Grood.com

01/29/10

By Doug on January 29th, 2010

So, there’s this new guy at work. Well, he’s been here a few months but I didn’t actually have a conversation with him until today and I really only talked to him because we happened to be going to the fridge at the same time. He’s the new guy at work the same way my ’99 Honda Accord was new to me when I bought in 2005. It doesn’t really matter, does it?

Anyways, we exchanged polite pleasantries and it eventually evolved into us shooting the shit and he brought up how he’s this huge music fan and he wanted to know what all I listened to. I brought up how I’m a big Nirvana fan and the conversation evolved to talking about 80s bands like Motley Crue and Van Halen. The 70s were next and I mentioned that Zeppelin is possibly my favorite band ever.

Things were going good and I was thinking to myself how this guy could be someone I could hang out with again possibly outside of work blah, blah, blah. I then mentioned how I sort of like Pink Floyd and he responded, “I love Pink Floyd. That guy’s so talented.”

Yes, he thinks Pink Floyd is one person and not a band. What am I supposed to do with that? Well, I mean, it’s besides the point now because as soon as I realized I had heard what I thought I had heard, I got the fuck out of there. But, is it my responsibility to correct him on this? It’s kind of past the point at this point.

And now, every time I see this asshole I’m going to think to myself, “This asshole thinks Pink Floyd is a single person. What an asshole.”

I might be done with hip hop

By Doug on May 19th, 2009

Well, it turns out Ice T and I have at least two things in common: Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em is an awful, awful rapper and big white asses are A-OK.

I was listening to the radio today, which is odd because the radio in LA sucks more than your sister did when she showed up at my cousin’s bachelor party two years ago, and this song came on. And Oh My Fucking God is it awful. It’s so bad that I think black people should consider it to be racist. Cuz it definitely doesn’t make black people look good. Music for that matter, too.

Just awful.

I’m awesome

By Doug on October 5th, 2008

Review: Weezer (Red Album)

By Van on June 11th, 2008

1994 was an important year, both for me musically, and music in general. Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies, would be a number one hit. Beastie Boys, Ill Communication, would release the coolest music video in history with Sabotage. Coolio’s Fantastic Voyage would be the song of the summer, and the Eagles ‘Hell Freezes Over’ would be the beginning of my love affair with the 70’s. Green Day’s Dookie, would go on to be in my top ten albums of all time, and I don’t know why, but Hootie and the Blowfish would always cause the dolphins to make me cry. Nirvana’s Unplugged would be a fitting tribute to the greatness that was Kurt Cobain. Pink Floyd’s Division Bell would be their last studio album. Stone Temple Pilot’s, Purple, would reinforce my belief that the band was not a copy of Pearl Jam, which incidentally released the beginning of their demise with Vitalogy. And what would you say if I told you a little band in Charlottesville , VA would have us all under the table and dreaming?

red weezer

But as great as all of those albums were, none made more of an impact (at least to me) than Weezer’s self titled debut album. I remember the first time I ever heard it. It was summer, and I was riding in a jeep with my friend and his older brother when he put the CD in. The distinctive guitar riff of Say it Ain’t So immediately made me a fan for life. I bought the album (popularly known as the Blue Album) as soon as I could and fell in love with every song immediately. Their sound was very unique and unlike anything that was playing on the radio at the time. Kurt Cobain, who had committed suicide just a month before the release of the Blue Album, signaled the end to an era. Grunge, which invaded the airwaves at the beginning of the decade, was at a fork in the road. Blue came out at the perfect time. It transitioned itself away from grunge, but still had the feel of a garage band. And just like Cobain’s Nirvana, Weezer would have a massive impact on the future sound of popular music.

Since then they’ve gone on to release five more albums, their most recent released last week. Of those six albums, three have been self titled, spaced seven years apart (Blue, 1994, Green, 2001, and Red, 2008.) That’s what made their latest offering that much more anticipated. I never jump to a conclusion after the first listen through. Some of my favorite songs they’ve released were not so great the first time I listened to it. Nothing compares to their first album, and I know that going into each record they release. You have to. After listening to the Red album for the first time, I know this would be no exception.

The opening track, Troublemaker, has the feel and sound of previous Weezer tunes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stand out amongst any of them. The Greatest Man that Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn) is somewhat of a surprise. At just a shade under six minutes, it’s definitely one of the longest songs they’ve ever recorded. There’s ten different styles of music (from rock to choir to spoken narrative, etc) transitioning seamlessly every eight bars. It’s probably my favorite of the album, albeit their most unique. Pork and Beans was actually the first single released. Though distinctively Weezer in its sound, the lyrics are very boring and uninspiring. No Weezer album is complete without the rock ballad, and Heart Songs is just that, chronicling all the musical acts that ever inspired front man Rivers Cuomo, from Gordon Lightfoot to Debbie Gibson to Nirvana. Lyrically, it’s probably his best song on the album.

From there it goes downhill. My main beef with this album is that Cuomo doesn’t sing all of the songs. For the first time, he’s let other members of the band take lead vocals on several of the tracks. If I wanted to hear them sing, I would have bought albums from side projects. It has no place on this album. That really sums up the CD. Honestly, none of the songs have any place on any of their previous releases.

All in all, I give the Red three stars out of five. It’s not a terrible album, but it’s definitely my least favorite. What made the band so fantastic was their unique sound of nerd rock, which at the time of their debut album was unheard of. Rivers Cuomo was the coolest un-cool person around, and it added to their appeal. Unfortunately, their look and sound metamorphosed into modern day emo, which we can all agree has no place in music. Whereas their previous albums stood out among the rest, Red seems to have no place to go but down. It’s nothing different than the crap that’s being put out nowadays. But with most of the members of the band either 40 or pushing it, I guess I can’t be too surprised.

Ear plugs at a concert

By Doug on March 31st, 2008

Have you ever seen someone wearing earplugs at a concert? I’ve been attending rock concerts regularly for the last ten years and have always noticed a Dbag or two wearing them at each one. Like, really? Ear plugs at a concert? I’m not going to hate on anyone but there’s really no excuse for that. Yeah sure, it’s loud. I always thought that was the point of a rock concert.

If you don’t want it to be loud then save your money, stay home and find clips of the band playing on youtube. With earplugs, you’re going to get about the same sound quality anyways. And with the extra cash you’d save on not going to the concert, you’d have that much more money to buy things you’d probably like to have like a new tricycle or an EZbake oven or whatever the hell it is 3-year-old girls like you are into.

It seems to be getting worse and worse, too. I was at a concert three weeks ago and I noticed an exorbitant amount of people wearing these things. One of them even had those plugs that are connected to each other by a piece of string. There were three people within my immediate perimeter (as in I could have touched them) with earplugs in. Doing the math, that’s roughly ten percent of the people immediately surrounding me.

Applying that figure to the rest of the arena, 10 percent of the estimated 15 to 20,000 people there would mean that there were roughly 1500 to 2000 people paying $40 or so to have considerably less fun than everyone else around them. Ear plugs make things quieter, but they also cut out certain frequencies. You’re not simply not hearing the same sounds as everyone else.

Who are these people? These lame-oids. These losers. These are the same people who choose to sit at the front row of a movie. The same people who have an HDTV without HD Cable. Oh wait, I have an HDTV without HD cable. Shit.