Being in middle and high school in the farmlands of PA, it was always such a freaking score to be able to find a place that had their stuff on the shelves. I mean, we had the local college station (WDCV) where we could hear all this great music, but no place to buy it (and, when you could find it, it was twice as expensive as the garbage on regular radio).On the plus side, when I went away to college, it wasn't until my junior year that most other people started to be aware that I had a good music collection to raid (and my collection became an involuntary musical resource for a lot of people in my dorms and apartments). What started out as "1001 bad groups" (my cousin, John Kling, had similar tastes in music, and, one of his fraternity brothers did a charicature with that title) became the music resource for a bunch of people. When I started at PSU, I always had to scrounge for people to drive all over the state to go to small clubs to listen to bands we liked. By the end, could easily find people to make the weekly drives all over the state. Still and all, by the time I had the money, means and traveling companions to be able to see REM, live, they were well into the peak of their career. The best I could do were shows like the one at the old Capitals complex in Bowie, MD (please don't ever ask me to call it US Air Arena). Seating was awful, but was still a great show (well, Stipe still had an awful tendency to go on long preaching jags - you kinda just wanted him to "shut up and play" - but still, it was a good show). So, never got to see them in an intimate setting.Oh well, era long gone. I was actually kind of surprised by the announcement, given that I'd sorta lost track of them. I'd thought they'd faded out 10 years ago.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Hum a Jaunty Tune
Much as I don't understand how it is that every morning I wake up, I have some random music rattling about my head, I don't understand how new ones end up getting featured throughout the day. I mean, in some cases, it's because I accidentally heard an earwig. But, in most cases, it's completely random. With wakeups, it's generally a song I've not heard in ages (and didn't even ever particularly like). Even more bizarrely, it's rarely associated with whatever it was I was dreaming just before waking up. In the rare cases that I was dreaming it, the music is usually what wakes me up.
At any rate, I've got another random tune stuck in my head and it got there unprompted and in the middle of the day. All I can do, at this point, is think, "Argh: how did I get Symphony of Destruction stuck in my head??"
At any rate, I've got another random tune stuck in my head and it got there unprompted and in the middle of the day. All I can do, at this point, is think, "Argh: how did I get Symphony of Destruction stuck in my head??"
Monday, January 10, 2011
Need soundtrack to Machete.
There's a lot of good stuff in that soundtrack. The closest I can find is the "Mexican Spaghetti Westerns" disc - but it doesn't have all the songs from the movie. In particular, it misses the rendition of Ave Maria by Chingon.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
My Wife Is Such the Über-Gawth.
My wife, being the good goth that she is, has lots and lots and lots of Goth, darker New Wave, Industrial and other music in those veins on her iPod.
She recently started using a new iPod Touch because her old iPod died. She'd never synced the Touch to her iTunes app before her old iPod died. So, she lost a lot of music. Now, she's loading up the Touch with the stuff that I'd previously backed up to our NAS. But, she's also supplementing with Amazon downloads. However, what she's been getting from Amazon is making me question her gawth-cred: first Britney, then Black Eyed Peas, now she wants to download some Lady Gaga?
Oy.
She recently started using a new iPod Touch because her old iPod died. She'd never synced the Touch to her iTunes app before her old iPod died. So, she lost a lot of music. Now, she's loading up the Touch with the stuff that I'd previously backed up to our NAS. But, she's also supplementing with Amazon downloads. However, what she's been getting from Amazon is making me question her gawth-cred: first Britney, then Black Eyed Peas, now she wants to download some Lady Gaga?
Oy.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Theme Music for Road Rage
They say that music calms the savage heart (well, there's a lot of variations on that theme, so, those may not be the words you're used to "they" saying). I can't help but think that such a sentiment is always accurate, however. I mean, there's definitely music that seems to calm me down. There's also music that amps me up. More often than not, a given piece or type of music simply intensifies what I'm feeling.
Right now, what I'm feeling is an upwelling of bile at my fellow man. Traffic does that to me.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Road Trips
So, in a little bit, Donna and I will be heading up to Philadelphia to, hopefully, see the Flyers trash the Panthers. To be honest, if I hadn't seen the team name on the tickets, I wouldn't have remembered that the Panthers even exist - the same holds for pretty much all of the teams from states with no, naturally occurring, outdoor ice.
