Can't Stop

I was going through MLB players walk up songs the other day and I ended up watching the music video for Can't Stop by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They're pretty awesome. They're so high energy and their music rocks. The music videos are weird, but not so weird that it's annoying to watch. My cousin kinda tried to turn me on to them when I was in middle school, but at that point he was a High Schooler and I wasn't ready for the music of the Peppers. I think I've matured enough by this point to truly enjoy them. Unfortunately, my cousin moved on and is no longer much of a Chili Peppers fan. He's now a DJ of the Regis College Radio station in Denver and listens to the most absolutely indie hipster music possible. He's still a cool dude though. He's studying to be a neurosurgeon and works in a coffee shop/bike repair shop/ yoga studio. 

Grey Album

This one is a mixed blog for me. Half class half social. My friends love listening to really shitty, beat heavy, ghetto rap that only appeals to wannabes and white kids. I don't like that as much. I prefer listening to good music if I'm going to listen to music at all. The Grey Album excites me because it's a mix of some good old melodic rock, and some pretty tolerable rap. I liked the few songs we listened to. I've listened to some of Girltalk's mashups and some of those are pretty gnarly. I think mashups may be the key to my party music problem. 

Led Zepplin

Led Zepplin is a weird one for me. They've got some songs I love, and I can sing along to a lot of it, but I never go out of my way to listen to them. I stop flipping through channels when I find them on the radio, but I never turn it up. It's a relationship I have with no other band. I also think my favorite song is one that isn't considered essential Zepplin or in their usual style (I know they experiment a lot). Hey Hey What Can I Do is my favorite, but they don't have many other songs that sound anything like that. This is really causing me internal conflict even as I write this. 

Road Tripping with a few of my favorite friends

We aren't listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, but the looming 120 minute ride to Tuleta (BFE), Tx got me thinking about the best road trip music. I think it's very dependent on your location, but I think it's safe to say if you're in Texas at any point, your number one band to listen to has to be ZZ Top. ZZ Top isn't always the easiest to listen to, but it's gonna keep you awake and keep your blood flowing. ZZ Top is also some essential Texan tunage. Speaking of tunage, as REO Speedwagon said "You can tune a guitar but you can't tuna fish". I think if I ever try drugs that'll be something I think about for a long time. Speaking of REO Speedwagon, Golden Country is one of my favorite pregame baseball songs. Pretty politically charged, but a great song. 

Steely Dan

Steely Dan is the ultimate dad band. I don't know what it is that makes them so dad-ish but they're awesome. Reelin in the Years is a great song, but my favorite is My Old School. They're a really cool band and I think if I was a weed smoker I would smoke and listen to them all day. They just seem like the right band for that. I'd recommend them to Christian but I don't think he'd appreciate it. I bet Calvin would like them. Thanksgiving sucks. My family isn't that much fun to be around, and the food isn't as good as it should be. It's too bad. 

Jack White is a douche

Jack White is a douche. He was playing his early stuff and acting like hot shit in front of Jimmy Page and the Edge. Jimmy Page is a legend and even though I don't like U2, the Edge was a pretty cool guy and really dedicated to getting better. Jack White is a douche though. He acted like he was the best out of all of them. He was the one talking about how great he is and how hard it is, but the others talked about how hard they work to be good. 

That documentary just made me really hate Jack White. 

I got an iTunes gift card

I got a $25 iTunes gift card and spent like $40. I ended up buying some Death Cab for Cutie, which is cool and a little more mellow. I bought the Counting Crows greatest hits because I like their lead singers voice a lot and some of their songs are pretty awesome. I also bought The Doobie Brothers greatest hits which I'm excited about. I love all their stuff and I got 32 songs for $16. My dad used to love them as a kid and once his mom sat next to one of the brothers on a plane. She asked him what a doobie was and he wouldn't tell her cause he was so embarrassed. 

I also heard this one song I really like by Band of Horses. It's called The Funeral and I'm sure you've heard it but I think it's a pretty sweet song. 

Sweep the Leg Johnny

And try something other than music. I wasn't a big fan of Sweep the Leg Johnny. They weren't very pleasing musically. I prefer pleasant happy sounds. Or at least melodic music. I've never been a big fan of any metal or yelling stuff. 

