It's like Poetry 2

So another song that the lyrics make me chuckle

From the album "Descent into the Valley of..." by The Planet Smashers I caught these guys earlier in the year playing with The Royals and they were pretty sweet. It's not the BEST song on the album (which is "the hippopotamus") but it's a good one.

Anyway the song is called "I'm ok if you want to Party" and I can't think of the number of times I've felt like this

Out in the streets the night is winding down
You say "it's ok buddy, we'll figure something out now".
I'm feeling content. I could call it and be done
Cause it's past last and we just finished our last round

But you just smile and wave away my concern
"We can't give up, or else we'll never learn"
So tonight must go on, on and on!

I'm ok if you want to party
We'll stay awake all night
Just like those kids in college
I'm ok if you want to party
We'll stay awake all night
Led by our beerful knowledge

It's well past 5 and this party is slowing down,
You say "it's ok buddy, I've got a plan for later on".
Later on? Really? There's still a later on?
Cause I was gonna grab a cab and get myself out of town

But you just smile and wave away my concern
"We can't give up, or else we'll never learn"
So tonight must go on, on and on!

I'm ok if you want to party
We'll stay awake all night
Just like those kids in college
I'm ok if you want to party
We'll stay awake all night
Led by our beerful knowledge

 I'm pretty sure we've all had nights like this
Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

I'm Tom

So there was a slight unfortunate font/typo issue for our last song at Rhys' karaoke leg of his farewell...
Torn by Natalie Imbruglia... Or as we read/sung it "Tom"

It was a bit of a giggle, and changes the vibe of the song a little... as seen below (giggles in bold)

I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm
He came around and he was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry
Well you couldn't be that man I adored
You don't seem to know
Or seem to care what your heart is for
Well I don't know him anymore
There's nothing where he used to lie
My conversation has run dry
That's what's going on
Nothing's fine I'm Tom

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake
And I can see
The perfect sky is torn
You're a little late
I'm already Tom

So I guess the fortune teller's right
I should have seen just what was there
And not some holy light
But you crawled beneath my veins
And now I don't care
I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things
That I can't touch I'm Tom

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake
And I can see
The perfect sky is torn
You're a little late
I'm already Tom

Tom

There's nothing where he used to lie
My inspiration has run dry
That's what's going on
Nothing's right I'm Tom

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake
And I can see
The perfect sky is Tom (???)

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I'm ashamed
Bound and broken on the floor
You're a little late
I'm already Tom

Tom

Apparently being Tom is a bit tough...

Oh well, I had a giggle

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

File Sharing... or Big Record Labels should Shove it up their Ass

This is just a quick one... years after the issue has been debated to death but I was thinking about it last night...

I fail to see how music sharing on the interwebs is going to kill the music industry. Now I'm not the most piratical file sharer ever (to be honest I can't work the damn programs) but I've got a (i'd imagine) single digit percentage of songs on my ipod that have been given to me by friends and I don't know their sources. All the stuff I've loaded up has either come from cds I've bought (the majority), stuff I've downloaded legit (things like unearthed rock).
That being said the biggest issue I have with file sharing is I'm an absolute label nazi when it comes to my ipod... everything needs as much song title, track number, artist, star rating, date, artwork and whatever other info I can get (artist and song are ESSENTIAL however and I will agonise over star ratings). This sort of data nazi-ing is not compatible with file sharing shit where people fill out data incompletely (if at all) or even worse put the wrong info on there...

But that's an aside, basically last night I was reflecting on the death of the music industry due to piracy (apparently it's the end of the world)... and that's pretty bullshit... There will always be music, it's not going to go away. The kids I was watching last night (The Royals and Kujo Kings go and listen to them/see them play) are not going to stop playing music any time soon... And to be honest they would bust their ass as much for a crowd of 10-20 mates as a packed out soulless venue. File sharing won't affect that in the slightest... if anything all the digital music crap probably helps... I've lost track the number of people I've linked to their websites and stuff (it's "everyone" I think).
As many/some/a couple/that one guy will know one of my favourite bands is (was? they've split now) Tsunami Bomb and their public policy was "we don't care about file sharing, send our stuff to everyone... if it makes them hear us/come to our shows we're happy... plus we make no money from cds, just our merch" (they had shitty label issues)

As far as I can tell, filesharing and whatnot won't affect people making music, they're not going to ever stop... But it might make it harder for record labels to make big money with those 5 bands everyone is told to like by the radio. That's not a bad thing... less shitty mass produced music by the marketing department, less insane profits for a company/5 bands and a wider spectrum of stuff getting played... None of that is bad...

And to be honest, if I hear a song online I like the sound of I will go see that band live (if I can) and more often than not I'll then buy their cds and see them again (and again and again)... That's how i got into Tsunami Bomb, The Lillingtons, Teenage Bottlerocket, Action Design and more... Although I did ban myself from buying tshirts a few years ago... So they're better off than they would've been trying to get anyone uploading music for free executed...

So in summary, Mass Produced big label stuff is shit and bad for the soul, if you hear a good band share their stuff with your friends and then go pay the $10 and see them play live at a pub... you'll have more fun than anything you will see from row XX52c at the fucking entertainment centre...

