Blogcritics Author: Tim

Concert Review: "Thud Rock's Two-Headed Monster" Rocks San Diego - 11/25/07

Tim — Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:11:28 EST

The real Van Halen finally returns to San Diego and exceeds all my expectations.
Credit to a 1984 issue of Rolling Stone for the "Thud Rock's Two-Headed Monster" from when they featured Van Halen in an issue. The focus was on the two monster egos of lead singer David Lee Roth and true guitar hero Eddie Van Halen. A few months before that I missed out on seeing Van Halen in the San Diego Sports Arena and I thought...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, 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.

Switchfoot Goes Independent

Tim — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:14:39 EDT

Some big news on the Switchfoot MySpace blog. Sony Records and Switchfoot have parted ways and now Switchfoot will go independent. It was also mentioned that a new Switchfoot album will come out in 2008 in support of this new venture. Furthermore, Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot will release his solo music and the music he makes with Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek (under the name The Real Sean Jon) on this new indie music venture.Switchfoot, based in San Diego, was first signed to an indie label called re:think, back in 1997. The re:think label was run by Charlie Peacock and was for artists who were Christian but didn't want to be marketed just to Christians. The goal being to allow Christian artists to not be limited to selling their albums just at Christian bookstores. Soon after, the re:think label was bought out by Christian label giant Sparrow Records, even though the name re:think remained. Switchfoot's debut album, The Legend of Chin was released in Spring 1997 and they began making the Christian tour circuit. Chin had very modest sales but through relentless touring the band began building a dedicated fan base.In 1999 Switchfoot released New Way To Be Human on the re:think/Sparrow label. This album was a bit different than "Chin" as it seemed to be a bit more in-your-face about Christianity. It contains some amazing songs from the guitar-driven title-song ("New Way To Be Human") to the call to fight loneliness and finding contentment in "Let That Be Enough". This album started to push Switchfoot up the Christian music totem poll and the follow-up in 2000 called Learning to Breathe solidified them as a popular Christian band. The desire of the band was still to be heard outside just the Christian realm but that was with limited success.Somehow some of Switchfoot's music was heard by a few people inside the music and television industries and their songs were beginning to be placed in some of the teen angst shows and were in the movie A Walk To Remember. This led Sony Music to take notice. The original re:think/Sparrow record deal was for 3 albums. Switchfoot had already begun working on their forth album, The Beautiful Letdown, without a record deal. I distinctly remember this time (May 2002) as I'd spoken to the band just as they'd finished up recording the album and were going to release it soon after (September 2002). A couple of months later Sony signed the band and immediately delayed the album for extra re-mixing and marketing. The album was finally released in February 2003 and made the Billboard Top 100 Albums the first week.A couple of months before the release of The Beautiful Letdown they released a single called "Meant To Live". They even gave it away for free for Christmas in 2002 as an MP3 on their web site. They'd recorded a live video at The Roxy in Hollywood but it hardly got played at all. Once the album was released they began two years of marathon touring to support the album. In the summer of 2003 "Meant To Live" started getting some air play. Switchfoot then did a concept video for the song and it started getting played on Fuse, VH1 and made it onto MTV in the fall of 2003. The song was able to get the album back into the Billboard Top 100 Albums. The follow-up single, "Dare You To Move" helped The Beautiful Letdown top out at number 16 on the Billboard Top 100 Albums. At the end of two years the band went on four full tours and sold over 2.5 million copies of The Beautiful Letdown.As they toured in 2004 they started writing and recording songs for the follow-up album. During this time Switchfoot began undergoing some criticism from Christian circles that they'd sold out to Sony and weren't up front about their faith. The new album, Nothing Is Sound was released in September of 2005 and more criticism came. The album had a lot of darkness to it focusing on issues such as loneliness, contentment and worthiness. This was not a "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" type of album but it was fantastic. Something else occurred during the making of this album, Sony went and added a bunch of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to the CDs to try and prevent piracy. Although the album debuted at number 3 on the Billboard Album charts it quickly stalled out. A lot of folks blamed the band for the DRM issues but it wasn't their fault. The album did not live up to expectations and only sold a little over 500,000 and I believe this is when Sony started to sour on Switchfoot.The follow-up to Nothing Is Sound was Oh! Gravity. which was released in September 2006. The album debuted at number 18 on the album charts but soon fell off the map. I've been privately speculating that Sony would drop Switchfoot at this point. I don't believe Sony knew what to do with a band made up of five guys who are happily married, live clean and want to live for something more than money and fame. Now we have the announcement that multi-platinum artists, Switchfoot is starting their own indie music venture. I've read that Charlie Peacock (the re:think guy) has been working with Switchfoot and I believe he's going to be involved in this new effort. Both the band and Peacock have learned some hard lessons lately so they should be able to take their knowledge and do something interesting.I'm hopeful that this new effort will allow Switchfoot and other artists to have more freedom to create without being dictated to, by record companies. Some of the singles that Switchfoot have released didn't make sense for alternative radio and I put that at the feet of Sony. Now they can release what they want and when they want. Don't be surprised if these guys figure out a new paradigm for marketing and selling music. The record companies have truly lost their way and it's up to the artists now.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Concert Review: Switchfoot at the Roxy - October 18, 2006

