It’s that time of year again for the Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s the most exciting time in hockey and also a time to wager with friends on who is going to win. I’ve created a bracket again this year that you can print out and share with your friends. We use the number of total goals scored in the final round as a tie breaker. Obviously this could be optional for you.
Click below To download a printable version of the bracket.
It’s a concert I’ve been looking forward to for a while. The Edmonton electronic/indie/pop group was introduced to me by a friend, who is more well versed in that genre(s) area than I. I’ve listened to their album Shrines a whole bunch and even passed it on to my wife. Although the album is surrounded by metal, rock, and even hip-hop in my music library, it’s incredibly addicting. Something about the innocent vocals of Megan James and the poppy electronic beats devised from Corin Roddick that produces an excellent album. In turn it produced and awesome show.
I bought tickets months before the actual show. I coordinated with my wife and our recently engaged friends on arriving at the show. We arrived a bit late walking a few blocks in the brisk but refreshing weather. We decided to grab a beer and wait for our friends to arrive while the opening band, Blue Hawaii, performed in the other room. Once everyone arrived and had drinks in hand, we migrated to the main area. Blue Hawaii continued their set with a few more songs that we got to see live. Not listening to Blue Hawaii beforehand, I wasn’t expecting much. To my surprise they really played great. Similar to Purity Ring or even Grimes, they were electronic indie. The music was great and Raphaelle Standell-Preston, the singer, had a great voice. She even scored a free whisky from a fan, the same fans that answered “two” when asked by the band if they wanted to play one or two more songs.
The Prague Municipal Court in the Czech Republic has found Lamb of God front man Randy Blythe, not guilty of manslaughter charges. Blythe, who frequently hosts his own show on Sirius XM’s Liquid Metal station; was accused of pushing a fan off stage at a 2010 show in the Czech Republic. The injured man reportedly felt OK initially but began complaining of headaches and vomiting. He was rushed to the hospital where he later entered a coma and died weeks later. Blythe was facing 5-10 years in jail for the incident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Blythe
http://lambgoat.com/news/20009/Lamb-of-God-frontman-Randy-Blythe–NOT-GUILTY
MIA’s “Bad Girls” video put a different spin on hip hop cinematography. Normally we are prone to the usual $500,000 Lamborghinis and high end sports cars, with some scantly clad women bouncing their ass around. “Bad Girls” however features older BMWs and Alfa Romeos with traditionally garmented Middle Eastern men (for the most part). Instead of hydraulics and rims, we’re graced with powerslides and skiing . Whether or not this is a true look into middle eastern culture is ignorance on my part, but either way the video is awesome. Apparently the Moroccan desert provided the set for this video, giving a glimpse of overseas life.
The song itself has an arabic flair provided by a string section. It sounds like it may be the traditional Arabic “Ghichak” instrument. Of course we get the aural pleasure of MIAs off harmonic overdubbed voice. This is of course mixed with traditional hip hop drum backings. Overall it’s such an entertaining and catchy video. My wife and I even used the song at our wedding. This post is a little late, but I’m not one to be punctual.
The NHL lockout of 2012-2013 leaves all hockey fans a little bitter and melancholy. Here is a sad reminder that you’re missing hockey.
For quite a while I jumped around media players, but always came back to iTunes. It was a simple interface and had pretty much all the features I wanted. I’ve tried MediaMonkey, Winamp, Spotify, Zune, and some other ones. I still use Zune since I have a 64GB Zune player. It has a very nice interface, but doesn’t seem to like my 750+GB music library very much. iTunes has a lot of what I’m looking for, except watch folders, which is still incredible to me. I actually paid (~$5) for a third party app that adds music to iTunes when I add it to my music drive. Pathetic huh? iTunes can however, use Last.FM’s scrobbler where the Zune Player cannot. LastFM scrobbling is a huge item in my media player wishlist, ever since I discovered their service years ago. I finally stumbled upon MusicBee a few months ago after reading a Lifehacker post about media players. The comments section was flooded with MusicBee references. I decided to try it out… Like, really try it out. Set it up, configure it how I want it and see if it works for me and my library. Turns out that it does.
Continue Reading…
If you’re unfamiliar with grindcore, then chances are you won’t enjoy it at all. It’s an extreme sub-genre of metal that features incredibly fast blast beats and more often times than not, unhumanly low vocals. Gutteral, shreaks, growls, and even pig squeals are common among this extreme genre. Grindcore often incorporates samples either from porn or from horror and gore films. Songs typically are less than a minute long and some CDs can have over 50 songs, Agoraphobic Nosebleed being notorious for this. The subject matter usually varies per band but can range from violent, to sexual, to scientific.
Here is an post I left on TLC’s facebook page about their TV show “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”. I didn’t email it because it was too long for their email submission form. Keep in mind this was done at 3:00AM, so I was a bit tired and disgruntled.
Portugal the Man recently played a show at The Town Ballroom here in Buffalo, NY. They kept the chatter to a minimum and just fired through song after song. Their live presence and adaptation to their songs was phenomenal. Rather than play note for note they altered songs to flow better and give an alternate sound. Especially with the likes of “All Your Light” which live, was much heavier than on the album. Overall they were terrific and very humble. Before departing they shared the fact that they visited with family while passing through Buffalo. Hopefully an incentive to play more shows in the future.
Photo by Laura Piccirillo
Check out these two videos of “Crush On You”. I’m a fan of both of these versions, and I’ll admit that I heard the Nero version before The Jets version. Notice the subtle Michael Jackson dance mannerisms by the Jets in the video. I see a lot of Thriller in the movement.
My Tunes
