I am Two-Face to Maynard James Keenan's Joker

Last week, I bought a few music CDs. Like, CDs with music already on them. And not MP3s. I know, totally old school, but I'm an old school kind of guy. Anyway, a couple of them were from a band called A Perfect Circle which features Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of Tool. I had never heard any music by this band, but I like Tool and Keenan has a distinctive and strong voice so I took a chance. But the band isn't what this is about.

The CDs I got were their first and second albums Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step. On the back of the Thirteenth Step CD case, it says "Copy Controlled", which I assumed was some technology to prevent people from making copies of the disk. It never occurred to me that this would prevent the tracks on the disk from being ripped by programs like iTunes, because everyone uses iTunes or Windows Media Player or something like that, right? I mean, considering the number of iPods and other MP3 players out there (recent surveys say there are approximately 4.23 gazillion of them), no record company in their right mind would knowingly put technology on an audio CD that prevented it from being imported into iTunes. Would they? Yes. Yes, they would.

(Note that I'm giving the record companies the benefit of the doubt here. It's possible that they've done this so that people who wanted MP3 copies would be forced to buy the album twice. I'm going to assume that the copy protection is there solely to prevent piracy and not as a way to rip off consumers.)

Neither iTunes nor Windows Media Player can read the disk at all. I can't even play the disk on my computer. So now I have an audio CD that I legally own and yet I cannot listen to it on my computer or iPod. If I'm in the car, I could use the CD there (if it works on that player), but that means either leaving it in the car all the time or deciding in advance what music I'm going to listen to when driving. That's a pain, and avoiding that is the reason I bought an iPod in the first place. I sometimes listen to music at work through my iPod, but this album would be unavailable. The other A Perfect Circle album rips and plays fine. Keenan's voice is obviously a big part of it, but the songs are shorter than Tool, and a little more mainstream. There is far less ambient stuff – one of the songs on Undertow (a Tool album I also bought) (and successfully ripped) contains almost ten minutes of near-silence. But the band isn't what this is about.

So what are my alternatives? I've searched the internet and have found some instructions on how to rip such CDs, so I may try one of those. I could just buy the album digitally, but that means paying for it twice and since I haven't even been able to listen to it yet, I'm a little reluctant to pay again. But there's another alternative.

I could steal it.

I could probably search the internet and find an illegal copy of the album someplace and download it in ten minutes. Make no mistake, I realize that this is theft, but I already paid for the album, so the band / record company is not really losing out on anything if I download it. At least, I could use that logic to justify it to myself. But I'm not a music pirate.

I work in the software industry. The software package I work on is not a huge piracy target, but the concept is clear – people downloading SQL Anywhere and not paying for it are stealing from my company. Similarly, downloading A Perfect Circle would be stealing from the record company and, indirectly, the band members themselves.

I'm also a little gun-shy. A few years ago, I downloaded some torrents of TV shows (just episodes I missed of CSI or something from network TV, not PPV or anything), and I got an email from my ISP saying "we've been told that you're downloading copyrighted material. You'd better stop." I did stop, and so if I decide to look for A Perfect Circle's album online, I'm a little concerned that I'll get caught and they'll cut off my internet.

So integrity and fear means that I probably won't steal it. If the methods I've found of ripping the CD don't work, I'll probably just buy the damn thing online. I'll grumble and I'll complain, but I'll fork over the $10. And I'll probably buy their third album as well. But the thought of downloading a pirated copy of the album did cross my mind, and not just for a few seconds. I seriously considered it.

The record industry is trying to prevent piracy, but the method they've chosen (this type of copy protection) is making a non-pirate like me consider stealing the album. They have taken a law-abiding citizen who is against piracy and turned him into a potential criminal.

Talk about unintended consequences.

Sad songs say so much

When I was a kid, between ages 7 and 10, I was a Wolf Cub (now called a Cub Scout). I had the Cub Book which contained a list of all the badges and stars, ideas for things to do at camps or outdoors, lyrics to campfire songs, and lots of other Cub-related stuff. One of the campfire songs was My Darlin' Clementine. I only knew the chorus of the song, which included the lines "You are lost and gone forever, oh my darlin' Clementine." I didn't know the rest of the words, so I figured it was about a man whose wife or girlfriend had left him, a theme not uncommon in songs. One day I read the actual lyrics and found that Clementine was actually the guy's daughter and she didn't just leave, she drowned in a river. She died. I was stunned. This was about the saddest thing I'd ever read and from that day on, I hated that song for making me sad. I didn't even want to look at that page in the Cub Book again. No word of a lie, I memorized what page it was on and intentionally skipped it when looking through the book for anything.

That experience taught me at an early age just how much of an effect music can have on a person emotionally. Here are a few other (non-campfire) songs that tug on the ol' heartstrings.

Hold on – Sarah McLachlan

This is a heartbreaking song about a woman tending to her dying husband. She switches back and forth between hoping that he'll get better and accepting the fact that he's not going to. Sample lyrics:

So now you're sleeping peaceful
I lie awake and pray
That you'll be strong tomorrow
And we'll see another day
And we will praise it
And love the light that brings a smile
Across your face

Oh God, the man I love is leaving
Won't you take him when he comes to your door

Castle on a Cloud – Les Misérables (young Cosette)

I wrote about this one many years ago, when I said "No child should ever have to feel that much despair". It's sung by Cosette, a young girl whose mother died when she was a baby and has lived in poverty and neglect ever since. She dreams of a place where she would experience none of the terrible things that happen to her on a normal day.

There is a lady all in white
Holds me and sings me a lullaby
She's nice to see and she's soft to touch
She says "Cosette, I love you very much"

I know a place where no one's lost
I know a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud

4AM – Our Lady Peace

This one is about a man with a strained relationship with his father, who is filled with regret after he passes away.

Walked around  my good intentions
And found that there were none
I blamed my father for the wasted years
We hardly talked
Never thought I would forget this hate
Then a phone call made me realize I'm wrong

If I don't make it known that I've loved you all along
Just like sunny days that we ignore because
We're all dumb and jaded
And I hope to God I figure out what's wrong

The River – Bruce Springsteen

A ballad about a young couple who married young when she became pregnant. They then watched their dreams fade away and their lives pass them by.

We went down to the courthouse
And the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle
No flowers, no wedding dress

Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister, they vanished right into the air
Now I act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

Cat's in the Cradle – Harry Chapin

Possibly the quintessential tearjerker song. It's about a father who never makes time for his son only to find that once he's older and finally wants to spend time with him, the son has no time for his father. Excuse me for a minute while I go hug my kids. <Muzak> OK, I'm back now.

