Underappreciated Albums 1: Into The Unknown

I don't get why fans or artists shun certain albums, saying they've "progressed past that" or whatever. I think they should, if not embrace it, at least accept it as a period in their history and not be ashamed of it.
This is the first in a series of albums I deem great or good, even though the artist or fans don't. Today: Into the Unknown by Bad Religion.


This is a marked shift from their debut album, a hardcore punk album, Into the Unknown is a progressive rock album.
I'm gonna list the negative right from the beginning: It's badly produced. That's a big factor, it sounds worse than some local artist's albums.
Apart form that, this album is rock solid. Every song is solid, if completely different form Bad Religion's normal sound. There is loads of acoustic guitar strumming, keyboard melodies, and the sng lengths are markedly different from the hardcore punk songs they played before.
My favourite song on the album is probably Billy Gnosis, it's a real strong, catchy, rockin' song.

Overall, this is a solid album, I don't think BR should have done any more prog stuff after this though, they seemed to have exhausted their ideas and effort on this album, and were done with it.

Late lazy post: Mexican town and youtube

Mmmm, mexican town restaurant. I barely finished half my plate it was soo filling.
Went there with Mom, Ian, and my mom's friend Carl and his wife, no pictures taken, but trust me, it was a damn good time.
Some choice quotes from Carl:
"If a city counselor's lips are moving, he's lying."
"Mexican coffee is jet fuel."

Also, I posted some youtube videos recently of my guitar playing and singing. It's by no means great audio, but it's an example of how much I suck for ya'll.





Should hve a proper post later this week, love ya'll!

William Shatner's "Has Been": Novelty or Notable?

William Shatner's musical career has long been a joke amongst the musical community, except those people have never listened to his album Has Been.
Has Been was produced by Ben Folds, and features appearances by Brad Paisley, Henry Rollins, Adrian Belew, and more. There is only one cover, and the music to exact song is in no possible way cheesy.
Of course, Shatner's signature vocal stylings are the main focus of this album, taking his poety/spoken word pieces, and setting them to soft, jazzy background music by Folds and various guest musicians on the album. The whole album stands out to me, but I can't ignore what is most definitely my favourite track on the album.
"I Can't Get Behind That" is a frantic, loud track, featuring Henry Rollins and Kirk, erm, Shatner, going back and forth on...well...things they can't "get behind". It also features Adrian Belew on guitar, and listening to the track, you hear these sounds, these crazy, scary sounds, and that's the guitar playing. But this isn't a review of Adrian Belew's guitar playing.
Anther track I feel is quite strong is "Ideal Woman" a song about all the things he loves about this woman except.."not that, that doesn't work." It brings a smile to your face, and it always
ends happily with Shatner explaining "I want you to be you."

All in all, I feel this is an album worth checking out, Shatner's lyricism is very poignant, and it lets you take a look at how he feels inside about his life. It's by no means a novelty album, and I lke to think this is his debut album, and forget the other one.

Local Artist: The Afterparty

I decided to feature another local artist, although I've gotta tell you, this one is gonna be a bit of a different tone than the last.

The Afterparty, listed on Myspace as Rock/Pop/Indie seem to be fairly popular, and seem to play the local bar, Peppers kind of often, I guess I should check them out, let's listen to the five songs up on their page.
"Lucky": Okay, starts off like any old pop-rock song, wait, what the fuck is he singing about? "I think I'm getting lucky tonight...Shes had a few drinks and my hopes are high"? This song is about...getting laid by a drunk chick from a bar. Way to set your standards high, guys. kudos. "I don't need to know her name" Great role models, way to dumb down the free love movement into banging drunk chicks. Okay, next song...
"Dizzy": nice cute acoustic intro, breaks into distorted guitar, again, pop-rock stuff. Wait, is he rapping now? Oh, now I know what this is, it's a crappy tribute to Third Eye Blind, but instead of having lyrics written by someone who's had lots of life troubles, it's about middle-class kids getting drunk and how it's "my life" riight. NEXT!
"Easy E" ANOTHER ACOUSTIC INTRO? Christ guys, oh shit, auto-tune/vocoder, rapping, wah guitar, this sounds like if RATM sang bout bitchez and were suburban white kids. I'm done, no point listening to the other songs, this is done, these guys suck, and are douchebags to boot, why do I say that? I've met them.

(Oh god he just said "straight up fellate me" in a non-joking manner, seriously, this shit stinks worse than [insert smelly thing here])

Featured Artist: Derek Miller

Today's Featured Artist is Ontario's own Derek Miller. I don't know why this guy is under the radar so much, he's even signed to Arbor Records and EMI Canada. His tunes are radio friendly and rockin as hell, with a blues guitar sensibility delivered by Mr. Miller himself.
My friend Dean introduced me to Derek Miller, and was kind enough to provide me with a must listen package of songs to get acquainted with his music for ya'll. With tracks from two studio albums and a live recordings, this was a promising package. Ifeel the strong urge to purchase his music now.
I started off with three tracks from his most recent album, The Dirty Looks, with two rockin' numbers and a slow, mournful tune sandwich'd between, it was a good start, with a bigger rock influence than what was yet to come.
I then began the five live tracks, and was instantly brought into a new world, shown the true bluesman's heart inside this rocker's body, yes this is what I liked, sweet overdriven guitar tone, soft, soulful playing, and a rock solid rhythm section backing him up. Not to say this is not a rocking album, you get some real rocking slide action in Throw The Hammer Down, combining the best of the rocking and blusey halves, and it holds up as one hell of a track. One last thing about the live tracks, thisguy can really fucking play the guitar, he's got soul, and chops, and warpped it all up in one rootsy bluesy rockin' package.
Finally I got to the tracks from his debut release, Music Is The Medicine. One complaint, for the first two minutes of the song Heaven, I hear really soft pretty soulful guitar, but with a backing of overly processed drums, after the two minute mark, the real set came in, but I coldn't focus on anything but those damn processed drums for two minutes, that kind of brought points down, but these tracks are anything but lacking. I got to hear a studio version of a track I heard earlier in the live tracks, needless to say, I prefer the live version, though the studio version is much more calming and sweet.
If you call yourself a rock enthusiast, or you like rock artists to have musical integrity,you owe it to yourself to check out Derek Miller, even for just a little bit. There's gotta be something in his range of playing you like.