A Brief Musical Interlude

Awhile back, before all this Covid-19 crap hit the fan, I saw someone post an amusing musical thought experiment on Facebook and figured I’d get around to writing about it at some point. Well, apparently I didn’t.

Now that I have the time, I’ll take a stab at them and see what comes from it. Now obviously I could do this on Facebook but as my trust in the platform’s security is less than zero and while these are fun thought experiments, they’re also thinly veiled social data mining experiments. I’ll play, but in my own corner of the internet where no one goes and therefore less likely to be seen by anyone.

First up. The question was: What is a song that you love by a band that you hate, and then What is a song that you hate by a band that you love?

First one is easy enough for me. I can’t stand Red Hot Chili Peppers in any form and usually turn the station whenever I hear them. I do however really enjoy their version of Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground. It’s so frenetic and enthusiastic and I can’t stop myself from cranking the volume every time it comes on in the car.

Second one, not so easy. If I look at a lot of The Tragically Hip’s catalogue, there’s quite a lot that I’m not fond of, especially their later work. It’s good and I’ll listen to it, but it just doesn’t speak to me as much as Road Apples, Fully Completely and Day For Night do. That being said, I think that I’ll have to pick Fiddler’s Green off of their Road Apples album as one I will always turn off when I hear it.

The second challenge was that if you were to have a virtual concert and could only have bands that started with the letters of your name.

G – Green Day
R – Rage Against The Machine
E – Everclear
G – Garbage
O – Offspring
R – Rush
Y – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

M – Modest Mouse
c – Cage The Elephant
F – Foo Fighters
A – Arctic Monkeys
L – Linkin Park
L – Lumineers

While there isn’t any Tragically Hip or Twenty-One Pilots, I think I’ll have a good time nonetheless.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled social distancing.

Something Resembling A Post

Once again here I am sitting in my darkened living room trying to wind down from a long day at work. I’m not really tired but I expect I’ll be up early so I should probably be in bed…

Obviously I’m not listening to myself and so here I sit listening to Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs and trying to wind down. Never said I was the brightest bulb in the room now did I?

I know it’s been somewhere in the range of 30 million years since my last substantial post and for that I apologize. Life… has been interesting, to say the least. Mostly I’ve just been busy with living my life and not actually being online 24/7 like I used to be.  Strange thing that.

I guess I should take the time now to expand and elaborate on some of the things that I summed up in my last post.

Now as you may recall, Tamara and I went to Rome just prior to last Thanksgiving and it was amazing. Exhausting, but absolutely fan-frickin-tastic! We spent a couple of days in London as well and just over a week in Rome itself. We didn’t get to see much else outside the city but what we did see we enjoyed. The history nerd in me was more than satiated on the ruins, architecture and general sense of history that permeated everything there. I’ve got a ton of pics (though less than I’d expected/intended) that I still need to sort and post and I will post them soon. I will however give you a quick shot that I took from inside the Colosseum just to tide you over.

IMG_2075

Once we were back, I ended up facing a bit of a crisis at work. All the management staff that I had, up and left on me within a few weeks of each other and didn’t give me enough time to find (or train) their replacements. That left me dangerously short staffed going into the Christmas season and I ended up working 80+ hrs a few weeks in a row in an effort to keep the store open.  It also burned me out something fierce and definitely took it’s toll on my relationship. Thankfully though, I survived Christmas and managed to get some semi competent staff in to help me cope. Unfortunately the damage was done and I had become utterly burned out at the thought of work and all the things that still needed to be done to turn the store around. After discussing it with my boss, we came up with a solution that satisfied everyone. At the end of February, I ended up transferring to a different location, stepping down as a Store Manager to the role of Assistant Manager in a higher volume store where I could get the “training” that I had officially missed out on. Officially I’m a Store manager in Training on a 6 month development plan that will see me back running my own store by next christmas… or at least that’s the theory. I may end up telling them where to shove it before then if things don’t go so well.

With all the overwork and chaos of my life, I haven’t had much time to write anything and I’m sorely missing it. Now that my schedule is returning to some semblance of normality I’m going to try and take some time to regularly do some writing and I’ll hopefully get them transcribed and posted here at some point. If you’re lucky, they might be posted here before summer’s end.

Alright, It’s 3am now and I really need some sleep. I shall leave you with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their new single Zero.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero

Enjoy Kidlets.

A Mid-Week Serenade

Due to the help of my ever-faithful henchman Igor and through the super science of blog necromancy I bring to you, from the very edge of death, my somewhat regular postings about music and such.

Yes, it has been awhile. I have to say that I have a decent excuse this time. I managed to land myself in a very healthy and happy relationship with a girl who puts up with all my eccentricities and foibles with good grace. She also managed to watch me type that with a straight face so I guess that’s saying something.

As you can imagine, it’s eaten up a lot of my time. Not only do have I a new girlfriend but I also lucked out and landed myself a promotion at work and am now the Store Manager. Not the acting or fill in or temporary, the bona fide, hardcore, my will be done, what is thy bidding my master, Boss of it all. So yay for me. When I’m not working or dealing with work I’m with the GF and her lovable two year old daughter so blogging has fallen by the wayside. Perhaps once we’re settled in the new apt, I’ll have more time… Yeah yeah. wishful thinking. I know.

