Manic Street Preachers

Take it from a fanboy:  After Lifeblood came out in 2004, being a huge fan of Know Your Enemy, I was a bit confused.  "Are we going back to the 'This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours' days?
Not that I was complaining.  I loved both of those albums, but they were a bit streamlined compared to an effort like Know Your Enemy, where some real experimentation was going on.  Some bands experiment and it doesn't pan out so well (see Oasis).  Some bands experiment and strike gold, as with Know Your Enemy.

But after Lifeblood, the band surprised by doing a 180 and releasing Send Away The Tigers.  Definitely a "transition" album for them.  It had some strong tunes on it, but overall it felt just the tiniest bit forced.  Still, it was an enjoyable listen and definitely a comeback after Lifeblood - again, big fan here, but it disappointed in the mainstream.

But now, Manics are going through a particularly fertile songwriting period. They've released three albums since 2007 - Send Away The Tigers, Journal for Plague Lovers (yeah yeah, lyrics by Richey, I know), and only a year and a half later, Postcards From A Young Man.  All of the albums are high quality, and they are really the only remaining Britpop-type band I can think of which releases strong efforts year in and year out. 

This particular video I'm linking to above, is for a song to which I'm currently addicted.  I can't get enough of this song - at first I hated it due to the mandola intro, but now, I love it. 

This article at a song-by-song Manics blog says it all:

I Think I Found It is one of the most memorable and remarkable on Postcards From a Young Man. It’s a breezy, light tune with an irresistable energy, and the joy is there from the very basics of the song’s core and writing. I particularly love the punctuation DUN-DUNNNs on the second verse that somehow hammer down the core positivity of “I think I found it” and “I think I love it”. To support the song’s feel even further, I Think I Found It marks the Manics debut of the mandola (played by Bradders himself) whose light, glimmering sparkle sounds better than any guitar could.

I hope the Manics continue to release music every couple of years, because quality is never affected by a short absence from the Welsh trio.

Why I hate iTunes

I've been using iTunes for about 3 years, ever since I first had the (mis)fortune of receiving an iPod for a Christmas gift. At the time, and since, I was working out often enough and decided it would be nice to have. It's also nice once you can get it working in a car built before 2003 or so. Speaking of that, let's get right to the reasons I hate Apple and iTunes.

iPod:

• My car's tape deck comes with a little flip top lid which has an exterior LCD display. People told me, "just get one of those radio transceiver thingies and you'll be fine". The quality is always terrible, especially in a place like Massachusetts where there are so many radio stations there's hardly any bandwidth left to use for the broadcast of your iPod. I have an iPod; why would I want to broadcast it through the air so I can listen to something of less quality?
• Crashes a lot after 3 years of light use. I know, I know, which electronics out there last a while? Hm, let's see - I've had the original hard drive in my PC for six solid years now, added components, taken some out, had wireless, had Norton on there (thankfully that's gone), done ridiculous amounts of downloading, asked it to do more than I probably should...and it's still kickin'. No problems...knock on wood. Even the power supply is original. I'll be upgrading some components shortly, but if Dell can make a much more complicated piece of machinery and Windows can make an OS that doesn't crash for six years, what is Apple doing wrong, and what's with all the snooty commercials about how stable their products are?
• Recently, I had to make an appointment with an "Apple genius" at an Apple store so he could revive my iPod after it was "REALLY frozen". Got that? Not "kinda" frozen, but "REALLY" frozen. He had to do some weird mojo on it: toggle the "hold" switch (courtesy of Sony...had one of those on my MiniDisc player, which I actually preferred now that I think of it); plug it into a wall outlet (NOT a USB/computer outlet!), THEN do the "hold down menu and middle button" thing to restart it. OK, great. Now I know when it's REALLY frozen that I have to follow these three simple steps to revive it. What if ever gets REALLY REALLY frozen? Hmm...
• Back to the car thing, I had to take out my tape deck, put a tape converter in, thread the wire around the back of the tape deck, and have the wire piece hanging out by the ash tray so I could use my iPod via my tape deck and get somewhat decent quality during car rides. I guess I'd have to do that with any car without an Aux In port, but it still pissed me off.

iTunes:

