It has finally happened

The first movement conservative to unmask in public has stepped forward and demonstrated in the bright light of day what I have been saying for years the national Republican Party truly is, but will never admit to being. It is a party of country club elite plutocrats concerned only with the challenge of reclaiming the wealth that that is unjustly funneling to the hired hands who support the business assets that justify their membership in the club. Of course there aren't enough club members to carry one district much less win a national election, so the challenge has always been to make the unwashed masses* that are beneath them, believe one of two things:

Doing the big dance!

I remember the days well, when the Connecticut Huskies losing to Holy Cross was just another day in the basketball season.  There was no "wait 'til next year!" it just was.  In my freshman year at Hamden High School, an athlete named Scott Burrell graduated and went on to play a big part in changing that.  First he had to turn down an offer from the Seattle Mariners.  Once past that hurdle, he joined a UCONN Husky squad that included Chris Smith, Tate George and Nadav Henefeld.  They would go 31-6, collecting a Big East Conference Championship and an appearance in the Elite Eight, eventually falling to tournament runner up Duke.  That was a year where whoever went to the finals would have to face a UNLV team that was and may still be unrivaled.  But for those of us in Connecticut, this will be the crowning moment for the year that truly gave birth to Husky-mania:



To us, what would later happen in 1999, 2004, and 2011 was only a matter of time; and none of us doubted it.

"I miss the comfort of being sad......"

Hard to believe it was 20 years ago that so much potential ended as abruptly as it began.  The whole world was forced to take notice just 3 years prior and just like that, music was taken out of its 80's comfort zone, and hitting the road on what promised to be a wild journey with an unknown destination or ETA.  I was a product of the 80's who wasn't very impressed with what passed for popular music the first time I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit."  I was 17 years old and hanging out with a couple of high school buddies at a pool hall when it came on.  I hated heavy metal music at that time, and the guys I was with and I sometimes cut up on headbanger stereotypes when the mood struck us or we were just plain bored.  I didn't want to admit that I might like the song. I also didn't know that it wasn't heavy metal, at least not the way I knew it at the time.  It wasn't long before I bought 'Nervermind' and I along with everyone my age was craving more.  We didn't have to look hard.  Soon 'Teen Spirit' was next to songs called 'Outshined' and 'Even Flow' on the tapes I was making to play in the car. 

Whatever it was called, grunge, alternative, punk,

Why do I hate Michigan?

My last post was a dissertation on some behavioral observations about Michigan fans on the shallow end of their fanbase gene pool.  I mentioned that someday I would describe my history as an OSU fan, and in order to do that post justice, it was necessary to do some introspection on just why TTUN is just so God awful.

Malaise and Blues

This is the first post about college football and I may be putting the cart before the horse but this topic is timely.  Some day there will be a post on my evolution as fan of Ohio State football, but this isn’t it.  Also, noting my allegiance, it may seem odd that I refer to a certain program by name here.  There are plenty of other derisive names to use when referring to that team, and I use them often; but for this post I’ll step back from all of that just to avoid turning this into some sort of rivalry shtick.  And one last thing before getting started…

Kids, learn to play an instrument

I read an article about Dave Grohl in the Delta Sky magazine while on a recent trip.  He gave what I personally believe to be the best, and most relevant advice to any aspiring musician when he said go to a yard sale, get a $30 set of drums, bring your friends over to jam in your garage and have fun completely sucking. 

That, is how great music is created.  Lars Ulrich, before kicking off a little known upstart garage band

An irrsponsible citizen who had no difficulty obtaining deadly force.

Barbershop conversation about shooting ends when shots are fired.
I know, I know.....he would have obtained it one way or another....even if he had to meet someone by an abandoned warehouse in E. St. Louis instead of just borrowing it from his wife so don't change anything.

Just another responsible citizen standing his ground....

The list of people who damage credibility grows.

Just another responsible citizen exercising his rights

This "relative" is a bigger threat to your gun ownership rights than anybody calling for an outright ban on guns. 

Horsley described the boy's parents as shocked by the incident and cooperating with investigators, who found the gun belonged to a relative who has been living temporarily with the boy's family.

