Concept Albums

I think for the most part, my favorite musical experience is that of listening to concept albums. I have always thought that music should be a movie for your ears, and a song is like the preview. Sadly though, through commercialism the three and a half minute pop song has become the focus rather than the teaser.

As a general rule, concept albums revolve around an interconnecting theme. Some storyline that connects each song to each other song on the album. Sometimes this “connecting theme” is mighty fragile, or in some cases non existent. The mighty Styx did an album called “Paradise Theater” which was allegedly a conceptual piece. Apparently it was based on the tearing down of a theater which was built to last forever. This album is a fine example of what could generously be called a “loosely connected concept album”, which is to say that most of the songs had little or nothing to do with the theater being torn down, nor with any of the other songs on the album.

Anyway, the majesty of the concept album is that you can wrap yourself up in it, get deeply involved with the story. Just like watching a movie. Pink Floyds “The Wall” is one of the better known examples of this movie making for the ears. “Dark Side Of The Moon” is another Pink Floyd concept effort, however I would bung that one in with “Paradise Theater” in as much as the songs enjoy a tenuous link at best. Not that It’s bad by any means, just not as clear and precisely connected as perhaps “The Wall”, or their “Final Cut” albums.

My top ten concept albums are as follows. I tried to only include one from any given artist, but Savatage have done so many and so well that they have to get two mentions.

Anzac Day 2006

Today is Anzac Day.

Bill Done It?

Our good friend Chris at Right Wing and Right Minded has an interesting story on how Iran got closer to getting a nuke.

Apparently every intern’s favorite Bill Clinton gave Iran plans for the nuclear bomb as part of a very cunning plan, that naturally fell apart. The plan was to give Iran a flawed plan for the bomb in the hope that it would slow down their bomb building program. In the tradition of the great Baldrick, the cunning plan had a flaw. The deliberately flawed plans for the bomb were given to a Russian scientist who was known to play both sides of the fence. He was told not to look at the (fake) plans. Yeah right. According to this report he not only had a peek, but he added a note in with them saying he could fix the (apparently very rudimentary deliberate mistakes) for a few dollars.

This whole cunning plan went under the moniker of “Operation Merlin”.

Now if it is all true, this is one reason why America sometimes faces a credibility problem in these matters. Clinton gives nuke plans away and Bush tries to stop Iran from building one. Those inside the U.S.A will see Bush trying to correct a mistake made by another administration (well they should anyway), but those outside the US will only see that the US created another monster that it now has to try and stop. Just like the perceptions RE bin Laden. You know the ones, the US trained him, armed him, made him coffee and cookies and all that.

The US takes on so much responsibility that decisions of is successive administrations take on a global importance, not just internal import. Unfortunately it seems a lot of the world does not seem to notice what administration makes what decision that affects them, they just see it as the US did it.

I believe it comes down to ideology as much as anything else. If people outside the US would take note of what administration does (or did) what, then said people could position themselves on the ideological side of the administration that makes decisions that best suit them. This would have a trickle down effect on global politics. Unfortunately most people don’t look very far past “the US did it” mentality.

If this story is true, then I guess it has just single handedly killed off any chance what so ever of Hillary getting the top job in 2008, and thats gotta be a good thing.

First posted HERE

Testing

Testing a plugin on the wonderful Seawitch’s blog. . She has a cool picture of Gnomes up just now.

What a Goose

It seems the Dali Lama is little more than a delusional goose.

Suicide bombings and other violence by extremists have unfairly skewed the world’s perception of Islam, the Dalai Lama said.

“Such mischievous people are not just in the Muslim community, but among the Hindus, the Christians, the Buddhists,” he said. “In any community, a few mischievous people are always there.”

Lunacy

What a crazy mixed up world we live in. Just recently golfing great Tiger Woods was forced to issue an apalogy for using the word “spaz” to describe himself for fluffing a few golf shots.

As if that was not silly enough, Queensland’s Sea World has changed the name of Fairy penguins to little penguins so the gay community is not offended!

Ok people here’s where it’s at back here on earth. In my life time I have been called Nazi, puppy eater, streak of pelican shit, retard, gimp, spook (coz I’m white), and so many others I can’t even remember. Who the hell cares? If I want to refer to myself as a “spaz” when I do something clumsy or silly I will. If I want to call penguins “fairy penguins” I will.

Another interesting note to this rant is a radio add here in Australia. It features a man talking with the aid of a machine. It goes something like this.

Hello *beep* what does the word “scope” mean to you *beep* to me it means opportunity *beep* the means to speak thanks to this machine *beep*

It goes on to explain that “scope” was formally known as “The Spastic Society”. I guess they changed the name because people like Tiger Woods refer to themselves as a spaz now and then. I presume they will change it again when people begin referring to themselves or others as “scopes”?

Political correctness is bullshit, it is mind control nothing less, and I will go to bloody jail before I will let dickheads like the managers of Sea world tell me how to speak.

Any fairy spazes reading this can count on it.

The Black Chris?