• Generally speaking, it's a clunky program. Weird menus, iTunes store sucks and it's difficult to find things...and they wonder why people illegally download music and movies. Search capability and user-specific sorting capability is sorely lacking. And therein lies the problem with Apple: its users just blindly accept whatever the programmers want them to do, instead of customizing so the user can customize sorting, etc. Seems like a small thing until you're trying to appeal to millions and millions of PC users and making annoying commercials.
• Let's just say you have a thing for random 90s music like me. Let's just say you grew up when Bush, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. were all huge (yeah, I know, that was pretty much just one year, but bear with me). You're curious one day - kind of like Stewie when his breath smells like cat litter - and decide, "hey, let me download Gavin Rossdale's solo album". Wait, Gavin Rossdale's solo album? Was it produced by Gwen Stefani? What the hell was I thinking? Anyway, you go and download some random album from some random source, and you instruct iTunes to "Add folder to your library". Pretty simple, right? Wrong. If it's not tagged using one of iTunes' preferred methods, you have to search for your recently added music - which means if there's no tag, you have to go through ALL of your music until you figure out how iTunes decided to label it, or maybe it was mislabeled in the first place. I'm going back to WinAmp, where at least when you add something it goes to the bottom of the list and you have the option of relabeling and sorting easily. It's been hours and I cannot find this music anywhere in iTunes even though I saw iTunes go through the process of adding the songs.

Neil Peart provides sensible reading material, albeit a bit tenuous in nature

Neil Peart, one of the best percussionists in modern music for the past thirty-five years, is more than just a "drummer". He transcends modern rock three-chord boredom with a real academic talent for a range of percussion instruments, and also happens to be a published poet and novelist. He's probably in his late 50s and has had two tragedies in his life - his first wife and only child, a daughter, were both killed (one by cancer, one by automobile accident) within about a year of each other in the 1990s.

Still, he plows ahead by touring regularly with his band-mates in Rush, in full appreciation of what his fans mean to him and what he means to them. A favorite treat for the fans at each performance is a nine or ten-minute drum solo, during which Neil raises from his seat mid-measure, turns around, sits in another seat, and the platform turns 180 degrees so that he's once again facing the crowd as he begins drumming on a second drumset. In other words, he has a 360 degree set with two seats; one is heavy on your basic snare & tom setup, the other is heavy on a variety of percussion instruments like xylophone and others I can't even name. He uses every single instrument; he doesn't just overload the drumset for the sake of appearances, like some 80s arena rock drummers would have done.

As mentioned above, Peart is also a poet and a novelist. He's just a creative human being, the kind of Romantic (not sure if that's entirely accurate, but we'll move on) that few people appreciate today, and of which we see fewer still. He writes about the simple pleasures of nature: Snow-covered cross-country ski trails, mostly deserted, in his native Canada, and the hard but rewarding work of plowing through them (online blog). Bicycling through West Africa ("Masked Rider"). Motorcycling on "the healing road" (in his book, "Ghost Rider", he talks about his loss of family and also the healing process & moving on, where most folks talk only about the drama from losing close relatives and dwelling on the loss). This depth is also reflected in his lyrics (he writes lyrics for all of Rush's songs as well as plays all percussion parts). What are today's lyrics about in pop music? Well, nothing really; the more generic with the less meaning, the better; so goes the modern logic. It has to be "universal", right? Well, when "universal" stupidity is prevalent, what does that make most universal modern rock lyrics? Peart has consistently strived for meaning in his lyrics, taking more of a poet's approach, and has never sunk to the level of what most people listen to, simply to make an album sell.

Peart writes about his own personal experiences in his publications, but also applies them to the world around him; to reality. While he stops short of preaching, probably a good idea for a man with so many fans of varying IQ, the intelligent reader can gather his true feelings from the settings he provides and some of the minor criticisms that are clearly setups for larger points he chooses not to make obvious to the reader. He's clever in that regard; you can take his readings at face value, or you can read into them and try to gain a better understanding of what the author is trying to say.

One example of this tenuous yet insightful writing is in his most recent "News/Weather/Sports" blog, a diary he keeps during tours with Rush. He doesn't travel on a bus with the band anymore; he rides a BMW motorcycle cross-country and tries to find the hidden natural treasures of North America between tour stops. In the July entry (here), he not only discusses the politics of riding a motorcycle without a helmet (as any intelligent human being would, he rides with full leather body-armored suit and helmet at all times, in all climates), but also takes backhanded lashes at the fact that most of America is being paved-over with strip malls and chain stores. He mentions how it is increasingly difficult to find an independent hotel chain in this once-great country and how in the Northeast, the seasonal business has scared away the larger chains from sea and beach areas, a refreshing change on his most recent motorcycle journey through the region. Smartly, though, he blames people more than the corporate giants: we allow it to happen, he infers, because what is business but a reflection of what the people want, to a large extent? It's these points where his writing truly shines, providing a criticism of modern life without as much bite as, say, Corrupt.org, but written in an artful way which reflects the most positive views he has on life and perhaps even hinting at how we can make it better.