An outright ban will never happen, unless the credibility of the "responsible gun owner" argument is lost and this idiot helped to do that very thing.

Where have all the hookers gone?

There's nothing more tired than the old art/business dichotomy in music, and yet it won't ever be resolved.  If you think I'm wrong...let me remind you that there is always this; and there will never not be some form of it.  Nothing like the start of a new season to bring out the painful reminder that there is a side to music that has nothing to do with art that is always at the ready to suffocate the talent out of the next generation.

This is a little dated, but it doesn't matter.  As some may recall, Creed Inc bassist Brian Marshall once had a sad (covered by CMT no less!) that Pearl Jam is a good band and all but is just baffled about how they fail to appreciate the importance of ROI in determining their asset performance ratings. Oh how the former masters became all studentish and whatnot.

"Pearl Jam tends to... in their recent albums, has gone in such a different direction, which is fine, but looking at their album sales and their fans, you can just see the decline," Marshall told KNDD. Statistically speaking, Pearl Jam has seen a steady decline since the release of its sophomore album, "Vs.," in 1993, which sold 5.69 million copies, followed by 1994's "Vitalogy" (4.54 million), 1996's "No Code" (1.34 million), and 1998's "Yield" (1.48 million), according to SoundScan. To date, Pearl Jam's new album, "Binaural," has sold some 408,000 copies. In comparison, Creed has sold 4.4 million copies of its 1997 debut, "My Own Prison," and has already sold 3.86 million of its newest record, 1999's "Human Clay," which is still holding strong in the Top 10 of the "Billboard" Pop Albums chart after 37 weeks in release. In the KNDD interview, Marshall also said that while he listened to Pearl Jam throughout his collegiate days, he didn't understand why the band now chose to "write songs without hooks."

Songs without hooks I tell ya!  How is anyone supposed to know they exist if people don't get all hooked up from their car radios while their minds are pre-occupied on who will be in the bottom 3 tonight!

The whole dichotomy of the artistic yin to the business yang; perfectly summed up in the difference between grunge (a term hardly embraced by those categorized that way) and post-grunge.

Fab Fail

I watched ESPN's documentary on the Fab Five from Michigan last night.  The biggest takeaway for me is that I'm getting old fast.  It seems like that was just the day before yesterday, and it turns out that was 20 years ago. 

Beyond that, I hate this story.  It has nothing to do with

And the Oscar will not be going to........

I don't say this to bash the movie.  I enjoyed it a great deal.  That is I enjoyed it in spite of the state of modern movies.  I've come to expect the predictability and cliches that are rife in films like this, and am desensitized enough to that to overlook them, even though a tiny voice inside of me is screaming that I should be annoyed. 

Now even though a heavyweight like Denzel Washington leads this movie, the real star is the incredibly menacing looking Engine 777 as it speeds on a collision course toward......well it doesn't matter what, because whatever IT is, IT will be obliterated.  The 777 looks mildly ominous enough when sitting still in the rail yard, but each incremental increase in MPH causes the triple 7 to morph more and more into a demonic machine posessed with the intent to unleash havoc.  If this is all you want from the movie, you'll be satisfied.  There are enough action scenes that are thrilling enough to make up for the ones that are prepostorous. 

Now, on to the real point of this post.  The movie won't be getting any awards, and if I'm wrong and it does or has already, than a great injustice has taken place.  It isn't because the subject matter is unbelievable though.  The script writers took an entirely plausible event and added depth only in the form of 1 dimenstional drama.  The setup for an event like this actually occurred 10 years ago just a few miles from where I am typing this.

Obviously this story, interesting and potentially frightening as it is, does not have the dramatic credentials to carry a feature length film. But it certainly has the right elements. All we need is to take what occurred here, imagine how it could have played out if we were less lucky, write a story about how real people would have responded to THAT situation, and make that our movie.

It is taken for granted that action movies are not award winners, so nobody bothers to try to write one worthy of an award anymore. Somebody did write an action movie about a runaway train in 1985. Now I have my problems with that movie too, but it had dynamic characters, and the incredibly dangerous out of control train served as a vehicle to deliver redemption and justice, not just cheap thrills and tidy resolution. 'Unstoppable' had the true elements to base a story on. If it hadn't suffered from a lack of imagination and correctly recognized the opportunity to capitalize on the themes that 'Runaway Train' got right, it would be a superb movie. Instead it is yet another million dollar missed opportunity.

