Music Musings

For those unfamiliar, Greg Kot is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Jim DeRogatis is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Putting the odd picture with Robert Ebert aside, something is still fishy here. I’ve been following both of their blogs for several months and what I’ve noticed is that they write almost the exact same posts week after week.

Here’s a sample of the most recent two posts from each, as displayed in my iGoogle:

This is just one sample of countless such coincidences over the course of several months that has me picturing sweet nothings whispered in ears and lots of music-related pillow talk.

I’m guessing they both get the same press releases, so there is a logical reason for this beyond secret mano-y-mano affairs from rival news publications. So the bigger question I have for Chicago readers:  If both are covering the exact same topics and I have a short attention span, who should I read? I’m leaning toward Greg Kot, but only because I’d choose him in a pick-up game of basketball.

Sometimes there’s a song set to a scene in a movie that makes you want to wet your pants in excitement. They just don’t put progress to music in movies like they used to, nor do they let people lip sync nearly enough. I miss those days. But now that there’s YouTube, we can watch these scenes as many times as we want. Here are some of the best around.

Michael J. Fox as Scott Howard – Surfin USA (Teen Wolf)
I could only find this en Espanol. No problemo. Stiles crushing beers + 1 million werewolf backflips + wide stance guitar playing = Awesome in any language. The only thing that would have made this better is if Boof were somewhere in the scene. See video.

Lou Diamond Philips as Ritchie Valens – La Bamba (La Bamba)
“Here’s a bit of a rattlesnake.” Flipping awesome. I’m not joking about this one. See video.

Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi – Japanese Blues (Karate Kid)
(Chuck Norris + Jean Claude Van Damme + Carl Weathers) * Steven Segal = Would Lose in a Fight to Mr. Miyagi ^1000 Sake Bombs. See video.

Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa – Training Montage (Rocky IV)
This song makes me want to punch through drywall and accidentally hit a stud and eat a Russian’s face off. See video.

Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly – Johnny B. Goode (Back to the Future)
Michael J. Fox strikes again. Boy this guy had a flair for the dramatic. The Enchantment Under the Sea dance looked incredible – Marty totally would have gotten some play if his mom hadn’t ruined the whole thing. See Video.

Hard to believe it was way back in 1998…

I awoke this morning at 5:26am to the feeling of my left testicle being tangled up in my underpants. Has this ever happened to you? Sweet Jebus, what a scare. I apparently did some sort of scissor-kick in my sleep that made my boxers form a tourniquet around my left nut. It hurt like heck and scared the living daylights out of me. I sprung from my bed about .0000000002 seconds after the scissor-kick and went into the bathroom to inspect any potential damage and let that puppy work itself out. Through the miracle of the human body being flipping awesome, all was fine. But it was so frightening that I was unable to fall back asleep, so I went into the den to surf the internets before work.

That’s when I opened the iTunes store and saw that M. Ward’s fantastic new album, Hold Time, is the #5 best-selling album on iTunes. How can that be? Is M. Ward famous now or has everyone completely given up on buying full albums?

I did some quick research, and found that 16 times more songs were purchased online than albums. Not surprising, but pretty amazing. Here are the actual numbers from my research:

1.07 billion digital tracks were purchased in the US in 2008
65.8 million digital albums were purchased in the US in 2008
Somewhere around 4% of males have but one testicle

I had the pleasure of taking in some karaoke the other weekend here in Chicago and, as usual, it tickled my fancy. While I’ve never personally performed a song, I did once sign up for “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, but chickened out. The best performance I ever saw was a rendition of “Chocolate Salty Balls” by Chef.

So I’ll spend this post ribbing some of the karaoke people, but it’s primarily because I don’t have the nuts to sing in front of a crowd. Here are 3 of my favorite people at karaoke night:

The Group of Girls Who Think They’re Funny
The only thing less funny than a group of girls teaming up to sing karaoke is finding out you’ve just contracted genital warts from one of them. 99% of the time they’ll pick “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and think they’re the first group of girls to think of that idea. They’ll spend the entire song nervously looking at each other, giggling uncontrollably, and thinking to themselves, “We’re so zany!”

The Amateur Singer That Takes Karaoke Way Too Seriously
This person usually thinks highly enough of themselves to sing at least 5-6 songs per night. The karaoke host has to restrain them with some sort of scheduled rotation so they don’t get overzealous and kung-fu grip the microphone for every song. This person typically gets the Whitney Houston microphone tap thing going if they feel like they’re really nailing a song, but they’re usually good for a big voice crack at some point during the night. Odds are they’re currently taking voice lessons from a neighbor. They daydream that tonight could be the night Randy Jackson is in the audience.

The Karaoke Host
The karaoke host’s days are typically spent playing Madden 2007 in the finished basement-turned-bedroom of their parents place. They drive a souped up Honda or Toyota, with more money spent on the speakers than the car itself. Their bedroom has a ton of stereo equipment and like a thousand woofers. And they have one of those CD towers with a zillion CDs stacked halfway up the wall. You’ll typically find the work of SWV, Color Me Badd, and Keith Sweat in their CD collection. The karaoke host dreams of someday being called up to the Asian big-leagues. This is the same guy that showed you the old “switch the cables for free porn” trick in junior high.

Got anymore to add?

I made two magnificent discoveries yesterday. 1) Reruns of the greatest television show of our generation, Average Joe: Hawaii (the one with David Daskal and Fabio), are now playing on the Fox Reality Channel. 2) Sting is now bearded.

