Mining the misses

During the packing and unpacking process I managed to lose my James Murphy CD again. Sucks! But I did raid the girlfriend's CD collection and managed to pull out two winners. Patsy Cline - 12 Greatest Hits and Journey - Greatest Hits.



One of my favorite bars in Madison had this on the jukebox. The old 45 was so worn you couldn't hear most of the backing instruments.



My girlfriend's favorite Journey song.

Speaking of Journey, did you know that Neal Schon has released a number of instrumental guitar albums? It's true.



I think he's on Vai's label Favored Nations. Not surprising.

So at least I got a few new jams before things really shake up around here.

Choices

Next week I will start work, and stop being cool. I will have to fight the rat race. But with that brings the promise of new drinks. And there are two interesting choices on the horizon: Terry Centenario and Tres Cepas. Both are Spanish brandy. The Terry is an interesting number. The Terry family hails from southern Ireland and the Centenario is the most popular brandy in Spain. I can find out almost nothing about Tres Cepas. The Terry is 22 plus tax while the Cepas is 16 and tax. Meanwhile I have a mainline on the Magno from Osborne. So I think this will be a brandy filled summer.

Of all the things I have enjoyed about not working, not driving is what I have loved the most.

The greatness of the 21st century

What is great and terrible about this century is that if one can conceive something, it is made real and tangible in some way. If you can think of some sort of porn, it exists in some fashion. Like Na'vi porn. Or my new favorite: dinosaurs fucking robots.

EDIT: I was going to post some choice pictures, but that might not be work appropriate. So for the sake of all you suckers webrowsing from an office cubicle, clicky on the linky if you dare.

Let the litigation flow

In college I met a guy named Alfie a few times. He was an engineering student. He was a fan of Pantera. Being that this was a million years ago and a lot of web design was still in the hands of engineers, Alfie started the website pantera.com. It was a fan website with everything that modern band pages have: message board, pictures, biography, tour dates, etc.

Several years ago I read that the remainder of the band were suing Alfie for control of Pantera.com. He counter sued in preparation for the litigation that was to ensue. His goal wasn't to win, but to simply cost Pantera large sums of money in legal fees (per diem baby!) while they attempted to wrest control of the domain. One in which he maintained for free all those years.

I wondered what happened to that? You can see the original docket here. Phil's middle name is "Hanson"! It transferred to a new venue in October of '07. If you read this docket you can see that they sued him to remove all the band logos and any affiliation to the band from the website. I think they were also trying to pry the domain name from him via cybersquatting laws. Looks like they also tried to shake 100,000 dollars in statutory damages out of the guy. I would turn Pantera.com into a website about Pantera Negra Brandy. A Brandy de Jerez. That's one copyright infringement lawsuit I don't fear.



Hooo boy that stuff is ghastly.

I haven't been able to locate the court ruling from the googles. Maybe you have a link? I sure hope he didn't have to fork over 100k, but I'm sure he isn't running Pantera.com anymore.

Summer doldrums

These days I am quite broke. Moving was far more expensive than I hoped. I have a job lined up but may not start until July. So no reviews of any fun booze for quite a while more.

The good news is that I have sourced my old friend Veterano brandy here in the city. That is good because I have a liter bought by my good buddy whilst in Spain that I have been draining. Funny the Spanish stuff is only 36% while the stuff here in the states is the usual 40.

So for now I do things that are free. I drink from the reserves. I got my library card so now there is that.

Speaking of which; I hate the library here. It is new, cold, sterile, and lifeless. My old haunt in downtown Madison was built in the 60s and designed to double as a bomb shelter. It was gritty. The ancient linoleum had yellowed, the industrial carpet had faded to a near vomit color, and the reading room had the familiar stink of the homeless at all times. You know that putrid smell of an old ashtray mixed with old gymsocks and all the sweat mopped from a basketball court after a good long day. Why I'll bet on a cold winter's day they throw the bums out at this new place.

So with Spanish brandy and a library at my disposal The Sun Also Rises is the best choice. It is one of my favorites. I like to imagine that Fundador in the 20s is like what Veterano is today.

Compact Disc reclamation project

I finished unpacking my CDs. It was good. In the process I discovered that my girlfriend had "misplaced" my James Murphy CD Feeding the Machine in her stack.



A cover of the Al DiMeola classic Race With Devil on Turkish Highway, featuring Steve DiGiorgio on bass. Man that Rickenbacker sounds 100 feet deep.

I thought I lost that CD and the first Summer Dying album. I jokingly blamed my girlfriend for stealing them. Turns out she really did swipe them. "I don't know how they got there" she said. But we know.

Memory lane

Recently I moved, and after packing my life into boxes I decided to share a few musical gems from yesteryear with you boozehounds.

First up is a band from Ann Arbor called Youthcorpse. They have a decidedly Heartwork sound, with hints of classic Megadeth and whatnot. The bassist gave me a copy of their disc. I'd upload it for everyone but I don't have one of them upload accounts, and I'm not buying one anytime soon either. My life is a Johnny Cash song.



Busted!

Not sure if they are still active but according to myspace they haven't logged on since 2008 so I doubt it.



They have a youtube video? WTF?

Next up is an East Lansing band called Summer Dying. They formed out of the remains of Somber, which was At the Gates worship before all the gringos knew where Sweden was on a map. I saw Somber open for In Flames back on the Colony tour. You know, before they were terrible. Somber was actually pretty solid ATG worship, and I'm sure the album is impossible to find so if I ever find the pegs to my CD rack I can unpack it and if I ever get some extra cash that I don't spend on weird whiskey I can upload it for you.

Anyways Summer Dying's first album was pretty great, but their second one had really irritating vocals where the bassist would shriek in the background over everything. Oh well. Still pretty solid musically. They broke up a while ago. Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain.



Next up is more Heartwork worship from Texas by the band Deep (not even a myspace page). I bought their first album The Reach of Envy from them when they opened up for Arch Enemy and Nevermore way back when Johan was in Arch Enemy and Time Calvert was in Nevermore. Ancient times! They sounded much better live than on the album. Live their singer was an exact double of Jeff Walker. Anyways they put out a major label album that had half the songs from The Reach of Envy called Pieces of Nothing. Not bad stuff, but too bad they never were able to capture their live feeling on record.

Last I heard of them their web page (on hypermart) expired so I can assume that they are quiescent. Yeah, and looking back on that Nevermore show I still owe Big C for the trip (through a blizzard!) since my carless ass had no way of getting there and now that I have a car I hate driving so much that I don't know if I would make that drive for someone else.

Finally there is Sauron. Another East Lansing band, they were classic thrash metal. Not like these new school thrash bands though. These guys played fast and loose like Motorhead. They were filthy dirty just like thrash should be. I hung out with these guys a number of times and they are all class. I have one of their demos on cassette tape, so for you kids out there it looked like this:



This is what a cassette tape looks like. You could record music onto it and play it back in a "tape player".

Weird I know! The only way I can listen to my tape is if I bring it in my car, because my car is now "vintage" from 2002 and has a tape deck. My copy had a cover of The Return of Darkness and Evil. Damn straight. You can actually find their stuff available for purchase online. What? Not cult enough for you? Too mainstream for you?



These guys kill live

I even had an opportunity to play bass in the offshoot band Harbinger, but I could not afford the drive to Lansing. Then I moved a couple states away and lost contact with the fellas. You know how it goes. I never got a chance to see them live so this is actually the first I've heard of Harbinger outside of their demos five years ago, and again you can actually buy their album online. Which you won't because it isn't cult enough for your CD collection down in mom's basement.



Hand numbered demos only! Cvlt!

Video Dump: General Lee edition

I'm sure you cool kids have already seen this "viral" or something. But it's new to me.



YeeeeHaaaaaa!

Up and down

If only there were a word for the sort of vertigo that happens in daily life. I go up and I go down. I'm metaphorically losing my balance. Though I was physically going up and down recently. See for yourself.



Am I the only one that goes up and down? I don't mean like manic depression happy and sad either.



Maybe it is a chemical imbalance



Hot and hazy summer days remind me of Corrosion of Conformity. Do you remember those guys?



I remember those guys. I remember those times. Back when a bicycle was my only means of transportation. Back when I lived in a town where people tried to run over dudes on bikes. Not even kidding. I started carrying a brick in a bookbag just in case. I always wished I had an excuse to use it too.

What a wonderful age we live in

The future has such wonderful things in store for us



I know I can't wait to spend my life savings on this.