Schools back

So far none of my teachers seem like complete douche bags actually. Of course you need to give them time before you decide. Its going ok so far, but i forgot my locker combination so i have to carry everything in my back pack and i look like a moron with it. I seem a little more comfortable with myself though, im not really scared of talking to people i don't know very well as much as i was last year. I really hate passing periods though because everyone is crashing into you and shoving you and stuff. That always makes me really nervous.

Anyways, i saw Pearl Jam on the 23rd, which was defiantly one of the best parts of my summer. I tryed to take videos but they looked like ants from where i was and the sound quality on my camera sucks. In fact it said to audio recordings on my ticket so i just did it to see if anyone noticed (no one did). But it was really fun and they where great. I also spend last weekend in Madison Wisconsin, which is defiantly one of the best places in the Midwest. I actually found a good cd store which had some stuff like Babes In Toyland and L7. Then the guy working at the place asked me if i remembered some video from like 1991. I guess i look 30 something to him, maybe its because i was wearing my glasses which makes me look more mature.

But i have decided i need to make another list. I dont know if anyone else gets this but you know that feeling when you hear a song that for some reason makes you like drop what your thinking about and your stomach just feels like its going to sink? Like they are normally sad songs but not always, that just suddenly change your mood. I am going to make a list of songs that do that to me because im stuck at my dads house and there is nothing better to do here.

God Am-Alice In Chains
Backwater-Meat Puppets
You know your Right-Nirvana
Color Bars-Elliott Smith
I believe in symmetry-Bright Eyes
Pennyroyal Tea-Nirvana
Pretty Noose-Soundgarden
Yellow Ledbetter-Pearl Jam
Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns-Mother Love Bone
Desecration Smile-Red Hot Chili Peppers
Society-Eddie Vedder
Nutshell-Alice In Chains
Brother-Alice In Chains
Long Gone Day-Mad Season
A fond Farewell-Elliott Smith
Sludge Factory- Alice In Chains
Old Age-Nirvana
Doll Parts-Hole
No Ceiling-Eddie Vedder
Man of Golden Words-Mother Love Bone
Junk Bond Trader-Elliott Smith
Got me Wrong-Alice In Chains
Butterfly-Screaming Trees
Losing my Religion-R.E.M
St Ives Heaven-Elliott Smith
It all Dies anyways-The Gits
Pretty (Ugly Before)-Elliott Smith
Stargazer-Mother Love Bone
Over the Hills and Far Away-Led Zeppelin
Galaxie-Blind Melon
Angel in the Snow-Elliott Smith
Dollar Bill-Screaming Trees
Danny Callahan-Conor Oberst
Coming Up Roses-Elliott Smith
And the Wind Crys Mary-Jimi Hendrix
Down in A Hole-Alice In Chains

And there are more but im forgetting them. So im just wondering if those songs do that to other people, or any songs for that matter.

In attempt to keep music alive

Now that a few people actually read my blog I feel the need to share some free downloads from a few sites. These are legal and i have never got any spyware from them (i'd still scan for virus's just in case, i cant be 100% sure). Most of these are newer realises from 80s/90s alternative bands but a few are modern bands that don't suck. This took me a few hours to find these songs so dont expect for me to do this a lot.

Sebadoh

Download: 'Soul And Fire' (Acoustic Demo) (MP3)

Mudhoney
Download: 'I'm Now' (MP3)

Rancid
Download: 'Last One to Die' (MP3)

Foo Fighters (Arcade Fire cover)
Keep The Car Running

Fucked Up (modern band but still pretty good, punk rock sound)
No Epiphany
Crusades
David Comes To Life
Twice Born

Letters to Cleo
Awake
Here & Now

Jay Reatard (Once again newer artist but still good)
It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Meat Puppets
Disappear
Rotten Shame

Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails

Free Kitten
Download: 'Seasick' (MP3)

Dinosaur Jr.
I Want You To Know

Pissed Jeans (band that kind of sounds like Flipper/Early Nirvana)
People Person
I've Still Got You (Ice Cream)

