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Ian Tyson - Land of Shining Mountains.

Halestorm - I Miss the Misery

How the hell have I not heard of this group until now? I really love the sound of the main vocalist chicks voice. I haven't liked a female vocalist this much since Amy Lee's debut with Evanescence, that and Guano Apes. Strong female vocalists like that are sexyah.

I bought both Halestorm and The Strange Case Of.. CDs in June 2013. I like the music, but the style is a bit inconsistent. Their best songs are the ones with very prominent bass lines under the guitar power chords. Halestorm got their start as a Heart cover band.

I miss the misery
I get off
It's not you

Your right they are at times "inconsistent" in style but I don't see that as a bad thing. To me ot simply looks like they branch out into different styles and pull quite a few of them off. Was sorta taken back by surprise when I came across a softer almost country type song they do. Very wide range indeed.

This morning as I am coding I'm in a 90's alternative mood. Incubus, Pearl Jam, Local H, Foo Fighters, Tool, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Cake, Nirvana, and to top it off the first three albums of 311.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDMVfFgykP8

Some Green Velvet always helps relax me. (´▽｀)

Mr. Mister - Kyrie

auxy wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDMVfFgykP8

Some Green Velvet always helps relax me. (´▽｀)

W.....T......F.

Welch wrote:

auxy wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDMVfFgykP8

Some Green Velvet always helps relax me. (´▽｀)

W.....T......F.

This surprises you? It's auxy. IIRC (possibly mistaken?) she's posted lnks to stuff like this before. And I'm certainly not going to be the first one to criticize her tastes in music, as I'm sure some of my favorites would be equally unpopular!

just brew it! wrote:

..... she's posted lnks to stuff like this before.

Wait wut.....Auxy is a she? Wow. I've never known/realized.

Soundtrack to the 1996 game Blood - Double, Double, Toil and Trouble. It's surprising 20 years out how well it stands up, and how much it reminds me of Charles Band-style horror film soundtracks. I can't imagine that's an accident.

Mink DeVille - Spanish Stroll

The Cardigans - My Favorite Game - Some how it feels good to hear this song during the quarter end when you are unable to achieve the target... Don't ask why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3gOhCS36bE

Much as I (and JBI) consider the Wilson sisters to rightfully carry the Led Zep torch, this bit tells me that Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam will do the same for The Who.

Chad Wackerman - Dreams, Nightmares, and Improvisations

Wackerman and Jazz/Fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth are a couple of my favorite musicians. They seem to have a very synergistic musical relationship, and bring out the best in each other. Their collaborations (they've intermittently appeared on each others' albums going all the way back to the 1980s) tend to be examples of the whole being more than the sum of the parts, and this album (from 2012) is no exception.

As an aside, I've never been a huge Zappa fan, but two of my favorite drummers (Wackerman and Terry Bozzio) are both Zappa alums.

just brew it! wrote:

As an aside, I've never been a huge Zappa fan, but two of my favorite drummers (Wackerman and Terry Bozzio) are both Zappa alums.

So, no dreams of raising crops of dental floss in Montana?

Chester Thompson, a/k/a the touring drummer for Genesis & Phil Collins from 1977 to 2007, is another Zappa alum.

Yup, the man definitely knew how to recruit fantastic drummers (and other musicians) into his circle. He was a damn good guitarist too. Most of his stuff just never "clicked" with me though. I suppose it might still happen, not unlike my recent foray into the Joni Mitchell back catalog...

Listening to some 90's rap right now. Mainly Method Man, Redman, Busta Rhymes and DMX

Tom Robinson Band - 2-4-6-8 Motorway

Captain Ned wrote:

Chester Thompson, a/k/a the touring drummer for Genesis & Phil Collins from 1977 to 2007, is another Zappa alum.

Back in the 80s, I got to see Chester and Phil do a double-drum-solo.

Holy Crap, that was amazing!

BIF wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Chester Thompson, a/k/a the touring drummer for Genesis & Phil Collins from 1977 to 2007, is another Zappa alum.

Back in the 80s, I got to see Chester and Phil do a double-drum-solo.

It wasn't a solo then. They call those "duets".

just brew it! wrote:

BIF wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Chester Thompson, a/k/a the touring drummer for Genesis & Phil Collins from 1977 to 2007, is another Zappa alum.

Back in the 80s, I got to see Chester and Phil do a double-drum-solo.

It wasn't a solo then. They call those "duets".

That's how they're tagged in all the ROIOs.

Bon - To The Bone

Was listening to this on the way to work this morning. Nearly 2 decades on, I'm still finding little nuances; definitely one of my "desert island" discs. It's somewhat difficult to categorize; jazz/rock with touches of ambient, I guess? Everything about it is just perfect -- the songwriting, the musicianship, the recording, even the track sequencing.

Info about this album seems rather sparse online; it has been in and out of print multiple times over the years, and seems destined to languish in obscurity (damn shame). The core members of the band were Bon Lozaga and Hansford Rowe, both of whom were members of one of the later incarnations of Gong back in the '70s. Drummer Vic Stevens and avant-garde guitarist extraordinaire David Torn rounded out the studio lineup. Stylistically, this release straddles the more aggressive vibe of the first Gongzilla release and the quieter, more acoustic sounds of Project Lo (two of Lozaga's other mid-'90s projects).

I got to see these guys (minus David Torn) live back in the day, at a small club in Chicago... I even still have the "To The Bone" T-shirt! Unfortunately there was a huge blizzard, and only a dozen or so people showed up. At least I got to sit right up against the stage, and spent some time chatting with the band afterwards. I felt really bad for them though; they're from the east coast, and coming all the way out to Chicago in a blizzard to play for a dozen people must've sucked.

These guys still release albums intermittently under the Gongzilla moniker. While I love the first couple of Gongzilla releases, the later ones veer pretty sharply into "jam band" territory (which I find less enjoyable).

just brew it! wrote:

BIF wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Chester Thompson, a/k/a the touring drummer for Genesis & Phil Collins from 1977 to 2007, is another Zappa alum.

Back in the 80s, I got to see Chester and Phil do a double-drum-solo.

It wasn't a solo then. They call those "duets".

Hah. Well, my good man, if you had actually seen and heard the performance live and not just on video, you would not call it a duet and you wouldn't have even deigned to correct me. You simply would have let "double-drum solo" pass because you would have agreed with me; there would have been no question!

3rd disc of Rush's "Different Stages". This was a "bonus disc" of material from a 1970s show, released along with their late '90s live album.

Haven't listened to this in a few years, but I absolutely love it. It repeats much of the material from their first live release "All The World's A Stage" (which to this day remains one of my favorite live albums of all time...), but it is amazing to see how much they'd progressed in musicianship in just a couple of years. Holy crap. The energy of early Rush with the chops of mid-period Rush. This disc may very well have THE definitive versions of Bastille Day, Something For Nothing, and Anthem on it.

Edit: Sounds to me like Alex is pushing the tempo a bit on the songs that start with a solo guitar intro, pulling the rest of the band along on a wild ride. Especially on the opening track of the 3rd disc, Bastille Day.

Edit 2: It has always seemed a bit incongruous to me to hear Neil's intricate drumming on the live versions of the Zeppelin-esqe Working Man and In The Mood (the studio versions of which were recorded before he replaced their original drummer). But that's one of the things that has always fascinated me about Rush -- the way they've evolved over the years.

Edit 3: And I can *almost* forgive Geddy's out-of-tune vocals on the closer, Cinderella Man.

Edit 4: In a "now for something completely different" vein, we've segued from Rush to Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark". Which, incidentally, was released just a few weeks before Rush's debut album...

At the Gates - At War with Reality

One of the prime Swedish Death Metal bands and their first album after a near 20 year hiatus. They are legends, as their '95 album Slaughter of the Soul is still marveled as a Swedish Death Metal masterpiece and this new album seems to be even more brutal. \m/ >< \m/

ultima_trev wrote:

At the Gates - At War with Reality

One of the prime Swedish Death Metal bands and their first album after a near 20 year hiatus. They are legends, as their '95 album Slaughter of the Soul is still marveled as a Swedish Death Metal masterpiece and this new album seems to be even more brutal. \m/ >< \m/

Having been dragged to the edge of the Swedish Death Metal genre by my recent interest in Opeth, I suppose I may need to check At The Gates out... though I do prefer the newer non-Death Metal Opeth releases to the older, more Death Metal ones, so it is iffy whether I'll dip much deeper into the genre over the long haul. Still, it is always fun exploring new (to me) music.

Dream Theater - Dream Theater

Finally picked this up over the weekend (it was released over a year ago), and listened to it on my way to work this morning.

TBH I'd kind of written these guys off after 2011's "A Dramatic Turn Of Events". Released in the wake of the departure of founding drummer Mike Portnoy (who left to be the -- temporary, as it turned out -- replacement drummer in A7X), ADToE seemed rather unfocused and weak to me. Based on that album, I figured Portnoy's departure was a fatal blow, and that they would just fade away.

Well, I'm glad to have been proven wrong; this album is very good! Putting out a self-titled album as your 12th release may seem odd, but this really does feel like a rebirth of sorts. While they don't break a lot of new ground musically, this album seems to have a spark and energy that have been missing from their previous couple of studio releases. The songs are well-written, the arrangements are tight, the track sequencing flows nicely, and (as usual) there are jaw-dropping technical chops in abundance, not the least of which is the propulsive drumming of Portnoy's replacement Mike Mangini. I literally LOLed at a few of the guitar/keyboard solos and drum fills.

If you're a fan of the Progressive Metal genre, you need this album.