We're taking my car up to Philadelphia, this time. Donna's in the middle of doing several sewing projects. With the DST nonsense, it will be dark early and Donna will need cabin-lighting to see. The passengers' cabin-lights in the BMW are a lot more directed than they are in the SUV. She can have her light on and not make me night-blind. The same can't be said of the lights in the SUV (just one of many differences between a $50K car and a $25K car, I guess).
For all the expense and niceties of the BMW, it's an old car (a 2002 model year). The head unit that came with it didn't have an auxiliary-port through which to plug in an iPod or similar device. All it has is the CD-player. There's, effectively, little in the way or radio once you get too far north of Baltimore. Pretty much, you have to bring your music with you to cover the hour+ stretch north of Baltimore where radio ends.
When It comes to my car, that means I gotta burn CDs to listen to (if I want new music each trip). It's kind of a pain in the ass.
I'd get a new head-unit for my car, but none of the after-market units work with my steering wheel-based controls. And, at nine years old, I'm always hesitant to spend the money to get someone to do the work necessary to preserve use of the steering wheel controls.
We're taking my car up to Philadelphia, this time. Donna's in the middle of doing several sewing projects. With the DST nonsense, it will be dark early and Donna will need cabin-lighting to see. The passengers' cabin-lights in the BMW are a lot more directed than they are in the SUV. She can have her light on and not make me night-blind. The same can't be said of the lights in the SUV (just one of many differences between a $50K car and a $25K car, I guess).
For all the expense and niceties of the BMW, it's an old car (a 2002 model year). The head unit that came with it didn't have an auxiliary-port through which to plug in an iPod or similar device. All it has is the CD-player. There's, effectively, little in the way or radio once you get too far north of Baltimore. Pretty much, you have to bring your music with you to cover the hour+ stretch north of Baltimore where radio ends.
When It comes to my car, that means I gotta burn CDs to listen to (if I want new music each trip). It's kind of a pain in the ass.
I'd get a new head-unit for my car, but none of the after-market units work with my steering wheel-based controls. And, at nine years old, I'm always hesitant to spend the money to get someone to do the work necessary to preserve use of the steering wheel controls.
Monday, October 18, 2010
DC Music Scene is Lame
I moved to the DC Metro area in 1993. It's a smidge over 17 years ago, now. In that time, I've seen DC go from being a mediocre music city to being a horrible one. Many clubs have died and the ones that remain aren't what they once were. Worse, the crowds that were never the liveliest ones, to begin with, have become completely lame.
Tonight, we went to see the Halloween Hootenany at the Post Pavillion. It's never been one of my favorite spaces - as you have to drive up to Columbia to get to it and it's not terribly well run (seriously: the power is out to one of your box offices when there's all these people doing WillCall or buy at the door??) or laid out (stuffing a second stage onto the slant of the lawn seats was pure brilliance, by the way).
Alice Cooper was awesome, if barely contained by his control-garments (kinda reminiscent of the OLD Elmer Fudd cartoons). But, for doing the schtick for fifty years, he's still rockin' out. Still well worth seeing if you like theatre-rock.
Rob Zombie put on his usual excellent show. It's been years since I've seen him, but he's still a balls-out performer.
Unfortunately, the crowd was completely and utterly lame - even by the low expectations I have for DC crowds. My buddy, John, had gotten us tickets in the pit. Now, it used to be, if you were in the pit at a Zombie show, you were coming home sweaty and bruised. Tonight, I came home neither. People were more concerned about being able to take digital pictures, stealing the (dozens of) balls fired out into the crowd and just not being bumped to even consider getting into the music enough to raise a sweat or any welts.
As I'm standing there in this total buzzkill of a crowd, all I could think was, "do you think Rob Zombie likes that, instead of dancing or moshing, people at this show just stood around like statues with digicams in their hands?"
And, to be honest, I don't get the whole digital cameras thing. I mean, yeah, take a few snaps so you have something to remind yourself of the show. Just remember, though, that: A) you're not a photojournalist; B) the pix you're taking with your crappy cell phone camera or consumer-grade digicam are going to be horrible; and, most importantly, C) while you're busy dicking around taking pictures, you can't really get the full feel and enjoyment of the show. So, all those dark, blurry, color-smudged "photos" you're taking are going to, at best, evoke memories of half of the experience you could have had. Congrats.
