Worst x-mas songs ever

Here are the very worst non-traditional Christmas songs ever, in no particular order:

* "Same Old Lang Syne" - Dan Fogelberg

Ok, this song is on every single year at Christmas time, but the incident in question just takes place at Christmas at a grocery store. Apparently, he has the time to go out drinking with an old flame unbeknownst to her husband. Nice one, buddy. The lyrics are just crap.

* "The Christmas Shoes" - NewSong

Seriously, shoes for his dying mother? Does she have everything else? And of course, the kid is out on the street all alone. Maybe it's Maccauley Culkin.

* "Last Christmas" - Wham!

He gave away his heart last year, just to have it thrown away. But this year, he'll give it to someone special. Didn't he do that last year? And look what happened!

* "Grown Up Christmas List" - seemingly everyone...

Yes, it's so nice and selfless to ask for world peace and hunger to just vanish into the ether, but can't you do it with better lyrics? See John Lennon for tips.

* "Baby, it's Cold Outside" - specifically, the Brian Setzer version because it's especially creepy.

Ok, date rape is not cool. We can all agree. And basically, the female (in the sheet music, referred to as "the Mouse." The male is "The Wolf." What does THAT tell you!) wants to leave and the male attempts to talk her out of it, basically, refusing to take no for an answer.

To spare you, I'll not post mp3 links. Look 'em up yourself if you're curious.

The Twilight Vampires Are Just Plain Stupid

So this is totally unrelated to all things music, but it's getting on my nerves. The world is obsessed with the Twilight saga, as well as those series involving the emotional vampires that hardly look like some intimidating creatures of the. The main vampire character from the upcoming Twilight movie looks more like the distraught kid who just doesn't "fit" in school. I was always under the impression vampires were supposed to install fear and scare people into a run of terror. So with that in mind, I've come up with a list for your entertainment of infamous vampires that could easily take out the emotional "Edward".

The classic Dracula played by Bela Lugosi could easily frighten anyone. He's not hideous, but his eyes could scare you quickly & was hardly attractive compared to the teen vampires of today's movies and television shows.

Nosferatu. By far the scariest of monster creatures and he was made famous in SILENT movies! His face is just creepy by any standards. He's nasty, ugly and everything a so-called monster should be. The images of his silhouette on the wall with the long creepy nails is frightening! If it was possible, I'd love to see him take out the vampires in Twilight.

Count Chocula. Seriously, he's terrifying. Why? have you read the ingredients? His sugary breakfast food could easily rot out your teeth. He may not go after your neck, but he'll take out your teeth!

So there you have it. I have never read any of the Twilight books or are following the True Blood series. They can sit in the parking lot late Thursday evening awaiting for the movie to come out. I'll keep nice and warm in my warm bed.

Jazz for punks

It took me a while to get into jazz. Mostly, it was because I absorbed it thru my musical education in college. It was sorta forced upon me. I resisted for as long as I could until I was able to meet it half-way.

Being a fan of aggressive music, I thought jazz was easy-listening stuff. But if you seek it out, study its development in the 20th century, there are so many parallels of it to punk rock.

Jazz evolved from the blues in the early part of the century. White musicians - as usual - co-opted black blues and watered it down until it became rag-time, then swing and big band.

Just like how rock and roll came from the blues and became more and more sanitized as the 50s progressed to the over-indulgent 70s.

Along came be-bop. Derided as utter crap, just like punk rock 30 years later, be-bop became the counter to white jazz and eventually, the accepted true jazz form.

Be-bop begat modal jazz, represented by Miles Davis' amazing "Kind of Blue" album (released in 1959), which is the best selling jazz record of all time.

Miles eventually continued exploring modal jazz, taking it to something called "free-bop" which is some of the most aggressive jazz I've heard.

That said, here's a brief list of jazz tunes that should appeal to punks with an open mind:

John Coltrane

* "Blue Train"
* "Giant Steps"
* "Afro Blue"
* "My Favorite Things"
* "Syeeda's Song Flute"

Miles Davis

* "Seven Steps to Heaven"
* "Four"
* "Footprints"
* "ESP"

Charlie Parker

* "Bloomdido"
* "Now's the Time"
* "Yardbird Suite"
* "Chasing the Bird"

Thelonious Monk

* "Straight no Chaser"
* "Well, You Needn't"
* "I mean you"

Wayne Shorter

* "Speak no Evil"

Oliver Nelson

* "Stolen Moments"

