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I originally heard about It Might Get Loud - a documentary focusing on guitarists Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White - from an issue of Guitar World.  Despite what common sense would dictate, this sort of documentary didn’t get a lot of press outside the guitar community.  It played at Lawrence’s Liberty Hall a couple of weeks and then went away.  I really wanted to see it, but I’m really bad about procrastinating with movies and unless they’re complete blockbusters they end up going away before I can see them.  I ended up  seeing it last night after it popped up on my cable system’s on demand service.  Again without fanfare, it just sort of showed up.

The bottom line is that it’s good, but I was hoping for a lot more, although I’m not sure what.  The film tracks the career history of the three who talk about their influences and motivations for playing.  With a couple of exceptions I was familiar with the sections about Jimmy Page, which makes sense based on all the interviews of his I’ve read over the years.  The Edge covered U2’s origins and discussed the different effects he uses to get his sound. 

When I was younger I used to really dislike The Edge’s playing because he wasn’t Jimmy Page or Yngwie Malmsteen.  Over the years I’ve come to appreciate his playing more, and appreciating that he’s doing his own thing.  That came out even more during the film and after seeing it I can see the path he’s going down as a guitarist.

Jack White ended up being the most interesting character in the film, mainly because I’m not sure what to make of him.  I’m not sure if everything he said in the movie was sincere or not.  At one point in the film he pulls out a Son House album and describes how one of his songs is what drives him to make music.  On one hand this seems like the sort of thing that a phony hipster would do - bring out a relatively unknown but not too obscure blues musician and really talk it up in order to seem deep and intelligent.  On the other hand, I pulled out my White Stripes albums today and I can totally see where Son House influenced his material, especially how he described the passion and energy of his music.

So that’s how he goes throughout the movie.  He has his odd hipster clothes and his off-brand guitars and the whole thing seems sort of pretentious.  However he seems very sincere about the whole thing and I hope he is.  The world needs more people who listen to Son House.

The movie culminates with the three guitarists meeting in London comparing notes and playing together.  They play Zepplin’s “In My Time of Dying”, U2’s “I Will Follow” and the White Stripes’ “Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground”, along with “The Weight” as the credits roll.  This sounds like it would be incredible but for some reason left me flat.  Both Jack White and the Edge seemed a little tense and it came out in the playing.

Overall it’s worth watching.  The archival footage is great and gives some pretty decent insight into the minds of guitarists from three different generations.  Now I have a great idea for a sequel featuring Yngwie Malmsteen, Glenn Frey, and that guy who used to be in the Foo Fighters who wore a dress…

I’ve never been a huge Neil Young fan.  He’s one of those artists whose greatest hits get played so much on classic rock radio that you’re completely sick of them and I’ve also heard a lot of his stuff that I just don’t care for.  I do, however, love Harvest Moon and Arc-Weld for reasons that escape me since they’re not really that much of a departure from his other stuff.

The concert movie Rust Never Sleeps has always piqued my curiosity though.  The tour that this performance is from was once named one of the top concert performances by Rolling Stone.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, on this tour the roadies were dressed like Jawas from Star Wars and the stage had props like amplifiers whose size was exaggerated so that the people on stage were dwarfed.

The other aspect of this film that had me interested was that it was one of those movies that always was playing at the midnight movies when I was growing up.  By time I was old enough to go to them, the theatre started showing more modern movies so the movies I missed always had a bit of mystery to me.  When I saw the Rust Never Sleeps DVD used  for five dollars I bought it without hesitation.

From a concert perspective the performance is amazing.  A good chunk of the set is solo acoustic which I’m usually not crazy about, but Neil plays songs like “Sugar Mountain” and “After the Goldrush” with a great energy.  The solo songs are so good they almost overshadow his performance with Crazy Horse.  The electric songs are great as well, but based on what I’ve heard before that’s less of a suprise.

From a movie standpoint though it falls flat.  The opening sequence of the roadies shuffling around before the show gets boring after the first 30 seconds.   Same goes for the other interruptions throughout the show - they may have worked for the people in the crowd at the time but sitting through it in the movie becomes aggravating.  The sequence with the Woodstock announcements is beyond boring.

The sound and picture quality aren’t wonderful but for me that’s not an issue considering when it was made.  There is a weird thing about the sound though.  Between songs you can clearly hear Neil’s footsteps on the stage, him dragging the piano bench across the floor, even when he picks up a harmonica out of the glass they’re held in.  I don’t know if that was in the original film or if it’s part of the DVD mixing, or if it was even done on purpose.  It’s just odd.

The bottom line is that Rust Never Sleeps is one of the best concert films I’ve ever seen and I’m not even a big Neil Young fan, although it definitely has made me one now.

While taking my son to school I turned on one of the local Christmas stations and lo and behold they were playing Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Day”. I can’t put my finger on why but I despise that song so much but they just play it a ton on both stations. That was followed by some nondescript seasonal song by 98 Degrees.

I feel like I’m already turning into a Scrooge on the first week of November, but these bad and boring songs take all the joy out of Christmas. They’ve taken everything good from this time of the year and replaced it with the monotony found on the station the other ten months.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s more of me getting worked up as December 25 comes closer.

May 30th was the annual Kansas City Rockfest put on each year by 98.9.  Just a few thoughts since I didn’t end up staying that long.

First off it was hot.  Really hot, like Tattooine.  I decided to go this year because I figured it wouldn’t be too hot at the end of May.  I certainly learned my lesson on that.

So anyway, I packed up my sunscreen, one unopened water bottle, and a camera (as per the rules they posted) and went on my way.  The concert was at Liberty Memorial, but I ended up parking at Union Station for $20.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was like when you’re in Vegas and you think you’ll walk somewhere because it’s only a few properties down the strip.  Even though they’re right next to each other it takes forever to get from one to another - probably a good 20 minutes.

One of the interesting thing was the number of scalpers buying and selling tickets.  It was around 3:30 and things started around noon, so the $40 face value tickets were now being sold for $20.  On top of that, the scalpers were buying people’s tickets for $10 so they could sell them for $20.

Once I arrived at the concert I was suprised by the sheer number of people.  Obviously 50,000 tickets sold is a lot, but it’s one of those things that doesn’t click until you see it in person.

There were plenty of beer tents serving crappy beer so there wasn’t a wait for that.  There weren’t as many concession stands and someone told me it was a 45 wait in line to get a hot dog.  Here’s another thing - they kept hyping that no food or drink would be over $5.00, which turned out to mean that EVERY food or drink item was $5.00, including the cup of lemonade I got.

I was supposed to meet a couple of people at a specific spot but couldn’t find them.  I went to go check out Parlor Mob’s set on the second stage.  I didn’t expect much that early in the day but they were really good - a solid blues based hard rock band that really seemed to click.  I ended up ordering their album from Amazon based on the strength of their set.  They had a pretty small crowd in front of the stage which was suprising based on the sheet number of people there.

After that finished I moved over to check out Corey Taylor’s set.  Despite owning two Slipknot albums I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of them or Stone Sour but there was a lot of talk about his first solo show.  He pulled out a few suprise covers like Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” and the “Cheers” theme.  His set was good, but not great.

After his set I found the people I was supposed to meet.  However, I was nearing the end of my day when something in the air scratched my eyeball.  It was killing me so I decided to leave and let the good Dr. McKeon look at it.  Apprantly what I should have done was fashioned an eye patch to cover it so I could have stayed.  Anyway, I got some numbing drops and I was happy.

I left during Shinedown’s set and from what a lot of people were saying, they were the band everyone wanted to see, even over the headliners.

One other interesting thing is that as I left (somewhere around 6:45).  I saw lots of unused tickets on the sidewalk leading up to the Liberty Memorial and even saw a small stack stuck under a minivan’s rear windshield wiper.

So that was it.  However, I do have a plan for next year:

1.  DO NOT buy tickets ahead of time.  Don’t fall for the hype of it being sold out.

2.  If it’s too hot, just stay home.  If the weather is nice go and pick up some cheap tickets from scalpers.  If that doesn’t work out just go see a movie or something.

These all came out over the past two weeks:

That’s right, two different Frank Sinatra ballad collections, both released on the same day. Keep in mind that’s in addition to 2001’s Love Songs, 2007’s Romance: Songs from the Heart, and 2008’s Beautiful Ballads and Love Songs.  Amazon shows that Dean Martin has four additional love song collections in print and another one coming out in a couple of weeks.

I guess I really don’t have a point with this except that the whole thing stinks of desperation from the recording industry.  Maybe this is the first time I noticed this, but that seems like a lot of romance-themed collections to come out in the span of two weeks.

Here’s another thing, wouldn’t the Air Supply romance collection essentially be the same as their greatest hits?  I’m too lazy to check but my spidey-sense tells me that yes they are.

And for fuck’s sake people, instead of buying that Miles Davis collection just pick up Kind of Blue.