Band of the Month – April 2005

I would’ve posted this BotM a little sooner, but I just couldn’t decide who I’d give the spotlight to this month. There are a lot of bands nominated for the spot, but truth be told, I hate reviewing bands when I don’t know much of their material (ex: Jimmy Eat World, Boston), and that’s a problem a good two thirds of the eligible bands had going for them. It was a conundrum for the ages. Then it hit me. Tesla.

I’ve been listening to Tesla for, well I dunno exactly how long, but I can assume it’s been at least two years. It all started with what is still my favourite Tesla song: “Love Song”. I can’t remember for the life of me where I heard it, but when I did, I immediately looked into the band, and was delighted, as Tesla is a perfect representation of why I love rock ‘n’ roll. There are very few bands that I like enough to make it my life’s mission to search out every album, and Tesla is one of them. The other ones being Queen, Rammstein, Firehouse and HIM. The only problem is that all the old Tesla CDs are extinct around my area, so I’m going as far as the internet to find theses babies. But enough about that, how’s the music?

I’ve not heard their first album, Mechanical Resonance, but I do know a couple songs from it, including “Cumin’ Atcha Live”, “Rock Me To The Top” and “Modern Day Cowboy” – all which rock very hard. I hear the rest of the ablum is quite solid as well, and I’m more than willing to assume these rumours are true.

The second album is easily their most known and loved (at least that’s what I hear), and with good reason. The Great Radio Controversy is one of the greatest CDs I’ve ever heard, and it has the rock to back up the rep. Every song on this CD is awesome. “Hang Tough”, “Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out)”, “The Way It Is” and “Party’s Over” may stand a little above teh rest, but they’re all great listening. Oh, and let’s not forget “Love Song”. If you know one Tesla song, it’s probably “Love Song”.

I’ve not listened to Five Man Acoustical Jam, but according to word of mouth, it was a pretty huge thing, starting up a gigantic trend of “unplugged” music. Live rock ‘n’ roll performances are always great. There is no better live show than a good rock ‘n’ roll show.

I like Psychotic Supper. It’s a solid effort, but doesn’t please on every front. I mean, “Edison’s Medicine” and “Don’t De=Rock Me” are stellar songs, and the rest is pretty good too, but it just doesn’t quite match up to the two other CDs I know (The Great Radio Controversy and Into The Now). Not to say it isn’t excellent. That’s not the case at all. It just seems to be a little less… focused. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I’m sure if you listened to it, you’d understand.

Next up is Bust A Nut. I can’t say I’ve heard any songs from it, but with a title like that, it’s got to be good. Then came Time’s Makin’ Changes which is their “best of” album. So obviously that kicks some ass. And then there’s Replugged Live which is the live hits album. Once again, Tesla + live + best songs = melted faces. It’s elementary.

Finally, we come to the most recent album, released just last year, Into The Now. Some serious rock shit goin’ down here. Oh boy does this CD rock. Title track “Into The Now” sets the stage for another excellent offering from Tesla. And then there are even better songs like “Heaven Nine Eleven”, “Got No Glory”, and “Recognize”. Ending with a great new slow song “Only You”, this shows that even though it’s been ten years since Tesla recorded an album, they’ve still got it, plus some new tricks. It’s the only Tesla CD currenty available on my immediate market, so it’s the only one I legitimately own, and it’s currently the pride of my collection. I’ve bought at least 4 other CDs between now and when I got “Into The Now”, and it still manages to find its way back into my player.

Final word: if you like rock at all, you’d do well to score yourself some Tesla. If nothing else, just download “Love Song”, I can’t imagine how anybody could not like that song. Or you could hit the link on the sidebar and download some clips from the official site. Either way, highly recommended. Boy, that review was awfully redundant. I guess they’ve grown to kinda be that way though, so deal with it. I’m gonna stick to this BotM thing for at least a year. If I find it gets to be too the same every month, I’ll probably just cut out the review part.

A close shave

I promised you it would be done by today, and it is. The new article has transformed and rolled out. And my oh my, I have so much more to go over in the next week, it’s not funny. Three video game reviews, one movie review, and a DVD review. Whether these will be in blog review style or mini-review style is yet to be determined, but I’m gonna try to get at least one in as a mini-review. That section’s been neglected for way too long. What, a year now? In any case, there is going to be a lot to check back for over the next little while, so make sure you visit often! But that’s all I’m going to say for today, as you’ve got a reasonably long article to sift through. Go read that, and I’ll catch you on the flip side.

