Everybody's working for the weekend.
I think Mike Dean of Loverboy stated it best when he sang "Everybody needs a second chance, oh." And the only thing better than a three-day weekend is the short week that ensues.
If you need to get a hold of me tonight, you can find me here. Now that's what I call living.
The big news here at blawg.com World Domination Headquarters is that I wasted most of yesterday making some sweet little advertisements for people like you to put on your sites to link back to blawg. Check out the Link to blawg page to check out all the lovely graphics. Putting 'em on your site is easy: Just copy the code below the image to add it to your webpage. Piece o' cake. And thank you in advance for your support.
There will probably be a new blawg radio program on Monday (or Tuesday), although I haven't figured out what the hell I'm gonna do. Indie-pop's been done to death, and all my other ideas are idiotic. (Christmas songs in May? An entire set of songs with the word "time" in the title? Those are lame.) Maybe some good breakbeat/two-step stuff. I dunno; I'm open to suggestions.
I find that I'm still checking dack.com every day, hoping against hope that something new will appear. I'm like a junkie that needs a fix. And I suspect I'm not alone in this.
Those cats actually did show up for rehearsal, and some songs started to take shape. I think this thing has some potential. Picture, if you will, three guys playing live jungle/breakbeat/drum 'n' bass. Sounds weird, and it is, I guess, but it could work. We'll see. Nothing worth sharing yet, but I'll post some mp3s if and when there's something listenable.
Pops didn't win another Emmy, and now it looks like he may quit the whole crazy business so he and Moms can move out here and harrass the rest of the family. Next stop: Family Feud!
Look! A poll!
Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.
As predicted, a full 50 percent of my auditions fell through on Saturday. Maybe that's what I should do from now on: Schedule two practices for every one that I want to happen. Anyway, the one that did happen is a strange kinda live jungle/breakbeat situation that may have some potential, but right now it's just a free-form jam thing. That can be fun, but it can also be incredibly irritating. Round two is tonight (if they show). We'll see.
Does the world really need another Sex Pistols documentary? Didn't think so. How about another season of the Simpsons? Nope. Not unless Fox promises to quit sullying the memory of a once-great TV show. Stop it.
That Jason Shellen will let anyone pop off on musicrag.com, even me. I'll be an occasional contributor, whenever the mood strikes, or whenever I'm breaking a big story. Jason warned me that Blogger Nation is having uptime issues, so don't be spooked if the site is 404. Just try back. You won't be sorry.
Matt Wilson is my hero.
This is the best use of Flash I've seen in a looooooong time, and possibly the most insidious time-suck ever created. Just try and stop playing. Betcha can't. ßßß
Why you wanna go and do me like that?
I waited five years for this?
I don't love it, and I don't hate it. It's short, with some good — but certainly not great — songs. It doesn't inspire either extreme in me; it just ain't that special. Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? Not really.
Don't believe the hype, people. Judge the album on its own merits, or lack thereof. That's all I'm sayin'. At least there aren't any songs about having sex with underage Asian girls this time out. And their shirts kick ass.
In happier music news, my friend Christian told me that Walter Schreifels of Quicksand/Handsome/CIV/Gorilla Biscuits/Warzone fame has got a brand-new band called Rival Schools, and I wanted to hear their stuff so bad that I downloaded the hated Real Player just to check out some clips. It was worth it. They are rad. Walter is incredibly gifted, and he's one of the precious few good guys in the music racket. Best of luck.
So I met up with Jason Shellen and Dack at Toronado last night. I watched while they drank fancy Belgian beers (Apparently Toronado doesn't carry the Asahi Super Dry.), and we caught up on all the latest blog-related gossip, talked about the life and junk, and watched the Giants lose again.
I had my speech all worked out where I was going to prevail upon Dack to keep the weblog going, appeal to his sense of honor and duty, blah blah blah. But the guy just looked so damned happy, as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. So I didn't. We may have lost a fine weblogger, but we've gained a much happier guy. And you can't fault him for that. ßßß
Late today. Actually working.
Latest sign of the apocalypse: Chris Cornell is indeed replacing Zack in Rage Against the Machine. There was lots of speculation, including rumors that Cornell would replace Dimitri in Dillinger Escape Plan, but I think we can safely place that in the "hoax" category. The new supergroup won't be called RAtM, but may or may not be called Rage, not to be confused with the Snoop Dogg protegé of the same name.
Thanks to all who wrote to hip me to the latest heavy/hard/metal/whatever bands that I'd either left off my list or didn't know existed. I'd forgotten bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, Damnation (with ot without the A.D.) and the Backyard Babies, and was turned on to new bands like Cave In, Rival Schools, Glassjaw and others. Sweet. And I'm determined to give the new Tool a spin, if only because I seem to be the only person in the world not to love it already.
Looks like Ironminds is the latest Web site to be getting out of the Web site business. Just as well; they've been phoning it in for a while now. Too bad, though. One less place at which to waste my employer's time, money, and bandwidth.
My Giants are scuffling, but Barry Bonds is just sick. He's going yard every 5.74 at bats (just under one a game), and more than 57 percent of his hits are homers. Unreal. Now if they can only get some pitching, a third baseman, and a legitimate center fielder, they oughta be in great shape. ßßß
dack.com vigil
It's a sad day in this reporter's life: Dack has decided to quit the weblogging business. If he was even in the weblogging business.
You see, webloggers are usually self-involved, self-indulgent, irritating people that you'd never ever want to meet in real life (this weblogger included). But dack.com was never that way. Like a lot of folks, I happened upon the site via the Web Economy Bullshit Generator, a brilliant (and fun) critique of the evil marketing-speak that consultants and other New Economy vultures resorted to when they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.
Dack's bullshit detector was always on full. Whether he was talking about the evils of the misuse of Flash, serving up scathing criticisms of critics'-darling movies and music, or taking potshots at the XFL, you could always depend on him to give it to you straight (a trait, by the way, in very short supply in the incestuous blogging community, where everyone is sooooo afraid of saying anything that might offend anyone else, God forbid). And it will suck to have one less place to go to get the real deal.
For better of for worse, dack.com inspired me to start doing this. Hell, I even totally bit his site design for v.1 of this site. Talking about him in the past tense feels really stupid; the guy's not dead, fercrissakes. In fact, I'm supposed to hang with him tomorrow night. I'll see if I can talk some sense into him — or at least lobby for a fresh post a week. ßßß
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
