Tag Archives: music

Know Your Place, lightening round

PopStar Guitar (November 18, $30) is like an easier version of Guitar Hero with only four strings of notes to play along with instead of the usual five. Instead of a guitar-shaped controller, you get a four-buttoned slip-on sheath for the Nintendo Wii that lets you strum along using the nunchuck in an air guitar sort of style. The PlayStation 2 version will apparently feature a similar control called the AirG. Another difference is that the PopStar Guitar’s characters and clothes skew more towards Bratz than Beavis.

But the most striking difference is the music. Rather than the hard-rocking classics that Gottleib’s daughter grew to love, Popstar Guitar features poppier fare from Miley Cyrus, Maroon 5, Rihanna, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Simple Plan, 3 Doors Down, Blink 182 and the seemingly-omnipresent Jonas Brothers. Little sisters of Guitar Hero and Rock Band enthusiasts finally have something to cheer about.

Remember, rock is for boys, pop is for girls.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some snips, and snails and puppy dog tails.

The Omen (13 Days of Halloween)

The Omen is a nice follow-up to Rosemary’s Baby. In The Omen, Gregory Peck and Lee Remick give birth to the antichrist and teach the world that Evil has a predilection of choral music.

Jerry Goldsmith won his only Oscar for his work on The Omen, but he had – oh, wait for it…wait for it – a hell of a career. John Williams does what he does, and he does it well, and it’s not hard to identify the “Williams sound.” Goldsmith, on the other hand, created radically different compositions for different projects and experimented widely with instrumentation, so much so that even devoted fans don’t recognize his work by any specific sound or recurring motifs. There’s an impressive fansite at Jerry Goldsmith Online that highlight’s Goldsmith’s extensive career.

Now Playing: Drive-By Truckers

Lots and lots of Drive-By Truckers, including The Dirty South, A Blessing and A Curse and of course, Southern Rock Opera.

Somewhere, I think we have Pizza Deliverance on vinyl. I just read the notes about this album on the discography page on the band’s website:

Pizza Deliverance (1999 – Soul Dump Records)

SONGS: Bulldozers and Dirt, Nine Bullets, Uncle Frank, Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus), Box of Spiders, One of These Days, Margo and Harold, The Company I Keep, Tales Facing Up, The Presidents Penis is Missing, Love Like This, Mrs. Dubose, Zoloft, The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town

Read Lyrics

I’ll always have an extra soft spot for this one. We recorded it in my living room on Jefferson Rd. n Athens GA in five days in mid-january 1999. You can hear my dogs fighting over which one gets to eat the other’s puke in the background of Mrs. Dubose. (True story).

On that Sunday afternoon we invited a bunch of friends over and got plowed and recorded takes of Nine Bullets, The Company I Keep and a drunken, unplanned The President’s Penis is Missing, which we ended up laughing so hard at we put it on the album only to see most early reviews concentrate on how terrible it was. That’s alright, I still think it was the right call nearly ten years later.

Cooley came into his own with Uncle Frank, One Of These Days and Love Like This. PD captures an earlier incarnation of this band at a turning point and I’ll always love this one.
The Night GG Allin Came To Town was written as a birthday present to Cooley at a time when we weren’t speaking.

I think I need to dig that out for a listen.

The Drive-By Truckers are an excellent antidote to Belle and Sebastian (Tigermilk), who I accidentally listened to earlier. Belle and Sebastian annoy me so much that they actually make my teeth itch.