We just saw the part where he tore the roof down though and that was pretty awesome. 

Alright that was actually pretty cool. 

I also liked our short political talk. I think news stations are manipulating people more than ever. I think that because the idiots at Fox are mostly republican, voter think less of republicanism. I consider myself more moderate, but I think I'll end up voting republican because I'm worried about what the democrats want to do as far as welfare and taxes. I'm worried the US will end up like those European Union countries where there is an income tax of 60% and the people who actually work pay for the others not to. I feel like for how much this country has done to level the playing field across races and genders that this would be a shitty thing to do. It would eliminate the American dream and lower the ceiling of a persons success. I think equality should only be given to people who want it. If some lazy dude who wants to live off the state thinks he's being treated wrong then he has nothing to bitch about because he hasn't earned anything. If EVERYONE is made to be equal economically then we're in trouble. 

This was rambly and I'm sure I said some stuff in ways I didn't mean to that will come across in a bad way but it's alright. 

Help!

Help! Was a weird movie. Also my phone won't remind me to write my blogs. I like Hard Days Night a lot more. I think a big part is that I can't stand Ringo. Ringo just seems like an entitled punk to me. I think he's the most condescending and least likeable Beatle. I think Paul is my favorite. I'm partial to him because he's responsible for my favorite Bond theme song, but he also really reminds me of one of my best buddies. He's just a smiley guy and I think that's really cool. Johns pretty cool too, and I like a lot of his music. George is also pretty awesome and I really like his work as a Wilbury and I love his song "Got My Mind Set on You". Ringo is just a turd in my opinion. I think he's a decent musician, I just don't think he measures up to his fellow Beatles. 

My Favorite Wilbury

I've been listening to more and more of the Traveling Wilburys lately and I love them. I'm pretty ehh on Neil Young, George Harrison is pretty good but stands out to me for not having a distinct voice relative to the other guys, I love Petty and he had the best show I've ever been to, but Roy Orbison is probably my favorite. I love his voice. It's so different but it's so great. I think my favorite song of his is She's a Mystery to Me, and it was one of the first I knew was by him. I was pretty shocked to learn how many of his songs I had heard before. I had heard parts of a bunch through some of Girltalks mashups and I think I like the originals more. 

Roy Orbison is the man.

Emotional Roller Coaster

So the first 20 minutes of class on October 29th was wild. We were starting out how we normally do, trying to get settled. We heard about the no-phone rule, which shook some of us to our cores. We ended up spending about 5 minutes or so talking with our substitute about her life as a flight attendant. Christian asked a few dumbass questions but we got through. He actually had one question that was so bad I have to write it down. 

So we asked our sub where she liked to go most and she couldn't pick one, so we asked where she avoided if possible. She said she didn't like Africa because it was so dangerous and because the armed escorts were scary to have around. Christian goes "Oh shit! I bet that's cause of the lions right?"  The class went silent and reveled in his stupidity. Then we moved on. 

But after we talked to the sub for a while we decided to watch the movie, but the computer locked her out. She called her friend, a guy who works here that I've seen around and I've had as a sub before. He walked in and someone asked what his story was, I recognized him and so I mentioned a lengthy discussion about gun control that I had with him. He got really upset and angry and made us all feel pretty crappy. He said we were being extremely rude to him for just walking in. I guess he mistook people being friendly as insulting or patronizing and got upset. Anyways all of us felt really bad because of how upset he got. We couldn't figure out what the deal was but after that we were all pretty down. 

Then we started the movie. 

Matchbox Twenty

I'm a big Rob Thomas fan. I think he's just a cool and talented dude. I listened to bands like Matchbox Twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls a lot when I was younger and loved it. But recently my love was rekindled. I was watching Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which is an awesome show I think you might like) and Rob Thomas guest starred as himself in a main characters drugged out hallucinations. I saw a whole new side of my man Rob Thomas, so I punched Matchbox Twenty into my SlackerRadio (turned out iTunes Radio blew) and listened for a few days. It took me back to the last days that I enjoyed music by someone other than The Lonely Island as it was released. I'm not big into current music at this point, I've struggled to find current stuff I like so I pretty much quit putting effort in and focused on rediscovering my past favorites and maybe learning more from there. My past week with Matchbox Twenty, The Barenaked Ladies, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Counting Crows has been a blast and I'm gonna keep it going as long as I can