I guess this all just really shows my age. I'm old enough to remember that, if a guy was holding something over his head at a concert, it was a woman, not a digital camera. I'm old enough to remember that, if you were down in the pit, you were there to be part of the experience: not to take pictures; not to not be jostled; not to be a human statue.
Perhaps, what's saddest of all about this is that, at 40 years old, people in my age group (and older!) are more into the shows than the idiot twenty-somethings. All I can think is, (big-time) "WTF".
Tonight, we went to see the Halloween Hootenany at the Post Pavillion. It's never been one of my favorite spaces - as you have to drive up to Columbia to get to it and it's not terribly well run (seriously: the power is out to one of your box offices when there's all these people doing WillCall or buy at the door??) or laid out (stuffing a second stage onto the slant of the lawn seats was pure brilliance, by the way).
Alice Cooper was awesome, if barely contained by his control-garments (kinda reminiscent of the OLD Elmer Fudd cartoons). But, for doing the schtick for fifty years, he's still rockin' out. Still well worth seeing if you like theatre-rock.
Rob Zombie put on his usual excellent show. It's been years since I've seen him, but he's still a balls-out performer.
Unfortunately, the crowd was completely and utterly lame - even by the low expectations I have for DC crowds. My buddy, John, had gotten us tickets in the pit. Now, it used to be, if you were in the pit at a Zombie show, you were coming home sweaty and bruised. Tonight, I came home neither. People were more concerned about being able to take digital pictures, stealing the (dozens of) balls fired out into the crowd and just not being bumped to even consider getting into the music enough to raise a sweat or any welts.
As I'm standing there in this total buzzkill of a crowd, all I could think was, "do you think Rob Zombie likes that, instead of dancing or moshing, people at this show just stood around like statues with digicams in their hands?"
And, to be honest, I don't get the whole digital cameras thing. I mean, yeah, take a few snaps so you have something to remind yourself of the show. Just remember, though, that: A) you're not a photojournalist; B) the pix you're taking with your crappy cell phone camera or consumer-grade digicam are going to be horrible; and, most importantly, C) while you're busy dicking around taking pictures, you can't really get the full feel and enjoyment of the show. So, all those dark, blurry, color-smudged "photos" you're taking are going to, at best, evoke memories of half of the experience you could have had. Congrats.
I guess this all just really shows my age. I'm old enough to remember that, if a guy was holding something over his head at a concert, it was a woman, not a digital camera. I'm old enough to remember that, if you were down in the pit, you were there to be part of the experience: not to take pictures; not to not be jostled; not to be a human statue.
Perhaps, what's saddest of all about this is that, at 40 years old, people in my age group (and older!) are more into the shows than the idiot twenty-somethings. All I can think is, (big-time) "WTF".
Friday, September 3, 2010
Bad Pictures
I'm thinking that bands from the 80s really shouldn't let current pictures of themselves stay up on Last.FM.
Baffling
How is it even possible tha Kajagoogoo aren't still a major touring group. They were an AWESOME example of 80s music. :P
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Like Porn, "I Know What It Is When I See It"
Just because something was released or performed in the 90s doesn't make it "90s" music: some things are transcendent(ly bad).
Dear Last.FM
I do *NOT* consider "Kris Kross" to be "90s" tag music. It's too "wiggedy-whack"
When one says "80s music", does the term typically evoke disco or does it evoke "new wave"? In much the same way, when one says "90s music" it evokes "(mainstream) alternative", not simply everything to get on the airwaves between 1990 and 1999.
When one says "80s music", does the term typically evoke disco or does it evoke "new wave"? In much the same way, when one says "90s music" it evokes "(mainstream) alternative", not simply everything to get on the airwaves between 1990 and 1999.
So Happy I Could Kill Myself
I just realized (well, I've probably realized it before), but, even the music I listen to that sounds cheerful really isn't. I love bands like Oingo Boingo, The Smiths, Guadalcanal Diary... So much of their music has this really poppy, hooky, catchy melody. If you don't actually listen to the music, it sounds like fluff. However, when you listen to the words, their songs are so frequently really dark. If you contrast the dark content with the cheery presentation, it makes it even darker.
Fuckin' A!
Fuckin' A!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
If Only I Had a Band to Name
Sad: an artist search for "Karma's Bitch" on Last.FM turned up no matches.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Soundrack for Work-FAIL
Grendel's "Hate This" (well, many aggrotech titles) is great soundtrack for working with awful software.
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