I'm going to Rock on the Range this weekend! Going with my sister and it worked out great, Mama Murloc lives in Columbus, so we have a free place to stay! Check out this line up!

Most excited to see:

Disturbed and Alter Bridge

Very excited to see:

Finger Eleven, 3 Doors Down, Sevendust

Excited to see:

Shinedown, Killswitch Engage, Serj Tankian, Staind, Stone Temple Pilots, Red, 10 Years, Theory of a Deadman, Filter, Five Finger Death Punch, Flyleaf, Seether, Papa Roach, BobaFlex, Drowning Pool

Haven't heard of:

Drive A, Ashes Divide, Airbourne, Saving Abel, Rev Theory, Black Tide

Don't care about:

Kid Rock

Unfortunately my sister is Kid Rock fan, so I'll be stuck suffering through his performance.

I got the new Fuel CD, Angels & Devils. I gave iTunes the extra $2 for some bonus tracks: old Fuel songs sung by the new guy, Toryn. It just feels like it's a band covering Fuel. Toryn has a clearer singing voice than Brett, so I'm finding I sang along incorrectly in the past, lol

Lightning Crashes is lyrically on par with John Lennon's Imagine as the best song ever written. The gradual build of music in Lightning Crashes puts it at #1 (source: me). It starts as just guitar and soft singing for almost 2 minutes, then the bass comes in and another 30 second later, a hint of drums. A minute of building, 20 second instrumental, 20 seconds bringing the vocals back, an amazing drum ... whatever a set of drum "notes" are called ... at 4:20. I couldn't begin to guess at how many times I've heard the song in the last 14 years, but I've never bothered to pick apart the meaning of the lyrics.

Watching the video for the song, you see a baby born and an old woman dying. And a bald angel surrounded by cats. Most of the video was done with overexposing the film so you see "ghosts", adding to the sense of the passage of time and life. This is hands down, Live's best video. Yes, even better than the video for Heaven, which I once referred to as "a Skittles commercial, with no Skittles." It's also one of the few videos with no instruments shown. The guys are just reacting to the music.

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
her placenta falls to the floor
the angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door

lightning crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the angel closes her eyes
the confusion that was hers
belongs now, to the baby down the hall

oh now feel it comin' back again
like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin' from the center of the earth again
i can feel it

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she's been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored iris, presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide

oh now feel it comin' back again
like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin' from the center of the earth again
i can feel it
i can feel it

...I started typing out my thoughts about the meaning of each line of the song, but that's not necessary. As Ed Kowalczyk once told me, he doesn't "think of it as a song about living and dying anymore, now it's a song about rising and falling". Life is short and (hopefully) brilliant, like a flash of lightning. It's the thunder we create that keeps us going.

I saw Live with Collective Soul last night. It's a co-headline tour, but since Live's name was first on the tickets and they went second... It's the second time seeing Collective Soul and 12th time seeing Live. While it was sweet seeing CS, they're one of the rare bands that I think is better on the CD than in concert. The guitars seemed "dumbed down" from what's on the CD. The guitar solo 2 minutes into Heavy for example wasn't nearly as complex as it is on the CD. They played a lot of new stuff, which had people sitting for a lot of their performance. Now also they went first, before the sun was down, so they didn't have the benefit of using the lights.

Then Live came out and opened with The Dam at Otter Creek, which I've never heard them play in concert before. And it's a great opener. Followed by The Dolphin's Cry and The River, I was wondering if they'd just play a water-related set list. They have enough songs to do it. I would wager that last night's Live performance was the best I've seen. And I've seen them in a lot of different venues and cities from Chicago to Rockville. They're at the top of their game. Ed's vocals are awesome, the music is perfect. You can really tell these guys have been playing together for over twenty years, they're a well oiled machine of rock. Chad Taylor's stomping on stage during Lakini's Juice, awesome.

And if you read this and have no clue what I'm talking about, thank you for reading anyway! I saw two of the biggest rock bands of the 90s last night...

Live

Collective Soul

I was delighted to hear the release date on the new Smashing Pumpkins CD is July 10. The first single off it, Tarantula, is reasonably badass and after all these years they still sound like the old Pumpkins. Billy Corgan said the first half of the CD is from the grunge days, with detuned guitars and heavier sounds. The last few tracks are Depeche Mode-inspired. Interesting.

