Kevin's Watch

All right, I have just finished listening to mp3's of TWO Rush albums. I never finished listening to the one Rush CD I did buy (Permanent Waves) because I lost patience with it, so to be able to sit through two is something of an event for me.

The two were 2112 and Moving Pictures. 2112 didn't do much for me. I preferred Moving Pictures - more interesting things were happening in the songs. This album kept my attention all the way through, which was a breakthrough. So Moving Pictures may be the one Rush album I could warm to.

danlo wrote:I'm overwhelmed by TOOL too! And they're coming to town soon, I need to buy tickets so I can become more overwhelmeded...live would be very killer, I must say...

As good as they are on a CD or radio, they are immeasureably better live. It's a fantastic show.

Do it. Buy tickets NOW. Nothing should stop you.

I'm really into Big Head Todd and the Monsters this week! Big Head Todd is a guitar master...he manhandles a guit-box like none other! HOO!

The one band I really obsess about has to be Sleater-Kinney, although I accept that tend to be a love 'em or hate 'em affair and the very things I like most about them are probably things that others don't like.

The clashing, atonal guitar sounds terrible if you aren't listening in the right way, but there's a tremendous energy and some beautiful little harmonies that dance in and around that sonic assualt. Corin Tucker's wildly tremulous voice is incredible, especially in the later albums where she really lets rip. Carrie Brownstein's voice, by contrast, is much sweeter and a nice counterpoint to Tucker's, but she is always at least slightly flat. Janet Weiss is the most powerful female drummer I've ever seen (and she's so little too) and that energy drives so many of S-K's songs (which is why the first two albums with the original drummer don't work so well for me), but her high work is a bit messy, which gets on the nerves of some (my girlfriend, for one).

So far, barring some casual plays of All Hands on the Bad One by friends, the only true convert I've attracted is my sister and that's so not rock and roll!

I used to obsess over Tool. Still like 'em (and pissed that the concert in Winston-Salem next month was cancelled), but since the last couple of albums... I guess the contrarian in me pulls farther away the more they're accepted into the mainstream.

I used to obsess over NIN and Metallica.

I don't really obsess anymore, but if I did, it would be for all things QOTSA related. Kyuss, The Eagles of Death Metal, Fu Manchu, Brant Bjork, Masters of Reality, Mark Lanegan, The Desert Sessions, and so forth.

Clutch would come in a close second. AiC if there was still a posibility of new albums, even if just by Jerry Cantrell (so long as they're better than Degredation Trip).

Cail wrote:Roll The Bones is an excellent, underrated album. I bought it completely without listening to it first based on how much the song "Show Don't Tell" kicked ass. I was rather disappointed to find out that the song wasn't on that album, but I was pleased with the purchase anyway.

"Show Don't Tell" is on Presto, which is, to me, one of Rush's weaker albums. I can send you an mp3 of the song if you want.

That'd be great!

Def Leppard - Guitars, melodies, harmonies, songs, rock, pop, oh, and Steve Clark. Specifically the "Hysteria" album. From the "what's that spell?" ... "women" to the rollcall of their heroes in "rocket", the glam rock and lust of "animal" to the romance of "love bites", and the pure sex of "pour some sugar on me" and "armageddon it".

Tool - From "Something has to change...", just the whole experience that is "Aenima".

Tori Amos - From "got enough guilt to start, my own religion" in "crucify", to "precious things", to "baker, baker" to "Marianne" to "From the choirgirl hotel","playboy mommy" to "cruel" ... I obsessively buy her albums on day of release.

Pearl Jam - the soundtrack to my teenage angst. "Black", "rearviewmirror","corduroy", "hail, hail", "immortality","indifference".

Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime. Intelligent metal. A story record. A rock-opera. Political. An anti-hero. Chris DeGarmo.

Springsteen. The whole damn "Born in the USA" album. Happy up vibe pop music about a depressed and lonely guy approaching a mid-life crisis. And "Tunnel of Love" About the joys and risks of love.

Warrior Soul. Kory Clarke. "I'll be a hero, in my own time". "Jump for joy, world's end", "Come on and shine like it". Poetic and angry.

Michael Jackson - One song. Billie Jean. "She was more like a beauty queen..."

