Blog: The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown

You know what the difference between good and cheap wine is? Good wine gets better with age. The longer you hold onto it, the fuller the flavor. The cheap wine may be drinkable the day you bring it home from the market but usually by the weekend, it becomes as sour as a glass of lemonade. Some thinks are not meant to endure. I want to begin this article with a very embarrassing statement.

Last night I saw Spiderman 3, despite the 100s and I mean 100s of flaws, I still found myself really enjoying the film. Maybe I'm just a sucker for over-produced action sequences or it's my life long love for Sam Raimi...but regardless, it was a good time at the movies. I will say, watching the film reminded me a lot of a great band's later career. As bands get older, they tend to surround

In the first chunk of Travis B-Sides, Bad Feelings,"the songs were actually stronger than their album counterparts. It showed the band was progressing, their music writing capabilities were evolving. On The Woman Who, they left it all on the floor. Since most of the strong tracks found themselves on the parent album, there was very little leftover for those $10 CD singles. The B-Sides were

Continuing on with yesterday's post... The Man Who was Travis' breakout album in the states. They had a huge radio hit with "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?" And one of their B-Sides in particular, the cover of Britney Spears' "Baby, One More Time," found a common spot on the radio as well. This may be Travis' only era where their album tracks out number the B-sides...14 to 12. Here are The

No one considers the art of the B-Side a bigger asset than the band Travis. Here's a band that not only turns out some of the most collectable B-sides in the music industry (they cover everyone from The Band to Queen to Britney Spears) they are probably one of the few bands who has released more B-Sides than A-sides. Before the release of their recent album "The Boy With No Name" they had put

When I told everyone that my family was taking a vacation to Nashville, everyone thought I was a loon. Nashville? How was I supposed to relax in a sleezy dirty city like Nashville? Are you kidding, for any of us audiophiles, Nashville is like the L'ouvre of music history. In fact if you throw in Memphis, the state of Tennesee may be the most significant musical state in the country. The

What are the Music Blog Awards? The Music Blog Awards are the first award event where the music bloggers get to nominate their favorite artists. Over 35 of the best and brightest bloggers on the net selected nominees in 14 different categories from Best Album to Best Song to Best Taco (okay, I made up the last category). Yours truly helped with the nomination process and I can't tell you how

There are three things that plague the human race.: Terrorists, Telemarketers, and Traffic. There is no doubt if all three things were to disappear that the planet would be a much better place to live...in fact, it would be probably be very close to being a utopia. Imagine driving to work and you hit every green light. Imagine that not one person cuts in front of you and no one in front of

Right now the Rage Against The Machine reunion is happening. 7 years in the making and all you lucky Coachellans that waited in 100 degree heat are reaping the benefits. For all of us that are sitting in our air-conditioned homes and drinking ice cold lemonade, here's a something they can't get. The 11 Best Rage Against the Machine Songs You've Never Heard: 1. Hadda Be Playing on The Jukebox

Festivals suck. All of them do. We think that they are great because a lot of great artists play at them. And sure, once in awhile a good performance is heard. But for the amount of money you pay, it's never worth it. Coachella is the bastardization of the music festival. More expensive to go for three days than to buy a used car. The drive out there is hellacious. The toilets are

A couple days ago I looked at the arsenal of B-sides from Trent Reznor's 17 year career. Not counting instrumentals...the number tops out at around 13. Today's artist...the Arctic Monkeys had 14 B-sides before their second album even hit the store shelves. My old boss always told me you can judge a band's longevity by their B-sides. And it's somewhat true. Bloc Party had great B-sides and

When it comes to making albums, Trent Reznor has a specific vision for each one. Hell, he took 5 years to get The Fragile just the way he wanted it. Each album is it's own entity. There's a path, a journey to each album experience. Because of this, there are very few throwaways in the Reznor's arsenal...but they do exist. Here are the 11 Best Non-Album Nine Inch Nails Songs: 1. Perfect

I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine, his name is Barry, about who could win in a fight between Henry Rollins and Trent Reznor. Now, ten years ago, when Trent was a wastoid who weighed somewhere in the double digits, Henry Rollins could blow him down with his monster breath. But in the past few years, Trent has hit the gym in a major way and put on about 100 pounds of pure

Some people think Bob Dylan is a genius. Some people think he's master song writer. Others think he's the voice of a generation. According to Bob Dylan, he's none of the above. Through-out Dylan's career, he fought the labels that were thrust upon him. When he was folk music's savior, he recorded an album with electric guitars. When he was labeled as the chosen Jew, he became a

You know what sucks? Having the stomach flu. Not because you spend a good three days kneeling before a mildew infested porcelain wading cesspool...that part is bad, don't get me wrong. What really sucks about being sick is the lost time. A good chunk of your life is ripped away from you. Projects that are due pile-up in Eiffel-style stacks on your desk, so the moment you sit down, you feel

I know I'm a few days late with the post. I blame it on this terrible cough/cold that's been running around. I've been stuck in bed all weekend unable to move. How bad was it? Well, I was so tired...I couldn't even gather enough energy to change the channel on my TV's remote control. I ended up watching all five hours of The Ten Commandments...and LIKED it. Heston was one sexy man...wait,

In elementary school, my favorite baseball player was Wally Joyner of the Anaheim Angels or the California Angels as they were known back then. And what wasn't to like about this guy? In his rookie season, he batted .290, hit 22 home runs, 100 RBIs and 27 doubles. He side-stepped the sophomore slump by hitting 34 home runs, 117 RBIs, and 33 doubles. He was a superstar in the making. I

What many people don't know is how prolific Nirvana was. Not only did Kurt Cobain write incredible original songs, he was also astute at taking other people's songs and making intense but unique versions of them. There are supposedly thousands and thousands of hours of tapes of Kurt just sitting around the house covering other people's songs. Rumor is, he would turn on the radio and cover

Have any of you ever had Faygo soda? It's disgusting. It's the sweetest substance on the planet. Basically, some wacky scientist in the middle of Nebraska came up with some magic formula to carbonate cane sugar. The result is a drink so potent, you can get a cavity just by being in the same room as it. My one experience with Faygo came in my visit to Detroit, where they had an entire wall

A little known fact is that Ray Kroc of McDonald's once approached Walt Disney about fusing Disneyland and McDonald's. The two had been in the same army platoon. Walt apparently scoffed at the idea...there's no way McDonald's will ever be as popular as Disneyland. Ironically, the only name brand restaurant at Disneyland today is McDonald's. But there's something else besides history that