I grew up with the music of Rush, thanks to one of my best friends, and also grew up in a family of musicians, with many of my academic influences being musical in nature (music teachers in middle school and guitar heroes I idolized in high school). My father played in a band and loves the melodic genius of the Beach Boys; my uncle is a Jazz guitarist and professor at Berklee (Massachusetts), and I grew up playing the drums and wanting to learn the guitar, though I tried to discipline myself into it too early and for the wrong reasons (Guns N' Roses were big then, I'll say no more). As such, I didn't stick to it even though I should have. Still, with all these great influences and admittedly limited direct musical experience, I can tell the difference between a band or musician which is merely performing what the masses desire, and a band or musician which truly believes in what is being played. Rush is a rare band, in that the mass media tends to ignore them since no one can put a label on them & sell them easily, but they still sell out every single large venue, every single time they tour; they remain hugely influential to other musicians even in their late 50s. Neil Peart is definitely at the heart of that influence, with his excellent writing (both musical and lyrical) and wonderfully grueling performances. I recommend his blog, and his books (found here at Amazon.com). For the musicians out there, I also recommend his drum instruction DVDs - expensive, but I'm told they are worth it.

Here is Neil Peart's website; for his blog, follow the links to "News, Weather, and Sports".

http://www.neilpeart.net/

Lack of shame knows no bounds among some Beach Boys fans

The former Beach Boy and his manager-wife Melinda Wilson responded to unhappy concert-goers after the ‘Stand Up For A Cure’ charity benefit at Hammerstein Ballroom last week (July 11) during which Wilson only played for 75 minutes.

Some tickets for the show cost several hundred dollars, but patrons complained of bad visibility and the fact that Wilson did not play with a full band. They were also unhappy with his choice of songs.

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Today's mob mentality and the subsequent lack of shame & decency in modern society apparently knows no bounds.

Can you imagine the gall it takes to attend a charity benefit concert, then to tell the performer his musical performance wasn't quite up to snuff because he wasn't able to emulate 30-year old songs to your satisfaction? Enough people voiced this sentiment, along with the sentiment that they had parted with too much money for what they felt wasn't a strong performance, to the point that Brian Wilson felt he had to take action. This would be like when I donated some money for a friend's road race, only if I asked him for my money back because he didn't finish in the top ten.

I'm not a big fan of charity to begin with, but I am absolutely appalled and amazed that anyone would complain after seeing Brian Wilson in concert at a charity benefit and then ask for their money back or complain about the performance.

I'm even more amazed that Wilson wanted to appease the masses so much that he decided to dig into his own pocket (I'm assuming the charity wasn't asked to refund the money) to part with his money just so these nitwits would sleep better at night. This goes to show just where our priorities are, and on another level, it also shows how pointless charity can be - we either do it because we want to attend a cool event and look good in front of the crowd of other idiots who attend these things, or we do it because we want to feel better about ourselves, not caring that most charity doesn't really do much in the end to help the disadvantaged.

The Verve - new album cover

Piracy is a Sinking Ship

When I observe the piracy debate, I see these two camps whine over self-interests. The media industry wants a tight monopoly on everything they produce and the consumers want the right to consume as freely and cheaply as they can. It's like a zoo, where the caretaker brainwashes chimps with bananas and suddenly the chimps go wild and do anything to get their hands on a yellow fruit. I'm not sure our lives will get better if we're allowed to download all the music in the world. Likewise, I don't see the industry contributing with anything of artistic or cultural worth, even if they bring in 30 instead of 20 million dollars on Alien 6 or American Pie 98.

Piracy is a sinking ship. It's an embarrassing remnant of a society that only revolves around financial profits and self-interests. Some people will say it's good to be able to download a CD or a movie before buying it, and I agree with this, but we all know this piracy cult is not really just about "trying out new stuff." Like TV, video games and sex, it's more like a drug to make us endure our passive, boring lives. We're tired of all shit around us and therefore consume entertainment to pass the time for an hour or two. All talk about "new releases," "sequels" and "special cuts" is just bullshit to have something to discuss.

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Oasis mixing new album this week

Oasis are mixing their 7th studio album this week in LA with producer Dave Sardy. This album will be the second in a row mixed and produced by Sardy. Let's hope it is a bit heavier than Don't Believe The Truth, but with the same lighthearted feel to the music...because, let's face it, Oasis should have been all out of chances a long, long time ago.

http://www.nme.com/news/oasis/33534

The sound of good Brit-pop dying a horrible death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4KSDo5onN4

Or at least the sound of good Brit-pop on a respirator with no hope of surviving.

Maybe it's more of a "last gasp".


Let me explain: I'm hopelessly and inexplicably obsessed with music from the 90's. Most of what I listen to has not come out during this decade, which is now close to being over.


This U2 performance of "Please" was one of the last gasps of 90's Brit-pop, at least as it pertained to American patience for the genre, at that time. Thankfully, after years of Britney Spears and Limp Bizkit, the internet music landscape has changed so drastically, we can ignore what's on MTV entirely and listen to good music again.

For some reason, after Oasis' Be Here Now came out (and, by the way, outsold Morning Glory worldwide and accounted for 2/3 of all music sold in Great Britain the week it came out), after Princess Diana died, and after the 1997 MTV Music Awards, the musical landscape in this country changed. Apparently people got sick of the cocky Brits and their wanna-be Beatles and Rolling Stones behavior. The Verve was really the last group standing, which toured through 1998 after Oasis had released their cocaine album and U2 was wrapping up PopMart, not to be heard from again until over two years later. When The Verve broke up in 1999, we of good musical taste knew the party was over at last.

It wasn't just the groups breaking up or indulging in far too many drugs to retain a decent touring schedule, it was the lack of American counterparts taking the place of bands like The Verve and Oasis. There will never be even an attempt at replacing or outdoing U2, but the US response to Oasis was Third Eye Blind. Third Eye Blind? Even Foo Fighters were pretty good for a bit, but it's been downhill since The Colour and the Shape...apparently, Dave Grohl used the "u" in "Colour" to attract the Brits to some decent American music, and since then, he's been shamelessly playing to the UK audience while becoming a self-parody. Can we blame him for playing to the UK audience, though, when no one in the US was listening? On the other hand, every band wants to become DMB these days; albums come secondary to touring schedules and raping customers of their hard-earned cash with absurd ticket prices.

Sadder still is the example of the Smashing Pumpkins, who seemed to age overnight with constant drug problems and then the sacking of Jimmy Chamberlain, perhaps the best Neil Peart knockoff who ever existed. The video for Thirty-Three could easily be the funeral music of the last true Smashing Pumpkins moment that mattered. "Adore" had to be the worst post-1997 alt-rock album. Garbage kept things hopeful for a bit with "Version 2.0", but ultimately, couldn't keep the "alternative music" segment, that strange grouping of bands as diverse as Green Day and Pulp, going by themselves.

Part of the problem in the late 90's was that there was a time when everyone wanted to have center stage, have it all, be the next big thing; and then of course it all imploded. Oasis' attitude toward their fame, after winning the battle of the bands vs. Blur, could partly be blamed for that attitude. Garbage may have been a bit immune to that because nearly the entire group (except that redhead who, ya know, had nothing to do with their success or anything) was made up of music producers who were too busy with other projects to worry about whether or not they were the highest-grossing new act of the 1990's. But I recall one time in particular when I was watching an airing of the Smashing Pumpkins in the UK, and they were playing Tonight, Tonight. The stage was covered in flowers and Corgan was yukking it up with his bandmates half the time instead of performing the song; I realized then that the Pumpkins had outgrown even Mellon Collie's huge borders, and just wanted to be big for the sake of being big. Gone was the badass, messed-up looking kid who defiantly sang "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" with a backdrop of disturbing-looking individuals rolling around in mud. In his place there was a bigger-looking guy with clean teeth and a polished, shaved head, sporting dark clothes everywhere he went. Billy Corgan had become a product, nothing more.

Every band followed the lead, and interestingly, PopMart was the least of it. PopMart was a colossal joke on the American psyche that, ironically, we were too stupid to understand. A band of alt-rock heroes like the Pumpkins becoming too big, Green Day trying to outdo themselves with Insomniac (though, in fairness, they recovered quite well with everything they've done since), Oasis snorting far too much coke and unplugging themselves from their fanbase, The Verve not being able to handle their would-be savior role...these were all symptoms of the genre collapsing, making way for the record executives to say "you had your shot doing it your way; now we're going to use the 'push' method and just force any junk down your throats that we can cram in there".

