Entries Tagged 'Misc' ↓

It’s amazing right? I love physical media but this almost makes me want to give it up.

The usual suspects are missing…The Beatles, AC/DC, Frank Zappa. I couldn’t find Jerry Jeff Walker’s version of “Up Against the Wall” which sucked.  There are some major holes.

What mystifies me are the random songs that are missing off albums. On Uriah Heep’s Demons and Wizards one of the bonus songs is unavailable. “Domino” and “Detroit Rock City” are missing off of Kiss’ Alive 3. I don’t see a trend with these. Are the bands or labels leaving off random songs in the hope that you’ll buy the whole album?

To me the real strength of Spotify is being able to listen to music I’ve been curious about but never listened to.  The aforementioned Uriah Heep is one. I never had any of their albums (until last week’s trip to Goodwill where I picked up five LPs) but Spotify let me hear a fair amount of their music. I’m always interested in top 40 music but listening to Britney Spears reminds me why I don’t have more pop albums in my collection. I even found local bands like the Dead Girls and Hammerlord on there - both are good enough to warrant buying their albums.

It’s so much fun to explore and find stuff you’ve forgotten about or songs you’ve always wanted to check out that you know you’ll never hear on radio.  The fact that they have C.W. McCall’s Convoy should tell you all you need to know.

Pollstar is showing that this year’s Rockfest will be May 14 at Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial.  Earlier this week Black Label Society was displayed as one of the bands playing but that was soon taken off.  Despite all my griping I’ll probably still end up going this year since it’s being held in May again before the summer heat starts to set in.  After last year’s rain disaster I was wondering if they would move it back to June but it looks like they’re rolling the weather dice again on this.

The lineups over the past couple of years were disappointing, especially last year’s which didn’t have a must-see band for me.  I was wondering who would headline this year.  They typically get a big act who is on their way down (Korn, STP, Godsmack) but this year I think they might buck that trend and line up Alter Bridge to headline.  Most of the major acts that are friendly with 98.9 have played in Kansas City recently so that rules a lot of them out.  I have no idea if Alter Bridge is actually touring but they seem like a good fit.  I could be wrong but I don’t see Black Label Society headlining, I see them either second or third from the top.  I imagine they’re too big to headline the second stage.

Jackyl?  Possibly even though they played here back in November.  With that I’ll throw in the Nigel Dupree Band who I could see being one of the main acts on the second stage.  They’re always in town but I’ll add Drowning Pool and let’s say Our Lady Peace also.  I’ll add Saliva because I don’t think they’ve been in town recently and as a longshot Children of Bodom mainly because I would like to see them.  I don’t know anything about Trivium but I think that’s a band 98.9 plays a lot of and I saw they’re putting out a new album.

I’m sure I’ll do my fair share of complaining about the lineup but if the weather’s decent it’s not a bad time.  I even had a decent time in last year’s monsoon but I wouldn’t recommend any sort of eye injury though.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been listening to the Christmas episodes of one of my favorite podcasts The Quiet Village.  There was one last year and two the year before, and they’re wonderful.  They feature Christmas songs in a Hawaiian/Exotica vein and the selections are pretty much perfect.  One of the things that I love about it is that I hear songs I never hear anywhere else unless I bust out my Ultralounge Christmas albums.

This of course gets me going on the local Christmas stations - why won’t they play any of this stuff?  It’s not like the songs are unfamiliar to people.  They’re traditional songs and no one’s going to shut off the station is they hear Les Baxter’s version of Sleigh Ride instead of Debbie Gibson’s.

One other thing, when did Dean Martin’s “Marshmallow World” get taken off the Christmas playlist at these stations?  Did someone decide that Bob Segar’s horrible version of “The Little Drummer Boy” needed to get more play?

So this year the plan of posting every day of November for NaBloPoMo worked out and went a lot smoother than it did last year.  That shouldn’t have been the case since things are a lot crazier around my house this year but I think the realization of how things were made me more focused on writing posts every day.

Anyway, I feel less burned out than I did last year so hopefully I’ll keep posting at a regular clip but based on the last ten days it doesn’t look promising.

I’ve given some thought to what my favorite albums of 2010 and what a pain in the ass it is.  As usual, my favorite albums that I bought in the past year weren’t actually released in 2010.  I need to check dates but so far I like the new Girl Talk a lot, along with the Black Keys and Slash’s solo album.

Honestly, I don’t really see anything being released today that interests me. The lists I’ve seen are short in general compared to other weeks. Sure, the Black Eyed Peas are releasing something, there’s a couple of greatest hits coming out, a Glee album and a three disc Heaven 17 reissue are coming out, but nothing’s really catching my fancy.

It seems to me that this is still prime time to be churning out stuff in preparation for Christmas.  I expected to see more greatest hits collections or box sets coming out.  Traditionally as the end of December draws nearer you see less and less coming out but it seems to me like this has come up faster than it has in previous years.  Has the recording industry shot its wad for the year?  Once Black Friday’s over, is it not even worth bothering with until next year?  I’m not sure.

Something a little curious did come out today though - the Lambchop Box Set.  It’s an eight CD collection that Amazon has for $107.00.  Allmusic describes it as “chamber pop” which I find incredibly interesting, just not $107.00 interesting.