I'm very obsessive.

I'd throw in Nirvana as an obsession, but Kurt's music is too rich for me, I drown with too much exposure to it.

Something for Kate. The despair in "pinstripe" - "You're the last day of April every year...", the dance and swagger of "Electricity", to the sheer beauty and frightened young boy of "monsters", to the naked love of "you only hide", to the stunning opening of "Max Planck" "So the start, is my seat, at thirty seven thousand feet, forwards, backwards and underneath..." to the politics of "letter to the editor" ....

Actually, it's "What's that smell?".

Funny about Def Leppard and "Hysteria". It is, quite possibly, the best-produced album of all time, but it's nowhere near my favorite album from Def Leppard or anyone else. But I can't stop listening to it.

Ah thanks. Nothing like misquoting lyrics to look foolish

duke wrote:
Springsteen. The whole damn "Born in the USA" album. Happy up vibe pop music about a depressed and lonely guy approaching a mid-life crisis. And "Tunnel of Love" About the joys and risks of love.

One thing that always yanked my chain was (and I am not saying you agree with this) that a lot of frat-boy types and others, beleived that Born in the USA was some sort of pro-US anthem. It ain't. Listen to the lyrics...s'more about the tragic/ironic/bitter return of a soldier from Vietnam home, where he finds he is a misfit.

With the release of the travelling wilburys CD set on Rhino, I have dug out both volumes. Man, what a lot of fun!!!

A Gunslinger wrote:One thing that always yanked my chain was (and I am not saying you agree with this) that a lot of frat-boy types and others, beleived that Born in the USA was some sort of pro-US anthem. It ain't. Listen to the lyrics...s'more about the tragic/ironic/bitter return of a soldier from Vietnam home, where he finds he is a misfit.

Frat boys?

Ronald Reagan tried to co-opt the song as a Pro-US song when it was first released. I think he lost more credibility than he gained.

I should've posted here sooner, but I guess it is pretty obvious what kind of mega-dork I am for TooL....it's even my avatar!

As of late i'm not so much bonkers for a particular band but more a type of music. The last ten years have been a quest to find the names and more recordings by the artists that are on a mixed tape i found in a taxi. I've found a few: The Memphis Jug Band, Blind Willie McTell, and Fred Hutchison. It's a drag, I play guitar and folks'll ask me who my favorite guitarist is and I have to tell 'em "i don't know his name." This music is blues going way back. Back before you could tell the color of their skin without hearing the dialect. Back when most American music consisted of ragtime, wich was our most popular music for 100 years. This ragtime was, after the turn of the century, crumbling into different genre; folk music of all sorts and cultures with a ragtime flare. This music, this folk music that migrated to America and picked up the ragtime rhythm is the music makes me crazy.
But before I found that tape I was a Ween-head.

There's only one band anyone should be obsessed with, and that is .........................


QUEEN.

I've spent a fair portion of my life obsessing over Queen and Freddie Mercury. That said, Queen had a nasty habit of screwing up a perfectly good song.

On balance though, Queen was the shiznit.

What was the one fantastic album released around '73-'75 it wasn't Killer Queen was it?

^^danlo, you probably mean 'Sheer Heart Attack' from 74, which contains 'Killer Queen'.

I've never really idolized a singel band or artist and I will not try to convert anyone, but my most impressive feat is that I've turned my woman (who only used to listen to French pop music) into a Dream Theater fan

That said, I used to be a massive Queen fan when I was younger, I owned amost everything made by them. The last albums kinda turned me off, though, and I'm an occasional listener now (who just happens tot remember most lyrics )

I'm still a lover of Rush. They've certainly produced some weak albums, but overall they're just legendary and they kick ass live. Alex Lifeson is one of the best guitarists around.

Dream Theater is by far my favourite band of the last few years.

I'm happy that now and then I hear something new which completely bowls me over. That happened when I first heard 'Terria' by Devin Townsend, and I own several of his CDs now.

In general I keep switching too much over the years to be considered a real fanatic, I guess. I have my phases

The only bands I've really stuck with my fanaticism with are Zeppelin, Floyd, Def Leppard, BOC, and Priest. With the exception of Zeppelin, I'm willing to say that each of them has released crap.