FlaSoxxJim

If he's in the lineup everyday and our offense goes dormant again, we're sure not going to get any help from him. I'll take his defensive skills though.

The one cool thing about Korn was I liked the Todd McFarlane album covers. Then again, Uriah Heap had a cool Roger Dean cover on one of their albums way back when, but the record inside was pretty unbearable. And Frazetta art didn't make a silk purse out of the sow's ear known as Molly Hatchet either...

I like the Specter-ized Across the Universe well enough, but the best official release was the one on the World Wildlife Fund "Nothing's Gonna Change Our World" Benefit album in 1968. That's the version that was re-released on the "blue" rarities disc several years later. I have vinyl copies of the "Black Album" and volumes 1 and 3 of "Sweet Apple Tracks" (never picked up volume 2), so that's 14 LP sides of Get Back session material. Needless to say, I LOVE THE GRIT. At the same time, that doesn't mean I think "No Pakastanis", "Commonwealth", "Hi Ho Silver", "Penina", etc., should have been included on official Apple releases. That might be the difference for me though. I had collected a lot of this material in boots, mostly when I was still in high school and made the Beatlefests regularly. The Naked stuff just sounds WAY more like what was actually laid down in those sessions than the Spector-produced tracks and so it's closer to what I think a release overseen by the Beatles would have sounded like. Granted, I miss "Maggie May" and "Dig It" in the re-release, to say nothing of "John Charles Haltrey and the Deaf Aides... Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats."

good times...

Sex tape? Is that what they prescribe for use in case something falls off?

What was the third "Planet of the Apes" film? But you are right. Monkeys are not dumb, and I insult them by comparing them to humans.

And if it really does get dicey the world can just finally wake up and throw a bunch of money at the problem and make it go away. Nope. Dumb. f***ing. Monkeys.

Actually George approved of the project and of what he got to hear of the new mixes before he departed (Aside: I think his posthumously released "Brainwashed" was his strongest effort in years). You are right, the band had broken under the sheer weight of being the effing Beatles. It had completely fractured during the making of "The White Album," and this was a recognition and admission by the band that they just needed to cut the crap and just Get back to being a great band again. The missing audio snippets bothered me on Naked too... until I listened to the "fly on the wall" disc. Amazing stuff, with the love/hate relationships of the Beatles to each other and to being the Beatles. Add those bits to the material seen in the film and that time becomes very real and emotionally charged to a discerning audience. I particularly like George telling Paul how stupid his idea of having the concert while stuck with a bunch of strangers on a cruise ship was. Wery much in the vein of his "I'll play if you want me to, or I WON'T play if you don't want me too... whatever it is YOU want me to do I'll do it." remarks heard on the film. I like Naked a lot because it's as close as we're going to get to what the project should have turned out.

I have said before that I always enjoyed Let It Be (original) for what it was, even though it fell short of what it was supposed to be. But Specter did the exact opposite of what was supposed to have happened by adding layers of orchestral complexuty to songs tht were supposed to be live, stripped down, a little rough around the edges, and with no overdubs. This was exactly what John Lennon had in mind of course when he insisted that Specter resurrect and produce the project to the extreme objection of McCartney and the relative apathy at the time of George and Ringo. It was one last :fyou from John to Paul during a bad time in their personal relationship.

Yeah, it's pretty much been the case when Putin intimated they would not ratify back in October. The Milan conference will be a pretty impotent one, as opposed to what should have been a coference steering a Kyoto Treaty already in effect. There is a very finite window of opportunity in which we can throw money at the global climate change crisis and have it actually amount to something. If I didn't have children I'd almost enjoy seeing the look on the face of the international corporate world when it's finally ready to throw money at the problem after we've gone past the point of no return, and scientists can just smile and say sorry, you should have done something 50 years ago when it mattered. Humans are pretty dumb f***ing monkeys. :fyou On the bright side, from today's news it looks like we'll soon have some b****in' bunker-busting tactical "mini-nukes." :fyou :fyou

The lesbians will be relieved to hear you approve.

You've got that right. My wife recntly entered the public school system as an 8th grade science teacher. The stories about backwards administrative policies and decisions are truly too strange to be fiction.

There was a certain stylized aesthetic to the film's ending, but the contrast with the rest of the film was too jarring for me. The stylized and highly unbelievable aesthetic of films like Dr. Strangelove or Terry Gilliam's Brazil work for me because they run throughout those films. In reference to your nuclear explosion as beauty bit, the final sequence in Strangelove when it all goes to hell to a crooner soundtrack (Til We Meet Again? I forget) is a perfect case in point.