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

A Month of Sundays – Don Henley

This is a retired farmer talking about his life, some of the hardships he's been through, and how different things are now. The song touches on politics but doesn't get preachy (unlike a few other Henley songs), but the last line (listed below) is the one that really gets to me.

I've seen dog days and dusty days,
Late spring snow and early fall sleet
I've held the leather reins in my hands
I've felt the soft ground under my feet
Between the hot, dry weather and the taxes and the cold war
It's been hard to make ends meet
But I always kept the clothes on our backs
I always put the shoes on our feet

The big boys, they all got computers
Got incorporated too
Me, I just know how to raise things
That was all I ever knew
And now it all comes down to numbers
Now I'm glad that I have quit
Folks these days just don't do nothin'
Simply for the love of it

I sit here on the back porch in the twilight
And I hear the crickets hum
I sit and watch the lightning in the distance
But the showers never come
I sit here and listen to the wind blow
I sit here and rub my hands
I sit here and listen to the clock strike,
And I wonder when I'll see my companion again

Man, is it ever getting dusty in here. <sniff>

\m/

This is an actual conversation that took place at my house tonight. Note for the record that Nicky is 9 and has been playing the guitar for about a year and a half.

Me: Nicky, can you practice your guitar please?
Nicky: I can't find my song sheet. It's not in my book.

We searched his room and the office for a while, no luck.

Nicky: Can we look on the internet for the music and print another one?
Me: Sure.

<Fires up the browser, heads to google.ca>

Me: What's the name of the song?
Nicky: Master of Puppets.
Me: O_O

Nicky and some friends, when his hair was longer.

What song has the most "na"s?

The question that everyone has been wondering in the back of their minds for decades has finally been answered. What song has the most "na"s in it?

And the winner is.... Centerfold by the J. Geils Band, which has 221 "na"s, one more than Hey Jude.

No, I did not google this, I actually did my own research, as any good journalist would do. This consisted of listening to each song, typing an 'x' whenever they said "na", then counting up the x's. Why, how did you spend your Thanksgiving?

The night Blue Rodeo saved my life

I have lived in or near the largest city in Canada, Toronto, pretty much all my life. But in my 42 years, I have only been to Canada's second-largest city, Montreal, twice. Once was in 1980 when my family travelled east to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and I remember bits of that trip (I remember it was 1980 because we saw The Empire Strikes Back in Halifax) but nothing about Montreal. The other time was shortly after I moved to Ottawa after graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1992. That one was more memorable.

I started listening to Metallica in about second-year university and by the time I graduated in 1992, I was a big fan. Faith No More's album The Real Thing was one of my favourites during my university years, and while not a huge Guns 'n Roses fan, I liked most of their music. So when I heard during the summer of 1992 that all three bands would soon be coming to Montreal, I was very excited. The radio ads said "seven hours of heavy metal!" I had moved to Ottawa in June to work at Corel, and Ottawa is only about an hour and a half away from Montreal. I called my girlfriend Gail (now my wife of fifteen years) and asked if she wanted to go. She's not the metal fan that I am, but she liked Enter Sandman and a few GnR songs, so she agreed. Plus we decided to get a hotel room and stay over, so it was a mini-vacation.

We drove to Montreal the morning of the concert, which was on a Saturday. A friend of Gail's lived in Montreal so we visited with her in the afternoon, and then walked down from our hotel to Olympic Stadium for the concert. I remember seeing an Expos souvenir shop near the door where we came in. The concert started right on time, with Faith No More opening. We were at the far end of the stadium, on the left side. I think we were on the lower level. The first thing I noticed when the show started was that the sound was terrible. Forget deciphering the lyrics, I couldn't even figure out what half the songs were. Faith No More played for about 45 minutes, then they were done and we waited for Metallica. The tour was a "co-headlining" tour, and I don't know if the order of the bands changed from night to night, but on this night Metallica was second and GnR third.

I don't remember how long a delay there was before Metallica came on but I don't think it was outrageous, maybe 30-45 minutes. I hoped that someone had fixed the sound problems, but alas, it was not to be. The first song they played was my favourite Metallica song ever, Creeping Death, and it was half over before I even realized what song it was. Sound problems aside, they put on a great show for about 45 minutes before it all went to hell. They started into Fade To Black, and about a minute into the song, after some pyrotechnics at the front of the stage went off, the music just... stopped. Dead air. Nothing. The smoke from the pyro cleared and we could see that the stage was empty. What the hell happened? Where's the band? There was a lot of talking in the crowd, but the house lights didn't come on, and nobody knew what was going on. It was several minutes before bassist Jason Newsted came out onto the stage and grabbed a microphone. He said that James (lead singer Hetfield) had been hurt by some pyrotechnics and he couldn't continue, so they'd have to cut their show short. He apologized on behalf of the band but said that they would come back to Montreal and they hoped we'd come out and see them then. (Apparently they did come back the next year, with tickets under $20 each as a sort of apology.) On came the house lights, and a disappointed crowd waited for Guns 'n Roses.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I'm guessing that the show was scheduled such that Faith No More and Metallica would each play for a pre-determined length of time, and enough time was set aside for two stage switches, so Guns 'n Roses knew when their show was scheduled to start. GnR singer Axl Rose is not known for being flexible and... well, let's just call a spade a spade. Axl Rose is known for being an asshole. I have no proof, but I have assumed since that day that Axl decided it was too bad Metallica's show ended early, but GnR were scheduled to go on at whatever time, and that's when they would go on. Those fifty-odd thousand people out there would just have to wait.

Two and a half hours after Metallica's show abruptly ended, Guns 'n Roses finally took the stage. After the high-energy Metallica show, we found that Guns 'n Roses just didn't have any energy. I have no memory of what songs they played, but Gail and I quickly got bored. Our feeling was "They made us wait 2½ hours and this is what they're giving us?" After only about twenty minutes, I was bored enough to suggest that we take off. I was there to see Metallica anyway, Gail didn't much care one way or the other, and we had discovered earlier that night that Blue Rodeo was playing a free concert across the street from our hotel. We were both big Blue Rodeo fans as well, so we left and took a cab from the Big O back to the hotel. We walked across the street and enjoyed the second half of the Blue Rodeo show.

While driving back to Ottawa the next morning, we listened to a Montreal radio station for a while. The DJs were taking phone calls from listeners who were all answering the question "If you could talk to Axl Rose right now, what would you say?" All of the callers had very negative things to say and we assumed that the majority of fans were as disappointed with the GnR show as we were, though maybe not enough to leave early as we did. After a while we lost the radio signal and turned it off, still blissfully unaware of what had actually happened. I didn't find out until the next day, when I returned to work and my co-workers asked about the riot.

My response was "The what?"

As it turned out, Guns 'n Roses played for a total of about 55 minutes before simply leaving the stage. Axl Rose later claimed that his throat hurt, and indeed a few shows had been cancelled over the previous couple of weeks for that reason. But on this night, to my knowledge, there was no announcement of any kind. The band just left the stage and the lights came on. The remaining crowd were less than impressed with this. The promised "seven hours of heavy metal" turned into maybe 2½ hours of music and over 3 hours of waiting. This displeasure resulted in people going down to the floor and throwing chairs, and then destroying whatever they could on the way out of the stadium. I saw pictures on the news of the very same Expos shop we had seen on the way in, which had been smashed and looted. When the crowd got outside the bad behaviour turned into a full-fledged riot, with the rioters looting stores and using Guns 'n Roses T-shirts to set several fires including at least one car. The Montreal police had to use tear gas and shut down several subway stations. It even made the New York Times. This was the reason for the questions about Axl Rose on the radio the next morning, and it was big news in Ottawa as well, so everyone knew about it – except us.

Aside: According to an interview eighteen years later with GnR drummer Matt Sorum, the reason for the delay was that Guns 'n Roses wasn't even in the building. Actually they had not even arrived in Montreal yet. They were on their way from Toronto and were well over an hour away before they heard about the problems. (The text of the interview says that it had been 4½ hours, not 2½, but I don't remember it being that long.) I'm not sure I buy this argument though. Opening act 1 was done and opening act 2 was on stage, and not only was the band not at the stadium, they weren't even in the city? Good planning, people. Apparently the unexpected scheduling change caused other audio problems that contributed to the GnR show being cut short, but I'm not sure I buy this either. Sure the sound for the previous two bands sucked, but I have since heard from a number of people that concerts at the Big O always had bad sound. Plus, instead of the normal 45-60 minutes to switch stages, they had somewhere between 2½ and 4½ hours and still couldn't it working properly?

The Montreal riot wasn't the insanity that was downtown Vancouver after the Stanley Cup final, but I'm still very glad that Gail and I weren't part of it. And we have two bands to thank: Blue Rodeo for being free, and Guns 'n Roses for being boring.

CD Review: Paul Cusick "Focal Point"

The moral of this story: Sometimes you do get a second chance to make a first impression.

While perusing ye olde Facebook back in April of 2010, I was shown an ad for an album by a guy named Paul Cusick. I have Dream Theater listed among bands that I like, and the ad said something like "Do you like Dream Theater? Check out Paul Cusick!" So for the first time in recorded history, I clicked on a advertising link on Facebook. It took me to his web site, and it turned out that Paul Cusick is an English multi-instrumentalist who had recorded a progressive rock album in 2009 called Focal Point. I'm a fan of progressive rock and I'm always impressed by multi-instrumentalists, so I figured what the heck. The album was available in digital-only format for about ₤5, which is less than $10 so I gave it a shot. Since the ad mentioned Dream Theater, I was expecting some pretty heavy stuff – but by the end of the album, I have to admit being a little disappointed. It was pretty good, but much of it wasn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting. As a result, I might have listened to the album maybe once more over the next six months or so – every time I saw it in the iPod listing, I remembered "Oh right, that wasn't very good, was it?" Then recently I gave it another listen but this time I kind of forgot about the Dream Theater link (which ironically brought this guy to my attention in the first place), and found that I enjoyed the album a lot more.

No, this album doesn't sound much like Dream Theater, other than the frequent time signature changes. But as I said, once I stopped the comparisons, I realized that this is quite a good album. Cusick is a talented musician with a quiet voice – no screaming here. He plays all the instruments except drums, and proves himself to be a good guitarist and bassist but particularly a keyboardist. There are a lot more keyboards than guitar on this album. The Dream Theater comparison didn't work, but some tracks (Fade Away, Touch, Senza Tempo) remind me of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's On An Island album. This is a good thing, as I love that album.

Mini-reviews of each song:

Focal Point – Cool keyboard-based prog-rock instrumental track.

Everblue – This song has a very full sound – it's hard to believe it's just one person performing this (other than drums). Yes I know how multi-track stuff works, but still.

Fade Away - This ballad reminds me a lot of the Gilmour album.

Soul Words – Funky song with some nice bass and guitar work.

Scared To Dream – Starts off slowly with just piano and vocals and then the guitar and drums come in, but I like how he keeps the piano riff in the background. Very cool.

Touch – Similar to Scared To Dream – starts off slowly, then gets faster. Great drums on this track.

Senza Tempo – Paul found the guitar! There has been lots of rhythm guitar up to this point, but not much lead. This one is a very melodic solo guitar piece.

Big Cars – Fast hard-rocking guitar track. No keyboards anywhere to be found. This one reminds me of Porcupine Tree.

Hold On – Sounds like it was written to be a single. Not bad but not my favourite.

Hello – Piano and vocals only. Slow and kind of haunting.

Cusick's second solo album, called P'Dice, is being recorded now and you can pre-order it here. The first 500 people to pre-order will have their names listed in the CD sleeve, and also get a "personalised limited edition postcard". If you look, you'll see my name there (along with "The Edge"! Is it The The Edge? I dunno), though there's no release date or even an estimate. But I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Movie review: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

I am a huge Rush fan, and have been since the early '80s. I had heard some of their songs on the radio, but my real introduction was the first side of Moving Pictures, which someone copied onto a tape for me. Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ, and Limelight. Four unbelievably fantastic songs, which I played over and over again. Imagine my surprise when, at least a year or two later, I realized that there were more songs on that album! And they were really good too! I eventually got most of their older albums as well, and I remember Signals being one of the most popular albums when I was in grade nine. Hearing the opening of New World Man still reminds me of early high school. I started to lose interest with the Grace Under Pressure album, and wasn't too thrilled with the next couple of albums. It wasn't so much that they started using more keyboards (Signals had lots of keyboards and I love that album), for me it was more that the keyboards seemed to replace the guitar rather than complementing it. I didn't even buy Hold Your Fire (or Test for Echo) for many years, which meant that Rush had been removed from my list of auto-purchase bands - when a new album was released by bands on this list, I would immediately go and buy it, even if I hadn't heard anything from it. Dream Theater has been on this list for years, and Linkin Park was, up until the most recent album A Thousand Suns, and now I'm not so sure about the next one. But I digress. Presto was pretty good, and rekindled my interest in the band. For Christmas, Gail bought me the DVD of the new movie Beyond The Lighted Stage, a documentary about the history of Rush. I have heard (on the radio and twitter) that even people who aren't Rush fans are really liking this film, so I figured I would love it, since I am a Rush fan. I wasn't disappointed.

There was lot more footage and pictures from the very early years of the band than I would have expected, including video of early concerts at local high schools and such. There was even video of a teenage Alex Lifeson sitting at the dinner table at his house, arguing about why he should be going to school when music is what he really wanted to do. Why someone in his family was recording that conversation, I have no idea. I found it funny that to this day, Geddy and Alex still refer to Neil Peart (who joined Rush in 1974) as "the new guy" because he wasn't there for the beginning of the band and didn't appear on their first album. There was a fair bit of discussion on each album up to and including Signals. After that, they mentioned that Rush entered a period where they used lots of synths which nobody but Geddy seemed excited about, including many fans. They squashed the Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, and Presto albums into fairly one short segment, and I don't think they even mentioned the names Grace Under Pressure, Hold Your Fire, or Presto. Roll The Bones and Counterparts were touched on briefly and Test For Echo was almost ignored before a section focussed on Neil Peart and the tragedies that befell him in 1997 and 1998.

Within a year of each other, Peart's daughter and wife both passed away, and Peart took several years off from the band to ride his motorcycle around North and Central America. (He wrote a book about this trip called "Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road" which is now on my must-read list.) After returning, he had doubts as to whether he would be able to continue in Rush because he'd been away from the drum kit for so long. It seems amazing that someone as talented as Peart (widely regarded as one of the best rock drummers there is) could have such doubts about his own ability. A couple of people in the film described Peart as a perfectionist, so he'd likely be unhappy performing at 80% of what he used to be able to do – even though 80% of Neil Peart is still better than a large percentage of other drummers. They also talked about how private a man Peart is, and how he really doesn't like meeting with fans who gush or fawn over him, and is uncomfortable with his fame (for reference, see the lyrics of the aforementioned "Limelight"). Neil, if you happen to read this, just know that I think you are an extremely talented drummer and lyricist and your music has meant a lot to me over the last thirty years. And I promise that if I happen to see you at a restaurant or store or something, I will leave you the hell alone.

Funniest scene: Alex and Geddy are sitting in a diner (the scene looks pretty recent, i.e. 2005-2010 time frame), and the waitress recognizes Geddy. She said that her son or nephew or something is a big fan, and asks if he can give her an autograph. He says sure, and she basically elbows Alex (who she obviously does not recognize) out of the way to give Geddy something to sign. Geddy asks if she wants Alex to sign it as well, and she just says "Thanks a lot" and walks away. Alex is laughing the whole time.

A number of prominent musicians were interviewed throughout the movie, including members of Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, Metallica, and Kiss, as well as musician / actor Jack Black. Sometimes Jack Black can be really funny while other times a little goes a long way, and I kind of found that here. A few interviews with him were fine, but I almost wanted to fast-forward over a couple.

I guess it's not surprising that I really enjoyed this movie, since I am such a fan of the band. But as I said, I have heard a couple of different people talk about how much they enjoyed the movie despite not being Rush fans. At least, they weren't Rush fans when they started the movie.

Pattern matching

Here is another list of bands that have something in common, but this time I'm going to let you, dear reader, attempt to figure out what that is. These are all bands that have been active in the past ten years.

1. Matchbox Twenty
2. Blink 182
3. Sum 41
4. Eve 6
5. Maroon 5
6. Finger 11

If you're in a band and you can't come up with a name, just do what these guys all did: pick a random word and a random number and put them together. That's called creativity.

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles

For Father's Day, Gail and the boys got me tickets for a show in Toronto called Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles, which we went to see this past Sunday afternoon. It was partially a gift for Gail as well, since just me and the boys went, so she had a day to herself. Given the events of the past few months, she hasn't had a lot of time to herself, so it was nice to be able to give her a day to do whatever she wanted.

Anyway, I was a little concerned that we were paying quite a bit of money for a concert by a tribute band. Even if the band was really good, $100/ticket is pretty expensive for a concert. I saw a band called 1964 at Ontario Place a bunch of years ago (for free!), and they were pretty good as the early Beatles. But they were basically recreating a Beatles concert from 1964, and so they only played early Beatles stuff. Rain played songs from the entire Beatles catalogue, including many songs that the Beatles never played live. They changed costumes several times, and they had video screens to enhance the whole multimedia experience. It was much more than just a band playing Beatles songs.

The guys in the band kind of resembled the Beatles, though we were in the fourth row of the balcony so we weren't all that close. I did notice that while they had video cameras showing the band, they never had close-ups of any one person. When they changed costumes, they changed hairstyles and facial hair as well. There were a couple of anomalies:

• John Lennon has a full beard on the cover of Abbey Road, but the guy playing John did not have any facial hair while wearing his Abbey Road outfit
• the guy playing Paul McCartney was not left-handed (though I imagine finding a left-handed musician who can play bass, guitar, and piano and sing like McCartney is rather difficult)
• the guy playing Ringo was a decent singer. Obviously he didn't do enough research.

During one costume change break, they played a few TV commercials from the 60's which were quite funny; did you know that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble smoked Winstons?

The first half of the show consisted of songs from albums up to and including Sgt. Pepper and at least three different outfits for each "Beatle". Ryan was a little disappointed that they did not play "Help!", his favourite Beatles song. The Sgt. Pepper songs were done in full Sgt. Pepper costume, which was very cool. They finished the first half with A Day In The Life, letting that awesome final chord shake the floor for a while before bringing the lights up.

The whole second half consisted of songs the Beatles never performed live, the only exception being "Get Back", which was recorded when the Beatles played live on the roof of Apple Records.  They did a bit of an acoustic set, playing "Girl" and "Mother Nature's Son" (I was waiting for "Blackbird", but no such luck), and shortly thereafter cranked the amps up to eleven to play Revolution. From the Abbey Road medley, the only song they played was "The End" – I would like to have heard "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" as well.

Just before the show started, an announcement was made saying that no pre-recorded music was used during the show, but that's not quite true. The band certainly played their instruments, but they made heavy use of the synthesizer for some songs. Parts of Strawberry Fields Forever and the orchestra swells and final chord in A Day In The Life would have been difficult to play live even with a synth, so I suspect there was either some sampling or at least those pieces were pre-recorded. Also, the seriously distorted scream at the beginning of "Revolution" sounded exactly like the one on the recording. The weirdest part was during Eleanor Rigby. The only instruments in this entire song are strings (violins, violas, cellos), none of which were played by anyone on stage. I'm sure they used the synth for this one too, but the weird part was that both "Paul" and "George" appeared to be pretending to play their instruments during the song. Seeing as how there is no bass or guitar in the song, I don't know why they'd be doing this.

The three of us loved the show, and judging by the standing ovation at the end, the majority of the crowd did as well (one exception was the grouch sitting a few seats down from us, who never stood, clapped, sang, or even smiled through the whole show). It wasn't the cheapest concert ever, but the musicians were really good, the music was obviously fantastic, and we really enjoyed ourselves, so it was a great day all around.

Top Ten Funny Song Lyrics

Not necessarily brilliant or insightful, just lyrics that always make me laugh. I left out comedy musicians like Weird Al or Jonathan Coulton (though I always laugh at "one bad-ass fucking fractal"). These are in no particular order.

 

1. Paul McCartney, "Sally"
   When you're away there are grey skies
   And when I'm away there are even more grey skies than the grey skies I told you about before
2. Gin Blossoms, "Cheatin'"
   You can't call it cheatin', cause she reminds me of you
3. ZZ Top, "TV Dinners"
   I like the enchiladas and the teriyaki too
   I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue
4. A few self-referential songs, grouped together because they're similar:
   1. Def Leppard, "Me and My Wine"
      You know I'd like to get to know you
      but I ain't got the time, and I'm
      I'm finding it harder and harder
      to make this damn thing rhyme
   2. Alice Cooper, "School's Out"
      Well we got no class
      and we got no principles [principals?]
      and we got no innocence
      we can't even think of a word that rhymes
   3. Primus, "Mr. Know-it-all"
      They call me Mr. Know-it-all
      I am so eloquent
      Perfection is my middle name
      and whatever rhymes with eloquent
5. Led Zeppelin, "Travelling Riverside Blues"
   Squeeze my lemon til the juice runs down my leg
   Squeeze it so hard I'm gonna fall right outta bed...
   I wonder if you know what I'm talkin' 'bout
   The same lyrics are in "The Lemon Song" as well, but the funny part is Robert Plant wondering if we know what he's talkin' 'bout. Right Robert, that's a tough one. I'm not sure I can see through the layers of complicated symbolism there.
6. Tom Petty, "A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own"
   I've been over to your house
   And you've been sometimes to my house
   I've slept in your treehouse
   My middle name is Earl
   (Important note: Tom Petty's middle name is indeed Earl)
7. Autograph, "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend Isn't Me"
   Don't remember any lyrics, I just like the title of this forgettable song from a forgettable band from the mid-80's.
8. Matchbox 20, "Long Day"
   I'm sorry 'bout the attitude I need to give when I'm with you
   But no one else would take this shit from me
9. Dire Straits, "Industrial Disease"
   Two men say they're Jesus
   One of them must be wrong
10. Cake, "Short Skirt/Long Jacket"
    The whole song makes me laugh. It starts off with a guy singing about what kind of girl he wants. He wants "a girl with a mind like a diamond", "is fast and thorough and sharp as a tack", "with a voice that is dark like tinted glass", that kind of thing. Of course, he also wants a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket. Then it gets a little weird. Now he wants a girl "with uninterrupted prosperity, who uses a machete to cut through red tape" and someone who's "touring the facility and picking up slack". And who wouldn't want a girl with "a smooth liquidation" and "good dividends"? Finally he gets really specific:
    At Citibank we will meet accidentally ["Meet accidentally!" yell the backup singers]
    We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen...
    She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen
    She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron

Top Ten Musical Ironies

1. U2, "Pop" – Pop is, of course, short for "popular", yet this was U2's worst-selling and most critically disappointing album ever.
2. The Beatles, With A Little Help From My Friends. The song is sung by Ringo Starr, who is a fine drummer but a crappy singer. (Actually, he's not even that great a drummer – John Lennon was once asked if he thought Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world. John replied "He's not even the best drummer in the band", referring to Paul McCartney. But I digress.) He would never have been famous without a lot of help from his friends John, Paul, and George. The real irony is the first line of the song: Ringo sings "What would you think if I sang out of tune?".
3. Alanis Morrisette – Ironic – A song called Ironic containing no irony is itself ironic.
4. Nirvana, Come As You Are – Kurt Cobain singing "I swear that I don't have a gun" was the inspiration for this list.
5. Various, Jingle Bell Rock and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. They use the word "Rock" in the title, but they are not rock. Not even close. As I've said once before, if Rrrrrandy Travis can sing Jingle Bell Rock without changing either his style or the song's style, it's not rock.
6. Five for Fighting. The band name implies strength and toughness (dare I say truculence?), but all of their songs (that I've heard) can only be described as "soft rock" – in other words, wimpy and lame. More like two for unsportsmanlike diving.
7. Yoko Ono. She doesn't play any instrument – I've seen video of her pretending to play the keyboard (finger-syncing?) at a John Lennon concert as well as playing an electric keyboard that was not plugged in. Her singing makes Ringo Starr sound like Freddie Mercury. Yet she was married to one of the most talented musicians and songwriters of the rock era. And he thought she was supremely talented. <head shake>
8. John Mellencamp, Pop Singer. Apparently John "never wanted to be no pop singer, never wanted to write no pop song" but he is and he has. Several of them. Incidentally, if you ever get the chance to see Mellencamp live, do it. I've seen him a few times (and missed another concert a couple of years ago), and he always puts on a great show.
9. Extreme, More Than Words. Sounds like a slow romantic ballad about true love (performed by a hair metal band, although that's not the ironic part). This was even a popular wedding song in the early-mid 90's. The irony is that is you listen to the lyrics, the idea of the song is not "I love you so much that I don't have to say the words", but "If you love me, you'd show me by having sex with me instead of saying the words." Songwriters Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone (aside: as soon as this article, containing that name, is posted to the internet, long-time Van Halen fans around the world will shudder and not know why) have admitted that the song is about sex. Likely not the kind of message you'd want to give at your wedding.
10. Linda Ronstadt. She has certainly been successful for a long time, with Grammys and gold records and such, but at one point in the early 70's, her backing band consisted of four guys named Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner, and Bernie Leadon. They went on to form The Eagles, who became far more popular than Ronstadt ever was.

Muse

My wife is a Twilight fan. She's read all four books in the series several times each, and she's watched the first two movies countless times each. Note that she's not one of those nutty Twimoms that scream like a 15-year-old girl when Jacob takes his shirt off – she just likes the story. Or so she tells me.

Anyway, part of her nuttiness obsession interest in the series is the soundtracks. She has the soundtracks for each of the two movies as well as the score (i.e. background music) for the first. She plays these CDs frequently in the car when taking the boys places, so they are now very familiar with them as well (I must say, hearing a 7-year-old ask us to play Death Cab For Cutie or Linkin Park is very cool). One of the songs that immediately hooked them is Supermassive Black Hole by a band I'd never heard of called Muse. (Stephenie Meyer is apparently a big Muse fan – there's a Muse song on the New Moon soundtrack as well.) If you've seen the first movie, this is the song that plays during the baseball scene. As an aside, they really should have worked on Alice's pitching style – she throws like a girl vampire. Anyway, I liked the song as well, and soon picked up Muse's 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations.