Sonic Youth
Sacred Trickster

The Breeders
Fate To Fatal
Bang On

Pearl Jam is the last band i thought would do this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090602/music_nm/us_pearljam_1

I cannot believe this, am i reading this wrong? How can Pearl Jam be in an ad for a big corporation? I mean they just said they are gonna release their new album independently, so i assumed they were on the anti corporate road, and now this. I mean ok i can understand why they would want to get their music "out there" but honestly, this really upsets me. These are the guys who sued and boycotted ticketmaster even though it ruined their career for a few years, these are the guys who refused to make music videos. Now this, this just goes against what they stand for. I always had so much faith in them not doing the same thing as Chris Cornell. I have always thought "Eddie may be preachy and have way to many rants onstage about politics,but at least we know they wont kiss corporate ass". I mean i could imagine a lot of bands doing this, but this is upsetting to me, just because it goes against everything they stand for. And now I'm scared, what if they do take the Chris Cornell path? Someone please tell me that this is a joke, someone please tell me i am reading this wrong.

Oh no, run for your lifes! Creed is Back!

Mega Mega bad news! Creed is reuniting!

http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=1311450&spid=1314

Thats right everyones least favorite, Eddie Vedder copying, ultra shitty, post grunge "christians" are back to distroy the world!

What if Creed opened for Nickelback? That would be like the worst show ever, like i'd rather eat the shit that comes out when you pop zits then go to that show.

Oh yeah, GodSmack and Puddle of Mudd suck to. Get your own sound uncreative douchebags.

OMG OMG OMG OMG

OMG I AM GOING TO SEE PEARL JAM IN AUGUST OMG I ACTUALLY GOT TICKETS OMG.

Sonic Youth and Green Day are also coming but thanks to ticketbastard i can only afford one of them. Ticketmaster is such a dick I mean convenience charges are probably as convenient as an ice cream truck falling on your head during a job interview. It also takes like 20 minutes for them to find tickets.

BUT OMG I JUST BARLEY GOT THE TICKETS THEY ARE GOING TO LOOK LIKE ANTS FROM WERE I AM SITTING BUT I DONT CARE.

Also the swine flu is apparently going to kill us all. I actually know someone who had it but that person didn't die. WOW.

Grunge is dead

I got this new book called Grunge Is dead. It has interviews with like every grunge star alive, except for Chris Cornell because his balls dropped off. And Courtney Love because no one takes her seriously as a musician. But like other then that its great. I haven't actually read much of it yet though.

I am in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin all the stores close at like 5. They also think they have to add meat to everything they serve in a restaurant. But on the brighter side there are more hills and stuff. Hills are cool.

The biggest problem with being on vacation is that there is no food in the hotel room because your supposed to eat out. Funny thing is if we were to eat out any time anyone got hungry we'd just be living at the restaurant.

I am off to read the book. I shall post details for the non exsisting people who read this blog later.

The day seattle died.

Most people with any knowledge in rock music know that today in 1994 Kurt Cobain died. And grunge fans know that today is the estimated day of Layne Staley’s death.


Kurt was found dead on April 8th 1994 in his greenhouse with a bullet to his head. Autopsy reports concluded Kurt died on the 5th. Kurt, who had battled drug addiction, other health issues, depression, and the pressures of being a rock star, death was ruled a suicide. Although some fans believe he was murdered the chances are very slim because Kurt had previously attempted suicide in Rome about a month before and he had also discussed his suicidal urges in interviews and in song lyrics.. It should also be noted that most insurance companies do not pay for suicides. Cobain, like fellow rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin was 27.The sound of Nirvana brought a revolutionary change to rock music and brought it back to the raw basics. Nirvana, like most grunge bands was influenced by both punk rock and heavy metal. Nirvana helped bring grunge into the mainstream along with bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains.
The primary influences of Nirvana included The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Wipers, and Meat Puppets. Kurt Cobains cynical sense of humor and angry, yet gentile and artistic personality made him an unwilling spokesman for angst teens of generation X.