Update:

Now THIS definitely deserves an Oscar.  "Chugga chugga Choo CHOO!........BOOM!!!!" LMFAO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6QMp_rGIc
(embedding disabled)

Because it's cold and warmer days are ahead

I give you Galactic in NOLA in 2009.........

The view from stage 2

This is the first in a series of posts about The Dave Matthews Band. So much to figure out. So I'll just begin here.

To be a fan of the Dave Matthews Band is both fun and frustrating in so many ways. This is a band that can blow your mind, and infuriate you because you know they can blow your mind. They are so unique, and with their uniqueness, they haven't so much revolutionized music as much as they have created their own rock and roll utopian society. By no means are they the only jam band so don't get me wrong. But for a jam band, there is an interesting interaction of jam band fans along with alternative fans, middle age music lovers, and mainstream radio music fans. Any attempt by the band to cater more to one of these audiences over another results in this weird conflict about a show was great or "was not what I know this band is capable of doing." I'm not in the mood to disect this to the point that the soul of music is lost. But do me a favor, watch this video and follow up afterward:



You watched this video and your reaction was:

a) It rocked, I danced my ass off
b) GFD that song again. DMB is on the brink of collapse.
c) Heard it many times and it never gets old
d) It's fine, but can we get back to why I am a fan of this band?
e) Other (please add a comment to explain)

UPDATE:
To expand upon Sharon's most astute comment, I wholeheartedly agree that Cornbread isn't meant to have lots of bells and whistles.  And to demonstrate the contrast, the Radio City version embedded below (the most well known Dave and Tim adaptation of the song) is one of the most enjoyable tracks on my iPod.  whereas the live, full-band versions of the song like the one you just listened above, are the most frequently skipped (again, speaking only for my iPod).

Free Jim Free Jim Free Jim

We here in the hallowed halls of the Big Empty are with Charlie Crist.

Very belated update:

And there was Justice.


My old hometown of New Haven couldn't contain him, neither could Miami, and now neither can history.


The streets in Madison Wisconsin and now, my new home state of Ohio are taking on a flavor that hasn't been tasted since the days when Jim Morrison took the stages of the New Haven Arena and the Dinner Key Auditorium.  Nobody gives a fucking rats ass about the pigs that put Jim away back then and in 50 years nobody will give a fuck about the toadies who do the dirty work of the powerful now.  And so, as a tribute to the forgotten nameless establishment stooges of yesterday and today, I give you Jim.


".......blood in the streets in the town of New Haven........."

Monday night music thread

This one's for you Jay if your're out there!

Why'd ya have to go and.............(insert source of grief here)??????!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've wanted to post about this ever since I first heard 'Let It Die' but life always got in the way. Also, I thought it best to let the debate go on for a little while about whether Dave Grohl is confronting his emotions about the tragic death of his Nirvana bandmate.


So now, I am finally here to put the issue to bed. Yes, the song is about Kurt Cobain. Yeah I know he said it isn't, but why should we listen the artist who actually wrote the song? Especially when he has also said things like this. All one has to do is read the lyrics and listen to the melancholly tone which abruptly becomes emotionally flooded with rage and it all makes perfect sense that this song is the product of a man coming to grips with the death of a friend at his own hands, right?




Or...................maybe the song is about US Olympic Skiing Champion Bill Johnson. A simple man with a blushing bride, but all preceding tragedy and failure. Right again! The song is in fact a tribute to Bill Johnson! I have no idea, btw, if Dave Grohl has a clue who Bill Johnson is. But it doesn't matter. If it works, it works. And the song is both ambiguous and emotionally authentic enough to be the song about whatever is a source of intense grief for the listener.

So if listening to it helps one come to grips with their grief about the loss of Kurt Cobain than that is what it is; and it is also many other things, all of them related to healing from intense grief.....and it is perfect.

