gorillaz d-sides

Gorillaz/ D-sides (limited edition)/Virgin Records 2007

This 2 disc set of b-sides, demos ( inculding a demo of Don’t Get Lost In Heaven that sounds like it was recorded by the Fun Boy Three) and remixes from all the singles from the modern musical masterpiece,”Demon Days” came straight out of nowhere! (Or at least I just wasn’t aware of it’s impeding release. Nevertheless, I had about shit my pants in excitement when I saw “D-sides” on the shelves of my local record shop this afternoon.) Now I no longer have to play 5 different cd singles, a video only track ( rock it,) a dvd only track from the limited edition version of “Demon Days”( the swagga,) and a internet download only track (we are happy landfill) to hear them all in one setting. Talk about convenience!

I didn’t see if there were any regular edition copies of this set on the shelves, but I do know that the limited edition comes with two pencil sketches from Jamie Hewlett, stickers, a sew on military style patch, a booklet full of sketches and 4 decorative buttons complete in a handsome black box with a blood red silkscreen(?) of a demon head designed by jamie Hewlett.

My only question is that shouldn’t the title of this collection be called “D-sidez” instead of ‘D-sides” given how the band name is spelt?

jareddriskill

the jb weld story

Why is it that crazy people seem to single me out in a crowd? Case in point: today I went to the gas station and I was running from the gas pumps to the cashier to pay for my purchase because it was raining quite heavily. Standing outside the glass door to the convenience store was a broke down Gabby Hayes looking redneck and for some reason he pleads out to me (there were several people all around that he chose to ignore, great) “Do you happen to have any JB WELD in your vehicle?”

I paused for a moment and said “What?!” and dude man says “I was hoping by chance that you had some.” (Oh god, why me?) I just shook my head and went in to pay the cashier. When I walked out, dude man asked me about JB WELD once again. I snapped “Do I look like some motherfucker who just happens to carry JB WELD around with him all the damn time, you piece of inhuman garbage? Besides, it has been my personal experience that JB WELD doesn’t even fucking WORK! Get away from me you fucking bastard!”

Seriously man , JB WELD? Where did that come from? I now wonder if the whole JB WELD business was just some obscure gay hustler pick up code. I mean do I look like I am looking for rough trade? (Uh, please don’t answer that.) Besides, I severely doubt that a broke down Gabby Hayes would be very successful at hustling.

jareddriskill

radiohead-in rainbows

radiohead/ in rainbows/ internet download/2007

Radiohead recorded one of the greatest albums of the mid to late 1990’s indy rock paradigm. As great as that album was they have ever since, tried and failed, to recaputre that same sonic magic in the bottle. Alhough their efforts are some what rewarding and better than 99% of what currently on the indy rock market, but we have to face the simple cold hard fact, Radiohead will never again record an album on the same caliber as “The Bends.”

(Sure, “Okay Computer” is the album that gets all the critical laudits these days, but let’s not forget, it was “Okay Computer” that helped paved the way for other shity bands such as, Coldplay, to psychologically torture us with their sonic wares. This is a gross injustice that shall never be forgiven.)

This leads us to “In Rainbows” which has been hailed in all of the reviews I have read as the future of the music industry with its “pay as you like” download policy. Which is all good, if you are interested in the mechanics of the music industry, but what about the music itself, which all of the above mentioned reviews have failed to mention? To find out, I took the plunge and downloaded the album to my brand new computer.

Well, to be brutally honest, ”In Rainbows” is your typical sounding Radiohead: with slow, moody insturmentals and echo ladened tortured vocals. Sonically, it’s more “Kid A” than “Hail To The Theif.” ( The both of which aren’t bad albums in their own right.) Only two songs stood out from the pack to my critical ear, track two and track eight (whatever they were titled- I’ve since erased this album off my hardrive) and that’s only because they were the only fast paced semi-rocking songs on the entire album.

Or to put it another way: only 20% of album rocked as the other 80% bored me to tears. Good thing that I downloaded this for free, or else I would been one pissed bloke!

jareddriskill

week 37

There will be no Best Of Soul Train review this week because WGN has decided to run a “24″ marathon for the holiday weekend. I’m supposing that WGN thinks that fictional terrorism fighting is a more important way to celebrate the holiday season than catchng a ride on the hippest trip in town…

Sorry, folks, but I can’t review what I can’t see. However, things shall return to normal next week.

until then- love, peace and SOUL!
jareddriskill

part 2

I was over at my fathers house for a couple of days for Christmas and my sister pointed out to me that the neighbor who lived across the street from my dad had a dog on a chain, which was about ten feet long , in the middle of a yard that has to be a coulpe of acres across. Now if you had read part one of this series, you would know how I feel about people in the country who let their dogs roam around freely, so this was a slight improvement.

However the cruel part of the story is that in the corner of the yard was the dog’s dog house, but from where it was chained to in the yard, the chain wasn’t long enough to allow the dog to enter his own dog house whenever he needed shelter. The dog would bark until his throat would go raw whenever he tried to gain access to the dog house.

And the dog’s owners? They were home the entire time, I suppose that riding dirt bikes was more of an priority than making their dog somewhat happy.

jareddriskill

the best of larry graham and graham central station

Larry Graham/ The Best of Larry Graham and Graham Central Station vol 1/ Warner Brothers/ 1996

My soul and r&b album collection continues to grow by leaps and bounds! Drawing on my vast experience of reviewing The Best of Soul Train, I decided to draw on material from the recording artists that had impressed me on the show. Graham Central Station was one of those groups.

I was admittedly shocked to discover that there are plenty of Best of… compliations out on the market, but I chose this particular one because the cover artwork was the least “bootleg” looking of the bunch that I saw on the shelves. (You should’ve seen of of the covers to the albums I passed on by, most of them looked like they were created on an outdated version photoshop by a four year old autistic child on Nyquil.)

For the faithful reading several not in the know, Larry Graham was the bass player in Sly And The Family Stone during their heyday. Seeing far ahead enough to jump that ship before it shipwrecked Larry decided retire from performing live and decided to write and produce. Thankfully for us music fans, the group he was writing and producing for convinced him to come out of performing retirement and thus, the almighty Graham Central Station was born.

This compilation starts off, after a short intro track, non-chronologically with Larry Graham’s first solo quiet storm smash hit, “One In A Million You.” But never fear, my fellow funksters, the remainder of this album covers the glorious Graham Central Station years where the songs are energetic and eclectic. (Several songs, “My Radio Sure Sounds Good To Me” and “Your Love,” go into 1950’s doo-wop territory with interesting results.)

Larry Graham is no slacker in the bass player department, check out the infectious basslines in such songs as “The Jam” and “Hair” if you want to hear bass playing that makes Bootsy Collins from P-Funk sound like he’s on the same skill level as Sid Vicious.

My only two complaints about this album is 1)that it’s too short a 11 songs and 2) seeing how this album came out in 1996, where the hell is volume two?

 jareddriskill

dreamlog #20

For the past few days all my dreams have been starring the cast of BBC sci-fi comedy, Red Dwarf. The role of me was played by Dave Lister and my subconscious mind was played by the hologram character of Arnold Rimmer. Each dream featured me (aka Dave Lister) and doing whatever stressful event I had to do the next day, such as shopping for a Christmas present for my dad, for example. And if I made the right decision my subconscious mind would appear in the form of Rimmer and praise me if I made the right decision or would berate me if I made a wrong choice. I don’t why I even dreamt all of this because after series two of Red Dwarf, the show stopped being funny.

But last night I stopped having dreams about Red Dwarf and I dreamt I found out, at while at work, that I had the power of telepathy, or the ability to read minds for the faithful reading several not in the know. However I found out that I could only read minds if I had touched my head to the head of another. (I found out that I had my fantasic powers when I was riding in a crowded work van and we hit a bump on the road.) However I could improve the reception the telepathic message if I placed my hand between my head and the head of the other person. Needless to say, being the social misfit that I am, I never used my powers of telepathy since the incident that I found out that I had them.

jareddriskill

random item christmas

1. Like a polar bear sneaking up on an arctic explorer who is erstwhile otherwise busy taking a shit in the snow, christmas has snuck up on us again. Wow, I mean, has it really been a year since I was able to ask for the material things that I was too cheap to buy for myself during the rest of the year? Blessed be!

2. I’ve been swamped by loads of dvds this holiday season. I got the first two seasons of Project Runway, the complete Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, and the true jackpot, as if Project Runway and Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp wasn’t already blessing enough,  I also received a stack of divx files of loads of obscure (i.e. never to be released on DVD in america, officially, in a million years) BBC comedies such as Hyperdrive, Top Gear, Green Wing, and Nathan Barley. (Bless the internet! Going blind by new years has never been so enjoyable!)