Perhaps more even tragic is Layne Staley of Alice In Chains, who was found dead two weeks after his estimated death on April 20th 2002. Staley was surrounded by drug paraphernalia and had battled with drug addiction for years. His death was estimated to be on the 5th. According to friends and family Layne had isolated himself due to his drug addiction to the point where one would throw rocks at his door and he still wouldn’t open it. The death of his former girlfriend Demri, who also died of drug related causes, in 1996 had hurt Layne beyond words. Laynes body was not discovered until an unidentified person placed a call with 911 to say "She hadn't heard from him in about two weeks”. After 1997 Layne hid from the spotlight probably due to his drug addiction. When he was found the 6 foot tall Staley weighted only 86 pounds because of malnourishment. In Layne’s last interview held in 2002 he said

“"This fucking drug use is like the insulin a diabetic needs to survive," he said. "I'm not using drugs to get high like many people think. I know I made a big mistake when I started using this shit. It's a very difficult thing to explain.”

He also said that the pain from drug addiction is unbearable and that "I did crack and heroin for years. I never wanted to end my life this way. I know I have no chance. It's too late. I never wanted [the public's] thumbs' up about this fucking drug use.”

However it should be noted that the lady who interviewed him is actually full of bullshit so she may have twisted the words around. I know this because Layne’s family and friends all said her book was full of bullshit. Even if she made it up it is still known that Layne urged fans NOT to use heroin and said in a rolling stone interview that
“I didn't want my fans to think that heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen."”

Alice in Chains provided a more metal influenced grunge sound then Nirvana. And while lumped into the grunge scene Alice In Chains considered themselves a metal band. Their most successful album Dirt had heavy guitar riffs but lyrics touching on very personal matters. Layne’s powerful voice made Alice In Chains’ music heavy yet beautiful. Layne was described by his friends as a caring and funny person.






Both artists provided an influential voice in what became grunge and the music of the early 90s.

Screw you Lars...

One of the stupid things I hear a lot is that free online radio sites such as last.fm make the music industry loose cash. In reality I (and millions of others) have discovered many new artists due to last.fm. When I like a song I buy it on a cd or from itunes so I can have it on my ipod. So last.fm making people from some countries pay is going to have the music industry loose money. Here I have calculated about how much US dollars I have spent on music I found though last.fm. It may not be a lot but im sure most frequent users have the same experience as me. Here is an example of why music being made available freely helps everyone. The music fans, the artists, the itunes fat cats, the independent record stores, the fat cat chain stores etc.



Babes in Toyland
Songs Purchased-1
Total Cost-1.00

Blind Melon
Songs Purchased-4
Cds Purchased-1*
Total Cost-4.00

Butthole Surfers
Songs Purchased-2
Total Cost-2.00

Desaparecidos
Songs Purchased-5
Total Cost-5.00

Dinosaur Jr.
Songs Purchased-1
Total Cost-1.00

Eddie Vedder
Cds Purchased-1^
Total Cost-13.00?

Hole
Cds Purchased-1*
Songs purchased-9
Total Cost-9.00

L7
Songs Purchased-1
Total Cost-1.00

Mad Season
Songs Purchased-4
Cds Purchased-1*
Total Cost-4.00

Meat Puppets
Cds Purchased-1^
Songs Purchased-6
Total Cost-25.00?

Minutemen
Songs Purchased-3
Total Cost-3.00

Mother Love Bone
Cds Purchased-1
Total Cost-10.00

Mudhoney
Cds Purchased-1
Songs Purchased-5
Total Cost-21.00

Nick Drake
Songs Purchased-5
Total Cost-5.00

Screaming Trees
Cds Purchased-2*^
Songs Purchased-3
Total Cost-13.00?

Sebadoh
Cds Purchased-1^
Songs Purchased-3
Total Cost-15.00?

Sonic Youth
Cds Purchased-1^
Songs Purchased-2
Total Cost-11.00?

Soundgarden
Cds Purchased-4*
Songs Purchased-5
Total Cost-34.00?

The Vaselines
Songs Purchased-3
Total Cost-3.00

Violent Femmes
Cds Purchased-1^
Songs Purchased-3
Total Cost-14.00?



