Suny Day Real Estate reuniting, touring

I'm not sure exactly when I first got into Sunny Day Real Estate. I remember hearing and liking Diary....and even LP2. I remember liking Rising Tide quite a bit too, but they were always just one of those fringe bands for me.....a band that I liked, but didn't love. When they reunited in 1997 they were a band I'd have liked to have seen, but were certainly nowhere near the top of my list....I was only 16 at the time, and truth be told I think I was just too young to get their music. I'd just started growing out of my metal phase (Pantera/Sepultura) and growing into the drunken indie rock phase (Mudhoney) where I've apparently stalled out all these years later (though I did develop quite a love for rockabilly/psychobilly music as well).

It wasn't until my early to mid 20s that I really started to get into them (somewhere between 2001 and 2005) on account of one night sitting at my computer and Diary began to play....and I listened to it in order in it's entirety. And I realized that there was something new to me about it, something I hadn't heard when I was younger. Most people get into "emo" music when they're teenage hormones are raging and they think the world is out to get them-but I was never one of those people. It wasn't until my 20s that I had the depth of life experiences to appreciate just how powerful and moving the music was. And not just that, but also how musically brilliant it was....how tight it was, how the melodies flow perfectly and how they balance the falsetto and the driving guitar. For me, it was akin to discovering Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff-something so great that I couldn't stop listening to it. Then I started listening to Rising Tide, and appreciating how similar the music was, and yet how it had grown with age.....Rising Tide was the older, more mature version of Diary. Still just as moving, still just as powerful, but the music had become so much more complex.

Somewhere around 2004 or 05, I started having relationship problems....problems that if you know me you're quite familiar with, and if you don't you really probably don't have any interest in-and I started to fall into a period of self-loathing and guilt-and it wasn't until then that LP2 really hit home, that I really got it. LP2 to, to me, is probably the most beautiful and moving rock record I have ever heard-and between a couple failed relationships and the dying of my Aunt, in many ways Sunny Day Real Estate helped me get through all that. They were able to say for me what I couldn't say myself, they brought out emotions and feelings I didn't know I had and in many ways I believe helped me grow a lot as a person. So as you can imagine, this is a band that means a lot to me.

So a couple days ago when rumors started popping up that they'd be not only reuniting, but touring....and with the original lineup, well let's just say I was ecstatic. Outside of Nirvana (obviously never going to happen) this is the band I most regret having never seen. A few dates started to trickle out....Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta.....if they weren't coming to Dallas, then I was going to fly somewhere else and see them and that was that. Period, nothing was going to stop me from getting a chance to see SDRE live. So then, you can imagine my delight this afternoon when i read at Pitchfork that they were not only reuniting and touring, but that the tour was set and Dallas was going to be a stop. You can see the full schedule at the above link, but October 5 they're playing Dallas (Granada Theater) and the next two nights Houston and Austin. Anyway, tickets go on sale this friday at 11am for Dallas-and if I can swing it, I'm going to try to do Houston and Austin as well.

In short, I'm beyond ecstatic right now.

We Emerge Victorious! RIAA Admits Defeat!

I remember it like it was yesterday, that magical Fall of '00 and the ensuing semester in Spring of '01. It was a glorious time to be a young music fan, especially one in college. You see, universities had yet to wise up to the perils of giving students an absurd amount of bandwidth with no checks, and the RIAA had yet to fully realize the impact a little program called Napster would have on how people would access their music in the 21st century. The not so shocking result was of course tens of thousands of students downloading thousands of songs (and thats just at UNT) bringing the university's servers to the slowest of all crawls as people downloaded everything they could think of. It also answers the question how the hell did Wesley Willis ever get famous?