I don't think any of it has been crap, including Vitology. Just not at the same level as 10 or Vs. Maybe Vitology shouldn't have made the top 25 mistakes list, but I still agree it's a lesser effort put out quickly to appease a label. I think the first Countinng Crows album is spectacular, and while I very much enjoy the later releases I can appreciate the criticism of those who say they're not as good as the first, so that's basically the same situation. I doubt Nirvana could have kept it up in any meaningful way had Cobain not left the building. The upside to that I guess is I like the vast majority of the Foo Fighters' stuff, and Grohl may never have had a chance to do that stuff if he was stuck churning out retreads with Nirvana.

I would include most albums that were made strictly for commercial gain or out of contractual obligations. In particular, I disdain most albums made after a principal talent in a group has left the band, died, etc. There are exceptions, like the Grateful Dead, who would kill off a keyboardist every few years (Pigpen, Keith Gadchaux, Brent Mydland... it waqs like being a Spinal Tap drummer, very dangerous gig), and still keep it together. On the other hand... - The Doors released wo albums after Morrison died, Other Voices and Full Circle. Both of them blow. - While there are a couple of strong numbers on the Who's Face Dances, they probably should have packed it in after Keith Moon died. Certainly It's Hard was a very forgetable album. -There should be a law against Elton John releasing anything that Bernie Taupin did not collaborate on (his Disney movie and Broadway music is the reasonable exception since lyrical heavyweight Tim Rice fills in nicely there). - The Yes "Drama" album, occurring in between the John Anderson/Steve Howe classic incarnation and the John Anderson/Trevor Rabin 90210 80s overhaul. Trevor Horn's vocals may have cut it for the Buggles, but not here. - The tracks from Led Zeppelin's "Coda" should still be on the editing room floor, as should maybe half of Physical Grafitti and much of Presence. The success of the musically diverse In Through The Out Door shows there was still some gas in the tank had Bonzo not died, but a lot of the early innovativeness was missing in the latter albums. - Pink Floyd's "Final Cut" was weak, but not as glaringly vacant and self-parodying as any of the albums since Roger Waters split. etc., etc...

I agree with most of the selections - this is a 'good list of bad releases by good artists' (?!?). The answer to the seemingly tautological questions regarding who the true talent in Genesis was is, of course, Gabriel. (duh) I like Neil Young as much as anyone, but having seen the Trans tour live (ouch!) I concur that was a real clunker. I concur with the inclusion of Vitology, while still agreeing in principle with Cap's reference to usually making a first album to obtain commercial success and later focusing on what you want to do. With Pearl jam, though, the difference was that the first album is a collection of songs based on like 10 years of stuff Vedder carried around in his head, the second album was an energized band captureed in the moment, and the third album was mostly fumes. I only disagree vehemently with the inclusion of Todd Rundgren's very innovative "No World Order," but life as a Todd fan is often lonely so whatever. The best part of the piece however was in the "open letter to EVH: "P.S. Although you're a great guitarist, I still say the best thing you ever fingered was Valerie Bertinelli."

I really liked 4/5 of that movie, but hated the ending. I liked the psychopathic aspects of it well enough, but in the final scenes where things go urban-apocalyptic I can't continue suspending disbelief. I agree, great performance by Edward Norton, though. It's got nothing on his performance in Death To Smoochy, though (notice no green here - that film is very good).

You make an excellent point in pointing out that it is hard to show where Moore has lied. He doesn't, because there is no need and truth is more frighteng than fiction. With tthe high profile targets he chooses you can bet he would get his arse sued off if his criticisms and allegatiojns weren't on the monwy. Apu's comments reletive to his passing SpinSanity muster bear this point out. He has lots of fact checkers making sure what he says is the truth. That makes the prologue and epilogue chapters of "Stupid White Men" (the ones dealing with Bush, Bush and Co's exploits in fixing the Florida election in 2000 and later wranglings to make sure it stayed fixed) all the more chilling. If he could up with the resources/time to put the material from "Dude, Where's My Country" to film so the masses can see it, it would certainly make a difference in 2004.

Real for sure. I grew up with crappy artificial trees it sucked. I'm a rabid environmentalist in practically all other aspects of my life and job, but I allow myself the guilty pleasure of a real tree. For the last 10 years, I have kept the bottom slice of trunk that you cut off the trees once you bring them home. I put the year on the piece, drill a hole in it and put a string on it and add it with the others as an ornament to hang. It's kind of cool to see all the old tree trunk slices up on the tree now ("was that a frasier or a Doug fir...").

So apparently it's not Emo Philips we're talking about here, hmm? All I have to sar aboout Emo/Screamo/Screamcore/...? other than I generally don't care much for it is that I have it on good authority that it really hurt a vibrant and diverse DC music scene when it emerged out of the punk/hardcore thing there in the early 80s. A good friend of mine, somewhat older than me, was a DC area musician for 20 years doing a variety of live club and studio things and generally loving life. Along came Emo and for like two years that's all a bunch of clubs wanted to book. Cover was like $1-5 for those shows, as opposed to $5-15 for a lot of the rock/blues/jazz groups before that. On top of that the Emo crowds were big drinkers (apparently they didn't check IDs all that well as I assume the crowds were quite young). So it was a no-brainer for club owners to go with the Emo or else demand that other bands ask for less at the door, since the lost revenue was only coming out of the bands' pockets and not the owners. Long story short, my buddy got fed up, gave up music and left DC for Florida and a career change. Then he met me and I re-infected him, and we did about three years of the bar gig music thing (only once or twice a week) before he moved back north.

