Posts filed under 'music'
eMusic.com is the most excellent site to purchase actual mp3s (no DRM or software required) at a very reasonable price. Many mainstream/radio-friendly artists are absent from this service, which is actually a good thing because it forces you to search and dig to discover some wonderful music. Fine examples:
Mouse on Mars
Lamb
Holy F*ck
Spank Rock
The Streets
Ms. John Soda
Also discovered a really nice streaming radio station DirtyRadio, which I am ashamed to mention that I did not know of before the other day. Catch the stream here.
November 17th, 2006
OK, i’ve been on a little RUSH kick over the past couple of weeks. Even though my musical tastes have wandered a little past what I consider mainstream. A good RUSH song always brings me back to my days in high school, sitting behind my overly massive TAMA rockstar kit (with double basses of course), headphones in check, trying to emulate the syncopated, yet elegant, furry of Neil.
Earlier this week I discovered a nice vault of RUSH videos @ youTube.com. Then by sheer fate, I was scanning all 3 gazillion channels on cable last night and stumbled upon a nice interview with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, interspersed with some classically cheesy videos of the band on VH1 Classics. Then tonight on aforementioned channel, was a broadcast of the Frankfurt show which has been released on their new DVD. I didn’t watch the whole show, but one song during the performance really brought back some nice memories. The song was Subdivisions off of their Signals album, yes ALBUM, not CD or .mp3. I always enjoyed this song, musically it’s not as hard driving as much of the earlier stuff but has a great melody and some nice synths to boot. What really stands out in my mind though are the lyrics to the song. Growing up in a subdivision, now living again in a subdivision, the lyrics still kind of hit home in a special way.
So without further ado, here’s a reprint of the lyrics to Subdivisions by RUSH:
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson
Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown
Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone
Subdivisions —
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions —
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth
Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night
Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights…
Thank you very much and good night.
January 14th, 2006
This video here is really pretty cool. I would have loved to see La Villa Strangiato instead of YYZ as the song, but I guess the later is a little more dynamic in overall structure. Watching this really makes me want to pull out Exit Stage Left, which still kicks some serious arse (AllMusic.com disagrees), especially in terms of a live album.
December 27th, 2005
ok, it was announced today or yesterday that Bon Jovi was coming to the bi-lo center sometime soon. That’s cool I guess, I admit to rocking out to 7800° Fahrenheit and Slippery When Wet back in the day. I still have both on vinyl from olden days. I would even consider seeing them if the situation played out, i.e. somebody gave me a ticket and nothing good was on TV that night or something easy like that. But get this: ticket prices for the show are $49 and $75. Do they expect people to pay $50 for the cheap tickets? I’m guessing that some market analysis and whatnot went into consideration for ticket prices and whoever makes these decisions is banking on the fact that tickets will sale, but geesh that’s a lot of money for a band that arguably never really rocked that hard. I paid $38 for higher tiered seats to see the Beastie Boys last year in Atlanta, which was an amazing show to say the least. I don’t think I have every paid over $40 to see any act. Even summer tour tickets to see the Grateful Dead at RFK stadium weren’t this much. Granted that was a while ago, but $50 to see Bon Jovi? I mean come on . . .
December 14th, 2005
ok I did it! it came from left field, but after close to six months of obsessive research and deliberation, I made purchased my next piece of expensive dust collection. I bought an electrbe from Korg, the EMX-1.
Let me say that so far it is one bada$$ piece of technology and sound generation. I know that I had mentioned in my last post that I was looking for a sampler, which would have been cool. I know that the EMX has a brother named the ESX which would have fit the bill, but after reading quite a bit of reviews, the ESX seemed a little bit limiting in terms of synth parts. Honestly, I don’t have the energy or time right now to tweak with samples. From using my microkorg, I wanted to explore sound synthesis more and even more so, I wanted something that was complete in one box.
The EMX-1 has over 200 really nice sounding drum samples which can occupy nine parts of the drum pattern with an additional five synth parts, each drum and synth pattern can also have a motion sequence part, etc. The level of sophistication that this box has is really mind blowing. However, it is pretty intuitive to start putting ideas down to track; hell, even my 4.5 year-old was able to create this small drum loop, just by pushing the drum keys while loop-recording.
I could go on and on regarding the coolness factor, but really it’s just so much fun to noodle around on.
December 11th, 2005
i’ve had this itch for some a HW sampler of some shape or form and have spent way too much time researching all the different nuances between ’said’ sampler and ’said’ sampler. on any given day i have gone from shopping for $100 units to $500 units, all on ebay of course; why not fish around for a deal based on some other person’s impulse buy, where simply owning a piece of equipment will automatically ‘learn’ one how to play and be creative. some sort of osmosis i know. i do have a microkorg sitting on a shelf to remind me.
anywho, here’s what i am looking at in no particular order:
note: i know the MPC 2000XL is a no-brainer, but it really depends on me getting it via a friend of a friend at a really good price, i could never afford one off of ebay.
oh well one day i will pull the proverbial trigger.
November 29th, 2005