Loading ...I came across this a few weeks ago, and I’ve probably watched it a dozen times… There’s nothing particularly fancy in the first two minutes, but if you’re into time-lapse video at all you’ll appreciate the work that went into the second half.
Author Archive for Nitro
This is Desert Bus.
The poor bastards over at LoadingReadyRun started their third annual Desert Bus for Hope Fundraiser a couple hours ago, where they play Desert Bus non-stop for days to raise money for the Child’s Play charity. They raised over $70,000 for the children’s hospital charity last year, and hope to break $100,000 this year.
They’re off to a good start: They broke the $10,000 mark before the first hour was up (which came with a stipulation of the first guy having to drive the bus for 12 straight hours), they’ve got at least 4 days of driving ahead of them, and it’ll probably be more than that by the time it’s over.
So if you’ve got a little extra money, give it to these guys… 1) Who doesn’t love Schadenfreude? 2) It’s for the children.
Please think of the children.
Okay, okay… It’s not a record, nor is it 10 year old, but the mustachioed plumber’s latest adventure is ridiculously nostalgic. It’s like Nintendo took the best parts of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, updated the graphics, and added 4-player simultaneous play. No fancy new game mechanics, just a classic side-scroller that’ll instantly put you back in your parents’ living room.
It’s a simple, easy-to-play game that the whole family can enjoy… And on that note, I’ll let a gameplay video do the rest of the talking while I go back to stomping Goombas.
Oh! sleep in peace where poppies grow;
The torch your falling hands let go
Was caught by us, again held high,
A beacon light in Flanders sky
That dims the stars to those below.
You are our dead, you held the foe,
And ere the poppies cease to blow,
We’ll prove our faith in you who lie
In Flanders Fields.
Oh! rest in peace, we quickly go
To you who bravely died, and know
In other fields was heard the cry,
For freedom’s cause, of you who lie,
So still asleep where poppies grow,
In Flanders Fields.
As in rumbling sound, to and fro,
The lightning flashes, sky aglow,
The mighty hosts appear, and high
Above the din of battle cry,
Scarce heard amidst the guns below,
Are fearless hearts who fight the foe,
And guard the place where poppies grow.
Oh! sleep in peace, all you who lie
In Flanders Fields.
And still the poppies gently blow,
Between the crosses, row on row.
The larks, still bravely soaring high,
Are singing now their lullaby
To you who sleep where poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
- John Mitchell
A friend of mine pointed me towards this guy a few days ago. The sound is a fusion of my favorite parts of James Taylor, Counting Crows, and Blues Traveler, and it’s really got me hooked.
I’ll hopefully be doing a review of his album Solidago next week, but for now I just wanted to say that he’s playing in Moncton at Plan B on Sunday night… I’ll be there, and you should to.
At a glance, it sounds like a great idea. New Brunswick gets to wipe out a $4.75-billion debt and benefit from the cheap power rates in Quebec. In reality, it’s giving away the keys to the kingdom for a temporary gain.
Assuming NB Power would have raised rates by 3% every year, here’s what that $4.75-billion gets for your average New Brunswick residential ratepayer: A 5-year rate freeze worth less than $25 a month to the average household over those 5 years, and a promise that the rates after that will be indexed to inflation… Unless of course we need more power than Hydro Quebec agrees to give us. Then it’s open season.
Meanwhile, industrial rates would be cut 15 to 30 percent to fall in line with Quebec’s, leaving more money in the pockets of the already-rich. Is it really a surprise that editorials in every major NB newspaper (all are Irving-owned, by the way) are hailing the deal? Sure, it will probably generate a few new jobs, but you’re fooling yourself if you think it’s all coming back to the people.
To make matters worse, New Brunswick gets no taxes from the business Hydro Quebec does in the province, and we’re still on the hook for the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau reactor, even though it goes to HQ as soon as it’s ready. The province also has to keep the dirty and inefficient coal and oil-fired plants at Belledune and Coleson Cove running to sell power back to Hydro Quebec, but HQ reserves the right to order them closed on one year’s notice, potentially dissolving more jobs than this deal will ever create.
What we lose: Tax income, self-sufficiency, New Brunswick’s 6,700 km of transmission lines, and a major point of access to power markets in New England and the rest of the United States. With Newfoundland & Labrador premier Danny Williams looking for a way to get power from the new Lower Churchill Falls generating station to the lucrative markets south of the border, it makes no sense to give away a long-term source of income.
Quebec doesn’t do anything that isn’t in Quebec’s best interests… In 1968, Joey Smallwood got hosed by Quebec on the Churchill Falls deal, and 41 years later it’s still a major point of contention in Newfoundland & Labrador. With Joe Average standing to save about half the cost of a medium Tim Horton’s coffee a day, this deal is nothing but bad news for our province, and if this deal goes through, New Brunswickers will be cursing Shawn Graham’s name for a lot more than 41 years.
