I'm going to see a band called Chickenfoot next week! It's made up of the following:

Sammy Hagar: Montrose, Van Hagar, solo
Michael Anthony: Van Halen, Van Hagar
Joe Satriani: solo/instrumental, Mick Jagger, Deep Purple
Chad Smith: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Pretty sweet! I've seen everyone in the band before, at wildly different venues (e.g., Chad Smith at Lollapalooza '92 right before college, Van Hager at the Target Center when I was in high school, etc). Their CD is very straight-forward riff-oriented hard rock, sorta reminiscent of Zeppelin, AC/DC, and yes, Van Hagar. This is both good and bad; if you're not in the mood it can come off as simplistic with remarkably adolescent lyrics, but mostly it's just a rawking good time.

Going out for dinner with talekyn tonight; yay!!

P.S. I SOOOO hate my work computer; half the time I try to post the screen just goes all white...

It's funny how all these bands are performing entire records in concert at the same time everyone's hollering about the death of the album in the wake of the iPod's shuffle feature and so forth. So far, "The Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists is probably the best one, but Judas Priest might give 'em a run for their money when they do all of "British Steel" this summer. A few weeks earlier, Queensrÿche performed substantial pieces of "Rage for Order," "American Soldier," and "Empire," and the night before Rock the Garden Ratt did all of "Out of the Cellar."

I wouldn't go so far as to call the Decemberists "metal," but they definitely count the groups that inspired metal among their influences. The guitar player used a Gibson SG, and they had an Orange amp on stage; both of these can also be found in old Black Sabbath footage. They closed with Heart's "Crazy On You," which was pretty rad! And also kind of metal; the riff uses the exact same notes as Priest's "Breaking the Law," just in a different order.

Anyway, Rock the Garden was an amazing show!

For a while I was thinking about collecting U2's catalog via BMG, but then was like, "Why?" It'd probably just sit on my shelf.

Anyway...

One Of The Boys, by Katy Perry
Alright, Still, by Lily Allen
Boombox: The Remix Album 2000-2009, by Kylie Minogue
Permanent Vacation, by Aerosmith
Pump, by Aerosmith
Get A Grip, by Aerosmith

Average price per disc was $6.25 (the Aerosmith CDs were bundled together as a specially-priced 3-pack); last sign out was approx. 10 a.m. on 06-20-09.

The latest e-mails advising me to sign up with yourmusic.com say they'll waive monthly fees for former BMG members, but I think it may be best to just say my record club days are over. It's been a good 14 years.

Ratt performed their breakthrough album Out Of The Cellar last night in its entirety! Apparently the album was released 25 years ago; where does the time go?? The guitar player in Firehouse is pretty awesome, too! He was playing some serious Steve Vai type shit; I actually remembered like four or five of their songs, and I don't think I've actively listened to them since 1991.

So Friday night I'm meeting some friends at the Myth for Ratt and Firehouse; Ratt was one of the better of the Van Halen wannabes and Firehouse is probably remembered most for the ridiculously sappy 80s power ballad "Love of a Lifetime." Ratt's big hit single was "Round and Round," which the Donnas performed with surgical precision the last time I saw 'em.

Saturday I'm seeing the Decemberists at Rock the Garden with lonely_doll, which promises to be an amazing show! Also, I'll regain whatever hipster cred I lost the previous night. :-P

The soundtrack to this morning's commute was Hangover Music Vol. VI by Black Label Society. It's cool 'cuz you get to see Zakk's melodic side, but here and there his crazy chops are still on display.

The first book of 2009 is On The Road With The Ramones, which I'm just about done with. It definitely falls under essential reading for any Ramones fan. Comprised largely of interviews with the band, crew, and other associated characters, the book reads a lot like an extended version of the film "End of the Century" (essential viewing for any Ramones fan). Like, the movie just touched on themes that are further explored in the book (e.g., Joey's mental illness, Johnny's almost comical right-wing/conservative mentality, and so on).