The Black Crowes were one of the very few shining lights for rock n roll throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Their debut album Shake Your Money Maker reeked of down an dirty blues based rock in the style of mid period Rolling Stones. Over the next decade plus, they released some of the most searingly magnificent rock ‘n’ roll ever recorded. In my opinion though, the albums were patchy. Sometimes they climbed into the stratosphere of greatness and at other times on the same album they sounded like stoned teenagers trying to be cool, but hey that’s what rock is right? I would be hard pressed to choose a favorite song of theirs, but I think maybe Good Friday comes close. It opens with a harmonica that reeks of isolation, solitude and smoky bars and sets the tone for the whole mournful song. Just that opening still sends shivers up my spine.

They seemed to ground to a halt not long after their 2001 album, the shambolic “Lions”. The preceding album, “By Your Side” was where (in my opinion) it all came together and for the first time they managed an entire album of greatness. Some live stuff followed “Lions”, most notably a collaborative effort with Jimmy Page.

Singer Chris Robinson went on to record 2 solo albums, and this is what I want to tell you about. I have just recently obtained his second solo album called “This Magnificent Distance” and for my money it accomplishes everything the Black Crowes just missed out on accomplishing.

Chris’s voice has found a new “road weariness” that suits his style perfectly. The album is slightly more “folksy” with a decidedly countryish twang, again it recalls the mid period Rolling Stones sound, yet with a style all it’s own rather than an imitation.

I have uploaded a couple of sample songs, which are very low bit rate rips, but should give you an idea. If you like what you hear, go buy it! You could certainly do a whole lot worse.

40 Days

Eagles On The Highway

In recent months the Crowes have played a few shows, possibly paving the way for a relaunch of the band, but with output like this, I fear Chris no longer needs them.

The Black Chris anyone?

PS. These songs will only stay up for a limited time. Get em while their hot.

Wolf Creek

Recently I did a review for our good friend Nehring of the movie Plan 9 From Outer Space. As I mentioned in the review, it is often touted as the worst movie ever made. It is not. All movies you may have seen that you thought were bad pale into insignificance when measured up to Wolf Creek. Remember those old “B” movies our TV stations used to play all night before some idiot decided to assail us with all night infomercials? They were masterpieces by comparison.

Wolf Creek claims to be based on “actual events”. It is not. In fact it is so “not” I wonder how they can make such a claim legally.

It’s not the violence that makes it bad, I am no prude, it’s just that the movie itself as a whole package is nothing more than an amateurish piece of over publicized crap. Full of impossible timing and even a patented Ed Wood daybreak/instant dark in the space of a scene. This flick is so bloody bad I wonder how it ever got released at all.

Naturally it comes as no suprise to read Quentin Tarantino claiming its greatness. That from a guy who after his death will no doubt be called the new Ed Wood.

When we first hired Wolf Creek from the library, the kindly lady told us that it was so frightening that a lot of her customers had not been able to sit through it. Upon returning it I explained that was not the case. They could not sit through it because the friggen movie is woefully bad.

Let’s move on, I have spent enough time on this rubbish already.

Making a Mockery.

Meet the Orange Bellied Parrot

This cute little bugger is responsible for the federal government over riding a state government decision to allow a wind farm in Victoria. It’s endangered you see, with only about 200 or so left in the wild, and the theory is that the remaining 200 or so will fly into the blades of the generator and die.

Now lets be clear about this, I hate these ugly looking things. I think they are a pointless waste of time money and a callous destruction of otherwise beautiful scenery.

I am not alone in that belief.

Wind is not an alternative source of energy at all, but an add-on extra that will cost the consumers and taxpayers a bomb – a bomb that could ruin your State’s economy.

This is the main reason Denmark, a world leader in wind power, has recently shelved three massive offshore projects.

To subsidise them and pay upstream planning and downstream litigation would have cost its national economy too dearly.

Despite the fact Denmark now produces more carbon dioxide than it did before its dash for wind, it still peddles turbines to gullible customers who are never told why Denmark is now against wind turbines in its own backyard.

I am fed up with being told that as I am anti-wind, I am pro-nuclear. Nothing is further from the truth.

Germany has more than 14,000 wind turbines which, although they have caused all sorts of problems – killing birds and bats, spooking horses, triggering epilepsy, collapse, fire, loss of tourist income and up to 35 per cent loss in property value – have not brought about the closure of a single nuclear power plant.

The problem is in my opinion, that the federal government knows and understands the folly of these monstrosities, but is too gutless to call a spade a bloody shovel and therefore tries to defeat the lunacy by using the greens own methods against them.

This is flawed and only makes the government look stupid.

The orange bellied parrot belongs to the Neophema family of small grass parrots. I know this because in another lifetime I used to breed Neophema parrots. They are about twice the size of the common Budgie (parakeet) and as a rule are brilliantly colored, like this one.

The Scarlet Chested parrot. In my opinion the most beautiful parrot in Australia. Now if this baby was endangered maybe I would be more concerned.

Stop the wind farms because they are an expensive joke, not for some bullshit reason that makes a mockery of the system.