New Pics!

Wanna see some new photos? (as my virtual wallet unfolds to the ground) This album covers trips to Kansas City, Easter, Griffin's 5th Birthday and Mayfest / Blue Dome Arts Festival.

Click the thumbnail below to view the entire album in larger size with comments.

Spring 2007

 

Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet [Uncensored Version]

This album is definitely in my top 10 CDs of 2007, and the title track here pretty much summarizes the theme of the album as a whole. Inspired by Bret Easton Ellis' (Less than Zero, American Psycho) book, Lunar Park, this work is a social commentary on the Generation Y kids who are growing up today. The gist is that with all the video games, instant messaging, cellphones, e-mail, immediate access to any and everything on the Internet, the prescription drugs, the lazy parents...today's youth never have an opportunity to appreciate life and what it has to offer.

This video, directed by longtime Porcupine Tree photographer and artistic partner Lasse Hoile came out the day of the Virginia Tech shooting, and was quickly pulled since it showed kids with handguns. Despite this, it is SFW and doesn't show anything but mild violence. Good song. Disturbing message.

 

Dream Theater - Dark Eternal Night

Roadrunner, Dream Theater's new record label, seems to be trying a different approach to marketing DT's unique flavor of progressive metal. This is a fully authorized video of the full song showing them in the recording studio. The song isn't their strongest (I think Constant Motion is better), but it does experiment with a shift from the constant high, clean vocals usually present in most DT songs (earning them a reputation as a "hair band" in my house). Despite some slightly sub-par lyrics, they absolutely redeem themselves from 04:00 - 07:00 in the song with a mind-blowing instrumental section. I'm sure that having this video on YouTube will expose them to a lot of new fans who would otherwise never hear of them. I think that RoadRunner is off to a good start.