. The chord progression known to musicians as I-IV-V (The Eternal Medley) has been used in so many hit songs it should be considered abuse. A popular use of this progression, I-IV-/V-IV-/ad nauseum, is known as the ‘Louie Louie’ and is used in songs such as “Hang On Sloopy”, “Twist and Shout”, “Wild Thing”, and a ton of other songs with very little variation in rhythm.

So I guess, in the end, it’s not all that strange that Nickelback has songs that sound similar. What makes it nerve wracking is that Nickelback has actually plagiarized themselves (if that is even possible). What makes it disgusting, is that Nickelback fans don’t really seem to care and they continue buy this piece of crap music.

The Revolution Will Be Archived

4 Comments | , ,

I’m not a huge fan of Prince or his Revolution but I know there are readers here who are. So I wanted to point you out to a great post by Pete over at ickmusic, which includes a download of Prince And The Revolution’s last live show. Pete says,

“So the last official gig with this [original] lineup took place on September 9th, 1986 in Yokohama, Japan. It was the last show of the Parade tour. Prince pulled out a B-side rarity (”Love or Money”), a heartfelt version of “Sometimes it Snows in April”, a killer jam on “Anotherloverholenyohead”, a preview of “Hot Thing” during “Head”, and so much more.”

The post follows up with a “where are they now” type of thing for each of the members of The Revolution.

Scroll to Top