That's Just Great

Most common Google search that leads to this particular blog:

"old milwaukee pin up girls"

And I'm sure mentioning this will just perpetuate things.




What Made Milwaukee Famous

"Sweet Lady"

Scant Thoughts On MWY's Weird Nirvana Cover

Mewithoutyou recently covered "In Bloom" for a Nirvana tribute album.

You can stream that dandy at MWY's website:
http://mewithoutyou.com/?p=213

A lot of tribute albums are ultimately unsatisfying. Bands either try to sound too much like the original artist (and fail because they are not) or they try to do their own thing and butcher everything to crap. And also Nirvana, for whatever reason, is a very finicky band to cover.

Mewithoutyou's take on "In Bloom" is... different. It's like listening to a MWY song but with Cobain lyrics. I didn't like the tune at first but warmed up to it before the song ended. I'm still not crazy about Aaron's post-Brother, Sister ball-less vocal style, but whatever. He can do what he wants.

The band reduces the lyrics to their poetic essence by removing all that distracting guitar-riffic fuzz. Filtering "In Bloom" through a MWY-shaped prism may not yield rainbows, but the results are still interesting.

I will probably never listen to the rest of this particular tribute album (titled Come As You Are, if you're interested), but I'm happy at least one of the songs is listenable.

That's Super

I woke up today with a sharp headache. I never wake up with sharp headaches. I've woken up with plenty of dull ones, but never one that felt like a tiny black hole was tearing apart the very center of my brain. It turned out rain was a-comin', and as my body adjusted to the relatively rapid drop in air pressure the headache eased.

So that's great. My skull is a painful barometer.


Do you know what's super? Bands that have the word "super" in their name. That's super. Here are the super bands I came up with.

Supertramp
Did you know Supertramp was formed when a Dutch millionaire told Rich Davies to start a band and do whatever he wanted with it? And it would all be funded? So Davies gathered some instrumentalists, formed the band, and produced a crappy prog album. Mr. Dutch Millionaire pulled his funding. Band members left. Nobody liked Supertramp. So Davies re-gathered some other musicians and wrote bouncier poppier music. Eventually Supertramp became world famous. This just goes to show that prog music is an awful thing.


Superchunk
Superchunk has been around for over twenty years, which is kind of awesome. What's more awesome is the fact that their music continues to be quite excellent. Also, every music video needs David Cross in it.


Superdrag
You won't recognize this band until you see the video for "Sucked Out," and then it will all instantly come back to you in a heaping tide of 90s radio rock. Singer John Davis, who is not the lead singer of Korn, decided he would rather be a Christian than an alcoholic and turned to Jesus-inspired rock and roll. I've seen him live before. He's good. Apparently Superdrag reunited in 2007 and released an album in 2009. But I have no idea what they're up to right now.


Supergrass
I have a Supergrass CD. I never listen to it. I really should.


Supertones
First the O.C. Supertones were cool, at least with the youth group kiddies. Then, as people realized ska was lame, they became not cool. They even dropped the Orange County from their name. But now, as the twenty-to-thirty-somethings reconnect with their 90s childhood, the Supertones are becoming cool again, but in an ironic kind of way. I still have at least three Supertones CDs. No, I will never sell them.


Superchick
You may have heard a Superchick song and not even realized it as they have a way of sneaking themselves onto TV and movie soundtracks. I may verbally deny ever rocking out to Superchick, but the gigantic Superchick sticker on my old stereo says otherwise. How embarrassing.


Superfamily
I've only discovered this Norwegian band within the past couple years. I like 'em.



EDIT:
I totally forgot about Super Furry Animals. This is probably because I don't listen to Super Furry Animals.

Mariano Saves, Rodriguez Kills

Monday, just seconds before I dashed out the door for work, I watched Mariano Rivera record his 602nd save. Like, watched it on the TV. I was standing there in my work clothes, my wife was sitting on the couch in complete disinterest, and my child was clinging to my pants trying to get my attention. It was a magical moment.

I understand my wife's apathy, actually. The "save," in my opinion (and hers, but for different reasons) is overrated as a statistic. There are a very specific set of circumstances that must be met before a pitcher can be credited with a save. It's somewhat farcical and mostly unnecessary. The last pitcher pitches his inning or two. If the score is close enough he "saves" the game. Good job. If he blows the lead he may be credited with the loss. Bad job. If the score is not close then he gets nothing at all. Good game butt pat.

But there's no questioning Mariano's dominance. He's not there to close the door. He is there to slam the door. So watching Mr. Rivera do his job Monday was less a celebration of him setting the all-time saves record and more a celebration of Mariano's tremendous pitching career.

I remember when Jeff Reardon set the all-time saves mark in 1992. I was staying the night in a motel in Cooperstown, New York. I was 10-years-old. The next day was super awesome Hall of Fame museum day. But that night, after a long day of traveling, my family and I crashed at the motel and watched whatever game was on the TV. There was Reardon. There were his final pitches. He had won the saves record formerly held by Rollie Fingers. Reardon smiled his big beardy smile. I fell asleep.

Jeff Reardon held the all-time saves record for one season. I have no recollection of what I was doing when Lee Smith became the all-time saves leader in 1993.

I have no recollection of what I was doing when Trevor Hoffman became the all-time saves leader in 2006.

But, by golly, I was standing there in my living room at 4:30 pm Monday, September 19, 2011, when Mariano Rivera became the all-time saves leader. Documented history.

The active player second on the saves list? Francisco Cordero. He's got 323 saves. He is also 36 years old. This record will stick around for a while.

I can tell my child that she was there in front of the TV as well, even if she was wasn't paying any sort of attention to it.

-------------------------------------------

Speaking of baseball (and I usually do), I was at a game this past Sunday in Toronto. Blue Jays versus Yankees. I wanted to get a picture of Alex Rodriguez hitting a baseball because I thought that would be pretty cool. I wanted the precise moment the ball came in contact with his bat. And so I chose the pitch I would snap the shot. As the pitcher wound up I steadied my camera, but I was having trouble zooming in and focusing. The pitch was thrown and I snapped my shot late. But holy cow! A-Rod had lost grip of the bat and helicoptered it into the seats. And then I looked back down at my camera and holy cow! I took a picture of this...



Nice.
Everybody in the seats where the bat landed was okay. I think. Actually I hadn't heard anything at all about anybody in the bat-landing area. People might've died. There might still be a baseball bat impaled in the abdomen of a Toronto Blue Jays fan. Who knows?

Yankees lost, 3-0. Mariano Rivera did not record his record-breaking save that day.

Use ample pine tar, please. It will save lives.

Back. Or Front.

Two months.
Hiatus or laziness?
Or distractedness?
Who cares.

Currently I am sitting here sippin' my sippin' whiskey and listening to a handful of recommended tunes via hand-delivered memory stick. This is what I need sometimes, people to tell me the good new stuff.

My new music lag used to be one year. Something new to me would've already been out for one year. That was okay, especially when bands and singers took two years between albums. But now my lag is, like, three or four years. Unacceptable.

Does anybody else want to play the memory stick game? You give me a stick full of songs you think are the best, and I'll empty it and return it full of songs I think are the best, plus new music that's actually three or four years old.

Seriously, drop me a message. We'll do it postal. And I promise not to steal your stick and sell it on eBay.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

The first few seconds of "Spanish Bombs" by the Clash sound very very similar to the first few seconds of Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again." Whether or not this was done on purpose, I have no idea.

Compare. Contrast.




I'd never noticed before. Now the two songs are inseparable in my head. Christmas in July.

Also, the first few seconds of "Sowing Seeds" by The Jesus and Mary Chain sound just like the first few seconds of one of their other songs, "Just Like Honey." Both are from the same album, so maybe this shouldn't be as surprising.

But you will notice that both songs sound similar to the beginning of "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes. This was probably done intentionally as the J&MC were going for that dense atmospheric Spector-esque wall of sound.

Boom. Ba-boom. BAP.





I've got a ton of 'em. I'm sure you do too.

Whether done purposefully as inspiration (as above with these Psychocandy songs), purposefully as an I-hope-nobody-notices rip-off (as with Oasis' "Cigarettes and Alcohol," stolen from T-Rex's "Get It On"), or unintentionally (as with George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," unconsciously zapped from the Chiffons' "He's So Fine"), there are only so many notes and chords and rhythms and noises. Somebody somewhere is going to double up, and it's going to temporarily cause me to wonder what a Tom Petty Christmas song is doing in the middle of a Clash album.

My iPodding Habits

I am very particular with my iPod.


I don't mind repeating tracks, but I can't stand the idea of there being tracks I never get around to hearing. As a result I almost never do a random play. Sometimes I'll run a Genius playlist for consistency's sake, but for the most part everything is organized for optimal listening efficiency.

I pull my tracks from my computer's library. It's a robust library, and I'm always adding to it. Obviously it's not all going to fit on my 4 gig iPod. So I organize my library chronologically and, starting from the earliest year, fit as many whole years onto the iPod as possible.

On the iPod I then play the tracks alphabetically by song title. This prevents the monotony of hearing the same artist fifteen times in a row while also providing a little bit of musical diversity. It's like a controlled randomness. And if I stop the iPod it's easy enough to remember what song I left off on.

I only ever listen to my iPod in the car, and only on drives that are 15+ minutes long. It's just what I do. As a result it takes several months to go from one end of my iPod to the other. Often times if I hop in the car, push play, and find I'm midway through a song already, I'll back it up and play it from the beginning. I'll rarely outright skip a song. Each tune gets the attention it does (or does not) deserve.

Sometimes I'll get on a radio kick and not listen to the iPod for weeks. That always sets things back a bit.

I get from the mid-50's to the late-70's in one 4 gig clump of files because there wasn't a whole lot of music during that era. Also, the music that did exist tended to be very short in length.

Clear iPod, reload.

I'm currently listening to songs spanning from the late-70's to the early-90's. Despite my love for 80's music there's not actually a whole lot of 80's music represented in my library. I suppose I relegate my 80's listening to the radio.

Clear iPod, reload.

As I progress to the current year the spans will shorten. More music made. Longer songs. By the time I get to the 2000's I'll be filling up the iPod one year at a time.

It takes over a year to go through my entire library, and by that point I've already added a truckload of new songs. And we begin again.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hey, Niels Nielsen just added a ton of new tracks. They're actually old tracks, and I haven't actually taken the time to listen to them yet, but they're probably good by virtue of the fact that they're Niels Nielsen tunes.

http://nielsnielsen.net/site/2011/06/29/sounds-from-the-past/