An Evening With Corb Lund

Much to my annoyance it is rather rare lately for me to take in some live music.  Its even rarer for me to catch a Canadian performer, since North Carolina is not on everyones tour schedule.

So when future music legend, and self professed cow afficianado, Corb Lund, came to Asheville, I jumped at the chance.

So last night my wifey and I found ourselves in a little (120ish seats) theatre in downtown Asheville, sitting front row, to see a great concert by Corb Lund, and the Hurtin' Albertans.

If you don't live in Canada, and have not heard of Corb Lund, you are not alone (If you are in Canada, and haven't heard of Corb Lund, I can't help you - perhaps you should try paying closer attention to your awesome country).  He is a country performer, who sings about the typical country things, like horses, cows,  and more esoteric things like history, bad cows (I know what you are thinking and that there are no downside to cows, but they are actually complex, emotional beasts - kinda like Emo kids, but taste better on the grill), murder, soldiery things, smuggling, and getting stuck in the mud.  (Check out his stuff here.)  Its quite the mix of quirky humour and dark broody stuff.  A great mix, really.  I'm not normally a fan of country, but I can dig Corb.  Corb is good, and wise, and musical.

It was a fantastic concert - great sound, great seats, awesome songs - he even took requests.  I did take time out from being immersed in the concert to take some photos.

This is the second time I've seen Corb, and both times were excellent.  I highly recommend you check him out if you get the chance.

Mandatory Fun

Last Friday night I had the pleasure of seeing "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert.

Let me tell you, it was a heck of a concert.  Weird Al is an amazing performer, and every song he did was in costume and followed his videos.

The first song of the concert was the song Tacky.  If you recall, the video for Tacky was done with one camera shot.  Amazingly Weird Al duplicated this feat live in concert.  The concert started with the band on stage playing the music, and Weird Al being displayed on the video screen, somewhere in the bowels of the theatre.  He starting singing as he walked thru the theatre, and even took a trip outside for a while, all while the camera followed him.  He made his way thru the main lobby, and entered the back of the seating area, walked thru the crowd, and hit the stage just as the song was ending.

Amazing.

He finished that set by singing a few more songs, and using bubbles (it's a special effect).

 He performed Fat in his fat suit, including makeup.  Dunno how he got the costume on so fast, but he did.

Foil.

Smells Like Nirvana

Canadian Idiot ended with a cloud of streamers bursting over the crowd.

White & Nerdy.  He came on stage riding a Segway.

Amish Paradise 

Yoda

Finished the show with The Saga Begins, and some rockin acordian polkas

Like I said, it was an amazing show. Its like getting the best of the top 40 songs for the last few decades, but with better lyrics and performed by someone with actual talent. Whats not to like?

Contest: Win A Travel Bugs CD!

Note: This contest is now over, and the winner has been announced.

Four years ago The Travel Bugs released their first CD of geocaching themed music, called Found It!

Now they have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their next album: Pimp Your Cache!

To celebrate this, the folks at The Travel Bugs have provided Only Googlebot Reads This Blog with an autographed album to give away via this blog to one of my lucky readers.

To win, simply drop your contact info in the form below, and you will be entered into the drawing.  If you are not familiar with The Travel Bugs, feel free to watch this brilliant music video first.

If you like what you hear, you can win the entire album by dropping your info in the form below.  

You may also consider contributing to their kickstarter campaign to help support their latest album: Pimp Your Cache!  If it ends up anything like the first album, you won't regret it.

---

---

The Guns N' Roses Appreciation Society

I listen to music a lot. I always have. Over the years I have listened to a fairly wide range of musical styles, but I tend to gravitate towards hard rock. There is just something about a hard rhythm, pounding drums, and an angry dirty sounding guitar that gets my blood pumping.

Like most people who get to middle age, I am finding the current crop of music to be sub-par, so I have been looking back at the age when music was good to get my musical fixes.  Everyone has their own definition of when music was good, but it can typically be defined as "when you were in high school", which for me was the late 80s and early 90s.

You may recognize it as the golden age of the big hair bands.  Aerosmith, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Van Halen, they all had a place in the soundtrack of my life, but none were quite so favoured as Guns N' Roses.  At the time I couldn't say exactly why.  It could have been the lead singers unique aggressive growly voice, their bad boy, "don't give a crap" attitude, or the fact that the fuzzy haired fellow in the top hat could play his guitar like nobody's business.