Tim — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:37:37 EDT

Why would a middle-aged man leave work early from San Diego, endure nasty traffic for three plus hours, all to go to Hollywood to see a concert? Well, it's the Roxy on Sunset (holds only about 500) and it's Switchfoot. I've seen Switchfoot many times but they are now playing new songs from Oh! Gravity and weren't going to hit San Diego this time. So the legendary JonnyUps and I made the trip to a foreign land. The Roxy is right in the heart of Hollywood and so you never know who you might see. There's the famous, the almost famous, the was famous and the most popular, the wannabe famous. Some of the folks we met (JonnyUps is fairly connected) were 'O' from Reeve Oliver and LP, the drummer from Yellowcard. We even saw the new "lead singer" from the Rockstar Supernova band, Lukas. He was definitely a guy who is trying very hard to be cool. I'm not sure sunglasses work that well at night unless you are one of the Blues Brothers. The crowd was full of record company / industry types, lots of folks older (and richer) than me.But enough about the atmosphere and onto the show. We missed the first opening act, Ryan Ferguson as it seems he played before the crowd line was in the venue. He's a San Diego guy and pretty good. If you see Swithfoot on this tour make sure you get there early enough to see Ryan Ferguson. The second act was Moses Mayfield. They looked straight from the 70's and the lead singer spoke just like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam. Their music wasn't my cup of tea so if I can't say something nice I won't say anything at all.Once Switchfoot came on they hit their stride real quick. They opened with "Stars" and played very energized from the start. Next came "Politicians", a song I never thought I'd hear live again but was stoked it was played. They played some new songs including "Oh! Gravity", "Awakening", "American Dream" and the highlight of the night "Dirty Second Hands" (DSH). Now "DSH" is nothing like anything they've ever done and I didn't think it would work well live. In fact, it's hard to even find the rhythm to the song. If any of you recall the movie The Jerk, when the Jerk character was trying to snap his fingers to the song he couldn't. Same thing for "DSH", but it just works, even live. You can hear "DSH" on the Switchfoot MySpace site.It was nice to that there were five songs from Nothing Is Sound and the playing of "24" instead of "On Fire" or "Only Hope". I was told after the show that "Shadow Proves The Sunshine" was on the set list but they forgot to play it. Fortunately they played "Happy Is A Yuppie Word" and it is my favorite Switchfoot song. I'm hoping they keep this one on their set list for years to come. The biggest hit song from Switchfoot is "Meant To Live" and they've truly mastered performing that song. There is always amazing energy and the closing of the song is a big kick. A surprise during the encore was a solo performance of "Rebellion (Lies)", a cover song. It was just Jon Foreman, his guitar, and his harmonica and it was excellent. After the show JonnyUps and myself hung out to talk to the band. The guys are as friendly as ever and really don't seem to have changed. They are always a breath of fresh air both personally and in concert. They will challenge you but not gross you out. Some bands choose to use obscenity and classless behavior to shock, not Switchfoot. Read their lyrics and you will be challenged to look past our simple day-to-day lives.I'm very hopeful for the new album Oh! Gravity. If the energy they capture during their live shows could ever find a way onto an album it would be amazing. Personally, I believe that is impossible. The best bands are better live than in the studio and Switchfoot is in that category. Listening to Switchfoot on an album does not compare to a Switchfoot concert. If they are coming anywhere near you over the next month on their current tour then it is worth your time to check them out. Be careful though, you really might get hooked.I'm also looking at getting an advanced legal copy of Oh! Gravity to review.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Switchfoot's Nothing Is Sound - One Year Later