I think that's enough ranting

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

Cover Versions and why ska music DOESN'T suck

So faffing around with itunes I noticed that my covers playlist is now over 140 songs long and pretty well reflects my tastes given it is all ska, ska punk, pop punk and punk with a smattering of "other". And it appears the metal, punk and ska are pretty well the three biggest culprits when it comes to covers... At least in the covers I know. The Short Fast Loud cover show is my favourite of the year.

Before I get deeper into this post time to address the most commonly touted opinion I get from people after they hear I like ska (after "what is ska?") is "Ska sucks, Propagandhi said so"... now the first counter I've seen to this arguement is "Ska bands never make any money compared to most other bands due to their size" or "of course they're in it for the money, all bands are". But I'm much prouder of my counter arguement which is simply, "yes believe everything you hear unquestioningly and let someone else make up your mind for you... that's clearly the central message that Propagandhi are trying to get across in their songs"

Anyway, cover versions are good so I thought I'd post some here... So I thought I'd post some of my favs here, but that was harder than it seems given I couldn't work out and easy way to upload the songs here for people to see. So there will be just a list with links to youtube vids if I can find them.
(incidentally this is the default video I link to when I got to youtube... semi related)

So here's not the exhaustive list of covers I have, just the more amusing ones (and I'm not bothering with any of the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes or Reel Big Fish stuff... that would make the list far to long)

• Baby One More Time- August Burns Red
  
• Hazy Shade of Winter- Bodyjar (I have the live version though)
  
• Black Betty- Spiderbait
• Baby Got Back- Throwdown
• Men in Black- Forever the Sickest Kids
• I Kissed A Girl- Machine Gun Fellatio
• Gummi Bears- The Suburban Legends
• Fight for Your Right- The Deadwalk
• Surf City- The Ramones

plus given the you tube searching I did, I found a bunch of other covers on there

• The Xmen Cartoon Theme (this was always begging to be covered)
• Spiderman- The Ramones (I couldn't miss this one)
• TMNT Cartoon (surprised this isn't covered more)
• Tetris (which was interestingly a copy of a Russian tune)
• James Bond Theme- The Skatalites
• YMCA- Skandalous
• Ghostbusters (Of course)
• The Roadrunner show (The theme is actually a country song
• I hate Spongebob but there are a distressing number of bands covering that theme
• The Less than Jake TV covers album (that I don't have) also needs a mention...

Oh well, punk/ska is good and so are covers

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

Ninja Turtles, Disney Rip Offs and etc

Went to the the Royals last night, good show as normal... They did a cover of the Lion King soundtrack (much to the crowd's delight) and I've got to say I think I was born without the "disney" gene... Fantasia is kinda cool... everything else coming out of there is shit... Preachy, fluffy storeies stolen from fairy tales... The Lion King isn't original either... it's essentially just hamlet. Walt Disney was a massive dick and any studio that sues preschools for painting their characters on the walls is just asking for contempt.
True the Warner Bros where dicks too, but at least their cartoons were good... And Chuck Jones was a freaking genius.

Anyway, below is a XKCD I found years ago that was really kick ass and we where talking about last night.


This diagram is far to true... I did a ninja turtle stury at the British art museum when I was 18 and found all but donatello stuff, same as my look seeing at the Lourve and in Italy... What the hell did the Renaissance Donatello even do... I think he was an architect/sculpture, he definitely didn't paint or make anything "famous" (compared to Dave and Ms Lisa).

ANYWAY

So I had my standard ninja turtles discussion AGAIN last night... It was something I noticed back in High School and has held true from then on... The ninja turtle you liked when you where 8-9 years old is still the one that you think is the best. If anything your views have hardened to the point you're willing to fight to the death over your favourite Turtle.

So to end matters here is the official turtle ranking system
1) Donatello- The best, hands down... One of the Funny turtles (win), Rides a single kick skateboard in the original movie (win), smarter than the others (win), voiced by Corey Feldman (win), half of the best line in the movie "You're a Claustrophobic!" "You want a fist in the mouth? I've never even looked at another guy" and not to mention the best character in any of the computer games based on his range... Good range and bad clipping meant that in the amiga game Donatello could actually attack THROUGH THE FLOOR OF THE STORY ABOVE... killing everyone before he even got there


2) Michelangelo- One of the funny ones (win) and clearly the "coolest" but definitely trying a little to hard... Bit of a dumbass too, but can be single handedly blamed for the nunchuck popularity that still exists in the world today...

3) Raphael- Tries so hard it hurts, one of the unfunny turtles, constantly running off alone to get the shit kicked out of himself and then be used to trap the others. Crap at being in the team and an all round annoying guy... Worst choice in any of the computer games due to having absolutely no range too. Oh and he got beaten up by Casey Jones in the movie...

4) Leonardo- Unfunny and douchey but whilst better than Raphael in most respects Leonardo comes last for two reasons. One as a leader he spends his whole time waiting for orders/instructions rather than leading and Two he had the most deadly weapon of the lot (with the 2nd best range in the games) and he spends his whole time not being allowed to use it. So not only does he effectively have no weapon, he doesn't even use his hands because they're occupied holding a sword he's not allowed to use... plus he's kinda a pussy


I really did like the amiga 500 game if you hadn't noticed... Interestingly the pics I found are for the UK version, you can tell because they're the hero turtles not the ninja turtles...


Oh well

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt