raleighnet.org » Music

What’s So Funny ’bout Peace Love and … Country Music?

Will — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:42:19 +0000

Finally saw Elvis in concert. Finally saw a concert at the Greek. That crosses two off my life list.

It was a fun show, but a very weird encore. It seems like the encore may have been longer than the show itself with a few song choices that seemed to kill the show’s momentum. It was good though. I should have ponied up for the better seats. The Greek is a small venue, but even still, I could barely see the stage, and the TV monitors didn’t do much to help. An extra $50 would have gone a long way, and in the scheme of things, what’s $50?

I Saw Tail Lights Last Night

Will — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:55:19 +0000

I can’t seem to stop listening to “Great Expectations” by The Gaslight Anthem. I don’t know why. I mean it’s not horrible, but it’s not great by any stretch. From the corny fake record pops that a billion bands have done better (which isn’t saying much) to the forced lyrics, the whole thing feels kind of my first album. The drums are great though, and the energy is nice. Mostly, I think it’s just that the chorus must have one hell of a hook buried in it that works at some primitive level in my brain that refuses to let go.

Maybe if I listen to some of the Springsteen that clearly inspired the album I’ll be able to chase out the hero worship with the authentic.

Jonathan Coulton

Will — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:27:03 +0000

Anybody who’s reading my web site (except for maybe my Mom), probably already knows about Jonathan Coulton. He is a big ol’ internet superstar after all. I’d been hearing him on various podcasts and in other dark corners of the internet for a while now. I like his stuff a lot. It’s funny and geeky and earnest in just the right proportions, and he seems like a great guy from what I can tell. I’ve been meaning to buy a few songs. I finally got around to buying 7, and downloading another 15. Good stuff. If you aren’t familiar with him, go check him out. If, like me, you’ve been meaning to buy a few songs, now is a as good a time as any.

Devo Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Will — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:14:03 +0000

Devo performing Satisfaction on Saturday Night Live is 10 kinds of awesome. I think I probably must have some Devo on my iPod. I’m going to have to rock that tonight.

Shatner Woo Remix

Will — Fri, 25 May 2007 08:23:10 +0000

The Shatner Woo Remix is 10 kinds of awesome. The David Bowie and Cher Medley is 10 kinds of something else.

Out Damn Embryonic Ear Worm

Will — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:16:52 +0000

Last week, I was deleting an episode of Gilmore Girls that Tivo recorded for me. As I was deleting it, I noticed the episode title, “One’s Got Class and the Other One Dyes”. That struck a chord with me. It sounded so familiar that I thought maybe it was a pun on a song lyric or something.

I couldn’t think of the song though and no manor of Google searches could turn up the lyric I was looking for. I thought it was a Springsteen song or maybe Billy Joel. It just kept coming back and back — some barely remembered wisp of a lyric that I couldn’t quite catch and couldn’t quite forget.

This morning, I finally thought of the lyric that was driving me crazy. “Somebody’s going to emergency. Somebody’s going to jail” from Don Henley’s “New York Minute”. I still think the Gilmore Girls show might be referring to a different song, but that’s the one I was thinking of. I also think it’s funny that Google turned up a West Wing episode called Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail, which is obviously a better match.

It’s such a relief to get that out of my head!

Get Ready to Shred

Will — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:53:52 +0000

The Colbert Report’s Countdown to Guitarmageddon was awesome. Who knew that Kissinger could rock that hard?

Wow, That’s Bad

Will — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:24:56 +0000

OK, so we won’t go into why I was watching Saturday Night Live. Suffice it to say that if you can watch the show on a TiVo, it isn’t too painful, and I typically don’t have a lot of shows to watch on Sunday morning when I wake up anyway, so the season pass doesn’t really cost me much.

Anyway, I’m watching last nights show, and Gwen Stefani is one of the musical guests. This was quite possibly one of the worst performances I have ever seen in my life. I thought that when she did a cover from Fiddler on the Roof that was kind of bad, but this went so far beyond that it was actually a little awe inspiring.

She start off yodeling. Then she moves onto to this sort of rap. I think it’s supposed to be a look how sexy I am Fergie type of song (and Stefani is really sexy, so it should work well), but the rap itself is so forced and stilted that it’s even worse than Fergalicious. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get this performance out of my head.

She only did one song on the show. They had somebody else do the second act for some reason. If that’s the song from her new album that she decided to lead with, I would love to hear what else didn’t get performed. It must suck harder than 100 black holes.

Finally!!

Will — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:00:38 +0000

I finally managed to get a good rip of “Don’t Tell a Soul” by The Replacements. I had this on CD and played the hell out of it, but when I went to rip all my old music it was damaged or something, so the songs had a lot of speaker breaking, ear splitting, white noise.

I know that music fans who care about this stuff think that “Don’t Tell a Soul” is one of the weaker Replacements albums, but I always loved it — proving yet again that my musical taste pretty much sucks. It’s finally on my iPod now though. So Happy!!!!

Wow!

Will — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:39:05 +0000

You have to hear this guy who imitates various artists like the Beach Boys or Frank Sinatra covering Pixies tracks the way those artists might have done them.

So much potential for horror, and yet, they are surprisingly good and compelling versions of the songs.