All I knew is that they didn't sound like anything else I've heard before or since.  And it affected me like no music has before or since.  I was hooked.  I'd listen to their Use Your Illusion albums, I & II, on constant repeat for weeks at a time.

One of the great things about long car rides by yourself is that it gives you time to think.  A few weeks ago I went on such a drive. As a lark I put on the Use Your Illusion II album, and, as is required to appreciate a good hard rock album, I cranked the stereo up to 11, put my foot down, and soaked in the music while eating up the miles.

While I motored along I remembered how much I loved this album as a teen, and, armed with the additional perspective of having an additional 20-odd years of life experience under my belt, I finally started to understand why.

I believe that music should affect you in some way.  Good music should move you.  Great music should take you on a journey.  That is exactly what G'n'R did.  They took me an epic journey, and they do it like nobody else.

Many of their songs cover deep emotional topics in a no-holds-barred sort of way.  This isn't new, but where most bands hide their deep thoughts behind cryptic lyrics and basic hard rock guitar rifts,  G'n'R wears their emotions on their sleeve - lyrically and, most importantly, musically.

As an example, The Without You trilogy (Don't Cry, November Rain, and Estranged), is the painful story of a man dealing with the suicide of his girlfriend.  Estranged especially, in my opinion their greatest work, shrugs off the 'verse chorus verse solo chorus' recipe and heads off on a 9 minute roller coaster of grief, loss, anger, angst, gut twisting pain, confusion, and finally acceptance, presented in a series of lyrical thoughts followed by amazing guitar solos.  It is almost symphonic in presentation (as much as a rock band can be).  It is highly introspective, and raw with emotion.

It is tightly woven together: lyrics, guitar, drums, bass, piano.  Every note and drum beat purposely positioned in the song to take you on a journey, as if in lock step.  It is both beautiful and brutal.

It is a journey I've never personally been on, nor wish to personally experience, but I feel it in my gut every time I hear the song.  It is intense.  It is addictive.  It is genius itself, and in my experience, utterly unique.

I can't get enough of it. Luckily the G'n'R' catalog has plenty of these sorts of songs to fill the void.

Of course it doesn't hurt that the band had musical talent coming out of their ears. Axl Rose is widely considered one of the best vocalists in rock, and Slash's dominance of the guitar, and his unique sound, earns him a place on most lists of rock gods.  The rest of the band are not exactly musical slouches either.

 There are few lists of top rock songs that don't include at least one G'n'R epic, often several.

Its clear that the band had its issues.  They were famous for it, and it eventually tore the band apart prematurely. However those issues came out in their music in a very honest and palpable way.  They generated pure unfettered, brutally honest rock n'roll,  and let it all come out on the albums.

Its this raw talent mixed with the authenticity of their music that really speaks to me, and grabbed me as that high school kid.  Talent and honesty are things I value now in almost anything I tend to appreciate in life, and with influences like G'n'R, its no wonder.

So this is why I consider the Use Your Illusions II album specifically, and Guns N' Roses in general, as some of the best musical experiences in the world.  At least from where I sit.

Your opinions will likely vary, and I suspect by quite a bit. Music is, after all, a very personal thing. All I know is that when I finally shrug off this mortal coil, and St. Peter opens wide those pearly gates, the song I  really hope the choir of angels will be singing is "Paradise City."

Oh, won't you please take me home.

Heavy Metal Tolkien: Lego Edition

To anyone who has read or watched The Hobbit or Lord Of The Rings, it is obvious that J R R Tolkiens works Are full of song and verse.  Most people picture them as folk tunes, or old time ballads.  However, given the harsh realities of metal and flame that the orcs and Sauron represent, that also feature heavily in Tolkiens works, what if we got it wrong and they are more Mordor than Shire?

Imagine if you will, just for fun, that those songs were actually metal songs, and they were performed by Lego minifigs.

I present to you  my vision of heavy metal album art from a band of characters from Middle Earth: Lego Edition.

UPDATE: I didn't like the old title, so I updated it so something more acceptable (Lego art is such a fickle business).

KRAX OF DÜM

Lead Guitar: Gandalf The Wizard

Bag Pipes: Shagrat The Orc

Drums: Meriadoc Brandybuck
Vocals: Bilbo Baggins
Bass Guitar: Beorn

---

Original image with old text:

Long Way Round: The Day The Music Died

The following post is one of many that documents the adventures of a family of bears as they turn a 10 hour road trip into a week long adventure while on their way to GeoWoodstock XII in St. Charles Missouri. If you are not up to speed, check out the introduction here.

