Darius Rucker – Learn to Live Review

You may remember Darius Rucker as the croony lead singer from one of the more lasting bands form the 90’s Hootie and The Blowfish. During that time, I was listening to the likes of “‘Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry,” and “I Only Wanna Be With You.” It’s not often that a band could come across and tug on the strings of random memories from my childhood, but Hootie certainly takes me back to a time when things were changing in my life at a fast pace, and I was learning about new music and stations aside from B94(If you haven’t heard of it, it’s on old Pittsburgh station, its back again, but certainly not the original).

Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and the likes of Tool, were winning my heart over as I was becoming a teenager and falling into the traps of teenage aggression. However, I always had a place in my heart for Hootie, because for some reason, Darius’s voice was just so damn awesome. He hit every note with what seemed like perfection, and never had to strain himself to reach an emotional level to grab the user and bring them to a whole new level.

Now after his first country album release “Back to Them,” which received very sub-par reviews. He comes back with a highly touted monster of a country album, “Learn to Live.” This album is full of emotional tracks, that seems to be written for anyone who has had a hard time in their life, whether it be a traumatic experience like in the song “I Hope They Get To Me in Time.” Or when a father looks ahead to the future or back in time depending on how you look at it in the song of “It Won’t Be Like This For Long.” There is at least one track for everyone on the entire cd, that is made for someone, if your in love with the current country situation that is played on the radio.

My only real gripe with this cd is that its mostly, written in a stereotypical format, as far as the typical country music banter goes, spirituality, life, death, love, and drinkin’. I do however, feel that Darius Rucker’s voice is not given enough justice. While most of the songs are typical with a country album, he has the voice to knock most of the songs out of the park even while singing about something that has been done a bajillion times.

So my final comments come down to this. If you loved Hootie and the Blowfish, and enjoy the music they wrote about. This album will never be that good. However, I urge you to give it a try if you are a country fan as it has many country music stars, making musical cameos, well produced songs, and a voice that just doesn’t give up. For the next review, be prepared. It’s going to be heavy.

You’ll Shoot Your Thigh Out!!!!!

hahah this is hilarious, this image was forwarded to me via e-mail. Enjoy! Click to enlarge image!

Never Sleep Again Tour…

So this past weekend I had the pleasure of going to the Never Sleep Again Tour, which had bands such as The Color Fred, Emery, and Hawthorne Heights. I was highly saddened at what I saw. Emery is my favorite band, in fact, they killed it that night.

They by all means should have played for at least an hour and headlined that tour instead of Hawthorne Heights. I can’t believe the type of crap some bands are willing to do to get their name over again and be relevant. Hawthorne Heights had their 15 minutes, in fact, they had another 8 minutes when their guitarist Casey Calvert died of a “apparent” drug overdose. I’ve seen them live before(not by choice) and they put on a decent show. But, last night, I haven’t seen a more incoherent money pandering show by one band who was more out to get theirs and provide a statement on the illegal issues of pirating and how much of a dick you were for doing it. As well as making statements such as “Its like If someone came in and stole your T.V., that’s what your doing to us, buy our album!”

I am all for bands who care about how they live and the money they make continue their tours. I however am not for making it known every couple of songs how much you care about us, and that we should buy your album because the fans love them. It pretty much sounds to me like “aww come on baby, I want to have sex…I thought you loved me.” Jesus, people will do what they want. Feel like your respected and be gracious that people want to listen to your music even if they download it. It brings in more potential customers than people buying it. In fact, many reputable bands have embraced it.

Now back to Emery, they came in, didn’t talk to much and provided a solid half hour of killer tracks from their new and old stuff. There was no begging, there were no statements being made about money and the life they live. They straight walked on, said hey whats up, I’m here to rock the shit out of you, then walked off. Honestly, I was not trying to be biased, but a lot of people felt the same way as well, more than half of the people left after Emery, while Hawthorne Heights was setting up. I figured I would stick around and hear how much HH has changed. I can safely say, I will never see them again, and will never buy/download their albums its just not for me, hell, I even downloaded the new Emery EP While Broken Hearts Prevail on I Tunes, then purchased it again at the show just in spite of what was said.

Keep on rocking kids, and lets get some more bands out there that are in it to make music and the memories that it has the capability to make, and not to blindside people with their corporate greed.

Emery - While Broken Hearts Prevail

New GnR Album!

Guns and Roses has finally come out with a new album! Although, Slash isn’t in the band anymore, so can it really be called Guns and Roses? However the great news about the release of this album is the fact that Dr. Pepper is giving away a free can of Dr. Pepper from a promise it made a long while ago regarding this much fought over album.

“The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. “Chinese Democracy,” infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

“We never thought this day would come,” Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper’s vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “But now that it’s here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper’s on us.”

So finally with the release of this album, a major corporation has stuck behind its thoughts on a band that hated each other throughout its entire life span, and will be rewarding everyone with a free can of Dr. Pepper! However there is a catch, you must get the coupon located on Dr. Pepper’s website, and is only available for 48 hours on Sunday.

Indulging in my Inner Geek.

So this weekend was filled by me playing mostly Wrath of the Lich King. I know I know, laugh at me, oh well, if 11 million players play it, I must not be the only closet dork. However, being a web manager, I’m pretty high on the closet dorkness.

I put off everything this weekend, I didn’t shower for two days, I didn’t shave, and I told the girlfriend that I wouldn’t be seeing her this weekend(she was shocked but she managed). I haven’t been able to really get to do anything I wanted in a long time due to real life obligations, friends, family functions, and other time consuming projects. But, this weekend I put my foot down and had a blast being with others online sharing the experience of new World of Warcraft content.

I’ve decided to level my Paladin first to 80 as that will no doubt take the longest to level, but in 2 days, Friday and Saturday, I managed to get to level 74. I can safely say that I will never sit in my room for two days living and breathing a video game, my back hurts, my legs hurt, and I didn’t eat or drink much. I was like a zombie drone staring at a computer screen killing pixel beasts.

I don’t really play it for the game, I play it because of the social aspect. I’ve been with the same guild for 4 years, and in that 4 years time I have made some really good friends and enjoy their company. I consider them friends because for a few hours on any given night were shooting the breeze and escaping reality. But, after Saturday night I realized I could never be addicted to a game like some other people are just because of the sheer fact that my body ached from playing that game so long.

So on Sunday, I got some flowers and candy, drove to my girlfriend’s place and thanked her for being a good sport about the whole thing. Back to real life I guess!