Let's Talk about Music

If you typically check this blog to get updates on Griffin, you may want to skip this entry. I’m sure it will wind up quite the lengthy one, with no mention of the G-man.

As most of you know, I'm really into music...and not always the "radio-friendly" stuff. However, since I’ve moved back to a city with several decent hard rock stations, I’ve actually been listening to the radio again. It may be all controlled by mega-corporations now, but some of the new music coming out these days isn’t too bad. I thought I’d mention some of the singles and albums that I’ve been listening to lately, with comments where appropriate. This isn't all music played on the radio, but it's what got this entry started in my head...so go with it.

First of all...For those of you who have still not heard of Kazaa Lite, you need to go to their website now, and download the latest version (www.k-lite.tk). Get the English K++ version, for all the bells and whistles. This is a “neutered” version of Kazaa (a client that normally installs spy/ad-ware on your system). This runs on the same P2P (peer to peer) network with Grokster and Morpheus. With this program, you can easily find and download any of the songs mentioned in the following text. I know that people out there argue that WinMX or AudioGalaxy is better…but when I get online with K++, there is always more than 4 million people connected and sharing files. I’ve been using this for quite a while now, trying to complete a collection of all the songs from the 60s/70s/80s that I remember from my youth (it helps to have lists like this one). It’s great for finding songs from albums that have long been out of print (such as some Pat Travers and Thin Lizzy). You can’t just go to the store and buy those songs…but someone has probably encoded it into a MP3. You will want to pay close attention to file names, quality and sizes, since there is a lot of garbage out there…but you can find almost anything you want, even movies and TV shows. I’ve been downloading all of the new episodes of South Park and burning them to VCD so I can watch them with my DVD player on my TV (Trey and Matt said it was O.K…although Comedy Central might not be too happy about it).

ANYWAY!!....I told you this would be a long-winded entry…here a small sampling of the stuff that I’ve been listening to lately.


Trapt – Headstrong : I’m sure that these guys have no chance of any long-term success…but the single sure is catchy. Great bass-driven verses!

Evanescense – Bring Me to Life : Picture Tori Amos fronting Linkin Park, and you have a hint of idea of what this song is like. It’s a decent gimmick...pretty female vocals over metal riffs. Haven’t heard anything else by them yet, and the reviews I’ve read have been mixed…so I haven’t tried to find any others.

Johnny Cash – Hurt : I actually liked the original NIN version of this song, despite its slow pace. This version is every bit as powerful, with a slightly different perspective coming from The Man in Black. I’m not sure I’m ready to listen to him do Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” yet, though.

(hed) Planet Earth – Blackout : My old roommate, Joe, tried to introduce me to this band back in Colorado…but they were still doing mostly “cookie monster” vocals. I like this single, now that they are a little more melodic. The verses sound occasionally like Jonathan Davis of Korn. Pretty good all the same.

Audioslave – Like a Stone / Cochise : I was really excited to hear about this “supergroup” consisting of Rage Against the Machine minus vocalist Zach, plus Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell on vocals. It’s exactly what you’d expect it to sound like. Like a Stone is one of those slower songs that shows off Chris’ talent for coming up with unique vocal melodies, while Cochise just simply rocks out like a good RAtM song. The rest of the album is pretty good, too…although I haven’t really listened to it much.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop : I really like this 3rd single off of their By the Way album. I also enjoyed the first two (title track and Zephyr Song). In fact, this whole album is just fantastic. I love the way that they have continued to highlight strong melodies, and great backing vocals. Very “West Coast” sounding. “This life is more than just a read-through” indeed.

Chevelle : Their single “The Red” is what reeled me in first, before it was played out on the radio, and “Send the Pain Below” is pretty decent…but “Family System” is the song that gets my blood flowing. Just try to listen to it without moving. I’ve been playing a lot of their MP3s for a while now, and really like their sound. Other favorite tracks are “Closure” and “Comfortable Liar”. Sometimes encroaching heavily on Tool and Deftones territory, but also leaning towards Radiohead upon occasion. Lots of hard/soft dynamics with very crunchy guitars (mmmm!…crunchy guitars!).

Leon Russell – Lady Blue / Tightrope : I know…this is actually old music (1970s era). After a 15 absence from Tulsa, I come back to hear KMOD (formerly “the Rainbow Station”…wonder why they changed?!) playing almost the same playlist that they did throughout my high school years. Included in that lineup is a Tulsa hometown legend, Leon Russell. Great old piano-based blues music.

Of course, you didn’t think that I could list music that I was listening to, and not have something related to Dream Theater in there…