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones blow. I had never even put together that they were at the same time as the Beetles and were trying to compete with the Beetles. I was blown away by their lack of ability in playing. I also think they miscalculated by a lot on a few of their covers on the album we listened to. Especially the Muddy Waters song. In Muddy's version, the piano, emotion and slow pace make it an awesome song, in the Stones version they sped it up, took away the best instrumental piece, and basically just yelled at the microphone. I always never really bought into the Rolling Stones but this album showed me how wrong I was. That album is worthless in my opinion. The vocals are just kinda hollering into the mic and the instruments are shockingly bad sounding. I guess maybe they were trying to look like bad boys and that was there way of not giving a shit, but that was some crappy music. 

They could wistle though. 

The Outfield

The Outfield is intersting to me for 2 major reasons. 

1) They're the only band I know that references baseball correctly. (Other than John Fogerty) The main offender to baseball is Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days. What the hell is a Speedball?

2) They're not even American and they don't reference baseball again as far as I know. 

Your Love is one of my favorite songs ever. The tune is so misleading to what he's actually talking about. Your first listen through, if you don't listen closely to lyrics, you can't pick up on the fact that this guy is trying to cheat on his girlfriend Josie. 

Either way it's one of the only songs that makes me singalong no matter what company I'm with. 

Grimes blows

I think I finally threw in the towel on enjoying ACL. I'm not like a huge fan of live music but ACL is just so in your face for everything I hate about concerts. 

People moshing, not respecting anyone else who's there, and so many drugs. Grimes was the low point for me. Grimes was not music. It was shitty. I understand there is music I may not enjoy or get at all, but I don't have any respect for what she did. It lacked rhythm rhyme and it just sounded bad. I believe music should appeal to the ear in some sense. 

We sat through Grimes to get to Kendrick and it wasn't worth it. 

I think ACL is cool and great for Austin, but it's not for me. 

Bob Marley

Mr. A,

   Today we've been listening to you and your buddies practice Bob Marley's song "Keep on Moving". 

Last night I watched The Boondock Saints for the first time and while going through the IMDB page I saw Bob Marley on the cast list. The pictures hadn't loaded yet so I figured it was THE Bob Marley. Turns out I am an idiot. Bob Marley of Bob Marley and the Wailers died in 1981. Bob Marley of The Boondock Saints acted in the movie in 1999. 

I liked The Boondock Saints. It was interesting how they started each hit at the crime scene with Wilem Dafoe being an unusual variation of the stereotypical unorthodox detective. Wilem was an eccentric, brilliant, gay detective. The way they introduced his homosexuality was hilarious but somewhat uncharacteristic of the rest of the movie. Everything in the movie is so over the top offensive, that you would expect it to be thrown crudely in the watchers face to try to make them as uncomfortable as possible. 

Anyways it was a cool movie. 

-Blake Allen

Live Music

I will not use the Oxford comma in this post. 

Just about everyone in our class is enjoying live music whether or not they are actually in class. Most of our class went to ACL today to enjoy the heat, dillo dirt, weed and music. While Ross, Alec, and Kevin are enjoying the festival and Ryan, Will and Gavin are enjoying their locker room fun, Joey and I are enjoying the live music in class. We've got multiple shows going on, and between the rehearsing of Mr. A's band and Justin's performances of current songs like "I'm Different" I feel like I'm in musical nirvana. The class is much smaller than normal, at the moment there are only 8 of us. This allows me to learn more about my classmates, because some don't use inside voices. I'm listening to Ben Holzman talk to the girl next to him about how much girls suck. He's pretty jaded which is a bummer since he's still so young. Ben is ready to leave, but his lady friend doesn't want to bail. He's visibly frustrated by this and I feel for him. 

Anyways it's been a cool class. 

Blink 182

I like Blink 182. 

Most people would laugh at me but they're fun to listen to. Their songs all tell stories and listening to one of their albums is a great way to kill a half hour. They've got catchy songs, the lyrics are pretty interesting and fairly relatable. I would still be willing to bet if you asked me about liking Blink 182 in class, half of the class would laugh. And it's kind of too bad, because people avoid music that they like because of the social stigmas. I give people a hard time for listening to stupid pop rap about busting some hoe up and stuff, but I try not to make fun of guys for liking Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. 

