Tuesday, December 25, 2007

2007 List...and then some

Here's some lists to get you in the mood for 2007's....If I Listed these, I own them and they're important enough to be in my I-tunes...as you know damn well that I have enough music in my collection that's NOT on the computer that i can open my own used cd store.....

40th Anniversary Albums (1967 for you mathematicians):
The Beatles "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" & "Magical Mystery Tour"
The Doors "The Doors" and "Strange Days"
Jeff Beck "Truth"
Jimmy Hendrix "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold As Love"
Velvet Underground & Nico "The Velvet Undergrond"
The Who "The Who Sell Out"

30th Anniversary Albums (1977 if you still can't find your calculator):
AC/DC "Let There Be Rock"
Cheap Trick "Cheap Trick" & "In Color"
Aerosmith "Draw the Line"
Dead Boys "Young, Loud, and Snotty"
Kiss "Love Gun"
Ramones "Leave Home"
Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols"
T. Rex "Dandy In the Underworld"
Television "Marquee Moon"

25th Anniversary Albums...1982:
Aerosmith "Rock In a Hard Place"
Bruce Springsteen "Nebraska"
Dire Straits "Love Over Gold"
Iron Maiden "Number of the Beast"
Led Zeppelin "Coda"
Misfits "Walk Among Us"
Social Distortion "Mommy's Little Monster"
Van Halen "Diver Down

20th Anniversary Albums...(1987):
Aerosmith "Permanent Vacation"
Def Leppard "Hysteria"
Guns N Roses "Appetite For Destruction"
Motley Crue "Girls, Girls, Girls"
Naked Raygun "All Rise"
Pixies "Come On Pilgrim (EP)" & "The Purple Tape (Fan Bootleg)"
Sepultura "Schizophrenia"
U2 "The Joshua Tree"

A mere 15 years ago, these were released....
Alice In Chains "Dirt" & "Sap (EP)"
Beastie Boys "Check Your Head"
Body Count "Cop Killer"
Chainsaw Kittens "Flipped Out In Singapore"
Danzig "Danzig III: How the Gods Kill"
Faith No More "Angel Dust"
Green Day "Kerplunk!"
Helmet "Meantime"
Iron Maiden "Fear of the Dark"
Jawbreaker "Bivouac"
Kyuss "Blues For the Red Sun"
Megadeth "Countdown to Extinction"
Ministry "Psalm 69"
Monster Magnet "Spine of God"
Mother Love Bone "S/T"
Nine Inch Nails "Broken (EP)" & "Fixed (Import/EP)"
Nirvana "Incesticide"
Pantera "Vulgar Display of Power"
Rage Against the Machine "S/T"
Screaming Trees "Sweet Oblivion"
Screeching Weasel "Wiggle"
Social Distortion "Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell"
Sonic Youth "Dirty"
Sponge "Rotting Pinata"
Stone Temple Pilots "Core"
Sublime "40oz to Freedom"
Supersuckers "Smoke of Hell"
Tool "Opiate"
White Zombie "La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, vol.1"

10 years doesn't seem like that long ago....
Aerosmith "Nine Lives"
Bad Religion "Tested (Live)"
Blue Meanies "Full Throttle"
Blur "S/T"
Drain S.T.H. "Horror Wrestling"
Faith No More "Album of the Year"
Foo Fighters "The Colour and Shape"
Fu Manchu "The Action Is Go"
Godsmack "S/T"
Green Day "Nimrod"
Helmet "Aftertaste"
HUM "Downward Is Heavenward"
Machine Head "The More Things Change"
Metallica "Reload"
Offspring "Ixnay on the Hombre"
Radiohead "O.K. Computer" & "Airbag/How Am I Driving? (EP)"
Sevendust "S/T"
Shiner "Lula Divinia"
Silverchair "Freak Show"
Smoking Popes "Destination Failure"
Supersuckers "Must've Been High"
Triple Fast Action "Cattlemen Don't"
U2 "Pop"

and now for 2007's list(s)....
There may be some surprises and there may be some given choices, but here's my year end list..in no particular order....enjoy!

Devildriver "Last Kind Words"
Baroness "Red Album"
Machine Head "Blackening"
Against Me! "New Wave"
Smashing Pumpkins "Zeitgeist"
Clutch "From Beale St. to Oblivion"
Down "III - Over The Under"
Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero"
Soilwork "Sworn To a Great Divide"
Neurosis "Given to the Rising"
Arrivals "Marvels of Industry"

Kings of Leon "Because of the Times"
Burning Brides "Hang Love"
Avenged Sevenfold "Avenged Sevenfold"
Tiger Army "Music From Regions Beyond"
Every Time I Die "The Big Dirty"
Dethklok "The Dethalbum"

Battles "Mirrored"
Darkest Hour "Deliver Us"
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club "Baby 81"
Velvet Revolver "Libertad"
Radiohead "In Rainbows"
Between The Buried And Me "Colors"
Fu Manchu "We Must Obey"
High on Fire "Death is this Communion"
Queens of the Stone Age "Era Vulgaris"
White Stripes "Icky Thump"
Wilco "Sky Blue Sky"
Shot Baker "Awake"
3 Inches of Blood "Fire Up the Blades"



Not total let-downs, but non-expectation-meeting albums:
Marilyn Manson "Eat Me, Drink Me"
Hot Hot Heat "Happiness, Ltd."
The Donnas "Bitchin'"
Foo Fighters "Echos, Silence, Patience & Grace"
The Stooges "The Weirdness"
Chris Cornell "Carry On"
Bullets & Octane "Song for the Underdog"


Honorable Mentions:
Feist "The Reminder"
Megadeth "United Abominations"
Bad Religion "New Maps of Hell"
Bayside "The Walking Wounded"
Black Light Burns "Cruel Melody"
The Cribs "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"
Modest Mouse "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank"
Nine Inch Nails "Y34rz3R0r3m1x3d"
Tim Armstrong "A Poet's Life"
Weedeater "God Luck and Good Speed
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Is Is" (E.P.)
A Wilhelm Scream "Career Suicide"
Arctic Monkeys "Favourite Worst Nightmare"


Best compilations and/or live albums:
Death Proof (OST)
The Afghan Whigs "Unbreakable (A Retrospective)"
We Love Ennio Morricone
300 (OST)
Sigur Ros "Heim/Hvarf"
Chuck Ragan "The Blueprint Sessions"

♥,
Uncle J.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Slithero3?

So, I was rockin out to some music a few minutes ago (practicing/learning parts for the band I recently joined) and Steven Speilberg walks in my room. He was talking about that guitar player I love being in a commercial. I had to ask "Do you mean 'Slash'?" He replies abruptly, "yeah, that's him. he was in some video game commercial, i think."

so i google and find Slash is in a new ad for Guitar Hero 3. I love all things Slash, so I had to watch it--it's mildly amusing.



and if you're bored, here's the VW ad he was in, too.


and for shits n giggles...



♥,
Uncle J.

Friday, October 26, 2007

I want you to notice when I'm not around...wherever you are.



Saw QOTSA last night at the Riv. Talk about a horrible case of 'live-itis', every song was sped up to 'ludicrous'. Some of it worked, some of it was just too fast. Great set list, though, heard some great songs, missed a few, but in the scheme of it all, there were 17 songs played.

Monsters in the Parasol
Burn the Witch
Misfit Love
Run Pig Run
In the Fade
Turning On the Screw
I'm Designer
Little Sister
Make It Wit Chu
Do It Again
Avon
3's & 7's
You Can't Quit Me, Baby
Sick, Sick, Sick
Song for the Dead
You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire
No One Knows


I had fun at the show, brought someone who'd never seen em before, she seemed to like it, as I figured one should. I've seen better shows--excluding the Metro show w/ Dave Grohl on drums, as that's in a category of it's own. They did some great improvisation and some great jams in the middle of songs ('You Can't Quit Me, Baby'). The stage setup was great, too, some spiderweb-lookin chandeliers on what looked like giant spider legs. The lighting was great, and the pinnacle of it was during 'Sick, Sick, Sick'. The lights were flashing back and forth and on Josh Homme's (singer) face was split, so the left side would be eclipsed and then the right. Creepy lighting for a creepy-lyric song. I would say Mark Lanegan was missed on many songs, but the band managed to pull it off well.

Rock & Roll,
♥ Uncle J.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

How to completely disappear and never be found....



I reckon I'm so-so on Radiohead's new marketing/album sales plan. I named my own price, 2.50 british pounds, which came to $5 and there was an additional $3 service. so i paid $8 for a digital download. I much prefer to have the ol'fashioned cd w/ case and insert w/ all sorts of knowlege useless to many like engineers, producers, studio info, etc....i figured, if i liked the album enough upon download, i'll make the $80 commitment for the uber-pack which has the download, a hardcopy of the album w/ artwork, a bonus cd w/ extra tracks, and i think a 2-record set on 180-gram vinyl.

