So the other day at work, I bought a soda on my break and found myself bombarded with all the Cory Monteith cover stories. The Glee star’s tragic last days, and all this other hooha met my eyes. And I said just straight out, “this really makes me sad to read about. Poor Finn.” The cashier who i bought it from was like, “what’s there to be sad about, it’s just another dead celebrity…” What’s the big deal? Drug addiction. thats the big deal. Especially when it involves a rising star tragically dying from an overdose. Who knows just how much others may have known about his issues and all that jazz? Maybe more of them were actually in the know about his problem. So no he wasn’t just some dead celebrity, he was a young man with a drug addiction, having had plenty of friends addicts of one sort or other, I know just how terrifying and life shattering addiction can be. And it’s no joke, it’s no laughing matter, celebrity or not, friend or not, family member or not, community member or not. And celebrity makes it doubly hard, “having to keep up appearances,” to keep the public happy, it’s not a good thing. How many managers and publicists are to blame for not showing their charges in the true light. Given how big of a fanbase folks like Cory Monteith have, if the fans knew what was going on, you know damn well they’d send their love. Also celebrities like everyone else will always have the friend that sees their problem and instead of confronting them are just like whatever he/she’ll be okay, I shouldn’t worry about this. Also who cares about dead celebrities? I do. Kurt Cobain, destroyed in equal parts by his fame and his drug addled mind, with so much to offer the world. Jimi Hendrix and his unrivaled guitar gifts, Jim Morrison, John Lennon shot down at the age of forty by some maniac who believed he would somehow take his place. People all taken from this world before their time, when there was so much more left to offer. Just like any normal person offering thier talents and gifts to the betterment of the world. Famous or not, we all have problems, we all have issues, we are all together in this. And addiction is addiction no matter who it happens to, and saying someone deserved to die because they were a junkie, is the most shallow and fucked up thing you could ever say to make light of someone’s passing. So don’t say anything at all if you can’t respect the dead. That’s the way i see it.
The Matthew Good Band’s album, The Audio of Being has a little bit of everything if you ask me. It’s a post grunge, borderline emo masterpiece. Amazingly crafted lyrics, dense instrumentation, equal parts uplifting and depressing. It’s a little metal, a little pop, and a joy to the ears. It’s grounded in the now of the late 90’s and early 2000’s but also timeless. The unique voice and the heavy riffs along with a great sense of the way things all come together, make this one of my heavy rotation albums. There is always something new and fresh to discover, and each listen is like my first. Don’t believe me? Good! Because, I talk about music in the hope that you will listen to it yourself. Check out the opening number: Man of Action. The bleak yet all too true: Advertising on Police Cars, the ear opening and perspective changing: The Fall of Man, as well as my favorites: Truffle Pigs and Under The Influence. Take a listen, I think you’ll dig it especially if you like lyrics.
Rolling Stone is under fire for its “controversial cover” featuring the Boston bomber, as he will now forever be remembered. Many retailers and citizens alike are up in arms over the existence of this cover, which I can understand, seriously, don’t get me wrong. But this feature story and this cover fall under free speech rights, and considering the controversy that our news media caused by reporting very innacurately on the events in the first place, maybe it’s good that Rolling Stone is taking a crack at it. I am not much of a Rolling Stone reader myself, but the cover in and of itself is much less controversial than the possible subject matter of the article. I mean, how soon do we forget some of the possibly “tasteless,” or “inappropriate,” covers of years past? This is journalism plain and simple, this is not hero worship, this is not shrugging off his crimes as if they had never happened, this is trying to get to the heart of the issue. What can bring such a promising young academic to such extremes? Searching for the root of the problem. Besides, he has admitted his guilt, and is not walking freely through the world at this moment. If journalists refused to run any story that could possibly offend, they’d be out of a job. Look at TMZ, all they do is hurt people and nobody complains about pulling them off the air. They aren’t journalists either. Just a reminder.
A playlist that i concocted with a couple of my awesome followers in mind, (Well whoever it’s for I want all to see it.)
1. Good Morning, Good Morning- The Beatles
2. All Along The Watchtower- Jimi Hendrix
3. Cinnamon Girl- Neil Young
4.Myxomatosis- Radiohead
5. Judas- Cage The Elephant
6. Feel Good Hit of The Summer- Queens of The Stone Age
7. Heartbreaker- Led Zeppelin
8. (You Will) Set The World on Fire- Bowie
9. Island In The Sun- Weezer
10. Sanctified- Nine Inch Nails
11. Dream On- Depeche Mode
12. Subterranean Homesick Alien- Radiohead
13.Darkshines- Muse
14. Gobbledigook- Sigur Ros
15. You (Radiohead Cover)- Christopher O’Riley
I hope you like this as much as I liked making it. 🙂
1. War- Mos Def (A great opener to lay bare the illusions of our American holidays)
2. Catch and Release- Silversun Pickups
3. I Wrote A Song About Your Car- Mike Doughty
4. El Scorcho- Weezer
5. Everything is Everything- Phoenix
6. Bodysnatchers- Radiohead
7. Shrinking Universe- Muse
8. Instant Crush- Daft Punk
9. Arco Arena- Cake
10. In One Ear- Cage The Elephant
11. Sunburn- Muse
12. Ricochet- David Bowie
13. Parachute Heart- Grace Potter and The Nocturnals
14. Tangled Up In Plaid- Queens of The Stone Age
15. A Taste of Honey- The Beatles
16. Freedom of Choice- A Perfect Circle
I’m going to start doing a feature on my favorite albums, new and old, for you nice internet folks. the persistent New England heatwave of the last 13 days or so has made it harder to let myself sit in the computer in this hot house and write any sort of awesome bloggles, but here it is what I wrote with the intention of posting here about a week ago. Enjoy!
Considered by many to be one of their more normal albums. Maybe sonically, but thematically its just as rife with remorse, helplessness and alienation, just as plagued by the human condition, in all its instability and heartbreak and hopelessness, with a faint dash of hopeful, in the fact that we can at least carry on from these hard moments. But that being said, it also contains music prime for singing along to, and songs that sound like they would fit in on standard mainstream radio, and in fact they do. But the sheer alienation of it, the bleak depression, the fuzzed out guitars and extremely tight rhythms, reflect very much even at this stage, on the band that never fails to exceed expectations or defy conventions. Music for the sake of music. You get bittersweet ballads like Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, and Black Star, a foreshadowing of OK Computer in the awesome opener, Planet Telex, and raucous numbers such as Just, My Iron Lung, and the title track of course. And close it off with a haunting number like Street Spirit(fade out), to cause you coming away from your listen, unsure just how you’re supposed to be feeling. Depressing or not its an amazing album, and I actually like depressing music more when I’m happy, so as weird as this sounds, just like The Smiths which I talked about a lot before, Radiohead is my go to happy music. It’s just good, that’s all there is to it.
Break The Sky 