Fuel's new material will take some getting used to. This is their first release in 7 years and first with the new singer, Toryn Green. Wasted Time is the first single and while it's okay, I'm not jumping up and down for it. I'll get their new CD in August, just because they're Fuel.

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MC Lars has some great songs. How many people mention Einstein in their song, let alone giving him "Props on that whole Theory of Relativity thing." Mr. Raven just came on the ipod. It's worth posting the lyrics of the first half of the song. It's strange to hear one of the more famous American poems be rapped (and to be updated to include Paris)

We got EAP in the house tonight, Edgar Allan Poe. / America's favorite anti-transcendentalist. / We're taking this back, way back, nineteenth century style.

Who's that (who's that) rapping? / Who's that rapping at my chamber door? / Mr. (mister) Raven! / All up in my grill like, "Nevermore."

Kick it! Once upon a midnight dreary, while I kicked it weak and weary, / Dark and cold just like Lake Eerie, Brand New sample, someone clear me. / While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping. / Up like, "What?", this thunder clapping in my brain like graphic Halflings. / Staffing me, I put down Milton. Cell phone mute like Paris Hilton. / Open window, halfway built-in. Times a changing like Bob Dylan. / Twenty-pound bird black as could be, cold feet cold eyes aimed straight at me. / Grim face, grim stare, death carnivore, quothe that raven "Nevermore."

Straight from the greatest goblin tinkerers in the Undermine, the ultimate alarm clock. First you need a CD alarm clock. You can get this for $10-20 on Amazon. Place the alarm clock on the opposite side of your bedroom and turn the volume up. Next put in any CD containing music by The White Stripes and queue up any of their songs to play when the alarm goes off. You'll be out of bed so fast to turn it off, you'll even get a little adrenaline rush as your body prepares to defend from any other harmful stimuli. and it will be impossible to go back to sleep. I would recommend pirating the music, or recording the 30 second previews on iTunes. Purchasing a CD will just encourage Jack White to make more songs.

Why such feelings for what is currently a very hot band?

Watch a video

Their videos are very cool. But look at the drumming. Someone photoshop a pan in her hand and one on her head, then put her on the kitchen floor, shrink her, and put mom in there baking a cake. Listen to the vocals, his voice is not one that should be famous. You want really bad? Listen to / watch the video for their newest song, Icky Thump... HOLY SHIT IT'S HORRID!!! No amount of cool video editing and make me sit through that song.

...that about sums it up.

I was listening to the Fighting Instinct and realized iTunes goofed on the track titles. The song that goes "just to please you father" and is beautifully sung, the last track on the CD, iTunes said was called The Call. Then the "It's the caaaaaall" song was labeled Just to Please You. I've never noticed this happen before from all the CDs I've bought from iTunes.

And furthermore, how have had this CD so long and just now noticed this? And how did I not notice that this is Christian rock?! It's better than Creed, like that's saying much... Just to Please You seems to be all about the burning desire to please God and spread His word.

I'll finish this CD and listen to Disturbed the rest of the afternoon. Follow up the Christian rock with some Jewish rock. I should google up some Buddhist rock.

In an effort to make sure this blog has as little focus as possible, here are some music reviews. I usually listen to my iPod all day at work, but I forgot it at home one day last week. So I streamed XM to my work laptop and jotted down a few songs I heard that I liked.

 

Papa Roach: The Paramour Sessions

I haven't owned a Papa Roach CD before and I'm not impressed. This CD seems overall very stale. The singles are good, but the rest is better as background music than to actively listen to it.

 

Godhead: The Shadow Line

There are some extremely catchy tunes on this CD. "Trapped in Your Lies" was the song I heard that got me to look them up. "Goodbye", "Through the Cracks", "Push", ... okay, the whole CD is good. I'm shocked, there are so few CDs out there without a bad song on it.

 

Fighting Instinct: Fighting Instinct

"I Found Forever" got me to check these guys out. And goddamn this guy can sing. The last song on the CD, "The Call", is amazing. I'm seeing tossed in a movie during a montage of the main character being depressed. Ben Affleck will probably be in the movie, so no one will see it unfortunately. Musically this isn't as interesting as the Godhead album above, but the singing makes up for it.