I've finally found the one album that I can listen to for the rest of my life. After the release of NOW THATS WHAT I CALL MUSIC 328 I was beginning to loose hope for compilation CDs, but now that there is a compilation CD of only power ballads, I can now take solace in the fact that I will no longer have to worry about finding new music for the next 70-80 some odd years.
I was going to make a new post on how the French electroduo, Justice, is pretty much Daft Punk nouveau, and how awesome they are for the small amount of material they've put out so far. But with the release of NOW THATS WHAT I CALL: POWER BALLADS, excuse my colloquialism, fuck that.
Honestly, who needs Justice's heavy distored synth riffs...
..when you have such Bret Michaels and acoustic guitars?
Screw awesome Daft Punk remixes...
...All I need me is some Joe Elliot
If they happen to release NOW THATS WHAT I CALL MUSIC: POWER BALLADS 2: SONGS TO GET LAID TO IN THE BACK OF YOUR '86 CAMARO, I may just drop dead from the sheer excitement. Pray that my dreams do not come true.
This is pretty old news to those that have seen Where the Light Is, but for those that still think John Mayer is catering to the 14-year old girl demographic, read on.
While his Contiuum was musically, a step in the right direction, "Say" was just a pop-fueled disappointment. With the news of a live set out back in July of '08, I was skeptic to say the least. Initially I though to myself, "Oh, well since it's his first mainstream live release, it's going to be full of pop hits." For the time being, I just wrote it off.
And then I saw him live in August.
It might have been his 3+ minute solo's on Gravity, Belief, and Vultures, but what really sold me was when he took Duffy's "Mercy", and transformed it into a captivating slow blues jam. It completely caught me off guard. At first I was blown away by him playing a standard slow blues song, but when I heard, "You got me begging me for mercy," I was floored to say the least. Johnny-boy quite literally took a straight up pop song and transformed it into a blues song.
Here is a decent video of him explaining why. Oh and actually playing it as well.
Needless to say, seeing it live was 1000x times better. What even sealed the deal is that those 14 year old girls there to see songs like "Say", "Your Body is a Wonderland", and "Neon" were loving it. Say what you want about how Mayer just re-hash's Hendrix and SRV licks, but the man is bringing blues to the masses, just like Jimi and Stevie did. If he started out playing the things he's playing now, he would just be popular among guitar players, much like a Joe Bonamassa. He proved himself to the exec's with his earlier pop-sales, so now he has the freedom to play what he wants. Hopefully over time, Mayer's 14 year old fans will start to become hooked on guys like SRV and Hendrix, all the artists that spun off of them, and even their inspirations such as the Howlin' Wolf, BB King, and Albert King.
After that concert, John Mayer didn't seem so much like a lost cause anymore, and thus prompted me to pick up his live DVD, Where the Light Is. It showcases a John Mayer that is playing what he loves, where his enthusiasm not only shows in his singing, but more importantly in his playing. The real highlight of his set is the somewhat obscure, but completely awesome, Hendrix song "Wait Until Tomorrow."
So yeah, if you've written of John Mayer, give the guy another chance. He deserves it.
While looking for live version of Kenny Wayne Shepherd's "While We Cry" I stumbled upon this man by the name of Zack Rosicka. Not only his tone awesome, the guy has some chops. While there are million and one people playing SRV inspired blues, it's not often you get to see someone throw in Joe Bonamassa/Eric Johnson style licks with such finesse and feeling. Oh yeah, and his tone is killer, creamy yet not super overdriven, something not easily accomplished.
Anyway, the video in question:
What really floored me was his "Little Wing" cover. While one can eventually play it with enough hours put into it, the mark of a good player is improvisation. Stevie Ray was able to do it, Clapton was able to do it, and Mr. Rosicka here makes a damn fine attempt at putting his spin on the Hendrix classic.
Finally, while not Zack Rosicka related. It just pains me to see that too few people notice Brian Kahanek. While his lead playing is standard awesome, his chord progressions are awesomer. Many people use distortion to kinda make up for ho-hum playing (power chords sound much less impressive when the gain isn't turned up to 11), but BK makes his '59 sing.
Possibly the coolest charity to ever grace the internets is Desert Bus for Hope. Before getting to what these insane people do, it might help to talk about the charity involved.
In the year twenty zero three, the super chill guys over at the webcomic Penny Arcade decided that toy drives were lame, and that little Timmy did not deserve a Hot Wheels set for Christmas. Nay, Tycho and Gabe felt that Timmy deserved a brand new Playstation 2. Thus Child's Play was born.
Shamelessly ripped from their website:
With the help of hospital staff, we've set up gift wish lists full of video games, toys, and movies. You can go to each hospital's list and buy a toy, and that toy will be sent to the hospital. Some of these kids are in pretty bad shape. Imagine being stuck alone in a hospital over the holidays, getting something from a fellow gamer would really raise their spirits. Some of the stuff the hospital will give away for kids to keep, while other gifts (like consoles) will be kept by the hospital for patients to use throughout the year.
Now that's out of the way, it's time to tackle the enigma of Desert Bus for Hope.
You may know of many charity raising marches/runs/walks etc. Some famous example being The Relay for Life, March of Dimes, and the Lupus Walk. Now, you may say to yourself, what does driving a bus in the desert have to do with raising money?
Desert Bus is the best known minigame in the package, and was a featured part of Electronic Gaming Monthly's preview. The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.
The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends). Players may continue to make trips and score points as long as their endurance holds out.
Simply put these guys are driving from Tuscon to Las Vegas as long as you keep on donating. Now gaining popularity, Penny Arcade has decided to match all donations, up to a maximum to 10,000. Those Canadians are going to be riding the desert bus for a very, very, long time.
The one great thing about Facebook vs. Myspace, is that Facebook had some professionalism to it. Before, Facebook was a simple way to just leave your friends messages, without having to wade through stupid bullshit backgrounds, listen to their crappy taste in music, or scroll through dozens of spam posts. Facebook went from clean and efficient to a massive clusterfuck of pointless applications. Nothing has made my eyes spontaneously bleed until I saw this:
God dammit.
Now, the one thing I left Myspace for, wading through people's bullshit, has reincarnated itself on Facebook. And it's not a Jesus-style resurrection where your son goes searching for Easter Eggs ,eats shittons of chocolate giggling, no, it's a Pet Sematary-style resurrection where your undead son tries to kill you with a surgical scalpel, then goes and kills your wife.
I don't give two shits if you think I'm HOT OR NOT, consider me to be one of your "top friends", most likely to fuck a goat, or you think I would fancy a crappy compressed jpeg made in paint with an over-used not-even-funny line tYpEd LiKe ThIs. No, I don't want your e-drinks, sexy e-gifts, e-gifts, or your requests to join your pirate/ninja/thug/ass pirate gang.
Possibly the pinnacle of social entropy
Just give me my old Facebook. All I want to do is make thinly veiled requests for tantric sex known as poking, and maybe post on people's walls/pictures.
This is the obligatory blog post declaring my preference for the 2008 Presidential Election.
Ron Paul
After thinking about going Clinton 1.5, doing the Barackaway, or going with my Senator John McCain, I've decided to forget all of them. It's funny actually, last year studying AP government, I read that a majority of kids going into college, somehow made them more liberal. Here I am, into the second semester, and I haven't read anything, heard anything, that specifically advocates liberalism. So why would I just go for a (drastic) reform candidate?
I think college kids become more liberal due to more knowledge about the system. As you learn about the Constitution, the founding fathers, and politics today, I think it's easy to see how bad things are right now. Of course every single candidate running now has some plan they propose for pulling out of Iraq, but Ron Paul is different. He is strongly against policing the world, and I agree. Up until WWII the U.S. had a strong isolationist policy. Now, isolationism doesn't mean we can't freely trade with other countries, that's just being economically stupid, but getting involved in world politics? Moronic. Why should we spend tax-payers money, on foreign problems, when there are far greater problem domestically? If you look back at my post about Naomi Wolf, Ron Paul's platform seems to be a breath of fresh air. It's the government's foreign policy that's creating this hostility toward our nation, as shown in this New York Times article.
If you take a look at this video, you'll find that Ron Paul doesn't base his campaign on defacing other candidates, yet he only focuses on his platform, which is the best thing anyone running for office can do.
This is what I think:
I believe in the three sport athlete. Soccer is the greatest sport in the world. Respect is something earned, not assumed. There is a man upstairs, and that he does, "come down and stop those mother(expletive deleted)' bullets." Stevie Ray Vaughan was taken from this mortal plane far too soon. Batman is not a superhero, because he does not have super powers. I could live on meat and potatoes. Sports provide something the classroom cannot. Jimi Hendrix isn't the greatest guitarist ever, just the most influential. Little Wing played by SRV is proof that there is a god. Currently I'm a Print Journalism Major at Hofstra University.
