A Different Kind Of Truth

Van Halen, A Different Kind Of Truth

I am one of the many annoying fans who refer to the Sammy Hagar as the Van Hagar years, a more poppy time for the boys in Van Halen. I never talk about the Gary Cherone experiment, because frankly, the less said about that fiasco, the better. Now Diamond Dave rejoins the Van Halen boys for the first new Van Halen album since 1998's ill fated and aforementioned Van Halen III.

First off, this is a Van Halen album. Eddie still shreds. Alex still carry's the load on drums and Wolfgang is doing yeoman's work in Micheal Anthony's old bass/backup vocals slot. Sure, Dave can't hit the notes like he used too, but this feels like a blast of the old 70's Van Halen, maybe because some of the songs come from that time period. Those songs that were written by Eddie and David Lee Roth carry the same metal fingerprint that took the world by storm with Van Halen I & II.

A Different Kind Of Truth also features five all new songs, but mostly it features Eddie proving that he is one of the best ever to strap on an axe and dazzle the faithful. Fourteen years is a long time for a virtuoso to be away. I would argue this is some of Eddie's best since 1984 when he, for whatever reason, added keyboards to Jump and started a more pop like sound. On 1984, the songs you remember are Panama and Hot For Teacher, which feature Eddie at his eruptive best.

Eddie may have lost part of his tongue but he sure ain't lost any licks in the intervening fourteen years. The album does start out weak with Tattoo, with Dave talk scatting his way through some sort of uninspired lyrics. The album really breaks out with acoustic opening of Blood And Fire, which sounds like it could have been off any Van Halen album pre 1984. Eddie's guitar is almost minimalistic but it builds to a shredding riff that is like time hasn't passed at all, even though Dave tells us “I told you I was coming back”. Another good one is Outta Space, where Eddie delivers power chords that need to be cranked up to 11. Stay Frosty feels like the sequel to the cover of Ice Cream Man on Van Halen I.

I know this sounds like an Eddie Van Halen slobberfest, but all the other pieces of the band deliver, too. Alex is still one of the best damn (and under rated) drummers around. Wolfgang does a great job on bass and delivering the back up vocals that make this feel like a real Van Halen jam. Diamond Dave is Diamond Dave, inspiring the band, and especially Eddie to heights forgotten since the golden days of the late 70's and early 80's.

Eruption - How did he do that?

I remember the first time I heard this, in Jody Lundstroms apartmen and I remember thinking, "WTF is this?". "Is that a guitar? How is he doing that". My introduction to Van Halen shook me up and showed me what real guitar playing was all about.

Check out our review of Van Halen's newest tomorrow morning!

Springsteen Is My Hero

Bruce has an album set to drop on March 5^th, filled with righteous fury. Speaking at a press conference is Paris, he described the idea behind the album, "Wrecking Ball";

A big promise has been broken. You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses. You can't have a civilisation where something is factionalised like this.

Springsteen, who has become the Woody Guthrie of our time, looks to have crafted another charged look at the American Dream and what it really means. I am sure the first single, "We Take Care Of Our Own", will be taken out of context, much like "Born In The USA" was, but the irony dripping from this call back to the great E Street albums of the seventies makes no bones about what is on Bruce's mind.

From Chicago to New Orleans
From the muscle to the bone
From the shotgun shack to the Superdome
We yelled "help" but the cavalry stayed home
There ain't no-one hearing the bugle blown
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own

Bonus Saturday Song, "Wrecking Ball - Live"

Thursday Think Piece-facebook again

Lately I think I’m alienating family and acquaintances with my comments on their Facebook pages. What happens is they post some popularized photo or video about some form of social commentary or injustice and they make comments like “right on!” or “this is what we need!” . And then when I question them or comment about their agreement with the photo or video…I get silence in return.

One recent example is the video of the father who was responding to his daughters Facebook ‘letter’ about how horrible her parents were. (I am not posting the link here- just search 'dad shoots computer' and you'll see it everywhere.)In it he read the letter, responded to it, and then told her there were going to be consequences for her actions. The responses to this were overwhelmingly in support of the father, with some additional commentary about the state of ungrateful teenagers in our society and how many of them need to be taught a similar lesson.

I don’t disagree with what her father did in making the video to address her ‘letter’, or to his putting it on Facebook for her friends to see. I don’t disagree with any of his comments about how little she is required to do at home and how getting paid for it is a ridiculous request. I don’t disagree at all about making sure she suffered consequences for her actions, and applaud him for seeing that she did.

The part that bothered me about this, and this is something I’m not seeing anyone else post about, is that in ‘showing her a lesson’ about the consequences of her actions- he used a gun. Now, before people get all worked up here I am not anti-gun. Far from it. I have been around them, owned them and used them since I was a child. My objection was in his using the gun to prove his point here.

Why? What was the purpose of using the gun? Was it to show her that next time she gets out of line it might be her sitting on the lawn with a gun pointed at her? Was it to enforce his position of ‘power’? Because he should not have needed a gun for that- and it’s the gun part of all this I question.

I’m not even saying he shouldn’t have used it. I’m not sure I CAN say that. But the fact he did, and the fact that everyone responded so overwhelmingly to the gun being used…well…that bothers me a little.

I suppose that is my point here. 


If you are going to have a response to something, and post that response on Facebook, then I think it is something you should have thought about- and thought through. And if you’re questioned about it, you should be able to say WHY you agreed. You also should have done at least enough research on something to know if it’s real or not, but that’s another post for another day.

For another viewpoint, check this out.

NMT: Daughtry Break the Spell

Daughtry Break the Spell, 3 Stars

There was a time in my life when my musical taste was governed by what the people around me thought was cool to listen to. I outgrew that a long time ago. I like what I like, and I particularly like someone who creates the music they like and doesn’t apologize for it. If you are a pop music star, then create great pop music and I’ll appreciate it.

Daughtry creates catchy, melodic pop/rock music and he does it well. I was impressed with him when he was on American Idol and enjoyed some of the songs on his first album. I’ll admit I never listened to the second one, which got fairly good reviews. This is his third installment and I’ve listened to it several times over the last few days. Not all the songs are winners. The album has a lot of really catchy songs and a few forgettable ones. I noticed, however, that the more I listened to it the more I found to like in even the forgettable songs and that is the sign of a pretty solid writer/performer. Daughtry is all of that, unapologetically so.

Favorite songs for me at the moment are “Spaceship”, “Gone too Soon” and “Losing my Mind”, but a few of the others are beginning to grow on me. While I’ve read others who criticize him for writing very clichéd songs that revolve around chorus verse chorus verse, he does it well enough and earnestly enough that I don’t care. I truly think the album is worth listening to, and that Daughtry is an artist worth supporting.

These Days

A new video from the Foo Fighters from the New Zealand & Australian leg of their Wasting Light Tour.

Check out our review of the Foo Fighters visit to SLC last year.

Flickr is eight years old

Happy anniversary Flickr. Flickr is really the first online community I joined, way back in February of 2005. I have since uploaded 2,500 pictures and made many many friends over there. Happy anniversary to one of the great photo sharing sites on the interwebs.

Here is one of the first photos I ever uploaded on Flickr:

 

As always, you can view my Flickr feed here...

Late Night, The Next Six Songs I Hear

I have my music drive hooked up to the TV and have it randomly playing music, so this pick six are the last six songs I heard:

Sparks - Royksopp
Blues For My Baby - Elton John
Dreamboat Annie - Heart
Crazy - Patsy Cline
Cologne - Ben Folds
Superman - Five For Fighting

New(ish) Music Tuesday: Love Parts One and Two by Angels & Airwaves

Angels & Airwaves - Love Album Parts One & Two

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, it's still Tuesday for another hour. Two if you're on the West Coast. Not that it excuses the additional fact that I'm presenting an album that was released in November, making this three months old. Ah well, it's new for me, and new to all of you who either don't know anything about Angels & Airwaves or, like me, didn't realize that their two part, third and fourth studio album was released in November in a handsome, two-disc for the price of one package.

I've always thought that doing two-part albums is risky. On one hand, it's good for listeners who get 22 songs for the price of one album (though granted, parts one and two of Love were released individually a year apart, with part two coming out in November bundled with part one as a complete album), but on the other if only one part is good, then it'll bring down the whole effort if the other isn't. Sadly, this is the case for Love. Part one is... amazing. Part one of the album is hands down the best Angels & Airwaves album ever recorded. I try not to throw out praise without tempering it with criticism, but the first 11 songs of the Love album are pretty damn good, especially as far as synth-pop rock is concerned.

But the "new" part of the Love album is part two, and that is technically what I'm reviewing. And by comparison, it isn't great. The smooth synth-rock rhythms that drive part one along so nicely are lost, leaving part two feeling dis-joined. Most of all, part one has a clear tone and message from song to song, dealing with loneliness, human connection, and losing your faith, and while lyrically part two tries to build on that, it doesn't seem as natural or poignant. Love part two tries really hard to deliver a message of enduring love, but that message is handled haphazardly and comes out repetitive and lost. This makes me sad. It makes Angels & Airwaves' Love album conflicted: It is both their best and their weakest albums, back to back. I'd give part one a solid A, but part two? It maybe squeaks by with a C-, but only because of DeLonge's surprisingly moving lyrics and a few solid songs. Since this review is of the albums as a finished whole, it forces me to bring the album down to only two stars, maybe two and a half: A solid C+.

Anyway, here are a couple of music videos for you from Love, Part One and Two:

Monday Morning Pick Me Up: Tangled up in Blues

While madpoet is away let's get Tangled up in some Bob Dylan Blues: