Steve Miller - You Got Me Dizzy

Just a song that keeps repeating in my mind this week. From Steve Miller's 2010 album Bingo.

Catching Up With...Sandra Bullock

OK, as Peter Griffin or the Bunny would say "You know what really grinds my gears?" the answer would be:

To Stop Saying Sandra Bullock Was "Blind Sided" - Normally I'm all for snark and not above kickin' someone when they're down if I don't like them, but I actually don't mind Sandra Bullock as an actress and feel bad for her (I'm not even a big fan of hers, when I first saw an advertisement for The Blind Side I thought "Is she portraying Kathie Lee Gifford?"). Not just for her obvious problems in her personal life, but that the media took her Oscar victory for The Blind Side and rubbed it all in her face. News story after news story had to make a play on the movie title for their report on Bullock's breakup with her husband. This sort of thing I could possibly enjoy as a lone snotty comment from a TMZ staffer, but every news service in the country? That's jacked.

Now for things that don't grind my gears...

Alex Chilton homages - Big Star will forever be considered one of the great neglected bands of rock history. And with that Alex Chilton is a talent that myself and maybe others only find out about when you read those "Greatest of all time" lists you find around in magazines and the internet, because except for That 70s Show I can't think of any major exposure of their music. But Big Star was sublimely melodic and his passing led to a nice cover by a fan of one of my favorite songs, "Thirteen".

The Black Crowes "Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love)" - On a recent long car ride this song was a highlight, I loved how it went from a Creedence Clearwater Revival style first half with dreamy guitar licks to a fierce rave up of skidding organ runs. Great stuff.

Hot Tub Time Machine commercials - Hey, is that John Cusack having a mid life crisis? Cusack was a master of the teen ruckus films in the 80s and seemed to mature to rom com king a long time ago. To see Cusack back in his old stomping grounds is, as Heidi Klum would say, "BeZahr". Who knows, maybe the guy who led One Crazy Summer and Better Off Dead can reclaim the magic. Not banking on it though. All I know is I want my two dollars...

Heidi Klum says "Bizarre"- Taken from the tv show Project: Runway, the supermodel says the word "Bizarre"...well, bizarrely. For some reason the image and sound of her enunciating strikes me weird, like she's morphing into that creature from Species or something. How Bizarre.

Zooey Deschanel Cotton Commercial - Long the avatar (Aha! Snuck that word in. Heh heh, Avatar!) for indie cool in a quirky cute package, actress/singer Zooey Deschanel has made a new song for her advertisement selling Cotton. I love it when a song is written for a commercial, I still like to think about What The Night Could Do from time to time. The full song is light airy fun, the ad itself features a trip to a used record store. Dammit, they know my demographic so well!

And now we're caught up. That's...Bizarre!

Catching Up With...Bitch Stewie!

Bitch Stewie rules! (pictured on the right)

Now for the latest round of catch up -

Bitch Stewie - A week ago I saw a Family Guy repeat that I missed on its original airing, an episode where Stewie made a clone of himself with fewer brain cells to perform menial tasks. The resulting clone, named "Bitch Stewie", saw everything through rose colored glasses speaking in an awestruck tone constantly. Easily the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Though the recent Family Guy episode with Stewie in drag saying to a mailman "Oh, you're emptying your sack on me!" while the mailman tosses fan mail on him from a bag is almost as good.

Death Of The 80s - So many entertainers from my formative years are dying off that I have to lump them in one place. On top of Boner and T Bone Wolk, in the past week football star / Little House On The Prairie guy Merlin Olsen, child star Corey Haim and Mission: Impossible leader/ Airplane! pilot Peter Graves have all died. Graves was the saddest loss of all to me, I liked Mission: Impossible and loved Airplane. Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Idolatry - As the ninth season of American Idol falls into an inexplicable limbo of mixed message judging and mind boggling vote results, Entertainment Weekly is there to mock it all with a weekly online critique called Idolatry. Watching Michael Slezak (who seems to be a walking encyclopedia of AI info) and crew ridicule AI has become more fun than watching the show itself. To check out some first class snark, just click on the link.

Ray Lamontagne "Trouble" - One positive thing of American Idol this season is the repeated usage of this song. In fact, it just got a contestant booted from the show this week after singing it. "Trouble" is a song I've heard here and there without knowing who made it, after hearing it twice on AI this year (first from some guy who actually knows trouble via jail time and then this week Alex Lambert) I decided to check out the original. Good tune! Thanks American Idol!!

