eMusic Picks for November 07

I haven’t been keeping up with this but I’ll try from now on!

Clorox Girls – Jaime Les Filles (thanks to Plan Nine Rock Show)
Beth Hirsch – Titles & Idols (thanks to Dave’s Lounge)
Beth Hirsch – Life Is Mine
Beth Hirsch – P-Town Rubies
Beirut – The Flying Club Cub (thanks to Criminal Records)
Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Thom Yorke – The Eraser
The Octopus Project – Hello Avalanche
Shriekback – Care, Tench And Related Tracks
Lene Lovich – Shadows and Dust (First Four Tracks)

August 07 eMusic Picks

Chromeo – Fancy Footwork Remixes
Josh Rouse – Country Mouse, City House
The Long Blondes – Somone To Drive You Home
Manchester Orchestra – You Brainstorm, I Brainstorm….
Rasputina – Oh Perilous World
Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
St. Vincent – Marry Me
Stars – In Our Bedroom After the War
Stars – Set Yourself On Fire

Shame on You, Atlanta Sports Media

I’m watching the Sunday sports final show on WSB television and what do they start the show with? Early season Braves baseball. WTF!?! Moose had a career game on Saturday and well, this town’s media could care less. It’s a load of crap. Who made the playoffs this season? Not the Braves. The Thrashers. Thank God for the fans.

Stooges LIVE at SXSW on NPR, Friday at 2:00 PM!

Heard a blurb this morning on Morning Edition about SXSW and thought I’d check out the NPR website. Well they have full coverage including full days of streaming audio. One to note: The Stooges will be playing Friday at 2:00 PM!

9/11 Five Years

It’s been five years since the 9/11 event and instead of dealing with the issue, our President took the opportunity to avenge his father’s “wimp” reputation by starting a war in Iraq rather than dealing with the issue of our assailants in Afganistan and Pakistan. It’s a terrible shame on the memory of what happened to those that died and the psyche of our Country.

Drive Invasion 2006

Went to Drive Invasion for the first time in several years with new Joyce, new Atlantan Stacey and old friend Lori.


The draw this time for me was the bands on both days. Day 1 culminated with Southern Culture on the Skids. As usual their live show was movin’ and groovin’. Rick Miller is certainly an unheralded guitar player and Mary Huff, well what can be said about her. She’s got the funk and her and drummer Dave Hartman provide the engine without effort. I was suprise to see that Rocket from the Tombs was actually a prototype punk band from Cleveland that originally, in the early seventies, split to form Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys. The thirty or so people paying attention were treated to Dave Thomas, Cheetah Chrome, and Television’s Richard Lloyd.


Day 2 for us started with Detroit’s Gore Gore Girls. I was impressed when they opened for The Cramps at The Masquerade several years ago and we weren’t dissapointed this time. My fave was Marlene. Almost got hit in the eye with a drum stick so Joyce got a souvenir.


Next up was the evil rock and roll of The Supersuckers. Rock they did, the crowd was totally into it. At the end they tried to play BOC’s Godzilla but were told to stop by someone offstage. An argument ensued with a few “fuck you”’s from the band and they proceeded to play Thin Lizzy’s Cowboy Song. Phil must have approved because a rainbow appeared!

Finally came Blue Oyster Cult. The first 20 minutes or so were pretty cool. Buck Dharma is certainly an impressive guitarist but after a while…well…solo much? The phrase became, “MORE AND LONGER SOLOS PLEASE.” Glad I saw them. They reinforced my thoughts the first time I saw them in 1978 – Thin Lizzy opened and blew them away. Supersucker’s final song was prophetic and the show had the same result…I think we enjoyed Supersuckers much more (Gore Gore Girls too).

Both nights started with newer films. 2001 Maniacs, and Godzilla 2000. Personally I would have preferred my cheesy movies to be vintage. Hopefully they’ll improve that next year.

Pics here and here. Videos here.

New Favorite Show: Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

I had seen Hell’s Kitchen in its first season (no NHL playoffs to watch) and was fascinated by the harshness of Gordon Ramsay. It reminded me (fondly?) of the memories of my initial reality shock (starting around 11 years old), farm labor: shoveling shit, puting hay and building fences supervised by my Dad on our horse farms, second, very early AM Goodrich hockey practice driven by the late Don Metzger and third, my experience as a pledge at AEPi at Arizona State, amongst others.

Hell’s Kitchen was extreme but it showed the “contestants” about reality and most of them had no clue about life and basic hard work. Again it was extreme, I had my “training” over several years of my life, this was over at most two or three months. Ramsay had to be extreme to weed the weak ones out. Of course there’s the standard reality script here, but it had to play on Ramsay’s personality.

Ramsay’s series on BBC America is called Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Gordon Ramsay is brought in to save a different restaurant every week. Much different from Hell’s Kitchen. His no nonsense personality comes through but as a consultant his tone is much softer but equally effective. At times he applies many of his brilliant techniques to shock the ignorant into shape. In the end he is excellent at turning clueless amateur run restaurants into successes. Or at least giving them a chance.

He shows compasion, care and skill in rescuing his projects every week. This is inspiring and highly recommended.

BBC America Wednesday at 9:00 PM.

ABC at Center Stage

Lots of music was in town this week, most of which I missed since I needed to recover from last weekend. Of note were Echo and the Bunnymen and Tom Jones, but Friday, ABC was in town so me, L-Bo, friend Patrick and Joyce went to see Martin Fry and Company at Center Stage.

In Flint we were able to get all the happening British import LPs at Wyatt Earp Records. ABC was one that was released in the UK but not in the US for over a year! It had blown me away that music like ABCs could not be heard on mainstram radio. It was such perfect pop.

I had seen them live when they toured for the first album back in 1981 or 1982 at Graham Central Station in Phoenix. Martin is a bit of a good luck symbol since last time I saw him, he walked past me at the NYC Marriot during the 1985 New Music Seminar and moments later I was getting Andy Warhol’s autograph!

It was a strange half house set up that I have never seen at Center Stage. In the end I’d guess 200 or so people were there. Opener Naked Eyes was definitely not a biggie for me. We caught the last few songs and I personally found the performance underwhelming. ABC did not disappoint though. Original drummer David Palmer provided the beat with a very proficient bass player – overall the gig was a lot funkier than I had expected. The crowd was good natured too. We had fun cutting up with someone named Connie and her boyfriend. So props to ya!

There are only a few more dates on the tour and apparently it was not meant to come to Atlanta except for a 99X Retroplex listener that alerted host Steve Craig of the tour and he was able to arrange for the show. Now I only hope that someone can snag Thomas Dolby who just completed a tour and is threatening to tour some more!

Flickr

YouTube

This was another test of my new camera the FujiFilm V10. I takes great shots in good light and outdoors but I was disappointed in its performance at this show, even at 1600 ISO. I’m sure there’s a way to get good shots at shows. The video was very good though.

Stanley Cup 2006 – Edmonton vs. Carolina

I was really hoping for the “Blue Collar Cup” this year. Other than seeing the Thrashers play I hadn’t had much exposure to the other teams in the NHL this year, but the playoffs’ most exciting teams to me were Edmonton and Buffalo. Injuries in the Buffalo defense took its toll. Either way, Sabres or Hurricanes, I expect the Oilers to win it all this year.

Happy 10th Birthday Darby!