AM – Troubled Times

AM – Troubled Times

http://www.amsounds.com
http://www.myspace.com/amsounds

So I was on my way into work, or what passes for it these days, and I was listening to XM 75, which happens to be HEAR Music: The Sounds of Starbucks. Say what you may about their painfully overpriced and pretentiously named coffee, but they do occasionally have good taste in music…and a nice Green Tea Latte. Anyway, the point of all this is that I heard a song I hadn’t heard before, which for me really isn’t a surprise as my musical radio time rivals that of my exercise schedule. The song was City Syndrome and the artist was AM. I liked it so much that I called my voicemail and left myself a message to look it up. I did…and here’s what I found.

AM, the guy, is from Oklahoma. He spent his teens in Louisiana, played guitar, went to Loyola and started writing songs in college. He won best Singer / Songwriter in 2005 from the Los Angeles Weekly Music Awards and has had his music placed in quite a few television shows and films. AM, the guy and his band, are now from Los Angeles and feature AM on vocals and acoustic guitar, Mark Getten on the bass, Geoff Pearlman on electric guitar and background vocals, Mike Mangan on keyboards, Bryan Head on the drums and Chris Lovejoy rounding things out on percussion. In 2005, AM released an EP of remixes of their song Mainstay and 2006 saw the release of their full length album, Troubled Times.

As it turns out, Troubled Times, the album containing my morning drive time epiphany, is a really good disc. It’s got a smooth vibe and is full of melody, with catchy hooks and unpretentious lyrics. My overall impression of the album is very clean and very cool. Full of acoustic and clean sounding electric guitars, Troubled Times showcases AM’s vocals in a band setting with dirty electric guitars and keyboards reinforcing the rhythm section, but never overpowering it.

Some of the most interesting things for me about Troubled Times were the recorded tracks themselves. I found little parts of the instrumental tracks to be like aural “Easter Eggs” similar to the hidden features you would find on a DVD. Let me give you a couple of examples. On the album’s opening track, Gone Away, there’s a tambourine doused with echo and buried in the mix that just makes me think of a sixties kind of sound. Another happens on the track So Lonely. One of the guitars plays a quick up-pick that sends me back to pop music in the 80’s. There are more “hidden” parts on the album too, but for me those little things help take good tracks and just give them that much more of a push towards being something remarkable.

As far as Troubled Times is concerned, what you’re left with at the end of the day is a ten song album full of solid songs, solid writing and a name we’ll hopefully be hearing more from in the future.

(By the way, if your searching iTunes for AM, try searching for Troubled Times, it’s easier to find.)

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Seasons Greetings from all of us here at On the pod.net

Elizabethtown – Score by Nancy Wilson

Elizabethtown – Score by Nancy Wilson

The Elizabethtown Score is like a sketchbook into Nancy Wilson’s mind. Some of the sketches are rough and unfinished, some are full of colors, but all of them are full of ideas and the Elizabethtown Score allows the listener to actually hear a musical idea better than anything else I’ve listened to lately. Each composition contained on this album seems to be a small, delicate thing showcasing little vignettes from a life; in this case the life is that of Drew Baylor and comes to us thanks to Cameron Crowe and his film Elizabethtown.

The album itself is primarily an acoustic one, with the occasional electric guitar thrown in for color. The tone of the album is wistful and introspective. A few of the tracks, like Dirty Shirt, are fully involved band pieces; however the majority simply feature acoustic guitar and/or piano with the occasional accompanying instrument.

The music chosen for the disc is really the emotional underpinnings of the film, showcasing the music used to help convey plot and develop emotional resonance. While it may not play like a traditional album, the score delivers outstanding pieces of music that are full of melody and the space they need to bloom into outstanding individual pieces.

Winger – IV

Winger – IV

When I was in High School, I loved Hairbands…I mean, come on, it was the 80’s after all. One of the bands I would, on occasion, listen to was Winger. They caught a lot of flack for any number of reasons, real or imagined, but guitarist Reb Beach and drummer Rod Morgenstein could both play and Kip Winger was…well, Kip Winger. As the band’s songwriter, bassist, vocalist and namesake, he was a great frontman; unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, he also didn’t look like he had just been hit by a truck…so there was way too much attention paid to the way he and the band looked and not to their musical abilities.

Anyway, after two albums full of hit singles, guitarist and keyboardist Paul Taylor left the band…to end up working on Steve Perry’s comeback album of all things, and Winger released Pull, which went right over my head. After that the band seemed to go away for the most part…that was 1993. In the interim, Kip Winger ended up releasing three solo albums, Reb Beach went on to play with Alice Cooper, replaced George Lynch in Dokken and then filled Steve Vai’s shoes in Whitesnake and Rod Morgenstein went back to playing with the Dixie Dregs and several other side projects.

Now, thirteen years after Pull, Winger, the band, is staging a comeback of sorts with their new album IV. With the addition of John Roth on guitar and Crenk Eroglu on keyboards; Winger, Beach and Morgenstein have released an album stylistically closer to Pull than either of Winger’s first two albums. It’s also a bit more aggressive than the band’s earlier offerings and infinitely more political.

Kip Winger seems to be talking a lot about the ongoing war in Iraq on several of IV’s eleven tracks. The album’s cover illustration even shows a soldier in desert gear encircled by three angels. As opposed to approaching the subject in an outwardly hostile and negative way, the songs on IV tend to come from the point of view of the soldier, not the onlooker or the protester. That’s not to say there aren’t question posed, but they are not quite the incitement of an administration that the songs on say…Neil Young’s Living With War are.

Sonically, IV still has that polished and produced “Winger” sound especially in the vocal department. Basically, it’s good sounds with lots of overdubs. One noticeable addition to IV is the inclusion of acoustic guitar in most of the tracks. That is in no way saying this is an acoustic album. The acoustic exists in addition to all of the electric guitars, they have not been excluded to make room. The acoustic guitar is really there as an addition to IV’s sonic landscape. Speaking of guitars, it was nice to hear Reb Beach again play in the context I was first introduced to him. His leads on IV, while outstanding, seem to better fit into the framework of the songs that hold them as opposed to the spectacle they were on previous Winger tracks.

Overall as an album, IV shows a Winger that’s dialed back from eleven a bit but is, in essence, still the same. There are things on IV that worked better for me than others, but on the whole, it’s an entertaining listen…especially for fans of the decade of big hair.

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

Andy Timmons – Resolution
Andy Timmons – That Was Then, This Is Now: The Best of Ear X-Tacy
Andy Timmons – And-Thology: The Lost Ear X-Tacy Tapes
The Cardigans – Super Extra Gravity
Chris Botti – December
Dweezil Zappa – Automatic
Dweezil Zappa – My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama
Elizabethtown – The Original Score by Nancy Wilson
Halo – Original Soundtrack
Homeworld – Episode 01 Game Soundtrack
Homeworld – Episode 02 Game Soundtrack
Jack Caldwell – As Sweet As I Remember You
Joe Satriani – Satriani Live
Richard Cheese – Silent Nightclub
Soup’s On – A Benefit For The Shoreline Soup Kitchen

Audiobooks:

Augusten Burroughs – Sellevision

News: On the pod

If you managed to catch my Thanksgiving post about the Shoreline Soup Kitchen, the information below is directly related. I pulled this post from www.shorelineacousticunderground.com!

Soup’s On! The Concert

On Friday December 1, 2006 7:30 PM at Andrews Memorial in Clinton CT, The Shoreline Acoustic Underground will present an evening of music to benefit The Shoreline Soup Kitchen in their ongoing efforts to provide food and fellowship to members of the community in need.

Also on sale at the concert will be the newly released benefit CD “Soup’s On!” featuring acts performing at the concert.

The concert will be sponsored by AcousticMusic.org of Guilford, Neri Lutherie of Clinton and Wall Street Gallery of Madison.

All proceeds from the event and CD sales will go to The Shoreline Soup Kitchen.

Appearing will be:

Paul Neri.
Chuck E. Costa
Jack Caldwell
Ebin-Rose
Sandra Lauren Lichter
Kailin Garrity –
Rod Washburn
Ian Charles
Lara Herscovitch
Other Acts Be Confirmed!
Running sound for the evening will be Jeff Stielau.

For information call 203-458-2525 or 860-669-3351.

Refreshments will be offered at intermission.

A minimum donation of $10.00 per adult and $5.00 per child is requested.

Additional donations will be welcome.

Just like the CD, this is for a great cause. Come on out and hear some music and help some people at the same time. It should be a great time.

In other news, I’m still working my way through my homemade Star Wars Audiobooks, so I don’t anticipate getting to Sellevision or any other Audiobooks anytime soon. I apologize for the lack of new Audiobook reviews lately and in the near future.

As far as upcoming music releases, there’s not too much that I’m aware of on the horizon. As it is, the Joe Satriani live disc kind of snuck up on me. I do know that the Wailin’ Jennys were set to record a show or two on this tour. Who knows, maybe a forthcoming live album from them. I did find this link to Billboard’s new release schedule:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/releases/index.jsp

I’m headed over there now to check out what’s on the way.

Hope your Thanksgivings were excellent and as always, keep listening.

Joe

Andy Timmons Band – Resolution

Andy Timmons Band – Resolution

When I was in college, I took a semester of guitar lessons with Nick Bagnasco at the University of New Haven. One of the first things he did was ask me which players I liked. After some thought, I answered: Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Steve Morse and Eric Johnson. It’s been a long time since any guitar players have really impressed me to the point I’d include them on my list, the last was John Petrucci from Dream Theater. However, I’m pretty confidant in saying that I think I have a new favorite guitar player.

Not so long ago, I found a video of Andy Timmons on YouTube playing his song Farmer Sez…and I was just blown away. The song itself is a cool little “Chicken-Pickin” piece, but he and his band manage to play it way over the top by accelerating the tune to match how loud the audience gets. I just kept watching this thing, thinking that eventually someone had to screw it up. But no one ever did, it just kept going faster and faster.

I first heard of Andy Timmons in 1989 when he played on Danger Danger’s self-titled debut album, so I was kind of surprised that I had missed out on whatever had gotten him on stage for that performance. As it turns out, Andy Timmons had released several albums by that point, and his most recent, Resolution, was just released on Favored Nations (Steve Vai’s record label). I happened to see Resolution at my usual music spot on the web a few weeks ago, and decided it was about time to check out Andy Timmons a little more closely.

So, what did I think? Like I said, I think I have a new favorite guitar player.

As a player, Andy Timmons manages to take the familiar aspects of the Instrumental Guitar genre and mix it with the structure of a more commercial band setting to actually write songs. His leads are lyrical in their melody, finding both verse and chorus as opposed to one blaring solo track. On Resolution, Timmons’ tone is also outstanding, with a really crunchy and fuzzy voice that manages to still be cutting and clear at the same time.

As a whole, Resolution is an outstanding guitar album with eleven tracks that just rip from start to finish. I, personally, didn’t find one weak track; they were all unique and ranged from the bombastic to the delicate while holding on to their feeling. If guitar acrobatics are your thing, you won’t be disappointed…there is more than enough “Shred” on Resolution to make your technique loving head spin, however I didn’t feel that any of the songs were overplayed. All the lines were tasty and fit the moment they were written for. For the times on Resolution where speed is at a minimum, Timmons shows that he’s more than capable of restraint and a subtle hand.

I found Resolution by the Andy Timmons Band to be a near perfect album for the genre. It’s loaded with feeling, technique and speed; not to mention a great sounding and playing band with cool songs. What more could you want?

Soup’s On: A Benefit for the Shoreline Soup Kitchen

Soup’s On: A Benefit for the Shoreline Soup Kitchen

http://www.shorelinesoupkitchens.org/
http://www.shorelineacousticunderground.com

Ok, so I’m mere minutes away from putting a serious hurting on ye olde Thanksgiving turkey just like a lot of us are going to do. I actually wanted to say like we’re all going to do, but that wouldn’t exactly be true…and that just goes to how easy it is to forget things you don’t see (or choose not to see) every day. All of that leads me to this…

My friend Jack Caldwell sent me a brand new CD recently. It seems that Jack along with the Shoreline Acoustic Underground and a group of friends and fellow musicians got together to donate their time, talents and resources to recording a benefit album for the Shoreline Soup Kitchen. What/Who/Where is the Shoreline Soup Kitchen you ask? Well, in their own words…

“The Shoreline Soup Kitchens’ mission is to provide food and fellowship to those in need living on the shoreline. Founded in 1989, at the Baptist Church in Essex, Connecticut, the agency continues in its mission to feed the hungry in body and spirit. In 2003, 257,852 meals were distributed to individuals and families during The Shoreline Soup Kitchens programs. This included 243,756 meals from our grocery distribution sites; 5,268 heat-n-eat meals; and 8,828 meals served at area soup kitchens.

The Shoreline Soup Kitchens offer food and fellowship to the communities of Chester, Clinton, Deep River, East Lyme, Essex, Killingworth, Lyme, Madison, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook and Westbrook. Our family oriented meal sites serving hot, nutritious and delicious food are located in Centerbrook, Chester, Clinton, Deep River, Essex, Old Lyme, and Old Saybrook. And, our grocery distribution sites where participants receive enough food for three meals for three days are located in Clinton, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook and Westbrook. Also, provided to those who have limited cooking facilities are frozen heat-n-eat meals that can be picked up at any of our pantries.

The Shoreline Soup Kitchens accomplishes its goals with the help of over 750 volunteers, who provided over 17,600 volunteer hours in 2003. We provide those in need with food and with fellowship, responding to all with humanity and respect.

The Shoreline Soup Kitchens had its origin at a “Vision Day” at The First Baptist Church of Essex, Connecticut. To determine the need, an “experimental” soup kitchen meal was held on the Saturday before Easter, 1989, in the Fellowship Hall of the church to see if anyone would come to such an offering. Nine people came that Saturday and 14 people came the following Saturday. On that basis, it was decided to open on every Saturday thereafter.

Since that time, we have continued to grow. Eight meal sites and four grocery distribution sites throughout the Shoreline and Lower Connecticut River Valley are now provided by The Shoreline Soup Kitchens. Each meal site serves one meal each week. The grocery distribution sites provide families with groceries on a weekly basis for meal preparation at home.”

What about the disc, you ask? Well, the disc features 16 tracks by area musicians that range in styles from folk to hard rock and everything in between. Basically, Soup’s On! has at least one track that everyone can get into. In my case there were several that I found outstanding. With so many artists and styles in one place, it’s kind of hard to characterize the album as a whole, but as far as quality goes Soup’s On is excellent. All of the captured performances are great as is the individual track production which lends to the enjoyment of this varied and worthy listening experience.

So say you happen upon this disc in your retailer of choice and you wonder what would happen if you actually bought it. Well, if you read the back cover of the disc, you would find…

“By buying this CD you are making a ten dollar donation to the Shoreline Soup Kitchen…The need for this service on the shoreline might not enter your field of vision, but it is very real. This eclectic mix of songs, all done by shoreline artists, is sure to appeal to everyone’s musical tastes. 100% of all proceeds raised from the sale of this CD will go directly to The Shoreline Soup Kitchen. All of the artists have donated not only their musical talents, but the money it took to produce this CD you are holding.”

Did I mention that Soup’s On is for a good cause? I did? Well guess what, it’s still for a good cause and with each disc being a ten dollar donation, you get to feel good about yourself while getting to listen to new music to boot. To me, that’s a pretty good way to spend a Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone…now go buy a copy of the disc!

Finer Things Magazine Reviews: Part I

What follows below was my submission to Finer Things Magazine for their Fall Issue. It’s reproduced here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

Finer Things Magazine Reviews: Part I

Hi everyone, I’m Joe from On the pod.net and welcome to the first in what I hope to be a long series of music reviews for Finer Things Magazine. For our first time out we’ve got three discs for your listening pleasure. First, we’re going to start off with something a little heavy, Phobia, the new album from Breaking Benjamin. Second, we’re going to find out about “Texican Style” with the sophomore effort from Los Lonely Boys, Sacred. Finally, to cap it all off we’re going to get ready for the new fall TV season with a look back at volume one of the Scrubs soundtrack series…and away we go.

Breaking Benjamin – Phobia
Breaking Benjamin first showed up on my radar when they contributed the song Blow Me Away to the soundtrack for the amazingly successful Xbox game Halo 2 in 2004. Now, two years later they have returned with their third studio album, Phobia. Made up of thirteen songs plus an acoustic version of the albums first vocal track, The Diary of Jane, Phobia is full of heavy guitars playing intricate rhythms, a tight rhythm section and vocals that, as a rule, remain melodic over the alternative metal underpinnings that comprise the sound of Breaking Benjamin. While heavy, the album as a whole hangs in the mid-tempo range with the occasional burst of speed as dictated by the material. If you’re a fan of Breaking Benjamin or the alternative metal genre as a whole, Phobia is definitely worthy of a listen.

Los Lonely Boys – Sacred
If you think you’re not familiar with the work of the Garza brothers, you probably just don’t know who plays that song Heaven you’ve been humming to yourself for the past two years. Sacred, the second album by the San Angelo, Texas trio Los Lonely Boys picks right up where their 2004 self-titled album left off. Stylistically, it’s a seamless blend of Latin inspired rhythms, blues, pop and just a dash of the Spanish language thrown in for flavor. Musically the album is excellent. Henry, JoJo and Ringo Garza (guitar, bass and drums respectively) can, in a word, play. When artists try to blend styles, rarely does it work at all much less work so well. The difference with Los Lonely Boys is that they don’t have to try. They so obviously live the music they make, that they can draw from a seeming endless well of influences to express themselves in what can only be called, as one of the songs on Sacred is so aptly titled…Texican Style.

Scrubs Soundtrack: Volume One
The musical interludes during the sitcom Scrubs were always striking to me for their choice of music, so…I was thinking that since Scrubs is going to be starting its new season soon and they just released the second volume in their soundtrack series it might be fun to go back to where it started for the show musically. The Scrubs Soundtrack: Volume One is led off by the show’s theme, Superman by Lazlo Bane. It’s definitely interesting to hear Superman, the song, in its full and unedited state as opposed to Superman, the Scrubs theme song, in the bits and pieces you hear over and over again each week. The orchestration of Superman is eccentric, containing all the usual instruments you would expect, but topped off by a Banjo and what sounds to be either a Theremin or Tannerin playing those lovely woo-woo-woo-woo-woo sounds you hear in the chorus of the song, ala Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. You could, if you were so inclined, actually use Superman and its instrumental eccentricities as a good read of the remainder of the soundtrack and, by extension, the show itself. The Scrubs Soundtrack: Volume One album plays home to fourteen other entertaining and very listenable songs from the Eels and The Shins to the Butthole Surfers and Colin Hay, best known for fronting the 80’s band Men At Work. The mix of artists is eclectic, but the material included is all similar enough in feel so as to not be overpowering…just fun.

So there you have it, your first three reviews. I hope you found them helpful and that they gave you a couple of new listening ideas. If you liked them and can’t wait for the next issue of Finer Things Magazine, check out all of my other reviews at http://www.onthepod.net.

Until next time, have fun and keep listening.

Joe

Finer Things Magazine Reviews: Part II

What follows below was my submission to Finer Things Magazine for their Winter Issue. It’s reproduced here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

Finer Things Magazine Reviews: Part II

Hi everyone, it’s Joe from On the pod.net again. Welcome back to Finer Things Magazine music reviews. This month we’re hitting Pop, Folk and Rock for you with three new albums; Ta-Dah! by the Scissor Sisters, Despite Our Differences by the Indigo Girls and The Open Door by Evanescence. Here we go…

Scissor Sisters – Ta-Dah!
Ta-Dah! by the Scissor Sisters is like stepping into H.G. Well’s time machine and dialing yourself back to the VIP lounge of Studio 54 in the mid 70’s to go wild for a little over three quarters of an hour. If you’re still having a problem picturing the vibe of this album; think Roller Skates, Afros, The Bee Gees, ELO, Elton John in costume and even a bit of Queen. Ta-Dah! takes the term retro to a whole new level, and in doing so ends up feeling like an entirely authentic album with a funky rhythm section, falsetto vocals and a definite sense of humor.

Indigo Girls – Despite Our Differences
In ten albums and nineteen years, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have gone from acoustic to electric and back again, covering everything from social issues to the internal dialogue of love. Despite Our Differences marks the Indigo Girls tenth foray into the studio since 1987’s Strange Fire and continues down the well worn path of their career to date. It doesn’t break any new musical ground for the duo, but it does harvest the fruits of their talents in a way that makes the thirteen tracks on Despite Our Differences seem more fresh than rehashed. As always, the lyrics are elegantly crafted and the music follows in similar fashion. While Despite Our Differences wouldn’t be my first choice as an introduction to the Indigo Girls, fans will recognize it for what it is…the continuation of a conversation with an old friend.

Evanescence – The Open Door
Love them or hate them, it’s undeniable that when Evanescence hit the music world with their first album, Fallen, they hit it big. The album’s first single, Bring me to Life was everywhere in a big way. Fallen kept producing a seemingly endless stream of singles, all of which found their way into heavy rotation over the airwaves. Three years later, everyone’s favorite Goth Girl, Amy Lee, is back with Evanescence’s second major label release, The Open Door…it also marks the band’s first album without, Evanescence co-founder and guitarist, Ben Moody. Amy Lee fills The Open Door with her trademark ethereal, operatic vocals on top of the counterpoint of distortion and heavy rhythms…and if this were a debut album, it would be enough. However as a sophomore effort, The Open Door, while staying true to the feel laid down by Fallen, does not move beyond it. That is not to say, however, that The Open Door isn’t a solid album. The opening track, Sweet Sacrifice, and the first single, Call Me When You’re Sober, are both bright spots on the album with the remaining tracks filling the remainder The Open Door nicely. That being said though, I think fans of Evanescence will draw more from The Open Door than the casual listener.

So, there you have three new discs for you to check out this month that should broaden your aural horizons, especially if you’re a fan of the Indigo Girls and Evanescence. If you liked the reviews and can’t wait for the next issue of Finer Things Magazine to decide what else to listen to, check out all of my other reviews at http://www.onthepod.net.

Until next time, have fun and keep listening.

Joe

Guest Reviewer: Erik Remek & Queensryche

When I started On the pod.net almost a year ago, I mentioned that I envisioned having “Guest Reviewers” write for the site as well as myself. It’s taken some time, but what follows below is the first in what will hopefully be a long line of Guest Reviews.

The account of Queensryche, live at the Moore Theater in Seattle, Washington and all the accompanying photographs were graciously given to us by my good friend, fellow musician and Heavy Metal connoisseur, Erik Remek.

So without any further delays…

Queensryche: Moore Theatre – Seattle, WA

Queensryche: Moore Theatre – Seattle, WA

Friday – October 13, 2006
Saturday – October 14, 2006
Sunday – October 15, 2006

Welcome to my first concert review for Onthepod.net so many THANKS! to Joe for the opportunity to post my little concert review on his site.

All I can say is that as I’m writing this, it’s been over 2 weeks since I saw Queensryche play three nights in Seattle and I’m still wired. The band has been on a nationwide tour performing their two concept albums (1988’s Operation:Mindcrime I and it’s sequel, 2006’s Operation:Mindcrime II) in their entireties back-to-back. When I heard they would be playing three nights in their hometown along with getting an opportunity to meet the band at a Fan Club Brunch, I jumped at the chance and made the 2,500 mile trek from Connecticut. Hey you only live once, right?!

Like a heavy metal Broadway production, the band along with singer Pamela Moore (reprising her role as Sister Mary), and a small group of actors brought the tragic tale of Betrayal, Revenge, and Redemption to life. The story centers around Nikki, a politically disillusioned heroin addict, who is lured into a conspiracy led by the mysterious Dr.X. Nikki is groomed by Dr. X into becoming an assassin for his cause, eliminating prominent political and religious figures. Nikki’s new life collides with Sister Mary, teenage runaway turned prostitute, who is saved from the streets by an abusive priest linked to the conspiracy. As they both get deeper into the plot, Nikki and Mary find that they are the only ones who can truly trust one other. Sensing the threat, Dr. X gives Nikki the order to kill Mary and the priest. After trying in vain to convince Mary to leave the life with him, Nikki finds her dead. Nikki is arrested for the murders and ends up being imprisoned (straight jacket and all) at the conclusion of Mindcrime I.

With no opening act, the band started at a relatively early time. After the classic dialogue from the hospital that opens the first Mindcrime album “Sweet dreams…you bastard” and “I remember now …” the band launched into the song “Anarchy-X” from Mindcrime I, complete with marching drum line band Blue Thunder. For the next hour with set and costume changes, we were immersed in the story of Nikki’s indoctrination and descent into the conspiracy. For the entire Mindcrime performance, lead singer Geoff Tate (as Nikki) and Pamela Moore (Mary) did not break out of character.

There was a brief intermission before the band continued with Operation: Mindcrime II. The story for Mindcrime II picks up 18 years after Mindcrime I ends as Nikki is released from prison and he sets out to take his revenge on Dr. X. Mindcrime II centers on what toll revenge has on someone & the emptiness it brings once that revenge is satiated.

I can’t tell you how blown away I was with the band’s performance, especially by Geoff’s and Pamela’s vocals and acting. The band just CRUSHED! Did I mention how amazing Pamela looks dressed in black leather?! Although her vocals appear only on one song (“Suite Sister Mary”) from the first Mindcrime album, her role has been greatly expanded in the live performance, adding background vocals to a number of the songs including some lead vocals on “Spreading the Disease”. For Mindcrime II, Pamela is back as Sister Mary, both as Nikki’s conscience and as ghostly apparition in the live show.

Bassist Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rockenfield added the crushing rhythm section and guitarists Michael Wilton and Mike Stone guitar work was fantastic. As the newest Queensryche member, guitarist Stone’s lead playing has now gelled quite nicely with the band’s sound and there was some cool twin lead guitar harmonies from the two guitarists.

I was able to get some incredible seats for all three nights including FRONT ROW for Sunday night’s show. This was the first time in my nearly 20 years of going to shows that I was able to be in the front row for any concert and I’m still speechless. You really can’t describe the feeling, especially for a show like this.

For the encores, the band played some non-Mindcrime QR classics including “Walk in the Shadows”, “Take Hold of the Flame”, “Jet City Woman”, and “Empire”.

After Friday night’s show, I ended up at a bar across from the Moore with fellow Ryche fans in attendance. After quite a few beers and some great metal tunes from the DJ, I staggered back to my hotel truly satisfied.

There was a buzz before Saturday night’s show as we learned that Saturday and Sunday night’s shows were going to be filmed for an upcoming DVD and that the legendary Ronnie James Dio might be performing live. Dio (as Dr.X) appears on the song “The Chase” from Mindcrime II in a duet with Geoff Tate (as Nikki) as the two characters finally confront one another. Probably due to scheduling conflicts, Dio couldn’t make it to Seattle to perform live so they showed a video sequence of Nikki and Dr. X as the band played the song. Dio was able to perform live with the band in L.A. so we’ll see if they edit in his performance for the DVD.

The Fan Club Brunch (with proceeds going to charity) took place in the Olympic Ballroom at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Seattle. There were Queensryche fans both at the brunch and at the shows from all over (including Japan, New Mexico, California, and Canada) and I got to meet lots of great people. All the fans at the brunch were treated to something really special. Each member of the band came by everyone’s table and spent time talking, signing autographs, and taking pictures with the fans. MANY THANKS to Anita & Susan at Queensryche.com and the rest of the band for treating their fans to such an incredible experience and acting so graciously. I had a nice chat with each member of the band. I got to talk to Michael Wilton about some new guitar equipment that he’s using these days (being a guitar player myself) and had a quick chat about vocal instruction with Pamela.

For the final performance at The Moore, as I was basking under the stage lights in the front row with video cameras filming, I just had to think … what more could you possibly ask for?!

See you on the road …

Erik
eremec@yahoo.com

© 2006 Erik Remec

The On the pod.net Fall Music Special:

The On the pod.net Fall Music Special:

Well, it’s Fall again and I wanted to share some of my favorite albums of the season with you. Mind you most of these have nothing to do with fall, they’re more winter/holiday albums, but this is usually when I feel the need to listen to them. I don’t know why exactly, but I guess to me, they all seem to share a similar underlying feel of nostalgia mixed with a little bit of longing and…well, that will be enough of the psycho-babble. In no particular order they are:

David Lanz – Christmas Eve
Liz Story – The Gift
Jim Brickman – By Heart
George Winston – Linus & Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi
Jackson Browne – The Next Voice You Hear

Ok, I know what you’re thinking, “Four piano albums and Jackson Browne…how’s that work?” I’ve already said, I didn’t know. Music isn’t necessarily the most logical thing in the room you know, at least not always. Now, I haven’t dug out the Brickman disc yet this fall, but I am listening to Liz Story as I write this.

Piano For The Holidays:

David Lanz – Christmas Eve

Liz Story – The Gift

The album that has been influencing my Autumns the longest is Christmas Eve by David Lanz. I owe this all to my father actually. I think he bought this album the year it came out, back in 1994 and I promptly began to steal it earlier and earlier every year after. Christmas Eve, along with Jim Brickman’s By Heart, became staples to all of my studying for Midterms and Finals when I was in college. As an album, Christmas Eve is David Lanz interpreting the Holiday experience through music. He plays both traditional and original pieces for the season, arranged for solo piano. The solo piano manages to strip away all the things that clutter up the Holidays and gets to the heart of the season.

The Gift by Liz Story is similar to Christmas Eve in the sense that it is a (mostly) solo piano telling of the Holiday experience. However, even though there is occasional overlap in content, all similarities stop there. The differences in musical interpretation are limitless and The Gift could not be more different than Christmas Eve. Story is another gifted pianist with several solo albums and collaborations with her husband, and bassist, Joel Di Bartolo to her credit. The Gift gives a slightly more traditional treatment to the customary songs of the season she covers, but by presenting them in the solo piano setting they have a vastly different feel to them.

Both Christmas Eve and The Gift exemplify the quiet and reflective essence of the Holiday season for me.

More Piano, Less Holiday:

Jim Brickman – By Heart

George Winston – Linus & Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi

Jim Brickman’s By Heart was given to me as a gift by one of my oldest friends, Dan Milewski. Dan’s an engineer by trade and has an innate gift for music. He noticed that I was so taken with By Heart and sent it to me a short time after I first heard it at his home. By Heart held a certain sense of peace in its solo piano work that made it very influential as an album and also in my own “noodleing” on the piano. While the abilities needed to pull off this album were no doubt staggering to achieve, Brickman makes By Heart seem simple and pure. By Heart was also the beginning of his collaboration with vocalists, as is evident by the albums closing and title track, By Heart…but one song does not a vocal album make, or an instrumental album rune.

George Winston is a perennial favorite of “New Age” music fans. Anyone familiar with him may wonder how music from Peanuts gets into a Fall Music Special and not his albums Autumn or December. I guess I don’t really have an answer to that other than they did not have the effect on me that Linus & Lucy did. I guess that in addition to my love of the George Winston album, the material by Vince Guaraldi and the context given most of it by Charles Schulz has to be taken into account. Winston presents very true, yet very modern interpretations of Guaraldi’s compositions in a solo piano format. All of the tracks on the album are outstanding pieces and as a whole Linus & Lucy is just such an entertaining listen. My only wish for the album would be for it to include a rendition of Guaraldi’s Christmas Time Is Here. Who knows, maybe there will be a reissue?

Not A Piano Album…At Least Not Entirely:

Jackson Browne – The Next Voice You Hear

I know what you’re thinking, “Jackson Browne’s good anytime of the year, why is this a fall album.” I grant you your point. I don’t really have a reason for this being a fall album, it’s just when I seem to listen to it the most. The entire album is fantastic, spanning his entire career up to 1997 when The Next Voice You Hear was released. My own personal take on the disc is that the money is in the first half, and if I needed to narrow it down even further, I’d feel confident in saying the first four songs. Before an iPod, where else could you get Doctor My Eyes, These Days, Fountain of Sorrow and Late for the Sky back to back. Even then you still have songs like The Pretender, Running on Empty, Somebody’s Baby and Tender Is the Night yet to come. I guess there’s just something about listening to those first four songs with a bit of a chill in the air that fits with me somehow.

Honorable Mention:

K’s Choice – Cocoon Crash

K’s Choice – Almost Happy

K’s Choice is/was from Belgium and featured Sarah Bettens on vocals and her brother, Gert, on guitar. I discovered them on a road trip to New Hampshire several years ago, when, needing something to listen to, I picked up a copy of Cocoon Crash on my way out of town. Cocoon Crash is my favorite of their albums and I could list almost all of the tracks on it as being a great first introductions to the band. Almost Happy comes in as a close second. Think upbeat, but not sugary, alternative sounding with a female singer and you’re in the general vicinity. I would highly recommend picking up Cocoon Crash for a listen, or a road trip for that matter.

So there you have it, my top five Fall albums.

Lots of “New Age-y” solo piano stuff, i know…but maybe it’s that whole “everything is dying” Fall kind of thing. The trees are all loosing their leaves, so stripping music down to one instrument seems to match the surroundings.

Who knows?

What I do know, is that all of these albums are ones that I listen to over and over again…every Fall.

Rosanne Cash – Black Cadillac

Rosanne Cash – Black Cadillac

I was recently watching a Trick My Truck marathon on CMT (What? At least it wasn’t the OC!) after which aired a rebroadcast of a live show they had taped. It featured Steve Earl playing with Rosanne Cash. I watched, somewhat out of character, and was thoroughly impressed, especially by Cash. I was never a fan of either her or her father in the past, having been into Country at seemingly the wrong times, but the name Cash, especially in recent years, has always been popular and respected. Regardless, I found myself drawn to the songs Rosanne Cash sang that day and decided to look for the album.

Having been out for most of 2006, Black Cadillac may not technically be a new album in the strictest sense of the term, but it is one that’s worth listening to. This is a very intimate, emotional and emotionally dark album that revolves around the death of a little girl’s father and her broken heart.

Rosanne Cash worked with producers Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow, Shelby Lynne, and Kim Richie) and John Leventhal (Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell and Cash’s own husband) on Black Cadillac to deliver an album with production that is transparent, leaving it with a clean and timeless sound. Both Bottrell and Leventhal were multi-instrumentalists on the album in addition to their production duties.

Musically, Black Cadillac works to support the sentiment of the lyrics flawlessly by both complementing and working as counterpoint. The arrangements are mostly sparse and breathy, leaving lots of room for Cash’s vocals and lyrics to float around in and gain even more gravity.

Rosanne Cash made the decision to include short clips of her father speaking to her when she was a child at the beginning of Black Cadillac’s opening and closing tracks. Johnny Cash opens the album saying “Come On” and closes it with “Bye, Bye, Bye.” The two phrases bracketing the life of his daughter, Rosanne, contained within. It’s a haunting reminder of the feelings that inspired this album; which is, in many ways, a fitting tribute to a life lost and a life that carries on.

Running with Scissors: The Movie

I love Augusten Burroughs. I’ve read, or listened, to three of his five books so far including Running with Scissors and in all of them, he has managed to write uniquely telling and touching memoirs of a lemonade life built on a foundation of lemons. October 27, 2006 saw the national release of Running with Scissors, based on the book by Augusten Burroughs, and staring Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Alec Baldwin and both Joseph Cross and Jack Kaeding as a young and younger version Augusten Burroughs.

The film chronicles the childhood years of Augusten Burroughs set against the backdrop of his parent’s troubled marriage and eventual divorce, his father’s abandonment, his mother’s severe mental instability, and his living with and eventual adoption by his mother’s psychiatrist. The most compelling and horrifying fact of Running with Scissors it that it is based on the real life events that made up Augusten Burroughs’ young life.

The transition from the page to the screen is rarely smooth and simple. As expected, translating a book that can be read in just short of eight hours to a film that needs to be viewed in two requires some omission. However Ryan Murphy, who both directed and wrote the screenplay, manages to hit all of the marks necessary to convey the absolute absurdness of the life experienced by a young Augusten Burroughs without making any of the characters seem anything less than human.

Murphy does take advantage of the emotional content of the material to such an extent that he almost over uses it on occasion by showing several characters trying to deal with their own, individual demons in a succession of shots that show all of their anguish at the same time. However he manages to balance that by including a certain amount of silence throughout the film and letting the events just happen without any undue influence.

The cast of Running with Scissors is brilliant. Annette Bening turns in an outstanding performance as the amazingly out of touch and occasionally psychotic anti-mother, Deirdre Burroughs. Brian Cox is also excellent in his roll as Dr. Finch and manages to capture the character much as I had envisioned when listening to Augusten Burroughs read Running with Scissors as an audiobook. In addition Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow all give captivating performances as ghosts from Burroughs’ past.

Both Jack Kaeding and Joseph Cross are convincing as young incarnations of Augusten Burroughs…although the younger Kaeding kept reminding me of how the author David Sedaris must have looked as a child. Cross gives Running with Scissors a performance that allows the audience to place a human face on the insanity and upheaval that was the life of Augusten Burroughs.

Readers of Augusten Burroughs, even the casual, should enjoy the film for the same reasons as the book; the lunacy, the humanity, the frailty and the heart. Those unfamiliar with Burroughs will find an often humorous while heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to grow up and survive the insanity of the world around him.

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

Arvo Part – Da Pacem
Arvo Part – De Produndis
Crooked Still – Shaken By A Low Sound
Jet – Shine On
Jimmy Buffett – Take The Weather With You
KT Tunstall – KT Tunstall’s Acoustic Extravaganza
Michael Hedges – Aerial Boundaries
Michael Hedges – The Road To Return
Peter Ostroushko – Postcards
Sarah McLachlan – Winter Song
Submarines – Declare A New State

News: On the pod

This will be a quick one this time, because there’s not really too much going on. I sent in three more reviews for the December issue of Finer Things Magazine. When it comes out you’ll be able to read about Ta-Dah! by the Scissor Sisters, Despite Our Differences by the Indigo Girls and The Open Door by Evanescence.

Speaking of Finer Things Magazine, I happen to know that they have some advertising space currently available, so if you’re a business owner or just have something to advertise in general, drop them a line at FinerThingsMag@aol.com. I know they would love to hear from you.

I’m tossing around ideas for reviews of some of the new albums above. So far I’ve listened to six of them and they’ve all been pretty good, so it’s hard to know where to start. I’m also working on a piece about some of my favorite music for the fall. My plan is to try and work on that this weekend.

Have fun and as always, keep listening.

Joe

Jonatha Brooke – Live In New York

Jonatha Brooke – Live In New York

Sometimes it’s hard to write about people you truly admire. For me, Jonatha Brooke is one such person. I have been a fan of her music since the release of her first solo album, Plumb, in 1995 and having seen her perform live this past year, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Live In New York. Listening to Live In New York is very, very close to the personal and intimate experience of seeing Jonatha Brooke perform live in person.

Live In New York showcases Jonatha playing both alone and with an amazing band at the Anspacher, part of Public Theatre in New York. The album is also available in a two disc set which contains a DVD of the performance, and in watching the show as well as listening to it, the setting seems to lend itself to capturing a performance that is at times both delicate and roaring.

The song selection for Live In New York spans Jonatha Brooke’s entire musical career; from Love Is More Thicker Than Forget all the way through No Net Below. The performances contained on Live In New York are all outstanding, full of energy, emotion and life. Alone, Jonatha turns in a haunting rendition of Deny as well as a delicate and wistful version of No Net Below as the albums closing piece. Her performances with the band; made up of Darren Embry on Bass and vocals, Rich Mercurio on Drums, Geoffrey Moore on Guitar and Ann Marie Milazzo on just about everything you can think of as well as background vocals, are full and powerful as evident on the tracks Linger and Steady Pull.

One of the highlights of the show for me is finally getting to hear a live version of the song Inconsolable from Jonatha’s album Plumb. Beyond being a great song, the end of the studio recording of Inconsolable is a piece of contained madness that reaches just over the edge of falling apart and then manages to pull itself back. While the version on Live In New York is not an exact copy of this, the inspired solo given by Geoffrey Moore is, in itself, also a piece of contained madness that manages to be almost out of control and then recovers, making it an experience in and of itself to hear.

Both the audio and video versions of Live In New York are outstanding examples of what Jonatha Brooke is capable of as a performer and a writer. If you haven’t been able to see her live, you should…trust me it’s worth it. Until you can though, pick up a copy of Live in New York to see what your missing.

Dream Theater – Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour

Dream Theater – Score:
20th Anniversary World Tour
Live with the Octavarium Orchestra

Score is Dream Theater’s best live album to date…and they’ve had a lot of them. It’s the fifth “official” live album released in the US by the band following Live at the Marquee, Once in a Livetime, Live Scenes From New York and Live at Budokan (sixth if you include the second half of the A Change of Seasons disc as a live album).

The performances turned in by Dream Theater at Radio City Music Hall that have been captured on Score are exemplary examples of progressive metal at its best. Perfectly synchronized guitar and keyboard runs by John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess and elaborately syncopated rhythms laid down by Mike Portnoy and John Myung, all nearly flawless, comprise Score’s nearly 156 minute entirety. The four instrumentalists of Dream Theater are all such virtuosos of their chosen instruments, that what took years of studio work to accomplish can be played nearly perfect, note for note, for over two and a half hours every night.

The biggest surprise on Score is how well Dream Theater vocalist, James LaBrie holds up for the entire performance. LaBrie is a gifted singer with an extraordinary vocal range and on Score he demonstrates that his talents are not a product of a studio environment. Vocally, he is in better form on Score than any of Dream Theater’s previous live recordings.

Score also contains a stellar performance by, as the title references, the Octavarium Orchestra. This is most notable on the 41 minute opus that is Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. Beginning with a “Hollywood” sounding instrumental piece, the Orchestra is eventually joined by the band and rockets through Six Degrees in its entirety. Many bands play full sets in the time Dream Theater devotes to just one track from this fourteen piece epic.

Score, when taken as a whole, proves an excellent way to immortalize, not only one night in New York City, but an extremely creative and prolific career of a band that has been at the forefront of a genre of music since they began playing together. To the listener, Score allows those of us who weren’t able to be there that evening to get an idea of what it was like for those who were and to get a glimpse of what it felt like for the band.

The Wailin’ Jennys: Live @ The Space: Hamden, CT 10/03/06

The Wailin’ Jennys: Live @ The Space: Hamden, CT 10/03/06

What follows is the Wailin’ Jennys Live in two parts; one about them and one about me…enjoy.

Part I: The Jennys Live

Yesterday, the Wailin’ Jennys played an hour and a half set, live, in my living room…ok, not my living room exactly, but close enough. I had the great fortune of seeing the Wailin’ Jennys perform at The Space in Hamden, Connecticut on October 3rd…and sitting in one of the massive couches in the front row, I swear it was like having them play in my living room.

Annabelle Chvostek, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody glided through their set, captivating everyone in the gracious crowd with their wit as much as their stunning voices, or in Moody’s own words, One Voice. The trio played acoustic and showcased songs from their latest release, Firecracker, as well as a few songs from their previous album, 40 Days, and a couple of unrecorded band favorites.

The sheer musicianship contained within these three women is staggering. Not only did each one of them play multiple instruments, some at the same time, they flawlessly sang intricate harmonies with no more trouble than taking a long sip from a glass of ice water. If you’ve never seen a woman strap a snare drum head around her waist, play harmonica and sing all at the same time, then you really don’t know what you’re missing…much less that it can be done at all; because personally, I can barely walk and form a full sentence at the same time.

This was hands down one of the best live experiences I’ve ever had, so if you’re even a little bit interested in the Jennys, please do yourself a favor and go see them while they’re out on tour. If you’re in Connecticut and missed them this time, the Jennys will be back in Connecticut on March 3rd playing the Westport Arts Center. According to their website, www.thewailinjennys.com, they’ll be in the area (Northeast US) for a week or so, then the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest…and then off to play a few dates in the UK.

They’ll be around, go see them.

Check the tour section of either their website or their MySpace page for the exact dates.

Part II: Five things you learn about yourself when you meet famous people.

1 – You become a raving fan-boy.

2 – You really can say, “You were amazing” too many times.

3 – You should bring someone to kick you when you start to babble like an idiot.

4 – If you write, you should tell people who you write for, not make them guess and then hand them a business card (See # 1)

5 – MySpace actually works in terms of people knowing who you are…sort of.

Steve & Jon Rogers of Mighty Purple: Live @ The Space – Hamden, CT 10/03/06

Steve & Jon Rogers of Mighty Purple: Live @ The Space – Hamden, CT 10/03/06

Steve & Jon Rogers of Mighty Purple played a short opening set for the Wailin’ Jennys at the Space on October 2nd…and were really good. I shouldn’t say that like I’m surprised, I just had no idea what to expect. Mighty Purple has been a fixture on the Connecticut music scene for several years and I, somehow, managed to never see them play. I met Steve at the Mieka Pauley show I wrote about a few months back. He seemed like a pretty cool guy, so I was interested to hear what they were going to sound like.

The first thing I realized, other than I liked the songs, was that Jon Rogers is one hell of a guitarist. He played electric to Steve’s acoustic and laid down some of the coolest accents and atmospheric lines I’ve heard played live. I had heard things like that on albums before, but not in a live setting, much less by a duo. In the context of the songs, which were a good solid mix of acoustic pop and folk, the interplay between acoustic rhythm and electric lead worked outstandingly well.

The Rogers brothers’ set was full of energy that fit the songs; sometimes restrained and introspective, sometimes more pronounced and fluid but always there to keep their songs moving and interesting.

After seeing the outstanding vocal and instrumental performances by both Steve and Jon, their longevity on the scene actually makes a lot of sense. On their website, Mighty Purple writes that the music industry never really knew where to put them. I think they found their place at the front of the stage.

Black Label Society – Shot to Hell

Black Label Society – Shot to Hell

I’ve been fan of Zakk Wylde since the first time I heard him play the opening notes of Miracle Man on Ozzy Ozborne’s No Rest For The Wicked album back in 1989. He quickly established himself as an outstanding guitarist in one of, if not the most visible slots in Rock & Roll by stepping into the shoes of Tony Iommi, Randy Rhodes and Jake E. Lee. In addition to playing with Ozzy, Wylde has recorded with everyone from Black Sabbath to Damageplan, Derek Sherinian to Dweezil Zappa, released albums as Zakk Wylde, Pride & Glory and has been the driving force behind Black Label Society and their nine albums. Did I mention that while out touring with Ozzfest, he also manages to play with both Black Label Society and Ozzy in the same night? Could Zakk Wylde be the busiest man in show business? Quite possibly.

Black Label Society has returned with the release of their album, Shot to Hell, to sonically dominate and aurally dismember all comers. Black Label Society is one of the heaviest bands in American music today, and it shows here. They’re not necessarily the fastest or the angriest and Zakk Wylde actually sings instead of screaming and yet there is something about Black Label Society that manages to cut right to the heart of what “heavy” is. I don’t know if it’s the screaming guitars with the signature Wylde squeals, the tight, tight rhythm section or the overall attitude of the band, but a safe bet would be some combination of all three.

With all that being said, there are aspects of Shot to Hell that point back to Zakk Wylde’s mostly acoustic solo album, Book of Shadows. There are moments where Shot to Hell turns the Marshall’s down from 11 and stops cracking skulls long enough to just kind of poke you with a sharp stick. Black Label Society has the amazing ability to stay heavy no matter what’s on the table; rocker or ballad, fast or slow. Mind you, ballad is not the most appropriate word to use when discussing Shot to Hell.

I think the bottom line is, if you’re looking for something dark and heavy (did I mention heavy?)…Black Label Society. If you truly appreciate the finer points of what Rock & Roll or Hard Rock or Heavy Metal is really all about, again…Black Label Society. If you want a band that not only talks the proverbial talk, but also walks the proverbial walk…you guessed it…Black Label Society. Pick up a copy of Shot to Hell, you won’t be disappointed.

Soul Asylum – The Silver Lining

Soul Asylum – The Silver Lining

I was only a casual fan of Soul Asylum during the peak of their success with the Grave Dancer’s Union album in the early nineties. I really began to pay attention when I heard their follow-up, Let Your Dim Light Shine. It had its hit songs like Misery, but then a song like String of Pearls with its circular narrative…I dug it. When I was done listening, I wanted to hear more of what Dave Pirner and the band could do so I waited the next three years for the album that would eventually become Candy From a Stranger. I think I picked it up on the day it was released, got in the car, popped it in…and never listened to it again. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t get it. The album as a whole escaped me and as I began to forget about Candy From a Stranger, Soul Asylum seemed to disappear as well.

After eight years, Soul Asylum has released their latest album, The Silver Lining. It is, in my opinion, the album that I was waiting for after 1995’s Let Your Dim Light Shine. The dirty guitars, hooky melody lines and the organized disarray of the band’s earlier albums are back; along with a certain maturity that is both natural, giving their eight year absence, and that was forced upon them by the striking death of founding member and Soul Asylum bassist, Karl Mueller to cancer in 2005.

While The Silver Lining doesn’t offer anything quite so iconic as either Black Gold or Run Away Train, the twelve songs it does offer are consistent and solid and, in turn bring into being a consistent and solid album. The tracks themselves range from full on rockers to more bluesy and R&B influenced tracks; all with that trademark Pirner delivery, both lyrically and vocally. The recorded instrumental performances are outstanding also, and help shape the feel of the songs themselves.

As I am not terribly familiar with Soul Asylum’s early albums, I don’t want to speak for those fans, but if you enjoyed Grave Dancer’s Union or Let Your Dim Light Shine…or both, you should find yourself right at home on The Silver Lining, just like I did.

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

Black Label Society – Shot to Hell
Blue Murder – Blue Murder Demos (All Original)
Bon Jovi – Keep the Faith (Various Live Tracks)
Crooked Still – Shaken By a Low Sound
Diana Krall – From This Moment On
Dream Theater – Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour
Evanescence – The Open Door
Indigo Girls – Despite our Differences
Jake Shimabukuro – Gently Weeps
Jake Shimabukuro – Walking Down Rainhill
Jeffrey Foucault – Miles from the Lightning
Jeffrey Foucault – Stripping Cane
Jonatha Brooke – Live in New York
Journey – Sleep Train Amphitheater (Sacramento, CA – 08/27/06)
Michael Penn – March
Old Crow Medicine Show – Big Iron World
Old Crow Medicine Show – Old Crow Medicine Show
Rosanne Cash – Black Cadillac
Scissors Sisters – Ta-Dah!
Vinnie Vincent – Guitars from Hell
Within Temptation – Enter
Within Temptation – Mother Earth
Within Temptation – The Dance
Within Temptation – The Silent Force

Audiobooks:

Max Brooks – The Zombie Survival Guide

The Zombie Survival Guide:


Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Max Brooks – World War Z

World War Z:


An Oral History of the Zombie War

News: On the pod

Well, we’ve got more new stuff on the pod as you can see. I’m kind of excited about a few of the titles. New Dream Theater is always a treat, even if it is yet another live album. From what I’ve heard of it so far, Black Label Society is pretty kick ass. The Within Temptation albums were given to me by my good friend, Irfan. His take is that they’re similar to Evanescence and Lacuna Coil…but better. Speaking of Evanescence, I’ve got their second album and so far so good…took them long enough though. I also managed to find new discs from my old favorites the Indigo Girls and Jonatha Brooke and my new favorite Ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro…so I’ve definitely got my listening cut out for me.

In the Audiobooks section, you might have noticed The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. I’m about half way done and can already say, with some authority, that this is the most in-depth, exacting look at what you can and need to do in order to protect yourself and your family from the inevitable and rapidly approaching zombie Armageddon. What more can you really say?

I submitted the first in what I hope will be a long line of music reviews to Finer Things Magazine last week. I reviewed Scrubs Soundtrack Volume One, the new Los Lonely Boys and the new Breaking Benjamin albums. You should be able to find the October issue of Finer Things Magazine at any of the below listed establishments around New England soon:

Massachusetts:
Diva’s Nightclub-492 Pleasant Street-Northampton
Northampton’s Pride & Joy-20 Crafts Avenue-Northampton

Connecticut:
Triangles Café-66 Sugar Hollow Road-Danbury
Women’s Center of Greater Danbury-2 West Street-Danbury
Subrosa Magick-15 Foxon Boulevard-East Haven
Best Video-1842 Whitney Avenue-Hamden
Alchemy Juice Bar Café-203 New Britain Avenue-Hartford
Chez Est-458 Wethersfield Avenue-Hartford
Cinestudio-300 Summit Street-Hartford
The Comet Lounge-267 Farmington Avenue-Hartford
Parfume Du Jour-231 Asylum Street-Hartford
Enchantments-464 East Center Street-Manchester
The Magick Mirror-321 Post Road-Milford
AIDS Project New Haven-1302 Chapel Street-New Haven
Artspace-50 Orange Street-New Haven
Atticus Bookstore/Café-1082 Chapel Street-New Haven
BAR-234 Crown Street-New Haven
Book Trader Café-1140 Chapel Street-New Haven
Café Nine-250 State Street-New Haven
Fair Haven Furniture-72 Blatchley Avenue-New Haven
Gotham-130 Crown Street-New Haven
New Haven Gay & Lesbian Community Center-50 Fitch Street-New Haven
168 York Street Café-168 York Street-New Haven
Lovecraft Tattoo-1538 Whalley Avenue-New Haven
Partners Café-365 Crown Street-New Haven
Rimage’-1210 Chapel Street-New Haven
Sogno-83-B Audubon Street-New Haven
Style Forum-1674 Quinnipiac Avenue-New Haven
Walker-Loden-258 Church Street-New Haven
Yale Repertory Theater-1120 Chapel Street-New Haven
Garde Arts Center-325 State Street-New London
Golden Street Gallery-94 Golden Street-New London
Greene’s Books & Beans-140 Bank Street-New London
Triangle Community Center-16 River Street-St. John River View Bldg.-Norwalk
Georgina’s-290 Boston Post Road-Orange
Club Mor-29 Atlantic Street-Stamford
Fletcher’s Café-52 East Main Street-Waterbury
Elbow Room-986 Farmington Avenue-West Hartford
Curious Goods-415 Campbell Avenue-West Haven
The Cedar Brook Café-919 Post Road-Westport

Well that’s all for now, so as usual, thanks and keep listening…

Joe

Everclear – Welcome to the Drama Club

Everclear – Welcome to the Drama Club

Welcome to the Drama Club is the best album Everclear has released since they debuted on Capitol Records with the album Sparkle and Fade in 1995. That being said, you could make the argument that Welcome to the Drama Club isn’t technically an Everclear album at all, being that out of original members; Art Alexakis, Craig Montoya and Greg Ecklund…only Alexakis remains.

The new Everclear has gone from a Trio to a Quintet this time out, featuring Alexakis on vocals and guitar along with Sam Hudson on bass, Dave French on guitar, Brett Snyder on drums and Josh Crawley on keyboards. After the release of their fifth studio album, Slow Motion Daydream, and a greatest hits album, Ten Years Gone, Everclear the Trio went their separate ways, with Montoya and Ecklund forming their own solo projects, Tri-Polar and The Oohlas respectively, and Alexakis deciding to recreate Everclear. The new lineup and a less than happy recent past for Alexakis seem to have put a spark back into Everclear that was sadly missing in recent years.

Since Sparkle and Fade hit in the mid nineties, with songs like Santa Monica and Heroin Girl, Alexakis seemed to have found his comfort zone melodically. While giving his songs a trademark Everclear sound, it also had the tendency to make several Everclear songs sound the same. On Welcome to the Drama Club however, the Everclear sound is still there, but the songs as a whole are full of energy, anger, angst and hope which give them the feeling of not having been heard before. The album sounds fresh, not rehashed and while the topics of divorce, addiction, financial ruin and even love have been covered several times before by Alexakis, the events that made up his recent years seem to have energized him as a writer and given him something more to say.

Sonically, Welcome to the Drama Club is crisp; not over produced as some of the band’s recent outings have been. The addition of a second guitar and keyboards do a remarkable job in helping to shape the sound of Welcome to the Drama Club into something that is both familiar and fresh. Josh Crawley’s keyboard work is the most noticeable new color in the Everclear palate, lending a funky vibe to some songs while expanding the sonic base of the album as a whole.

Change is tough. Change is also unavoidable. We don’t like change; we all have our comfort zone. We get used to things, they way they are and the way they make us feel. Sometimes though, you just have to jump…and once you do, you realize that change really isn’t all that bad. There’s new life in change and Welcome to the Drama Club is a perfect example of that.

Jeffrey Foucault – Ghost Repeater

Jeffrey Foucault – Ghost Repeater

Jeffrey Foucault’s Ghost Repeater is one of the most honest and most authentic works by a singer/songwriter I have ever heard.

It is a slice of life, or more correctly, a slice of American life that echoes with the sounds of a different time and a different place. Part Blues, part Country and part Folk; Ghost Repeater treads tenderly through rural America with eleven songs that seem like an old shoebox full of photographs from the twentieth century.

Foucault is an outstanding writer, with the gift of both lyric and melody. When listening to Ghost Repeater, the individual pieces of the songs; the lyrics, the melody, the music, seem to become transparent and fall away exposing the soul of the composition full with atmosphere and emotion.

Musically, Ghost Repeater is sparse and haunting with its wide open spaces filled only slightly with acoustic guitars, brushed drums and echoing pedal steel accents. Other instruments come and go with the only constant on Ghost Repeater being the acoustic guitar and Jeffrey Foucault’s voice.

Foucault has constructed an album with songs that feel traditional and arrangements to match. Ghost Repeater is sonically consistent, helping to carry that traditional feel from the starting notes of Ghost Repeater to the very last, lingering traces of Appeline.

I’ve been extremely lucky to discover a select few artists who are truly gifted in their musical pursuits. Jeffrey Foucault and his album Ghost Repeater are among the very best of them.

Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Me

Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Me

A while back, I wrote about the Barenaked Ladies podcast, “Live from the studio, Freaking Out.” The band began podcasting in February and has, with somewhat less frequency, continued to do so with their latest podcast that was released on August 31st. I listened to all of them and realized that I felt, for the first time in their career, that I really wanted to hear their new album. So, under the advice and/or mind control of BNL frontman Stephen Page, I pre-ordered the Barenaked Ladies Are Me: Super Duper Fantastic Morally & Socially Redeeming Deluxe Edition (actually it’s just called the Barenaked Ladies Are Me: Deluxe Edition).

Question: Was I a marketing push over? Did they, as they say, see me coming?

Answer: Possibly, but I prefer to think that I just had a lot of time invested.

Anyway, the Deluxe Edition of Barenaked Ladies Are Me has a whopping thirty tracks as opposed to the standard version’s thirteen…or fifteen if you buy it from the iTunes Music Store. You may be thinking that for someone who’s a casual fan of the band, thirty tracks seem like a lot.

Question: Was I duped by the evil and subliminal marketing strategies of the BNL sales juggernaut?

Answer: Most definitely, but you know what?

Barenaked Ladies Are Me is a really good album…not only the first thirteen “official” songs, but additional seventeen as well. That being said…

Here are my first impressions of Barenaked Ladies Are Me:

* With fear of sounding cliché, this album was recorded by a more mature BNL…not necessarily a more serious BNL mind you, just more mature.

* The album still has that signature BNL “tongue in cheek” feel, but it is not afraid to venture beyond that signature BNL “tongue in cheek” feel.

* The album seems to have a more raucous feel to it.

* There seem to be lots of guitars…lots of electric guitars.

* It feels like a more “electric” album than their past albums.

* There are very good instrumental and vocal performances by everyone.

* Bob Clearmountain did a great job mixing the disc.

* There seem to be infinitely more Ed songs on this album than usual…which is a good thing.

* Speaking of Ed…I love the line, “I was a baby when I learned to suck, but you have raised it to an art form” from Wind It Up.

All in all, I think Barenaked Ladies Are Me, in which ever form you find it; the normal edition, the normal edition with bonus tracks, the expanded edition, deluxe edition or the extremely rare and hard to find (not the least of which is because it doesn’t exist) supercalifragilisticexpialidocious edition; is a winner. By the way, you don’t have to feel too bad if you only managed to find a normal, thirteen song edition of Barenaked Ladies Are Me because the band has plans to release Barenaked Ladies Are Men, a follow up disc, in the new year that should contain most of the other tracks from the deluxe edition.

Peter Frampton – Fingerprints

Peter Frampton – Fingerprints

Peter Frampton’s new album, Fingerprints fits nicely into place following his last two studio albums; 1994’s Peter Frampton and 2003’s Now. The curveball comes when after the first few measures of Boot It Up, the first track from Fingerprints, you begin to realize there are no vocals. The man responsible for the best selling live album of all time, Frampton Comes Alive, and such legendary songs as Show Me the Way and Do You Feel Like We Do seems to have abandoned the microphone in exchange for his guitar and released the first instrumental album of his career.

Fingerprints is eclectic, carefully crafted, well played and most definitely a Peter Frampton album. Anyone who is familiar with Frampton as an artist can attest to his particular guitar “sound,” made up of his guitar tone and thoroughly influenced by his instrumental technique and musical phrasing. His sound is, just as the name of the album implies, a fingerprint and the longer a musician plays, the more defined that fingerprint becomes…and Peter Frampton has been playing for a long time.

It’s an interesting experience to hear an instrumental album from a musician who is intimately familiar with the workings of writing a song with both music and vocals. The songs on Fingerprints are more about being songs and less about the technique needed to play the instrument. The melody lines played by Frampton’s guitar are much more like vocal passages than your typical instrumental guitar album, which this is not.

The songs, while all identifiable as Frampton, are all unique to each other. Each of the fourteen tracks is a composition unto it self. Fingerprints is not disappointing in it’s variety; you have full on rockers, contemplative acoustic pieces, blues, a little jazz and even a French vignette courtesy of the album’s closer, Souvenirs de Nos Peres.

Some may look at Fingerprints as being a work of self-indulgence, in that Peter Frampton has chosen to only focus on his passion for guitar. However, a different argument could also be made. Fingerprints may just be a small jewel in the vast career that Peter Frampton has had.

John Mayer – Continuum

John Mayer – Continuum

I had these two ideas for the John Mayer review. I couldn’t decide, so I included them both…you pick.

Review #1:

Having written at length about John Mayer and the songs on Continuum previously, I am left with only two things to say about Mr. Mayer and his new album:

1 – Thank whichever God applies that John Mayer started his career early. That God willing, he will be with us to a ripe old age and making music all the while.

2 – Stop reading this and proceed with one of the following:

A – Log in to iTunes and buy a copy of John Mayer’s Continuum right now.

B – Get in your car, drive to your favorite place to buy music and buy a copy of John Mayer’s Continuum right now.

Review #2:

Having written at length about John Mayer and the songs on Continuum previously, I am left with only one thing to say about Mr. Mayer and his new album:

fan-F$%#ING-tastic

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

Bitter:Sweet – The Mating Game
Breaking Benjamin – Phobia
BT – This Binary Universe
George Lynch – Furious George
Glenn Gould – Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet/Brahms: Piano Quintet
Gran Bel Fisher – Full Moon Cigarette
Iron Maiden – A Matter Of Life And Death
Jani Lane – Back Down To One
Kaki King – Until We Felt Red
Los Lonely Boys – Los Lonely Boys
Los Lonely Boys – Scared
Lyle Lovett – My Baby Don’t Tolerate
Lyle Lovett – Step Inside This House
Michael Schenker Group – Adventures Of The Imagination
Nina Gordon – Bleeding Heart Graffiti
Scrubs – Soundtrack
Soul Asylum – Grave Dancers Union
Steve Stevens – Flamenco A Go-Go
The Who – Wire & Glass

Audiobooks:

Cornelia Funke – The Thief Lord

Quick Audiobook Review:

Whitley Strieber – The Grays

The Grays

Whitley Strieber’s The Grays is a perfect example of how accessible Science Fiction can be to a popular audience. As a genre, Sci-Fi can be a hard sell to a lot of people, but The Grays doesn’t have the typical pitfalls like alien names with too many consonants or so much made up science that it feels as if you’re reading a technical manual. The real strength of The Grays is it’s humanity. Strieber gives us a story in which everyone, both human and alien alike, is looking for the answer to who they are and what that means. The writing is beautiful, most especially so in the scene of a young boy becoming who he is destine to be. The Grays is an exciting read, which once started will be hard to put down.

News: On the pod

Hi everybody,

Well, I’m back from the road trip with lots of new music to write about as you can see. I should have a few new album reviews up shortly, so check back soon for those.

While we were on the Charlotte trip, I met a great guy and artist by the name of Tom Davidson. He has a very cool comic called D-tails that you can check out over at his website, www.watchtomdraw.com. There’s an online version as well as a print version, which I highly recommend you buy several copies of, because I picked one up myself and it was great…and did I mention inexpensive?

As for the the quick audiobook review…If you get a chance, check out The Grays. I really dug that book.

I also blew through Neal Stephenson’s Zodiac which was a blast to read. Very different from his other books like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, I’d actually have to say that Zodiac was light in comparison. Oh, and it’s a very easy read, unlike…well…um…let’s say…hmmm…I don’t know…Cryptonomicon. I’m still working on that one.

Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller

I’m currently reading Loser Goes First by Dan Kennedy which is a fun little book too. I’ll let you know just how much when I’m done.

Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation

I think that pretty much sums up what’s going on around here so I’ll let you get back to your lives. As always, check back soon for updates.

Thanks and keep listening,

Joe

Strummin’ With the Devil: The Southern Side of Van Halen

Van Halen: The Where Are They Now Extravaganza – Part I

Strummin’ With The Devil: The Southern Side of Van Halen Featuring David Lee Roth (2006)

Stummin’ With The Devil is the latest in a string of Bluegrass tribute albums that have been released in the last few years. AC/DC, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Dave Mathews, John Mayer and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are just some of the artists whose material has received the Bluegrass treatment and now Van Halen joins their ranks. What makes this time out different from the others is not the endorsement of, but the contribution to the album by original Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth.

Roth lends his trademark vocals to the first two tracks, Jump and Jamie’s Cryin’, on Strummin’ With The Devil which are preformed by the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band. Jump is also included a second time at the end of the disc as a “Radio Edit” version. David Lee Roth’s presence on the tracks is unmistakable and while he is more laid back here than in any other of his recorded performances, he is still, unmistakably, Diamond Dave.

Several artists, some of which include the previously mentioned John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band on Jump and Jamie’s Cryin’, Cornbread Red playing Panama, The Nashville Bluegrass Band covering Could This Be Magic? and an outstanding rendition of I’ll Wait by Blue Highway help to round out the album’s fifteen tracks.

All the tracks on Strummin’ With The Devil are stripped down acoustic versions of their original classic Van Halen counterparts. While the presentation of such signature electric tracks such as Jump, Unchained and even Eruption may at first seem odd and out of place, with each subsequent listen that misconception fades away to reveal the intricate arrangements and extraordinary musicianship that makes up Strummin’ With The Devil.

The versions of the songs made famous by the Van Halen brothers, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth that are included on Strummin’ With The Devil are elegant in their new skin while still holding onto the feel that made them classics in the first place. Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Bluegrass fans should love Strummin’ With The Devil equally for the reverent treatment of the material as well as for its genre bending renditions. Van Halen has always been fun, especially the Roth era Van Halen. As a tribute, Strummin’ With The Devil hits that nail right on the head and yet manages to do so respectfully.

Sammy Hagar – Livin’ It Up

Van Halen: The Where Are They Now Extravaganza – Part II

Sammy Hagar – Livin’ It Up (2006)

Sammy Hagar is slowly but surely encroaching on Jimmy Buffett’s territory. Both are kings of the beach party, both own restaurants or clubs and both hock tequila to the thirsty masses. Hagar even mentions Buffett by name on his new album Livin’ It Up near the end of his song Sailin’.

Come to think of it, have you ever actually seen Jimmy Buffett and Sammy Hagar in the same place at the same time? No? I didn’t think so…interesting. Who knows, they may actually be the same person…kind of like Michael and Latoya.

Anyway…Sammy Hagar is back with his latest album, Livin’ It Up and he finally got it right. There are a few issues, but on the whole Livin’ It Up is a party from start to finish. Since his original departure from Van Halen, his albums have been spotty at best, the only consistency being that they have all contained the good, the bad and the filler.

This time out, Hagar has managed to put together a consistent album both in feel and theme. The songwriting is probably his best as a solo artist to date and definitely his least “cheesy” since his Van Halen days…Amsterdam not withstanding. The songs all fall into the atmosphere of the Mexican beach party that he has been trying to get across since Cabo Wabo was released on OU812.

Another interesting turn of events it that the former member of Montrose, HSAS and Van Halen openly embraces several aspects of the Country genre on Livin’ It Up including the trademark twang of Pedal Steel guitar on tracks like Halfway To Memphis.

My biggest problem with Sammy Hagar’s new album is…product placement. Livin’ It Up, while being a really good album, seems at times to be nothing more than a sales pitch for Hagar’s Cabo Wabo and Cabo Tahoe resort destinations and his Cabo Wabo brand tequila, as fine as it may, in fact, be. The song Just One Sip could, and most likely will, be the official Cabo Wabo Tequila jingle. Both the tequila and the clubs are mentioned by name more than once on Livin’ It Up which does make his former ode to salt-rimmed glasses, Mas Tequila, seem subtle by comparison.

We live in an advertising age and the boy does have something to sell…I guess his thought was why not sell to a captive audience.

Tribe of Judah – Exit Elvis

Van Halen: The Where Are They Now Extravaganza – Part III

Tribe of Judah – Exit Elvis (2002)

Tribe of Judah’s Exit Elvis is an excellent example of a great debut album by a band not many people ever heard of. Why didn’t anybody ever hear of them? Any number of reasons really…timing, marketing, climate, band members. Band members you ask? Band members, I say. Tribe of Judah came into existence with an EP release in 2001 by members Steve Ferlazzo, Leo Mellace, Mike Mangini and Pat Badger. Any of those names starting to look familiar? How about this one, Tribe of Judah was/is fronted by none other than Van Halen’s last, and seemingly most loathed (by everyone except me), frontman Gary Cherone.

The reason I asked about the names starting to look familiar is that when added to Cherone, Mike Mangini and Pat Badger make up three quarters of the seemingly recently reformed Boston based band Extreme. In many ways, Tribe of Judah is a rebirth of Extreme, sans Nuno Bettencourt of course. You can hear aspects of the old band, but placed in a new and more modern context. Aside from their first album, Extreme always seemed to be much more progressive than their contemporaries and not just in terms of their musical technicality but also socially and politically.

Take that existence, add in the more sonically experimental aspects of Van Halen III and incorporate all of the technical advances in music and the bands that came after who helped redefine the sound of music into the new century and you begin to have an idea about the sound of Tribe of Judah. There are layers of industrial and electronic music mixed in to the heavy guitars and theatrical vocals that are Cherone and were Extreme…and Van Halen for that matter.

The album, taken as a whole, is tight and an altogether different experience than one might expect. There are, as with most things, parts that don’t work so well, but as an album it creates something interesting and unique. Exit Elvis is an experience as much as it is an album. There is a certain theatricality running through it, which concludes with the album’s title track, that seems to make it a little heartier than your average disc.

It’s hard not to wonder if Tribe of Judah would have been better known and Exit Elvis would have done better had Cherone’s tenure in Van Halen gone over better with the public in general. In my opinion, Van Halen fans weren’t ready to hear a new band, which was just what they got when Gary joined. It wasn’t Roth and it wasn’t Hagar and it never was going to be…and, people just weren’t ready for that. It’s unfortunate, because I think a second Cherone era Van Halen album would have been something that had the potential to be very special as the band would have had the time to gel and explore each other musically. I guess that’s something we’ll never know. On thing is certain though, if Van Halen III did better…Tribe of Judah never would have existed, and that would have been unfortunate too.

Eddie Van Halen – Music from Sacred Sin

Van Halen: The Where Are They Now Extravaganza – Part IV

Eddie Van Halen – Music from Sacred Sin (2006)

If the fact that Jenna Jameson is a household name isn’t proof enough that the adult industry is part of the mainstream these days, nothing is going to change your mind, but…this could help. Eddie Van Halen, the renowned virtuosic guitarist, has decided to lend his talents to his friend, Michael Ninn and his latest project, an adult film called Sacred Sin.

Eddie is quoted as saying,

“I’m working with a friend…very simple,” and “I like his work. Michael Ninn is like a Spielberg to me…the imagery, the way he makes things look, just…sensual.”

Well, Ok then. There’s not really a lot you can say to a comment like that, so we’ll just let it sit out there for a while as we soak up the implications. Jaws, ET, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan…all right, Hook maybe, but come on…Spielberg?!?!?

This whole thing is kind of baffling to me in that I always expected Britney Spears to turn to a career in porn before Eddie Van Halen, but as they say…life is stranger than fiction. Being an adult, and realizing that Van Halen’s core audience is now mostly made of up the “consenting adult” age group, I guess it’s ok as long as he’s not going to be in the porn flick himself, because frankly I’ve seen the pictures from the Oscar party and it wasn’t pretty.

Apparently the flick will be out on September 13th and available in full-on robot chubby and “Disney” family versions for the discriminating coinsure and even better, the two disc set will include videos for EVH’s two songs.

If you just can’t wait (I couldn’t), the tracks are currently available for download from Ninn’s website or you can just use the links if you want to check them out.

http://www.ninnworx.com/sacredsin/music/rise_evh.mp3
http://www.ninnworx.com/sacredsin/music/catherine_evh.mp3

Musically, both Rise and Catherine bear more of a resemblance to Balance’s Baluchitherium or the Twister Soundtrack’s Respect the Wind than to the sheer jaw-dropping brilliance of Van Halen’s Eruption. That is not to say, however, that the tracks are not signature EVH. Every riff, hammer-on and pick slide screams Eddie, just like his fans do during solos at live shows.

The two tracks are entertaining to listen to, all the more so because of the recent drought of new music from the VH camp. Catherine, while not staggeringly brilliant, manages to convey a dark epic feeling that many of Eddie Van Halen’s compositions have not really hit upon before. Rise treads more familiar sonic territory for Ed…and knowing where these songs were destine to appear, Rise begins with a certain feel that seems like a good fit for its intended home. However, once you get into the heart of the piece, you can hear echoes of the Hagar era Van Halen that brought EVH and company to the heights of their popularity.

Eddie Van Halen once said that he had no desire to do a solo album because Van Halen albums were his solo albums. He also said that in Van Halen, he had everything he needed. Van Halen I was released in 1978. Three lead singers and nearly thirty years later, the future of Van Halen seems to be in perpetual limbo. Without a singer in Van Halen, hopefully Eddie will have a change of heart with regard to the possibility of a solo album, but if not…two tracks from an adult film will have to do.

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys – Sounds Of Summer (The Very Best Of)
Black Sabbath – Eternal Idol: Original Demos
Brian Adams – Rockpalast-Essen, Germany: October 15, 1983
Cheap Trick – Rare Tracks
Cinderella – Little Rock, Arkansas: October 18, 1991
Hall & Oats – Inglewood Forum: December 18, 1984
Journey – Chastain Park Amphitheater-Atlanta, GA: July 13, 2006
O.S.I. – Free
Pat Benatar – Portland USA 1986 FM Broadcast
Sammy Hagar – Livin’ It Up
Skid Row – Slave To The Grind: Original Demos
Skid Row – Subhuman Beings On Tour!
Soul Asylum – The Silver Lining
Tom Petty – Highway Companion
Tribe of Judah – Exit Elvis

Audiobooks:

The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum

The Prometheus Deception

How We Lost the Moon by Paul J. McAuley
(available through Audible.com)

How We Lost The Moon

Quick Audiobook Review:

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

The Stolen Child

It’s an interesting book showing two sides of the same story. You get to follow the actual and stolen life of Henry Day through the eyes of the changeling that becomes Henry Day and the changeling that the real Henry Day becomes. The main focus of the book becomes the search for finding out who we really are.

News: On the pod:

So, here we are again with another New: On the pod. We keep getting hits from all over the world, not a ton…but a few, which is very cool, so I’d like to say hello to anyone new hitting On the pod for the first time and welcome.

It seems like the preview of John Mayer’s Continuum has been drawing a lot of people in from search engines. I guess that worked out well! If you missed the write up, you can check it out in the archives.

I received a note from Mieka Pauley letting me know that she added the On the pod write up of her show at The Space to her press page. If you want to check it out, you can go to http://www.mieka.com/presskit.shtml. I couldn’t have been more pleased. You can check out the rest of her site at www.mieka.com.

As you can see, there’s lots of new stuff On the pod this week. I found a bunch of cool live stuff over at MR-X @ www.melodicrock.com. They’re a great site for news and MR-X is a great place to find older, out of print and hard to find 80’s stuff…and it’s very, very reasonable. If I’m not mistaken, there was a $35 fee for a year of membership with weekly updates.

So far I’ve listened to Tribe of Judah, Hagar, Soul Asylum and part of the new Petty disc so I have a few things for new pieces that I’m going to start on today I think.

I was listening to The Bob Edwards Show on XM this past week and heard an interview he did with Peter Ames Carlin who wrote Catch A Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson…hence the two Beach Boys albums. Everyone calls Pet Sounds one of the greatest albums ever, so I figured that I should have it.

Catch a Wave:
The Rise, Fall and Redemption
of the Beach Boys’
Brian Wilson

One last note, On the pod is hitting the road and heading South to North Carolina at the end of August. If you catch me, I’ll sign any body part of your choosing…for a small fee, of course. We’re anticipating a little down time around that time so there may or may not be any updates…I just don’t know yet. I’m going to be bringing the laptop, but I don’t know about internet access, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

That’s all for now, keep listening…

Joe

Mieka Pauley: The Space 07/25/06

Mieka Pauley:
The Space – Hamden, CT 07/25/06

I visited The Space in Hamden, Connecticut on Tuesday, July 26 for the first time to see Mieka Pauley play and I was not disappointed by either.

First off, The Space is a terribly cool place to see a show. With a vintage clothing store above it, you walk down a short flight of steps and you immediately get it…The Space is a great “space.” Envision about the coolest musician’s basement you could think of and you’ve just about got the idea. The Space is littered with comfy couches, chairs and tables. There’s a good size performance area at the head of the room and the sound booth at the rear. The Space is an alcohol free venue so no drinks, but they do have a refreshment bar with assorted beverages and snacks. They also allowed the artists performing that night to take up the entire wall next to the entrance with tables for CDs, shirts and other assorted merchandise. The atmosphere of The Space was very laid back and comfortable and made it a very enjoyable place to see Mieka Pauley play.

After a short house announcement, Mieka took the stage with what I believe was a red Ovation Celebrity Deluxe acoustic guitar, checked her tuning and began her short, seven song set with Bravely. From there it was off to The Way It Is, Run, a haunting rendition of the Otis Redding classic (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, her fantastically sarcastic anthem to the bad gig Blunt and Secret before closing the set with Stronger.

Right off the bat, the first thing that stuck me about seeing Mieka Pauley live was how good her voice was. Some artists can make amazing records but really can’t cut it live…she is not one of those people. I had a notebook with me, and my own hand written note is, “god damn this girl can sing!!!” including the exclamation points for good measure.

Even more so than on her EPs, Pauley knows how to use dynamics to her advantage live. Her voice ranged from barely a whisper to full on without so much as a noticeable waver in pitch. From my view in the audience, she was having a good night…an early night mind you as she went on at 7:30, but a good night none the less.

For me, one of them most entertaining moments of Mieka’s set was hearing her perform her song Blunt. I was familiar with the song before the show through the live recordings available at her website, www.mieka.com, but hearing her perform it live was a blast. In a nutshell, Blunt is the working musician’s anthem. From bad gigs to questionable comments, it brilliantly encompasses the experience of playing music to the unappreciative masses.

Another thing about Mieka Pauley live is the intensity with which she is able to express herself during her performances. I introduced myself to her before the show and spoke with her briefly. She was extremely personable and grateful for people coming out to see her. (Also, rather than just talking about herself, she took the time to recommend a few of the other artists on the bill that evening.) When she took the stage however, she was transformed. She overcame the occasional coffee order and an open snare drum to become part of the songs she sang, not just the singer of them. Seeing and hearing that was a very powerful experience to be a part of.

The only other thing I can say is that Mieka Pauley is an outstanding live performer as well as recording artist. On stage she’s intense and passionate and, in my limited experience, off stage she’s generous with her time and appreciative of her fans. I highly recommend seeing her now while she’s still playing more intimate venues like The Space, because I can assure you it’s only a matter of time before the venues start to match her huge, huge voice.

The Goldberg Variations, or…Three Sides to Every Story

The Goldberg Variations, or…Three Sides to Every Story

And now for something really boring…let’s talk about classical music.

I guess I’ll start off with a question…how many of you think the Goldberg Variations are about the wrestler? Maybe a book or a movie chronicling diabolical cloning experiments of wrestler Goldberg gone awry? Close…but not exactly.

The Goldberg Variations are one of those pieces of music with a colorful story that may, or may not, be true depending on who you ask. The most widely accepted version of that story is that Johann Sebastian Bach composed the Goldberg Variations for an insomniac Count by the name of Keyserlingk who happened to be the Court of Dresden’s Russian Ambassador. Johann Gottlieb (Theophilus) Goldberg was a harpsichordist in the employ of Keyserlingk who routinely played Bach’s composition for the Count during his bouts of insomnia and whose name the piece eventually claimed as its own.

Delving into the more unsubstantiated and inaccurate realms of history for a fun and slightly disturbing point of interest…Keyserlingk was actually appointed to his ambassadorship by none other than Catherine the Great, who, again, may or may not have died while trying to mount her beloved steed…in the biblical sense.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Some of the musical powers that be apparently take issue with a few small facts in the Keyserlingk/Goldberg story such as, at the time of it’s publishing in 1742, the piece didn’t have a dedication and Bach’s own “brief” title for the piece was not the Goldberg Variations but “Keyboard Practice consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with two Manuals Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits”…which I think history would have found equally as popular, as it rolls off the tongue so well. There is also some doubt as to whether or not Goldberg, being only fourteen or fifteen at the time, would have had the technical ability on the harpsichord to pull off the piece’s technical demands.

So now that you know what it is, you may be wondering why I chose to call this, The Goldberg Variations or Three Sides to Every Story? No? Oh, well…I’m going to tell you anyway.

I am the proud owner of three different recordings of the Goldberg Variations, two of them by the same pianist. The first one I purchased was Glenn Gould’s 1955 landmark recording of the piece, followed by his 1981 recording where he revisited the Bach composition. The last version I purchased was the 1999 recording by pianist Rosalyn Tureck.

Despite the obvious reasons these three recordings should be similar, they could not be more different. One of the most obvious reasons for that has to be the running time of the recordings. Gould’s 1955 recording runs a mere 38 minutes while his 1981 version was stretched to just over 51 minutes and Tureck’s 1999 recording clocks in at nearly an hour and a half. It would be easy to try and think of these recordings in terms of modern popular music and not understand how that could be possible. However, if you take the time to sit down with each of these albums, from the very first notes, the reason becomes obvious.

Interpretation is everything, and while you would expect variance between performers to some degree, Gould shows how age and experience can chance a person. In listening to the two Goldberg Variation recordings by Glenn Gould, the listener can literally hear him mature as a musician, a performer and a person.

Glenn Gould was 23 years old when he recorded the Goldberg’s for the first time, technically it was the second time as there is a recording of a CBC performance from 1954, however the 1955 performance was the first studio recording of both Gould’s career and of his playing of the Goldberg Variations. Variation 5 is perhaps the best representation of the 1951 Gould recording. In it, a young and painfully talented Gould sits at the keyboard and rockets through the passage like a speeding train. The keys show him no resistance and it’s almost as if the natural laws do not apply to him in the thirty-seven seconds it takes him to complete the piece. He unleashes so much energy, and almost a bit of arrogance, in his mastery of the movement that when Variation 6 begins slower, it is almost painful to hear.

Through the time machine that is recorded music, the listener is then able to jump forward 26 years, more than double Glenn Gould’s age at the time of the 1955 recording, to 1981 and hear the 49 year old Gould replay the Goldberg Variations near the end of his musical and corporeal life, he would die a short year later on October 4, 1982. From the opening notes of the Aria, you can tell that this is not the same man as the youthful boy in 1955. There is a solemnity in the performance that does not appear in 1955.

One of the most endearing, or annoying, aspects to both of the Gould recordings is Gould himself. Not only here, but in all of his recordings, Gould would vocalize the notes as he played. If you listen closely…and sometimes not that closely, you can hear the pianist literally singing along with himself. In the sense of a clean recording, it can be distracting at times, but as a record of a performer, it can be fascinating.

That leads us to the Tureck recording from 1999. Rosalyn Tureck’s approach to the Goldberg Variations is altogether different than Glenn Gould’s and even though the music is the same, this could be an entirely different composition than the Bach performed by Gould. While both of the Gould recordings exude technique, Tureck radiates feeling. That is not to say that she is not enormously technically proficient, it is just that she is in no rush to find the soul of the Variations she is playing. The notes here are carefully chosen and the overall effect is similar to watching a garden grown. The seeds are the original Bach score and under Rosalyn Tureck’s capable hands, the score blooms. The Variations seem to flower under her touch. To me, the recording captures such a unique performance of the Variations that is worthy of existing on its own merits, regardless of the fact that it is of a celebrated Bach piece.

If you haven’t been able to tell, I love Bach. He is my absolute favorite composer of all time. Others can claim Mozart or Beethoven, but please leave Bach to me. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is full of mathematical precision and relentless technique, but also interminable depth and profuse feeling. I don’t think you could have two better examples of those qualities than Glenn Gould and Rosalyn Tureck.

Jack Caldwell – The Edge of the Beginning

Jack Caldwell – The Edge of the Beginning

www.jackcaldwell.com
www.myspace.com/jackcaldwell

In his latest release, Jack Caldwell manages to showcase a whole range of human emotion and still leaves room for his songs to breathe. The Edge of the Beginning is a simple album, and that’s what really makes it work.

Lyrically, Jack Caldwell says what he means and he does so in a way you don’t necessarily need a degree in English to understand. He successfully handles complex concepts, like love, loss and longing, without having to disguise them and their meanings in hyperbole and other fancy sounding words…like hyperbole.

Musically, Caldwell dances between genres such as Bluegrass, Country, Folk and Rock effortlessly and sometimes all at the same time.

A perfect example of this is Beginning’s opening track, Bye, Bye Baby with a simple classic rock beat and guitars with just a hint of dirt playing along with a pedal steel guitar and what sounds to be banjo followed up with a bridge featuring a sax solo that sounds like it would be at home on an early album from an unnamed New Jersey native.

