Nuts For Music

I was stumbling through my music library the other night and came across some songs off of Sense Field’s Tonight And Forever. I’m sitting there, listening to what I think is random music, which it really was, and had the thought. Wow, what’s this?! Sense Field? Who’re they again?

So I did some digging around and realized they’d be disbanded for about 4 years, their last album coming in 2003 entitled Living Outside. The originally formed out of California in 1991 from the band Reason to Believe. They’re considered the contemporaries of bands like Jimmie Eats World. I think if the band were still around today, they’d definitely be popular and regularly played on the radio. Their music has a little pop to it, which seems to get songs air time these days. But at the same time, they have an original hardcore punk sound that was popular back in the day. I just love music like this. They have stuff that comes right at you, but then they have nice, melodic tunes that you can just groove to.

I did end up buying 4 of their albums on iTunes (To the tune of $40. Yikes!). I haven’t really been disappointed by any of their stuff. Some songs are better than others, but in all, all 4 albums (I’ll list below) are quality. If you don’t have them or aren’t familiar with Sense Field, I highly recommend you check them out.

• Sense Field (1994)
• Building (1996)
• Tonight And Forever (2001)
• Living Outside (2003)

Sense Field may long be gone, but their music lives on!

I just saw this on one of Shannan’s Hollywood gossip shows and I just found this bit on Yahoo News about the possibility of NKOTB coming back. Like the Spice Girls wasn’t bad enough, we’ll have to deal with this nonsense? Now, I understand they were big when I was like, 10 years old, but come on. Hasn’t the “boy band” thing phased itself out? Maybe someone should check the temperature of hell, I think its frozen over!

REMhas tapped Modest Mouseto go on tour with them this spring/summer. A 13 date tour starting May 23 in Vancouver and ending June 21 in Atlanta promises to be a good one. You can’t go wrong with a classic band like REM. Modest Mouse is a great upcoming band that should fit in with REM’s sound to make for one good show.

They’ll be at Great Woods (I refuse to call it the Tweeter Center, especially with Tweeter basically going out of business) on June 13th. I’ll be trying my damnest to be there as I’m becoming a big fan of Modest Mouse.

According to Billboard.com, there won’t be a Led Zeppelinreunion tour until at least after September of this year. Apparently the effort put into their reunion show and lead singer Robert Plant’s side project will delay a tour I’m sure plenty of people are looking forward to. I’m sure nobody ever thought this would occur, and maybe it still won’t, but I’m sure lots of fans are excited. I’m just not one of them.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of Led Zeppelin music, but I’m not all that crazy about a reunion tour. Maybe that’s because I wouldn’t pay $250 for a concert ticket, the one exception being to see Pink Floyd. I know artists like KISS,Paul McCartney,and the The Rolling Stonescan charge big bucks for their shows and I’m sure Zeppelin will be no different. If you want to get together and do a normal tour and charge $40 or $45 for a ticket, I’m there. Live music is the best music, but at what price? I mean, at $45 a ticket for a 60,000 seat arena (which a lot of football stadiums can hold I think), they’d gross $2.7 million. Take out whatever the costs are and whatnot and I’m still they’re making a pretty penny. Draw that over several shows and you can make some coin.

Granted, I’m jumping the gun here since the tour hasn’t officially been announced and there are no ticket prices or venues listed yet, but going by past history of some big bands and their “reunion” tours, I expect a heafty ticket price.

Exciting news out of Engadget is that Amazon’s MP3 service, which is DRM-free, is going global this year. I have to say this is great. One of my biggest gripes with iTunes downloads is that most of the music I want is restricted by DRM. I want to be able to play my music on any computer I want and be able to create as many CDs for personal use as I want. Do you know how long a CD will last in a car? Not long in mine. The other great thing about Amazon’s MP3 service is the cost. $8.99 for most albums when I checked tonight compared to iTunes $9.99, and not all of iTunes albums are DRM-free. I almost bought 4 Sense Field albums I wanted on Amazon tonight, but opted for iTunes. I didn’t want to download Amazon’s MP3 downloader application.

I’m not sure what this will do in terms of Apple’s dominance of downloadable music. We probably won’t know for a while. The real appeal to Apple’s service is the integration between computer, iPod, and software. Its just easy to use as it all just integrates together. Heck, even my Mom, who is not technically savvy, can use it. You don’t need any separate download service and the music just shows up in your iTunes Library. I’m guessing with Amazon, you’d have to move music around and put it into your library. The more people have to do to use a service on their computer, the less likely they are to use it. That’s one area Apple got it right.

The Beatlesare one of those timeless bands. My parents grew up with them and now my generation is discovering them all over again, if they haven’t already done so. I’m a huge Beatles fan, as is my fiancee. In fact, we’ll be playing all Beatles music during the dinner portion of our wedding reception!