Now here’s an album I haven’t listened to in years. I hated Dave Matthews Band when I bought it back in ’98, but a chick I liked was a huge DMB fan, and teenager hormones make strange things happen…
I don’t remember her name, but whoever she was, I owe her some thanks: Crash’s eclectic sound was a total 180 from what I normally listened to, and opened the door for a ton of new music. Counting Crows, Jaco Pastorius’ body of work, Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Blues Traveler, etc… I could go on all day.
I was never all the way in love with the album, but I enjoyed it. “Two Step” has one of my favorite song intros ever, “Tripping Billies” has a great bassline (hell, most of the album has a great bassline), and “Crash Into Me” reminds me of the James Taylor records I spent my childhood listening to with my mom, but I could never take the whole record in one sitting.
I can now. This is hands-down my favorite discovery so far in my little flashback journey. Maybe I’ve just “grown up” enough to appreciate the slower tracks, but I found myself wanting more when it was over. The only DMB songs on my iPod before today were “Two Step” and an assortment of live versions of “All Along The Watchtower”, but the whole album’s on there now, and I’m ripping Under The Table And Dreaming later tonight.
I’m looking forward to it.
With my interest in Rammstein waning in recent years, I went into Liebe Ist Für Alle Da (Love Is There For Everyone) expecting it to pick up where Rosenrot and Reise, Reise left off, with a two or three really good tracks and decent to mediocre songs filling the rest of the record…
Remember Sehnsucht? Liebe Ist Für Alle Da is a blazing return to the good old days for the German prog-industrial metal powerhouse. That driving Teutonic sound is back, and smashing you in the face with its viceral intensity.
The opening track “Rammleid” (Ramm Song) intros with a classic Rammstein synth and some choral vocals, before the guitar kicks your teeth in and the musical sequal to Sehnsucht really gets underway. It’s followed by “Ich Tu’ Dir Weh” (I Hurt You), a song reminiscent of “Engel” in the way it shifts between power ballad and marching cadence.
It isn’t all shades of the sophomore album, though. The industrial machine shows a few hints of Mutter’s “Adios” as it rampages into “Waidmanns Heil” (Hunter’s Salute), and “Weiner Blut” (Viennese Blood) takes a page from Reise Reise’s “Mein Teil” in its telling of the Josef Fritzel story.
One track I’m still not sure about is “Pussy” (uh… Pussy). On one hand the song is definitely catchy, and the style and subject matter aren’t out of the ordinary for the band, but with its controversial video and half the lyrics being sung in English, I have a hard time believing that it was anything more than a publicity stunt to get attention outside of their core European market.
Liebe Ist Für Alle Da hits American shelves today and Canadian storefronts on October 27th. It’s available as an eleven track digipack, a two disc Special Edition with 5 bonus tracks (well worth it if you’re an old fan), a Limited Edition pink double LP, and finally a Deluxe “Cutlery” Edition box set, featuring handcuffs, a black bottle of lubricant (featuring the band’s motif), and six pink dildos, all within an aluminum case (featuring a mirror, Rammstein logos, and motifs).
I know which one I’m getting!
I’m cheating a little here, since I haven’t actually owned it for 10 years, but it occurred to me the other day that sticking to records I’ve actually owned for 10 years would eventually turn into week after week of punk EP’s…
Mattzors and I saw Flogging Molly last night, so while looking at my rack this morning my eyes kept being drawn to their albums… At first I was thinking they wouldn’t meet the 10 year guideline, but then I remembered that their debut was a live album called Alive Behind The Green Door, released in 1997.
The first thing you notice when you put it on is how unpolished it is… I’ve never particularly liked live records, because most of them just sound like studio recordings with crowd noise dubbed in, but not here… Alive Behind The Green Door has a very gritty and raw sound that puts you right there in the bar, and it’s ever-so-slightly muffled in a way that mimics the hearing loss one tends to suffer at loud shows.
Seeing them in person has definitely changed Alive for me… When I put it on today I closed my eyes and was right back in the crowd again. The unpolished sound didn’t bother me like it sometimes did, either. It’s probably not the best way to introduce yourself to Flogging Molly, but if you like any of their studio albums, then you’ll love the energy they bring to the live record. It doesn’t compare to the real deal, but it’s a reasonable alternative if they’re not playing anywhere near you.
I won this CD in a radio phone-in contest back in ’98. I loved “Stereo” back then, but never really listened to the rest of the album, so when I pulled it off the shelf this morning I was afraid it was going to be the same story as last week’s Third Eye Blind disaster.
Thankfully it’s not. For me, the late 90′s were dominated by the discovery of and immersion into west coast punk, so I really wasn’t an alt-rock kind of kid when I got this album. Listening to these Canadian rockers now, I hear a lot of the R.E.M. and Counting Crows I got into later in high school. I’ve since moved past my alternative phase, so there’s no big inspiration to write about, and there’s still nothing that really catches me the way “Stereo” did, but I’ll be putting a few more songs on my Touch to come up in random play.
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