Thursday, October 1, 2009 - John Greene
The Kleptones are the ultimate mash-up act. Other acts are happy just putting together two or three songs and calling it a day, but their ongoing efforts have dazzled me consistently, from the thing that put them on my radar, A Night At The Hip Hopera through subsequent releases and even a live album. I don’t know how this escaped my notice earlier, but they’ve created the ultimate version of rock’s ultimate anthem, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” With over two dozen versions spliced, edited, and reloaded, it’s the sort of thing that will make your jaw drop.
Tags: kleptones, mashup, music, queen
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Monday, August 31, 2009 - Debo34
Oh Canada ! I have a lot of friends from the great country of Canada. And like always when we are together there is plenty of needling and poking fun back and forth. We will have our U.S.A vs. Canada debates which usually are childish and silly. I will usually say ” thanks for bacon”, or ” the best thing Canada ever did was Bryan Adams” . So after Friday night I have found an all new #1 reason why Canada is all right–Nickelback.
If you read my blogs you know I go to a ton of concerts. I have seen hundreds of bands over the years, some good, some bad and some Nickelback. I am still in awe days later at the show I saw last Friday night. I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan and they have always seemed a little mainstream for me, but I was really blown away. These guys just get it, and know how to entertain. The music was spot on, the set list was great and the energy was sky high. If you are a music fan and get a chance to see these guys I would highly recommend it. Thank you Canada!
You can go here… http://www.nickelback.com/ and check out a video from one of their shows. This is exactly what it was like Friday night.
Aruba moment #5 - Scuba diving.
It was Aruba 2006 and with a little free time on our hands My wife Erin, son Jarod and I took a resort dive class in Aruba. None of us had ever been diving or really knew anything about it. We decided one morning to wander down to the dive shop located just down the beach from the Radisson to see what it was all about. About 2 hours later we were scuba diving in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. It was really quite simple and something I would recommend to people who are in Aruba. The cost was about $80 a person and it took about 4 hours total. The 4 hours consisted of a 30 minute class where the instructors basically just went over everything. This was followed by an hour or so in the pool getting acquainted with your scuba gear and passing a few basic drills so they knew you were ready for the ocean. Once you were done with the pool tests you were ready for the ocean. We boarded a catamaran and headed out to the dive spot. We dove for close to an hour, checking out all the sea life and an old sunken barge. It was truly amazing for a first timer. We didn’t dive very deep, maybe 25 feet, but that was enough for me. There is plenty to see at that depth. This was just one of the many amazing things to do in Aruba, and is one of my fondest Aruba memories.
Debo
Tags: Aruba, Bryan Adams, Canada, music, Nickelback, Scuba diving
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Sunday, June 28, 2009 - Scott Ian
I’ve been in Europe since May 31, all over the place. I spent the first two weeks doing promotion for the new record. Basically traveling from city to city doing interviews and photo shoots (UB shirts in every shoot!)12 hours a day. London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo. It was a brutal schedule but the reaction to the new songs has been amazing!!!! I have an iPod with the new mixes on it and the writers get to hear them right before they sit down to talk to me. The instant reactions are great. It really makes me excited for all of you to hear it!!! It really feels like the press/media is hearing the songs the same way I hear them. They can hear all the energy and time and blood and sweat and hard work that we put into this record. The two years we spent writing and then the six months we spent recording were some of the toughest and best times I have ever had in Anthrax and listening back to the finished songs now I can say it was well worth it. This new record is the best representation of our career that I could ever imagine and our new singer Dan Nelson sounds like he’s been with us forever.
Anyway, wait until you hear this record. Worship Music is a fucking great metal record and it will be out on October 12.
After the two weeks of promo we started our summer tour in Estonia. It was our first time in Tallinn and we had a blast!! Found a killer bar called Hell Hunt and we drank a hellish amount of beer! My friend Renee offered to take me to a poker room but I was too drunk and thought it would be a bad idea to be playing with hardcore Estonians and Russians drunk. The show in Estonia was great (even though it was raining really hard) and the new songs went over great. We’ve been playing three new ones; “Fight’em ‘Til You Can’t”, “New Noise”, and “Earth On Hell” and the reactions everywhere have been thrash-fucking-tastic.
We played the Metal Hammer Awards in London and that was great. Since then we’ve been in Paris, Luxembourg, Clisson France for Hellfest (which was amazing!!), Bilbao, Bologna and now Switzerland. Somehow amongst all of that I cashed in Sundays 200K, 41st place.
At the Hellfest in France after our show I got to watch Heaven & Hell from the side of the stage and they were incredible. Ronnie Dio is metal perfection. He really is the best singer ever. And, getting to stand so close to Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler is so surreal. I know these guys and have had conversations with them and I know they are just normal guys but they INVENTED HEAVY METAL. It’s like standing next to Gods.
That’s it for now. See you on UB and I’ll be in Vegas for the WSOP Main Event and don’t forget to WORSHIP MUSIC!!!
Cheers,
Scott
Tags: Anthrax, Heavy Metal, music, ub, Vegas, Worship Music, WSOP
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - Scott Ian
Hello my fiends, (Freudian slip?), and hello my friends, how are you? I hope this fine December day finds you happy and healthy and not too much heavier from Thanksgiving. December? How the hell did it get to be December already? Time really does fly when you’re having fun.