You mean this guy?

Some of the overt refs include Misty Mountain Hop, Over the Hills and Far Away, and The Battle of Evermore. Ramble On has a verse specifically detailing "T'was in the darkest depth of Mordor I met a girl so fair, But Gollum, the evil one crept up and slipped away with her." Some of the more obscure references include Robert Plant's frequent shouting hd "Strider" at the end of live performances of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Plan't dog was also named Strider - he was a big Rings fan). Lines like "To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed" (Kashmir). Even the tarot deck illustration of "The Hermit" from Zeppelin IV is distinctly Gandalf-esque. Some other posters may have some more to add, that's all I can think of off the top of me head. As for bad hard rock/metal that would not have existed if not for Zep, I'd include Whitesnake, Great White, and AC/DC at the top of a long list.

Kyoto is a mere baby step in the right direction as far as reversing global climate change. A number of independent analyses have concluded that the cost in the near future of not ratifying the treaty will easily be more than the cost of ratifying it. The most exhorbidant worldwide cost estimates for fixing the problems caused by human-induced climate change is more that 20 QUADRILLION dollars over 100 years. That's something like 50 times the world GDP, and in single dollars laid end to end it would reach past Pluto. Many other clean-up estimates are substantially lower, but all models conclude that the long-term cost of inaction now is far greater than the cost of actually doing something. Instead, the House passes an energy bill that gives next-to-nothing for alternate fuel research, makes it easy for power plants to upgrade without installing modern pollution-reducing measures, protetcts companies from future lawsuits brought by people that get sick from the MTBE they made or want it out of their contaminated groundwater, AND THEN gievs those same companies $1 billion to find new business oprotunities as they get out of the MTBE business. As the producers of more than half of the world's total greenhouse emissions, we bear moral and financial responsibility to the world we are disproportionately affecting. WTO is probably the only means available for our international ttrade partners to actually get us to own up to that responsibility.

Wow. (stunned silence) It was on this very day (Dec 1) in 1955 that Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up here seat at the front of a Montgomery, AL, bus. This leads to a black boycot of the Montgomery bus system that lasts for more than a year, until the US Supreme Court finally outlawed bus segregation there. This was the begining of the US Civil Rights movement, from whence so many strides towards racial equality have sprung. 1955. Not 1855. Would you care to reconsider your views on when blacks stopped being oppressed?

I don't know any lawsuit specifics, but the earlier blues-based Led Zeppelin certainly did include a lot of credited American blues covers and also LOTS of uncredited lifting of recognizable blues lines. I think it is no different that what blues musicians have always done with the work of other blues musicians - the only difference being that nobody on the old juke joint circuits had any money so siung each other was pointless. Led Zeppelin made some money, and would of course be a more lucrative target for a lawsuit. Unfairly, though, what is lost here is that it was the young blues cats in England that pretty much single-handedly kept the style alive when nobody in the States cared one bit for it. This allowed American blues names to do successful British and European tours when many of them might have otherwise died penniless of alcoholism or drug abuse in the states. The Stones, John Mayhall's Bluesbreakers, the Yardbirds, Butterfield Blues Band, Cream, Ten Years After, Led Zeppelin, etc., were the groups that made the blues cool again, and their rocked out, sometimes psychedelic revamping of the style was mutually beneficial to Blues artists and fans on both sides of the Atlantic. It would be hard to realistically argue what monetary damages the band did to the estates of Blind Lemon Jefferson or Robert Johnson by swiping licks and lyrics. On the other hand it's easy to see that classic delta blues would not havve survied to nearly the degree it did had the English blues cats like Jimmy Page coopted it and made it their own, thereby rekindling interest in the old players and recordings back here as well. As for my personal take on Zeppelin... They were great, but also flawed gems, certainly not perfect. Their best stuff emerged when they stuck with what they did best - infuse electric blues with dark mysticism, a little raw sexuality, experimentatiion, and world-class song arranging and production skills (their real strengths imo). Their worst stuff emerged when they became a caricature of themselves, notable on about half of Physical Graffiti (could have been a great single album) and about 2/3 of Presence with the overused power cords and general cock rock sameness that crept into everything. A lot of people don't like the reggae influences and overdone mysticism on Houses of the Holy, but I can live with it. I always loved the Tolkein references both overt and obscure peppered throughout their catalog. The worst aspect of led Zeppelin was the scores of insipid, completely usless and creatively barren copucat hard rock/metal bands that they spawned, none of whom had the chops or creativity of Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham.