http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 11 Jun 2004 22:21:12 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/11/222112.php Dr. DaveI thought Kid Rock used to be some kind of Rock 'n' Rapper, but apparently he fancies himself a modern-day Skynyrd/Allman Brothers style southern balladeer nowadays. Unfortunately, the guy couldn't carry a tune in a six-pack cooler and he comes off sounding like something from Open Mike night at a biker bar. I'd be hard pressed to come up with another person with less talent of any identifiable kind who has been allowed to become famous.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com) Music16464@blogcritics.org Fri, 11 Jun 2004 22:21:12 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/08/082800.php Dr. DaveWell... after all the spit-and-polish of "Stories From the City..." it's nice to hear PJ Harvey is back to distorted guitars and caterwauling again, isn't it? I mean, that's what I expected to feel anyway. I had heard that her new album was going to be more of a return to her roots. As much as I loved "Dry" and "Rid of Me", I really expected to be happy about that. But listening to her perform, I found myself missing the more mature sound she has been moving steadily towards on her past 2 outings. You just can't please some people I guess. I'll reserve judgement until I hear the whole album so... stay tuned.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com)PS - what the hell was up with the yellow industrial work gloves?? Music16348@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:28:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/08/080812.php Dr. Daveharry potter and the prisoner of continuity...My mom is here for the week so last night after the kids were in bed, the Wife and I went to see Harry Potter. It was beautifully directed, what with all of the English landscapes and Standing Stones, but it had plot-holes big enough to fly a hippogriff through. And I'm not talking about tiny omissions or run of the mill deviations from the book.... I'm talking about great gaping lapses in exposition that threaten to leave the viewer completely bewildered. So much of the denouement was left unexplained that I can't imagine there aren't Very Important Facts that will need to be patched up in later films.Oh well.... at least the 3 kids can kinda act now. And the new Dumbledore didn't suck. Video16344@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:08:12 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/27/142059.php Dr. Daveprey for it to finally be OVER...My wife had another "Mom's Night Out" last night, so I decided to have a "Dad's Night In" once the kids were in bed, which involved me, a bag of Doritos, and a rental of "Prey for Rock and Roll starring Gina Gershon.And lest any of you out there think that there is NO WAY that a movie script could be SO BAD that it couldn't be rescued by a generous helping of Gina Gershon in leather pants and acres of fake tattoos...You'd be wrong.After the girl-girl sex scene 8 minutes in, it was straight downhill.Oh Gina... please someday make a movie which does not suck, so that I can stop being embarrased for being so madly in love with you. Is "Bound" truly the best I can hope for?? Video16045@blogcritics.org Thu, 27 May 2004 14:20:59 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/26/163542.php Dr. DaveI've been putting off writing a review of this album for a long time, because every time I listen to it, I like it more and more and I'm less and less sure WHY. I first took notice of Adams when I saw him perform "So Alive" on Letterman and was completely blown away. It sounded a little like vintage U2... better yet, it sounded like Radiohead used to sound when they sounded a little like vintage U2. (see "Stop Whispering" from Pablo Honey) an yet it sounded completely new and original at the same time. And now that I've heard the whole album, every song makes me feel the same way. Every song has a little bit somewhere that reminds me of something else, but I'm never quite sure exactly what and the net effect is always just a really good rock song. I know some will cringe at the comparison, but the album reminds me a little bit of Michael Penn's March if only because Adams clearly has the same kind of pitch-perfect ear for a good pop-hook. (Unfortunately that's ALL Michael Penn had.) But Adams is clearly a great songwriter all around... this became more obvious as I tracked down some of his older stuff.This is a great album - track by track - start to finish, which is a really rare thing nowadays. (See my White Stripes review) But the uptempo numbers here rock, the midtempo songs ("Anybody Wanna Take Me Home") roll, and the slower, ballady bits don't make me feel like my time is being wasted. In fact, the weepy title track may be my favorite Sad-Boy-Plays-Piano song since "Raining in Baltimore" by Counting Crows.So... two thumbs up... four stars... whatever. My favorite new album of the year by far. (I know it came out in 2003... I mean new to ME.)Stay tuned for a review of "Love is Hell" which, while completely different, is just as good.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com) Music16016@blogcritics.org Wed, 26 May 2004 16:35:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/26/101814.php Dr. Dave'Tis the era of Rock Supergroups my friends.(**) First Chris Cornell fronts up what's left of Rage Against the Machine, now Scott Weiland manages to stay out of rehab long enough to stumble up to the microphone for the remains of Guns and Roses. The new band is called Velvet Revolver, and I've come across their new single twice this week - once on "Headbanger's Ball" and then last night on The Late Show with David Letterman.I really liked the single "Slither" when I first heard it - it was a lot heavier than I was expecting, and not too derivative of either of the former bands' music. It was less impressive live. Scott Weiland looked like HELL - I know, big surprise. His arms are the same diameter from his wrists to his shoulders. Eeech! I've always liked Weiland's voice, but it didn't seem *quite* up to the task last night - it broke in a couple of spots and drifted off key. It's nice to hear that Slash is still playing the same guitar solo after all these years though.But my favorite part is when Duff goes...... "eh!" What IS that??Anyway, I don't want to judge them on the basis of one song and one talk show appearance. (It's tough get up on stage at 5:30 in the afternoon, do one song, and come off sounding good.) I'm interested enough to want to hear more of the album, which is more than I expected to be.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com) (**) Heck, Sammy Hagar is even back in Van Halen again!! Music16002@blogcritics.org Wed, 26 May 2004 10:18:14 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/25/111404.php Dr. DaveAvril Lavigne was on Letterman last night. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see her and realize that she doesn't suck. I mean... it's nice to see a girl play GUITAR... even if she's not very good. Hell. it's just nice to see a girl keep her damned clothes on. Even if her only contribution to the musical landscape is to give a small fraction of 15 year old girls something to listen to other than Britstina Spearguilera... that's good enough for me.Plus, I like how sometimes she sounds like Alanis, only less so. Which reminds me... I should probably go buy that CD too. Music15964@blogcritics.org Tue, 25 May 2004 11:14:04 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/23/220330.php Dr. DaveSo, the biggest story in the news is STILL is the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US military. Apparently we're been torturing and humiliating prisoners over there, and the media and the public seem to be shocked and horrified by it.You know what else is shocking and horrifying? I've heard that the military is also shooting Iraqis dead and dropping bombs on them and stuff. Can you believe that??Look, I don't want to make light of what were clearly stupid and despicable acts, but when you really stop and think about it... really... how is making a naked Iraqi stand on a box any more "immoral" than shooting them and bombing them and killing them? How are we "surprised" by this? Because the very ACT of war necessitates dehumanization. Killing another human would be immoral! Everybody knows that. You can't shoot a person with whom you have empathy... someone you recognize as another Thinking and Feeling Being. So you dehumanize them and think of them only as The Enemy. But then somehow if you capture one on them, all of a sudden you're supposed to invite them in for tea and biscuits? It doesn't work that way.The problem as I see it is this - We in the "civilized" world... the media and the population at large... we have as individual moral beings simply outgrown the idea of war. We recognize that Vietnamese and Russians and Iraqis and Palestinians are human beings and that it is wrong to kill or torture other human beings. But our social and political mechanisms have NOT outgrown the NEED for war as a TOOL. This poses a dilemma. Because at the same time, our modern media does not allow us the DISCONNECT that is required to conduct a satisfactory war. We're not supposed to see people being blown to bits, or dead children in the streets, or Americans being dragged naked and burned through the streets, or our own soldiers humiliating enemy prisoners. Because when we see these things, we simply can't maintain the "Spirit of Dehumanization" that war requires from the comfort of our living rooms.So we wind up with a massive nationwide cognitive dissonance. Everybody supports the IDEA of the war... until somebody gets killed or captured or tortured or raped or... whatever. What the fuck do we do? I don't know.And here is another thing. Is it shocking when American soldiers torture prisoners of war? Of course. But it is no more shocking than when our police officers beat suspects with sticks, or shoot unarmed black men 40-odd times, or sodomize them with broom handles. These are our OWN citizens in our OWN prisons. And everybody knows it goes on. (Don't you?)"Civilization" is the thinnest of veneers. Humans are animals. And not just the ones inside the cages... all of us. We can pretend otherwise, and we may have come a long way in our intellectual standards of morality, but it only takes the tiniest shove to turn any one of us back a million years. That's not to say we shouldn't resist. We should. But we should cut out the indignation and try to solve the real problems.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com) Politics15907@blogcritics.org Sun, 23 May 2004 22:03:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/23/212722.php Dr. DaveOK... so I've read a few of the posts here about Vapor Trails some of them overwhelmingly positive, some overwhelmingly negative, but I haven't read anything that sounds like a balanced review from a less-than-rabid Rush fan, so I thought I'd toss in my own 2 cents (ok, maybe 3 cents) on the latest release.Lest I be accused of being a newbie - perhaps I should start with my "credentials". Huge Rush fan back in the "slightly post Moving Pictures" days... seen every tour since I was old enough to drive (from Power Windowson)... "Roll the Bones" was probably the last album I bought on its release date. I kinda changed musical tastes in grad school... listened to Rush a little less... bought Counterparts and Test for Echo out of habit more than anything else. I don't hate the new stuff, but I don't sit in front of every new album with my bass learning every song note-for-note anymore either. (Mostly because my wife won't let me!)So anyway - when I heard Rush was coming out with a new album, I emailed my old grad-school roommate Sam, who replied "I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but my first reaction when I heard that was - 'Gee, I hope they don't embarrass themselves'!" Well, after 3 or 4 listens, I definitely DON'T think they embarrassed themselves. I don't think it's their best album, but I don't think it's their worst either. I was expecting something