I had the pleasure of getting to see the Cirque du Soleil production of The Beatles Love at The Mirage in Las Vegas. Not only was I surprised at the re-mixing of some of the songs, but the talent of the performers. Absolutely death defining stunts, great music, and an even better story make it a show you can’t miss if you go to Las Vegas. One thing that did surprise me was that people who were there at the show seemed to be more into the performance than the music. I couldn’t help but bob my head stomp my feet to favorites like Get Back, I Am The Walrus, Octopus’s Garden, and Come Together. All said, they put together about 30 songs into this production and then put them on CD so we can always go back and enjoy the music from the show!

Modest Mouse‘s 2007 release We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sankis another regular album in my weekly rotation. I’d say I listen to it at least 5-6 times a week when I’m at work. Its great for just grooving when you’re busying writing some code for a project or even writing blog posts.

This is Modest Mouse’s fifth studio album and it definitely doesn’t disappoint. I’m quite particular to Dashboard and Florida on this album. You can’t help but bob your head or thump your hands on your desk when these songs are on. Little Motel is another good one towards the end of the album. I’d say for the most part you can listen to this one from start to finish without skipping any tracks. Their 2007 tour has come to a close, so let’s hope their back in the studio hard at work on some new material. Hopefully we’ll see them on tour sometime in 2008 or early 2009. I’ll be going if they come to the Boston area for sure.

Favorite Tracks

• Track 2 – Dashboard
• Track 3 – Fire It Up
• Track 4 – Florida
• Track 10 – Little Motel

I just read an interesting article over at Ars Technica entitled A brave new world: the music biz at the dawn of 2008. The information the author goes over isn’t really earth shattering in my opinion. Most people already see that the sales of music is moving faster and faster to the digital medium from the overpriced, and frankly outdated, compact disc. The music industry is losing money not because people download music for free, but because they’re buying only what they want via services like iTunes or eMusic. So people are buying their music, like I’d like to see in the cable television industry, “a la carte”. Why is this?

I’ll tell you why. Most mainstream albums were, and still are to a degree, made for the quick sale of a CD. Consumers hear that first “big single” on the radio or television and they go out and buy the album. They get home and listen to their favorite song first then try out the rest of the album. Guess what I think happens next? They might find 2 or 3 songs out of 10 or 12 that are good. Britney Spears comes to mind here. She sells albums with those catchy singles but do you ever hear anyone say how awesome any of the other tracks are? No.

So what does this mean? It means the recording industry needs to change gears. Let artists be creative. Let them record albums they want to record and you’ll get quality albums not just one or two catchy tunes. You can’t make a ton of money selling singles. For that fact, why do you think single albums are so expensive to begin with? You’ll make money selling albums. So make more quality albums and you’ll see more revenue. You see how “less known” bands such as Band Of Horsesand Rogue Waverecord a quality, complete album. They have to. That’s how they’ll sell their music. It’s not being played on the radio much, if at all, so that “hit singe” won’t do them any good to help them sell another 10 or 12 songs. The quality album that people talk about makes them their money, the way it should be.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Metallicaalbum. From what I read online, we were supposed to see some new stuff from the guys around the end of 2007, but now we’re out to September of 2008. They’ve dropped their long time producer, Bob Rock in favor of Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Danzig, etc.). This next album will be their 9th studio album, a follow up to the 2003 album St. Anger. Most die hard Metallica fans found St. Anger to be a disappointment. Personally, I didn’t care for it much but I’ll still listen to it from time to time.

This next album I’m hoping goes back to their roots that gave us Kill ‘Em All,Ride The Lightning,and Master Of Puppets. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like their later albums, but the earlier stuff just sounds more original to me. The latest releases sound overproduced (not so with St. Angerthough, which sounds really rough edged) and released to fall in line with more “modern” rock. My take on that doesn’t mean I think they’ve sold out, which Metallica has been accused of for years.

Anyway, here’s hoping the 5 year wait for a new album will be worth it. Don’t disappoint me fellas!

Band Of Horsesis probably one of my favorite band’s going right now. I was really disappointed that I couldn’t go to tonight’s show at The Paradise in Boston. Kyle will be there, so I’m he’ll get us some pictures of what’s sure to be a great show. Hopefully next time their in town, I’ll be able to go. Anyway, on to the music…

Cease To Begin,which is their latest album, was released last year. I like their first album Everything All The Time,but the new album just seems to flow better in my head. Definitely my favorite track is Detlef Schrempf. Gotta love that one. God knows how they came up with the name for it. Possibly the ex-NBA player? Who knows. Cease is definitely another one of those albums that just flows from the first track to the last. You can press play and enjoy and the next thing you know, the album is done. I love that!

Ford Motor Company used one of their songs, The Funeral, in a commercial for their Ford Edge cross over vehicle. Do you think they realized the name of it or just wanted to use something obscure?

Favorite Tracks

• Detlef Schrempf
• The Funeral
• Ode to LRC
• No One’s Gonna Love You