Bye, Bye Baby is followed by Like A Bullet, a song full of wistfulness and longing…and a personal favorite. With Like A Bullet, Jack Caldwell is somehow able to capture that seemingly infinite moment in a relationship just before the dam breaks.

Most all the songs follow in a similar fashion, showing you little vignettes, like fading black and white photographs, of Jack Caldwell’s life. Put simply, there’s a lot of good material here.

Even with all that, I think my favorite part of The Edge of the Beginning is something that you may not even notice right away. There is a beautiful chemistry between the voices of Jack Caldwell and his background vocalist, Kelly Leahy-Radding. Their voices together give the songs on Beginning a presence that would be lacking were the vocal tracks his alone. I would be interested to hear a solo Leahy-Radding album…but I digress.

The Edge of the Beginning has the ability to conjure images and set a mood, which for me was much like a warm breeze blowing through a small town social on the fourth of July. It’s easy, it’s simple and it’s good.

If you’re interested in checking out The Edge of the Beginning and hearing what I’m talking about, you can do so by heading on over to CD Baby and searching Jack Caldwell,or you can just click here…

The Edge of the Beginning.

While you’re there, you can also listen to tracks from Jack’s previous release, As Sweet As I Remember You, or again, you can just click here…

As Sweet As I Remember You.

Now, I haven’t heard that one yet so you’re on your own, but judging from The Edge of the Beginning, I’d be willing to give it a shot. Pick up an album or two and drop by Jack Caldwell’s website and Myspace page and let him know what you think.

A Preview of John Mayer’s Continuum

A Preview of John Mayer’s Continuum

I am, somewhat against my will, a John Mayer fan…let me explain. We’re both from the same town and damn if I wasn’t supposed to be the guitar player from Bridgeport who made good. I’m pretty sure that the current situation worked out as it has because while I thought about being the guitar player from Bridgeport who made good, John Mayer actually was being the guitar player. Oh well…it happens.

Anyway, I was poking around iTunes and noticed that there was a new John Mayer single out called Waiting On The World To Change. I went looking for info and, somewhat ashamed to admit, someone’s pre-release copy floating around on the net somewhere. Well, I didn’t find a copy but depending on where I checked, the release date for his new album Continuum was either sometime in July or September 12, 2006.

I also happened to stumble on a Bittorrent file at bt.etree.org purported to be a recording of a “secret” John Mayer show at the Hotel Café in West Hollywood, CA on 04/10/06 where he debuted songs from Continuum. So I download the file and was pleasantly surprised by twelve FLAC files just as advertised. According to “glass_slipper,” who taped the show, “This was a “secret” intimate show in a 140 person-capacity venue previewing “Continuum” material. John Mayer was publicly billed as “Bill Buchanan.”” and the set list for the show was as follows:

Intro
I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)
Waiting On The World To Change
Slow Dancing In a Burning Room
Vultures
Dreaming With A Broken Heart
Stop This Train
Good Love Is On The Way
In Repair
The Heart Of Life
I’m Gonna Find Another You
Gravity

This show at the Hotel Café gives you a glimpse of the new material in a stripped down setting with John working through some of the new songs on both electric and acoustic guitar with Pino Palladino providing accompaniment on bass. Hearing them in this context helps create a picture of what the first run through of the songs must have been like after the writing was finished. It’s a very intimate picture.

Mayer’s playing is near flawless as are his vocals. He seems relaxed and comfortable with the new material and just itching to share it. Pino Palladino’s performance is spot on, as always, and adds a nice dimension to what is essentially a solo performance. The tracks are accompanied by John Mayer’s trademark sense of humor which helps make the experience all the better, especially the wonderfully rank reference at the end of the song In Repair.

I look forward to hearing the songs here in the context of a studio album, though if for some reason that was never to happen, hearing them here would be enough. That’s for two reasons. The first reason being both Mayer’s and Palladino’s performances are excellent. The second reason is the wonderful job “glass_slipper” did in capturing them. The audio is clean and clear and even the captured crowd noise lends itself to the great performance. Who ever you are, you have my sincerest thanks for a job well done.

As far as the new songs themselves, you can expect to hear lots of John Mayer on the radio when the album is officially released. There are several excellent new pieces previewed here. However, I’m already very partial to In Repair, The Heart Of Life and the beautifully worded Stop This Train, which also comes with a great story behind it. In listening to him talk about the song, you could be led to the conclusion that Mayer is more than a bit insecure about it, and while listening to the intensely personal lyrics, his fear is understandable but completely unnecessary. Stop This Train is an outstanding snapshot of what Mayer is capable of as an artist.

In my personal opinion, Mayer is an amazing artist and his new material takes full advantage of that fact. He has managed to stay the same endearing writer as heard on Room For Squares, captures the lyrical maturity of Inside Wants Out and the musical maturity of Try. More than any other musical artist that I’m aware of, John Mayer is a work in progress. He manages to constantly evolve…and does it successfully at that. His writing, his singing and his playing have all evolved, taking with them the best parts of who John Mayer is and leaving the unneeded remnants by the wayside.

New: On the pod

Music:

Antigone Rising – Antigone Rising’s Traveling Circus
Billy Joel – 12 Gardens Live
Dream Theater – Dark Side Of The Mood (Official Bootleg)
Heart – 80’s Greatest
Mieka Pauley – Acoustic EP
Mieka Pauley – Out of Car Wrecks & Hurricanes EP
Mieka Pauley – 2004-07-27: Live @ The Living Room
Mieka Pauley – 2005-03-05: Live @ The Paradise Lounge
Mieka Pauley – 2005-06-23: Live @ The Living Room
Mieka Pauley – 2006-02-03: Live @ Club Passim
Richie Kotzen – Ai Senshi Z x R
The Wailin Jennys – Firecracker

Audiobooks:

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child – The Book of the Dead

Click to buy
The Book of the Dead

Quick Audiobook Reviews:

Augusten Burroughs – Possible Side Effects

Augusten Burroughs is just a wonderful writer. He can be funny and touching at the same time. In my opinion, he is also one of the best authors to write about love that I have ever read. He has such a talent for painting the people he loves in terms that make the words so transparent and real. That’s not all he’s good at either. He’s very good at writing funny, even if he, himself, says that he’s not really funny in person. If you liked Running With Scissors or Magical Thinking (or I’m assuming Sell-O-Vision and Dry, which I have not yet read or listened to) you will love Possible Side Effects.

Click to buy
Possible Side Effects

The Ambler Warning – Robert Ludlum

Let it never be said that Robert Ludlum couldn’t write an entertaining thriller. He, or who ever has been ghostwriting as him, definitely has a grasp of what it takes to be successful in the genre…but they do seem to be obsessed with memory, or rather the loss there of.

Click to buy
The Ambler Warning

Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist

This may actually be my favorite book. If not my favorite, it’s definitely the one I’ve listened to the most. Every few months I find myself listening to the unabridged version of The Alchemist read by Jeremy Irons. The Alchemist follows the story of a boy, Santiago, and his search for his own “Personal Legend.” The story takes this Shepard boy across the pastures of Spain through the deserts of Africa and to the Pyramids of Egypt. On his travels, he meets a king, a thief, a crystal merchant, an Englishman, the love of his life and, as the title implies, an Alchemist. As is similar with of all of Paulo Coelho’s writings, The Alchemist is an uplifting and moving story about following your heart.

Click to buy
The Alchemist

Quick Book Review:

Christopher Moore – Lamb (The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal)

I know, I know, I know…another f’n book by Christopher Moore. Talk about beating a dead horse. Sorry kids, my website. I’m just about done with Lamb and I wanted to tell you all to go out and read it while it’s still fresh in my severely askew melon. Lamb is a funny, and not all together sacrilegious, look at Jesus’ lost early years through the eyes of his best friend Biff. While the situations are extremely humorous, and some even risqué, Jesus is portrayed in an extremely reverent manner, with the vast majority of the mischief being perpetrated by none other than Biff himself. It’s an easy, fun and quick read…and if you’ve read any other Christopher Moore books you may even notice an appearance from a familiar face or two.

Click to buy
Lamb

Other Stuff from On the pod:

Completely unrelated to On the pod.net…my CD, The Sogno Suite, is now not only available through the Terminally Vague Media websites, but also through CD Baby. Check out there website at www.cdbaby.com for great independent artists…and me. If you click on the CD Baby graphic above, you’ll be brought right to The Sogno Suite page. There were lots of reasons for my doing this, but the main one was that in approximately two weeks, you should be able to download The Sogno Suite through the iTunes Music Store.

Getting a serious podcast off the ground is taking me a bit longer than I had anticipated, but I’m still working on it. Sorry if you haven’t heard anything new in a while, but it’s coming.

I hope you were all able to catch The Wailin’ Jennys on Great Performances on July 3rd with Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion. The Prairie show was great, but the Jennys were outstanding. Check your local PBS listings for a repeat showing.

Here’s the big news. On the pod.net has been asked to join forces with Finer Things Magazine to write music reviews for their publication. I’m personally very excited to be able to bring On the pod.net to a whole new audience. You’ll be able to start seeing reviews in the coming months along with a profile piece I was asked to write on myself and my background. Keep a look out for copies near you.

Well, I think that’s it for now. Hope you can check out some of the books I talked about above and some of the new music that I’ve been listening to.

Thanks & Keep Listening,

Joe

Happy 4th of July 2006

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to wish you all a happy 4th of July.

Have a wonderful and safe day.

Joe

Antigone Rising: Alive At Five 06/29/2006

Once again we’re going to do something a little different…

Have you ever gone to a show with no expectations and been completely knocked off your feet by what you saw? I’ve only had that experience twice in my life and they were both at the same place, the Palace Theater in New Haven, CT. One was Joe Satriani and the other was Melissa Etheridge. Ok, maybe a possible third time was the first time I saw Van Halen live. In general though, the live shows I’ve been to were good but nothing that left a lasting impression.

I went to see Antigone Rising play a free show as part of the city of Stamford, Connecticut’s “Live At Five” concert series on June 29th 2006 and as it turns out, I have to add another show to my list because I was blown away.

If you’re not yet familiar with Antigone Rising don’t feel too bad…

Antigone Rising is made up of five extraordinary musicians from the New York and New Jersey area. Cassidy on lead vocals, Cathy Henderson & Kristen Henderson on guitar and backup vocals ,Dena Tauriello on drums and Jen Zielenbach on Bass

They have released several independent albums including New And Used, Rock Album and Antigone Rising’s Traveling Circus. Their most recent album, From The Ground Up, was release by Lava/Hear Music and if you’ve ever entered a Starbucks coffee shop on the planet Earth, you’ve seen it for sale.

They have toured all over the States with some people you may have heard of like Joan Jett, moe, Rob Thomas, The Allman Brothers, Aerosmith and a little band called the Rolling Stones…oh, and they’ve also played the Lilith Fair and South by Southwest music festivals.

Remember when I said to not feel too bad, I lied…feel bad. Ok, Ok…don’t feel bad, but go to their website and buy their albums.

Back to the show…Antigone Rising came out and played a mix of old and new songs to a crowd of a few thousand. Taken individually, each member of Antigone was tremendous on their instrument. Each performance on drums, bass and guitar was powerful and spot on. The energy that radiated from Cathy, Kristen, Dena and Jen was something that you could actually see as well as feel.

Cassidy’s vocals were also powerful…inspiringly so, actually. As far “front men” go Cassidy can absolutely hang with any of them that I’ve ever seen. She has an all encompassing stage presence, that when combined with the familiarity of material and the apparent friendship of the band members, gives the person in the audience the impression that no stage is big enough to hold her.

The only thing that I can recommend is that you go see them…as soon as humanly possible. Seeing them outdoors was one thing, but with all the energy they give off during a performance seeing them in a club could only be an amazing experience. They only have a few dates listed on their site right now, but as with all bands they’re always on the road playing somewhere. Go find out where!!!

The Wailin’ Jennys – Firecracker

How do I love thee Wailin’ Jennys, let me count the ways. I guess that’s not entirely objective is it? When I reviewed the Jenny’s last album, 40 Days, I started out by saying that there were no other three people that I would rather be locked in a room with listening to them sing. I am infinitely grateful that I can still address that statement as truth. The Wailin’ Jenny’s new album, Firecracker, is another outstanding example of just how beautiful and expressive the human voice can be.

On Firecracker, Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta and Annabelle Chvostek continue to use flawless three-part harmonies to paint elegant pictures of sound. The songwriting on Firecracker is also worthy of being called elegant. The thoughtful, wistful lyrics effortlessly mirror the tone of the outstanding vocal performance.

Firecracker is also a bit of a departure from the Jennys previous incarnation in that several of the songs on the album are presented in a “band” setting as opposed to just the acoustic and vocal offerings of 40 Days. Also, songs written by Annabelle Chvostek, the newest member of the Jenny’s, both open and close Firecracker. Annabelle Chvostek’s gifts as a songwriter are a more than welcome addition to the writing talents of Ruth Moody and Nicky Mehta. Vocally, Chvostek offers the Jennys a tonally darker voice that is less similar to either Moody or Mehta than they are to each other. This gives Firecracker a new dimension that was not present on 40 Days. (Having purchased 40 Days in a digital format and not having access to the liner notes at the time of writing my review, I was just recently educated to the fact that Cara Luft and not Annabelle Chvostek sang on 40 Days…sorry.)

All of the songs on Firecracker are multifaceted. My favorite example of this is the song Swallow, another Chvostek penned song. At first listen, the song appears to be a simple, straight-forward folk song. However with each subsequent listening, Swallow begins to emanate a certain longing in the lyrics and in the interaction of voices and instruments that helps to create an almost palatable impression of a place that exists only in between the notes of the song. There are also the moments on Firecracker which demonstrate the magnificent tonality and intricacies which The Wailin’ Jennys are capable of in their performance and their songwriting. I found the round refrain near the end of Starlight to be a perfect example of this.

40 Days producer, David Travers-Smith was again enlisted to produce Firecracker and delivers another beautiful sounding album without any of the trademark signs of over-production. He has again been able to capture The Wailin’ Jennys just being The Wailin’ Jennys without adding anything unnecessary. This time out however, he included a sizeable group of musicians to add subtly different flavors to Firecracker while still maintaining the delicate essence of the Jennys.

How do I love thee Wailin’ Jennys, let me count the ways. Now if I could just get them to come to Connecticut or at least less than a two hour drive away, I’d be a very happy man. Oh…and a live album would be nice until they’re able to get back into the studio.

You can purchase Firecracker @

Josh Ritter – The Animal Years

Josh Ritter – The Animal Years

I seem to have been having a very difficult time putting my feelings about Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years into words. My main problem has been this…how many ways are there to say that someone is a gifted, intelligent and unique song writer?

I’ve been trying for the past few weeks to do The Animal Years justice with words and just feeling as if I were failing at it miserably. I really believe that it is one of those little gems that you could so easily miss if you weren’t paying attention. So…I guess I have to beg your pardon and ask you to try and trust me when I say that The Animal Years is a spectacular album and that it is most deserving of a listen.

In my efforts to say ANYTHING about this album, I even tried to compare The Animal Years to other artists, which is something that I’m loath to ever do. Even then, all I was able to come up with was this…

Picture a young Springsteen who’s infatuated with the work of Dylan and who effortlessly backs out the Rock aura and eases into more of an Indie atmosphere.

Let me just say, writing about music has let me hear things that I may never have heard otherwise…and this is one of the best of them.

You can purchase The Animal Years @

Mieka Pauley – Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes

Mieka Pauley – Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes (EP)
(…and Mieka Pauley’s Acoustic EP)

A few weeks back, I wrote up a series of mini-reviews for some of my favorite musical artists I found on Myspace Music. One of the artists I mentioned was Mieka Pauley. If you missed it, here it is:

Mieka Pauley:

http://www.mieka.com/news.shtml
http://www.myspace.com/miekapauley

Mieka Pauley offers up four downloadable MP3s on her Myspace page and all of them are, in a word, brilliant. She effortlessly mixes genres like Folk, Rock, Blues, Pop and contemporary R&B. Her voice is soulful and bluesy and her writing is smart and full of feeling. The overall impression of the tracks is powerful, the production is transparent and doesn’t get in the way at all and the orchestration is perfect for the individual tracks. Mieka Pauley’s influences do show through on occasion in these four songs, but again, her delivery is so powerful that they meld into the songs that she brings to life. She actually has two EPs available on iTunes for download. The first is the Mieka Pauley (Acoustic) EP from 2003 and the second is the Out of Car Wrecks & Hurricanes EP released in 2006. The Way It Is, Stronger, First Stone and Run are more than worth the download time. If she doesn’t have a deal already…she should!

Well, I took my own advice for once and went back to iTunes. Both of Mieka Pauley’s EPs, Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes and her self titled Acoustic EP, were priced at only $3.99 each. In the words of Neal Stephenson, I have “Poor Impulse Control” anyway, so that was just too much to resist. I picked up both of the EP’s for less than the cost of a full album on iTunes and I recommend you do the same. Why? Let me explain.

One reason is:
Mieka Pauley’s song Faster may very well be one of the best written songs I’ve ever heard…ever…from anyone. Understand? Let me repeat that if you weren’t paying attention, Mieka Pauley’s song Faster may very well be one of the best written songs I’ve ever heard. Lyrically she manages to weave her words together in such a way that as you listen, you nearly experience them for yourself. The verses loop back on themselves in a fashion similar to that of the “Fate” Mieka Pauley sings of.

The other four songs on Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes are also blessed with more outstanding songwriting. Lyrically and musically, Mieka Pauley’s songs Stronger, The Way It Is, First Stone and Draped In Blue each manage to shine on their own which give the EP an amazing overall presence with five extremely powerful songs all showcasing her signature bluesy, soulful and smooth voice.

Another reason is:
Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes is a beautifully produced EP by John Alagía who has worked with John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Dave Matthews and Liz Phair just to name a few. The arrangements and orchestrations are flawless and the instrumental performances given by the supporting musicians are stellar. The only problem with Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes is that it only lasts for five songs.

In contrast, the Mieka Pauley Acoustic EP offers up seven acoustic guitar and vocal tracks, four of which are fleshed out on Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes. The three songs not reworked, Run, Secret and Invincible, are all very good tracks. However, I think the reason I like the Acoustic EP so much is that it gives you, as the listener, the ability to “zoom in” on the full tracks from Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes and get to the very core of what the songs are.

When you listen to Out of Car Wrecks and Hurricanes and then transition into the Acoustic EP, you get to go from a very lush and full aural experience to one that is very sparse but incredibly passionate. So where does that leave the listener? My answer would be, with two albums that could not be more different and yet more closely related.

Putting it in another context…For me, Mieka Pauley’s two EPs are almost like looking at a Monet from across a room and then close up. When you see one of Monet’s Waterlillies or his work from his garden at Giverny at a distance you see a complete image full of light and color and depth. As you approach the image, it magically vanishes before your eyes and you’re left with the canvas, the brush strokes and dabs of color that are equally as impressive in their simplicity.

Albums I Missed:Rage Against The Machine – Live & Rare

Albums I Missed:

Rage Against The Machine – Live & Rare
January 1999

Listening to a Rage Against The Machine album is like hearing someone yell fire in a crowded theater. Rage Against The Machine live is like being in the burning theater itself.

With that in mind, it’s difficult to know where exactly to start a discussion about a band like Rage Against The Machine. As you can see, I’m already having a problem because there are no other bands like Rage Against The Machine…not even them anymore. The hard part about talking about them as a band is that it’s almost impossible to discuss their music without discussing their politics, because for all intents and purposes…politics is their music.

No where is that more evident than on their 1999 release, Live & Rare.

Live & Rare captures Rage Against The Machine at their best musically, but it also captures a snapshot of their politics. Live & Rare includes some of the best Rage tracks from their albums, but it also spotlights an urgent call for awareness about Leonard Peltier, a guest appearance by Chuck D from Public Enemy, an inspired musical rendition of Alan Ginsberg’s 1975 poem Hadda Be Playin’ On A Jukebox and an acidic cover of NWA’s Fuck Tha Police aimed at the Fraternal Order of Police of the city of Philadelphia.

Listening to Live & Rare you realize just how good of a band Rage Against The Machine actually was and what an incredibly unique guitar player Tom Morello is. Hearing him play his signature yet bizarre lines and then switch to a jazzy lead or a heavy rhythm part through the course of the songs on Live & Rare helps to cement his place as one of the most individual voices to ever pick up a guitar. The rhythm section of Tim Commerford on bass and Brad Wilk on drums is amazingly tight in this live setting. Then you have Zack de la Rocha, the voice behind Rage Against The Machine. In the song Freedom, he delivers the line, “Anger is a gift!” A case could be made that Zack de la Rocha’s gift is anger and he shared that gift with all of us through the music of Rage Against The Machine

Rage Against The Machine is not always easy to listen to. In fact, I personally find them very challenging. That is part of what made them so influential. Lyrically, their songs are so political that they exist in their own world of protest. They strive to expose the listener to a reality which exists but is rarely spoken about or receives coverage by the conventional media. Rage Against The Machine is challenging because the songs they wrote, at the very least, forced you to confront a world which seems to exist at odds with conventional wisdom and, at best, made you go out and do something about it.

You can purchase Live & Rare @

Dixie Chicks – Taking The Long Way

Dixie Chicks – Taking The Long Way

Natalie Maines has issues. Normally, outside of Jerry Springer, we don’t get to hear anyone try to deal with their problems, but on Taking The Long Way, we get to hear Natalie work through the consequences of a few misplaced words spoken on March 10, 2003.

Many of the songs on the new Dixie Chicks album openly address the consequences that resulted from Natalie Maines voicing her displeasure with having to share the state of Texas with the second president Bush during a London concert just weeks before the United States entered into its current war with Iraq in March of 2003.

In her own words she said, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Later, in an effort to clarify what was said, she went on to say, “I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view.” With those simple words, Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks found themselves at the center of media frenzy, receiving death threats and on the outs with the country music community as a whole.