McCoy Tyner

* "Passion Dance"

There's a Fine Line Between Keeping the Beat, & Looking Like You're Having a Seizure

I know that if a lot of drummers read this post, I'll get angry comments, flaming bottles thrown at me or perhaps egged. I'd take simply the angry comments, but with that in mind, here's my thoughts on drummers and some of the so-called "greats". For the record, I've never been a major fan of drummers like Travis Barker, Lars Ulrich (of Metallica), or that clown Joey J. from Slipknot. Why, right? They're worshipped by many drummers. Some even pray that they could develop the skills and techniques to play like their Gods. Well, this drummer prefers drummers who can be creative while still holding down the beat in a less then obnoxious way. With that, I really dislike Travis Barker. Woah! Yes, I said it. I know he survived a plane crash, & played the drums with one working hand, I just don't dig his style. Who needs to literally bang the hell out of the drum kit? really? Is it really adding much to the song? He is far from visually interesting. He just looks like he's convulsing.

Then there's drummer Lars from Metallica and Joey J. from Slipknot. Both drummers equally worshipped. They're "double bass masters" and have a massive amount of followers. Double bass drumming is silly. Especially since it sounds like a machine gun. How is this exciting. "lets see how fast we can drum!" I just can't see anything exciting about it.

In conclusion, the drummers out there can continue trying to twirl the drum stick while hitting 150 beats a minute. I'll continue hitting my drums and cymbals without trying to shatter and destroy my cymbals.

Buttsweat And Tears-Well Worth the Wait

It's been over 3 or so years since Chicago band The Lawrence Arms released Oh!Calcutta! so as you can imagine, this was a great breath of new material for the fans. Buttsweat and Tears is the first "digital" release for the group, (they also released it on vinyl). This morning I grabbed my laptop and headed to Panera to use their free wi-fi to download this new gem while enjoying a tasty bagel and O.J.
The first song is Spit Shining S**t. It's very catchy, upbeat with some Oh!Calcutta! style. "The Slowest Drink At the Saddest Bar On The Snowiest Day in the Greatest City" is a fast song sung by Chris (opposed to Brendan singing the first one). "Demons" is defiantly my favourite song at the moment. It's got a little Falcon (Brendan & Neil's side project) in it as far as tempo is going and it's super catchy as well. If you're a fan of them, I'd pick it up. $3.99 for 5 songs are well worth it. Especially because I had an iTunes gift card left over. HA! I look forward to a new album in the hopeful near-future.

Madrid @ Racine's McAullife's Pub

Last week Saturday, my band Madrid. played our 2nd show ever, & our first show in Racine at McAullife's. The night looked grim when we walked into an album empty bar. "This can't be good" I told Nick, our front man. We arrived around 8. People were watching college football. How exciting!! We immediately set up my drum kit. It's been quite some time since I brought it to a live show, since it's not that great, but the sound crew mic'd it and it sounded pretty good and loud. The opening band (that originally was going to headline) was called Before Dawn. They were an electro-dance-pop group on tour and stopped out in Racine for a very small crowd...They were very enjoyable. Nick kept telling me "I just love these guys!" They were influenced by The Killers, Talking Heads and that sort of music....
Around 11:20, we went on. We opened the set with "Everyone Again", which is kind of a hard song to play for me. It's crucial not to lose time on it, and since the vocals weren't coming in too well on my monitor, it was even harder. Somehow I nailed it. It was actually more fun for me to play the song on my kit. Second song of the night was "So Real", which follows up well to the first one because it's more mellow for me to play on drums. Pat was actually singing the falsetto parts too, which gives the song more in my opinion.
We ended up doing the song me and Nick didn't plan on doing. "Modern World", but instrumental. It worked out okay because Pat played the melody on guitar. It also went straight into "Eyes and Butterflies"

Without going too far into every song, the night went quite well. Even though the monitors weren't giving us much, and I am low on sticks since I busted one at the show, AND my wife and I got lost on the long way home, we still had a great show. We actually had some people digging the music and looking for some CD's. Drat.

Need a shot of pop-punk back when it was good?

Milwaukee had some really great bands "back in the day" (TM).

In the mid to late 1990s, a show at the Rave Bar or Globe featured some opening bands that did not suck.

One show, I saw a band called Slurr. I don't remember much about them. I knew they had a tall singer and that a GF's roommate was dating the drummer.

Well, thanks to the archive at http://www.mkepunk.com, one can listen to them and discover them for themselves.

I recommend No Jon.