Tim — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 09:38:19 EDT

It's been one year since the release of the Switchfoot album Nothing Is Sound (NIS). In many eyes this album was considered a flop and not as good as the previous album The Beautiful Letdown (TBL). According to sales this would be true as NIS didn't even hit the 1 million mark while TBL was around 2.5 million. So I'll concede NIS was a flop. There are many reasons including the infamous copy protection problem. I also wrote last year that they should have released other songs as singles. I don't know who makes those decisions but for some reason NIS was not meant to be a big hit and that's too bad. Frankly, it is Switchfoot's best effort. As Switchfoot has said in the past, "the song is king", and if that's the case then this is a remarkable collection of songs. The highlights are:"Lonely Nation" - A song that is a great commentary on society. It's a great rocker with depth and is amazing live. Like many of the songs from NIS though it's not often played live anymore. A freakin' shame. This would have been a great single."Happy Is A Yuppie Word" - My favorite song on the album. Fortunately, this song still seems to be played live. For some reason this song really gets to me."The Shadow Proves The Sunshine" - A mellower song but with a lot of heart. Again, a great live song, but again, not played live much anymore. The live performance was highlighted by bassist Tim Foreman playing an extra drum. "Easier Than Love" - A great social commentary on the role sex plays; it's still making the live sets."Politicians" - The hardest rocker Switchfoot has ever done, it would have been a great single. Not in the live set anymore. This is a song aims higher than the problems of our world."The Fatal Wound" - Kind of a simpler song, it has the best lyrics I've ever heard. I've heard that it was written from the point of view of one of the thieves on the cross. Live, it almost brought me to tears, but not played anymore.Those are songs that are absolutely fantastic and I can't believe fans of the band didn't latch on to them as much as the songs from TBL. These are songs that should have been heard but haven't and probably won't be much anymore. Switchfoot even had a myspace contest to determine songs they would play and none of the songs from NIS made the cut. It seems even the fans can't get past TBL and so it seems that Switchfoot has closed the NIS chapter and is moving on to Oh! Gravity. (OG). For me, NIS was a great album and showed a ton of musical growth and I'm sure OG will be even better. I just hope that the problems that plagued NIS will not appear again. Heck, maybe folks will discover NIS and give it a chance.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Tim — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 02:04:04 EST

I finally had the opportunity to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe today. As a fan of the C.S. Lewis series I had the fear that the movie wouldn't be faithful to the book, but I heard that Doug Gresham, Lewis' stepson, was an executive producer. Another fear would be that the story would get lost within all of the special effects. Some movies make up for weak stories or overwhelm the story with special effects (see Revenge of the Sith for a classic example). Even another fear would be that a movie that has kids in it would be too cute and couldn't be taken seriously.Fortunately, all my fears were unwarranted. Yes, special effects are essential to the movie, but they are mostly used for bringing all the Narnia characters to life. This movie really shouldn't even be made without all the effects or else it would just look silly. The kids are charming and the Lucy character is cute, but it balances out well.One weakness of the movie, if a viewer hasn't read the book, is that Aslan is a bit mysterious and his character isn't developed enough. If the viewer has read the book then they'd understand the affection for Aslan, but the movie doesn't develop it very well. So, if you haven't read the book, read it first, then see the movie.A quick warning for parents with young kids; the movie is rated PG, but is a bit intense. My 7 year old was crawling all over my lap, but he did like it.All in all, a pretty darn good movie and I hope the same team decides to attack the rest of The Chronicles. Don't wait for the DVD to come out, as this one is definitely worthy of even a full price admission.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Movie Review: It's A Wonderful Life

Tim — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 02:28:14 EST

Believe it or not, some folks haven't seen It's A Wonderful Life. Until a few minutes ago I was one of those. Sometimes there are experiences in life that shouldn't be put off and seeing this movie is one of those. I watched it with my two sons (ages 10 and 7) over the last two nights. In terms of the movie it truly begins and ends with the legendary Jimmy Stewart. To watch the man throw himself into this movie is fantastic. A few times it's almost too much and I'd dare to say there was a bit of over-acting but it is part of the charm of the flick.One of the great aspects of the movie is the amazing setup of Jimmy Stewart's character, George Bailey. More than half of the movie is devoted to the build-up and understanding of George Bailey and I feel like I know him quite well. In fact, it's a character that will be impossible to forget. Between the great story and the presence of Jimmy Stewart, I wouldn't want to forget George Bailey.The bottom line about this movie is it teaches us that we all have an impact on lives whether good or bad. Our lives touch others and we are all important to somebody. It would be interesting to have the opportunity George Bailey has; to see how life would be like if they didn't exist.If you've not seen this flick then go get it and watch it. It's not a total Christmas movie but is worth watching during the Christmas season.Merry Christmas, 2005.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Switchfoot, House of Blues - San Diego, November 12 & 13, 2005

Tim — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:30:44 EST

Last weekend I was able to see Switchfoot perform live for the first time in a long time. It was also the first time I'd seen them since the new Nothing Is Sound album dominated the set list. Here is the setlist from 11/13 was (hat tip):1. Dare You to Move (Acoustic) 2. My Lonely Nation 3. Gone 4. Ammunition 5. Learning to Breathe 6. Happy is a Yuppie Word 7. This is Your Life 8. More Than Fine 9. Easier Than Love 10. The Fatal Wound 11. Politcians 12. Let That Be Enough (Request song from a canadian girl Diana [SP]) 13. Special song about the tour 14. The Times They Are A' Changing(Bob Dylan Cover) 15. On Fire 16. The Blues 17. Shadow Proves the Sunshine 18. Meant to LiveENCORE I 19. Stars 20. We Are One TonightENCORE II 21. DaisyThe first night had "Company Car" instead of "Let That Be Enough" included "24" but not "Daisy", "Learning to Breathe" or "The Blues". The second night also featured Reeve Oliver but they didn't play many of their best songs ("On The Floor", "Reevenge" or "Imposter"). They still kick much butt and are an act worth seeing on their own.Back to the first night, I brought my 10 year old son. JonnyUps from Parker Theory and Scott Anderson from This Holiday Life were both there and we hung out with them a bit. FYI, This Holiday Life just finished making their first full length album and I hope to get my hands on it soon. We also saw some other Switchfoot fans that are also friends of ours. It's always a great time to see the gathering of all the Switchfoot fans I know. There's some serious die-hards out there (including yours truly).I was looking forward to hearing the Nothing Is Sound songs to see how the songs begin to grow. I noticed that "My Lonely Nation" has some extra catchy background vocals and Jon Foreman kept singing into his guitar from "This Is Your Life" into "Happy Is A Yuppie Word" but the biggest difference (and highlight of both nights) was "The Shadow Proves The Sunshine". Tim Foreman puts his bass down for the first chorus and plays a huge drum. I wasn't ready for it the first time and it was startling and pretty darn cool. During the same song Jon Foreman really kicks the emotion up during the last part and exceeds anything else he's ever sang. I want to get a copy of this performance really bad.It was great to hear "Company Car" again and I've never seen the Feet perform it so well as they seemed very relaxed and just let go. I miss songs like "New Way To Be Human", "You Already Take Me There" and "Chem 6A" and hope they'll keep working in some of the older songs.The second night I ran into Bobby Anderson from This Holiday Life and a few others from my church. I went with a good friend of mine from work who hasn't seen Switchfoot in a couple of years. He was amazed at the growth of their stage presence and how good they've become. It was so good to hear "Let That Be Enough" live again. It's been a long time since I've heard it live as it used to be a staple of their shows. I know many fans think that The Beautiful Letdown (TBL) was their first album but are really missing out on their first 3 albums before TBL.All in all, I totally enjoyed both shows and can't wait to see them again, especially to see the growth of the newer songs. The House of Blues of San Diego is a great venue and I will go to other concerts there in the future.Cross-posted at my blog

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Stupid CD Copy Protection - Switchfoot Responds

Tim — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 01:38:00 EDT

The moronic and behind the times record industry has made some of their best selling artists have copy protection on their CDs. It only happens on Windows machines and here's what happens: if you have auto run on enabled and you put the copy protected CD into your CD drive it puts up some type of license agreement. If you accept this license agreement then a little piece of turd software is loaded onto your system and does all sorts of digital signature stuff. Once this occurs you cannot rip the songs from your CD at all but can only use the WMA files on the CD, which are not the top quality files.So, an iPod user like me cannot load the files on my iPod. I also like to rip all the Switchfoot and U2 into Apple Lossless format. This allows me to be able to make copies of CDs or mix CDs that I can play on my CD player in the car or take it to work. This whole thing really ticks off consumers who legally buy the CDs and just want to enjoy them in there own way.Now that our Switchfoot guys are considered a big player, with the release of Nothing Is Sound they got stuck with stupid copy protection. There was quite a bit of outrage from the Switchfoot fans so the band responded (full text below).I'm hopeful that their record company, Columbia Records will accept that Tim Foreman has done the right thing for the fans. They may even have a legal case against Tim but he's not written anything that hasn't been written before. Of course, with the latest news that Nothing Is Sound is debuting at number 3, the record company might be a bit more foregiving. I definitely don't want any trouble for the band, especially Tim. He's a guy I know a little bit and consider him a friend. Heck, we even share the same birthday. A great musician, more than anything, he's a great man who is only trying to do the right thing by their fans. This is a band that truly gets it so please support them, especially during the rough times.Message from Tim Foreman of Switchfoot relating to stupid copy protection:Hello friends, my heart is heavy with this whole copy-protection thing. Many PC users have posted problems that they have had importing the new songs (regular disc only, not the dual disc) into programs such as Itunes. Let me first say that as a musician AND as a music fan, I agree with the frustration that has been expressed. We were horrified when we first heard about the new copy-protection policy that is being implemented by most major labels, including Sony (ours), and immediately looked into all of our options for removing this from our new album. Unfortunately, this is the new policy for all new major releases from these record companies. It is heartbreaking to see our blood, sweat, and tears over the past 2 years blurred by the confusion and frustration surrounding this new technology. It is also unfortunate when bands such as ourselves, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, etc... (just a few of the new releases with copy protection) are the target of this criticism, when there is no possible way to avoid this new industry policy. For mac users these songs should import seamlessly. We are told that itunes is coming out with a new version for PC users in early November that will be compatible with all of these new CD's but in the meantime it's frustrating for all of us. That said, there are a number of solutions (as is always the case with these types of things) for importing the CD into your itunes and ipod. We have compiled some of the easier ways below. I feel like as a band and as listeners, we've all been through a lot together over the past ten years, and we refuse to allow corporate policy to taint the family we've developed together. We deeply regret that there exists the need for any of our listeners to spend more than 30 seconds importing our music, but we're asking as friends and partners in this journey together to spend the extra 10 minutes that it takes to import these songs, which we think you'll agree to be our finest collection of songs yet. As a band, we've always been known for having the best fans in the world and I know that will continue for years to come. A month from now, I hope to be singing these songs together at a show, and the extra time spent importing the music will perhaps be forgotten, or at least forgiven. Thank you for your understanding and the continued kindness that you have always shown for five dreamers from San Diego, we love you guys,-tim foremanA) If you're a mac user, or you have access to a mac, or you purchased the dual disc, you should have no problems... simply import the songs the same way as you always do. B) If you're a PC user, and you haven't yet tried to import the the disk yet, download and install a free program called CDEX from http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/downloads.php. Now hold down the shift button while inserting the switchfoot CD (this disables the auto-run feature on the CD). Make sure that you hold it down until you are sure that nothing has run (maybe 60 seconds). Once the CD is loaded without auto-running it's software, open the CDEX program, and select tracks 1-12 (Lonely Nation-Daisy), excluding data tracks 13 and 14. THen select the top icon on the right side of the program "Extract CD tracks to WAV files". THis will extract them to your mymusic folder. Open iTunes and drag the .wav files you created into your itunes library, and you're done, and free to convert the songs into mp3, or whatever format you wish. (If you've already tried to import another copy protected CD like Foo Fighters, etc..., you may already have the protection software installed on your computer, and should go to plan C.C) If you're a PC user, and you've already tried to import the the disk and accepted the auto-run installation, or don't mind accepting the auto-run installation, place the CD into your computer and allow the Sony BM audio player on the CD to automatically start. If the player software does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer. Locate and select the drive letter for your CD drive. On the disc you will find either a file named LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe. Double-click this file to manually start the player.Once the Sony BMG player application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher (or another fully compatible player that can playback secure WMA files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp by dragging them from wherever you saved them into Windows media player. Once they are in the Windows media player playlist you can burn the songs to a standard Audio CD by right clicking on the songs and selecting "add songs to burn list." You can then burn the songs to a standard Audio CD. (Please note that in order to burn the files, you will need to upgrade to, or already have, Windows Media Player 9 or 10, which can be downloaded for free at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.aspx )Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD.Cross-posted at Broken Masterpieces

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Album Review - Switchfoot: Nothing Is Sound

