5 posts tagged “new jersey”

Having just appeared on the most-watched television event called The Super Bowl (where a 30 second commercial costs US $3 million!), it's really no secret that The Boss is back. The Boss is, of course, Bruce Springsteen, the singer/songwriter who is known for his "everyman" songs about the struggles of everyday life in America (check out his most famous album Born in the U.S.A., for sure). His latest album is called Working on a Dream, which was just released two weeks ago.

One of the thing that Springsteen and his E Street band have been known for are their extra long concerts. I'm happy to report that starting in April, that the band will be setting out on tour for promotion of his Working on a Dream. I'm almost certain you're going to pay a lot, to see the man, the legend, the boss, on stage. The thing to note is that this will be his 60^th birth date (in September), and even at my modest age, I can tell you that he has way more energy and excitement in him than most people my age. The man really works hard for his money!

Since I last saw Springsteen's music, it was on his very excellent cover song We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (I'm a cover-lover, so I never bothered to pick up the last true album called Magic in 2007). This album was recorded over a period of time from 1997 to 2005 and are basically Pete Seeger songs, a combination of early mountain-folk songs and fiddling Irish songs. Not all the songs were written by Seeger, but you'll know most of these songs as either traditional songs (like "John Henry"). My favorite song on this collection is the the Irish folk song called "Mrs. McGrath" - an anti-war song about a woman in the army who lost both her legs to a cannon.

You see some of these story-telling elements on Working on a Dream, especially on the "Outlaw Pete" song that opens up the album. The epic eight-minute song tells the story of Pete, from his birth in Appalachian Mountains in the Wild West, to his disappearance, and possibly the best song on the album, in my opinion. It's really a shame that the song is also the most stylistically and structurally different than the rest of the songs on the album and wouldn't make a good representation of the album.

The other song that doesn't seem to fit in is "Good Eye", a harmonica-driven bluesy song. Springsteen's been known for his blues-influenced songs, check out his "Night with the Jersey Devil", which will undoubtedly make it on as a B-Side or on a future release.

The latest single from this album is "My Lucky Day", which is what I think of a typical modern Springsteen, an optimistic song and generally a happy tone to it. It's not really one of my favorite song on the album (too upbeat for my taste), but you will find yourself singing along to its repeating lyrics of "Honey, you're my lucky day/Baby, you're my lucky day" over and over again. I'm sure this will be a real concert pleaser.

I think most casual fans will probably pick up the album for the Golden Globe awarded song for "The Wrestler". This song closes the album, and was written for the critically-acclaimed movie of the same name. I haven't seen the movie, but most of the reviews I've seen on this movie is that it's a real tear-jerker and everyone agreed that Mickey Rourke did a fantastic job acting on the film.

The origin of this song was that Springsteen and Rourke are real life friends and basically Springsteen wrote the song for the movie for free. The song was played before director Darren Aronofsky before a concert, and he loved it so much, it became the theme song.

"The Wrestler" song also has a sad, but lifting, feel, about the struggle of someone with a mental or physical handicap. You can instantly relate to the simple lyrics of "If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me", the theme is recycled throughout the song, ending with "If you've ever seen a one legged man then you've seen me".

It should be no surprise that with Working on a Dream's release on Columbia Records, it is the 9^th Springsteen album to hit number one - and as I currently write this, it's still #1 on the Billboard Charts. You can find Bruce Springsteen's album at all record stores, but if you're a couch shopper, head over to amazon or itunes. I recommend picking up the deluxe edition as it comes with some bonus material, like a DVD of the making of the album.

 11/17/2008 09:31:40  ♥ written by vu ()

PLEASE NOTE: Mypodcast.com's servers and services are experiencing some difficulties, possibly due to the weak economy. Looking at their forums, it seems some people have had problems for weeks now with no feedback from the people running the website.

I'll see what happens, but if they go out of business by next week, I'll have to switch back to my original podcast address over at gcast.com. You can find widgets and how to subscribe through that website. With the widgets - please tick the 'auto-play' to "no", it is on autoplay by default.
 

Download Episode #33 (43 min)

Download each segment individually:
Part 1: Devi
Part 2: Mary Shelley Overdrive

So hey, welcome back to our weekly podcast show. Please see note above to why this episode is slightly delayed - even though I had finalized everything by late Sunday evening.

Also, I don't normally jinx myself for announcing future guests on the show, but we have three scheduled next week. Hopefully the one from overseas will work out, so I'm crossing my fingers.

So, I also suggest you check out Emelia's previous mention of Del Shannon's "Runaway" and my article and fascination on the morbid "Jack the Ripper" and 50s-inspired The Raveonettes.

This week:

PART ONE: DEVI
devi-rock.com ♥ myspace.com/devirock
Devi (pronounced "Davy") is a rock trio from Hoboken, New Jersey. Debra was kind enough to stop in and talk to us about her debut album, Get Free, which was just released a few weeks ago. They just also finalized agreements with Red Eye Music Distribution, so you'll be able to find their music at the usual places. In the meantime, you can get their album for $10 CD or $5 digital download via cdbaby.

Topics up for discussion:

• The name Devi and its origins
• How she met her band
• "Demon in the Sack" and "C21H23NO3" explained
• "Runaway" Del Shannon/Bonnie Raitt cover
• Hair-blowing photo session
• Special guest appearance on Get Free

PART TWO: MARY SHELLEY OVERDRIVE
maryshelleyoverdrive.blogspot.com ♥ myspace.com/maryshelleyoverdrive
Simon and Mark from Mary Shelley Overdrive, a band based out of South Carolina, in need of a drummer, as I just found out.

We talked about:

• The Secret Origins of Mary Shelley Overdrive
• Using the Internet to distribute music, etc.
• "Jack the Ripper"
• Pop culture, comics, and horror movie influences
• Werewolf on Motorcycles cover artwork
• fond of masks and playing live

UPDATE: Well the mypodcast.com problem isn't so much that they are bankrupt, it's that they ran out of disk storage.  According to an admin, they posted this:

We had problems increasing disc space. Now...

We had problems increasing disc space. Now everything is fixed. There's plenty of free space for podcasts.

So there you go. Hopefully they'll get some bigger raids.
S.

So hopefully, if you're already subscribe to our show via mypodcast, you don't need to switch or make any changes.  However, going forward, I'm still uploading to gcast as well (since I still cannot update my mypodcast).

I always love getting Sensory Records releases for review. None of them really should be my cup of tea, and they seem to be built around taking everything I personally dislike in metal and making entire albums out of those things. And for some reason I always like them! So I'm going to talk about the two I recently got: When Time Fades by Suspyre (the more “ordinary” of the two), and the soundtrack a Norwegian band, Xystus', new rock opera, Equilibrio. Yes, they sent me the soundtrack to a rock opera. I'm stoked!

I'll talk about the Suspyre release first, since it's the more straightforward of the two. These guys hail from New Jersey, and they definitely have a classically influenced thing going on. I'm not talking just adding some strings or something on a couple songs like some bands do, but this could almost be a classical piece structurally, and really, a lot of the musicianship here has nothing to do with any form of popular or folk music. The musicianship here, as on pretty much all Sensory releases I've heard, is mindblowing. Lots of speed, every note crystal clear and cleanly played. Singer Clay Barton sounds great, with both great range and the ability to sound emotive when he needs to.

There's also a lot of stylistic variation going on here. From straight up power metal, to classically influenced prog metal, from thrashy sections to prog-rock off-time sections, from straight-up clean vocals to robot voices. Pretty much any time signature you could imagine is played in here, and almost anything goes. This is a pretty great release. Fans of bands like Dream Theater or Blind Guardian will probably be into it.

Also, these dudes have a few shows coming up. They're playing ProgPower 2008 in Baarlo, Netherlands. Then they're playing on the Prog Palace radio show in Gaithersburg, Maryland on October 11^th. A little farther out, there's the Hellstock Music Festival in Palmetto, Florida, on January 17^th of next year. And a little farther out than that, they're playing the Upper East Side Music Festival in New York City on February 28^th.

Now onto the next release! It's a collaboration between Norwegian prog rockers, Xystus, and the US Concert Orchestra. As, quite literally, a rock opera, Equilibrio seems awfully elaborate for something by a band I've never heard of. I can't help wondering just how much it cost to put this thing on. This thing sounds like something only the richest bands could have afforded. But then, I really don't know much about putting on theater productions in Norway, and I really have no idea how popular Xystus are outside of the US (they said 4,000 people attended the shows in the liner notes, so they must be at least somewhat popular), so I'm probably dead wrong. The liner notes have pictures of the cast of the production in costume, a group picture of the “over... 130 people” who participated in its making, lyrics, and a picture of the band. So, of course, I'm going into this expecting something completely epic. Like over the top! And, well, these guys deliver!

The opening orchestral section of “Equilibrio Overture” sounds like something from one of the best fantasy video game soundtracks ever. The band themselves come in about halfway through, and really don't do much more than augment what's already there with rock instrumentation. Surprisingly tasteful, and yet, still incredibly over the top.

Of course, the next track, “Act 1, Sc. 1: My Song of Creation” features one of the actors (Simone Simons as the character, Lady Sophia) on vocals over an orchestral backdrop that sounds like something out of the Lord of the Rings movies.

“Act 1, Sc. 3: The Traveller” (sic) starts out by bringing back the theme from the overture, but with a more pronounced rock backing. The vocals this time are courtesy of the band's singer, Bas Dolmans, as Diegu the Traveller.

This leads into “Act 1, Sc. 5: Last Breath” on the album (I guess it should be noted that a lot of scenes appear to have not been included on the CD). This one is more of a rock track. A little more of a chaotic edge is present. The track is a dialog between Diegu and Death (George Oosthoek). Appropriately, Death's vocals are represented by, you guessed it, death growls! And he's pretty good at it, too.

The album kind of goes on like this. I mean, it's a rock opera, that's kind of to be expected. The next track, “Act 1, Sc. 6: Divided We Stand” (yeah, I cringed a bit when I read that title, too) is a dialog between Aveline (Michelle Splietelhof) and Primos (John Vooijs).

Really, I'm pretty sure everyone gets the idea here. This is as much an opera as it is rock, and although the vocal styles are definitely more slanted toward heavy metal styles, and the song structures probably take a lot more from rock, the way the instruments are used – both those of the band and the orchestra they're collaborating with - is both tasteful and yet completely over the top at the same time.

One thing I kind of wish had been included is a story synopsis. Just listening to this, I can get a vague idea of what's going on in any given scene, but the big picture is really unclear from the music alone. I'm sure it would be a lot clearer watching it onstage, but I'm just not getting it here. Regardless, the musicianship is top notch, all the vocalists are quite talented, and at the very least, what you're getting here is a pretty enjoyable listening experience that won't be lost on you if you're into this kind of music.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're actually performing this anymore, and apparently they've just had a backing vocalist onstage to cover all the parts the band can't for smaller scale shows. The next scheduled show for them is a DVD release party, though, at Verkade Fabriek & W2 Concertzaal in North Brabant, Netherlands on January 11^th of next year. So if you're in the area, keep a look out for that, 'cause it might be pretty awesome.

And more information about both bands can be found at their official websites, of course:

http://www.suspyre.com/

http://www.xystus.nl/