The first show of the new year will be Luna Mortis @ Station 4 @ 8 p.m. on the 16th!

That is all.

Notes from the Metal Underground:

Last night Jason and I went to Station 4 in St. Paul for the following:

Doro (headliner)
Fatal Smile
Seventh Calling
Cold Colors
Sirens Of Titan
Krepitus

The opening band, Krepitus, was pretty impressive. The singer/bassist had a really powerful voice -- kind of that metal/hardcore* hybrid of shouting and singing, along the lines of the latest Shadows Fall CD. But then he could hit some pretty damn high notes as well here and there. Sirens of Titan was cool as well -- kind of like Queens of the Stone Age with better lead guitar and vocals (sorry, Josh Homme). Definitely a "groove" thing going on, reminiscent of Sabbath.

The metalfest continued with Cold Colors -- they had this crazy deal where for $20 you could get all four of their CDs plus a free T-shirt. What's a metal junkie to do? I'm now the proud owner of their entire collection. The shirt is kind of ugly, but it does say "pure american wuss metal" on the back, which is damn funny! Seventh Calling was a high point -- very reminiscent of early American thrash metal. The singer/guitarist could sound a little Halford-esque on occasion, which was pretty amazing.

Fatal Smile came on next, and it was like being in a time warp -- pure mid-to-late-80s glam/hair metal. They hit the stage swinging, and commenced to assault the audience with choruses along the lines of "S! O! B!" with no trace of irony whatsoever. The singer looks like he's from Skid Row, the bassist and guitar player look like they're from Motley Crue, and the drummer is easily one of the prettiest dudes I've ever seen! They even had groupies. Doro came on next, and was pretty cool but we were getting a little tired by that point, as it was way past our bedtimes. She did a really cool version of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law," which you can find on YouTube if you're so inclined.

Earlier on Sunday lonely_doll and I went to Cheapo, and I found this for fifteen bucks:

Hollywood Rocks!

Oh my goodness, there's some choice cuts on this thing! Example: Warrant singer Jani Lane was apparently in a band called "Plain Jane" before Warrant, and they apparently recorded a cover of "Time Warp." Yes, that Time Warp. It's also got "12 O'clock High," by Odin, who some of you may remember from The Decline of Western Civilization Part II.

Cold Colors is cool. I'm listening to one of their CDs and the song that's on has got kind of a mid-tempo Danzig/Sisters of Mercy-esque feel.

Other than that, I managed to make it to the gym in this crap weather, which always makes me feel better. I have to be back at work at 5 a.m. tomorrow for the "kickoff" of Documentation Training Week, so I should probably crash pretty soon. It wouldn't be so bad, but I also have to be at work at 9:30 p.m tomorrow, and I still haven't quite figured out how that's gonna work. I might do something crazy like work 'till 2 p.m. or whatever, hit the gym, take a nap, and go back for the second session.

Happy SPRING, guys!!

*always a good idea to mix Black Sabbath with Black Flag, you know?

I just applied for my first ever passport! They assured me that I'll have it in time to travel to Canada in the pursuit of Heavy Metal -- the processing time is 4-6 weeks and we're leaving June 8th. I left work an hour early to make sure I got here on time -- they say more snow's on the way tomorrow so I wanted to get it taken care of today. Anyway, there was no line or anything, so I picked the right day!

According to the Dept. of Homeland Security, Canada would let me in with my birth certificate and driver's license until sometime next year. However, if the government works anything like anywhere I've ever worked, they could just go ahead and change the regulations at any time and fail to notify anyone who may be impacted by the changes.

It looks like my VISA card will be accepted pretty much anywhere, and it sounds like I can get some Canadian money at TCF, so I should pretty much be set to go! Originally I was thinking early June would be bad timing for a Heavy Metal Road Trip, since I'll have just moved and just got done with a week of training. But the more I think about it, the more I realize the timing's perfect, you know? After all that work, I'll be able to load up the car with piles of metal albums and hit the road to see one of the best metal bands of all time.