Anyways. I’ve had this song stuck in my head for awhile now. It’s simple. It’s sweet and I like it. It’s Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s.

Enjoy

Sunday Night Serenade

Okay, so it’s no longer Sunday night, or even Sunday at all but I’m still going to go ahead with a brief music post about a new band that I was introduced to. I’m wholly going to blame my friend Tamara for introducing me to them. Hooray!

That band is Ludo (named for one of the characters from the movie Labyrinth) and the song that I’ve been hooked on is Love Me Dead.

It’s quirky, and catchy and fun and amusing. Plus the “finger-banging my heart” line keeps getting stuck in my head. I’m such a sick fuck. I love it.

Ludo – Love Me Dead

Anyway, it’s middle of monday afternoon so I shall cut this post short so as not to distract you from or intrude on Mark’s Mellifluent Monday posts.

If Your Life Was A Movie, What Would The Soundtrack Be?

Alright. I haven’t done one of these silly memes in awhile now. Going to place the blame fully on Christine for this one. Besides, placing the blame will totally distract everyone from my eclectically bad taste in music.

So, here’s how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie

The Greg Movie Experience

Opening Credits: Mrs. Robinson – The Lemonheads

Waking Up: Vaccination Scar – The Tragically Hip

First Day At School: Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off) – Parliment
Okay, Apparently it’s a very funky school. Maybe it’s PCU

Falling In Love: I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Frank Sinatra & Bono
Okay, that’s somewhat fitting.

Fight Song: Lust For Life – Iggy Pop

Breaking Up: I Love Not Loving You – Wide Mouth Mason
Ahahah.

Prom: The Rainbow Connection – Kermit The Frog
It ain’t ever easy bein’ green.

Life: Le Tango de Roxanne – Moulin Rouge Soundtrack

Mental Breakdown: Gouge Away – Pixies
Hehehehe. That’s amusing.

Driving: D is For Dangerous – The Arctic Monkeys

Flashback: Afterglow – INXS

Getting Back Together: Rain Will Fall – I Mother Earth

Wedding: I.O.U – Metric

Birth of Child: If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) – AC/DC
Hehe. Apparently it’s a messy birth.

Final Battle: The Pretender – Foo Fighters

Death Scene: If I Ever Leave This World Alive – Flogging Molly
Nice

Funeral Song: Eulogy – Tool
Hahahah.

End Credits: Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
Couldn’t end on a better note

Heh. Consistency is not one of my strong suits. This one is much like my life, all over the map. Oh well, rather enjoyable nonetheless.

Sunday Night Serenade

Just a quick one tonight folks. I’m exhausted so I’m not even going to bother saying much beyond the fact that I like this band and I think you should too.

They’re a little Canadian indie band that go by the name of Metric.

I first heard Monster Hospital last year and did the usual “Hrrm that sounded good. I wonder what their other stuff is like?” So far I haven’t been disappointed. Here’s a brief selection of their work. Hope you like them as well.

Continue reading “Sunday Night Serenade”

Sunday Night Serenade

Okay, it’s time once again for the dulcet tones of me babbling endlessly about music… or at least you can pretend it’s me babbling until I finally gather up the cahones to actually record a podcast version and let’s be honest, that might take some time. At the very least it won’t be until I get my computer fixed (which, based on my current monetary prognostications, will hopefully happen by the end of March).

Anyways, on with the show… such as it is.

Continue reading “Sunday Night Serenade”

Sunday Night Serenade

Aha! I’m back.

Before you gasp in amazement and awe that I’ve I actually managed to follow through on this silly little music review idea, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I am in fact writing this post barely 5 minutes after I posted the last one.

*gasp*

Yes, I’m cheating and working ahead. I don’t feel bad about it at all. Magazines do it all the time as they publish a month in advance, as to most webcomic artists. It’s called building a buffer and working ahead of your deadline. It’s probably a good habit to get into but for the moment, for me at least, it’s still just an amusing trompe-l’œil. Am I live or am I Memorex? Yeah, I’m easily amused. Does it show?

Alright, on with the show before you all decide to travel back in time and lynch me.

Continue reading “Sunday Night Serenade”

Sunday Night Serenade

On a bit of a whim I’ve decided to start a semi-regular feature here in the Chronicles. I’ve decided to burble randomly about the songs and music that I’m currently grooving to. I plan to run the gamut here and post both old stuff that I’m still obsessing over after all these years (expect a fair bit of early Hip), as well as new stuff that I’ve stumbled across or have been introduced to recently. The plan is to try and post actual songs when and where I can and YouTube videos where that isn’t possible and then to sound off with my usual acerbically humble opinion about the song(s)/artist or whatever crosses my mind while listening.

I can’t promise it’ll be legible, critically useful or even newsworthy and you’ll even take your chances with how regularly I end up posting but I figure I’ll give it a try for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. Who knows, my rabid gerbil brain may pull a Kiki and get distracted by something shiny before I even get around to a second post and we’ll never… err where was I?

Oh yeah…

The plan is to post every Sunday, or possibly Saturday, night as indicated by the title of this entry but we all know how I am with deadlines. I subscribe to the Douglas Adams worldview on them.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

Continue reading “Sunday Night Serenade”