|
|
Phil's Rant
|
10/18/2004
Inshi Show Tonight Logan Square Auditorium
2539 N. Kedzie Blvd.
Chicago, IL
773-252-6179
logansquareauditorium.com
Mon. Oct. 18 - 8PM - All ages -
5 X 5 SHOW - DRINK SPECIALS
5 bands 5 bucks
WHALER (mbrs of Gasoline Fight / ex Hubcap)
Whaler is Fran and Billy (ex Traitors/HubCap/Bruised Pussy/Haymarket Riot). It's just a 2 piece. So be prepared for comedy.
LORDS
RUSSIAN
Makes you want to strip, roll around in a puddle of molten steel shards and cool the wounds in Stolichnya vodka. Grinds the teeth from the fear and pain, because you already chewed through that piece of bark you had clenched between your teeth during the excitement. Preparing for torture, the bodies waddle across dance hall floors. Which, to the blind eye seems like a catastrophe, but, to the band and the creator's of these precious Russian melodies, its a total harmonious synchronization. One that should be considered akin of the song and dance era our parents generation hold so beloved. It's the new testimony, ladies and gentlemen, congregation of this unconquered land.
ANTENNAS ERUPT
Antennas Erupt are Sacramento's finest utopian non-jazz band. Their spectral sound of yore hovers somewhere between what's available and what's not. Past gestures giving way to new compositional non-jazz explorations. They've created something wholly unique and beautiful and groovy. Saxes, cello, and drums combine to make Magical Energy Fields of love, joy, and vigor!
INSHI
Inshi is a unique 3-piece brutal prog/epic grind/whatchamacallit band based in Chicago, Illinois.
See you all there!
| | |
10/13/2004
Wal-Mart Wants $10 CDs Check out this recent article on RollingStone.com:
Wal-Mart Wants $10 CDs.
Before you get all excited about CD prices dropping, be sure to read the whole article.
It's scary to think that Wal-Mart is the top music retailer in the U.S., with mom-and-pop stores closing all over. [1,200 stores in the past 2 years, according to the article].
Tower records is up for sale...any takers?
There's also a lot in the article about the issue of censorship in the CDs sold at Wal-Mart and the lack of knowledge with the people running the Wal-Mart music department:
"There is an immense cultural chasm between slick industry executives and Severson's team of three music buyers at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Only one of the three had ever worked in music retailing -- until that person moved to a new division in August and was replaced by someone who previously bought Wal-Mart's salty snacks."
Yikes!
| | |
10/7/2004
Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration I've been collecting all the releases from Tzadik for John Zorn's 50th Birthday celebration. Basically, September 2003 NYC club Tonic had a Zorn related show every day for the whole month. Highlights from the concerts are being released on CD.
The 7th volume just came out and it's a whopper. The Masada quartet blows the roof off the club for over an hour. Absolutely a must for Masada fans, or jazz fans in general. In fact, all the Masada related CDs in the Birthday Series [Volume1 - Masada String Quartet, Volume 4 - Electric Masada] are amazing. They're probably the best CDs in the series so far.
The Hemophiliac CD [Patton/Zorn/Mori, what a lineup!] is actually the most disappointing. Not a lot of direction in the improvs. The 2-CD limited edition Hemophiliac CD from a couple years ago is much better.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, although I'm disapointed they don't appear to be releasing any of the Painkiller shows!
| | |
9/27/2004
I'm Lovin' Last.FM There's a great new internet radio station I've been listening to lately. The site is called Last.FM (They have .fm as a domain now? Weird...)
Basically you can set up your own person radio station there by picking out particular songs and artists you like. It was actually fun exploring the vast catalog and putting stuff into the playlist (Vast selections of Zappa, Beefheart and Zorn). They also have an audioscrubber program that will look at your harddrive, look at the mp3s you have and add stuff to your playlist based on that. Pretty snazzy!!
You can read a detailed article about last.fm in Wired. You can get a better idea of why this is so great.
So listening today I've heard Death, followed by Rush, followed by Frank Zappa, followed by Morphine, followed by Dr. Dre. My kind of radio station!!!
Check out my person station, and enjoy....or start your own and let me know how it goes!
Oooh.. the Boredoms are now playing. Nice.
| | |
9/23/2004
Elvis Costello is THE MAN I just got the new Elvis Costello rock release "The Delivery Man". [He also just released a classical album based on A Midsummer Night's Dream called "Il Sogno"]. I'm just starting to listen now, and it rocks. But a great thing I noticed is on the back of the CD case.
You know how major label releases are starting to put a big FBI Anti-Piracy Warning with a scary logo and everything on the back of CDs? There's some text above that box on this CD with the following....
"The artist does not endorse the following warning. The F.B.I. doesn't have his home phone number and he hopes they don't have yours."
Man, I love Elvis Costello.
| | |
9/21/2004
The Insanity Of Dokaka There's been a lot of hype surrounding the new Bjork CD, Medulla. It's almost all vocals [no instruments] and has such heavyweights as Mike Patton, Rahzel and Robert Wyatt contributing. It is really really good.
But one vocalist you may not have heard of is Dokaka. Check out his webpage, or better yet go straight to his sounds page.
He recorded entire songs [some covers, some originals] made entirely of vocal tracks....and they're AMAZING. Some of his cover choices are absolutely insane ["Angel of Death"? 3 King Crimson songs including "Fracture"??!]. There's hours upon hours of songs there so just download away and enjoy! I know I will.
| | |
9/17/2004
Ultra-Mega-OK Growing up, I used to listen to Megadeth a lot. When "Rust In Peace" came out it was the tops for me. The proggy song structures, intricate drum parts and crazy guitar solos brought many an hour of listening pleasure.
So imagine my excitement when I hear the new Megadeth album "The System Has Failed" is suppose to harken back to those glory days!
Couple that with the fact that Chris Poland has returned to the guitar position [He played on "Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good" and "Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" [The Classics!!] plus he had an interesting solo thrash album ["Return To Metalopolis"] and his band Damn The Machine wasn't bad either. Sounding great so far....
THEN, as if that wasn't ENOUGH, I discover that one of my favorite drummers of all time, Vinnie Colaiuta, is manning the drum throne!! Basically, he played with Frank Zappa during the late 70's/early 80's [Check out "Joe's Garage" for some absolutely degranged drum stylings] and then worked tons of studio sessions and showed off his amazing chops in jazz fusion groups. He also played with Sting on some of his best solo albums ["Ten Summoners Tales", "Mercury Falling"].
So needless to say, expectations were extremely high going in.
Does "The System Has Failed" meet those expectations? Not really....that isn't to say it's not a fine Megadeth album...it is quite good...much better than their past few albums. So what's wrong?
It certinly doesn't remind me of "Rust In Peace" or anything like that. I think it's more like "Countdown To Extinction" with an extra dose of nitro. So great songs...but not intricate prog-rock epics.
Secondly, Vinnie merely sounds like The Megadeth Drummer. It's actually kinda scary how well he assimilates into Dave Mustane's vision. Mostly, galloping thrash-beats and some occasional nice fills, but nothing too fancy. Although, there is a great snare-bass combination on track five.
The best thing probably is the guitar solos. Poland and Mustane definately fill up the space with solo after solo after solo. So shred guitar fans will probably eat this up. As for me, I enjoy it a lot, but I still prefer "Rust In Peace".
| | |
9/16/2004
Gonna Be Some Changes Made  | | | | 01 - Hornsby, Bruce - Gonna Be Some Changes Made.mp3
The following file is in .MP3 format.
Click Here to listen..
|
I've always been a bigger fan of Bruce Hornsby's music after he ditched The Range and became more of a jazzy show-off. I think his time spent with members of the Grateful Dead did a lot of good and albums like "Hot House" [wow, Amazon has over 100 used copies of this one and the best price is only $1.44...scoop it up if you haven't yet] and "Spirit Trail" really have some great pop songs AND musicial dexterity.
So out comes a new album..."Halcyon Days". I'm fairly skeptical going in, because apparently drum phenom John Molo is no longer in Hornsby's collective, and the album has a series of guest "stars" like Sting and Elton John. Uh oh, here comes the cheese!
But surprisingly, most of it works. Plus unless you're looking at the liner notes the guests blend in pretty seamlessly with the songs.
The first track, Gonna Be Some Changes Made, is definately the standout for me. Not only is it catchy, and has a lot of the dance influence he picked up on his last album "Big Swing Face" but I also feel motivated by the message. There does need to be some changes made...I feel especially overwhelmed as of late, and am working to ease that. We'll see what happens....for now....
"Gonna be some changes, changes made. Can't keep on doing what I've been doing these days..."
Listen now:
Bruce Hornsby - "Gonna Be Some Changes Made"
| | |
9/15/2004
Choosing Death So I've been reading this cool new book called "Choosing Death - The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore" by Albert Mudiran. Buy it if you want.
I think it's a great read. It's been interesting learning how the grind scene developed in England and how much of an influence John Peel of BBC radio had in making bands like Napalm Death and Carcass [relatively] popular.
It's also mind-boggling trying to keep track who is in the bands when. Especially with Napalm Death! There's more lineup changes there than Yes!
It's also fun to learn about Pete Sandoval [the drummer from Morbid Angel]. Apparently he didn't know how to play double-bass before joining the band. After he joined he spend every waking moment practicing his feet specifically. Now he's insanely good. Something to think about...
So consequently I've been revisiting some of those old records, and I think if you haven't checked out standout albums like Napalm Death's "Scum" [or even better their wild and fast BBC sessions compilation], Carcass' "Reek of Putrefaction" or Extreme Noise Terror's "Holocaust In Your Head" I suggest you do.
Here's some samples to whet your appitite for more:
Napalm Death - The Kill
Napalm Death - You Suffer
Carcass - Carbonized Eye Sockets
Extreme Noise Terror - Another Nail In The Coffin
Read the book too!
| | | Welcome To Phil's Rant!! Welcome to a new feature on Phil's Picks. Phil's Rant! It's a music related blog. If all goes well it will be updated "regularly" [meaning, several times a week, when it catches my fancy].
I hope to share my insights and let you know what I've been listening to as of late. I also hope to spur discussion...if you want to chime in, go ahead! There's a link to do so at the bottom of every post.
Occassionally there will also be sound clips along with my rants so you can hear first-hand what I'm talking about.
I hope you enjoy the ranting!
| | |
Archives
Want to see more? Try browsing our archives by month.
March '10
February '10
January '10
December '09
November '09
October '09
September '09
August '09
July '09
June '09
May '09
April '09
March '09
February '09
January '09
December '08
November '08
October '08
September '08
August '08
July '08
June '08
May '08
April '08
March '08
February '08
January '08
December '07
November '07
October '07
September '07
August '07
July '07
June '07
May '07
April '07
March '07
February '07
January '07
December '06
November '06
October '06
September '06
August '06
July '06
June '06
May '06
April '06
March '06
February '06
January '06
December '05
November '05
October '05
September '05
August '05
July '05
June '05
May '05
April '05
March '05
February '05
January '05
December '04
November '04
October '04
September '04
|
|