Now, ten years later, we have iTunes, torrent sites, blogs, and other methods of grabbing great music out of the airwaves (or the cable internet pipeline). We also, finally, have great bands again, like White Stripes, BRMC, etc., who can at least partially thank the internet and a loyal cult following for spreading the word. It might be more segemented and the record companies might have a harder time keeping tabs on their own "business"...but I dont' think any of us fans of a much better time in music are complaining.

Sure, the new era comes with its own set of complications: there's more pressure on bands to keep themselves ultra-connected to their fanbase; these bands still only make money off touring, and with the shrinking attention span in this country it's become harder to retain a good reputation in our insta-internet world by the time a decent money-making tour can be organized; record contracts for six-plus albums still exist, which keep bands locked down to a horribly tradionalist and 50s-esque way of releasing music...but overall, the scene is much better than going through commercialized genre-pushing decade in and decade out.

Thom Yorke Will Eat Your Children If You're Not Careful...

Thought of the night before bed:

Thom Yorke: "We live under a world banking system and media that make it almost irrelevant who is in power. Political systems worldwide are at the mercy of business and bullshit economies. I can't recycle any of the polythene packaging that fills my house. Why?"

That's gotta be one of the best things he's ever said. It doesn't even matter in what context this was taken; it just matters that he managed to string these three sentences together while speaking about god-knows-what. The man is fucking brilliant. I think I'm officially on yet another Radiohead kick...

Oasis recording louder, more psychedelic songs for seventh studio album

Not much more I can say about it that NME or BBC doesn't already tell you...so here are the links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20071029_oasis.shtml

http://www.nme.com/news/oasis/32155

Should be a good effort. Well, it kind of has to be...my personal opinion is that they've been getting better since 2000's terrible Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, so hopefully they improve on their last album which had more highs than their previous two works combined.

Radiohead, Oasis, AND the Verve succeeding in the US at the same time again? I never had to leave the year 1997, did I? Maybe they should make a Back to the Future IV with me as Marty McFly, trying to change the future so Oasis wouldn't make Be Here Now so bloated. Yeah, that'll work...anyone for Zemeckis' number?

James Brown rules

I had to break out the Blues Brothers DVD this week. It was mandatory viewing in my household from 1984-1989 or so. Simply classic. By the way, Blues Brothers 2000 never happened. Thankfully I've never seen it and never will...as it has never happened...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGo9Xe5dPos

Brother: "This week's sermon is from our beloved...the Reverend Cleophus James!"

Rev. Cleophus: "And now, people.....and now, people...when I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this morning I heard a disturbing sound. What I heard was the jingle-jangle of a thousand lost souls. And I'm talking about the souls of mortal men and women, departed from this life. Wait a minute! Those lost, anguished souls roamin' unseen over the earth...seekin' the divine light...that they'll not find...because it's too late!... tooooooo laaaaaaaate yeah, too late for them to ever see again, the light they once chose not to follow! Alright now, alright...don't be lost when the time comes! For the day of the Lord cometh, as a thief in the night. Aaaaaaaaamen...can I get an Amen! Can I get an Amen! Well, well, well...."

The first of many Oasis posts

At the behest of my brother in law, I am putting together a string of Oasis posts. This is the first one. It mostly concerns the album Be Here Now, as it was the first Oasis album for which I counted down to the release date, and actually purchased the album at midnight, August 26, 1997, at Tower Records.

Oasis is my all-time favorite band. No, they don't have the musical ability of Rush, or the variety of music & experimentation that Radiohead brings to the table. Oasis being my favorite band has as much to do with their attitude as it does the fact that I'm clinging to the 90's like a madman in advance of reaching a milestone age within two years.

Still, Liam's voice is probably the best rock n' roll voice out there right now, and Noel just has a knack for the right rhythm and melody at the right time. Noel's a true rock songwriter and Liam is your prototype of the rock god: snarling when drunk, cocky all the time, blissfully unaware that his best days are likely behind him. To hear pure classic rock by a young(er) generation, there really is no better, as Noel apparently stopped collecting records sometime in the 70's.