I don't think I can overstate how many millions of .mp3s were being made and shared, and how hammered the servers were. A simple internet search during the middle of the day would take 15s just to load a webpage. Around that same time a simple and yet revolutionary game called Counter-strike was released (Winter of 2000) to make sure that several dozen students would never make it to class again, the problem is the lag was so bad internet play was impossible and we were relegated to playing on internal servers-something which turned out to be fun as you'd run into other players in the dorm cafeterias and shoot them the death stare for pwning you previously that day-it fostered this weird community on campus. But I digress, I'm burying the lead.

By the Fall of '01 most universities in America had either put bandwidth caps on students, or outright blocked Napster from their network to preserve their network integrity and because the RIAA had caught wind and was threatening to sue nearly every American university for allowing access to pirated music. This was the genesis of the music pirate vs. the RIAA feud that has been brewing ever since. Napster was eventually shut down (to later re-open as a pay site), but the damage had been done and Gnutella clients such as Limewire and Bearshare quickly filled the void. In fact, every time the RIAA would try to shut a service down the programmers would get smarter and figure out new ways to hide the IPs of the users or would base the servers out of strange 3rd world countries. To counter their efforts, the RIAA spent millions of dollars on fighting these programs and their users (instead of, you know, improving their music or reducing the price of the records people didn't want to buy), eventually settling on a way to track the IP address of users whom they would then sue.

And sue they did, estimates are that the RIAA has sued 35,000 people since 2003, settling for an absolutely batshit insane $3,500 per a song downloaded/shared. They've sued grandmothers, single moms, children, deceased people, and people who don't even own computers. You see, the way the RIAA tracked you wasn't an exact science, but more of a scattershot strategy-the result being thousands of innocent people being sued and forced to either pay the RIAA to go away (settle out of court) or pay even more money for attorneys to fight the RIAA (of which they would re-coup none of it). The RIAA had managed to find a way to use the American Justice System to strong-arm innocent people, all in a vain effort to stop something that was unstoppable and with the rational that they're losing millions of dollars (most of which they'd have never seen, college students weren't going to buy that Journey record or Wesley Willis record, we'd download it for free but we sure as shit weren't going to buy it instead of 4 beers and a shot at the bar.

So in the midst of these insane lawsuits, have sprung up new and more secure sharing programs. Hosted off-shore, these international sites were invite-only and acted as the largest free record store in the world. Oink was one of the best known until British officials finally shut it down last year (and that didn't stop anyone, we all just moved to new sites). The beauty of Oink was you had to share as much as you took, and if that ratio became too weighted (you were taking more than you were giving), then you'd be tossed from the site-and to get tossed from that site would be punishment, as it boasted literally just about every song off every record in the world (and if it wasnt there, you could request it and you'd get it) in variable qualities and available for free at the touch of a button. It was a music lover's paradise. If you're so inclined, you can read a fantastic essay about Oink and the music industry in general here. It's a great read.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that also having arrived (several year too late I might add, again because of the RIAA blocking them) were pay music sites such as iTunes-where you could plop down $0.99 for a song, and these sites have flourished. But battle lines had been drawn years before, and there were hundreds of thousands of us that thumbed our nose at the RIAA, vowing not to buy music again (unless it's local or independent) as a means to stop feeding the bear that was the RIAA music cartel. And last week, we scored our first victory.

Fri Dec 19, 2008, LOS ANGELES - The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The beauty of the internet, is that it bring the power back to the people, and the people have spoken. And we will continue to speak until the RIAA burns to the ground and is lying in the grave it dug for itself. So pat yourselves on the back music fans, we all deserve it. Now we just need to get these people off their iTunes crack......

Beware XM Radio

When I bought my VW Passat, it came with a radio with a built in satellite radio reciever and a three month free trial subscription. I didn't think much of it at the time, but back then satellite radio was generating a fair amount of buzz-and I figured I could use something to listen to during commercials on The Ticket or when NPR was boring (whenever Ira Glass is on), so I called XM to give it a try.

And I really enjoyed it. The station Lucy offered a nice mix of '90s rock music, most early '90s-very little Nickelback and crap like that, Ethel offered a nice mix of modern rock tinged with new stuff (it's where I first heard Arctic Monkeys, The Shins, Silversun Pickups, and more), XMU offered a way to listen to college radio-something we've never really had here in Dallas, Squizz offered some decent metal when that was my mood, and Fungus the same thing with punk music. Fox Sports Radio was also a nice bonus, as during the holiday season I was working on Saturday and Sundays I could get sports updates. In short, for some $60 a year it was a nice buy. So I signed up for a one year subscription. Enjoyed it enough, but let it lapse. A few months later decided I wanted it back, so I signed up for another one year sub......that was 15 months ago.

So about 3 months ago the subscription lapsed. Around that same time they decided to "temporarily" take Fungus 53-their lone punk station-off the air and replace it with an all AC fucking DC station. Seriously, AC/DC. I'm sure trailer parks across America were high-fiving each other, but unless I'm at a strip club I've got absolutely zero interest in AC/DC (same goes for Buckcherry, in case you were curious). So I let my subscription lapse, knowing that if I ever wanted to renew it I could. And that's when it started.

For the last two months, I've literally recieved a call a day from XM. But not just a call, an automated call. "Dear , your XM subscription has lapsed, please call us (the gall of me asking them to call them!) please call us back at with account number . And of course, I ignored them. Fuck automated calls, if a company wants my business they can call me and talk to me at my convenience....I'm not taking time out of my day to call them and sit on hold. I'm the customer, and my money is not their god-given right.

After a month, I finally gave in and called them....I was polite but blunt, please stop calling me. CSR was very polite, took my info, and told me the calls would stop. They of course didn't. Less frequent, but they kept coming. So tonight, after the 70th some odd automated call and voicemail, I called them. Again, asked them to stop calling me and to my surprise, now they want $23 to stop calling me. Whaaaaaaaat?

I argue with the CSR for a bit-and she was quite rude I might add-before realizing she has no power, and asking for her supervisor. He gives me the same lines. I had to again, call them, to cancel my subscription. Nevermind that I expressly signed up for a one year subscription, no no, if I don't call them I have to pay them for the two months of service they "gave me" because they didn't turn off my service after that one year. You know, because if you walk into Kroger and buy a months worth of chicken, if you come back two months later you owe them for the month of chicken you didn't buy. Logical, right?

Again, I want to stress, this wasn't a repeating bill. I paid up front and in full for 1 year service. Period. I asked explicitly and was told, it is not repeating and if I wanted to re-new I would only then have to call them, as had happened the previous time I let a subscription lapse.

So why do I write all this? To let you, and hopefully everyone you know, that the folks at XM are crooks and to steer clear of them. If this is how a company treats a subscriber of almost two years, then that should tell you all that you need to know about the company. Fuck XM, I will pay them their $23, but I will make damn sure that everyone I know will listen, and that they lose more than $23 in subscriptions and bad press. The internet empowers consumers, and shit companies like XM need to be aware of that.

A New Record Store In Dallas

On the heels of CD World closing up shop leaving Good Records and Bill's as the last two independent record stores in a city of over over 1.2 million people and a metro area of 5.2 million people, I figured this was worth mentioning. Jeff Liles posted a bulleting about it earlier;

Against all forms of logic and economy, Bucks Burnett, former owner of Fourteen Records on Greenville Avenue in Dallas (1988-95) has opened a new music store in Dallas.

"It is what I am calling a micro store, a business within a business."

The store name is EAROTICA and it is located within Dallas' hippest resale shop, Dolly Python, on Haskell Avenue, one mile east of Central Expressway.

"I am starting small but we (Bucks and Gretchen Bell, Python owner) plan to grow it as quickly as possible into a more full fledged service. The starting inventory is somewhat small but well curated. So far the LP's are outselling the CD's, which I think is a good sign."

The official store debut and opening party will take place on Saturday, November 15th, from 6-10PM at Dolly Python. "There will be free beer and overpriced dead formats."

EAROTICA offers a selection of great titles, new and used, in all existing entertainment formats:

LP
CD
CASSETTE
8 TRACK
4 TRACK
2 TRACK
REEL TO REEL
QUADRAPHONIC LPS AND TAPES
DVDVHS
LASER DISC
VIDEODISC
45 SINGLE
12" SINGLE
78 RPM
and others

"Too many record stores have closed the past few years, and music sales are down. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly reject the death of music retail. Dallas needs more music stores, not less."

The store's official slogan:"For Those About To Shop, We Seduce You"
http://xivmedia. com

I drive by Dolly Python couple days a week, it's just a few blocks east of Central on Haskell, just past the Cityplace Target where you should totally stop in and by a bottle of wine. Even stopped in once, it's a pretty cool little store. That was of course before this, but I'm planning to stop in this week and see how it looks with this.

And probably to buy some vinyl too, even if my console turntable still doesn't work. Just thought I'd pass it along, if anyone wants to go to that grand opening let me know, I think I will.

The Greatest Thing Since, Well, When Mtv Played Music

Someone over at Beyond The Veil had to just go and send me a link to this website, which just happens to be a free on-line platform in which you can browse and watch the entire Mtv music video catalog. If you go over there, please make sure you've got a few hours to kill....because it's taking my entire night at the moment.

Strangely enough 8 other people had watched the video of Mark Arm talking about grunge, and 9 other people had watched the video for Tripping Daisy's Blown Away. Also strange, it appears there was never a video for the Meat Puppet's Backwater, which I find hard to believe.

Mudhoney Comes To Town

I think most everyone has a favorite band. I'm sure there are people that don't, I just don't feel like I know them. I mean, everyone has that one band. For me, especially with Nirvana being long-since dead, it's been Mudhoney since as long as I can remember. In 2001 when they came to Trees, I was ecstatic-and honestly expected it to be my one and only chance to see them outside of a trip to the Pacific Northwest. So imagine my glee when back in May I found out they were coming back to Dallas, this time to the Granada on Sept. 5. There may or may not have been a couple exclamations of joy and/or fist pumping.

Look, I don't expect you to understand why I love Mudhoney. I don't expect you to completely understand the role the band played in the history of rock music, nor do I expect you to really care. The ship sailed a long time ago on me trying to convince people of their greatness (though I have had a fair amount of success doing so for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Sunny Day Real Estate). For the last several years they've been that little band that I love and just understood that others didn't. And the people that know me have just dealt with the fact that I have this strange obsession with a distortion-driven band from the early '90s that has virtually zero radio air-play and has settled into some blues influences over the past few years.

So what did I think of the show?

Well I thought it was awesome, of course. What did you expect me to think? I can't say I'm a terribly huge fan of the encore they did (hasn't that encore bit run it's course by now?), and I'm still a little miffed that it started and ended so early (I ended up missing three songs on the front end), but fuck-it was Mudhoney and they were good. Considering Superfuzz Bigmuff came out in 1988, I thought they did a pretty good job of playing a set that spanned the entirety of their 20 year career without ignoring the early career stuff they were known for, and throwing in a few b-sides found on March To Fuzz. I was also very pleasantly surprised at the size of the crowd, it seemed to me like it was a fair bit larger than the aforementioned Trees show in 2001.

That said, the venue, ehhhh.....I can't say I'm sold on The Granada. I love the concept of the Granada, on old movie theatre converted to all-ages music venue that has a nice setup (although not great sound) and is centrally located. In theory it's a pretty cool place. In practice, it's non-smoking (i just can't get behind a non-smoking club) with not-so-great sound and apparently bar Nazis. I got denied a shot of whiskey because I'd ordered one 30m earlier, and while I wish there were more to the story, there's just not....I was sober and just wanted a shot to go with my beer (Mudhoney is best experience with alcohol, and since the show started early I hadn't gotten going). I understand being cautious and I understand the TABC sucks, really I do, but as I told the guy, "look at me, do you really think that shot of whiskey is going to leave me wasted? Not to mention I'm walking home...."

That unpleasantness aside, yes, Mudhoney fucking pwned. And you should have been there. Oh, and thanks to Nick for having us at his party afterwards...sorry if Ian and I were a wee bit intoxicated at that point.

The Image Of Modern Rock Musicians

I've been on a bit of an ebay kick of late as I try to get rid of some of the relics of my youth that my father dumped on me as he's been re-doing his house. A Dimebag Darrell Pantera guitar pick, a Soulfly pick, a Sepultura drumstick, a signed Drowning Pool CD, the 1997 Kill Rock Stars 7" vinyl record collection-you know, stuff that I once thought was pretty cool but now just goes into boxes and takes up space I don't have (although I can't hide my glee at getting my entire vinyl record collection back). All these things are just sitting on or next to my desk, and among them is a poster for the band Slipknot that I somehow ended up with. I keep looking over at it and thinking two things;

1) About the time I encountered Slipknot. It was Ozzfest, I think 2001 but I could be off a year in either direction, in Dallas. Anyway I was working for Drowning Pool at the time and was backstage with T-bone as we're moving around some equipment and just taking in the sights. This shitty nu-metal band called Slipknot had broken that summer, they were the next big thing. They were also playing before Drowning Pool. So as their set ends, they leave the stage and walk by me. I give the little silent nod meant to signify, "hey man, nice set" that you give to any band. To which one of the masked members shouts, quite loudly, "hey! we're not signing autographs!" as the band literally pushes it's way past me. I couldn't have picked the members of this band out of a lineup, and they had the self-importance to think that I had any interest in all in their autograph. It spoke volumes about them.

2) How do people fall for their act? I mean their entire act is about image. They join the long line of metal bands since KISS that's increasingly pushed the envelope to try and portray an "evil" image to sell records. Which then leads me to the broader idea of image in rock music, something I've pondered quite a bit over the years and thought I'd write about here.

You see, every artist has an image. As my homeboy Mr. Advertising, or any business student would tell you, creating an image is part of creating a brand. And creating a brand is paramount to successfully selling anything. Be it an automobile, toothpaste, or music the people in the suits strive to create a brand for their product, helping to ensure it's longevity and profitability. Perfecting this technique is what allows them to give the world the New Kids On The Block, Spice Girls, Brittany Spears, and more recently the Jonas Brothers. Those are the extreme example, as they're musicians (and I use that term loosely) put together with the sole intent of creating an image they can parlay into a brand and into millions of dollars. But you see while every artist has an image, what I always wonder is how often that image is authentic and how often it's been contrived by the men in the suits.

I think a great case in point for this, is the Sex Pistols. When they formed in 1975 as a part of the UK punk scene, what were their intentions? Were they really punks, decrying the establishment...were they sincere to their image, and to that of '70s punk? Did they really believe it? Or was their formation and subsequent fame nothing but a means to a paycheck. Maybe they were originally true to their image and the spectre of fame and fortune just proved to be too much? Regardless, 30 years later when they refuse to attend their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because it's a "piss stain," it's really hard to give them any credibility whatsoever when they've whored themselves out to do five reunion tours so they can pay the bills. The punk ethos has always been opposed to success, and while apparently Rancid has been able to navigate the dichotomy between the two (being punk and somewhat popular), Green Day was never so lucky. When Green Day hit it big, the punk community turned their collective backs on them.

That said, Green Day hasn't abandoned their image. With American Idiot and their subsequent political records and songs, Green Day has maintained a punk image, albeit in the mainstream. What I always wonder, is how much of that is being created and encourage by agents, labels, and A&R reps and how much of it is organic.

The one that always gets me, is Nirvana. It's not secret to anyone that's known me for a while that I was a huge Nirvana fan in my youth, and still am to some degree. Much like most of the early '90s bands, their image was as uncaring, as being about the music. It's an off-shoot of the punk ethos, just without the political bent, and it's the antithesis of the '80s glam rock image which was about not caring and doing things to excess while at the same time caring about your hair, makeup, and making the show a spectacle. Throughout their career, in interviews and in press releases, Nirvana was marketed as just that-a grunge band that didn't care about anything but the music, there was no elaborate shows, no high fashion, no over-production. With slight twists, most of the early '90s grunge bands fall into that image. Sure Pearl Jam had a little more of a political aspect to them (see: the Ticketmaster Anti-Trust Lawsuit) and Soundgarden a little bit of an arena-rock feel, but as a whole the group shared a similar image.

And it's the fact that they shared it, and just how it was the opposite of the '80s Glam Metal thing, that's always had me wondering-was it organic or was it something contrived by the suits? The music is good, so I guess on one hand it's pretty irrelevant, but it's still something I wonder. It's the same way I wonder who was the first gangster rapper and how many of the subsequent ones were organic and how many were failing rappers that realized if they jumped on the bandwagon and adopted the gangster image they could sell records and make a nice living, much the same way Pantera went from glam to metal and Diamond Darrel became Dimebag Darrell.

A part of me wants to believe that all artists (excluding the NKOTB's and Spice Girls of the world) are organically who they were when they start, and that when and if they reach fame and fortune they will continue to be who they were before. I think we all want to believe that. But then I think about the Marilyn Mansons and Slipknots of the world, and realize that it's just not the case. Nobody puts on "scary" masks and decides to adopt generic faux-metal/hardcore as their sound because they're true to the music, they do it to make a buck. If disco had been the counter-culture trend, I imagine Slipknot would be a disco act with a less threatening name. And I guess in the end that's ok, so long as we all realize it, the sad part is all the naive high school kids that buy it hook, line, and sinker and really believe that these guys care about the music. And then I think back to Rage Against The Machine, and how much I loved them in high school, and wonder if I'm just that naive kid having grown up a bit.

Well Atleast He Got A Photo-Op

I could hear the frothing at the mouth from here. The GOP was just a seventy miles from having one of the greatest PR oppurtunities ever drop right in their lap. Can you imagine, the Republican National Convention airing on every major network not as a political masturbation session, but instead as a high profile telethon to raise money for victims of hurricane Gustav? John McCain knee deep in water doing photo-ops providing aid, George Bush butchering what on paper was probably a moving speech, and the Republican Party looking like a party of charity and caring. Can you imagine the heartstrings Palin could have pulled with her womanly touch? Sadly, for them, it wasn't to be.

Instead McCain gets a couple photo-ops that will be forgotten and news of the hurricane is overshadowed by the fact that the VP candidate's 17 year old daughter (no word yet on if she's hot) is 5mos pregnant with a bastard child. But fret not right wingers, she's going to keep it (there, let the sigh of relief out). Oh, and she's going to marry the bastard's father. Now that's family values. What a happy story, now I totally understand why we don't need abstinence education in schools.

I guess that's all sort of burying what's really important. Despite the idiocy of, you know, choosing to live in a hurricane zone, it is nice to hear that apparently the death and destruction wrought by Gustav (what a great hurricane name!) will be minimal. Unless the storm drops a lot of rain upstream that then rushes down the Mississippi and it's tributaries and breaks them, the levees appear that they will hold. Whaddya know, George W. Bush did something right :p

That's all you're going to get out of me today. I've got more college football to watch, as it's only halftime of Tennessee @ UCLA, and that game could put me close to tripling my money on the first weekend of NCAA football, despite that Clemson fiasco. It's the little things in life......

Oh, have I mentioned lately that Mudhoney is playing in Dallas friday at the Granada? First show here in six years? And yes, I am that stoked. It shall be a glorious evening. Let me know if you're going to be there, there shall be some (not so) mild pre and post show drinking. After all, Mudhoney is best consumed with alcohol.

No Deliverance

So inspired by the review in today's Quick (now you see why i hate it? cost me $16) that likened it more to Rubberneck than to their other records, I picked up a copy of the new Toadies record "No Deliverance" this afternoon. No, I didn't just pick up a copy, I actually bought a copy after T-bone guilted me into my ethical obligation, namely that you don't pirate local music. Fine. So i stopped into Good Records and have spent the afternoon listening to it as I worked.

I've been through it about three times now. It's good, but I wouldn't say great. If memory serves, and it's going to have to because I'm too lazy to do actual research (although you're welcome to correct me), when Rubberneck came out it did so to little fanfare. In fact, the record was considered a flop sales-wise until some radio station in Florida picked it up and put 'Possum Kingdom' in regular rotation. A few months after that it caught on and slowly got national airplay, eventually resulting in the record going platinum a couple years after release.

The reason I wrote all that was to convey this point: Rubberneck was so damn good that it couldn't be held down. It wasn't a seminal record in the way Nirvana's Nevermind or Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff spawned an entire genre of music but I don't think you could do any sort of credible collection of '90s rock music, especially post-grunge, and not include 'Possum Kingdom' and mention of Rubberneck. It was that good.

So for me to pick up No Deliverance and expect anything close to that, well, it was foolish. I had my expectations simply set too high. Which isn't to say this is a bad record, because it most certainly is not, and in fact it does have some qualities reminiscent of Rubberneck. Gone are a lot of the effects and polish that were on Hell Below, Stars Above with the band returning to a more raw sound with just basic distortion. The records do sound similar. The songs are good, not great, but they've got some catch to them and they're guitar driven. Which is almost an insult to the fantastic drumming Mark Reznicek does on the record, and it's not meant to be. I think it's his best work to date.

I think my biggest complaint, and others may very well disagree, is the way Todd (now apparently Vayden Todd for some reason) screams through the entirety of several of the songs. I like his scream, but with the Burden Brothers (and probably from live shows) he picked up this penchant for screaming through the entirety of songs, instead of singing and using the scream for effect (think: "Do you wanna die?" in 'Possum Kingdom' or the climax of 'Away'). It just makes the songs sound forced, and more than anything it makes them just run together. For what it's worth, Dave Grohl has started doing the same thing with the Foo Fighters, and it's turned me off of them as well.

In short, I will say this. If you like the Toadies, you will like this record. If you're lukewarm on them, you will probably be lukewarm on this. Compared to the crap that passes for mainstream radio these days (and you kids get off my lawn!), it's really good and I could totally see seventeen year old me loving this record. Twenty-six year old me thinks it's good and has some good tracks (I dig 'So Long Lovey Eyes' and 'I Am A Man Of Stone') and was worth the listen, but it's not going to change my life.

'Boon: Get You Some

Praise be to God! If you've ever doubted the existence of God, then this weekend's weather in Dallas should be all the evidence that you need. After all, only a kind and merciful God would deliver us from the miserably hot, humid, and smoggy days that usually make up August in Texas and instead give us highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s with some rain and a nice breeze(nevermind that he's a spite filled and vengeful God when giving us the heat in the first place). As I sat on my patio this morning having a cigarette, it felt far more Portland, OR than Dallas, TX. And it was awesome.

Diety praising aside though, I heard a nasty little rumor at last night's Baboon show at the Doublewide. Namely, that it might very well have been Baboon's final show. Now I am out of the loop, and this wouldn't be the first time the demise of Baboon has been rumored, but I heard this from a pretty good source (whom I won't name publicly so as not to throw her under the bus). And while it was a great show in front of a surprisingly packed club, it would most certainly make a me a sad panda if the rumor turns out to be true. I'm going to go with my gut and guess that it's not true, but it wouldn't surprise me if the end were nearing. Then again, we've been saying that for five years now.....