Hmmmmmmmmmm............Part 3: Just because nobody has been able to doesn't mean it can't be done

"When you play a great lick that you haven't played before, it's amazing, because it feels like it's been handed down to you from the heavens. It flows through your fingers, onto the strings, to the pickups and out the amp, and suddenly you hear this great thing. You recognize it as the entire creative process..........I know that vibrations connect all of these things.........I buy into the string theory of physics. The basic principle is that everyting in the universe is made of these vibrating strings. It's nice to think that the cosmos is essentially a huge guitar and inspiration comes when I'm tuned into it." (1)

"For me, music is vibration, and the universe seems to be created based on numbers and vibrations. If you want to get down to quantum physics, string theory and aother dimensions, it seems to me that vibration is what holds the entire universe together. The fact that we're musicians and we use vibrations to conjure up moods, atmospheres, emotions, thoughts and concepts-well, a lot of times I think musicians are magicians in that sense!" (2)

Metallica's Kirk Hammett, speaking to Brad Tolinski and Brad Angle on the pages of Guitar World about the universal forces that align when great music is created.
(1) "The Phoenix," December 2008 Issue
(2)"Metal Alchemy," April 2009 Issue

So while I'm no longer pondering whether one of the most haunting death melodies ever written has been improved by adding the words 'oh baby' to it, I'm still going 'hmmmmmm....' over the link between the music written and played by virtuosos of past and present.  Past virtuosos wrote operas and concertos, present ones play guitar.  They are so different, and yet they aren't. 

For purposes of this exploration, a few assumptions need to be established. 

1) First and foremost, cosmic forces that are beyond any persons' comprehension are at work in the creation of great music.  I don't need to dive too deep to make this point hopefully.  Explain harmony, why some notes harmonize with others and enhance music, while others completely clash and hurt the ears.  Somebody or something decided long before we named notes from A to G that some combinations of sounds would work together, some would not, and some, when combined the right way would either kick your ass, stir your soul, or do both at the same time.

2) Second (and this isn't really an assumption), music in the classical days of yore, not unlike today, was filled with a depressing majority of composers who suck.  We only know of a handful of greats, but we don't hear about their 'not so great' colleagues from the day.  Conclusion, most people who write music (or do anything else for that matter) absolutely suck at it.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.  By definition, being above average means you are in very exclusive company.  The difference between yesterday and today is today we are still sorting out what doesn't suck.  For purposes of this exploration, my takeaway is, it doesn't take the J.S. Bach of today to attempt bold musical experimentation.  What is absolutely necessary to succeed though is sincere motives, enough talent and the right inspiration.

3) Third, and sometimes most important: relationships matter.  The relationship from artist to artist, artist to audience, and audience member to audience member must all align in some form or fashion or we have failure.  Either great work does not get recognized as such, or absolute crap is mounted on a pedastal because it was commercially viable.  Either option is unfortunate.

So with that said, how do we fuse classical music with heavy metal?  First we have to answer the question of whether we 1) take heavy metal and make it sound classical, or 2) we take a classical piece and play it as heavy metal.  Metallica has tried #1, and Evanescence has tried #2.  Both came up short.  I won't repeat Evanescence in this post since I've already linked to what they've done to Mozart before, but I will add Metallica's orchestral adaptation of their classic instrumental The Call of Ktulu.

At the risk of going totally uber cliche, I'll just say that Eddie Van Halen's Eruption has provided the most classical metal guitar sound that I've ever heard at what begins at the :57 sec mark here:



The question for me at this point is how do we fuse the crisp and piercingly sharp sounds with the full bodied richness and granularity of Baroque and where does a guitar like Eddie's fit in with this:



Both examples fulfill #1 above.  With all of that said, I move into uncharted territory.  I've got a few more nuggets to go and explore, and I'll report back soon.

Saturday Night with STP

Enjoy!!!

We are all Simon Cowell now

Bristol is now the new Sanjaya Malakar, thanks to legions of political junkies that care more about personality than quality or competence. Our race to the bottom just shifted into a new gear. We are all doomed, and on pace to validate the Mayans.

Update:
Ughhhhhhhh.  2012 is perhaps more credit than we deserve.