Tuesday, January 31, 2017

2016 – A Music Extravaganza!

 

GRAND FUNK RAILROAD!

It’s said that as we age, we stop looking for new sounds to infiltrate the ear canal and just bathe in the nostalgic warmth of what we already enjoy. Apparently I missed the bus that goes to that particular neighborhood in Blandsville…

In years past, I’ve spent a bit of time in January looking back at books that I read over the previous year. However, my book consumption rate last year was goddamn pathetic, so that’s out for 2017. Luckily, I stepped it up big in terms of what I’m listening to.

Now, this has nothing to do with bands I was already into who released new stuff this year. So I won’t be mentioning names like Metallica, Sixx A.M., Adele, David Bowie, A Tribe Called Quest (though I thought long and hard about including them, since it’s their first new material in forever and a day) or Iggy Pop. Okay, I won’t be mentioning them from this point forward. All released really good stuff. But this is about new shit. At least, stuff that’s new to me. Some of them have been around for awhile. Hey, I’m old! It takes me awhile to find things! Be glad that I manage to find pants!

And there was A LOT of new shit in 2016. Thanks to my XM account, I typically ‘find’ about 20-25 new bands a year. This year was like that, only on a lot of steroids. XM led to a lot of them, but so did people. All kinds of people. People who I follow online, friends, acquaintances, whoever. If you have ever mentioned a musical act within earshot of me, and particularly if you’ve previously led me to something cool, there’s a good chance that I’ve listened to them. All it takes is the quickest of throwaway mentions. My ears are whores.

So consider this my attempt both to bring some eyes to my little corner of the Internet, and to also thank many of you for bringing me to some new music by trying to return the favor. There will likely be a few surprises. There is at least one MASSIVE change in opinion. Try not to be one of those sad little fuckers who skims and just looks at band names…read it, you lazy fuck! Enjoy, mock, laugh at me, I don’t give a shit. Oh, and prepare yourselves for power chords. I am a sucker for power chords.

I’ll link to a video for each group in the band name.

LET MORTAL KOMBAT COMMENCE!

Oh, and I also promise that there will be zero ‘joke’ links to Rick Astley. This is a post about good music, and therefore Rick Astley has no place here.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Scenes From the Debauched Mind of a Ne'er-do-well

 

Live it!As the new year dawns, it’s time to be a complete and total cliché and take a look back at my own personal 2016. Forget what happened to the world and anything of the like. It’s all about me! Though a lot less arrogant than that sounded. I may be a lot of things, but that level of self obsessed isn’t one of them. Hey, I’m a bit surprised, too!

This isn’t going to be a countdown of specific changes that I’ve made in the past year. I already updated that set of goals a short time ago here. Of course, it didn’t get read much. I like to think it was because I made the ‘brilliant’ choice of posting it before work, meaning all of you folks who might have read it were busy at jobs and stuff. I like to think that. It keeps me from being a sad heap of old tears slowly drying into obscurity. Look, please just go read it now and save us all the awkwardness of me sobbing uncontrollably again. Nobody wants that. No, this is going to be something a bit bigger and a lot less specific. That’s my way of saying that I’m pretty much making this up as I’m typing, and not even I can look into the future, even one of my own creation. Don’t worry, I’m not going to forego editing. This is just going to be a bit of a zig-zagging rollercoaster ride when it comes to subject. Riffing off the cuff is fun and terrifying all at once.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're locked in because I'm about to rock your world!

I could very easily fall into the trap of looking at 2016 as entirely bad. There’s been immense upheaval and pain in my family. Too many people close around me don’t know what’s coming next anymore. I’ve spent a lot of time this year angrily screaming out into the void in the hopes that my voice would somehow quell the maelstrom. I’m always one of those people who wants to do something. And when I can’t do something to fix whatever’s gone wrong, I flail and lash about. I can’t heal the wounds of everyone around me. I can’t change my life, or that of anyone around me, simply by wishing it to be so. All that I can do is keep striding forward.  I’ll always do everything that I can for anyone around me, but I’m not a superman capable of bearing the problems of the world. And trying to take everything at once just leads to my feeling crushed underneath the mass of it all. Going it alone doesn’t work. It never did. But I’ll still bellow into the night when the need is there, because sometimes a primal scream is what you need to clear your head and chase the demons off for another night.