Tim — Mon, 5 Sep 2005 23:50:38 EDT

I was finally able to listen to the complete Switchfoot album, Nothing Is Sound (NIS), by pre-ordering via Amazon. The quality is only 64K but is good enough for me to get the vibe. I can only listen to it when I'm on a computer so I haven't gotten the car CD or iPod effect yet.So, full disclosure, I am friendly with 4 of the members of Switchfoot and am good friends with one of their relatives. I happen to be a big fan of this band but will temper the personal to take an honest look at the new album.Switchfoot's last album, The Beautiful Letdown (TBL), came out over two-and-a-half years ago so it's long overdue for the new album. The latest was written and many parts were recorded on the many TBL tours. It seems to not be far departure from TBL but more of a continuation of the same themes. Just as TBL, NIS cannot be classified as a rock, alternative, mellow, pop, Christian, etc. or any other type of label. It's just Switchfoot doing what they do best; lots of guitars (they even added another guitarist, Drew Shirley), lots of catchy songs and a ton of thoughtful lyrics.I'm sure many of you have already heard the first single called Stars, which is one of the more guitar driven tunes, but there are two others that are far stronger and would have been a better choice for the first single. Unlike Stars, these other tunes (Lonely Nation and Politicians) don't mellow out for the vocals then get harder for the guitar parts. Stars is more of a pop-rock song and seems to be struggling to get airplay on the local alternative stations. I think it will be more popular on more top-40 type stations.The centerpiece of the album is called Happy Is A Yuppie Word; song title inspired from an old Bob Dylan interview. I've heard the song a few times in concert and it didn't really reach me until I heard it in May. It was a benefit concert (read more about it here) and the song really kicked my butt. Yuppie has a bit of a down-and-dirty bluesy feel to it and has a very memorable chorus. The Nothing Is Sound title is contained in this song and when Jon Foreman is screaming these words near the end of the song you just want to scream with him.The Switchfoot guys always have a song that takes a great poke at society (see Gone, Poparazzi, Company Car from previous albums) and this time it deals with the commodity of sex and how it is Easier Than Love. Love is extremely hard but sex sells. It's kind of the big "duh" song but it needs to be said.The rest of the songs offer a mix of different tempos but everything is listenable and pretty darn good. There are less electronics than TBL and everything they've previewed live for NIS comes out quite well, which didn't happen for On Fire on TBL. This album has a lot of potential singles and I'm hoping to see Politicians get on some hard rock stations.Nothing Is Sound has at least one or two songs that many types of listeners would like a lot but if you are a Switchfoot fan or someone who likes variety in their albums then this is for you. There are twelve songs total and they all bring a little something different to the table. If you like just Meant to Live from the previous album then there are probably only two or three songs for you. I think one thing that Switchfoot needs to be careful of is the perception that they are becoming brooding naval gazers who are pretty well off but feel guilty about it. You do have to listen for the optimism sometimes but it is there. They ask hard questions about "life, love and why" and as the Dread Pirate Roberts says "Life is pain, princess. . . anyone who says differently is selling something". They may be selling you something but it's honest, thoughtful and excellent.Cross-posted at Broken Masterpieces.edited: ME

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.

Review - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim — Sun, 7 Aug 2005 00:29:29 EDT

When I take my family to see a movie (wife and two boys, ages 10 and almost 7) I judge the movie on not just what I think about it, but also on what the rest of the family members think. As we decided between seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Sky High I was concerned that Charlie would be either too weird or the humor would go over the kids' heads. We decided to see Charlie!The first thing when seeing the new Wonka movie is to try not comparing the original movie with this one. The key characters are, obviously, Charlie and Wonka. First, Charlie, who is played by Freddie Highmore (Peter in Finding Neverland) is a very compelling character. He's instantly likeable, believable and is someone you want to root for. Now, as everyone knows, Wonka is played by Johnny Depp (who won me over as a fan as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean), and is a creepy, strange somewhat misfit, but in the end, great character. He's the character you end up watching the movie for. Now some of you may have heard that he would remind one of Michael Jackson, but I didn't get that. Watch out for Oompa Loompa's though as they got very creative with them.In terms of the visual characteristics, I found the movie to be quite pleasant to watch. Too many movies try to overwhelm you in every scene (Sith is in that vein), but this one, although relying on plenty of effects, isn't one where you walk out thinking you just saw too much.So, back to the test, did my whole family enjoy it? Heck yes! One recommendation, bring a chocolate bar with you because you will quickly develop a craving. After the flick we went and bought a couple of Wonka Bars.Cross-posted on my blog, here.

I'm just a regular guy in San Diego and blog at Broken Masterpieces.