Totally worth the money

The new Spinal Tap album is little more than rehashings of the soundtrack to the movie. Some of the songs have been reinterpreted and there are six new songs. That is all fun and worth the listen, but the real value is in the packaging. It is worth the money for that alone.

The package folds out into a stage with 12 inch cut outs of action figure versions of the band with a scaled version of stonehenge in front. There is also a DVD of the guys commenting on every song. It is a fantastic tribute to the spirit of the original film. One day one of my children will get to inherit this and get be the proud owner of a piece of rock and roll history.

Precious

...and deep in the bowels of Middle Earth, Phil "Gollum" Spector will hide away from from the spoils of life that no longer are his to be part of. Ever pining for the one ring of power that consumed him and once gave the powers of invisibility and to make kick ass records.

Another One Bites The Dust

Earlier this year Ryan Adams threw in the towel on his music career as he strolled down the aisle with Mandy Moore. Good for him. I mean, Mandy Moore? Not bad. If it makes him happy, great.

So now he is supporting her career and pursuing a career as an author. Poetic prose - snore! I have spent over ten years fanatically following his turbulent and prolific music career. This leaves a large gap in my personal time. I actually felt kind of lost and rejected for a while there. Being a Ryan Adams fan is a hobby unto itself. You never knew what he was going to try next or what trouble he would get into next. His music had gone in so many directions and he finally got a band together that gelled with him and they seemed to be hitting their stride. I feel that it ended before it was meant to. Now what I have to look forward to from him is poetic prose? Ugh.

I don't wish any ill will towards him, but I excitedly await the inevitable celebrity marital collapse and his return to life as a miserable artist that vents his demons through fantastic music. Hopefully the guys from the Cardinals will still be available to play with him when this happens.

To make things worse, on the tails of my current music hero calling it quits as he ties the knot, I learned that my music hero through my teens is doing the same thing. Trent Reznor is dissolving Nine Inch Nails after this summer tour and he recently got engaged as well.

The NIN news wasn't as big of a blow for me. I've seen them a number of times and they have enjoyed a resurgence of relevance lately and are bowing out right before the end of a fantastic second life. Most acts aren't so lucky to be able to strike gold twice. They have secured their place in music history and are taking a bow and exiting the stage before they misstep and blow it with another flop like The Fragile, an album that nearly destroyed the NIN legacy. They may come back still, but the pressure is off to follow up their recent successes. If Trent comes up with something creative for NIN he can make a comeback. If he doesn't, then there is no pressure to just slap something together.

It's a good thing that Robert Smith is already married.

Happy 50th!

In the very long shot that you may be reading this (hahaha)...


Happy 50th Birthday Robert Smith!

Near Beer

After the success of my fall beer making, I decided to take the process a step further, and attempt brewing beer from the raw materials. Barley, Hops, Yeast, and Water. A simple and amazing process and product.


The first step is to work the barley. I germinated the grain to begin the process and then slow roasted the sprouting seeds to dry them. The process took most of the day on Sunday, but the result was a golden roasted pile of pre beer goodness.




With the roasted barley on hand and a bucket full of dried hops collected from the vines in my neighbor's yard last fall I was ready to boil up my wort. To make the wort, the roasted barley is boiled to extract the sugars that feed the the yeast in the fermentation process. The hops were added into the mix to create the fruity bitter taste that most pale ails have.


Well... That's about when it all failed. The boiling process is supposed to last for at least an hour in order to burn off unwanted enzymes and release the desired sugars into the water. Two unexpected things happened. 1) The Barley swelled up and overflowed the water level, driving the bottom layer of barley to the bottom of the pot and proceeded to burn. The delightful beer smell quickly turned to a pungent burn odor. 2) The wort broth that I tried to salvage from the initial boil was unbearably starchy. It was thick like pea soup and colored like porridge. After various strainings and filterings, the first attempt had to be aborted.

Wrong

OK, so the whole music video concept can best be summed up in one word. Crap. Can you really remember the last time that you saw a good music video? Or even watched a music video?

Along the same lines as the Moby bit, comes Depeche Mode. They're another band that has just kind of been existing on life support beyond their prime. Again, much to my surprise, they have dropped a killer video for what has turned out to be a pretty good single. Two good music videos in one day! Hell must have frozen over. Absolutely, watch this one! WRONG

Shot In The Back Of The Head

Moby has been the soundtrack to commerce since his huge break through, PLAY, in 1999. Unfortunately, in spite of his ability to pitch cars and life insurance, most of what he has done since has been pretty forgettable. Most of which feels like b-sides to PLAY. For those of us who were Moby fans from the early to mid nineties, we have had to watch his artistic relevance dwindle on life support for ten years. How accurate Eminem seemed in his early millennium bashing of our little, bald, vegan friend.

Given that set-up, you could image that I wasn't too excited to read that he has a new album coming out in June. What did catch my eye and get me very excited was the fact that his first single off of the record has a video directed by David Lynch. David freakin Lynch! How cool is that? I read on to find that the new album seems to be avoiding a lot of the celebrity filled, commercial trappings that have cheesed up most of his recent work. Could it be something worth getting excited about? If this first song and video is any indication, then I am more than thrilled to welcome back the Moby of old.

Shot In The Back Of The Head