Category: BOTM

Again, I’ve been really slacking on my Band of the Month duties. Maybe that means it’s time to give up the ghost? I dunno. I know nobody reads these, but I feel I must continue down this road I’m on, if only for the sake of not being a quitter. Only time will tell what I choose to do with the feature, but today, we discuss (or, I discuss) Paramore.

Paramore is another one of those chick-fronted bands that my friends would poke me about and ask why exactly they’re on my iPod, much like Damone before them. Only, Paramore, while perfectly rock-tastic, is not quite as loud as Damone. Otherwise, the bands are pretty similar. The only difference is that Paramore has currently gotten more exposure through video games, being featured in NHL ’09 and having DLC for Rock Band. I’d actually heard “Misery Business” a couple times because my brothers play the former game to no end, but never really though twice about it. But then “Crushcrushcrush” showed up as a downloadable track on the XBL Marketplace, and after playing the song, I immediately went searching for more. (On a side note, apparently they have a song on the soundtrack to the console versions of The Sims 2 as well. I guess someone at EA really likes them.)

So that’s basically how it happened. “Crushcrushcrush” remains my favourite song from the band, but I’m sort of considering “For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic” as a replacement for that title. The rest of Riot! is good too, but I’m mostly in it for the harder, faster songs. I’ve always been a sucker for slow songs, but Paramore’s don’t really do anything for me. Well, not enough to make them really notable anyway. Though “Fences” really stands out form the rest of the album, as it’s got a sound all to itself. I want to describe it, but really haven’t the word/s to do so with. Unfortunately, at this point I still haven’t been able to wrangle a copy of their debut album, but I’m thinking I should probably download it first, just in case. I’m always a little wary of downloading previous work from bands I’m only mostly into. Take Rise Against, for example. The Sufferer and the Witness is one of my favourite albums of all time, but their earlier stuff doesn’t agree with me quite as well.

I would sill recommend checking out Paramore though, if even only for the singles. They’re one of those few bands whose singles actually are their best work. I’ve embedded a video up there. It’s a fan-made video for “Fences”, as you may have surmised. It was just easier than trying to find the song itself somewhere. And that’s about all I’ve got to say about that. Their Last.fm page has a bunch more videos and song previews, so check that out if you’re interested. The link is below, as well as the usual others.

Paramore’s official website

Paramore’s Last.fm page

Buy Riot!

Okay okay, I know nobody reads these, so it doesn’t matter that I’m posting it more than halfway through the month, but here’s March’s Band of the Month post anyway. This month I’d like to pay my respects to the Scorpions.

Obviously, everyone’s pretty familiar with at least the band’s signature song. I mean, who hasn’t ever heard “Rock you Like A Hurricane”? Exactly. Everyone on Earth, whether they like it or not, knows at least that song. And yeah, that’s great and all, but really, I just wanted to point out just how much I’m enjoying their new album, Humanity: Hour 1. It’s metal-tastic. It’s not really perfect, but it’s damn well close.

I could go on and on about exactly why I like the album, which lyrics I find the most poignant, what solos I like the best, but since nobody cares anyway, I’ll just call that it. If you want to know more, you know how to use the internet.

Time for a very quick Band of the Month post. Why quick? Because I really can’t come up with a band that I want to yap about but haven’t covered in the past. Maybe I’ll have to start renaming bands? Nah. I’ll just have to go outside my favourites, I guess.

Anyway, this month is a total cop-out. I’ve selected the Matthew Good Band as BotM for February, but I already did pretty good coverage of them back in October of oh-five when I gave Matthew Good the title. It’s understandable then that there isn’t much else to elaborate on.

I guess if there’s anything to say that I haven’t said on that page or in the (poorly-kept) CD archive, it’s that the MGB was the first band I really got into. Van Halen was the first rock band that I ever listened to by choice, but MGB completely enraptured me. Good’s solo career continues to keep me interested, and I’ve listened to his latest release, Hospital Music, no less than 30 times since I bought it. What can I say? He’s a frickin’ genius.

That’s really all I’ve got to say today. And hey, it’s 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Give me a break. I should have been asleep like forever ago.

matthewgood.org

Wikipedia entry on Matthew Good Band

Buy Beautiful Midnight

Buy The Audio of Being

Whoo. I don’t want to jinx it, but 2008 has already been way better than 2007 ever was. It’s got a long way to go to keep that title, but considering all the horrible crap I had to suffer through last year, it shouldn’t be too hard. Oh, and we finally get Brawl, so 2008 FTW.

Complainey pants aside, it’s a new month, and that means it’s time for me to blab on shortly about a band that I like. We’ll start 2008 off right, with a band that is made up of neither cartoon characters nor 50-plus-year-olds. That band is Rise Against, and honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about them so this should be short.

I’d heard of the band a couple years ago when The Tall One started listening to them, but never really caught on myself. It wasn’t until late last year when Guitar Hero 3 was released, that I decided to look more into the band. Their song “Prayer of the Refugee” appears as a bonus track in GH3, and it quickly became one of my favourites to play, despite some tricky chords. The next step was obviously to go and check out some of their other music, and that was a realy good idea. I downloaded their most recent CD, The Sufferer and the Witness and I can’t think of any other word to describe it than “exemplary”. It’s truly a great CD; all the songs are great, and there’s plenty of distinction between each. The lyrics are inspired and paint vivid pictures, and some of them might even make you think. It’s great stuff, and I have since bought a legitimate copy. Because that’s what people do when they like things.

I guess one of the things that really drew me into Rise Against is that they remind me of Story of the Year. SotY struck me right away, and they remain one of my favourite bands (anxious for that third album), and I guess that the similar styles and themes between the two bands kind of gives Rise Against an extra push towards my favour. The song “Bricks” actually reminds me a lot of Bad Religion too, and I like to believe that’s a pretty high compliment. It’s short but it’s pretty awesome.

That about all I have to say. It’s not the end though! I’ve taken the liberty of putting an MP3 here for you to download and enjoy. It’s called “The Approaching Curve” and it stands out from the rest of the tracks on The Sufferer and the Witness because the “verses” are all spoken. It’s a pretty cool song, one of those ones that really encourages you to pay attention to the lyrics. Good stuff.

Official Rise Against website

Wikipedia entry on Rise Against

Buy The Sufferer and the Witness

I think I’ll just let a video do the talking for this one.

But seriously. I’m not a huge metal fan, but I fell for DragonForce real fast-like. In sharp contrast to most fans’ opinions, I think I like the vocals the best. The lyrics -at least thematically- are more or less the same in every song, but I just totally love to sing along to DragonForce more than any other band. Try them out.

Hey hey hey. Band of the Month time. And this month’s band is a little group called Letterkills. I actually wrote a reivew of their CD, The Bridge, almost two years ago now, so maybe check that out for more info on that CD. It’s also got a small paragraph detailing how I started listening to the band, so I guess I don’t need to repeat that story here either…

Ummm… That’s really their only CD, so there isn’t much more to say. They don’t seem to have a real website, and their MySpace just has songs from The Bridge. Wow. Guess I’m done here then. Recommendation is clearly implied by the fact that they’re the Band of the Month.

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.