You will probably not gain any insight, fulfillment, or sense of well being by reading this blog. I will try and keep this light with some occasional heartfelt sentiment. My spelling and grammar is poor, deal with it. Last but not least this blog will be a lot more enjoyable for everyone if you speak YOUR opinion on it.
When Katy Perry first made it big I didn't really see anything special in her. I thought she was average looking, her music made me sick, and I was hoping the fad would die. It has not, and I have to admit, she is growing on me. Her music still blows, but that doesnt mean I can exploit her pictures on my blog. Deal With It Katy!
Greatest use ever of that annoying technology known as Twitter. This 29 year-old guy lives with his 73 year-old father, and basically tweets all of the crazy shit the old bastard says. Gold, kids, gold!
A few choice selections:
"Sometimes life leaves a hundred dollar bill on your dresser, and you don't realize until later that it's because it fucked you."
"You don't know shit, and you're not shit. Don't take that the wrong way, that was meant to cheer you up."
(watching the Little League World Series) "These kids are all fat. I remember when you were in little league.... You were fat."
Look, I know the season was over, over a month ago. But what, are you my fucking mom. Geez get off my back. ANYWAY, Craig Cashon was on again this morning and will I will say my eyebrows were a raisin' in curiosity. Craig went on to say that basically Gamel doesnt do the extra work to get himself into the line up. Gamel has been asked repeadetley to work on his defense but he doesnt want to, so he doesnt play. Macha has had a serious problem with Gamel since he took the wheel. I dont know if that is just Macha treating rookies as rookies and giving the upper hand to vets, or if he really doesnt like the surf board toten, "Bro" sentence finishing, 3rd baseman. Gamel hasnt really been who we "thought he was" since his call-up last year. Gamel is good and has a lot of potential but he hasnt really grabbed the lime light and fucked it in the face. Cashon says, Gamel is messed up in the head and needs to figure it out before next season. Cashon says the Brewers want Gamel to play winter ball and Gamel is none to thrilled. He also goes on to say that Gamel isnt "un-touchable" anymore. That we should expect Gamel in a trade to acquire some front line pitching. Cashon thinks Doug didnt trade him this season because he knew there would be better pitcher deals in the off season and wanted to see how Gamel performed the rest of the way through. I have to think the reason Gamel isnt playing is because McGehee has earned to play the rest of the way through. McGehee has shot (long shot) at the rookie of the year and not playing because the brewers want to see Gamel, shouldnt be the reason he doesnt get it. I think Macha is showing McGehee some respect for all his efforts this year, I guess I am trying to say, McGehee mother fucking earned his playing time, Gamel on the other hand hasnt bro. I am not really sure how I feel about Gamel being traded. I guess he is a valuable option and if they can keep proven veteran players and still get some good pitching than it makes sense. I feel like Gamel isnt big time ready just yet and could use more time in the minors to get his shit together and make a real impact. I think he is close but he doesnt feel as ready as Escobar does.
So, I have this old friend from high school who is a huge music junkie, and he sends me so much new stuff that I can't even keep track of it, but he has introduced me to a lot of the music that I listen to. Back in the Summer of 2007, Jeff and I went to the Download Festival at the Pavilion at Northerly Island in Chicago. (If you haven't seen a show there, it's kind of cool. Medium-sized outdoor pavilion, right on Chicago's lakeshore at the museum campus, overlooking the marina.)
That day, we were able to see a number of bands, several of which I continue to follow. That lineup included The Shins, Band of Horses, Minus the Bear, Brand New, Wolf Parade, several other bands we had zero interest in, and then - of course - Snoop Dogg. (Snoop was the shit, but don't ask me why he was on that bill.) Drinking in the sun all day and having Snoop close it down after dark was reason enough to go. Jeff, as he always does a couple of weeks before dragging me to see bands I don't know, sent me a data CD containing MP3s of every song ever released by each of the bands - excluding Snoop. After sifting through some of that, I got interested in Wolf Parade. We tried to time it right to miss some of the bands we weren't as interested in, but we arrived mid-afternoon, smack-dab in the middle of Wolf Parade's set. Whammy! Anyway, I got to see enough to know that I dug it.
Wolf Parade is another bunch of fuckin' Canadiens, like Arcade Fire from last week. In fact, these bands know one another pretty well from the Montreal music scene. Anyway, Wolf Parade is a band whose core was literally thrown together in a couple of weeks in 2003 to fill an available slot on a tour. After adding another member or two to get to their current lineup, we find that they have two "lead singers" (Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug) with very different voices and styles, who also happen to be good songwriters with very different ideas. Their 2005 debut full-length album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, exhibited these two distinct "voices" - literally and figuratively - and it is an incredible debut album. I didn't get into their 2008 follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, quite as much, but I still may digest that one more in the future. They use guitars, drums, bass, keyboards and a good number of electronic noise-makers. Given the two song-writing influences and vocalists, I find that the songs bounce back and forth between the Krug songs sounding quite a bit like the dreamy, modern sound of Arcade Fire to the Boeckner songs sounding like a cross between the Clash and the Cars, meaning driving rock songs with keyboard accents and more direct vocals.
I've decided to include an example of each from Apologies. Deal with it. The first is a Krug song on the dreamy, modern side - a song called "I'll Believe in Anything." This was the song I really wanted to see performed live, and we walked in as it was starting. Mission accomplished. Again, one of those things where I was wondering how they would pull it off live. Well done.
Krug's lyrics are trippy and full of imagery:
Give me your eyes, I need sunshine Give me your eyes, I need sunshine Your blood, your bones, your voice And your ghost
Switching to the other singer and songwriter, Boeckner, for a totally different vocal and a totally different vibe, here is "Shine a Light." This is what I was getting at with melding the keyboard-driven synth-pop of the Cars with the driving rock vibe of the Clash. This constant variety makes for an interesting album, and a very entertaining live show.
Boeckner's lyrics are more practical and straightforward, but very effective:
I spend boring hours in the office tower In a bus, on a bus back home to you That's fine, I'm barely alive It's just a matter of time No one gets out alive I'm content, I'm content, I'm content to be quiet Some will sink, some will get called to the light
You know our hearts beat time out very slowly You know our hearts beat time, they're waiting for something that'll never arrive