Kaaaatamari Damasheeeee!~

Here’s the sitch: I’ve been slacking, and my weekend is totally booked, so the new article might not make it up until next week. I’m gonna do my best to have it done for Sunday night, but a man can only do so much with a small amount of time. It will be done before month-end though. That, I can assure you.

In the meanwhilst, there’s a new Steve article up. I don’t necessarily agree with it, and posting it might comprimise my integrity or some crap like that, but I barely know what integrity is, so screw it.

I know there was something more… Oh yeah! I watched “Open Water” the other day. It kinda blew. Though I only really watched it cause I heard there were lots of boobies. You can go over to X-E and skim through the blog to find Matt’s short review of it. I don’t care enough about it to even start.

I’ve been reading some of the classic The Sneeze, and I swear that Steven is the most hilarious man ever. Plug plug plug. I’ve been giving out lots of links lately, it seems.

Oh yes, and there’s one last thing. Bear with me for a second here. OMG!!11!!1 DS online stuffs! And Katamari Damacy DS!! Imessage board far too much…

😀 …Katamari…

Bugged out: Act 3

Twice now, my PC has fucked up while I’ve been typing out this post. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, because the error screen is French techno-babble. I barely understand English techno-babble. So here’s the contents of today’s post, summed up very concisely because I’m annoyed at typing it for the third time.

-No article yet. New one this week sometime.

–Thing Feet

-See Alfie

-I’m pissed cause nobody’s got this yet. Release was the 16th. Get cracking, assholes.

-Nedstat says people still find me from Google. Score.

-Steven of The Sneeze just sold burnt popcorn for about $43 US.

–Musashi pwnz j00.

Everything is super when you’re gay

But I don’t have a homosexual bone in my body, so everything is most definitely not super. The worst thing ever happened today. They hired a new storefront guy. Being the only man who worked storefront was my thing, and now it’s gone. Now I have nothing. I haven’t met the guy yet, but I don’t like him already. He’s going to seriously cramp my style. Everyone knew I loved being the only guy on storefront. I made it clear more than once. I guess now I’m going to have to be more sociable with my girls if I’m to stop him from getting all my attention.

On the upside, I cracked up pretty much the whole store with my antics today. And would you guess which one single person didn’t bear witness to my hilarity? But it’s always worked out that way for me. No matter what the situation, it always turns out that the party I’m out to impress or entertain either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice.

Final note for today, I finished Silent Hill 3, and boy did it get effed up fast once you actually get to Silent Hill. I’m just dying waiting for tomorrow evening so I can start SH4. The intro scares the crap out of me, so the game itself has gotta be awesome, right?

Prolonged dumpage

This one here’s kind of a follow-up to yesterday’s post. Some continuation, some new thoughts, it’s all good. Unless you have no interest at all in what I think about.

I was out all day, and again took the liberty of playing my DS all over the place. Today I attracted the attention of no less than three people, and on a broad range of ages too. I’m starting to feel like the Nintendo DS version of that dude from the Wendy’s commercials. I’mma have to get out more, and make sure I get selling those DS units. Maybe somewhere along the way, I’ll find a friend who will play with me. Maybe I’ll be able to beat a human opponent at Madden. Oh yeah, I bought that. I have to say, I made the right decision. Not only does it interest more casual gamers, but I’m quite enjoying it as well. I really needed something different, and football has answered my call.

My next article will not be so much an article, but something akin to this, should I ever figure out how to do it. After looking at the source, I could probably put it together, but it’ll take a long damn time. Possibly all week, or longer, depending on how ambitious I feel. Or maybe I’ll just rush it and not mind it looking like crap. And that’s all you’re getting for now.

I also picked up The Urbz for DS, under my brother’s counsel. He was right. I really like the game. The only problem is that it uses both the face buttons and the touch screen, so you either fumble between stylus and thumb or just use your finger on the touch screen. The game doesn’t really call for extremely precise pointing, so the latter is acceptable, but after being stylus-trained by WarioWare and Feel the Magic, it feels kind of odd not to use it. Anyhow, it’s a really good game. I’m kind of upset I didn’t know this earlier.