My first thought was that they were similar to U2, though heavier. It turns out that they toured with U2 last year, so I guess I wasn't far off. But as I listened more, I realized that some songs were nothing like U2 at all. "Invincible" has a Tom Morello-like guitar solo, though it turns out that's not that unusual for Muse. Not on every single freaking song like Rage or Audioslave, but guitarist-singer-songwriter-chief-cook-and-bottle-washer Matthew Bellamy does some pretty funky stuff with the guitar here and there. "Map of the Problematique" keeps sticking in my mind, though not like an earworm, just because it's a very cool song. "Knights of Cydonia" is more prog-rock, and there's almost an "epic" feel to it.

I got to really like this album, so in mid-January, I picked up a couple more: Origins of Symmetry from 2001, and last year's The Resistance. These guys are all over the map – you could call them "alternative", though heavier at times than a lot of alternative bands. You could also put them in the "progressive" category, but some songs are more guitar-driven rock than many progressive bands.They have quiet sections with just piano and vocals, and others where Bellamy is screaming over his own guitar. On the other hand, if you had told me that "United States of Eurasia" was an recently discovered Queen track from the late 70's, I don't think I'd even question it.

Muse is one of those bands (like CCR, Big Wreck) where one guy is the driving force behind everything – Bellamy sings lead vocals, plays (excellent) guitar and keyboards, and writes all the songs. This is not to say that the other guys aren't contributors – they are both excellent musicians as well, though the bass is a little more hidden on Black Holes and Revelations than on the other albums. Bellamy has an interesting and sometimes powerful voice (check out "Micro Cuts" on Origin of Symmetry) with a pretty wide range, and he certainly loves his falsetto.

I would never have heard of this band or had a chance to enjoy their music if they weren't on the Twilight soundtrack. I guess the moral of this story is that if you are a band that has a chance to get your song on a movie soundtrack, do it.

Star Wars In Concert

I've been a Star Wars fan ever since I first saw the first movie during the summer of 1977. When Gail and I started dating in early 1992, I found that she too was a big Star Wars fan, and immediately decided to marry her. Well, maybe not that second, and that may not have been the primary reason, but it was a significant contributing factor. Consequently, our kids are now big Star Wars fans as well, so when my friend Lisa sent me a link to a stage show called Star Wars In Concert [warning: web site plays music with no warning], I was immediately interested. When I showed Gail and the boys the trailer on the web site, they were excited as well. The show was this past Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, and we were definitely not disappointed.

The show is a montage of clips from all six Star Wars films on a three-storey crystal clear hi-def screen, behind a full live orchestra performing the music from the films. For some of the music from The Phantom Menace, there was also a full choir behind the orchestra. What's more, Anthony Daniels, the actor who played C-3P0 in all six films, introduced each segment, and James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, provided some voice-overs. When I read that Anthony Daniels would be narrating, I expected that he had recorded some stuff that would be part of the show, but was surprised that he was actually there. He only broke into the C-3P0 voice once, though his natural voice is similar enough anyway.

The music of Star Wars is not just pleasant sounds in the background of the movie; it is an integral part of the whole experience. The "Imperial march", Luke staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine, the Jawa theme, the slow acoustic guitar when Vader/Anakin dies, Darth Maul's haunting choir, even the cantina band songs are all so powerful, so meaningful, as part of the film experience that Star Wars without the music would be just another pretty decent sci-fi movie. My whole review of this show can be summed up in one sentence: Watching the movies on that screen with the music being performed live, right in front of you, was just unbelievable. The orchestra was amazing, and there were a couple of cameras on them as well, so we got to see close-ups of some of the performers in between movie clips. As a music fan and a sort-of musician myself, I love watching world-class musicians play, and these are some of the best. Daniels was very good with his introductions as well, even coming out at the end in a Leafs jersey with his name on the back. I'm sure he wore a Habs jersey in Montreal and a Flyers jersey in Philadelphia, but the crowd still loved it.

Gail is still kicking herself for not bringing our camera, but luckily Lisa brought hers so she and Gail took a bunch of pictures, one of which you can see above. Before the show, there were some memorabilia booths set up around the ACC, containing props from the films. We saw a Naboo backdrop next to a Queen Amidala costume, though the crowds around them were so thick that we couldn't get close enough to take a picture – and since we hadn't seen Lisa yet, all we had was my silly little camera phone. As expected, there were also little booths selling trinkets and shirts and stuff. I don't usually go for the souvenirs at these shows since they're way overpriced ($10 for a tiny little lightsaber thing that glows – you can probably also buy them at the dollar store), but we got the boys a $40 t-shirt each because we figured the show was so unique that they are unlikely to get the chance to see anything like it again. Plus the designs were cool – one is Darth Vader's head made out of musical instruments, the other is Boba Fett's head made out of musical notes and symbols.

Tickets were kind of expensive but it was a very unique show, and the boys loved it as much as we did. If you're a Star Wars fan, and you get the chance to see this, do it.

Best. Workout music. Ever.

I went for a run this morning, and my iPod played an amazing selection of music for my listening and distracting-me-from-thinking-about-the-pain-in-my-legs pleasure. It started with Alanis Morissette's Thank U, which is not a bad song, but I skipped it because at least half of my runs start with that song. It seems like the randomization of either the Nano or the Nike+ software really sucks for the first song – the first song is always one of about five, and it's mostly Thank U. The rest, however, was great:

• Neon Crossing, Our Lady Peace
• Load Me Up, Matthew Good Band
• Down to the Waterline, Dire Straits
• Coming Home, The Tea Party
• Beautiful People, Marilyn Manson
• Gravity, Max Webster
• The Trooper, Iron Maiden

Beautiful People is a pretty good song, but I don't know much Marilyn Manson, so you can take them out of the equation. Other than that, each and every song is among my top 3 favourite songs by that artist.

Top Ten Rock Cover Songs

I had fun putting together the list of Top Ten Rock Instrumental Songs a little while ago, so I decided to do it again. This time, I'm listing artists that took a good song and did an great cover. Again, these are in no particular order.

1. Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Blinded by the Light. The Springsteen song is all right, but Mann's cover blows it away. I wrote about this song a few years ago.
2. Dream Theater: Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding. I love the original Elton John version as well but Dream Theater's live version on "A Change Of Seasons" is excellent. They also do a great version of Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers.
3. Aerosmith: Come Together. They didn't make vast changes to it, but they managed to make it sound like an Aerosmith song. If only we could forget the terrible movie it came from.
4. The Ataris: The Boys of Summer. Make no mistake, the Don Henley original is one of my all-time favourite songs, but I really like this cover. Weird – a one-hit-wonder band, and the one hit wasn't even their song.
5. Creedence Clearwater Revival: I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The original is a Motown classic, but the CCR version is a rock and roll classic – eleven minutes long with a number of guitar solos.
6. Van Halen: You Really Got Me. I was a huge Van Halen fan back in the 80's, and now whenever I hear the Kinks original, I just think "how lame". Van Halen actually did a number of pretty good covers in the David Lee Roth days (i.e. back when they were good) – Where Have All The Good Times Gone (more Kinks), Dancing In The Streets, Happy Trails, Ice Cream Man, You're No Good, Big Bad Bill, Oh Pretty Woman.
7. Metallica: Turn The Page. I'm a fan of Bob Seger, and this is one of his best songs, but Metallica's version kicks serious ass.
8. The Tea Party: Paint It, Black. Of all the bands to take a song with a sitar in it and do a cover without one. They just made it a straight-ahead rock and roll song and did a great job.
9. Queensrÿche: Scarborough Fair. Can a hard rock band take an acoustic Simon & Garfunkel song, add distorted electric guitars, and make it their own? Yup, turns out.
10. Faith No More: War Pigs. I really prefer Faith No More's version of this song to the original, though admittedly I'm not a huge fan of Ozzy or Black Sabbath. Faith No More also did a cover of Easy by the Commodores, but rather than doing a Faith No More version, their version sounds like the original.

Runners-up: U2: All Along The Watchtower, John Mellencamp and Meshell Ndegeocello: Wild Night.

Honourable mention: Seether: Careless Whisper. Started off as a joke during a concert, but they did a good enough job of it that the fans loved it, so they actually recorded and released it. Cool song.

iPod Meme Redux

I originally did this a few months after getting my iPod. Revisiting two years later. Old values that have changed are stroked out. Shortest and longest songs, and first and last artist and album have not changed. I've added over 850 new songs.

Attention facebook readers: You might want to click the "View original post" link at the bottom of this note to see it as I originally wrote it. Facebook sometimes messes up the formatting.

 

How many total songs?
6919 songs, 20.9 days, 41.79 GB
7773 songs, 23.4 days, 46.55 GB

Sort by song title - first and last
First: A by Barenaked Ladies
Last: 99% Of Us Is Failure by Matthew Good
Last: 999,999 by Nine Inch Nails

Sort by time - shortest and longest
Shortest: You to Me (0:04) by Bystander
Longest: Octavarium (24:00) by Dream Theater

Sort by Album - first and last
First: "Abacab" by Genesis
Last: "90125" by Yes

Sort by Artist - first and last
First: AC/DC
Last: 54-40

Top five played songs:
1. Fake It by Seether - 18
2. Be Yourself by Audioslave - 17
3. Found Out About You by Gin Blossoms - 13
T4. Like A Stone by Audioslave - 12
T4. White Shadows by Coldplay - 12
T4. High Class in Borrowed Shoes by Max Webster - 12
T4. Elderly Woman Behind The Counter in a Small Town by Pearl Jam - 12
T4. Emotional Rescue by The Rolling Stones - 12

Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 6 21
Death: 4 59
Love: 239 327
You: 535 822
Home: 42 48
Boy: 34 56
Girl: 60 80

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle
1. Cesaro Summability by Tool
2. White, Clean and Neat by Robert Plant
3. Local Hero by Bruce Springsteen
4. Resist [Live] by Rush
5. Gimme The Love by Junkhouse

It looks like I've added a lot of "death" songs, but most of them are actually album names - "Death Magnetic", "Live After Death", "Life, Death, Love, and Freedom" (and the corresponding live album "Life, Death, LIVE, and Freedom") , and "Viva La Vida or Death And All Of His Friends". There are only 6 actual songs with "death" in the title.

Similarly, 15 of the 21 "sex" songs are on "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and don't have "sex" in the song title. There are only 6 songs with "sex" in the title, and two of them are "Sexy Sadie" by the Beatles (on different albums). I guess I'm just not that into sex. No wait, what I mean is... it's not that... um.... <blush>

Top Ten Rock Instrumental Songs

I'm only going to list instrumental songs by artists who primarily perform non-instrumental work, otherwise I could sit here all day listing Eric Johnson and Joe Satriani songs. There are in no particular order.

1. Rush: YYZ – one of the first instrumental songs I remember from when I started really paying attention to music in the early 80's, and still stands to me as the quintessential rock instrumental song.
2. Alice in Chains: Whale and Wasp - Combines a beautiful acoustic guitar (the "whale") with the occasional screeching electric guitar (the "wasp"). Listening to this song was the inspiration for this list.
3. Triumph: Fingertalkin' - An outstanding acoustic guitar piece by Rik Emmett, one of the best guitarists in any genre. Too bad it's on what was probably Triumph's worst album, "Progressions of Power".
4. Metallica: The Call of Ktulu – The opening sounds like two guitars playing together, but it's only one. If they replaced Orion (also an excellent song) and Leper Messiah on Master of Puppets with this song and Creeping Death, Puppets would be the perfect metal album.
5. Linkin Park: Session – the sole "electronic" entry on this list, complete with record scratches. In general I'm not big on this kind of stuff, but this song is very cool.
6. Rush: La Villa Strangiato – over nine minutes long, and features some amazing guitar work from Alex Lifeson. I still think he's the least musically talented member of Rush, but he ain't no slouch either.
7. Steely Dan: East St. Louis Toodle-oo – Somebody cranked the wah-wah pedal up to eleven for this one.
8. Pink Floyd: One of These Days – Technically shouldn't qualify because there are lyrics – right in the middle someone says in a very distorted voice "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces". But David Gilmour plays some pretty sweet slide guitar.
9. The Tea Party: Winter Solstice – two acoustic guitars and someone tapping on what sounds like a wooden block. Some of the fastest strumming you'll ever hear.
10. Porcupine Tree: Wedding Nails – Kick-ass guitar over a driving bass / drum beat.

Runners-up: Songs that I had listed originally but then I kept thinking of more.

• Sarah McLachlan: Last Dance
• Metallica: Orion
• The Tea Party: The Badger
• Yes: Mood For A Day

CD Review: Pearl Jam – Ten Redux

I originally bought Pearl Jam's Ten album in about 1991 and have loved it ever since. It's one of my all-time favourite albums, is simply great from start to finish, and even contains one of my favourite guitar solos (on "Alive"). This past week, Pearl Jam released a new version of Ten which contains two CDs – the first is simply the album I have, the second (called Ten Redux) contains remixed versions of every song on the album, as well as a few bonus tracks. This basically means that I just bought two copies of an album I already had.

I didn't plan on buying this new version, figuring it was only for serious die-hard Pearl Jam fans. But Alan Cross talked about it on the Explore Music podcast a couple of weeks ago, and said that the new remixed version is simply amazing, so I ordered it from amazon.ca.

Strangely, Cross said that the changes are "subtle, but obvious – if you listen to it off CD and NOT off a compressed MP3". So on the way into work the other day, I brought the CD with me and listened to it directly, rather than plugging the iPod in. (Ironically, the CD wouldn't play in the player at first. I had to eject it and try it again before it would play. I think the first time I put the disk in, it got caught in the cobwebs inside.) I was a little sceptical that I would hear any difference, given what Cross had said – I figured that if the differences were so subtle that you couldn't hear them from an MP3, then the $69 stereo in my car wouldn't allow me to hear the differences anyway, but it did. I'm not sure I agree with Cross's assessment, since the differences I hear are obvious enough (to someone who's listened to the album enough times) that even with a compressed MP3, you can hear them. I listened to the MP3 version from my iPod as well, and sure enough you can hear the changes. I rip all my MP3's at a variable bit rate, which means that the compression isn't as good (i.e. the files are bigger) but you don't lose as much sound quality. Maybe Cross uses a higher compression rate.

The Difference

Despite sounding oxymoronic, Cross's description of "subtle, but obvious" is exactly right. This not a "director's cut" – there are no new verses, no new solos, and none of the songs are any longer or shorter than the originals. Nothing has been added or removed, and most importantly, Han still shoots first. Most of what they've done is modify the relative volumes of the instruments. In most songs, the rhythm guitar has been turned up during solos -- in a couple of cases, it's been turned up enough that it's harder to hear the solo guitar. There were a couple of relatively quiet sections (like the first time you hear "Why go home?" in "Why Go") where the drums and bass have been turned up a little. In some cases, the background vocals have been turned down. The most obvious specific difference I found was that the "hoo hoo hoo hoo" high-pitched vocals on "Jeremy" have been almost removed. There are a few other smaller changes:

• in "Even Flow" after the line "Where do I stand?", the echo of "stand" is gone
• the bass at the very end of "Why Go" is a little louder, and is sustained just a touch longer, causing the segue into the brilliant "Black" to be a little less smooth than the original.
• the opening guitar on "Garden" has a different tone

There are also six bonus songs included, some of which were previously unreleased. "Brother" and "Just A Girl both" sound like they could have been on Ten, and I might even have included "Brother" over "Deep". "Breath And A Scream" is kind of boring, and sounds like a bonus track, i.e. one that wasn't good enough to make the album. "State Of Love And Trust" isn't bad, and "2,000 Mile Blues" is cool - very Zeppelin-esque. "Evil Little Goat" is only a minute and a half long, but if Eddie Vedder ever sang for The Beach Boys, this might be what it would sound like.

Now if only Pearl Jam could remix their later albums (anything after Vs.) to make me care about them. I loved Ten and really liked Vs. as well but for some reason, I completely lost interest in Pearl Jam after that. No idea why. I have a couple of later albums (Riot Act and Pearl Jam) and I've listened to them a couple of times, but they seem kind of forgettable. But now that my interest in Ten has been rekindled, I'll give them another listen.

Porcupine Tree

I have recently been introduced to a progressive rock band from England called Porcupine Tree. Not only does the band have a cool name (very important), but they're talented musicians (also very important). I now have three of their albums, and I'm really enjoying them. I'll talk about the band itself in a minute, but I wanted to mention the way I discovered them, since it's rather unusual.

While writing some internal documentation for some code I had written, I used a tool called doxygen, which reads specially formatted comments in source code and creates documentation from it. Very nice tool, and while perusing the acknowledgements on the web site, I came across this line:

[Thanks to] the band Porcupine Tree for providing hours of great music to listen to while coding.

I was intrigued by the name of the band, but never thought much about it. A little while later, I was on amazon.ca and looked at my personal recommendations (after having bought some Rush and Dream Theater CDs), and there was a Porcupine Tree album. I immediately remembered the name from the doxygen guy, and since amazon said that the album was recommended because of my interest in Rush and Dream Theater, I was even more intrigued. After looking at some CD reviews, I took a $10 leap of faith. Without ever having heard any of the band's music, I downloaded their latest album, Fear of a Blank Planet, from puretracks.ca. After listening to that for a while, I went onto eBay and bought the two previous albums, Deadwing and In Absentia.

The boys in PT are big on eyes; of the three albums I have, two of them have covers that show someone with blank eyes – the Blank Planet one reminds me of the I Love It Loud video from Kiss, while the In Absentia one is so creepy that I don't even like looking at it.

While researching the band, I saw a comparison to Queensrÿche, who I'm a fan of (well, the older stuff anyway). But Steve Wilson's vocals and Geoff Tate's are nothing like one another, so it's kind of hard to hear the similarities. Musically, they're not that far off, but Porcupine Tree is a little more... well, "psychadelic" isn't the right word exactly, perhaps "ambient". Having said that, they remind me a little more of Tool or Dream Theater than Queensrÿche. They all have frequent time signature and key changes and some heavy guitar work, though PT isn't quite as heavy (well, usually – "The Creator Has A Mastertape" from In Absentia is pretty kick-ass). The vocals are quite different as well – PT's Wilson, Tool's Keenan, and DT's LaBrie can sing cleanly and quietly at times and louder at others, though LaBrie and particularly Keenan can also scream with the best of them (listen to Ticks & Leeches from Lateralus for a good example) while Wilson doesn't scream. However, PT and DT use a lot more acoustic guitar than Tool, and I'm pretty sure that neither Tool nor Dream Theater use a banjo on any of their recordings.

Amazon recommended PT to me because of both Rush and Dream Theater, but honestly, I don't see a lot of similarities to Rush. Other than the frequent time signature changes, the music is quite different.  They've been compared to Pink Floyd as well, though their music is much heavier.

Anyway, they have six other studio albums and a couple of live albums as well, so perhaps I'll peruse through the eBay listings again. I should probably take a break from eBay, though; I've bought 11 CDs (2 PT, one Nine Inch Nails, six Beatles, two Rammstein) through eBay in the last two months. I just love discovering new music.

Recommendations for you

I've only bought a couple of things on amazon.com, since I mainly use amazon.ca. When it gives me recommendations, they're based only on a few things and are therefore rather diverse:

• A book called Understanding IPv6
• a couple of CCNA guides (I had to look up what CCNA meant – it's some kind of networking certification)
• 101 Dalmations DVD
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars DVD (which I have, though amazon.com doesn't know this)
• Tool's Ænima CD (which I also have)
• Slayer's Reign in Blood CD

I imagine that there aren't many lists of anything that both Reign in Blood and 101 Dalmations are a part of.