After three years, the Dixie Chicks have returned with their fourth studio album, Taking The Long Way.

If you take the album out of context and try to ignore the reason for some of the lyrics, Taking The Long Way is a good album. It’s a really good album. If you add back in the circumstances, it’s even better. Knowing…well not really knowing but having a vague understanding of the environment these songs were written in help make the lyrics and emotions behind them seem just that much more personal and relevant.

There is a definite line drawn between earlier Dixie Chicks albums and Taking The Long Way. There is no Goodbye To Earl here which may disappoint some listeners, but the album doesn’t suffer from its absence. The signature musicianship that helped to make the Dixie Chicks earlier albums the successes they were is still evident on Taking The Long Way. However, it is showcased in songs that appear to have a new found sense of urgency to them and that seem more closely related to singer/songwriters like Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Carol King than other contemporary country artists one would normally associate with the Dixie Chicks.

In all respects, this is a more mature album by three individuals who were forced into a situation where they had to either grow as individuals and musicians or cease to exist. After hearing Taking The Long Way, I think they made the right choice.

You can purchase Taking The Long Way @

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

The Cure – Bloodflowers
The Cure – Disintegration
The Cure – Paris
The Cure – Show
The Cure – The Cure
The Cure – Wild Mood Swings
The Cure – Wish
My Chemical Romance – Life On The Murder Scene
Snow Patrol – Eyes Open
Richard Cheese – I’d Like A Virgin
Richard Cheese – Lounge Against The Machine
Richard Cheese – Tuxicity
Dio – The Very Beast Of Dio
Iron Maiden – The Number Of The Beast
Tool – Aenima
Tool – Lateralus
Tool – Undertow
Alice In Chains – Greatest Hits
The Dixie Dregs – King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents…
Joe Satriani – Additional Creations
Jaco Pastorius – The Word Is Out
Jaco Pastorius – Word Of Mouth Revisited
Niacin – Live: Blood, Sweat & Beers
Niacin – Organik
Audiovent – Dirty Sexy Knights In Paris
Hum – Downward Is Heavenward
Hum – You’d Prefer An Astronaut
Bic Runga – Birds
Indigo Girls – Cold Beer & Remote Control
Indigo Girls – Indigo Girls EP
Jewel – Goodbye Alice In Wonderland
Tori Amos – Scarlet’s Hidden Treasures
Richard Marx – Music Hall: Koln, Germany 05/13/92
A Perfect Circle – eMOTIVe
A Perfect Circle – Mer De Noms
A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step
Lacuna Coil – Karmacode
Pain Of Salvation – Be
Ray Wilson – Change
Ray Wilson – The Next Best Thing
Barenaked Ladies – Everything To Everyone
The Silent Hill Videogame Soundtracks from http://www.evilunleashed.com

———-

Other Stuff from On the pod:

Well…judging from the above list, I guess I have some listening to do. I decided to use up my balance at one of the websites I usually download music from, so that’s the reason for all the new albums. Still, there’s a ton of stuff to listen to.

I’m actually going to be working on reviews for the new Dixie Chicks album as well as The Animal Years by Josh Ritter…which I’m listening to as I write this.

You may have noticed the three Richard Cheese albums in the album list. He’s just brilliant. He covers popular songs in a lounge music setting. You really haven’t lived until you’ve heard Gin & Juice done as Lounge music . It’s really kind of surreal.

Something I didn’t mention before is that I picked up a couple of good microphones so I can try and start keeping up with the podcast side of On the pod. I dig K7, but I’d like to try and do something that doesn’t sound like an answering machine. I’m working on a format and contemplating a theme song for the show. Hopefully, I’ll have a new podcast up in a week or two.

If you noticed all my babbling about a fashion show for the past couple of weeks, it’s over so you won’t be hearing about it anymore. If you’re interested in hearing some of the music, you can check out http://www.pseudojoe.com or http://www.myspace.com/pseudojoe for a few samples. You can also purchase a disc of all the music from the show called “The Sogno Suite” by clicking the PayPal button on this page or over at http://www.pseudojoe.com, http://www.myspace.com/pseudojoe or http://www.terminallyvague.com.

Speaking of Terminally Vague…Terminally Vague Media is actually my new thing. I started it as a music and internet publishing company and it will be an umbrella of sorts for On the pod.net, On the pod @ myspace, Pseudojoe.com, Pseudojoe @ myspace and pretty much everything else I have my hands into. You can see most of the other projects I’m working on at the Terminally Vague website @ http://www.terminallyvague.com.

Well, like I said at the beginning…I have some listening to do, so I’m off to write up Josh Ritter & the Dixie Chicks and listen to all the cool new stuff I got.

Have fun…

Joe

Myspace Music

Myspace Music

Myspace is huge. It’s everywhere. Sometimes it seems that everybody has a Myspace page so everybody else needs to have a Myspace page just to keep up. While its gotten some bad press lately, Myspace is not just a bunch of old men trying to lure fourteen year old girls, or the police officers pretending to be them, out into mall parking lots for a Vladimir Nabokov inspired rendezvous. There is a thriving music community on Myspace, which I am pleased to say, I am a part of.

For every artist you hear on the radio, fourteen or fifteen times an hour, there are hundreds of independent artists who are infinitely more talented. Myspace Music gives artists an opportunity to showcase and promote themselves on a scale never before available to your average garage band. Bands and musicians from all over the world can post their gigs, MP3s, blogs, promotional material, pictures and pretty much anything else you can think of. They can also build up a community of fans, heroes and other likeminded artists around themselves who can take their names, their songs…and, for all intents and purposes, their futures to the “wired” and “unwired” masses alike.

There is so much great music out there that you are jut not hearing because the music industry in it’s current form, isn’t designed to allow it…or as more often than not is the case, chooses not to allow it. I guess this is my attempt to help inform the “wired” masses about some of the great music I’ve managed to find on Myspace Music.

Chelsea Williams:

http://www.myspace.com/chelseawilliams
http://www.chelseawilliams.com

Chelsea Williams’ MP3s were some of the first I downloaded and I was not disappointed. She has four tracks available for download on her Myspace Music page: Wait, Undecided, It’s Not Too Late and You Don’t Want To Know. They’re very simple tracks made up of just her voice and acoustic guitar and yet they are elegant in their simplicity. Chelsea Williams is a smart, intelligent writer with a sexy, jazzy, sophisticated voice and a knack for melody. Hearing her four songs makes me want two things. The first would be to hear what she would sound like in a more orchestrated and structured environment. I would love to hear a professionally produced studio album. It would be like putting a the right frame around a piece of art, the core is still there but you have the support that lends itself to making the work look even better. The second thing that I want when I hear Chelsea Williams is…more.

Gabor 13:

http://www.myspace.com/gabor13
http://www.gabor13.com

Gabor 13, from Hungary, is retro rockin’ lo-tech funk at its best. They have four downloadable MP3s available on their Myspace page: E74, Loose4, Love and Provaa…all instrumental and all worth a listen. All the tracks are sonically interesting and intense and flow with an amazing amount of energy. I’m curious to know more about the band as a whole as the only description on Myspace lists them as being from Hungary and their website does not provide any additional information, it does however provide additional MP3s for download. Listening to Gabor 13, I’d be curious to find out if everything was recorded live in studio or if any samples were used. Either way their four tracks are just fun to listen to because it’s so rare to hear something so raw and full of energy.

Jan James:

http://www.myspace.com/janjames
http://www.janjames.com

Jan James can sing. She’s got a deep, funky voice and just tears up the blues on her tracks. Her band also rips and who ever is playing guitar for her sounds like Gary Moore meeting Stevie Ray Vaughn in a dark alley. Three of her four downloads are samples of the full tracks and judging from Drive Me Home, Good Times Roll In and Hush the rest of the tracks should sound great. Rock Your Woman is a full length download and really showcases her guitarist. It almost has that recorded live feel to it. I’m sure a Jan James show would be something to see…and hear.

Late Nite Access:

http://www.myspace.com/lateniteaccess
http://www.lateniteaccess.com/core.html

Late Nite Access are pros. They play like pros, their recording sounds like a pro recording, their production is top notch, the band as a whole is tight and when it comes right down to it…they rock. They have three downloadable MP3’s available on their Myspace page, two samples and one full track. The full track, All Too Easy sounds like a demo, but still showcases Late Nite Access’ strengths. As I said before the band is tight, the vocals are strong as is the musicianship and the lyrics hold up too. The two sample tracks are Save Me and Money. Their tags list them as coming from an EP. If that’s the case it sounds like it was done by, you guessed it, a pro. The sound is crisp and clear and everything is where it should be. I can only imagine that a major label debut is sure to follow sometime soon.

Law:

http://www.myspace.com/lawsofmusic

Law is one of the more unique bands that I found on Myspace. There are shades of Ben Folds and Weezer as well as what might be an acid flashback to the late sixties. Law gives you four MP3s for download: Domino Effect, Headphones, I Couldn’t and Lets Meet all featuring drums, bass and keys with a sense of humor. If the Beach Boys, back in the day, ever decided to venture off into the adult industry I Couldn’t would have been on the soundtrack. All of Law’s songs are catchy and fun with good production value and would be right at home on your iPod.

Martina Axen:

http://www.myspace.com/martinaaxen

Martina Axen only has one downloadable MP3 on her Myspace page, but it’s completely worth a visit. The song is listed as the Xmas Song Demo. It’s Dark and heavy and sexy and in general…awesome. The track is tight and polished and the musicianship is out of this world. The guitars, in particular, are fantastic. It’s hard to really talk about an artist based on one track because there’s always the possibility that it was a fluke. But you know what? Based on this one track, I’d be more than willing to find out.

Mieka Pauley:

http://www.mieka.com/news.shtml
http://www.myspace.com/miekapauley

Mieka Pauley offers up four downloadable MP3s on her Myspace page and all of them are, in a word, brilliant. She effortlessly mixes genres like Folk, Rock, Blues, Pop and contemporary R&B. Her voice is soulful and bluesy and her writing is smart and full of feeling. The overall impression of the tracks is powerful, the production is transparent and doesn’t get in the way at all and the orchestration is perfect for the individual tracks. Mieka Pauley’s influences do show through on occasion in these four songs, but again, her delivery is so powerful that they meld into the songs that she brings to life. She actually has two EPs available on iTunes for download. The first is the Mieka Pauley (Acoustic) EP from 2003 and the second is the Out of Car Wrecks & Hurricanes EP released in 2006. The Way It Is, Stronger, First Stone and Run are more than worth the download time. If she doesn’t have a deal already…she should!

So there you have it. I could go on for damn near ever, but I have to draw the line somewhere I guess. Without having this turn in to a thirty-seven (“…in a row?”) page review of everything I’ve found at Myspace Music, there are some other artists I would just like to quickly mention.

Once Just:
http://www.myspace.com/oncejust
A very cool and fun Ska band.

Kind Of Girl:
http://www.myspace.com/kindofgirldk
A cool band in the vein of Death Cab For Cutie.

Letters From Earth:
http://www.myspace.com/lettersfromearthband
http://www.lettersfromearth.us
A no bullshit hard rock band that should be playing the main stage at Ozzfest.

Slow Signal Fade:
http://www.myspace.com/theslowsignalfade
A great band with ambient soundscapes and cool guitar sounds.

Stephanie’s Id:
http://myspace.com/stephaniesid
A very theatrical band with a very unique take on their music.

Tiffany Page:
http://www.myspace.com/tiffanyhpaige
A great voice in contemporary female country music.

Ye Gods!:
http://myspace.com/yegods
http://www.ye-gods.co.uk
Your modern, classic metal band with a sense of humor. They may very well have influenced Spinal Tap. Douglas Adams would have loved these guys.

I absolutely think that everybody I mentioned here is great. I respect each and every one of them for doing their own thing and putting it out there for you and me to listen to. All of these bands, not to mention the rest of the unsigned, independent bands on Myspace Music are kind of like an alternate reality if you think about it. They exist, despite what the major labels and the chain stores and the video music channels and the radio stations of the world tell you exist. They exist because they love music and they love making it. The least we can do is listen.

Tool – 10,000 Days

Tool – 10,000 Days

I somehow have managed to live under a rock when it comes to Tool. 10,000 Days is their fourth studio album, fifth if you count their EP Opiate, and the first one that I’ve actually listened to. I think I may have been missing out.

10,000 Days is a dark and heavy album with complex rhythms and intense lyrics and is just about flawless in its execution. My only real complaint about the album is that the vocals are a little too buried in the mix sometimes, but other than that…nothing. Sonically, it’s great. The guitars have a great, thick, rich distortion that just rips and the bass and drums work here are outstanding.

The tracks are relatively long on 10,000 Days, with the exception of two clocking in between five and eleven minutes. You could think that with such lengthy cuts the album would drag, but it really doesn’t. You have the epic combo of Wings For Marie (Pt. 1) and 10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2) clocking in at 17:25 total yet it still breaths and moves…without the aid of the fast forward button.

Those two tracks, in particular, are almost a metal version of ambient music. Both Wings Pt. 1 and 2 envelop you in their own “environment” if you will. They try to take you into the story they tell not just through their words, but through the music that makes up the two tracks. It would be easy to try and make a comparison to Pink Floyd as far as the overall feel of Wings Pt. 1 and 2, but I think that would be too convenient because they really do deserve to be listened to.

Another high point for me, no pun intended, was the track Rosetta Stoned. This song is basically a cautionary tale against Mulder and Scully ever dropping acid. Area 51, alien abductions, the chosen one or just a bad trip? Lyrically, the song is unique to say the least, and musically it’s intense and heavy and even comes with its own anal probe guitar solo. How can you pass something like that up?

In terms of a modern metal or progressive metal album, I really think this is the real deal. 10,000 Days just manages to seem bigger than most albums that I’ve heard in the genre lately…it’s aurally bigger, bigger in its intensity and bigger in its scope.

If the previous Tool albums are as good as this one is, then I have defiantly been missing out. I guess I know what will be “New: On the pod” next time…Opiate, Undertow, Aenima and Lateralus.

You can purchase 10,000 Days @

John5 – Songs For Sanity

John5 – Songs For Sanity

I guess that I have been holding on to a misconception as fact for quite sometime with regard to the modern guitar player. I’ve listened to a lot of music and I have labored under the delusion that modern guitarist really couldn’t play all that well, being a guitarist…that gave me hope, but I digress. I don’t mean that as a slam against today’s guitarist, I just mean that it seems as if the art of the guitar solo has been dying a slow death. Once in a while, you’ll hear someone take a lead, but they’re not really focused on as part of the song anymore, they’re more a novelty…hell, solos are even cut from radio versions of the songs they are in.

That little diatribe brings me to this…I recently read an interview with John5 and while I don’t really remember what was discussed, I do remember being very impressed with him. Granted, with a lot of what’s published today there’s always a spin on it, but I was impressed by the way he spoke about music and his playing. So…when I saw John5’s Songs For Sanity, I decided to give it a try. After listening to it and more specifically by the time I finished the song Blues Balls, I was not too proud to admit that I was wrong. Actually, my initial reaction was more like, “HOLY S@#%, THIS F#@$%# GUY CAN PLAY!!!”

I’ll be the first to admit that as an album, Songs For Sanity is a bit weird. It’s not terribly cohesive in terms of the tracks relating to each other, it doesn’t tell a story…actually it’s more like an album with a split personality. On one hand you have exactly what you might expect by looking at the cover…a dark, heavy, shred-fest with mood swings. However, after the first few tracks you’re presented with songs that end up being a bit more like that little red-headed kid you heard about from down south that spent a few years too many locked in the root cellar. Mom always said, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

There are several tracks on Songs For Sanity that just drip with southern flavor like the proverbial gravy off a biscuit. Gein With Envy, Behind The Nut Love, Fiddlers and Death Valley, featuring guitar legend Albert Lee, all showcase John5’s amazing talents as a picker as well as what appears to be his deep appreciation and respect for the art form. The tracks are stellar in terms of their technical proficiency, but if you didn’t know what you were listening to you would think you had ended up on a Steve Morse album, not an album by one of the guys who played with Marilyn Manson.

Mind you his duet with Albert Lee is followed by Perineum, featuring the equally renowned Steve Vai. Perineum couldn’t exist in a galaxy further away from Death Valley. If these two tracks were kids in the same high school, they wouldn’t even look at each other much less get close enough to share an album. Between John5 & Vai, the speed of sound seems to be increased by a few mph. Just as a side note, I’ve never heard Vai sound less like Vai with the exception of his work on the Halo 2 soundtracks…maybe.

The remaining tracks on the album just fly by in really heavy (and really cool) rhythms and blurs of speedy melodic lines. I keep saying speedy, but there is a lot of melody here too. Soul Of A Robot is a track that mixes both, with plenty of those really tiny connected notes you see on sheet music but a middle section that has a very melodic theme, as short as it may be. You also have a track like 2 Die 4, that’s made up of a haunting acoustic guitar part backed by odd and eerie sample tracks.

In terms of an instrumental guitar album, it’s really right up there with the better one’s I’ve heard. I don’t think it will ever be as well know as say, Joe Satriani’s Surfing With The Alien, but players and aficionados of the genre will recognize Songs For Sanity for what it is…an amazing display of fret board prowess that is hardly one dimensional. I see lots of reader’s poll awards in John5’s future.

You can purchase Songs For Sanity @

New: On the pod

New: On the pod

Music:

Dixie Chicks – Taking The Long Way
The Wreckers – Stand Still, Look Pretty
Rik Emmett – Westwood One Live – Absolutely Tour
John5 – Songs For Sanity
Lisa Loeb – The Very Best Of
Obsession – Carnival Of Lies
Selections from Myspace Music

———-

Audiobooks:

The Ambler Warning – Robert Ludlum

Augustan Burroughs – Possible Side Effects

———-

Quick Audiobook Review:

Ben Bova – Saturn

On the surface, it’s a pretty interesting as far as Sci-fi novels go. A Theocratic government, or should I say governments, have come to power on earth. Some of the dissidents have fled to the lunar colonies but some remain. A mysterious donor has sponsored a mission to study Saturn and it looks like all of the remaining misfits are going to be on it. Below the surface, although not so far as you have to actually look, Saturn is an attack on religious fanaticism without any real ideas on how to fix it in the long term…still, it’s not a bad way to pass the time.

———-

Other Stuff @ On the pod

Well, a while ago I mentioned that I was writing music for a fashion show. It’s all done and actually I liked it so much that I had some CDs made up to try and schlep. If you’re remotely curious about the fashion show, check out a blog that I’m also working on for it at www.sogno-boutique.blogspot.com.



If you want to listen to some of the music, you can go to www.myspace.com/pseudojoe and sample some of the over 40 minutes of music I wrote for the show. If you like it, I should be selling a few CDs at the show on June 10th and eventually at that same myspace site.

In other stuff news, I got the official On the pod.net promotional cards yesterday and they look amazing. A big thanks goes out to SuzieQ @ Signz & Dezines by SuzieQ at http://www.suzieillustrator.com. If you are ever in the market for a graphic designer or just someone to help you with your business cards, she comes highly recommended by On the pod.net.

As far as reviews go, I just finished one for John5’s new album Songs For Sanity and I’m going to work on a group review for some of the music I’ve found on myspace. There are some really great musicians who have pages up at myspace music and they really are worth checking out.

You may have also noticed the Barnes & Noble links that have popped up around the site. I was looking for a way to make getting the music I was talking about easier so I wanted to link a store. I had a lot of problems with the Amazon website so I decided to use Barnes & Noble.

That’s really it for now I guess, so I’ll let you all get back to it.

Thanks for visiting On the pod.net

Joe

Neil Young – Living With War

Neil Young – Living With War

First and foremost, Living With War is a Neil Young album.

It’s good and bad for all the reasons that Neil Young albums are. There’s good writing and ok singing, but there’s also a lot of heart.

As for content, let me put it this way…I’m 34 years old, I missed Vietnam and the Antiwar movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s…which is why I’ve never heard anything like Living With War before.

You are presented with ten (nine if you don’t count Young’s rendition of America The Beautiful as the album’s closer) melodic, seemingly “nice” songs that are orchestrated in such a way to add to that impression and yet within them, they contain such politically scathing lyrics that they just ooze contempt for the current U.S. administration and its policies.

Rather quickly, the term “Protest Album” comes to mind, and vividly at that.

I think Living With War, as an album, can best be summed up in the lyrics of one it’s songs…Let’s Impeach The President

“Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones

What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank god he’s cracking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean

Thank God”

If Neil Young wasn’t being listened to, watched or followed by the Bush administration before…he is now.

Good luck Mr. Young, good luck.

If you would like to listen to
Neil Young’s Living With War in its entirety,
please click the album cover below.

You can purchase Living With War @

Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two

Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two

Composers: Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

So Master Chief, Cortana and Sergeant Johnson walk into a bar…

If you don’t know about Halo, then odds are you’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the last few years as Microsoft has been hyping this Xbox game so much you’d think it was the second coming. I, being of the techno-geek persuasion, would tend to lean towards the second coming side of things myself, but that’s another story.

Halo was the flagship, the killer app if you will, of the original Xbox launch several years ago and has since spawned a sequel, three novels, a plethora of action figures, an upcoming big budget Hollywood movie and a soon to be released third game, which will be the reason I buy Xbox 360…like I said, I’m a techno-geek.

The second game in the series, Halo 2, told the continuing story of Master Chief, Spartan-117 or just John to his friends (uh, wait…he has no friends, they were all killed during the fall of Reach…oh, forget it), and humankind’s ongoing battle for survival against the forces of the Covenant, a theocratic alien civilization bent on eradicating all traces humanity from the annals of galactic history. (Apologies to all of my English teachers for the run-on sentence.)