---

"A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while"
On February 3rd 1959 Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper, fresh from a concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Iowa, took off in a small airplane into a snowstorm.  A few minutes later the plane was spotted going down.

"But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step"

A search party was sent out at first light, and it was soon confirmed that the plan crashed in a cornfield, and all hands, the three musicians and the pilot, were killed.

"I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died"

This whole story (the historical one, not the one in this blog) is captured, poetically, in the immortal song entitled American Pie by Don McLean.

Today a memorial stands in the cornfield where the plane went down.  During this road trip we had the chance of making a pilgrimage to this famous location and pay homage to the forefathers of rock'n'roll (and to also claim the two related virtual caches).  This was a chance I could not pass up.

We parked on a lonely gravel road at the edge of a farmers field.  A dirt path followed the fence line, around the edge of a cornfield, 4/10ths of a mile to the site.

The memorial sits along the same fence line, and is very appropriate considering the musicians involved.

"Now for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me"

Nearby is the memorial to the pilot.  For some reason I cannot figure out, people have been leaving used cards there: credit cards, gift cards, hotel cards, student cards, etc. I am sure it means something, but I have no idea what it may be.

"Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again"

"And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed"

The kids, of course, have no idea that this is a memorial, but they did understand that what they were walking on is a gigantic sand box, which they made good use of, much to the squeals and delights of the youngest.

One of the best things about geocaching, and going on adventures, is coming face to face with history. This, more than most, was an amazing journey back to an important point (literally and figuratively) in music history.

As we drove off from this site, as an homage, we played American Pie a few times on the radio.

"We started singin' bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye..."

"... and singin' "This'll be the day that I die 
This'll be the day that I die"

---

<== Get Lost | Field Of Dreams ==>

Petra: The Concert Video

If you recall, I went to a Petra concert last November that was recorded.  Here is a snippet of the concert.  You can see me (blurry) on the left hand side of the band (from the audience perspective) about 10 rows back - I'm wearing a red shirt.

Two Days In Nashville

This weekend we packed up the car and spent two whirlwind days in Nashville Tennessee.  I went to attend a Petra reunion concert, my wife went for the adventure.  Zeke went because he had no choice.  The dogs stayed home. The details of the concert are covered elsewhere.  This post is about the adventure.

Is this a Parthenon I see before me?

We wanted to maximize our free time in Nashville so we woke up at 5am on Saturday morning, and was on the road 20 minutes later.  It is a 6 hour drive from my house to Nashville, so with a long breakfast stop to give Zeke time to stretch his little legs, we arrived at noon... er... 11?  It turns out Nashville is in the Central time zone, so when we arrived we discovered we had an extra hour to explore the city... which was awesome.

We started our Nashville experience by checking out Centennial Park.  The park contains the only full size replica of the greek Parthenon.  We spent a couple hours  exploring the rather huge structure, and the surrounding park.  Zeke loved playing in the leaves, and found the fountain to be a rather interesting spectacle.


After the park we headed downtown to check out the Country Music Hall Of Fame. When we arrived I pulled out my GPS to mark my parking spot and it was then that I realized that I was practically standing on a geocache, so we took a few moments to grab it.

After that we took a stroll down Broadway St. to find another cache at a Baptist church.  Zeke came in handy here as I used him as a distraction to grab the cache without being seen.  Zeke has a million house hold uses. I highly recommend picking one up for yourself.

Broadway St. had a lot of bars and music themed stores, and is exactly what I expected to see when I think of Nashville and its rich musical heritage.  We walked around the area for a couple more hours until it was time to head 20 miles east of town to Hendersonville to check into our hotel.  It was there that I left my wife and kid in the hotel room to catch the concert (note: a good time to mention that my wife is completely and totally awesome for letting me go to the concert by myself)

The next morning we headed out to do some more caching (I found 7 caches in total this trip), and we eventually made our way over to the Grand Ole Opry House.

We then stopped at a park to let Zeke get some more play time, and then we got in the car and headed back across the North Carolina line and arrived home just before 7pm on Sunday night.

Nashville is an interesting city.  I wish I could have spent some more time there and absorb some of the rich musical history and culture that the city seems to ooze from its core.   It is definitely a city I would be willing to visit again.

