Bye for now

I'm going to take a long vacation from this blog so I can work on a new blog on Long Island moths. Thanks for viewing! Bye!

suxxors

amazon.com informs me that products labeled suxxors are also labelled:

abominable (1), adoption (1), ambulance chase (1), ambulance chaser (1), an act of mcarthurism (1), and shutup jack (1), anti religous (1), arsewipe (1), attack mouse (1), attention monger (1), authors who did not win peabody award (1), bad (1), bad authors (1), bad parenting guide (1), bad person (1), bad read (1), bad writing (1), bastard (1), biased (1), biased lies lies propoganda (1), bigot (1), bill oreilly (1), blatant lies (1), blind (1), books that should be burned (1), boring (1), brianboitano (1), bs (1), bugger (1), bugger off (1), bullocks (1), bullpoo (1), burns well (1), calumny (1), censor (1), chicanery (1), childish (1), childish name calling (1), closed minded (1), clueless (1), concerned parent (1), coprolagnia (1), coward (1), crazed and libelous screed (1), cruel (1), crybaby (1), debar (1), debarred (1), deceit (1), defamation (1), diarrhea (1), disbar (1), disbarred (1), divisive (1), doubt (1), draw and quarter (1), dumb (1), ego rant (1), egoistic (1), egomaniac (1), egotistical maniac (1), even more blatant lies (1), evil (1), examples for youthanasia (1), expensive firewood (1), falsified information (1), fear (1), fearmonger (1), ferret cage liner (1), firewood (1), fool (1), foolish (1), fraud (1), freemason (1), fud (1),... and 3 more pages of descriptors.

Woo Hoo!

Over the weekend, Wigan tied Tottenham Hotspur 1-1! They are now in 13th place with 5 points and 4 teams between them and relegation. I think there are three games left in the season. They are not out of the woods yet, but it could be much worse.

My top 3 videos

I haven't actually seen a lot of videos, since we didn't have MTV at home when I was a teenager. Nevertheless, in the intervening years several videos have been influential to me. Here are what would be the top three:

(3) "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - Def Leppard. The song is forgettable (and the audio in the clip is not great) but what I like about this video is that it captures all of the fun and excitement of playing a live show, from the beginning set up and sound check to the show itself.



(2) "Sabotage" - Beastie Boys

These guys capture the essence of 70s cop shows and also something trenchant about the urban environment. The characters are supposed to be funny but they are spot on for the imagery they are conveying in the video.



(1) "Been Caught Stealin' " - Jane's Addiction

This is a deeply absurd and wonderful celebration of strangeness, and of course a really good song.

Woo Hoo!

Wigan played Chelsea to a 1-1 draw! A last minute goal by Wigan in stoppage time tied it! Chelsea is the second place team in the Premier League and this dealt a severe blow to their championship hopes. Wigan is now in 15th place, 6 points out of relegation territory. Go Latics!

Toto

One of the turn-of-the-decade bands that enjoyed huge popularity but perhaps has not aged particularly, in the staying power of their music, is Toto. The band produced some really hooky rock/pop, that seemed to be heavily flavored by the art-rock trend of the 70s (e.g. Yes, Genesis). At the same time, they had some of the stylings of power rock (e.g. Triumph, Kansas) without actually being too metallic (see e.g. the Tolkein-esque art on their 1st and 4th albums).

The first song I heard of theirs was the very pleasant "99" (1976)



Of course I had heard "Hold the Line" (1978; it was and still is ubiquitous on radio) before and not really known it was them.

They had monster hits in the 80s with the massively overplayed "Rosanna" (1982), the sweet pop song "Africa" (1982) and the less well known "Stranger in Town" (1984).

Overall, an interesting band that had success in both rock and pop radio formats that was absolutely a product of their time.

Nostalgia

My top five favorite arcade video games from back in the day:



(1) Mr. Do

(2) Killer Komet (appears to have been an extremely rare game; could find nothing online about it)

(3) Xevious

(4) Front Line

(5) Time Pilot

Deep Thought of the Day

Ever since I became of age (and abandoned religion) the concept of worship always puzzled me. It seems to me that any entity that demands worship does not deserve to be worshipped. Think about it: what the hell kind of a person would demand to be worshipped?

The Tubes

The turn of the decade around 1980 was, for me, the most interesting time in pop and rock. The Tubes provide yet another great example. These guys were capable of producing both quintessential glam, as in the classic clip below of "White Punks on Dope" and supremely hooky rock/pop, as in their rock hit "Talk to Ya Later" (have to click on the link, the video was not able to be embedded). I guess interesting bands like the Tubes, if they occur at all today, are mostly in local scenes away from the national spotlight. Which is the way things appear to work these days.

Judas Potter

I'm not a huge fan of either but I like creative hybridizations. Not that this is that great but it's fun. It's amazing how tame JP sounds from this temporal distance. They were considered quite hard-edged in their early 80s heydey. But all manner of punk, speed metal, and industrial craziness outstripped the metal of that time in terms of dissonance, irreverence, and overall evilness. Enjoy...

Woo Hoo!

Wigan 2 Birmingham 0!

Wigan now has 34 points and is 15th place in the Premier League, 8 points out of relegation. Not many games left. Let's hope they stay safe.

Gardening at Night - R.E.M.

Here's a really good live version (pretty decent footage and sound), from 1984, of one R.E.M.'s many early strongly guitar driven tracks, off Chronic Town. I discovered them at about this time, when I was still in high school. Ironically, the local rock station (96 WCMF in Rochester) was playing "Pretty Persuasion" from the The Reckoning for a very short while, which was the first R.E.M. song I ever heard.

Not complaining

But spring hasn't been exactly balmy so far. Instead of getting warm air masses, we are getting slightly warmer cold air masses. This time of year we tend to get little one day tongues of warm air (often accompanied by rain) followed by big sweeping cold fronts from the northwest. Then it's chilly for a day or two and gradually warms until the next little warm front tongue laps at us. But hey, it was a mild winter with almost no snow. So we have nothing to complain about...

Pet Sematary - Ramones

Since this tune is banging around my head this morning, here it is. Great chord progression and vocal harmonies. The lead guitar lines are also very nice. It's actually a very sad song...