What You Should Have Heard #85

My Mix CDs

I’ve got a lot of music but limited space to hold it in, especially in my car. So I’ve gone the old tried-and-true way of making mix CDs to have access to as many bands as possible while driving. I’m going slightly old-school since I’m a bit backwards and have no iPod.

So I finally got a Smart Phone a couple of months ago. I've now got a Spotify account with more than 10,000 songs in various playlists, so I guess I'm done with CDs. I'm going to see this through to the end, though. Well, through Yellowcard, at least. I got a bunch of miscellaneous CDs that contain a bunch of bands with a song or two by each.

Most of the songs will be more upbeat, with probably only the occasional ballad or slower song included. I like to sing in the car, and the more upbeat songs are more fun to sing.

I’ll be going in alpha-numeric order with these, so if you want to argue with me about what Weezer songs should be included, you’re going to be waiting for a while.

My only limitations are that I use 80 min. discs, and I’m only going to use one disc per band/artist. I will make exceptions for only my most favorite bands with huge playlists (Foo Fighters and Self, off the top of my head), but I’d really like to boil everything down to just one disc.

Here’s the list guide:

Track # - Song Name - Album Name [Artist if album is by a different artist]                                                               

Tool Mix CD Disc 1

1. Vicarious – 10,000 Days
2. The Pot – 10,000 Days
3. Cold and Ugly – 72826 EP
4. Jerk-Off – 72826 EP
5. Stinkfist – Ænima
6. Eulogy – Ænima
7. H – Ænima
8. Forty-Six and 2 – Ænima
9. Hooker with a Penis – Ænima
10. Jimmy – Ænima
11. Die Eier Von Satan – Ænima
12. Ænima – Ænima
13. Sweat – Opiate EP
14. Hush – Opiate EP
15. Opiate – Opiate EP

Tool Mix CD Disc 1

1. The Grudge – Lateralus
2. Schism – Lateralus
3. Parabola – Lateralus
4. Ticks and Leeches – Lateralus
5. Lateralus – Lateralus
6. Intolerance – Undertow
7. Prison Sex – Undertow
8. Sober – Undertow
9. Crawl Away – Undertow
10. Swamp Song – Undertow
11. Undertow – Undertow
12. 4° – Undertow

A few notes on Tool:

• First off, the band is working on a new album. No release date has been set, though, but tour dates have already been announced. Looks like Maynard is going straight from Puscifer dates to Tool dates. The guy’s a machine.
• I have a friend from Indiana to thank for my love of Tool. Heck, he’s the guy I need to thank for introducing me to alternative rock. Before he started pushing his CD collection on me, I was knee deep into a love affair with classic rock.
• I got into alternative rock during my transition from Indiana to Tennessee, between my sophomore and junior years of high school. Tool’s Undertow and Pearl Jam’s Ten opened my ears up to a whole new musical vista, one that was fostered by a couple of great Nashville radio stations (RIP Thunder 94). Tool was always in heavy rotation when I got tired of the radio and wanted to listen to CDs.
• While I’ll always have a place in my heart for Undertow and its influence on my musical evolution, Ænima will always be my favorite album (unless the band puts one out in the future that surpasses it…which wouldn’t be a bad thing). It seems to radiate more energy and emotion, and those tend to be the albums/songs I gravitate toward the most. I loved “Eulogy” and its layered percussion opening. That’s the song that was on repeat the most.
• I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m always a little let down with the follow-up to any album I fall head over heels for. Lateralus was a good album, but I keep comparing it to Ænima, and just doesn’t stack up as well for me. I think before the next album, I’m going to give Lateralus and 10,000 Days some good listens and re-evaluate my thoughts on them.
• Maynard Keenan has two other bands that I enjoy (A Perfect Circle moreso than Puscifer), but you’ll notice I didn’t include any of their songs in this mix. That was something easy to do with bands like The Burden Brothers and The Toadies or the various projects Ken Andrews has worked with. But with Maynard and his bands, the sounds are just SO different that they wouldn’t work well together in a mix CD. So Tool gets two CDs all to itself, and A Perfect Circle gets its own CD. At the time I made the CDs, I didn’t like enough Puscifer songs to include on a full-length mix CD.

Tool’s Official Site

Tool’s Facebook page

Tool’s Myspace page

Tool’s Twitter feed

Tool’s Wikipedia entry

Tool’s AllMusic entry

Tool’s Semi-Official Fan Site

Also, in case you've forgotten: When I can remember to add this to the bottom of my posts, I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But when you click ads, I get a little bit of money, and as a single father of three, every penny from every source helps...especially with Christmas looming on the horizon. So I’m going to keep this tiny bit of begging at the bottom of my posts, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. The only thing it costs you is time. :) Thanks so much!

What You Should Have Seen #16

Blood into Wine

I’ve wanted to see this documentary since I first heard about it last year, but make no mistake: my interest has nothing to do with wine making in Arizona. I like wine, but I love beer. Beer documentaries (Beer Wars, Brew Masters on the Discovery Channel) are what I’ll be interested in. The draw for me with this doc is the inclusion of Maynard James Keenan, front man extraordinaire of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.

I think you have to be a fan of Maynard’s music in order to really appreciate the film; you can’t just be a wine lover. His life and background as a musician are factored pretty heavily, and for me that makes this more interesting. I also learned that Milla Jovovich is a vocalist in Puscifer. How did I not know that before? Patton Oswalt also shows up, and that was a real treat, and Bob Odenkirk does a slightly humorous bit as the credits roll at the end.