While Oasis have hogged the limelight in the UK non-stop since 1994, Oasis' attitude-filled act wore on American fans in the late 90's and the media abandoned them, after the success of Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe. While everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - was praising Be Here Now in advance of its August 1997 release (yes, even Rolling Stone, content to believe that their 4-star review of Be Here Now never happened because they won't publish the rest of it online despite my repeated, ignored requests), just as many people abandoned ship when they figured out that this was - GASP! - a cocaine album.

OK, it's a bit bloated, the songs aren't as good as on Morning Glory, Magic Pie never happened in the eyes of most Oasis fans, yada yada. For all its faults, the album captured, perfectly, a moment in time: the moment that Oasis didn't sidestep, but barrelled through Bono & the boys to become the best band in the world in 1996 & most of 1997. Unfortunately, that moment was short-lived.

It also captured the same essence of Morning Glory, highlighted by the fact that Noel himself admitted the album was nothing more than glorified pub rock outside Abbey Road studios in 1997: this was a bunch of regular guys making it big, who wore their 60's and 70's rock heroes right on their sleeves, proudly displayed for everyone to see. As with Morning Glory & Definitely Maybe, Be Here Now had b-sides that were better than some of the studio tracks (come on...Digsy's Diner and She's Electric are better than Acquiesce and Sad Song?) only this time, Oasis were on such a short leash and the stakes were so high, they couldn't afford anything less than a five-star effort. When they figured that out, they locked themselves into a studio and snorted cocaine for a few months, then released the results on a disc.

From 1994-1996, Oasis was making headlines in front of a shocked & awkward American public, who had just spent the better half of the early 90's heaping praise on groups like Pearl Jam and Nirvana (lest you think Oasis & their UK brethren is all I listen to, I absolutely love Soundgarden). Well, Noel made his feelings quite clear on "downer" music with this quote:

"Nothing bothers me more than when groups like Pearl Jam and Nirvana whine and moan and complain about life and being famous. Let me tell you, being famous is great! The feeling when someone asks you for an autograph, unbelievable! I just think Americans are tired of people telling them how crap their lives are. I think when people listen to our music, we tell them how good their lives could be. I guess I just can't understand the thoughts of Eddie Vedder or that whole bit... I mean, lad, if you hate your job so much, why don't you fuckin' go work at a car wash or McDonald's or something?"

Wow. A rock star who loved being a rock star. No one in the U.S. had been allowed to love being a rock star since....? Hm, maybe the hair bands of the 80's? The early Stones? At the very least, Oasis reminded of us of what makes rock stars tick, no matter how much Eddie Vedder tries to hide it.

Compounding the 7-million selling "failure" of Be Here Now, the ending of the 'alt-rock' scene of 1995-1998 didn't help Oasis...and this shift in the music scene was one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed in the music industry. Here it is, the year after I started college, a couple years after Oasis made it big, Garbage & the Pumpkins had toured together, Bush blew people away at the 1996 Music Awards...and suddenly people are listening to Limp Bizkit, as if the country had suddenly descended into the depths of white trash. The Smashing Pumpkins released a goth-industrial record that just didn't quite cut it because Billy Corgan forgot how to play guitar in 1998, and the Chemical Brothers just didn't do enough for people in terms of widespread commercial appeal. Oasis were done touring the world and were enjoying their riches and cocaine back in England, and the Verve (hopefully that'll be the comeback of 2008) fell off the map just as quickly as they had stolen some of that limelight away from Oasis. Suddenly the entire alt-rock scene fell apart. Everyone realized that Bush was pretty terrible, and the one-hit wonder bands like Primitive Radio Gods (hey, they did give us Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand) were never to be heard from again.

Oasis formed a decent comeback album in 2005 - they were suddenly selling out the arenas in the US they should have been selling out all along, as Sony finally began promoting them in the States again. This couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that Oasis had just released their last album under Sony's label...could it? Oasis, like Radiohead, are a band without a record deal, so the next few months leading up to whatever they release should be interesting; and they have a reason to be pissed off based on the lack of promotion they received in the States from 1997-2004.

Thanks, I'm here all week. You can always just watch the VH1 Behind the Music special and get pretty much the same information though. Suckers.

The Verve, Part II

The Verve's big announcement in today's NME (NME.com) is that they are following suit with Radiohead...to a degree. At www.nme.com/theverve, you can now download (for seven days only, beginning today) THE brand new track, from The Verve. As far as I know, it's the only new Verve track that exists, as their new album isn't due out until next year.

