It was fourty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper was first aired and played.
While its never really gone out of style,
and its always guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
The album you've known for all these years
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Dream Theater's released a bootleg "video" for The Dark Eternal Night, a new song off their soon to be released album Systematic Chaos. Everything I've heard off this album rocks. It's their best album since Six Degrees or Scenes From A Memory. Anyway, here's the video courtesy of Dream Theater and You Tube...
Spinal Tap has decided to re-unite for Live Earth Concert. Marty DeBergi is back with a new online documentary which is approximately 15 minutes long.
Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.
This is a pretty cool video using album art from the past. It's amazing how many of these albums I own.
Well, Sunday night I went to see Journey and Def Leppard with Jenn and a group of friends (Todd, Monica, Eric, Krista and some neighbors of Todd & Monica.) Jeff Scott Soto was singing for Journey in replacement for Steve Augeri (the current lead singer), as Steve is suffering from a throat infection. If you've never heard Augeri sing, if you close your eyes, you would indeed think it was Steve Perry singing. Augeri was an excellent choice to take over the reigns.
Anyway, I was pretty excited to hear Soto sing for Journey. I've been a fan of Soto's since his early work with Yngwie Malmsteen (I love his vocals on I'll See The Light Tonight.) Overall Jeff did an excellent job, but they definitely seem to alter the set to match his vocals. My only disappointment was that he didn't even try to sing any of the songs Steve Perry sang in falsetto (Open Arms, Faithfully, Who's Crying Now.) Those were the songs that I thought might bring Jeff some trouble, but I wanted to hear him sing them, as I've never really heard Jeff attempt to sing anything in that style (not saying he hasn't done it, I've just never heard it if he has.)
To my surprise Deen Castronovo (the drummer) sang those three songs. While he doesn't have the impact of either Steve (but who really does,) I was really shocked out how well he sang those songs. I never had any idea Deen had those kind of pipes. I've always considered him a kick ass drummer, just never knew he could sing like that.
I was talking w/someone recently about guitar work and he brought about Flamenco style music. This immeditately made me remember Steve Stevens excellent Flamenco/Rock album called Flamenco A Go-Go.
This album is a really great intrumental album with lots of influences from around the world. A did a quick You Tube search and came across the video for Dementia. While this song is probably the most traditional sounding songs on the album, it's still a very tasteful piece.
For some reason I was in the mood to listen to the first Liquid Tension Experiment album today. Tony Levin is such a fabulous bass player. He really has such a unique and distinct sound—I just love the way he approaches the bass. The LTE albums are both great, but I prefer the first album.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know much about Tony, he's played with just about everyone under the sun—from John Lennon to King Crimson. He appeared on a majority of Peter Gabriel's albums as well.
Some of my work favorite by Levin is on the Bozzio Levin Stevens albums—which consist of Terry Bozzio, Steve Stevens and of course Tony Levin. I highly recommend getting these two albums:
I heard the new Van Halen single, It's About Time, on the radio this morning. All I can say is "Wow... That song really sucks..." It's got to be the worse song Van Halen's ever written. Not sure how a song like that gets released, let alone released as a single. Is Eddie's ego so strong that people were just afraid to tell him the song sucks? It's a real shame to hear a band that's put out some classic hard rock songs end up doing crap like this.
NOTE:As big of a fan I am of Extreme's work, I never heard the Van Halen album w/Cherone. I know Van Halen fans don't even consider that a VH. I suspect they'll think the same way towards this single.
I'm sitting here watching Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on DVD—it's one of those movies I love, even though it is completely campy. I remember seeing this as small child and loved it then too. Anyway, I figured I'd read some of the user reviews on the Amazon's web site—which is where I purchased the DVD. After reading through the reviews, I noticed a link the another flick from the past I loved, The Pirate Movie starring Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins. Realize, I was under the age of 10 when I saw all these movies for the first time. I think these movies both struck home with me as a kid because of my love of music—and the fact that I thought Kristy McNichol was hot.
Anyway, I was prompted to google the net for the phrase "'the pirate movie' dvd" and came across a really cool site The 80's Movie Rewind which is a site completely geared towards movies released in the 80s. There's lost of really indepth information on each site and it includes a search engine to try to find the films on DVD. Just figured I'd share the link. Here are some of my favorite more obscure flicks from the 80s:
SharingTheGroove.org is site dedicated to sharing bootleg music and video. I found this site after reading through the Spock's Beard Forums. Someone pointed out a 2 VCD set available of Spock's Beards performance at ProgFest '97. You need to register to get access to the forums.
Ernie Ball has a cool little section on their website dedicated for John Petrucci and Dream Theater. They've got a couple of audio clips and a cool video clip of Petrucci talking about Ernie Ball's new line of strings "Not Even Slinky."
Budokan, Japan setlist (Filmed for DVD release)
Budokan, Japan 4/26/04 (Filmed for DVD release)
band history video (intro tape)
As I Am
This Dying Soul
Beyond This Life
Hollow Years
War Inside My Head/
The Test That Stumped Them All
Endless Sacrifice
Instrumedley
Trial Of Tears
~~~intermission~~~
New Millennium
piano solo
Only A Matter Of Time
Goodnight Kiss/
Solitary Shell
Stream of Consciousness
Disappear
Pull Me Under
~~~encore~~~
In The Name Of God
"Live In Tokyo / 5 Years In A LIVEtime" DVD release!
Finally, after years of waiting, the first two Dream Theater Home Videos will be re-issued together on DVD. "Dream Theater - Images And Words: Live In Tokyo / 5 Years In A LIVEtime" will be released on June 22nd, 2004. More details coming soon.
Nick D'Virgilio gave an update over at the Spock's Beard website. They're optimistic that the new album will be ready for an October/November release! Also, it appears Dave Meros will not be playing French Horn on the new album—instead their bringing in a studio musician. Make sure to read his update on why they decided to hire a "real" French Hornist. :)
Ugh! Beatallica makes me forever happy that Metallica has never tried to cover The Beatles. It's pretty funny to listen to though, the guy defintely has the "Hetfield" vocal sound down.