Archive for April, 2010

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Rock of Ages is touring!

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

An article on Constantine Maroulis from the Los Angeles Times confirmed my hope that there would be a touring production of ‘Rock of Ages’. (Of course, if I had been paying attention to the official site, I’d have noticed that there was going to be a tour a long time ago.)

I had wanted to see the Broadway production back in December when I went to New York City, but I got overruled, and I haven’t gotten to make a trip back since then. (That was, I’ll admit, a spur of the minute idea. We didn’t go to see the show–I just happened to notice that there were half-price tickets available at the booth in Times Square when we walked by.)

But at least there are a few venues in this area that run a lot of touring productions of musicals. It’s a lot easier to get to see a show when I don’t have to devote the better part of the day to riding a bus into Manhattan. If the touring production does stop at one of the theaters around here, it’ll be relatively easy for me to get in the car and just go.

Maroulis got a lot of praise for his stint in the Broadway production, and if he’s doing the touring production that means that it should be pretty good.

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Random Song: Listen To Her Heart

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Artist: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Album: You’re Gonna Get It

I love this song for being the epitome of what a rock song should be. It’s based around a great basic riff, and builds up from there. The themes are all classic–how can it get any more pure rock and roll than a couple of guys arguing over a girl? Rhythmically speaking, the lyrics fit the song perfectly. Everything just flows–from the intro, through the verses, the chorus and the solo.

‘Listen To Her Heart’ also demonstrates the perfect sense of timing that Tom Petty has. Like many of his best songs, this one clocks in at just over three minutes. Four minutes might be the cutoff for radio airplay, but they didn’t need it here, and rather than overstay its welcome, the song ends at the right moment.

I might have originally gotten into Tom Petty for just one song–Refugee–but I really came to appreciate his work because of songs like this one. This song is a perfect exemplar of everything that I’ve come to love about Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers–it illustrates exactly how much can be done with just the pure basics.

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Songs that make me cry…

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I had my Zune on shuffle earlier today, and the song ‘I Want You’ came up. I hadn’t listened to that song in a long time, but it still plays with my emotions whenever I hear it. That gave me the idea to revisit a few of the songs that can make me cry when I hear them.

‘I Want You’ – Bon Jovi
There’s something so heartfelt in this song, that it just gets me. The first few times that I listened to Keep The Faith, this song didn’t particularly stand out. But then one day, it just sank in. I was sitting at my computer playing Bejewled with the stereo on in the background, and the song just hit me like a ton of bricks. There’s something so completely anguished about the chorus, especially at the end.

‘Blood Money’ – Jon Bon Jovi
Whenever I hear this song, I remember the night that I got to hear Jon sing it live at the Prudential Center back in 2007. I wasn’t as familiar with Blaze of Glory back then, so this really stands out as the moment that I first appreciated that song. Plus, the performance that Jon gave that night was completely stellar. It made the lament of the lyrics come to life for me. I just remember how electric that moment was–with just Jon’s voice soaring through the song and into that strange sort of silence that you can only get when thousands of people suddenly go completely quiet.

For some reason, these songs seem to be hardwired straight into my emotions.

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‘Paranoid’ Documentary Will Be Released Soon

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

The Black Sabbath album Paranoid is going to be the subject of a documentary.  (The full article is available at Gibson.)

This is another documentary that I’m going to have to keep an eye out for.  (I still haven’t found a copy of the Anvil movie in a local store.  I’m going to have to give up and resort to Amazon.)

This is one of the best Black Sabbath albums of all time.  And it was highly influential in shaping my taste in music.  Black Sabbath was one of the first bands that I really explored after I finally figured out that metal and hard rock were the way to go when it came to what I truly enjoyed.  And I’ve always had a weakness for music documentaries.  (I guess that traces back to when I was in college and I used to leave ‘Behind the Music’ on the TV while I did my homework.)

Some people find that documentaries and stuff like ‘Behind the Music’ ruins their appreciation for the music after they see it.  I find that it increases my appreciation for the music once I know more about the creative process that it came from.    Especially in a band like Black Sabbath, where the influence of their music is so widespread.  The more I know, the more I can understand the common threads that tie the music together, and the differences that bring it to life.

Anyway, this sounds really interesting.

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Random Song: Always Run to You

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: 7800° Fahrenheit

I originally got this album as a birthday present.  It was a bit of a disappointment, as I’d asked for Have a Nice Day, which had just come out at the time.  But after I managed to wrap my brain around the differences in sound between the albums that I’d had up to that point and 7800° Fahrenheit, I ended up really liking most of the songs on it.  (That would turn out to be a common theme for me as I discovered Bon Jovi’s music.  Every time that I thought I’d gotten to know what the band was all about, I’d get another album and it would be a complete stylistic curveball all over again.)

‘Always Run To You’ is everything that makes hair metal great.  It’s got a very strong pop sensibility, with that distinct power punch that is so unique to the genre.   There’s nothing really unique or groundbreaking in this song, but the guitar work is solid.  That’s really what I love most about this particular song.  While a lot of this album is dominated by Dave’s keys, on this song they let Richie out to play.  The lead guitar is up front and in your face.  Plus, it’s the guitar and bass that drive this whole song  along.

I also love this song because while it’s a love song, this is no ballad.  This is a hard-driving rock song, with the bass line just pounding away.  It can be kind of rare to find a great hair metal love song that isn’t a cheesy ballad, and this song does it.  Jon and the boys don’t get enough credit for their work on this album, and this song is a great example of that.  It would have been easy for them to take the easy way out and make the love song a ballad, but they didn’t.

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Skill Atrophy

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I haven’t really been playing any of the rhythm games, like Guitar Hero or Rock Band for quite some time. Been too busy playing stuff like the Ghostbusters game, Brutal Legend, and Bioshock lately.

But the other night, I just wanted a quick game to kill some time, and I didn’t feel like playing a battle against the AI in Brutal Legend. (That had been one of my go-to time wasters for awhile, but that lost appeal pretty fast.) So I put the first Rock Band in the Xbox for the first time in probably four or five months.

I, of course, assumed that I could pick up right where I left off and tried to play ‘Number of the Beast’ on Hard right away, and promptly failed out. Ultimately I came to the realization that I really do need to work my way back up to Hard, especially since hand-to-eye coordination isn’t really a natural skill of mine. And at the rate I’ve been going with getting distracted by other games, I probably won’t ever make it through all of the songs on Hard.

What’s really funny about the whole thing is that I can still do ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ perfectly on Expert without a problem, but then again, practice does count for something.

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Random Song: Nothin’ But A Good Time

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Artist: Poison
Album: Open Up And Say …Ahh!

Now, this song is classic hair metal. Couple up a good hook with a lot of mildly sleazy lyrics, and you get this. Poison was always the best at putting out this type of basic party rock. As a matter of fact, I can’t get through a party at my place without at least some Poison getting played at some point.

Plus, there’s nothing like the first verse of this song when’ you’ve had a bad week at work. I know that I personally love listening to this song, especially when I get to the end of a long day. It’s just so full of promise–hey, the weekend is coming, and it’s going to be fun. This is one of my personal favorite escape songs.

I also love the guitar work in this song. In a lot of ways, hair metal doesn’t get the respect it deserves. This is especially true when it comes to getting credit for the musical skills that were necessary to create a lot of these songs. The solo in this song is perfectly timed and paced. It never manages to feel overwrought or dragged out, but it still manages to bring its own distinct feel to the song. And the hook at the beginning is one of the purest examples of guitar-driven rock I’ve ever heard.

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Review of Sunday’s live webcast

Monday, April 12th, 2010

I did manage to tune in for Sunday’s live stream of the show from Dallas.

All told, the show was awesome. We got ten tracks, instead of the promised four, which was awesome. They gave us basically half of the show. I even got to see Captain Crash, which is one of my favorite songs to hear live. They didn’t do Captain Crash the night that I was at the Wachovia Center. But I did get ‘Blood on Blood’ and ‘Something for the Pain’ instead that night, so I was perfectly okay with that tradeoff. And having it be part of the live stream yesterday was nice. It made me remember why I like the song so much.

That, and they did ‘Born To Be My Baby’ too, which is a longtime favorite of mine, ever since I first listened to New Jersey. I did get to hear that one live back in March, but that’s a song that never gets old for me.

All told, it wasn’t the same as being there, but it was pretty good all the same. I’m still fired up for this tour from seeing the boys live in Philly back in March. But if I hadn’t had that experience, this would have done it too.

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Live concert stream on Sunday 4/11/10

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Bon Jovi is making their show in Dallas on Sunday available live over the Internet. You can catch it on uStream, or on the official Bon Jovi site.

It’s been a long day here for me, with work and housework on top of it. (That’s why there isn’t much more of a post to accompany this. My temper is too fried to make reasonable commentary on most of the recent news.)

But at any rate, I’ve got this to look forward to on Sunday, at least.

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Storm Thorgerson slideshow

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

The BBC site has a video gallery of album cover art created by Storm Thorgerson. This includes some very iconic covers, including Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

The neat thing about the gallery is that not only do they show the wide range of art that he has created, the audio interview delves into the ideas behind a lot of the work. So often we get to hear the musicians themselves explaining what went into the music. It’s much rarer to get to hear the rationale behind the cover art.

I’ve long said that the cover art created for rock and roll albums is an underappreciated art form, so for me this particular video clip was a rare treat.

In some ways, creating cover art must be far more challenging than being free to create whatever you want. Yes, it’s a marketing piece, designed to sell the music inside. However, it also has to mesh with the music inside, or it won’t truly accomplish its goal. (Though, that being said, true meshing isn’t 100% necessary. One of the first covers to be discussed in the video relies on subverting that linkage. But even at that, it still says something important and vital about the band that created the music inside that cover.)

All told, I found the video quite fascinating, and rather too short. I would have liked to know more about some of the covers that he created. Anyway, go check it out. If you’re at all interested in album art, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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