I uncovered Sting’s beard at the Obama Inauguration Bash, and it shocked me. I know Sting has had a beard before, but this time it’s different. It’s not one of those blondish, well-manicured, Peter Horton in Side Out half-beards that were used in the late 80’s/early 90’s to lure unsuspecting jazzercise instructors into the backseat of your t-top Camaro. Oh no, Sting is rocking a full-on, untamed indie hipster beard.

I ask you, is this the first official sign that beards are reaching the end of their product lifecycle? Are indie hipster beards going the way of the Cornrow, the JewFro, and the Faux Hawk?  One can only speculate, but when Sting has time to set down the lute and grow a beard, it’s probably not a good sign.

I keep reading all these great reviews, but I don’t get it. I gave it a shot and it must be above my intellect. Some are claiming that it’s the best album so far this year and may end up being the best of the year. I’ll stick to my advance copies of  the upcoming releases from The Deep Dark Woods and Justin Townes Earle for now. Those are gems.

You know those posters that you stare at and eventually 3D shapes start forming? I can’t do those either. Even if I go cross-eyed.

It’s official – I’m getting old. It won’t be long until my balls are hanging by a thread down by my swollen cankles. It didn’t hit me until a couple months ago at a University of Georgia college bar after the Florida vs. Georgia college football game.

I was sitting at a table, watching some guy in jorts make fun of Tim Tebow. That’s when “Hard to Handle” by the Black Crowes came on the jukebox and the entire bar went absolutely nuts. You know what it reminded me of? It was like when “Sweet Child O’Mine” used to come on the bar jukebox when I was in college. It was complete mayhem – hot girls were inexplicably grinding on chubby guys, everyone was screaming the lyrics as loud as they could, and I started craving a Zima with a Jolly Rancher.

And that’s when it hit me – are the 90’s the new 80’s? I know the fact that the Black Crowe’s are from Georgia may have had something to do with the hysteria, but do today’s college kids look back on 90’s music much the same way people in their late 20’s/ 30’s regard 80’s music?

I’m not sure, but it did prompt me to ponder some of the great 90’s radio music that I listened to, long before I was listening to indie music and crushing ass as a blogger at HearYa. I later had a discussion with my buddy at the Avett Brothers show and we both professed our mutual love for Spacehog’s “In The Meantime,” the timeless brilliance of Third Eye Blind, and the under-appreciated mastery of Crash Test Dummies. The mere thought of Candlebox’s opening guitar riff to “Far Behind” still sends blood flowing toward my groin area, similar to the No-Reason-Boners (NRBs) I used to get in Mrs. Rinema’s social studies class, which eventually forced me to switch from wearing mesh shorts to school everyday to much sturdier khakis. Ahhhhh….the 90’s. They were a wonderful time.

Enjoy a few of these choice 90’s tracks, and be sure to check out a few of my favorite sites that occasionally feature 90’s music: 1) Can You See the Sunset has a phenomenal running feature called “It Came from the 90’s” and 2) Captain’s Dead has an awesome “Top 60 tracks of the 90’s” post here.

Enjoy a couple of my favorite 90’s tracks below:

Spacehog – In The Meantime (from Captains Dead)

Candlebox – Far Behind (from Captains Dead)

Crash Test Dummies – Afternoons & Coffeespoons (from Lost In Your Inbox)

Here’s part II of the women in rock who are much hotter for the simple reason that they have musical talent. Those of you passersby who are ready to shoot me a comment that says something along the lines of, “Who are you to talk, why don’t you take a look at yourself in the mirror,” please spare me. I’ve heard it before and you’ll only encourage me.

10. Paz Suay from Josh Rouse

She’s foreign and a musician – double whammy. Take both of those away and she’d receive a pedestrian 6.1 on HotOrNot.com.

9. LeAnn Rimes

Resembles Tina Yothers from Family Ties. Country music fans find her ridiculously hot and the rest of us don’t know why.

8. Janis Joplin

God rest her soul, but she wasn’t the most attractive woman in the world. Yet the self-proclaimed ‘ladies man’ Leonard Cohen thought it was a good idea to get a hummer from her at the Chelsea Hotel and even wrote a song about it.

7. Pink

She has the body of a male swimmer, yet there’s something about her that keeps everyone coming back for more. Snap out of it, America.

6. Taylor Swift

I said it once and I’ll say it again: I don’t understand the appeal of Taylor Swift. She looks like a flesh-colored poodle.

5. Regine Chassagne from Arcade Fire

Win Butler could have any indie hipster chick in all of Canada, and he’s married to this banshee. Somebody needs to chuck some shoes at him.

4. Beth Orton

Rumor has it Ryan Adams’ “English Girls Approximately” is about her. I’m sure there are plenty of stacked 24 year old babes out there that Ryan could take down, but it was Beth Orton that drove him to write a song like that. And now he’s singing to stuffed animals in his bedroom.

3. Meg White

Pale and homely. But put her behind a drum kit and Jack White starts thinking to himself, “Even if she were my sister, I’d still probably go for some Saturday night beaver.”

2. Loretta Lynn

Another questionable Jack White crush. This woman is no less than 100 years old, but she is still strangely attractive.

1. Bruce Springsteen’s Wife Patti

You’re telling me he couldn’t do better than her?!!! Apparently even The Boss isn’t immune to Deceptive Musical Hotness.