So in total thanks to last fm I have…

Bought
63 songs and one album from itunes
Around Ten albums

Spent
about 108.00 on albums
About 75.00 of that money went to independent/local cd stores
Spent about 73.60 on itunes

Discovered 20 new artists.

Giving the music industry in total 256.60 bucks more then I would without last.fm

And plan on buying at least six more full albums

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Note-Total cost doesn’t include stuff I haven’t bought yet

*These include songs/cds I am going to buy next time I see them at a store.

?cost is estimated

^bought from resale/local stores, multiple means I bought multiple.

So i would like to say fuck you to the folks in the RIAA, who control last fm, and Metallica (who do have some cool songs though, too bad they are losing cash because i cant play them on last fm).

Thank you for reading my boring numbers,i honestly dont like numbers because frankly i feel there are to many of them. But i guess they work well when trying to get your point across.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok now on a lighter note look at this

http://www.nin.com/pub/strobelight/

Chris Cornell got OWNED by Trent Reznor.

Lets take time to honor someone who isnt honored as much as they sould be.

On yesterdays date (ok two days ago its 12:30 am) in 1990 Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose/Cerebral hemorrhage. He had spend 3 days in a coma before his family decided to switch it off. He was only 24.

If you have not heard of Mother Love Bone then your in the majority. Two of the members of Mother Love Bone did eventually join Pearl Jam, which you guys have heard of. Andy died only shortly before the realise of Mother Loves Bones first full album. While Mother Love Bone was a Seattle band, they had a somewhat glam/hard rock sound to them. Andrew has been compared to Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose (minus anger issues, no offense to all you Axl fans out there). Andy was influenced by bands including Elton John, Queen, Aerosmith, and Kiss. Before he was in Mother Love Bone he even played for a band called Malfunkshun, and they wore white face paint. For a "grunge" star he apperantly had a lot of energy and charisma. He was considered to be the stand up comic of the seattle scene. The band definatly had the potential to be very sucsessful.

Sadly along with talent often comes problems. Andrew had been struggling with drugs sense he was a teen. And probably knew he was going to die young. This was evadent in many of his lyrics. ("I been talking to my alter it says life is what you make it
And if you make it death well rest your soul away, away, away") This eventually killed him.

Many other seattle musicians honored him. The Alice in Chains song "would" is about him, and the band Temple of the Dog, including Chris Cornell of soundgarden as the lead vocalist was formed in his honor.










temple of the dog (Eddie Vedder sings in this to, the video is stupid though too bad)


Moral of story-If you plan on not dieing then dont mess around with hard drugs.

My Brother the Cow.....

So my moms boyfriend isn't fond of spending money on stuff so instead he takes the cds out from the library,burns them into itunes and returns them. The library where i live only has like opera cds and i kept telling him that and he didnt belive me. So he was like "I can find any cd you want from a library" so i gave him cds i thought he'd never find.

Mudhoney-My Brother the Cow
Mother Love Bone-S/T
The Vaselines-The Way of The Vaselines

And then he found them all, what the fuck. He also found this sleepless in seattle thing like a grunge music completmentory. So now i have bands on my ipod i didn't even know exsisted. But i finally got to hear the band Andrew Wood was in before MLB (Malfunkshun).

So the past few days had been interisting socially at school. First when i was whereing my Alice In Chains shirt this dude walks up to me and screams "YEAH ALICE IN CHAINS" and gives the metal sign. Then we are in the computer lab and these guys keep bugging me,like just going up to my keyboard and typing jibberish. So i told them i was a lesbain so they'd leave me alone but that didnt work because they were like "haha vagina hahahaha" so i was like "im not a lesbain i just told you that so you'd leave me alone" then everyone took each others binders and hit each other with them. i think we lost our computer lab privelages.

Stupid metal beards.

I have contacts now, they are cool. Exsept for the contact people wont give me any more free eye drops because they are cheap ass dickweeds.

anyway here are some things i did NOT do in the past few weeks....

1.Stick gum on Chris Cornells face in a waiting room magizene.

2.Go six days without showering.

3.Spend 37 bucks on markers.

4.Break the promise i made to myself that i wouldn't buy a Soundgarden cd at a chain store because I am mad at Chris Cornell.

5.Ask someone to get like 10 cds worth of underground grunge/alternative songs for me in a way that i dont know is legal.

6.Spit inside on the floor several times.

7.Put hand sanitizer in my hair because i didn't feel like washing it.

8.go throgh like 200 peices of gum in one week

9.Not do everyday things like answer the door or phone because i was to lazy to get up.

10.Used the phrase Douche Bag thousends of times in the past few days.

Those are all immature,inresponable,rude,strange and innapporate things to do.

I did however get moved into slow math and it is so easy and i love it. The only problem is as soon as i got used to it they told me i will go back to normal math next year so i can spend like 3 hours on math every night. But out of the like 20 kids only like seven are left in the normal math class because the teachers suck so much.

I also just relized that technicly Alice In Chains and Soundgarden are metal bands which technicly makes me a regular metal listener and that is actually kind of a problem because i have never really got alot of things about metal like why metalheads always have weird beards or why they need so many subgenres.

I mean i'm all for dressing weird and stuff but the beards metal heads/bands have are ridiculas.






I mean that is really unnessasary. The only, i repet ONLY person who can pull off a goatee is Layne Staley and he is dead.



So tomorrow we have no school because of some polish dude with horses or something yay.

Its always sad to see a gifted musician sell out.

Obviously the vast majority of songs receiving airplay are completely unoriginal commericalized music made solely for the intent of profit rather then artistic expression. So obviously if i was to get upset every time i heard commericalized crap music i would have already killed myself by now. Of course its natural for me to be upset when i see a musician i find gifted and/or who's work i admire get sucked in to the contemporary pop scene. Luckily for me most of my favorite bands are anti sell outs. Whether its Pearl Jam suing Ticketmaster or Nirvana intentionally making a less radio friendly follow up to Nevermind my thoughts on bands I like's actions regarding corporations and such are normally "Cool" or "YEAH! GO TAKE THOSE TICKETMASTER/RIAA/CLEAR CHANNEL MOTHERFUCKERS DOWN!" (it rarely works unfortunately.)

Unfortunately this is far from the situation of Ex.Soundgaden/Audioslave front man Chris i think im a fucking r&b singer now Cornell. He is working with timberlund or
whatever the guy who makes Justin Timberlakes albums is named. When i first heard this i didnt know who timberlund was but it sounded bad. At the time i just though "oh well lets remember his work in soundgarden/temple of the dog." Nice optimistic thought, that will work right? No.

Now whenever i try to watch a Pearl Jam video on YouTube or look up an Alice In Chains song lyric i get a big advertisement with a face that is only recognizable as Chris Cornell because of his stupid mustache(honestly i hate that mustache). It is like "LISTEN TO CHRIS CORNELLS SHIT NEW SONG HERE YOU KNOW BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO ARE LOOKING UP ALICE IN CHAINS JUST LIKE TIMBERLUND AND STUFF!!!" its like a big in your face thing. So I decided to do myself a favor and not listen to it. That worked for about a month or so.

See traditionally you have to listen to something before you announce it as shit. Because if i said it sucks and someone used the classic "have you even heard it?" comeback i would have had to lie. So i listened to it for about 10 seconds

AHHH WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT THIS IS WORSE THEN I THOUGHT HE IS LIKE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE OR SOMETHING NOW!

I mean i'm all for musical experimentation and stuff. I'm ok with the fact that former Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna is in some disco feminist electronic punk band now. I enjoyed Eddie Vedders more folky soundtrack for Into The Wild. Fuck im even starting to gain most of the respect back that i lost for Jerry Cantrell when i saw a video of him playing with Nickelback.But this is just shit, Its sad really. It dosn't sound like him.

So i just needed to get that out, on a lighter note....

Happy birthday to Kurt Cobain, he'd be 42. He's up celebrating his birthday with Layne Staley,John Lennon,Andy Wood and Elliott Smith (who has forgiven him for Courtney love chasing his friend down an alley or whatever).

How Fall Out Boy/Fuled by Ramen type bands ruined the definition of alternative part one

Middle School aged girls in abercrombie shirts sitting in the balcony, high school freshmen wearing clip on bows in their hair in the “mosh pit”. This isn’t a Britney Spears concert, It’s a Fall Out Boy, (supposedly an “alternative” band) concert.

You cant mosh to pop music, nor can you claim shopping at hot topic makes you individual, but try telling this to 12 year old girls who claim to be “really alternative” and “listen to really deep music.” How do I know? I was one of them, just not to the same existent. What I’m describing is my first concert, although I didn’t get the real experience because of the commercialization of the band.

Rewind to 1992, where if these 12 year old girls were generation Xers. They’d be in flannel shirts and ripped jeans, at a Nirvana show, and as Cobain looks down at his audience he thinks to himself “what the hell have I done.” Of course when Pete Wentz looks at his audience made up of mostly 10-15 year old girls in his audience, he probably thinks “oh this is the age were parents buy there kids anything.” Maybe he really thinks he’s a real artist, but his record label knows he’s not.

This isn’t a diss on major label bands, nor is it a diss on naïve 12 year old girls. It’s a diss on modern “rock” music. Other then a few original indie acts (Bright Eyes), bands from better eras in music still going (R.E.M, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers) or a few good mainstream rock acts (Foo Fighters) modern music pretty much sucks. Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Metro Station, etc. all sound the same. All put more effort into their hair and makeup (yes they are dudes) then their music. Remind you of anything earlier?....

Yes I am associating Hair Metal with Pop “Punk”. The biggest difference is hair bands where not as fond of pretending to be sensitive or artistic as modern Pop “Punk” bands are. So I am actually, to some extent, suggesting that hair metal is more real then Pop “punk”.

How do we know Pop “punk” isn’t real? It’s not original, they all sound the same.

Metro Station


Plain White Tees



Cobra Starshit *cough* Ship sorry


Now what a fucking original batch of bands we have there.


Compare that to grunge bands, all have a unique sound

Pearl Jam


Alice In Chains


Nirvana


Screaming Trees


and lets go back to hair bands, all sound the same, but have oddly amusing videos…(some of these are NSFW)

Warrant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48odQVIZKjI

(click on link, couldn’t find one with html)

Poison


Motley Crue (this one is super NSFW)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX7tSJBh6Ho

RATT

And here are some non grunge alternative bands just to prove my point further

Pixies


REM


Radiohead





So I honestly think the first four videos and the hair metal videos are more alike then the first four videos and the grunge/alternative videos.


It’s noticeable in the lyrics as well. Alternative bands tend to have lyrics that are more metaphoric and less repetitive.

Pop (Metro Station-shake it)

“Now if she does it like this
Will you do it like that?
Now if she touches like this
Will you touch her right back?
Now if she moves like this
Will you move her like that?
Come on, shake, shake
Shake, shake, shake it

Shake, shake
Shake, shake, shake it"

Pop Metal (Warrant-Cherry Pie)
“Swing it in the living room
Swing it in the kitchen
Most folks don't cause they're too busy bitchin'
Swing it in there cause she wants me to feed here
So I mixed up the batter
And she licked the beater

I scream, you scream
We all scream for her
Don't even try cause you can't ignore her”
Grunge
(Alice in Chains-Down In A Hole)
“Bury me softly in this womb
I give this part of me for you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers
In a tomb...in bloom

Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
You don't understand who they
Thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now a man
Who won't let himself be

Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
I'd like to fly,
But my wings have been so denied”


I could keep giving examples but I think my point is proven. Modern day pop rock bands are more close to hair metal then alternative. The Metro Station video/song is about sex. The pop "punk" and the pop "metal" bands are much more glitzy, while the grunge ones are more emotional influenced, but without being whiney.

I shall post my last fm charts

Weather:
Mood:
Music: Reject-Green Day