Before I finish this post and let you take a look at the rest of my Nashville photos, let me say that Zeke, being all of 13 months old, traveled amazingly well.  He spent most of the car ride sleeping or playing with his toys, and when we were walking around the city we barely heard from him.  He was an awesome travel companion.  Love that little guy I do.

OK enough gushing over the offspring.  As promised, the rest of the photos:

For another perspective on our trip (and much better photos) check out my wifes blog entry.

Petra - The Rock Cries Out

On Saturday I experienced one of my childhood dreams:  seeing Petra live.  It did not disappoint.

For anyone in my blog audience that is my age and grew up in a Christian home Petra needs no introduction.  For those of you who haven't, let me provide some background.

Petra is a Christian rock band that started in 1972, and played together for 33 years.  They were a ground breaking band, being one of the first true Christian rock bands. The have released 20 albums, won 7 Grammys and are the first Christian band to be inducted into the Hard Rock Cafe Hall Of Fame.  They have toured the globe, sold out arenas, and caused many a parent and pastor in the 70s and 80s grey hair as they tried to figure out if this rock music stuff had anything to do with Christianity (it does, thank you very much).

Petra was my favourite band while I was growing up, and I still listen to them frequently to this day.  I have dreamed of seeing them in concert ever since I knew rock concerts existed. The problem is that they retired before I got a chance to see them live, and I had come to terms that my collection of their songs (now on MP3) would be all I would get to experience of the band.  That all changed on Monday night when my wife informed me that Petra has regrouped, and is putting on a concert in Nashville on Saturday.  To put icing on the cake, the concert was free.  Despite being a 6 hour drive, and only 5 days away, I decided then and there that I was going to attend the concert. I couldn't let an opportunity like this pass me by.  It is too important.

You see, as a quasi "Preachers Kid", I was not allowed to listen to a lot of secular music when I was a kid.  Most of my parents music, and for that matter our church's worship style, bored me to tears (still does).   Don't get me wrong: my parents have a strong faith and they live it out daily, and I have nothing but respect for them - it is just that their preferred method of worship falls on the mind numbingly boring side of the scale.   When I was in grade 5 my parents started managing a Christian kids camp.  One of the counsellors left a Petra tape lying around the camp kitchen.  I popped it into my stereo and out came this awesome 80's style rock music.  Since it was Christian I was allowed to keep listening to it, and to my parents credit they bought me many Petra albums (as well as other Christian artists) as I grew up.

As I grew up and matured, and started to grow in my own faith, listening to Petra helped me realize that I could approach Christianity in my own way, and I didn't have to force myself into the boring mold that my parents modelled for me (again, nothing wrong with that mold, just didn't fit me that well).  I give Petra, in a large degree, credit for the strong faith I have now that fits me like a glove, doesn't compromise the Christian truth, and serves as a strong guidepost for my life.  So you can see how it would be important for me to go see these guys in person.

Really the only question was if my wife was going with me or not.  We didn't have a babysitter so she wasn't going to be able to see the concert, and she had a busy schedule on Saturday.  Luckily she was able to re-arrange her schedule so she was able to come with me, so at 5am on Saturday we loaded up the Zekester into the car and drove the 6 hours to Nashville Tennessee.  I'll blog about Nashville in a bit, and needless to say my wife is awesome for being willing to be left in a hotel near Nashville alone with a kid while I attended a rock concert (She's awesome!), but lets concentrate on the concert for now.

The concert was a taping of a live performance of their latest album.  The concert will be broadcast on TBN in 23 countries on New Years Day.  I had never been to a video recording session before, but it was pretty much as I expected.  Lots of cameras and cameramen,  some shuffling around of the crowd to ensure no empty seats in camera range, and then the band performed and everything was recorded.  There were some technical difficulties so they played the last 3 songs over again to ensure everything came off looking and sounding good.  From the perspective of a recording session it was an interesting experience.

The concert itself was fantastic.  The stage decorations was the exact same setup they used for their 1985 world tour.  The band sounded phenomenal - almost like the studio produced album does.  They definitely mugged for the camera at times, which is to be expected.  You could definitely tell that these guys knew what they were doing, believed in their ministry, and loved what they do.   It was an awesome performance, and everything I expected and dreamed of as a kid growing up.

 After the concert the members of Petra had an autograph session. I was able to shake the hands of every member of the band and thank them personally for their influence in my life.

 During this session they showed some of the footage they just filmed, and I am definitely in some of the crowd shots. Just as the cheering after the final song started to die down, I looked over to find one of the crowd cameras pointing point blank at my face - it was on a boom, and no more than 12 inches from me, so maybe I'll be world famous soon :)

I also got them to dedicate a copy of their latest album to Zeke.  I will give it to him when he is older in hopes that it will show him that he can approach his faith in his own way, just like Petra helped show me, and secretly, that he will become a rocker like his dad.

Great Big Sea

Great Big Sea is a high energy maritime folk rock band from Newfoundland Canada.  Last night they played the McGlohon Theatre in downtown Charlotte NC.    Luckily all the details (getting last minute tickets, lining up a babysitter etc.) worked out and my wife and I were able to head down to Charlotte and check out the show.

We have been fans of Great Big Sea for 10+ years, and it was a real treat for a couple of Canadian expats to spend an evening enjoying some amazing Canadian music.  We were not dissapointed.  GBS was in top form as they played a double set of their classic hits and some tracks off of their latest record.  The sound quality was almost perfect, and the audience interaction was fantastic.  The energy in the room started out high and didn't come down until the end of the last song.

If you are not familiar with GBS, their songs range from the serious to fun to extremely fun, and all celebrate the maritime culture that defines Newfoundland.  I managed to grab the following bootleg video of GBSs performance of a comedic song called Charlie Horse, which is a song about friends rescuing a horse who drowned in a lake.  It is a perfect example of how GBS songs often make light of the events surrounding the often hard life in traditional Newfoundland and Labrador.  Please forgive the video quality.  I only managed to grab one video before I was told "pictures were not allowed in the theatre".  I hope you enjoy it.

Barack Star

If only the real Obama was as awesome as this...

Shamefully stolen from sinfest.net: Original Link

Lets Play Catch-up... Brad Paisley vs. Aerosmith

So I haven't blogged since I got married. Let me tell ya, things are going great. Deborah Lynn is the best thing that has ever happened to me! I've been so busy enjoying living my life with her I didn't have time to blog... but now its time to get back to it!

Why the sudden return to blogging? Well, its because I am in Chicago on a business trip, and I was forced to leave Debbie at home. So I blog to kill time...

So whats the topic de jour? Well, not surprisingly its music. recently I had the privilege to attend two amazing concerts. The headliners? Brad Paisley and Aerosmith.

Brad Paisley

I originally agreed to go to Brad Paisley because he is one of Debbies favourite country stars. Happy wife is a happy Dave, so I bought tickets, and took my wife. I expected the show to be boring... I was in for a surprise...

First of all, the opening acts (Taylor Swift & Rodney Aikens) were entertaining. They both put on a great show, was entertaining and funny, and played solid music that sounded great. They set a high bar for Brad... which Brad leaped over with 6 feet to spare.

Brad is an amazingly talented guitarist, and he used it to rock out for the entire show. He played several guitar solos, including a marathon 10+ minute blister-fest that contained some of the best sounding guitar I have ever witnessed live.

Brads stage decoration was a large stack of monitors that constantly shown graphics and animations appropriate for each song he played. It was an impressive show. Brad definitely won a fan out of me.

Which leads me to...

Aerosmith

A week and a half later I dragged Debbie out to see Aerosmith. This is the third time I've seen Aerosmith live, and they blew the socks off their other performances. They played some 90s hits, and a couple songs from their recent blues album, Honkin On Bobo. Then they played a solid lineup of their oldies - solid rockin blues rock. Joe Perry went on several improv solos that were simply amazing. He played his guitar behind his back. He played it by having the drummer drum on the strings, and he played it with Steve Tyler fingering the chords from behind his back - absolutely amazing.

The energy was cranked to 1000% for the entire concert. It was nothing but pure excitement. Steven Tyler gets more crazy, and Aerosmith gets louder every time they go out on tour. The older they get, the better they get. They are truely the gods of rock, and there is none higher. If your a rock fan and have not seen Aerosmith live, you are cheating yourself out of an experience you will never forget.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Steve Tyler of Aerosmith

One of my favourite bands is Aerosmith. When they hit their stride on stage with a strong rock riff with a blues influence, theres really nothing better. Here is Steve singing his heart out at a church in Detroit:

Amazing Grace:



Lean On Me:


And Finally, Live on stage with Aerosmith: Dream On.


Not bad eh?