3. One of my half brothers, who is 7, got a Nintendo Wii from Santa Claus. And, damn, I never realized how much of an uncoordinated clutz I was until I attempted to play a game on the damned thing. I mean, here I am, 31 years old, and no one has ever informed me that I was severely stricken with the cerebral palsy? Remarkable. You’d think that someone would’ve dropped the hint…

jareddriskill

week 36

Sorry for the several day delay with this week’s Soul Train review, I didn’t have access to an computer, however, I received my brand new laptop for x-mas, so no more worries , my faithful reading several, unless Soul Train gets preempted by a “24″ marathon by WGN this weekend.

This week we had another gem from the late disco 1970’s. This weeks fashion key-phrase for the Soul Train dancers was: white clothing. It seemed like everyone was wearing white this week, which is all good just as long as it was recorded before labor day. As we all know, wearing white after labor day is just a fashion no-no. (Hey, is it me or was that an Andre 3000 from Outkast lookalike dancing around wearing a red satin baseball jacket?)

This week, the white clad Soul Train dancers moved their groove thang to such hits as: “Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn, Instant Replay” by Dan Hartman, “Now That We Have Found Love” by Third World, and “contact ” by Edwin Starr.

The Soul Train Scramble Board: Ron Dellums! Whoever he was, he was overshadowed by “Le Freak” by Chic, which was played in the background.  

This week’s musical guest three, were.

1. Brass Connection! Looking ever so smooth with their Silver lame kimonos and red satin bell-bottoms, they proved their  worth in life with their funky, brass heavy disco tunes. Their two songs, “Get Up” and “One To One” made me more interested in checking out the rest of their material , proved I can still find their albums in the store.

2. Captain Sky! This funk superhero complete with a reflective silver shield, mimed along to his Moog keyboard heavy funk jams. Unfortunately, he was only to perform one song, “Wonderworm,” on this episode much to my extreme displeasure. Also for a superhero, he displayed a very nervous disposition when he was interviewed by Don Cornelius, which is a trait you definately wouldn’t want in the superhero you want patrolling your neighborhood…

3. Peaches and Herb! This week featured a new “Peaches,” the lovely and talented Linda Green. For their first song, the ever popular “Shake Your Groove Thing,” Herb wore a pink leisure suit while peaches wore a red glittery sweater with matching red pants. For their second song of the episode, the smash hit, “Reunited,” Herb wire a copper colored leisure suit with gold trim and Peaches wore a purple version of the outfit that I described earlier in this paragraph.

The Soul Train Line: “September” by the mighty Earth Wind And Fire!

The Don Cornelius interview gaff of the week: Don got a taste of his own medicine this week from Herb who told Don that he was told by his parents to respect his elders. You just had to be there to understand the devastation that comment had caused to Don’s self esteem. But I still respect you, Don, I truly do.

That’s about all for this week, so on the behalf of Don Cornelius, the Soul Train Dancers and myself: love, peace and SOUL!

jareddriskill

bad day at work

It’s been one hell of a day at work. Went on a service call at a home where an elderly woman lived. While checking her system, she started to strike up a conversation with me about some news report she saw on the news where thieves were stealing Christmas packages from porches and mailboxes. I told her that these things do probably happen at Christmas time, but, you know, what can you do?

The elderly woman walked away and came back not 2 minutes later and brought the same topic back up again. I told myself to be polite because she is old and she probably forgot that we just had this conversation. This happened again about 2 or 3 more times while I was servicing her heater, but I bit my lip each time she came around.

So anyways, I was writing up her bill when she says “I’m going to call the police on you!” WTF?!?! It turns out that she had gotten it in her mind that I was stealing packages in the mail from her and she wanted me arrested. I was busy enough with calls today as it was and now I had to deal with this false accusation bullshit from a 80 year old woman with dementia.

I told her to go ahead and call the police, but the only one here who would be arrested would be her for making false accusations. You know, to put a scare in her. (If she had any packages stolen from her, it was probably because she lives in the middle of a street full of crack houses.) To ease whats left of her diseased mind, I let her search my work van, though deep down, I knew that it most likely wouldn’t satisfy her suspicions at all. But what could she do? Call the cops on me and then get thrown in a nursing home for observation because she’s senile? (Once you planted the seed of doubt with the customer, the argument becomes yours.)

I finally after about 45 minutes talked her down to the point where she would not call the cops, take her bill and let me finish the rest of my calls for the day. But first, for my trouble, I had “adjusted” her bill from where it used to be at the low end of the billing scale to the very high end. Merry Christmas!

Let this be a lesson to all of you: don’t falsely accuse your service man of theft while he’s writing your bill up.

jareddriskill