very different from this album - following the pattern of post-live-album-stylistic-shift that Rush has shown over their career. I was encouraged when I opened the shrink wrap and the CD case to read "Geddy Lee - Bass and vocals". What?? No synthesizers? No keyboards? No Moog Taurus pedals even? Hmmm. So when I popped in the disc, I was expecting a different sound - tighter, leaner, more stripped down.Well, on the first listen, it certainly did "sound" different. I'm no audiophile- I have a cheap car stereo and I'm half deaf in the high frequency range, so I won't be going on about the "mix" like a lot of people on the newsgroups. But I did notice the drums sounding very flat and simple... no reverb, no "ring"... just a sharp attack - uncomplicated... not a lot of "tone". I don't think they sound bad as rock-drums go... just not what we're used to hearing from Neil. But the fact that _I_ noticed it is saying a lot, because like I said - I don't have much ear for "tone". The sound of a new producer and engineer are immediately obvious.The next thing I noticed were the vocals... lots of them. Almost always double tracked... sometimes triple tracked. Seems like all of the acoustical "space" that was once filled by synths is now filled by Geddy going "aaaa-haaaa" or "ooooo-woooo" or "heeeey-yeeeeeaaaaa" or some such ethereal hoo-haa. I'm not crazy about it, I must say.Next thing that hit me was the bass. I must preface this by saying that I'm a bass player, so a lot of what I say here is just a reflection of my own personal style. I haven't been impressed with the direction that Geddy's bass playing has taken since Counterparts. His playing has moved from very melodic style with lots of harmonic movement to a very staccato, driving style that's still rhythmically complex, but melodically very simple. (Think "Animate") Now on Vapor Trails he's added a lot of chordal playing, and I really don't like it at all. It's just a personal preference, but I think that chords are best left to the guitarist. I think a lot of the "muddiness" that people are complaining about can be attributed to the sound of the bass on this album. I'd almost rather have the synths back!Next up - the lyrics. I must say that I haven't absorbed the CONTENT of many of the lyrics at all yet. But I have noticed that the phrasing of the lyrics is very different from the past couple of albums. We find a little less of the abruptness and repetition that was starting to overtake Neil's lyrics. (Animate me... Flagellate me... Masturbate me... Here we go... In slow mo... Ho Ho Ho... Test for Echo...) There are some songs on this album that have vocal lines that sound like very old Rush songs, and I think that's in part due to the way that the lyrics are written... a return to writing in SENTENCES. ("A modest man from Mandrake traveled rich to the city. Period") There are so many words squeezed into "Peaceable Kingdom" it almost sounds like he's RAPPING the verses! (The Real Slim Geddy?) And I should also add that as a scientist, I'm happy to say that "Earthshine" provides us with the best Rush-astronomy-lesson since "Cygnus X-1"!Finally the guitar. From the few posts I've read on this newsgroup, it sounds like Alex is getting a beating here. I think it's a little unwarranted. I do agree that a few guitar solos would be nice, but apart from that I actually really enjoy hearing some nice thick distortion on a Rush album for a change. God, the opening to "Earthshine sounds like it belongs on a Tool album (ok, well... at least "A Perfect Circle") And why not? Rock on, Alex. The guy's gonna be 50 next year, let him have his fun. We all know the guy can solo, he doesn't have to prove anything anymore. If he wants to play big fat muddy chord instead, I have no problem with that. That being said, I think this album has some of the nicest jangly-arpeggio-stuff we've heard from Lifeson in a long time. (I'm thinking of the title track in particular.) And come on - who here didn't hear the intro to "How it Is" and think - Oh my God, it's "Closer to the Heart!"? How can that be bad?So my overall first impression was... different sound... some good songs... I don't hate it. Not a bad first impression, usually if I don't HATE something on the first listen, I start to actually LIKE it by the third or fourth. Nothing on the album really reached out and grabbed me by the doo-dads - but then again, not much HAS since the 80's. I'm not sure Rush is out to grab us by the doo-dads anymore... the success of a Rush album hasn't been measured in notes-per-second or prime-numbers-per-time-signature for a long time. They are trying to write good songs and keep their music fresh and changing. How many 50 year old rock-musicians can you name whose newest album sounds any different than their albums from 10 or 20 years ago. No, there is no "New Tom Sawyer" or "New La Villa Strangiatto" on this album, as some on the newsgroup are lamenting. But so what? You'd rather they were Aerosmith and kept writing the same song for 20 years?So there you go... I was going to do a song-by-song recap of the disc, but this already got WAY too long. In brief... New Rush Album. Sounds different. Doesn't suck.Dr. Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com) Music15905@blogcritics.org Sun, 23 May 2004 21:27:22 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/23/211100.php Dr. Dave Beck is such a goofy hipster doofus that I really don't WANT to like is songs as much as I do. But dammit... these are both really good albums. On some level, Beck's songs are ALL gloss and window dressing, and yet every weird synth noise and scratchy sample somehow add up to make a damn good song when he's through with them. The utterly stupid Dr-Seuss-on-crack nonsense lyrics only make the songs MORE enjoyable. I can't even put my finger on what he's doing right... he's paying tongue-in-cheek homage to a lot of musical styles that I actually HATE... but somehow his spoofy tributes come out sounding more enjoyable than anything from the genre that inspired them. Music15904@blogcritics.org Sun, 23 May 2004 21:11:00 EDT