With the release of Halo 2 in 2004 came the Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume 1. The album contained songs from and inspired by the game and featured artists such as Breaking Benjamin, Incubus and Steve Vai. There were portions of the score included on Volume 1, but the majority of music was supplied by guest artists. Now, two years after the initial release of the game, Sumthing Else Music Works has decided to release Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume 2. Written by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, Volume 2 is made up of the original game score from Halo 2.

I can hear you saying to yourself, why do we need a soundtrack album, much less an original score album from a video game? Ok, I can see your point…but if you’ve played Halo or any other video game in recent years, you will have already realized that game music is not what it used to be when you were pumping quarters into Ms. Packman back in the day. Technology has allowed game developers to include full, rich, dramatic and best of all, real music in video games. In Halo 2, the music is as much a part of the game as the visual effects are.

Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori have created some serious music here. Its music that could be, and would be, right at home with any film score. A full half of the album is presented in Suite form, giving you a lengthy view into the themes that made up a specific section of Halo 2. The remaining six tracks are individual, shorter, thematic slices of the game.

Volume 2, as a whole, contains an interesting mix of acoustic and electronic elements that give the soundtrack its own voice. From start to finish, you can find orchestral movements, choral movements, percussion pieces, electric guitars, tribal drums and several other unique elements. A stellar example of this is the Mombasa Suite. It begins with an orchestral piece that morphs into a modern drum and bass piece. From there you’re given a sampling of vocals, synth, electric guitars and drums which lead you into the percussion finale of the piece.

One of the more interesting facts about the album is that it was produced by Nile Rogers. Yes, that Nile Rogers…of the 70’s band Chic and producer for artists such as Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, The B-52’s, the Vaughn Brothers and David Lee Roth to name a few. Sumthing Else Music Works is actually Nile Rogers’ own company.

With all that having been said, would I recommend you listen? Well, soundtracks aren’t for everybody and I would have to imagine that original score albums probably appeal to an even narrower group of people, but this album is a great example of what music for new media can be. It’s very lush and eclectic and intense. If you like soundtracks and scores, or if you’re looking for something a little different, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

Personally, I hope that both Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori are tapped to write the score for Halo 3.

…and the film while we’re at it.

You can purchase Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two @

New On the pod

New On the pod

Dead Can Dance – A Passage In Time
Dead Can Dance – Aion
Dead Can Dance – Into The Labyrinth
Dead Can Dance – Selections From North America 2005
Dead Can Dance – Spiritchaser
Halo 2 – Volume 2
Mattias IA Eklundh – Freak Guitar: The Road Less Traveled
Midnight Blue – Take The Money And Run
Mr. Mister – Live USA August 1986 (Live Recording)
The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
Soul Sirkus – Soul SirkUS 2005.04.05 (Live Recording)
Joe Stump – Night of the Living Shred
Vertical Horizon – 08/05/05 @ 930 Club in Washington DC (Live Recording)

———-

Audiobook: The Best of Fantasy & Sci-Fi Magazine (Listening Now)

———-

Quick Audiobook Review:

Kevin Brockmeier – The Brief History of the Dead: A really cool book about the living, the dead and the end of the world…and how they relate to each other. It’s based on the premise that there are two stages of death, the first being that when we die we exist on another plane as long as someone alive still remembers us and the second begins when we pass out of human memory.

B&N.com: The Brief History of the Dead

David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas: This is one of, if not the, most ambitious book I have ever listened to or read. This book is actually six individual stories woven into an expansive narrative that encompasses all of the characters in the stories. The book spans an enormous timeline that begins with a ship sailing toward an early San Francisco and ends in a future populated with clones and massive corporations. Each section of the Audiobook was read by different people, including Scott Brick, a personal favorite, adding an individual voice to each of the characters. It’s a really wild read.

B&N.com: Cloud Atlas

———-

Christopher Moore: Author

I know I mentioned him before, but I just finished reading Christopher Moore’s first book, Practical Demonkeeping and the book that came before A Dirty Job, The Stupidest Angel. If you have a slightly twisted sense of humor, or for some reason want to develop one, read his stuff. He’s just funny, no two ways about it.

Christopher Moore

B&N.com: Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore

B&N.com: Stupidest Angel:
A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

———-

Other Stuff: Part i

There’s a new On the pod.net podcast up over at Pod-O-Matic that you can check out. I posted it on Saturday (05/13/06).

Other Stuff: Part ii

Well, if you’ve been looking around you might have noticed some of the changes to www.onthepod.net. I’ve been busy updating some of the links for the page and adding new ones. I’ve also been working on the On the pod.net Myspace page @ www.myspace.com/onthepod and trying to make it look a little more like this one.

The Myspace thing is a little weird but I’ve managed to add a bunch of friends that may or may not be people I really respect in some form or another…and no, I don’t mean the girls with the pseudo-porn sites that keep asking for add’s. If you end up there, check them out…I think the list is kind of impressive. (Small and easy for anybody to do, but impressive)

Other Stuff: Part iii

In other non-On the pod.net news, but news I want to share none the less, yours truly was actually “hired” by Krista Camputaro, owner of Sogno, Boutique of Dreams to write music for a fashion show on June 10th as part of the Audubon Arts On The Edge Festival in New Haven, CT. The opportunity came along out of the blue and it’s just something I never thought of doing before. It’s actually going very well, but I am seriously crunched for time with the project happening so soon. Still, it’s very cool to be writing again and I can’t wait to see how it turns out, not just the music, but the whole thing.

If you’ll be in the area and want to check out the fashion show, as I said before it will take place on June, 10th 2006, which is also the kickoff day of the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas, so there will be lots to see in the area.

The show itself will happen in front of Sogno, Boutique of Dreams which is located at 83B Audubon Street in New Haven, CT. It will begin at 4:00 p.m. and run somewhere between 40 & 50 minutes.

For directions to Audubon Street and Sogno, Boutique of Dreams, you can check out the Contact Us section of the Sogno website at http://sognoboutique.com/contactus.html or CLICK HERE.

Jake Shimabukuro – Dragon

Prairie Music

Jake Shimabukuro – Dragon

To quote Monty Python, ”…and now for something completely different.”

This is the best Ukulele album I’ve ever heard!!!

No, wait…come back!

Seriously though, Jake Shimabukuro’s latest release, Dragon, is amazing. You would be missing out if you wrote it off. I have rarely heard other instrumentalists capture the voice of their instrument as clearly and passionately as Jake Shimabukuro.

My introduction to Jake came from a friend at work who excitedly told me that, “You just have to see this.” “This” as it turned out was a video clip from youtube.com of some guy in Central Park playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the Ukulele. Enter, Jake Shimabukuro.

So, I watch the video clip and I’m just floored. I mean, this guy is just ripping it up on…the Ukulele. I have played guitar for nineteen years and I was just floored by this guy playing what I had always assumed to be just kind of a “toy.” This one video clip made me realize that I was hideously ill-informed and frankly I was kind of embarrassed by thinking of myself as a musician and yet being so ignorant about music.

The very first thing I did, after picking my jaw up off the floor, was hit the web and try to find out who Jake Shimabukuro is. I found his website at www.jakeshimabukuro.com. I did some digging and found out that he has had five albums out since 2002: Skyline, Sunday Morning, Crosscurrent, Walking Down Rainhill and his most recent, Dragon.

I stumbled on a copy of Dragon at a local Borders a few weeks later and instantly convinced a friend to buy it after a, “you gotta hear this” and a quick listen. We ended up splitting the hefty eighteen dollar price tag (why Borders, why?) and now I have an album to tell you about.

Dragon is not a Ukulele album. It’s a very well crafted instrumental album where the main instrument happens to be a Ukulele. You’re presented with twelve songs that showcase Jake Shimabukuro’s command of the Ukulele and also his very accomplished songwriting talents. The songs are all fleshed out with good structure and melodies, while his playing is incredibly fluid and spot on.

For any musicians reading this, if you’ve never heard two-hand tapping done on a Ukulele, listen to the title track on Dragon. Here’s another stray thought, I wonder if the distorted “guitar” track on Shake It Up! was done on the Ukulele? Hey, if Bela Fleck can have an electric banjo, why not an electric Ukulele?

If I had to categorize it for anyone without my iPod and their very own “Prairie Music” genre, I guess I would place it under the Jazz section. However there are echoes of several different musical styles on Dragon including Latin, Rock and New Age as well as Jazz.

Overall, Dragon, while having its roots in Jazz, is a very easy album to listen to. Its acoustic vibe doesn’t get overly complicated just to show that it can. Instrumentally, the album is flawless and sonically, I think you will be as surprised by what the Ukulele actually sounds as I was.

To Jake and all of the other Ukulele players out there in the world, I think I owe you an apology for taking so long to figure out what a great instrument you have.

You can purchase Dragon @

The Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Podcast

Podcast

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

Here’s another podcast that I continually find myself listening to. If you’re a fan of NPR, specifically weekends on NPR, you’ve probably heard Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! If not, you don’t know what you’re missing.

The podcast is posted every Monday and essentially replays the preceding weekend’s radio broadcast. I know what you’re thinking…big deal, right? Well if you missed the show you can still hear it and, the best part is, it’s free. Other shows broadcasted on NPR are available for download, but several of them you have to pay for through services like audible. Don’t get me wrong, I love audible, but it’s nice not to have to pay for something once in a while.

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! is based out of Chicago and is a “co-production” of Chicago Public Radio and NPR. It’s hosted by Peter Sagal who is assisted by “Official Judge and Scorekeeper” and NPR veteran, Carl Kasell. Every week, you can also find a trio of panelists more often than not made up by Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Sue Ellicot (London Times/New York Times), Adam Felber (Writer/Performer), P.J. O’Rourke (Author/Atlantic Monthly), Charles Pierce (Boston Globe), Paula Poundstone (Comedian), Roxanne Roberts (Washington Post) or Mo Rocca (Contributor to all things great and small).

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! is set up as a quiz show where questions based on current events are asked to the panelists and they are awarded points based on their answers. It may sounds dry, but with segments like Who’s Carl This time, Carl Kasell’s Way Back Machine, Listener Limerick Challenge and Carl Kasell’s Countdown, the silliness that is the world we live in becomes apparent. There are two listener call in segments and another called Not My Job where they have various celebrity guests try to answer questions on topics they know nothing about.

If your still reading this and think it sounds geeky…yeah, it probably is. But it’s entertaining. Think of it as fun for the educated masses…I mean, come on it is NPR after all. That being said, it’s funny and clean and topical and it’s definitely worth a listen…oh yeah, and you can win Carl Kasell’s voice on your answering machine.

The Little Willies – The Little Willies

Country/Jazz

The Little Willies – The Little Willies

The Little Willies, The Little Willies, The Little Willies…it’s just kind of fun to say, don’t you think? Well, the self titled album by The Little Willies is just as fun to listen to.

In case you were wondering, The Little Willies are Lee Alexander, Jim Campilongo, Norah Jones and Dan Riser with The Ordinaries singing background vocals and special guest Jon Dryden playing organ and accordion.

The Little Willies offer up thirteen songs, four originals and nine covers that are easy to listen to and feature an eclectic mix of country, jazz and bluegrass influences.

All of the recordings on this album sound as if they were done by people with huge smiles on their faces who really love what they do. Nowhere is that more apparent on this ablum than the must listen closing track, Lou Reed. I don’t want to spoil it for you but my favorite line of the song has to be, “He was just tipping them over, he wasn’t eating them.”

Like I said…fun stuff.

Here’s the track listing with writer credits for the album:

1. Roly Poly
(Fred Rose)

2. I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
(Fred Rose, Hank Williams)

3. Love Me
(Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller)

4. It’s Not You It’s Me
(Richard Julian, Ashley Moore)

5. Best Of All Possible Worlds
(Kris Kristofferson)

6. No Place To Fall
(Townes Van Zandt)

7. Roll On
(Lee Alexander)

8. I Gotta Get Drunk
(Willie Nelson)

9. Streets Of Baltimore
(Tompall Glaser, Harlan Howard)

10. Easy As The Rain
(Richard Julian, Jim Campilongo)

11. Tennessee Stud
(Jimmy Driftwood)

12. Night Life
(Walter M. Freeland, Paul F. Buskirk, Willie Nelson)

13. Lou Reed
(Lee Alexander, Richard Julian, Norah Jones)

You can purchase The Little Willies @

Billy Squier – Happy Blue

Rock

Billy Squier – Happy Blue

In 1998 Billy Squier released Happy Blue, a collection of eleven solo acoustic songs. While acoustic albums are not new, they rarely display a change in artistic direction as drastic as the one here. Happy Blue is heavily influenced by Billy Squier’s affection for the Blues. His presentation of the songs included on Happy Blue seems to have been done as a tribute to the art form as opposed to an attempt to co-opt the Blues into his own musical style. The only exception to that appears to be a slightly misguided attempt at an acoustic blues rendition of his 80’s hit The Stoke aptly titled, Stroke Me Blues.

Overall, the album itself is a very laidback affair with a lot of heart and, in my opinion, a respectable way to pass the time. Happy Blue also includes a cover of the Joni Mitchell classic, River and is capped off by a very interesting recording of his song Two. Give it a listen.

Buckcherry – 15

Heavy +

Buckcherry – 15

If albums were people, 15 by Buckcherry would be the illegitimate love child spawned from the unholy union of Guns N’ Roses and The Black Crows. Did I mention that mom might have occasionally played slap and tickle with assorted members of the Rolling Stones just for kicks?

The first single from 15 is the over-the-top, creatively named, Crazy Bitch. As alluded to by the title, the lyrics in this song are touchingly poignant, not offensive in the least and perfectly suitable for small children. (editor’s note: the preceding statement may not, in fact, be factual) While lacking in subtlety, the song is definitely fun. It grooves and has a chorus that, while vulgar, I promise you will sing to yourself for days.

The newly reformed Buckcherry have released their third album, 15, following their self titled debut and their sophomore effort, Time Bomb. If your only points of musical reference for Buckcherry are the singles Lit Up and, the above mentioned, Crazy Bitch… you might be in for a bit of a surprise.

In listening to this album, my overall reaction for sometime was…confusion. Taking Crazy Bitch as a given, there are also songs like Sorry, a simple and seeming heartfelt ballad, that appears to be Crazy Bitch’s exact opposite. Further on in the course of the album, you have Broken Glass, that seems almost “punk” in it’s intensity followed by Back In The Day with it’s almost “pop” sensibility.

Don’t get me wrong, there are threads that tie 15 together. Josh Todd’s voice and Keith Nelson’s guitar work permeate this album, but with the addition of and Jimmy Ashhurst on bass, Stevie D. on guitar and Xavier Muriel on drums there’s a certain guitar sound and certain groove that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with a full on rock album. The guitars, for instance, have this really great warm sound that flows from song to song, with the only difference being that sometimes they’re turned up to the fabled “11”.

I really had to think about what this album was for quite a long time. It almost seemed to me that if you started 15 at a random song on the disc, you ended up with a different album all together by the time you were done. The more and more I listened though, I began to think that maybe that was the point all along.

There’s no denying that the guys in Buckcherry are Rockstars. You can hear it in their lyrics and feel it in the music. I also have no doubt that live, they could most likely separate your head from your body in short measure. However, as much as I want to hear Buckcherry turned loose so as to propagate their own special brand of chaos and destruction, I think that 15 is special specifically because they chose not to do that.

The differences from song to song and the changes in feel and tempo all help contribute to an album that is, in essence , different from all the other current rock albums that are being released. Since I used the guitars as an example before, I’ll finish up with them here. If you went with the same crispy, modern guitar sound that everybody else us, you would end up with the same album everyone else has…and this isn’t that album.

You can purchase 15 @

New on the pod

New on the pod

Chevelle – Point #1
Chevelle – This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In
Ian Gillian – Gillian’s Inn
Samantha 7 – Samantha 7
Seether – Karma and Effect
Snow Patrol – Final Straw
Steve Morse – Major Impacts 2
The Mamas & the Papas – Greatest Hits
Ultimate 16 Originals: Retro 90’s
———-
Audiobook: David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas (Listening Now)
———-
Quick Audiobook Review:

Elie Wiesel – Night: What a brilliantly terrifying book. Everyone should read this book so as to become familiar with the potential darkness of the human soul and to guard against the possibility of the nights Elie Wiesel spent in Auschwitz ever happening again.

Joshilyn Jackson – Gods in Alabama: How could you not dive right into a book that starts out, “There are Gods in Alabama. Jack Daniels, high school Quarterbacks, trucks, big tits and also…Jesus.” ? Good story with lots of twists and turns.
———-
Well, I keep moving things around here and there on the site.

We’ve been getting a lot of clicks into the site from a banner campaign I took part in over at www.proboards.com who host the message board for www.onthepod.net.

We’ve also been getting quite a few visits thanks to the guys in Fear the State who posted a link to their review on their myspace page @ www.myspace.com/fearthestate.

So, I’d like to say hi to anybody who found us from ProBoards or from Fear the State. Hope you like the site, and feel free to leave any comments you’d like in the comments section and on our message board.

Until next time,

Joe / pseudojoe

Silent Hill: The Movie

Silent Hill: The Movie

I could take the easy way out and just say wait for the DVD…but I won’t.

Did you ever have one of those days that just seemed to keep going on and on…and on…forever? I had that experience yesterday watching Silent Hill…and I’m a fan of the game.

While being very faithful to the first Silent Hill video game, with a few noticeable exceptions, it just wasn’t the same. Actually, maybe it was exactly the same and that’s what the problem was. It was like paying someone ten dollars to watch them play the game, granted with better visuals and better sound…but still.

For diehard fans of the series, the locations are spot on as are the monsters, but I’d still wait for the DVD. Special features and fast-forward are what this movie really needs.

Fear the State – Trust Nothing

Unsigned

Fear the State – Trust Nothing

Picture this, it’s Friday night, you’re out at a bar and you hear the band start to play. You find yourself actually liking them, so you go over to the “merch” table and pickup their disc for the price of a couple of beers. You get it into the nearest CD player and you end up listening to something that doesn’t sound anything like what you just heard at the bar. The sound quality is bad, the mix is bad, the bass is too loud, the vocals aren’t loud enough.

Fear the State’s first full length release, Trust Nothing, is NOT one of those albums. This album can stand up to any major label release you’ve heard. I mean that in two ways…both musically and sonically.

From the opening notes of Get To You, the first track on Trust Nothing, you think you’re given a glimpse of what you’re going to hear, but looks can be deceiving. When you hear the heavy guitars and the pounding rhythm section, it would be very easy to think of this disc in terms of what you’ve heard before…but then you get to the chorus. The chorus, and eventually the bridge, has a certain melodic element that works almost as a counterpoint to the overt heaviness of the verses.

That characteristic is carried on through most of the songs on Trust Nothing. You’re presented with songs that end up being unique in that the parts that make up the songs play very well off themselves. You have shifts in melody, rhythm and intensity that help to make the songs breathe and stay interesting after several listens. I also found that the choruses on Trust Nothing stuck with me…for days at a time actually. I’d find myself at home or in the office replaying music in my head and then realizing that it had come from this album.

There are also songs like Chance to Change where you end up with something that, while still fitting into the album as a whole, takes you on an entirely different musical trip. In my opinion, it has a completely different feel than the other songs on Trust Nothing and is a real stand out.

To give you a very quick and very general idea of my take on the songs, the following is a track list with some quick notes I jotted down while listening:

Get To You: Cool melodies and I dig the change in the bridge.

Live Again: Great lyrics and a quick nod to Van Halen’s Panama in the solo section. Great Track.

Play This Card: Heavy, percussive verses that play well with the vocals.

Stranded: Cool guitar parts that switch gears between verse and chorus.

She: Very cool, very twisted riff. Fun vibe.

Losing My Voice: My first introduction to the band. Very powerful lyrics. Great Track.

Frank Said: I like how the tune is very sparse in the verse and then really opens up in the chorus.

Chance to Change: An entirely different feel than anything else on the disc. Great track.

Tragedies: Great sound from the bass and guitar parts. Cool Lyrics.

Horror Film: Heaviest track on the disc. Tackles some pretty heavy political issues lyrically.

See Your Face: Kind of a heavy, sad tune.

World of Hate: Stylistically a bit different than the other tunes. Good chorus.

Stranger Things: Cool story in the lyrics. I dig the guitar parts and the melody. The vocals have this kind of Bowie thing going on in the verses. The more I listen to this track the more I like it.

So, that covers the songs on the disc, but how does it sound?

Sonically, Trust Nothing is by far one of the best sounding “Unsigned” albums I’ve heard. Everything is in its place. The album has a “fat” sound without being muddy, the highs are high and the lows are low.

One of the more interesting facts, though not that uncommon today, is that all of the production and engineering was done by vocalist and guitarist, Marc Amedola at his own studio, “The Audio Hotel Recording Studio” in West Haven, Connecticut. In visiting the studio’s website, www.audiohotel.com, it appears that several other bands have recorded there as well.

So…there you have it. A sonically strong, musically strong album from a band you may have never heard of…but you will.

Fear the State is:

Marc Amendola (Guitars and Vocals)

Jim Dizm (Drums)

Neal Nereo (Guitars)

Jeff Sobon (Bass)

Fear the State is from the New Haven area of Connecticut and played their first show on August 13, 2004 at the legendary Toads Place in New Haven. Trust Nothing was released February 24, 2006.

Fear the State’s webpage is www.fearthestate.com
Fear the State’s myspace page is www.myspace.com/fearthestate
The Audio Hotel Recording Studio web page is www.audiohotel.com

If you are interested in picking up a copy of Fear the State’s, Trust Nothing, you can do so at the following locations in Connecticut:

Cutlers: 25-27 Broadway, New Haven

Exile On Main Street: 60 Skiff Street, Hamden

Exile On Main Street: 267 East Main Street, Branford

Replay Records: 315 York Street – Saw Mill Plaza, West Haven

Merle’s Record Rack: 1 Old Tavern Road – Firelite Plaza, Orange

Brass City Records: 489 Meadow Street, Waterbury

Phoenix Records: 384 Stillson Road, Waterbury

No Regrets Tattoo: 195 Rubber Avenue, Naugatuck

If you are not in Connecticut, or just so inclined, you can order Trust Nothing from either the Fear the State website or from their myspace page.

New on the pod

New on the pod

Heavy – : Van Halen – Live: Tokyo 6/17/1978
80’s : Guns N’ Roses – (More) Chinese Democracy Demos
Rock : Billy Squire – Happy Blue
Heavy + : Buckcherry – 15
Progressive : Kings X – Gretchen Goes To Nebraska
Instrumental : Joe Satriani – Unreleased Satch
Instrumental : The Entire Steve Vai Catalogue
———-
Audiobook: Elie Wiesel – Night (Listening Now)
———-
Quick Audiobook Review:

Vince Flynn – Consent to Kill: Best Mitch Rapp book in the series since the first one.

Javier Sierra – The Secret Supper: Saw an interview with him where he said that his findings were real. The Book is a novelization. The story is decent enough. Wonder how much is real?

Kate Mosse – The Labyrinth: Starts good then switches gears really suddenly. Once you figure out what’s going on, the story is really pretty good. It did seem kind of long though.
———-
Things have been starting to look a little different here at onthepod.net lately. I added a SiteBurner Site Feed that will give you an RSS feed. It’s really easy to get updates, just type in your email address where it says “Enter your email address to subscribe” on the right hand side of the page. Then when updates are made, you’ll get the feed. SiteBurner checks for updates once a day.

Opened up a store over at Café Press (www.cafepress.com/onthepod) and there’s a whole bunch of stuff with the nifty onthepod.net logo plastered all over it.
I’ve already got my order in.

Until next time,

Joe

The Wailin’ Jennys – 40 Days

Prairie Music

The Wailin’ Jennys – 40 Days

If I had to be stuck in a room listening to three people sing for an obscene amount of time, those three people would be Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta and Annabelle Chvostek. They happen to be The Wailin’ Jennys from Winnipeg Canada…and damn, can they sing.

Two of the things that I really enjoy in life are female singers and A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keillor, the host of the afore mentioned A Prairie Home Companion, is probably one of the best living storytellers in the world today. He’s a great thinker, writer and speaker. He has one of those voices you can listen to for hours on end and just get lost in. As I said, he also happens to be the host of A Prairie Home Companion. It’s a two hour radio, show heard far and wide, on NPR every Saturday evening. There are always musical guests and it was on one of these shows that I first heard The Wailin’ Jennys perform.

From that first time I heard these three women sing together, I was hooked. I was so taken with the way that their voices fit together and the sound of their voices, both solo and combined, that I just wanted to hear more. I looked them up on the net and found their website http://www.thewailinjennys.com/ and then found their album 40 Days on iTunes.

40 Days was released in 2004 and is their most recent offering. If I only had three words to describe this album they would be pretty much perfect. There are a very few things that I’m not completely in love with on 40 Days and mostly it’s song selection. There are a couple of traditional tunes that end up on the album that puzzle me, but if you look at 40 Days as a folk album…I guess more traditional material has its place there.

That’s really it for my negatives. Everything else here is just golden. The song One Voice that leads off the album is my favorite. It starts out very simply with…you guessed it, one voice. It is soon joined by another and then finally a third to complete the harmony, which is fantastic. The Jennys voices are so clean that they just make the harmonies come to life. They also use that quality in a rather inspired cover of Neal Young’s, Old Man. Aside from singing Moody, Mehta, and Chvostek are gifted musicians playing guitar, dobro, harmonica, accordion, keyboards and bodhran (a traditional Celtic drum) between them.

The album itself is very well and minimally produced by David Travers-Smith. Another person who deserves credit for the success of 40 Days is Cara Luft who had been one of the original members of the The Wailin’ Jennys until her departure in October of 2004. Her spot in the trio was filled by Annabelle Chvostek.

To me, the album breathes. The melodies and the harmonies get inside you as you listen to them and for a while they just take on a life of their own.

So, should you listen? Definitely.

You can purchase 40 Days @

Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous

Alternative +

Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous

Rilo Kiley managed to snag a spot on the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack with the song “Portions for Foxes.” After hearing them there I began a search for an album and eventually found More Adventurous.

One of the first things I noticed when listening to More Adventurous was the singer. I’m a sucker for the female voice and I wasn’t disappointed here. Jenny Lewis has a voice that is magical, even if at times you can hear shades of Jewel. But in the context of the songs on More Adventurous, her voice stands out in shining contrast to the darkness of the lyrics.

Yeah, I said the darkness of the lyrics…what about it. The lyrics to these songs are not entirely the happiest things I’ve ever listened to in my life. But they don’t have to be. She’s singing about things you wouldn’t normally associate with a very melodic, major key & “hooky” kind of song. I guess there’s a reason that most pop acts won’t touch things like death, war, cheating husbands and running into old lovers at funerals…but would you really want them to?

There is all this uniquely quirky instrumentation thrown into the songs on More Adventurous that just seems to fly at right angles to the lyrics. One of the best parts of that instrumentation is the guitar work by Blake Sennett. He manages to pull off some really intricate and tasty parts one minute and then the next, he throws in a really loose part that fits the song perfectly.

As far as I’m concerned, this album is worth a listen by anyone who’s looking for something a little different and a sure thing for anybody a little more daring.

You can purchase More Adventurous @

Gary Moore – Old New Ballads Blues

Blues

Gary Moore – Old New Ballads Blues

So I’m listening to the new Gary Moore studio album, Old New Ballads Blues, and I’m thinking to myself that I must have no ever-lovin’ idea what the blues is. That’s pretty close to the actual truth I guess, I mean, I’m a white kid who grew up in a middle class home with both of his parents who never really had to work too hard for anything…relatively speaking.

I’m not terribly familiar with the original “bluesmen,” and with the exception of a B.B. King album or two, my blues has always been an approximation of the original. The blues I know came from people like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton…and Ralph Macchio in the movie Crossroads.

I have also heard a lot of people play something that kind of resembles the blues. They use the same chords and they use the same chord progressions as every blues player since the beginning of time. Most of the time, these are a bunch of rock guys that overindulge in the mood altering effects of Barley, Hops and Yeast mixed with water.

So I can hear you saying, “What does this have to do with Gary Moore?” Well, I’m glad you asked.

An ad for Gary Moore’s new album posted on his web site says that he is, “one of the finest blues guitarists of a generation.” While I’ll admit he is quite a guitarist and I certainly was very fond of his song “Still Got The Blues”…I feel the need to say that, in my humble opinion, Gary Moore is not a blues guitarist.

Don’t get me wrong, the boy can play. He plays and has been playing the blues for quite a while and the majority of the songs he has recorded here are blues tunes. But Gary Moore started out his career as a rocker and as much as he tries to be something different, he’s still a rocker at heart. You can hear it all over this album. He has this really killer guitar tone on all most all of the songs on this disc, but it’s just not a blues tone. It’s a full on, balls to the wall, rock and roll, lead guitar tone that should make you lock up your children and hide your small farm animals.

My opinion, with regard to the album as a whole is that it’s a decent listen as long as you’re not expecting to hear a blues album. I think the songs are good and the vocal performances captured here, while not stellar, are not too shabby. I also think that Gary Moore’s guitar playing is excellent, but that was never really in question. I guess what is in question, for me at least, is whether or not you can be “one of the finest blues guitarists of a generation” by just playing the blues?

You can purchase Old New Ballads Blues @

Guns N’ Roses – Three Tracks from Chinese Democracy

Preview

Guns N’ Roses – Three Tracks from Chinese Democracy

Better
Catcher In The Rye
There Was A Time

After Appetite for Destruction “hit” you couldn’t turn around with out hearing Guns N’ Roses. They were everywhere. You either loved them or hated them, but they were everywhere. Their influence was palpable and their excess legendary. They delivered Lies and the Use Your Illusion albums and then seemingly imploded from the pressures of being Guns N’ Roses. Lawsuits, last minute canceled shows, crowd riots, Axl tantrums, no Izzy, no Slash, no Duff…then oblivion. You had solo albums from Izzy, Duff, Gilby, Matt & Slash’s Snakepit and then there was Velvet Revolver…but no Axl and no Guns N’ Roses. Rumors and greatest hits albums seemed to be all that was left of the once mighty band.

Well, it’s 2006 and the latest rumor is that the first Guns N’ Roses album in FIFTEEN years will be released this year. More lip service? Signs are pointing to no. Axl has publicly said that we will hear new Guns N’ Roses this year and there have been an increasing number of tracks leaked to the public via the internet. So what can we expect?

I managed to find three of these tracks online and wanted to share my opinions of them with you.

The first track is “Better.” This is the one song out of the three that really sounds different than the old Guns N’ Roses. It’s a very guitar laden track, but it’s a different kind of guitar than we’ve heard before. There are parts with a very heavy modern sound to them and others where there are almost progressive leads. You can tell that Axl was going for something more contemporary sounding when the song was written.

Track number two is “Catcher In The Rye.” This one sounds like it could have come off of one of the Use Your Illusion discs. It at times reminds me of parts of November Rain with that laid back heaviness that they managed to pull off so well. It’s definitely one of those songs you can picture Slash playing the lead on and it kind of suffers because of the comparison. It’s a pretty close approximation of how he would play though, but you get the impression that if Axl had been the only person responsible for Guns N’ Rose’s previous albums, this is what it would have sounded like. It’s not a bad tune by any stretch, but it sounds like an outtake from the Illusion sessions as opposed to something that took fifteen years to complete.

That leaves us with track number three, “There Was A Time.” If “Better” reflects a more modern version of Guns N’ Roses and “Catcher In The Rye” is a throwback to what came before, “There Was A Time” falls somewhere in between. The sound is another attempt to modernize what the Guns N’ Roses sound was, but it still has the grandiose aspirations of the Don’t Cry-November Rain-Estranged cycle from the Use Your Illusion Albums. It sounds heavy and dark which is great, but you still have the orchestral arrangements fading in under the radar that end up as a pretty big part of the overall track.

As far as vocals go, Axl Rose is in very good form. He’s still singing in his trademark voice and hitting his mark. He’s the thing that makes these songs Guns N’ Roses songs. By listening to these tracks you can tell just how much Axl Rose was responsible for with regard to the Guns N’ Roses “sound” that we are all familiar with. I say that, as much as I dislike the fact that it’s true, because Guns N’ Roses will always be the original lineup in my mind.

So…is this an Axl Rose solo album or a Guns N’ Roses album? Considering, he’s the only one of the original members still involved in recording music under the Guns N’ Roses name, I’d tend to lean towards a solo album. However, he does own the rights to the name and it’s not the first time that a band has continued with out all of the original members under the original name…Yes comes to mind as one instance.

So now you’ve heard about the songs. Either way you look at it, if these three songs are representative of the rest of whatever will end up being the fabled “Chinese Democracy” album, I think that Axl will have a monster on his hands. The songs are good, actually they’re really good…but fifteen years good? That I don’t know about.

Barenaked Ladies Studio Podcast

Podcast

Barenaked Ladies Studio Podcast

BNL Website: www.bnlmusic.com
Podcast Address: www.bnlblog.com/rss/podcasts.xml

I don’t do a lot of the podcast thing, but there are a few that I listen to fairly regularly and this is one of them.

It’s hosted by Ed Robertson from Barenaked Ladies with guest appearances from the other band members and whoever else happens to be around at the time. The majority of the podcasting takes place at “Fresh Baked Woods,” a studio at BNL member Steven Page’s home in Canada. Ed has, on occasion, taken it upon himself to give updates from other locations including: his home, a van on the way to and from Banff, his bathroom and, most recently, from the Bahamas.

I find the BNL podcast fascinating. It covers what ever is going on that day in the recording process for their upcoming album, from recording tracks to who will mix the disc. It has also had some interesting discussions from the band on things like whether or not to release a double album and planning the BNL “Ships and Dip” cruise next year. On top of that, it’s funny.

There are also a couple of segments that have evolved over the course of the podcast. One of them is “This day in Barenaked Ladies History” where the guys talk about some of the more “colorful” moments that have taken place over the span of their career. The other is “What were you thinking when you wrote that song.” You guessed it, they talk about the inspiration for a song and generally play it live after the discussion, so for fans of the band…I think that would be worth the price of admission right there. The price, by the way, is free.

Generally, the podcasts themselves run anywhere between a short six minutes to the longest to date of nearly twenty two minutes. So far it’s always been amusing and entertaining and I personally hope that Ed will keep up the podcasting even when they are officially out of the studio.

A Dirty Job – Christopher Moore

Book

A Dirty Job – Christopher Moore

For those of you out there who are the literate type and enjoy things like…words, A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore is one of, if not the funniest book I’ve ever read!!!

It’s a supernatural comedy about a man and death and their somewhat mutually exclusive relationship. It’s also about a kid who can’t keep a pet alive, two four hundred pound Hell Hounds, a lesbian sister who can’t keep her hands off of a good men’s suit, a morbidly preoccupied Goth chef named Lily, a paranoid ex-cop with a penchant for questionable Asian women, a green suit wearing African American record dealer who goes by the name “Minty Fresh” and the word kitty.

What are you waiting for, go read it.

You can purchase A Dirty Job @

New on the pod

New on the pod

80’s: Extreme – III Sides to Every Story
Alternative +: The Fray – How To Save A Life (Reviewed)
Alternative +: Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous
Instrumental: California Guitar Trio – CG3+2
Instrumental: California Guitar Trio – Whitewater
Jazz: Down to the Bone – Cellar Funk
Jazz: Down to the Bone – The Urban Grooves Album 2
Jazz: The Little Willies – The Little Willies
Rock: Jackson Browne – Looking East
Rock: Jackson Browne – The Naked Ride Home
Rock: Jackson Browne – Saturate Before Using
———-
Audiobook: Garrison Keillor – The Adventures Of Guy Noir
Audiobook: Javier Sierra – The Secret Supper
Audiobook: Vince Flynn – Consent to Kill (Listening Now)
Audiobook: Kate Mosse – The Labyrinth (Just Finished)
———-

I think I might start talking about a couple of Podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis, so that could be kind of interesting…and free for you to listen to and I also have something special in the works for my first “Unsigned” review which I will hopefully be able to share with you soon.

Until then…

pseudojoe

KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope

Lilith

KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope

I like this album.

KT Tunstall can write. She has a knack for being able to convey her ideas lyrically and hit on a melody that can accomplish the same thing musically. She can invent really catchy hooks while still holding on to that “something” that prevents a song from becoming a bubblegum track.

Her voice, while holding shades of other female vocalists, is unique and easily handles everything she asks it to do. She has both a very sweet quality and a raspy growl that is not really ever out of place in her songs.

Lyrically, Eye To The Telescope is clever and expressive yet very approachable. Musically, it has a very cool acoustic vibe even when going electric. The production is really minimal, but everything sounds great.

For me, the album is very intimate and very much like I think it would be seeing her perform in a small club. It puts you right there, “watching” an artist create.

Did I mention that I liked this album?

You can purchase Eye To The Telescope @

The Fray – How To Save A Life

Alternative +

The Fray – How To Save A Life

This is a very mellow album…not in a bad way, just very mellow. How To Save A Life is a vocal & piano driven disc without too many changes of pace. Basically it sets a mood and sticks to it and even the heavier tracks tend to follow along in that groove. Instrumentally, it’s pretty tight and the vocals are smooth. I didn’t really hear anything that stood out as a showcase but taken as a whole, it’s a pretty nice piece of work.

You can purchase How To Save A Life @

Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime II

Progressive

Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime II

Operation Mindcrime may very well be my favorite concept album of all time. That being said, my first impression of Operation Mindcrime II is that not everything is better off having a sequel.

You can purchase Operation Mindcrime II @

Death Cab For Cutie – Plans

Alternative + (Written in Dec 2005)

Death Cab For Cutie – Plans

I had been seeing this odd band name ever where I looked online and had no idea who they were. I was immediately curious about a band calling themselves Death Cab For Cutie, but short of going to their website, which would have ended my curiosity infinitely sooner, I still hadn’t heard them. Then I was flipping stations on XM and finally ran head on into Soul Meets Body. I wasn’t immediately hooked, but the tune stayed with me and as I kept hearing it, I kept wanting to hear it more.

Nothing here is overdone. Lyrically, the album is intelligent and yet not pushy with it’s intelligence. The vocals, like the meanings, are subtle and understated yet not lacking in any way. The words are really poetry here and could live on their own outside the music…thankfully, they don’t have to. Instrumentally, the arrangements are breathy and sparse yet very intimate.

One of my favorite tracks is, I Will Follow You Into The Dark. One acoustic guitar and one voice. Very simple, very clean and amazingly tender lyrics.

Plans is just a brilliant album.

You can purchase Plans @

David Gilmour – On An Island

Rock

David Gilmour – On An Island

In lieu of a new Pink Floyd album it’s a decent enough appetizer, but not really meaty enough to hold up as a meal.

You can purchase On An Island @

New on the pod

New on the pod

Jazz: Manu Katche – Neighbourhood
Instrumental: Joe Satriani – Super Colossal
Lilith: Beth Orton – Comfort Of Strangers
Lilith: KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope
Alternative + : Muse – Absolution
Jazz: Bela Fleck & The Flecktones – The Hidden Land
Prairie Music: Jake Shimabukuro – Dragon
Rock: David Gilmour – On An Island
Unsigned: Fear The State – Trust Nothing
Tributes: One Way Street – Tribute to Aerosmith

Manu Katche – Neighbourhood

Jazz

Manu Katche – Neighbourhood

Not even done, but I just wanted to say that I think it’s very cool. The tracks I’ve heard so far are very airy and almost ethereal. Manu Katche is a great drummer and musician. His drum tracks are so subtle and yet so intricate. His cymbal work is really outstanding, which I know sounds weird but it’s true. He plays drums like a person would talk…very, very expressive. Definitely worthy of a listen.

***I’m done listening now, and it’s still definately worthy of a listen.***

You can purchase Neighbourhood @

Joe Satriani – Super Colossal

Instrumental

Joe Satriani – Super Colossal

Let me start by saying that I love Joe Satriani. He is one of my favorite guitar players on the planet and any new album he puts out will always find its way into my collection.

Super Colossal is his 10th studio album and his most recent since 2004’s Is There Love In Space. Sonically, the album is great with awesome guitar sounds and arrangements.

This album shows us a more mature instrumentalist and song writer. In some ways, it’s a more subtle Joe Satriani. He has continued to work on building a good song as opposed to just showing off his technical mastery of the instrument. That being said please don’t think that Super Colossal doesn’t showcase some incredible guitar playing…because it does. It’s just not in your face all the time, it’s in its place as part of something larger than itself.

In my opinion, this album is like a continuation of a conversation he started a few albums back. He’s not trying to impress us with the fact that he can play, by the tenth album we either know that or we don’t. This album is like the middle act of a trilogy, it’s all about character and plot development. It doesn’t necessarily have all the action and intrigue of an opening or closing act, but it doesn’t need it. It is part of the larger story that is Joe Satriani and hopefully we won’t see a closing act anytime soon.

You can purchase Super Colossal @

Welcome to on the pod

Welcome to “on the pod.” Mostly music reviews by real people, or person…namely, me.

You might be asking yourself, why I’m qualified to do this. You would be vastly over-thinking this whole thing. I’m just a guy like you. I was born in 72, I went to school, I went to music school (University of New Haven), I have a pretty large music collection (Hundreds of CD’s and 120 gig of digital audio and growing) and I have an iPod (hence the name, on the pod).

So the plan here is to give honest reviews. I have no intention of slamming the artist just for the sake of slamming the artist. I also tend to fall back on the thing that all mothers teach their kids, “If you don’t have something nice to say…” so I will try to keep things positive and point out the good points of some of the less than stellar albums I’ve heard. I’d also like to bring on some guest reviewer and I’ll let the comments section be your chance to post your own reviews.

If you’re interested in what I’m listening to right now as I write this…it’s Peter Ostroushko’s Coming Down From Red Lodge and I’m one track away from Teelin Bay Waltz, which breaks my heart every time I hear it, but that’s for later. On the pod right now I have 42.53GB worth of audio in the following categories:

80’s (Hairbands from the 1980’s)

Alternative – (Older, and in my opinion, original Alternative artists)

Alternative + (Contemporary Alternative artists)

Audiobook (Mostly downloaded from Audible.com, which I highly recommend)

Blues (Self Explanatory)

Classical (Self Explanatory)

Comedy (Full length comedy albums)

Country (Self Explanatory)

Heavy – (Older, and in my opinion, Original bands who are heavier than rock but not necessarily Hair)

Heavy + (Contemporary bands who are heavier than rock but not necessarily Hair)

Holiday (Self Explanatory)

Instrumental (Instrumental artists mostly playing guitar)

Jazz (Self Explanatory)

Lilith (Slightly less offensive than saying “Acoustic Lesbian Music”)

My Stuff (Original tunes by yours truly)

New Age (Self Explanatory)

Pop – (Older, and in my opinion, original Pop artists)

Pop + (Contemporary Pop artists)

Prairie Music (For lack of a better category name, music you might hear on “A Prairie Home Companion”)

Progressive (Mostly heavy Progressive or Art Rock)

R&B (Self Explanatory)

Rock (Self Explanatory)

Soundtrack (Self Explanatory)

Tributes (Various artist tribute albums to specific bands)

Unsigned (Mostly local bands looking for a break)

&

World (Self Explanatory)

So there you go. That’s what I have and what I’ll be working from. I guess we’ll see how far I can take this. I’ll try and have updates fairly regularly, I’m always up for new music and I have a bunch of old music, so I guess I have some listening to do.

Joe / pseudojoe