Apparently this track is a nearly-15 minute jam session of the very first time the four ex-and-now-once-again bandmates were in a studio together, earlier this year. The results are excellent; Ashcroft's voice is in top form and the funky bass mixed with psychedelic guitars is classic Verve. This album is going to be huge, at least in the UK, where they still know their rock & roll. Here, people would rather buy Britney Spears & Jessica Simpson, than listen to a real band.

The Verve

Most of you know I love Oasis, U2, Radiohead, Rush, Aerosmith, White Stripes, Pumpkins, etc. etc. A lot of 90's stuff, in other words. My brother in law (and a friend of mine) always tries to open my eyes to new, awesome music (he was listening to the Stripes and the Strokes before either band hit it big, he's a huge Belle & Sebastian fan, and he will mow you down with his useless britpop knowledge & library). However, I'm a creature of habit, and I usually just alternate between the music I've been listening to since high school, with a few bands and comedians thrown in to occasionally spice things up.

The Verve is a band on an entirely different level. Now, I don't think they are 'better', per se, than Oasis or Radiohead. But they are different, and the way they approached britpop was fairly unique. If you haven't listened to Urban Hymns, you WILL become addicted to that album, if only for a short while. My personal fave off of that album is Weeping Willow. It's got a great riff, a psychedelic feel (a Verve special), and one of the best lines to ever come out of britpop: "And the world don't stop...there is no time for cracking up, believe me, friend...". Wow...hits home for me, at least, but it's more in the presentation and Ashcroft's voice, so go listen to it.

I saw them in 1998 at Harborlights, before it became Bank of Boston Pavilion, then Bank of America Pavilion, and I don't even know what it's called now. The show itself sucked...the guitarist responsible for that groovy/psychedelic feel had left the band (Nick McCabe), and Ashcroft was in full "I don't give a fook" mode with a pint glass full of beer DURING EACH SONG in the entire setlist. That's right, saving his voice for a night when he needed it, perhaps. Needless to say they sounded a bit off that night, but they still put on a good "performance", just not a good "show". That was about the end of that for The Verve and they broke up later in the year. Now, somehow, they are back. Check out today's nme.com page, or just check out http://www.theverve.tv/ for more information. They are apparently recording music for Ashcroft to add vocals, which is good, because Ashcroft and McCabe in the studio together at the same time may result in one or both of them being killed. Good times. If The Verve's new record reaches even a 5 on the Radiohead scale, it'll be a huge success and hopefully they'll come back to the States, to tour with Oasis.

The Azzurri, Marshalls, and weird fishes

Well, idle Italy fell a spot in the Euro 2008 standings when France won and Scotland lost yesterday. However, they are playing Scotland on 11/17 which should be a fun game. Actually, Italy wasn't idle - they played a friendly against 2010 World Cup host South Africa, and won 2-0. Italy plays 11/17 and 11/21 in their last two qualifiers...so they can decide their own fate at this point, if they can beat Scotland.

Went to Marshalls last night with the missus. This was a really "nice" one, one town over. They had an okay selection of men's stuff; most of it seemed to be women's and houseware type stuff though. I had to listen to some illegal immigrant talk on her phone about some "white bitch" who pissed her off while she was driving, or something. Gotta love ingrates...that "white bitch" very likely helps pay the government's rent fee on the project she lives in. OK, maybe that's unfair. Actually, screw it, it's not. When people act like trash in public, alternating between spanish and english on a cell phone and being damn sure everyone around them can hear EXACTLY what they're saying, I can't help but to assume the person IS trash. Show me otherwise and I'll change my mind, but in the meantime, you're nothing.

Then the very talented, very qualified cash register jockeys at Marshalls completely ignored me for 15 minutes. If not for my wife's stuff, I would have dropped the stuff I had and just left the store. One woman even went so far as to go alllllll the way around me to the other side of the line and wait in back of another woman at a register...which was akin to cutting me in line. I blew past her in my car on the way out of the parking lot, though SO WHO GOT THE LAST LAUGH?? HUH?? Yeah, I'm sick.

After a lovely dinner prepared by the missus - no, really! [Edit: this comment, "no, really!" was not taken well by the missus. What i mean here is that everything else in this blog is sarcastic, but I was being quite serious when I wrote that my dinner was lovely. My wife can outcook you AND your mother any day of the week. Continue on!] - including fish and veggies, I then listened to a song called "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" from the new Radiohead album. Very appropriate. That song is really good - go download it, it's nearly free (http://www.radiohead.com/).