Hmmm. It’s been a busy month, sort of. Busier week too. At least, I’ve been up to plenty; most importantly, thinking of what to say in this Band of the Month post.

A lot of people will stutter for a while, and flip-flop on the subject for a while, but if you were to ask me what my favourite band is, I’d immediately tell you that it’s Queen. I listen to a couple bands more often, but I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Queen.

You may wonder why if Queen is my favourite band, I haven’t featured them as the BotM until now. Because, quite frankly, I wanted to save them for a special occasion. And I think that special occasion took place just a couple months ago, though I didn’t really realize it until late August. See, I’ve always liked Queen (I have all their original releases, all their live albums, and most hits compilations), but I’ve always fallen back on their more popular content, like “Somebody To Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. I had listened to all their albums, and it’s easy to see that their music changed a lot over time, which is officially a good thing, but I’d always go back to A Night At The Opera or A Kind Of Magic, never really listening to the fist couple albums. Big mistake.

See, my special occasion here is that I think my taste in music has finally grown up. Lately I’ve been eschewing the later albums for the first two, which I’ve come to see as the best of them all. Songs like “Liar”, “March of the Black Queen” and “The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke” now far outclass the likes of “Somebody to Love” and “Play The Game” in my opinion. I mean, I still enjoy the vast majority of Queen’s work, but the early stuff is really reacting with me lately. I used to think fantasy had no business in rock, but now I’ve come to accept it. Perhaps even like it. An increase in Led Zeppelin intake may be behind this change in opinion.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, Queen died with Freddie Mercury. Don’t get me wrong, Brian and Roger still rock on, and I guess Paul Rodgers is a pretty good singer, but it’s not the same. I know a lot of bands change up members all the time, but Queen was Queen for over 35 years, and without the original members, they might as well just be a different band. The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert kicked ass all over the place, but I’m a crotchety old man who hates change. So as much as I enjoy the band, that fandom lives only in memories and dusty vinyl records.

So those are the couple things I wanted to touch on. If it seems really disjointed and crappy, that’s because I’m a poor writer. But I got my ideas across, and that’s what I came here to do, whether they came across sloppy or not. Now go download the Queen discography. It’ll take like a week because it seems like they release the same hits album under a different title every couple months (the songs are also slightly rearranged), but it’ll be worth it. Or maybe just download the first album and then one hits disc, just so you can see the huge difference in musical style.

Tomorrow: Battling addiction!

Now, I know that in the spirit of choosing a band I like for each Band of the Month feature, I generally end up recommending the band at the end. I guess this time it’s a bit different. I want to invest all my energies into recommending the Pink Spiders right now, before I type anything else. Seriously. Here’s their MySpace page, go there and listen to “Easy Way Out” and tell me you didn’t get up and start air guitaring like the world was going to end. But yeah. Now go out and buy Teenage Graffiti because it’s like the single best album ever… released in 2006. It’s amazing though.

The first time the Spiders and I came in contact was on a regular ol’ day. It was like a week before (the now totally lame) Pandora started denying their service to Canadians. I was just listening to it in the background, and suddenly “Easy Way Out” came on and I practically jumped on the computer desk wailing on my air guitar and singing along even though I had no idea what the words were.

I may be exaggerating a bit, but that’s of little importance.

The thing to note is that right then and there I knew I had to listen to more of The Pink Spiders, and wasn’t I pleasantly surprised to find that they were good for more than one balls-to-the-wall rockout song. Their eponymous first album was easy enough to get my hands on, and I wasn’t going to complain about it, because it’s a pretty slick package. Plenty of great songs, mostly powerpop with some great rock ‘n’ roll influence, and most of them are good driving songs too. Their second album, Teenage Graffiti was a lot harder to secure, and when I did notice it, I was hesitant to pay the asking price because a third of the disc is recycled from the first album. Big mistake. All the retreads are cleaned up and rerecorded, and sound even better than ever. The fresh songs are completely kickass too. Most notable are “Adalae” which I want to describe as vaudevillian, even though I’m not sure if it’s the right word to use, and “Hey Jane” which is right near the top of my list of greatest ballads ever.

But seriously. I cannot see how anyone couldn’t like this band. The songs are just so damn catchy, and practically demand that you sing along. You’ve gotta be pretty closed off to not be able to enjoy what is pure ecstacy condensed into musical form. Again with the exaggerating, but I really want to sell this band, man! If even one presons starts listening to the Pink Spiders because I told them to, then the world will be a better place.