Office of Strategic Influence – OSI : This is a new project made up of Kevin Moore (ex-Dream Theater), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Jim Mateos (Fates Warning) and Sean Malone (Gordian Knot). If you’ve ever heard any of Kevin Moore’s Chromakey work, you won’t be caught off guard. If you expect anything resembling DT’s sound, with over-the-top musicianship, you’ll probably be disappointed. Although it has lots of hard guitar and drums in it, much of it’s atmospheric, almost reminiscent of Animals-era Pink Floyd. Kevin Moore sings on all but two tracks. This automatically makes a lot of this sound similar to Kevin’s solo work (Chromakey). He experiments with the vocals a lot, using various multi-layering, sampling and processing. I happen to like his style a lot. It’s very mellow, and occasionally reminds me of some of the vocoder work done on classic Alan Parson’s Project albums. Mike Portnoy allowed Kevin to do most of the direction as far as drums go. He’s a control freak, and admits that it was hard to let Kevin “tell him what to play”. But he went with it, and they are explored some different areas that were foreign to him. He also allowed Kevin to sample, edit and loop his drum tracks in ProTools, making for some very interesting sounds throughout the album. You should download the title track, “OSI” for a good overall example of the band’s sound. I also REALLY like “Hello Helicopter”, “Standby (Looks like Rain)” and “Head”. One of the bonus tracks is a cover of Neil Young’s “New Mama”, which I had never heard before. I’m sure that Neil’s version doesn’t sound anything like this. Incredible, melodic, short song. In fact, many of these songs are rather short in duration, concentrating on the song, rather than endless noodling and repetition. Unfortunately, some songs are strong enough, you wish they were a little longer (particularly with “Standby…”). Of all the tracks, I like “The New Math” the least, only because it seems somewhat out of place, sounding more like a somewhat repetitive Liquid Tension Experiment track. The bass line in the last 3rd of the song almost redeems it, though! The bass playing throughout is very up-front and melodic. Almost reminds me of PT’s Mars Cowling occasionally. This album is actually doing pretty well, sales-wise. It hit #1 seller for a week or so at CD Universe, when it was first released. I’d be very interested in hearing anyone else’s opinion of the music, since I kinda live in a bubble here in Tulsa, with no friends close by.

Chromakey – dead air for radios / You Go Now : Since I started listening to OSI recently, it put me in the mood to listen to my Chromakey some more. These are the two solo albums from Kevin Moore, former keyboardist for Dream Theater. He was more of the “artsy” type, rather than the “Prog-metal” guy, so he created Chromakey. The first album is a unique collection of very atmospheric music. Beginning to end, this is a fantastic album. His vocals are often processed, and mellow…making for a dreamy feeling to the songs. Some of my favorites are “Colorblind”, “Undertow”, “Even the Waves” and “On the Page”. Kevin wrote most of these songs while attending video/art school in Santa Fe, NM after leaving Dream Theater. There are lots of references to video/photography in the lyrics, which makes for some interesting metaphors. He uses a lot of great samples from interviews with people he met there, including some of his instructors. Get it, burn it, and take a nighttime drive. The second album, You Go Now, flows right behind dead air with even more incredible mood-setting music and obscure lyrics. (* Donnie, if JC doesn’t know about the first Chromakey album, make sure he checks it out….I really think he’d dig it).

REQUEST: Amy wants me to pull together a bunch of “story songs” for a CD. I’ve got a few Jim Croce / Harry Chapin / Ray Stevens songs…but I’m trying to remember some of the other ones. She even had me download Garth Brooks’ “Mama's In The Graveyard, Papa's In The Pen” (is that made up?…that sounds made up!). She doesn’t really want any rap songs, or 50’s stuff…but anything you can think of would be appreciated.

I keep checking the new dates added for the Dream Theater / Queensryche co-headlining tour this Summer. They’ve added Denver, but they still haven’t posted a Dallas date.

Join me at www.friendlyforums.com for a music discussion thread in their General forum.

If you’ve made it this far…I’m really surprised. Thanks for reading. As you were.

 
Changes
This is another period of change for us. First of all, yesterday Griffin decided that he would start walking. He's had the balance for it awhile now, but he wouldn't do much with it. Now, he's walking all over this tiny apartment. We just thought he could get into things when he was crawling everywhere! Earlier last month, he had several great birthday parties and ate WAY too much frosted cake! He's off the baby foods completely now, and now eats whatever we do. Needless to say, our diets don't consist of all fast food like they once did. Here's a few new pictures of GT from his birthday on 3/11 up to a couple of days ago.

After having one of the snowiest Winters on record here in Tulsa...things are finally starting to warm up. The trees are budding/flowering like crazy, bringing back some much needed color. Even the grass is finally starting to turn green. Hopefully, most of the next batch of pics will have outdoor scenery!! We are ready to enjoy some decent Spring-like weather!

I'm still searching and applying for new jobs. I had an interview Monday with SiteMaster for a Project Manager position, which would be a very challenging and stable job...but would require that I stay at a desk for 8 hours every day working on the phone with tower contractors all over the U.S. Unfortunately, I was the first person they interviewed, so I won't hear anything back for as much as a 30 days. I can't wait that long, so I'm probably going to start a new contract job on Monday that will be simply scanning and organizing large documents (blueprints, etc.) for a large architecture/engineering firm. It doesn't pay much...but rent's due again in less than a month...and it's full time hours. I'm still working at Tulsa Community College part-time whenever I can. Luckily, the hours are very flexible.

My 20 year High School reunion is next month. Although I really don't have much of an urge to go to my Tulsa Union HS reunion, I have recently been in contact with some of my old classmates from Brandon, MS. It's amazing how we spread out across the U.S...after starting in that little town outside Jackson. It's been great chatting with some friends...many that I haven't spoken to in over 23 years (I moved at the end of my Freshman year, May '80).

I have to go do my orientation/interview with that engineering firm...so I'll be back soon.