A Rubber Door

I think I’m doing this primarily so that at the end of this year I’ll have a reference - so here you go (click on the cd name to go to the album and click on emusic to sign up)

• Adam Richman - Patience and Silence (found at eMusic) - This is one of the best power-pop cd’s I’ve heard in years. Check out songs such as “Warsaw” and “Baby I’ve Changed”
• Aimee Mann - The Forgotten Arm - Aimee as great as she always is but this time a concept cd. Listen for the songs “Video” and “Going through the motions”
• David Mead - Wherever you Are (found at eMusic) - Sounds more like Mead’s cd Mine and Yours from 2001 rather than last years Indiana and that suits me fine. I like the subtle pop moreso than the country crooner thing. Apparently this cd should have been released a couple years ago - it’s only six songs, but they’re all great.
• Kathleen Edwards - Back to Me - Edward’s lyrics are up there with Rilo Kiley in their intelligence and wit. I wish more people would listen to her.
• Sleater-Kinney - The Woods - Also the best concert I’ve seen this year. Just amazing musicians and a visceral sound.

Other honorable mentions would be Spoon - Gimme Fiction and Decemberists - Picaresque both of which can be found at eMusic as well as Coldplay’s X&Y

Saw Batman Begins this weekend and I’ll say this first - it was a very good and entertaining movie. Now that that’s said I’ll say this: why are there no new ideas at the theater anymore? Everything is a remake (War of the Worlds), a sequel (in addition to Batman - Star Wars Episode III), a popular TV show turned into a movie (Bewitched, the Honeymooners, and The Dukes of Hazzard). Don’t let me forget the fact that every action movie has to come from a comic book (seriously, who’s excited about The Fantastic Four?)

Here’s my opinion - the easiest thing for a movie studio to do is to create a movie with a pedigree - from a comic, a novel, tv show, sequel, etc. With each passing year, these movies are made with more frequency pushing out the truly creative movies. Most people go to the movies for an escape - but if all the movies are familiar, then the escape is mundane.

Time for the studios to give us something new (please before the Da Vinci Code is released).

For anyone that decided to have a Live 8 party this weekend, host friends and family in front of the tele - how pissed were you that MTV fucked up their coverage royally? I’m old enough to remember the coverage from Live Aid and I remember actually seeing performers perform full songs. In the 21st century, the VJ rules and we get to hear them over nobodies like U2 and Paul McCartney. Here are my thoughts and questions:

1. If MTV and VH1 were both showing Live 8, why couldn’t they both show different feeds?
2. Why did MTV/VH1 refuse to show a complete song?
3. Did Philly get shafted or what? My main memory from the VJ’s in Philly: “Let’s go back to London”
4. This concert was to raise awareness of poverty in 3rd world nations yet everytime the One.org commercial came on, MTV cut it off (primarily to show a Batman Begins commercial)
5. Proactive is how P. Diddy preserves his sexy
6. Did you see Madonna wipe her nose with her jacket sleeve?

Oh well, I had a ton of work to get done on Saturday and good coverage would have been terribly distracting. Thanks to MTV for being cooperative and giving me no reason to pay attention.

P.S. Before anyone gets on my case, I didn’t need a concert to know about 3rd world debt - a lot of people do, so I applaud the effort of Sir Bob.

Just picked up David Mead’s Wherever You Are from eMusic and I have to say that it is automatically one of my favorite releases this year. Apparently it was recorded years ago and sounds a lot like songs from Mine and Yours (RCA 2001) which I liked better than his last release Indiana (Nettwerk 2004).

The first single from Michael Penn’s new cd Mr. Hollywood Jr. 1947 was released to radio last week and was the most added song on AAA radio. If you want to listen to it, just go to Michael’s Myspace Page where it can be downloaded free and legal.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Michael’s music, listen to some samples on iTunes with the Best of Michael Penn.

Well everyone I’ll be here in Conshohocken about 15 minutes from Live 8 and here is where I’ll stay. 1 million people on the Parkway? God help us - I actually would like to go to experience mass chaos, but then again…does this mean I’m getting old?

So I went and saw Sleater-Kinney here in Philly at the Troc last Friday; it was packed. My wonder is do all these people listen to the radio? Is there no market here? Sleater-Kinney has no room for play on the Philadelphia airwaves and it’s a shame.

I saw Star Wars Episode III this weekend and now believe that this is the second worst trilogy of all time (Blade reserves a special spot for 1st). It’s hard to be a bad trilogy, someone has to allow you to spend their money two more times after the first debacle - of course being that George Lucas is spending George Lucas’ money, that sort of explains things. It’s not that episode III is horrible; the last half of the movie is actually pretty entertaining. It just didn’t do enough to make me forget that I had to sit through the first two movies to get there. Add to that the amazingly bad dialogue (why are all of Lucas’ proper nouns so ridiculous sounding? You get great lines such as “I sense Dooku” or “Hold me like you did by the lakes of Naboo”). The unintentional humor from the writing is CSI Miami-like.