Yay!

Jason just ordered tix for Iron Maiden in Winnipeg and got:

Seat location: section 107, row 1, seats 11-12

That's the first row off to the side of the stage of Winnipeg's MTS Centre!! In other words, the best seats I've ever had to an arena show EVER!!

Tour info HERE.

So yesterday lonely_doll and I decided that we were high school kids circa 1978 and went to the mall to buy KISS T-shirts. More specifically, we got BANG-ON shirts made at f.y.e. (for your entertainment) at the Mall of America. lonely_doll got a Paul Stanley shirt, and I got one with the KISS logo where each KISS member is in one of the letters -- like, Gene is in the K, Paul is in the I, etc... talekyn might remember the Paul Stanley one from when we were all at the mall last year. What's really awesome is that the dude said they're discontinuing those particular prints, so it sounds like lonely_doll got her Starchild shirt JUST IN TIME. We're gonna go back later for New York Dolls shirts. We wanted to buy Dolls shirts at the concert but they didn't have my size, and they didn't have ANY girl shirts. Boo!

Later that night, we watched a bunch of KISS stuff from my KISSology Vol. 2 collection. There's this amazingly bizarre interview they did with Tom Snyder on "The Tomorrow Show" back in 1979 -- I'll try to paraphrase some of it:

Tom: "So let's talk about your outfits -- what're you supposed to be, Ace?"
Ace (visibly impaired throughout): "I think this outfit is self-explanatory -- there's a big V thing here on my chest, and this here's my utility belt," etc...
Tom: "So ... you're kinda like a spaceman, right?"
Ace: "No, actually I'm a plumber! HAHAHA!!"
Tom (humoring Ace):" Ha! Well, I got a pipe backstage that I'd like to have you work on!"
Ace: "TELL ME ABOUT IT!! HAHAHAHAHA!!"
Tom: "You old sweet talker, you!"

And throughout the whole thing, Gene and Paul are visibly rolling their eyes at their debauched bandmates. I think this interview took place shortly before the KISS lineup started going through the first round of changes. Anyway, after that we watched KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, which is one of the best hilariously awful movies of all time. Sadly, the version currently available on DVD cuts out most of Ace's dialogue, for some reason. Therefore:

Ack!!*

Today we got to the Uptown for breakfast before they closed the kitchen at 1 p.m., and then watched "Sideways," which is like one of the funniest movies ever made. And then we went to Green Mill for Mac & Cheese (so good! I still have a bunch left for lunch tomorrow) and then I came home and talked to Rachel for a while and now it's bedtime. Oh hey -- almost forgot! We bought some peeps. Nom nom nom nom... :-D

Guys! lonely_doll starts her new job tomorrow -- wish her luck!!

*For hopelessly obscure reasons, much of Ace's dialogue involves him saying "Ack!" apropos of nothing.

Show was pretty awesome!! I forgot how much I like Avril's first album, "Let Go"; I think I bought it back in 2002 because I was checking out the "new releases" section of Best Buy and some girl said it was really good.

I used to always try to convince people Avril was awesome. Like, I remember driving to Wisconsin with Jenn one time after "Let Go" came out and talking about what a great album it was. I still think that "Sk8er Boi" is a perfect example of a really well-done character-driven pop/rock song. This one time I played it on the jukebox at a club in Faribault, but also played a Pantera tune so the locals wouldn't get too pissed at me.

I think I need this guitar.

Anyway, off to get ready for the morning meeting...

So Jenn called me yesterday and said we can play at the River Rock coffee shop in St. Peter next month, probably on April 12th.* We used to play there on a fairly regular basis. It's a little over an hour from the cities -- just head south on 169 and you'll run right into it. Also, sounds like there's some places we could play in 'Kato that'd actually pay us. For yayz!!