The film grabbed me right from the humorous beginning. Maynard’s dry wit shows up almost every time he is on camera. Had that been missing from the film, I don’t know if I would have been able to stay with it. I just don’t care enough about wine.

Quick observation: I think Karl Wente snorted a line of coke before his stint on camera. Either that or he REALLY loves his winery. I don’t think he took a breath at all during his little interview.

Also, I thought the segment where he talked about his mother was incredibly touching.

I will not deny that I can be a beer snob. I tend to shy away from the big American breweries, your Anheuser-Busches and your Millers and your Coors. For big American craft brewers, I love Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams, but I also love trying all sorts of new types from all sorts of different breweries, both foreign and domestic. But I’m not so snobby that I get a mouthful of excellent beer, swish it around in my mouth, then spit it out. I don’t understand that, and as soon as I saw that happening with the wine critics, I wanted to punch them. God, I hope I’m not that douchey when I’m trying new beers. Drink it! Enjoy it! I know that has nothing to do with the movie, but I needed to say it.

The best lines from the movie were from a discussion between Maynard and wine critic James Suckling as they are tasting a bottle of Primer Paso from Caduceus.

            “Maybe you’re trying to be…trying too hard.”

            “Not at all. I love this wine. I make what I like.”

Watching this documentary did not make me want to buy or learn about wine any more or less than I already did. I would like to order a bottle of Maynard’s wine at some point, but that’s just for the novelty of buying a bottle of wine made by the lead singer of Tool. The one thing that this documentary DID do was make me want to watch a documentary about Maynard himself. I checked on IMDB, and there doesn’t seem to be one, so could somebody get on that? The recent Foo Fighters documentary was spectacular, so let’s get a Maynard one going.

Wikipedia Entry
IMDB Entry
Official Webpage
Caduceus Wine

Happy National Nurses Week!!

I was listening to the A Perfect Circle mix CD I blogged about yesterday when "The Nurse Who Loved Me" came on, and I realized that somebody last week mentioned that this past Thursday (May 6) was National Nurses Day. I've got a couple of friends who are either nurses or are in school to become one, and I always like an excuse to spread some music, so here's something just for the nurses out there. Thanks for keeping us alive in the hospital while the doctors are busy elsewhere. Thank you for finding the vein on the first try when taking blood. Thank you for making scrubs look hot. Just, thank you. Oh, and happy birthday Florence Nightingale (May 12).

What You Should Have Heard #10

My Mix CDs

I’ve got a lot of music but limited space to hold it in, especially in my car. So I’ve gone the old tried-and-true way of making mix CDs to have access to as many bands as possible while driving. I’m going slightly old-school since I’m a bit backwards and have no iPod.

Most of the songs will be more upbeat, with probably only the occasional ballad or slower song included. I like to sing in the car, and the more upbeat songs are more fun to sing.

I’ll be going in alpha-numeric order with these, so if you’re wanting to argue with me about what Weezer songs should be included, you’re going to be waiting for a while.

My only limitations are that I use 80 min. discs, and I’m only going to use one disc per band/artist. I will make exceptions for only my most favorite bands with huge playlists (Foo Fighters and Self, off the top of my head), but I’d really like to boil everything down to just one disc.

Here’s the list guide:

Track # - Song Name - Album Name

A Perfect Circle Mix CD

01 – Imagine – eMotive

02 – Passive – eMotive

03 – Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drum – eMotive

04 – Fiddle and Drum – eMotive

05 – The Hollow – Mer de Noms

06 – Judith – Mer de Noms

07 – 3 Libras – Mer de Noms

08 – Thinking of You – Mer de Noms

09 – The Package – Thirteenth Step

10 – Weak and Powerless – Thirteenth Step

11 – Outsider – Thirteenth Step

12 – The Nurse Who Loved Me – Thirteenth Step

13 – Pet – Thirteenth Step

14 – Judith (Renholder Mix) – Underworld [Original Soundtrack]

15 – Fred’s Slacks – March 2, 2004 Concert

A Perfect Circle is one of the side projects (keep an eye out when I’m at the “Ps” for Puscifer) of Maynard Keenan, the lead singer of Tool. Where Tool is hard rock in a very experimental form, A Perfect Circle is more straight ahead, but not completely. I'd say it's definitely more accessible than Tool is, but that doesn't necessarily make it better...just different. They've got three albums out at present, one of which contains a handful of cover songs and is "a collection of songs about war, peace, love and greed." It's my least favorite album of the three, but contains a KILLER cover of John Lennon's "Imagine." The other two albums, "Thirteenth Step" and "Mer de Noms," are equally good. They're not mind-blowing, but both are very strong albums with very little if any filler. My favorite song can be found on Thirteenth Step and is entitled "The Nurse Who Loved Me," which was originally done by the group Failure on their 1996 album "Fantastic Planet." I really can't describe why I like the song so much. It just works on all levels (lyrics, music, feel, etc.).

Here's a link to APC's official site, which is pretty dead. No news on there since 2008, but a check of their Wikipedia page shows that they are making some new music. There used to be a wonderful site with hundreds upon hundreds of downloadable bootlegged concerts, but it's down for the moment. That’s where I got the version of Fred’s Slacks. If you’re a big fan of Will Ferrell, you might recognize the song. Here's their AllMusic entry.

Here’s the video for Weak and Powerless:

A Perfect Circle - New Music - More Music Videos