I finally found a Tesla CD! Thank you, Music World! I mean, it’s the newest one, which is excellent, but I really wanted The Great Radio Controversy. Still no show from Firehouse though. I did pick up Foreigner’s The Very Best and Beyond, which is also great, so I’m not too disappointed.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is no longer available anywhere. I’ve looked through around six electronics stores, three gaming stores and two trade-in stores, but nothing. I’ve found Sons of Liberty, and even The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2, but no Substance. So here’s the deal. You find it anywhere, you pick it up and bring it and the recepit to me. I’ll pay you the cost, plus a $15 bounty. The same goes for the Evil Dead 2 DVD. I’ve found Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, but no Evil Dead 2. Maybe I’ll put up a bounty chart of things I want but cannot find, and cannot be arsed to buy online.

I found the first season Corner Gas DVD today. I can’t recall exactly why I didn’t buy it on sight. As I said yesterday, I love the show. Possibly even more than Futurama, and I have all the Futurama DVD sets. Mmm, I love material posessions.

I can’t eat 40 timbits without getting sick. I’m a sham of a man.

The problem with me constantly buying CDs (aside from the rapidly depleting storage space) is that I’m never going to get around to doing that article on my CD colleciton. Maybe it’ll have to go under the pseudo-articles and be updated as new discs come and (God forbid) go.

That’s all for today. I’ll try not to bog down the blog with so much impertinent information during the next week. I’ve got the weekend off, so I’ll be making sure I devote (at least) Saturday to article production. That is, if I’m not too wrapped up in Samurai Legend Musashi. Two days, baby.

Taking a mind dump. Excuse the odor

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday. So I’m at Subway, right. I’m done eating, so as would be the natural thing for me, I pull out my DS and get my game on. And then all of a sudden, this dude sits down across from me and starts asking stuff about it, and going on about how he finds it so amazing. I found it cool, because I don’t know a single person who is interested in the DS (nobody I know can handle its pure awesomeness), and it was nice to for once have a little chat about it. Just thought I’d bring it up.

My bro’s hockey team got creamed 8-4 last night. They started off real strong, with two goals in the first five minutes, but then it just went downhill. It was pretty bad, but the defencemen were really slacking. Can’t say he was having the best game of his life either, though. But then again, guess letting in eight out of like seventy billion shots isn’t so bad.

Three days until Musashi!

Following GDC 2005, we’ve got some things to look forward to on the Nintendo front. Seems the Revolution is gonna be some hardcore online business, and Gamecube backwards-compatible. PGC has a bunch of info, so check that out if you’re interested. Again, I’d like to bring up the new Zelda. There’s a poster of it in the Minish Cap player’s guide, so I’m thinking maybe I’mma buy that. What can I say? I need a Zelda poster.

I’m also considering getting Madden 2005 for the DS. Any time ago, this thought would never have even crossed my mind, but for reasons I cannot properly put into words, I want to own some sort of sports game, and there aren’t any hockey games for the DS yet. It’s Madden or Tiger Woods, and I don’t like the way Tiger is pointing at me so condescendingly.

How is it that I’ve gone 18 years without ever listening to Duran Duran? I can’t imagine how such a good band has gone under my radar until just recently.

iMesh 5 is pretty. Probably coated in spyware (they claim to be clean, but…), but my God is it pretty. And efficient. At least 76 times moreso than the last version. Say what you will about the spyware issue, I still like iMesh. I’ve got plenty of cleaning utilities.

I added a little hit stats dealie down on the sidebar. Click it for more info.

Is it wrong to try to win over a girl who’s currently seeing someone by pretending to be much more awesome than you are? (Not like it gets much more awesome than me) We’re still cool, even after the incident, but I’m thinking maybe I should cool the engines for a while. TV has tought me differently, so I’m not sure what the proper protocol is for this situation. Advice is appreciated.

Why is it that not a single store around here carries either Firehouse or Tesla? Best Buy and Future Shop I can see, but HMV? Come on! I guess I’ll be having to make that dreaded venture downtown if I hope to secure any music from either of these awesome bands. I hate downtown.

Speaking of Firehouse, they’re pretty much kicking ass on the ol’ AudioScrobbler list. You should totally sign up for an account there, even if you never use the thing, just so I can add more people to my friends list. And it’s just a neat little thing to have.

Is there a Corner Gas DVD? Amazon says no. Dammit. That’s an awesome show. If you don’t watch it, you so very totally should. I can’t stress enough how hilarious it is. Best show I’ve watched in years. Upon further investigation, the official website says yes. Flippin’ sweet.

Back to good

I probably won’t have an article up this week. I’ve been doing a lot of gaming and being out these past nights (which has been a nice change from the sitting in front of the PC all night I had been doing for the past few weeks), and I’ve finally fully recovered from that horrible bout with emotion I was having. It’s nice to have the old me back. Now on to why I’m making this post. I have three very important orders of business.

1. NEW ZELDA TRAILER! Here’s the link. Prepare your drool buckets, nerds, this is the greatest thing ever.

2. MUSASHI! Yep. Only five days until Samurai Legend Musashi comes out. I loved the first one, and from what little info I’ve gleaned from the site, the sequel looks to be kick ass. I know I usually don’t have many words of praise for samurai, but Brave Fencer Musashi is my second favorite Playstation game ever. The first being Final Fantasy Tactics.

3. BROKEN! It seems that old Edwin’s site is brokies at the moment. Oh, wait. Stroat. Stroat’s site. I wasn’t orginally gonna say anything, but he figures maybe some people visit both here and there. It’s possible.

I really want to write more, but I’ve got nothing. I guess it’s back to listening to Beck for me. Alt-rock is sweet.

Starting from zero, got nothing to lose

The February archive is now up. Or, it will be shortly after this post is completed. Maybe I shoulda done that first. Oops.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned, but I saw Jacob’s Ladder a while back. It seems a bit of an obscure title, and you know how I love the obscure. Truth be told though, I only hunted it down because I heard that the Silent Hill games draw a portion of their creepiness from it. And boy, is it true. Well, it’s not quite as big an influence as I was led to believe, but you can definitely see the similarities. Oh, and it was a pretty good movie as well. Confusing as all Hell until the end (which was a cop-out to boot), but I would certainly recommend it to those who like movies that are out of the ordinary. Oh, and if you didn’t know by the title, you probably wouldn’t pick up on it anyway, but there are lots of biblical references here. Good movie. Wouldn’t buy it, but good movie. It’s really hard to find, but there’s a torrent for it over at Novatina. It’s under “mystery”, but it’s really more of a thriller. Not that I’m championing piracy or anything…

On a related topic, I got Silent Hill 3 and 4 the other day. I’m about halfway through 3 and haven’t even started 4 yet. Such good games, and the only ones I cannot play with the lights off, even with my newfound policy of facing my fears. Creepy stuff. And the best part is that I got ’em for $15 and $25, respectively. I picked up I-Ninja for $10 as well. It’s totally worth $10. this whole “buying preowned games” thing is working out really well for me and my wallet. Three good, slightly used games for less than one new one? Sounds like a killer deal to me. And as an added surprise, SH3 comes with the soundtrack packaged in! I didn’t know that! Ah, material posessions: my one true love.

Oh yeah, and I updated my profile page, for those who care. While I’m at it, I’ll mention that I lost like seven pounds over the last week. This is alarming, because I was in no way trying to lose weight. All these people on TV working so hard to drop the fat, and then I come along and start losing it without even trying. Ah irony, thou art a snide bastard indeed.

And my fate remains unchanged

Another chapter in my life comes to an end that is both surprising and predictable. I stared my greatest fear in the eyes, and proceeded to do what had to be done. In the end, I’m still doomed to spend my nights alone at the computer writing about stupid things. But I have grown, and learned that sometimes, even when you have no courage, you just have to give ‘er. I also learned that the outcome wasn’t what I really cared about, but rather that I was out to prove to myself that I’m not as weak as I used to think. I’m not disappointed. I don’t regret my actions. I have no time for sorrow. I’m happy that I faced my fears head-on. I know that with a little more time and research, I could have avoided the let-down, but like I said, I have no regrets. I guess you’ll be happy too now that you won’t have to read about this anymore. Oh, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you might want to consider reading the last couple posts a little closer.