upon listening to this album for the 3rd time round, it's growing on me. it was released digitally october 10th, i think, and i was skeptical, as i got very bored with Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Theif. Granted, I purchased all of them, and liked them at the time, i realized, they don't hold up as their 2 predecessors: The Bends and OK Computer. Those 2 albums were the apex of Radiohead's career. You can put them on at anytime, in any mood, in any year. I'm not saying they're 'timeless', b/c they're very dated--mid-to-late 1990's alternative, BUT, they hold up, nonetheless. Upon reading a bulletin posted (yes on the elusive and oddly infectious-slash-addictive 'myspace') by an acquaintence (i'd say friend, but we're only friends on myspace--though we'd both witnessed a truly amazing event, almost relgious experience known to us as 'church', but to others as the twilight singers'), i digress, Patrick wrote that he, too, was very into radiohead during the 90's, and then lost interest upon their alt-techno-avant-garde (dare i say 'hipster) era. He said 'In Rainbows', the new album, is as good as 'The Bends' and 'OK Computer'. I trust his taste in music, so I figured, what do ihave to lose, a few $ and maybe an hour...i went to www.radiohead.com, named my price: small enough to not hurt, but enough so i'm not asking for free shit, and it took all of 6minutes. Added the tracks to my itunes and put in my ipod. I like the album, but i miss thumbing through the insert and looking at the pictures..its a huge part of the music experience for me. Much like when listening to a record, you know, those big, black, vinyl, cd's your mom and dad used to put on when they were necking in grandma and grandpa's den. The smell of vinyl, the crackle of the sleeve in which the record comes in, the vastness of the album art (12"x12")....it's all part of music.

Check out Radiohead's album "In Rainbows", name your price, don't be a dick, but don't go overboard..unless you want to.

Choice tracks: "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi", "Reckoner", and "Videotape"

♥,
Uncle J

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

...so i'm losing my job. the big, fancy, record label job. yeah, the one with the health/dental insurance and 401K. yeah, it sucks. yeah, i'm bummed. it's just another obsticle to hurdle. i've been piecing another track listing together...it's been a while since i've been on here.

here's some playlists i've made as of lately...

Math
Refused "The Shape of Punk to Come"
The Rise "Reclamation Process"
Quicksand "Slip"

(the playlist is each album in it's entirety, in that order.)

Next:

I Ain't Myself Anymore: A Twilight Singers Comp.
1)Toward The Waves
2)I'm Ready
3)Twilite Kid
4)The Killer
5)Teenage Wristband
6)What Makes You Think You're The One
7)Forty Dollars
8)Hyperballad
9)Veri-Marte
10)There's Been An Accident
11)Decatur St.
12)My Time (Has Come)
13)Last Temptation
14)Number Nine
15)Strange Fruit

*this is, by far, one of the BEST compilations I've made in a long time--i made it back in December '06, and it remains to be one of my personal favourites--aside from the fact that it's friggn' Greg Dulli...

here's a fun one that i just picked out songs i'd not heard in a long time. I dubbed it:

Music Monster Purges the Sort-of Hits
1.A Pain That I'm Used To (Depeche Mode--Playing The Angel)
2.La Nina De Puerta Obscura (Paco De Lucia--Life Acquatic sdtrk)
3.Lordy Hoody (Tommy Blake--Rockin' Bones boxset)
4.Shining Light (Ash--Free All Angels)
5.Push The Hand (Toadies--Heaven Above/Hell Below)
6.Chicago Is Burning (Lawrence Arms--Ghost Stories)
7.I Want (Apples In Stereo--Velocity of Sound)
8.Fuck Her Gently (Tenacious D--S/T)
9.Rock N Roll Girl (Muchacha--Plug In and Go!)
10.Most Exalted Potente of Love [Cramps cover](QOTSA--Stone Age Complication)
11.Beyond The Wheel (Soundgarden--Ultramega OK)

..basically, i threw the Music Monster (iPod) on random and wrote down songs i'd not heard in a while...done.

here's a somewhat okay one.

88 Keys and 1 Way Out
1)Sunburn-Muse
2)The Great Gig In the Sky-Pink Floyd
3)Like Spinning Plates (live)-Radiohead
4)Life On Mars-David Bowie
5)Nightswimming-R.E.M.
6)Jessica-Allman Bros. Band
7)Buff's Bar Blues-Sensational Alex Harvey Band
8)Something I Can Never Have (Acoustic)-Nine Inch Nails
9)Layla-Derek and the Dominoes
10)My Father's Gun-Elton John
11)9 Crimes-Damien Rice
12)Estranged-Guns N' Roses
13)Shine A Light-Rolling Stones
14)Non Zero Possibility-At The Drive-In
15)Strange Fruit-Twilight Singers

Basically, i got into a conversation with a girl about the piano, and it sparked an idea for a comp. Find some great songs w/ some of my favorite piano parts in it...

and that's all for now. i'm goin to bbq and have some beers.

♥ Drunkle J.