It bums me out, because even if Blink 182 doesn't have the most musical merit, they were a good gateway into other types of punk music that I absolutely love now. 

ITunes Radio

So for those that don't know, a new operating system for the iPhone was released this week and it had a cool new (probably a rip off of something else) feature called the iTunes Radio. Basically it's like pandora or slacker, without the ads. It has a link to buy the song, but there are a ton of stations with some pretty specific sub genres. I've been listening to the Southern Rock channel since I got it, and it's been pretty great. I've picked up a few new songs like Miss Understanding by Grinderswitch that I like a lot. Basically it's a good way for me to flesh out my collection in a subgenre that I love, but doesn't get a whole lot of time on the real radio nowadays. 

I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Ok!

Monty Python is hilarious. My parents started me off young with The Holy Grail as like an 8 year old and I've seen just about everything since. I've watched a lot of The Flying Circus, I've seen Meaning of Life, and I loved Life of Brian.

Still, my favorite skit from anything I've seen is "Every Sperm is Sacred". It's not only the funniest in my opinion, but I think it ties for best choreographed with "Knights of the Round Table". The fact that they get so many people on the same page is mind boggling to me. Anyways I'm glad that actually came up during some point in my formal education. 

Against the Wind

I'm a pretty big Bob Seger fan. I love his voice, even though you could probably find a voice that's more melodious, I love all of his songs blue collar themes, I love that to watch the "Night Moves" music video on YouTube you have to verify your age, and I love his hair. 

That is a straight up mane of hair. 

He's got some great lyrics, some catchy tunes, and it just evokes emotion. I absolutely love song that evoke emotion in me. There are songs I like the sound of songs, but when a song really makes me feel something strong it's incredible. Although none of Seger's songs make me cry like Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven, or energize me like Tom Petty's American Girl, I can't think of an artist that has so many songs that make have strong feelings. 

My favorite quote from any song ever is from Against the Wind. The line is "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then", it's nothing that extraordinary, but it really stuck with me because of the clever wording and the way it fits into that part of the song perfectly. 

In the end though, I think it all comes back to the hair. I wish I could pull that look off, but I don't have the hair for it and I'm about 30 years late. 

My changing image of The Beatles

When I was younger I dismissed The Beatles because of how old they were. I figured since they were around when my parents were kids they were probably fairly quiet and conservative. My music taste has not evolved an extraordinary amount over the past 5 years which is unfortunate. I listen to things I didn't 5 years ago, but the core music is still the same. I didn't realize this until the other day, when I realized I had been missing out on the Beatles because of an assumption made by 14 year old me. The Beatles were awesome, I'm glad we're studying them because I've got no clue how long it would've taken me to give them the credit and time they deserve. 

I'm looking forward to continuing our studies of an awesome band that I misunderstood for so long. 

Lunatic Fringe

I didn't have a whole lot of time this week for music between athletics, homework, and sleep. Last Saturday night though I was driving home at about 12:30 and Lunatic Fringe came on. I really love the show Top Gear, and a few years ago they did a special about the best driving songs ever. The top 5 chosen by the public were Radar Love by Golden Earring, Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf, Don't Stop me Now by Queen, Highway Star by Deep Purple, and Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf. I can see all of them being reasonable, except for Meatloaf (bleh), but I think the greatest omission of all is Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider. Nothing makes me want to accelerate faster than that song. I have an abnormal love for the song, which may come from an equally enormous love for Miami Vice and it's soundtracks.

Whatever the reason for my love, Lunatic Fringe has my vote as the greatest driving song ever. 

Bo Diddley and his incredible guitar

In the Documentary "Legends of Early Rock" Bo Diddley made an appearance. I had never heard of Bo Diddley before seeing him rock the stage. Other than the fact that he was incredible player, one thing stood out to me more than anything else.

I played guitar for a while, I never got too seriously into it though. I still really got into learning about types of guitars because it was fascinating to me. I had never ever seen anything like this. I decided to look up the guitar and try to find it. I ended up finding a remake of a different version made by Gretsch. The main thing about this guitar I loved was the fact that it had such an unusual shape. The rectangle shape is so different compared to all the curves that are common on other guitars. I love the straight edges on guitars more than just about any other visual aspect. Previously my favorite guitar was the explorer, but something about this guitar just seems so obnoxious and awesome that I cant help but love it. 

Johnny B. Goode

So of the big band and early rock stuff we listened to Johnny B. Goode was easily my favorite. I think that you could've told me it was made 20 years later and I would've believed it. Chuck Berry also seemed to be the coolest show of anyone we watched. Not that it would'nt be insane to see the wild Piano man Jerry Lewis, or Little Richard, but Berry seemed to be the act I would like to see the most. I've actually been practicing my Duck Walk ever since seeing it. I'm a little but rough with it, but I think if I gained an interesting and fairly pleasant singing voice and I learned how to play guitar, I'm sure I could perform as a white Chuck Berry impersonator.

I was not as crazy about Little Richard. I think he's really talented but I'm not sure he's really that interesting to me compared to Chuck Berry. Maybe that's because I prefer guitar to piano, but there have been so many pianists since then and because of Berry's earlier technology I think his guitar sounds much more unique to me.

Of course I have to love Buddy Holly, partially just because he's the only person I've ever heard of that has come out of Lubbock and he's a Texas guy. But his music is also pretty cool and still very listenable even today.

My Soundtracks

Looks like I got a little ahead of myself by posting my first bi-weekly blog post before I finished the first assignment, whoops!

I love music, but I'm not a huge sharer of music which is something that I think this blog will help me with. I like to think I'm pretty versatile when it comes to music, but most of my listening is laying in bed at home so I struggle to get into techno, dubstep, metal, or most of the newer rap.

I love certain 90s rappers that talk about their challenging life and put emotion into their work and I believe the lack of that is why I struggle to enjoy most modern rap. I got a great example of what I believe is wrong with modern rap from a comedy bit I heard. The song in question was 2 Chainz's "Birthday Song". If you aren't familiar with it the lyrics go:
"They ask me what I do and who I do it for, and how I come up with this shit up in the studio"
These are a few great questions for 2 Chainz, that I'm sure all time rap greats like Tupac, Jay-Z, or Biggie would answer those questions with a tale of strife and overcoming. 2 Chainz however, decided to totally ignore the questions and instead say "All I want for my birthday is a big booty hoe". That line is pretty awful, and I believe unless it is on a comedy album, it has no business being called music, so the fact that this is so popular is concerning to me.

Sorry for the tangent, back to focus. I love classic rock. I always have. I inherited my dad's old original white iPod in 5th grade and pretty much listened to what was on it. I already had a love for rock band AC/DC because their track TNT appeared in the Gamecube game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. When I discovered that there was MORE music of the same genre, I was in heaven. In middle school, I was one of the only kids that knew the band Rush, or listened to Led Zeppelin. My love of rock has only grown since then to include most all sub-genres of rock.

As I said, I'm more of a casual listener than an avid musician (I tried and failed at playing guitar in my middle school days). I still love music even though I lack the talent required to make it.

Music motivates me, inspires me, and plays constantly in my head. I'm excited to learn more music history this year in this course.

There's a Fat Man in the Bathtub

Little Feat may be may favorite band ever, and after catching Feats at Five on Margaritaville on my radio they have been all I've listened to since. I absolutely love southern rock and blues rock and nobody does it better than Little Feat. This is one of those bands I first heard when I inherited my dad's original white iPod back in the 5th grade. Unfortunately, in my shortsightedness I removed them because they weren't some awful hip-pop one hit wonder. Last year I wised-up and decided to give dad's dinoPod a second chance. That was a good call. They have been my go-to band ever since and I can't think of any other band that could fill that role.

This song, Fat Man in the Bathtub is definitely one of my favorites and has some of the most interesting sound I've heard. I love the rougher voice of lead singer Lowell George, I love the blues, rock, and Latin elements in the song and the way they come together so well. I think this song, and Little Feat have some of the best examples of blended styles and rhythms I'm familiar with.

Anyways, this is Fat Man in the Bathtub recorded for the BBC back in the day. It comes from the 1973 album Dixie Chicken.

I'm sure that there will be another post or two in the school year that at the least mentions Little Feat, but I wanted to kick off the year with some music I feel pretty strongly about.