I started recording guitars for the new Anthrax album here in Los Angeles on Monday. I was at the studio Monday night with our producer (and lead guitarist Rob Caggiano) getting all the gear set up and at 6PM I played the $1 Rebuy while we were getting things wired etc. As the game continued past bingo hour (I had around 17K) it was time for me to start playing guitar to get sounds and for a while I was actually playing poker and playing guitar at the same time. As I was multi-tasking it got me thinking how many similarities there are between my two worlds. Guitar and Poker have so much in common. My style of guitar playing is certainly aggressive, but it’s also selectively aggressive. I don’t play guitar like I’m trying to kill somebody all the time. You have to have dynamics in your playing and dynamics in your game. Know when to pull back (tighten up) and know when to let loose the hounds of Hell on your opponent or listener’s ears!!
As the tourney continued (I was on the verge of being out for what seemed like an hour hovering around 8K with blinds climbing towards 500/1000 when I doubled up and then doubled up again) we started getting into actually listening to different amps, different cabinets, different microphones, different guitars, different cables, in all different combinations and this made me think how the variance in Poker is just like the variance in getting a guitar sound. So many different elements make up what you are trying to achieve. I thought there was a lot of variance in Poker but in Poker the variables don’t even come close to getting a guitar sound. I mean literally, the air in the room can affect your tone. The floor, the walls, speaker placement, moving a microphone .00001 of an inch, all the aforementioned equipment variables plus guitar strings, effects, power, and then you have the organic element of my right hand and how it relates to the strings and the pick attack on the strings and the vibration of those strings through the guitar pickup and the type of guitar pickup sending those vibrations through the cable to the amps etc etc etc it’s insane when I start to think about it. And when all is said and done, just like in Poker you can do everything right (get your money in good) and still not have the result you want.
Somehow I made it all the way to 70th place before I busted out and strangely enough right when I busted out one of my old amps stopped working and we had to take a break and figure out the problem. Cashing is always nice even if it’s for like $8. For me, the game, the fun and the experience are why I play. Just like guitar and playing in a band. I’ve been in Anthrax since 1981 and I always get asked how I can still do it. It’s all about the game. It’s all about the career and the longevity and being the last man standing and if it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it.
See you at the tables.
Cheers,
Scott
Tags: music, Poker Poker Poker, Scott Ian
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Monday, November 24, 2008 - John Greene
A lot of people listen to music at their computer while playing poker online, and it’s easy to understand why. It can get lonely, especially when you’re playing in a big late-night tournament and everyone else in your house has gone to bed for the night and Van Halen always helps pass the time. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to listen to your iPod when playing live in any sort of environment.
When you play online poker, every cue you get from the other players is on the screen. How long it takes them to bet, the way they bluff on hands, etc: it’s all right there. When playing poker live, though, information can come from anywhere. An edge in someone’s voice can let you know that they’re stressed and desperate to play. The guy next to you tapping his chips against the table’s edge in a certain way can tell you that he’s bluffing without you needing to look over. Heck, you might even overhear someone talking about a hand that can give you a lot of information about their play style.
Even with the clues that your ears can bring you, it’s important to point out another reason that you shouldn’t play with your headphones on: poker is a social game. Not everybody at the table is as chatty as Phil Hellmuth can be, but you should be at least cordial with those you’re trying to take money from. I’d hate to see what a table with nine people all wearing headphones would be like.
Tags: headphones, music
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Saturday, November 22, 2008 - smokin_aces
Halfway through the third time watching Lady Gaga’s video for her brand new single “Poker Face”, I realized the song is about poker. Sort of……. Lady Gaga, while stunning visually, is not exactly an artist exuding depth and talent. Instead you get the impression she was the face and body matched by record executives to songs that didn’t make a Gwen Stefani album. However, that said, I’ve not recently seen the game of poker made to look so….uhhhhh….screw it, SEXY! The song’s lyrical content is basically a strung together montage of x-rated double entendres made from familiar poker lingo. Granted, with Lady Gaga’s over the top sex appeal oozing from every pore in her taut body, she could make unclogging a toilet sound sexy with the right beat.
From the very first chord progression you’re happy. The brief but obvious ‘nod’ to ‘Sweet Dreams’ is enough for the first time listener to feel welcome. These cheap parlor tricks are par for the musical course these days, so ironically it gets a pass. The first audible line other than the voice that may be Timbaland reciting “Mum mum mum mum” around 20 times, is “I wanna hold em like they do in Texas Plays”. That line must be about her desire for multiple sex partners. As a patriarchal old school man, that frightens me, so I like it. “Fold em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me, I love it” has all the sentiments of a veiled cry for domination. Again, scary but alluring. It starts getting more interesting when she hits the pre-chorus. “OH OH OH, I’ll get him hot, show him what I’ve got, OH OH OH”. At this point in the song I realized that she chose poker as a theme so that she could make references like this without sounding like a complete tramp! It’s brilliant really (I mean if it had actually worked that is). Poker has many phrases that can be twisted to sound sexual, and Lady Gaga has exploited this to the fullest extent.
However, her sultry delivery on phrases like “I’m bluffin with my muffin”, while pointing to her crotch (classy), travel from “ambiguous-land” right into “fucking obvious-ville”. She spends the first half of the song using poker as a way to skeeze up the airways while hiding behind the “perception” curtain, and then blasts right into full blown lyrical porn. However, her (and I say her as if these creative decisions were hers) less-than-subtle re-interpretations of phrases from the poker lexicon actually do make you want to play poker…..covered in baby oil, with a harem of beautiful women, lying on a leopard skin rug.
Tags: music
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