I don’t know what this thing is, but I’m pretty sure it will be the end of us. (via Large Hadron Collider nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com)
August22008
I don’t know what this thing is, but I’m pretty sure it will be the end of us. (via Large Hadron Collider nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com)
I don’t know what this thing is, but I’m pretty sure it will be the end of us. (via Large Hadron Collider nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com)
July312008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Don’t Do It by The Band.
9PM
I just finished reading This Wheel’s on Fire, which is the biography of Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band. It is a good book, but not worth reading unless you like The Band or that era of music. Since I read so you don’t have to, here are the 10 most interesting tidbits from the book.
(1) During live performances, guitarist Robbie Robertson would sing into a turned off microphone. Robertson was not a strong singer, but pretended to sing backup for appearances. A planned live record was scrapped when Robertson mic was accidently left on during recording.
(2) Robertson comes off as a bit of an egomaniac who screwed his bandmates out of money and broke up The Band prematurely due to his desire to work in the movies.
(3) Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel all sang lead vocals on various songs. But all the members of The Band consider Manuel to be the true lead singer, and he is revered as one of the best rock vocalists to have ever lived.
(4) Organ player Garth Hudson was the only member of The Band who could read sheet music and is credited with giving The Band its orchestral sound. He was also a complete weirdo.
(5) Despite points 4 and 5, Manuel and Hudson get little screen time in The Last Waltz. Not coincidentally, the movie was edited by director Martin Scorcesce and Robertson jointly. After the movie was filmed the two broke up with their respective wives and moved into together, spending cocaine filled days editing the movie in blacked out rooms.
(6) A cocaine booger was hanging from Neil Young’s noise as he sings Helpless during The Last Waltz. It was digitially edited out of the film.
(7) Eric Clapton disbanded Cream after hearing The Band’s first album, Music from the Big Pank. He was so blown away by the album that he had a musical breakdown and decided to change direction.
(8) The Band played as a backup band for eight years for Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan before making their first real album. They were renowned as the best live band in the country during that time. They were the backing band during the tours where Dylan went electric.
(9) The Band was entirely non-political, and seemed to have few interests beyond playing music. And women and drugs.
(10) Neil Diamond was invited to play at the Last Waltz by Robbie Robertson over the objections of other band members. According to Helm, his set put people to sleep and other guests wondered rudely why he was there.
July302008
50 Most Beautiful People on The Hill
I was robbed.
July272008
The clash & Dave Grohl & Bruce Springsteen - London calling (via Safarita79)
July262008
Prince can play guitar. Fast forward to around 3:30 to see him solo on My Guitar Gently Weeps.
9PM
The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling Stone
I’m not sure what I think of this list yet. Leaning towards it sucks.
1PM
Lightweight Audio Playing Goodness
I recently got set up to get my work voicemail emailed to me as a wav file. I love it. The only hitch is that iTunes was set up as my default audio player, meaning when I opened the files from email I had to wait 5 seconds or so for the iTunes to load. Winamp seems to have become progressively more bloated over time and, while the new version loads faster than iTunes, it still takes too long. Anyway, try Billy. It has absolutely no features, but is lightening fast. It is perfect.
July242008
Sounds like Paul Westerberg has been hanging out in the basement again. Which means, thankfully, he finally went back to work.
After another four-year hiatus partially brought on by a screwdriver-to-hand injury two years ago, the Replacements frontman quietly issued a new album this past weekend. He’s not really billing it as an album, though. Instead, it’s being sold as a single-track download for 49 cents via his website (via Amazon.com).
What’s more, there are no song titles on it, no record label behind it and no explanation. Just a hand-scrawled CD cover with the words, “49:00 … of Your Time/Life.” More weirdness: It actually clocks in at 43:55 and comes up as “Bling Bling” by Mac Carter if you load it into your iTunes.
July222008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
A little Pixies to show off the new widget at the bottom of the page. Hey.
July202008
I was reading a story about the greatest guitarists and one name that I had not heard before was Terry Kath from the band Chicago. He had one of the strangest deaths I’ve ever heard of.
Around 5 p.m., late afternoon of January 23, 1978, after a party at roadie Don Johnson’s home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, Kath — being a gun enthusiast — took a .38 revolver and put it to his head, pulling the trigger several times on the empty chambers. Picking up a semiautomatic 9mm pistol, Kath put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger, infamously saying, “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” (After showing the empty magazine to his friend.) However, one bullet remained in the chamber, killing him instantly — a week shy of his 32nd birthday. The circumstances of his death gave him the dubious distinction of being one of the first celebrities to be nominated for a Darwin Award.[5]