I'm glad I never got rid of my first guitar -- I've been playing it lately and it makes me nostalgic. It's a red Squire (Fender's budget line) Strat with a white pickguard. Shortly after Mom bought it for me back in the day, she had a Fender Lace Sensor pickup installed in the bridge position for my 17th birthday (I think), and the thing's honestly a pretty hot sounding guitar. A while ago a guy did some work on it for me -- replaced some broken pieces and sort of disabled the imitation Floyd Rose**, which never worked that great anyway. Also, I use slightly heavier strings and keep it tuned a full step below standard tuning. I'm not sure why any of you needed to know all that, but whatever.

That is all.

*OMG, that's the day after lonely_doll's birthday!

**Anyone remember the "race car" effect Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars used to do at the beginning of "Kickstart My Heart" with the tremolo bar? Hilariously, I used to do this with the crappy locking system on my cheap Strat and then the rest of the song would be horribly out of tune.

So I'm unloading my Sony 300-disc changer so I can start packing up my collection, right? Sometimes while I'm putting CDs away I'll remember almost exactly when I bought them. For example, I just put this back in the jewel case -- I bought this at Brookdale mall the day it was released, back in 1998. It was either Musicland or Sam Goody. I remember being really excited to hear anything new by Garbage, and I listened to it all the time 'till the full-length disc was released a few weeks later.

But don't ask me what else happened in 1998, you know? I mean, I think I'd just graduated and was maybe working at Prudential at that point, but those aren't the kinds of things my brain feels like hanging onto, apparently.

Here's another one -- I bought this at a place called Let It Be Records on Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis. It was actually the first NIN disc I ever bought. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard before, and in a good way. There's a cover of Queen's "Get Down Make Love" on here, as well as a couple other versions of "Sin." For quite some time, I was obsessively collecting all the HALOS, but lately I've just been buying the full-length albums.

Rock and roll is the soundtrack to my life.

The journalist in me wants to change "folk music group" to "indie rock duo."

The Coffee Hag is the first place Jenn Melby (i.e., half of indie rock duo Sister Gin) ever performed. It's also the place my friend Rachel Winter and I used to hang out at all Sunday afternoon, playing checkers and drinking lattes. I think it may have been the first place I stopped in when I went to Mankato the first time as a 19-year-old college kid. It's sort of like the greatest independent coffee shop ever.

Speaking of memories, the 300th issue of Guitar World was in my mail today! It's been published since 1980, and I've been reading (and collecting) it since 1989. I probably taught myself about 80-90 percent of what I know with magazines like this. Also, in a moment of pure genius, they decided to do the cover based on the movie "300." (Guys like James Hetfield and the dudes in Slipknot look especially apropos 'cuz they're always making 300-esque faces...)

I've been reading the latest Guitar World and decided I needed to check out:

Flash Bathory -- Found her in an article spotlighting DIY musicians on MySpace.

Disturbed -- I've actually got their second and third albums, but it sounds like they're continuing to transition into a more "classic" metal sound. These guys are definitely underrated. Also, CHECK THIS OUT.

Allan Holdsworth -- I've been meaning to get some of this guy's stuff practically since I started playing guitar.

Rory Gallagher -- There's a collection of riffs transcribed in this magazine that felt instantly familiar when I played them -- this means I've been ripping off guitarists that've been ripping off Rory (I'm guessing Slash is probably one of them). I wanna know who to send off a mental "thanks" to next time I throw some repeating triplets into a solo.

So there's a theory out there called STRING THEORY, which purports that the fundamental building blocks of Reality are tiny vibrating loops of energy, rather than the point particles we associate with the Standard Model of particle physics. The theory is still very much a work in progress. Optimistic physicists like Brian Greene hope the theory ends up being correct; for one thing, it could prove to be the elusive TOE (Theory of Everything) that would ostensibly bridge the gap between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

I have my own reasons for celebrating the theory. Mainly, it seems kind of, I don't know, ROMANTIC in a way, don't you think? The universe ends up being something of a "cosmic symphony," with endless layers of "harmony."

Example: I decided while sitting around thinking about String Theory that I was like the open (played without fretting) low E string on a guitar. Simple yet effective, fairly straight-forward but with seemingly endless harmonic overtones (especially if you're running your guitar through a valve amp with lotsa gain). By itself, the low E sounds pretty neat, and it's definitely one of the building blocks of rock and roll.

But there's something missing, see.

I then decided that lonely_doll was like the B played on the second fret of the A string. If you play this note along with the low E string (I'm inadvertently handing out a pretty basic guitar lesson here) you get a root/fifth chord, or "power chord," which is in and of itself one of the most awesome things in the world. It can also be the initial building blocks to either E Minor or E Major, both of which are like the sound of life itself. Sometimes crap happens and it sounds sad, and sometimes everything's going great and it sounds happy. But it never ceases to sound beautiful, and I thank Whoever put all these theoretical strings into motion every day that I'm half of something that's so Amazing and Wonderful that there really aren't any words that could come CLOSE to describing it. (Music comes closer, IMHO...)

P.S. If there are any experts out there, please cut me some slack. I realize it's quite a stretch to start with theoretical particle physics, and end up with LUV by way of rock and roll. :-)

So today I changed the strings on my Les Paul and polished the thing up so it's just like new! It's SHINY. Coffee Hag owner/Sister Gin vocalist Jenn Melby says that people have requested Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and Concrete Blond's "Joey," so I made sure I remembered how to play 'em. It's funny the stuff you remember -- I hadn't played that little lead guitar bit at the beginning of "White Rabbit" in YEARS now, but as soon as I got going the whole thing came back to me. I'm a little out of practice, but I should be fine if I just play a little every day from now 'till the gig...

lonely_doll and I went to the Mall of America! Imagine THAT, right?? I got some sweet dealz:

Stomp! by Nicholas van Pelt for $0.49.
KISS: Behind the Mask by David Leaf and Ken Sharp for $5.98
A version of the old vertical scroller Xevious for GBA for $3.99.
"March of the Penguins" for GBA for $9.99. (I have a feeling this game is dumb, but it came with a stuffed penguin so I couldn't resist...)

There's an interview with Ellen Page in the latest Entertainment Weekly. This bit is pretty funny -- she's talking about seeing "The Breakfast Club" for the first time and being a bit let down:

"It's obviously not about my generation, but I was like, okay, they're all just talking and realizing they're human beings," says Page, who was born in 1987, two years after the movie was released. "But then it was all about Ally Sheedy changing to look like the pretty girl to get with Emilio Estevez, for chrissakes." She bangs her fist on the table. "I was so angry."

Ellen Page is awesome. You should all check out Hard Candy if you haven't seen it yet.

OMG Valentine's Day this week!! :-D

GLAM!

I guess I don't necessarily agree with putting some of these bands under "glam," but it's definitely a good trip down memory lane. And I think it's certainly true that all of the early 70s bands were a direct influence on all the 80s "hair" bands. Here's another fun site:

Sleaze Roxx!

Well, one of my meetings has been rescheduled for the third time, probably in a vain attempt to get everyone "on the same page" before being in the same room. Whatever.

Anyway, I was studying the New York Dolls album cover this morning while the car was warming up, and I noticed there's a can of Schlitz with a STRAW sticking out of it sitting next to a hairy ankle stuffed into a jaw-droppingly fabulous shoe. Somehow, that really sums up the sound of the album in a way words alone could never hope to do. Actually, the Transformer album art does the same thing. I think if my initial goal of becoming a costumed adventurer doesn't work out, my contingency plan will be to become a glam rocker.

Oh my goodness, you guys! You should see the White Stripes scarf lonely_doll's making for me -- it's SO COOL! I'm going to wear it with my long black coat and one of those cute little old man caps, and the world shall smile upon me, like this: :-D