Techno Sequels - Both Iron Man and Tron have sequels in the pipeline and trailers to entice with. The Iron Man 2 trailer reeks of sequelitis with its overkill (More digital special effects! Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johanssen!! An army of Iron Men!!!) but I know I'm gonna wanna see this puppy anyway. As for Tron: Legacy I'll have to wait and see, it's going to take a lot of inspired storytelling to revive this hard drive once you get past the flashy fx.

W.E.T. "One Love" - While researching long forgotten AOR bands I stumbled across this track from last year. It is high quality AOR in the Journey/Foreigner vein. I've bought the whole album to review, but for now this is the song that's stuck in me head. Dorky homemade video and all.

And that's this round of catch up. Seacrest...out!

Happy Anniversary Bunny!

I was looking at my blog, which I haven't been updating lately and noticed mostly what I've posted recently when people die. So to get out of turning my blog into an online morgue, I'm gonna try to post more often even if its just little things.

Today (March 6th, even though the post will show up March 7th) is my wedding anniversary to my wonderful wife. Last year I included a clip of Yes "The Calling", a song I heard on the radio for the first time as we drove to our wedding. Being a Yes fan, I get psyched whenever I hear a new Yes song and listening to it on my wedding day made "The Calling" one of their most meaningful tunes to me.

While at the gym with my wife walking the treadmill, my Ipod in shuffle mode turned up "The Calling". Out of 1,000 songs my IPod could pick, it picked the song I heard for the first time on my wedding day. So here it is again, Yes. "Hear the calling of a miracle..."

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a funky turkey day, peace!

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I'm stumped on what to say this Holiday other than Happy Thanksgiving! So my song for the day is from V Town's own Sly Stone "Thank You". Have a great turkey day and par-tay.

This Is It

I haven't posted much lately as I have been busy preparing for today, the big day, the day I join the ranks of the unemployed. This will be the first time I haven't had a job since 1993. I can't say I'm alone as I have co-workers that are being laid off today as well and anyone who has looked around cyberspace or seen the news knows I am not in a unique situation. Even with the economy beginning to turn around, there are plenty of people that have been or will be let go from their employment due to their company's financial desires or fortunes. But rather than dwell on what a major bummer this is for me, this post will be about what entertainment got me through the past few weeks. And thank you to my wife for all her support!

Music:

Didn't I just review Pearl Jam's Backspacer CD? Funnily enough, even though I rated the music a 7.5 out of 10 for being lyrically vague it's that generalness that made it resonate with me more in the past two weeks. Going to work knowing the end is coming was like crashing "Against The Waves", trying to put a fix on the situation of looming unemployment a la "The Fixer" and reminding myself to "Just Breathe" because fittingly, "The End" was coming. Pearl Jam's unquestionable energy and integrity helped drive me (literally, I played it a lot in the car) to get past these final days. Backspacer developed more for me due to the circumstances of the timing of when I heard it, I bought it the day I was given notice my job would be ending and it has been the soundtrack to this period of my life.

I also have been playing some Styx as I hadn't realized how much Tommy Shaw writes about unemployment until now. "Blue Collar Man" and "Too Much Time On My Hands"? You're singing my song, Mr. Shaw.

Television:

My wife and I took comfort in watching my DVD set of T.J. Hooker, the early 80's classic cop show starring the legendary William Shatner. The Shat kicks ass as the tough veteran blue suit who pontificates on the crime of the week with authority. He has so much authority that even his ex-wife calls him "Hooker" instead of T.J., or Thomas, or Tom or any other variation of (my wife pointed this out). All of the "maggots", "punks" and "scum" can't stand up to the power of the Shatner 2000. No criminal could outrun the girdled one as Shatner breaks every rule to bring the bad guys down. And whatever happened to Adrian Zmed?

Movies:

Last night I watched I Love You Man, a fun bromance comedy starring that guy from the Jennifer Aniston movie involving a baby I think and the dude that's not the star but co-star that's not Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother. It starts off a little slow but once the HIMYM guy shows up it picks up considerably. Gotta respect any film that gives Rush as much props as they get here. And Rashida Jones (Quincy Jones' daughter) plays the unassuming girlfriend to perfection, giving depth to a sketchy role.

One last song that keeps going through my head is Sinead O'Connor's "The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance". Okay, okay, okay - I guess one sad song makes it through on this post. But as they say, this is also an opportunity for a new beginning. So I'll pile on Chicago's "Beginnings" on the flip side. Oh yeah!

Ponyo The Good Version

A little while ago I wrote about how I didn't like the movie Ponyo, now there's a version online that mashes it up with a comic rap song by The Lonely Island called "I'm On A Boat". It's pretty funny and much better than seeing the actual film. I found this on the website for Paste magazine.

Happy Halloween!

Today is...what is it also called? All Hallows Eve? Anyway, for today I tried to think of a song that was scary. This was hard for me to do, maybe because I've grown up in the multimedia age, I don't find music scary even when it's trying to be. I couldn't find a scary song, but there was a song that I thought tried hard to be and was interesting in how far it would go to try to achieve this goal.

When I first started buying music, I was influenced somewhat by my younger neighbor also named Mike. He had a lot more music than I did and went through various phases. At first he worshipped Todd Rundgren because his older brother did, meaning I had to listen to a lot of Utopia which was OK but didn't really do it for me. Then he went into New Wave which was cool because I got to copy all of his The Police tapes, all five of them! He even went as far as Duran Duran for a second. After that he shifted to metal, first getting into KISS and then speed metal. While playing Strike Out in my front yard he would endlessly debate with himself: which band was heavier, Metallica or Slayer? Which leads to today's theme song for Halloween.

I had not heard of Slayer before my friend started playing them around me and while they weren't scary, I thought it took a sort of dementia to simulate speaking in tongues followed by an ominous voice saying "Hell Awaits". It was amusing to watch my friend copy the speaking in tongues part when there was no music playing, it really is something meant to be heard a capella. Then there was that album cover with presumably the fires of hell and spears piercing through corpses. On that same album was a song that was so "out there" I couldn't stop laughing, "Necrophiliac". Yes, it is exactly about what is in the title. When my friend would start singing the lyrics it was just too funny. Even now, 25 years later, the thought of this song brings a smile.

I was going to pick "Hell Awaits" for the Halloween song of the day but really, what could be better than "Necrophiliac"? A Halloween warning to all that click on the link below, the lyrics are graphic which of course makes it that much funnier to me. What a wicked holiday Halloween is.

Empty Sky

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you today is 9/11, tonight's twofer music video is going to have that theme (I should note this was inspired after reading the blog Layla's Classic Rock) . The first song is a Bruce Springsteen song called "Into The Fire" which was written about the tragedy and heroism of that horrible day. The second song is Wilco's "Jesus etc" which was written before 9/11 but I didn't hear until years afterward. It has a melancholy tone and lyrics about tall buildings shaking that unwittingly fits the mood of post 9/11 well.

Dixie's Big Day Out

Today is the Dixie Dog's tenth birthday. My wife saw to it the Dog got to live in style, she had multiple walks, slept on our bed and best of all got to eat a McDonalds Angus Bacon Cheeseburger! So in tribute to our loveable Dixie dog, here's a Journey song with her name in the title - "Dixie Highway"!

Happy Birthday Bunny

Today is my wife's Birthday! To celebrate, here's a song she was singing this morning with a clever animation drzaius77 on You Tube came up with. Happy Birthday Bunny! I hope you have a great day :)

Carry On Wayward Nerd

On Tv there's this commercial of this guy rocking out in his car to Kansa's "Point of Know Return" that really hits home for me, because it is probably what I look like on the road to other motorists. So for tonight's KRQR double shot, here's the original groovy Kansas video for "Point of Know Return" and the commercial that feels like a documentary of my drive time antics.

Total Eclipse Of The...

I was going to do an entirely different post until I came across this literal video version of the Bonnie Tyler cheesetastic epic "Total Eclipse Of The Heart". I got a few chuckles out of this one, enjoy!

Who Are You?

One of my earliest rock and roll memories was when my older cousin invited me to join other cousins in his bedroom to stand in front of his mirrored closet door and pantomime a band performance of "Pinball Wizard" over and over again. I think it was about 1972 when this happened. It was a lot of fun and we must have done it about three times before it got old. This made The Who one of the first rock bands I had consciously listened to. The memory isn't all gravy though, this same cousin told me Tommy had lost his sight because a fluorescent lamp bulb blew up in his face which gave me a paranoia about light bulbs for years. Funnily enough, when I used to work at a thrift store a customer asked me to test a Christmas light they were interested in and when I plugged it in the light did blow up in front of me while I was looking at it. Thankfully I wasn't injured or blinded, though this incident did not help with my paranoia.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, for decades I've seen snippets of a performance by The Who performing "Won't Get Fooled Again." Even before I liked The Who (my wife is responsible for getting me into this group) I thought the video clips from this performance looked awesome. I didn't know where the recording came from and when I would see the edited bits on a tv program here or there I would think it was amazing. After watching an episode of Classic Albums featuring Who's Next, I decided to search You Tube for this performance. And it is an incredible performance. It's everything rock and roll is supposed to be: A powerful and majestic adrenalin fueled rush complete with screaming and laser beams. The thrill of hitting a guitar to make beautiful noise with abandon. Crashing drums. Rumbling bass. And soul shredding vocals. That makes "Won't Get Fooled Again" my song of the moment! Keep on rockin' in the free world.

In The Zone

Imagine if you will...two posts- a Flashback and a Song of the Moment, having nothing to do with each other except the fact that they were thought of at the same time. One is sad, the other gross. Both will find a home here...at the Twilight Zone.

There once was a band, one of the first to be signed to Geffen records. We'll call this band Quarterflash. Supposedly named after a Shakespeare quote that says man is one quarter flash and three quarters fool (so speaketh the soothsayer Casey Kasem). Before that title the Portand, Oregon band went by Seafood Mama (which probably went over well at seafood restaurants. Have the Silver Platter special for $5.00 along with some Seafood Mama!). Led by the husband and wife team of Marv and Rindy Ross, Quarterflash were able to play mainstream soft rock as well as any Firefall or Ambrosia. They hit it big right out of the gate on their debut single, the Pat Benatarish "Harden My Heart". Quarterflash got decent album sales out of their smash and gained a reputation for playing their big hit early in their live sets to separate the pop fans from their true followers. Unfortunately, Quarterflash couldn't come up with another "Harden My Heart" despite their best efforts and by 1986 they were playing the County Fair circuit.

That's when I saw them perform live at the local County Fair. It was the Summer after High School Graduation and with my city not being a big Rock town, I was able to stand in the front row. In the front row I ran into a classmate who I knew casually but had never hung out with. We hadn't talked to each other much in High School but weren't on bad terms (it was that sort of we're-just-out-of-high-school-and-you're-someone-I-recognize-so-we're-cool-now kind of thing) and he left right after "Harden My Heart" played about the fourth song into the set. Before he left I remember shaking hands with him as we probably wouldn't see each other around much afterwards.

A few months later I read in the paper this guy had died in an accident returning from a camping trip. He was the first person I knew of from my class to pass away. Since then, when I hear Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart" I think of the last time I saw this guy, full of life, standing in the front row before Rindy Ross yelling "You can swallow my tear baby!" as she warbled her ticket to one hit wonderdom. If you told me that guy would no longer be alive a few months later I would not have believed it. Quarterflash seemed to end shortly after that, leaving their music tied to that moment of this guy's youthful exuberance as a permanent record in my memory.

Quarterflash "Harden My Heart"

The Song of the Moment is inspired by tonight. Warning - this one is a little gross. My wife cooked up some delicious chili with cornbread for dinner. I ate it along with two glasses of milk, a dangerous thing for a lactose intolerant person like me to do. The hours that followed were tough for my wife as she sat through...we'll say a carpet bomb attack of chili powered explosives. As the night wore on, a song that fit the occasion for me popped into my head (obviously something that happens to me often...songs in my head, that is). So I'll say sorry Bunny, here's a song so we'll always remember tonight.

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John Parr was a British rocker in love with American AOR. He even played with a guitar painted as the American flag and had a minor hit in 1984 with the excellent Naughty Naughty. He then teamed up with Producer David Foster for the title track to the film St. Elmo's Fire which became a #1 hit. How does this relate to tonight? Because I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin', burnin inside of me (big rock howl while the music plays on at this point). Take me to where the future's lying - St Elmo's Fire! Oogada Boogada Ah Ha Ha.

John Parr "St. Elmo's Fire"

A Historic Day

Wow, time files. I meant to post on MLK Day but did something else and now I've almost missed Inauguration Day. As everyone on the planet knows, today was Barack Obama's first day as our new Commander in Chief. I watched the CNN coverage until a little bit after his official inauguration and his excellent speech. It's great to have a President who is up front about the challenges facing us and inspires hope with intelligence and leadership. But enough politics, I was going to use Aretha Franklin's song from today to end this post but I thought that was a little lazy, so I racked my brain to see what other song I could come up with to fit this moment. Journey's "Don't Stop Believin"? Great song, though I still think of the White Sox and The Sopranos. A Bruce Springsteen song? That's as predictable as using an Aretha Franklin song. Stevie Wonder, U2? Both are great inspirational artists that often get used for these purposes. Van Halen's "Dreams"? It fits, I just usually think of military action from that song. Must have been that Blue Angels video. Nope, I wanted to dig a little deeper. Oddly, the song that eventually sprang to mind is one of the lesser known songs from one of my favorite bands . Yes' "Open Your Eyes" was a pretty good fit for me, it espouses optimism and breaking free from old established ways. So on this great day can I post some Yes? Yes I ...well, you know the rest.

Yes "Open Your Eyes"

Happy New Year!

T'Pow! Will 2009 be the year things start to get better? I hope so! Live Long and Prosper.

Ding, Dong, 2008 is dead! A great year for entertainment but pretty miserable on just about every other scale. 2009 is going to be all about hope. Hope for the future both personally and in terms of America and the world. After spending New Years Eve with my wife watching Star Trek it's easy to be in a positive frame of mind.

I also spent a little bit of time scouring the New Years shows for fun. My impressions? Kellie Pickler is still entertaining to listen to, Carson Daly complains too much about the cold, Lionel Ritchie and Elton John still have "it" while newbies Taylor Swift and the Jonas Bros can't cut it live. Did like seeing high profile exes Taylor Swift and one of those Jonas kids spend a long time together on tv standing on some platform. Awkward! For me, the musical highlight was watching The Ting Ting's live. Which my wife accurately pegged as being very Blondie-ish.

And what do we have to look forward to in 2009? So far, there's a new Star Trek movie and Bruce Springsteen album lined up. Sounds like 1984 all over again. S-S-S-Sex Crimes! (robot voice) Nineteen Eighty Four. Sorry, went off on a Eurythmics tangent for a second.

Anyway, I woke up wanting to find the perfect song to start 2009. My IPOD randomly selected the right artist, Bob Marley! Let's get the party started with 'ol Bob, "Three Little Birds".

Bob Marley "Three Little Birds"

A New President

Well, we have a new President...or President elect at this point. Most Politics I ignore but the election of a new American President is too big to disregard. Congratulations to Barack Obama for becoming the 44th President and the first African American President in history. The song I've heard associated the most with the new President is Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" so that seems like a fitting Song of the Moment.

Bruce Springsteen "The Rising"

Election Day

Every voting day I think of this song, even though I have no idea what the song really means or even if it has to do with voting at all. Anyway, just thought I would highlight this song in celebration of today. A nice neon lit flashy 80's distraction on a day destined for a lot of serious issues. As I recently heard somewhere there's no pressure today, we're just selecting the leader of the Free World :)

Arcadia "Election Day"

Long Road to Where?

If you talk about doom n' gloom long enough you'll eventually be right: Don Henley and co. describe the end of the good times. In detail. For ten freakin' minutes.

I was driving my car to work when The Eagles CD I loaded up played the title track from last year's album Long Road out of Eden. The song, a downbeat and wary ten minute epic, fit my mood perfectly as I made my way through traffic. I try not to dwell on depressing topics, it's not my usual style (I think anyway) and as much as I enjoy Don Henley's music he writes 20 cynical songs for every happy one. The last time I got into a Don Henley song was "They're Not Here, They're Not Coming" from the Inside Job album which was a while ago. But 2008 has had some setbacks for us and watching the economic crisis unfold doesn't help. And I can't deny the mood of the track with it's slow, pensively building verse and stark, piercing guitarwork from Joe Walsh describes how I feel. While I believe our fortunes will turn around eventually I think I'll wallow in some Don Henley soup. That actually sounds gross, what I mean to say is that while things will get better here's a song for right now. Okay, self pity party is over-time to get back on track! I'll commemorate this moment with this song, an unexpected treat from a year old album.

The Eagles "Long Road out of Eden"