apple juice

It’s always a fun time seeing Mike Doughty in concert.

I arrived at First Ave. way, way too early, sometime around 6:30. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that I didn’t have a ticket, and I was also thinking that about 7 different places on the net said the show was at 7.

The show wasn’t at 7, the opening band was at 7:30 and then M. Doughty and his human band were on around 8:45.

This actually turned out to be a blessing. I met some fine people who had also arrived a bit early for the show, and my lady was able to finish up her homework and come down to the show! She arrived about 7 minutes before they busted into the first song.

We grooved for the entire show, even though I one point I became acutely that my back really, really hurt! I must be getting old or something 😉

The music was a good mix of some old and some new, although admittedly, most of the new sounds a lot like the old. But that’s really not the point for us. We’ve listened to these guys for so long, it’s just fun for us to hear Doughty stand up there and refer to the keyboardist as “The Doveman” and for him to play Firetruck (which was written by a 4-year-old) and for him to tell us all that he fell asleep to the blue light of Pimp My Ride.

At one point in the evening, Doughty went off on this story about getting a phone call from one of the members of They Might Be Giants about doing a benefit album for Moveon.org

Now, we’re not a political band, but for those who don’t know, Moveon is an organization dedicated to getting George W. the fuck out of office. So all of you go out there and vote in November.

The crowd went nuts.

After being underwhelmed with their last effort, Hello Nasty and the subsequent 4 years of fresh gray hairs added to their heads, I was not expecting great things from the new Beastie Boys album. At most, I had hoped that there would be one last tour in support of the new album, and I would finally be able to see them before they announced their retirement.

I could not have been more wrong.

To The 5 Boroughs has been a very pleasant surprise. The MixMaster Mike beats and scratches are probably the tightest of any Beastie Boys album ever. It is clearly hip-hop through and through this time around as well. No jazzy interludes from the Check Your Head days. You can roll down the windows and crank it up. This will be a great summer album for embarassing your wives and girlfriends as you roll around town.

The rhymes themselves, are, well, the Beastie Boys. They sound better on the album than they would if I were to type some out here for you. But it’s the Beastie Boys. We’ll leave it at that. The lyrics do have a sharp political edge this time around (besides the obligatory 3 MCs and 1 DJ look-a-like “Triple Trouble”). Since no one else in mainstream music seemed to be carrying the anti-Bush torch, they have happily grabbed it and are proudly displaying for all to see. At this point, they really have nothing to lose, but it would be nice to see some others in the mainstream music arena really start to step it up.

Overall, fans of the Beastie Boys, pick up this album.

Thanks to my friend Evan, I’ve learned that the Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer is online. Check it out…

(Okay, so it came out a few days ago…)

Here they are, in no particular order…

• Outkast – Speakerboxx / The Love Below
• The White Stripes – Elephant
• Black Eyed Peas – Elephunk
• Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner
• The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
• Grandaddy – Sumday
• Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash
• Holopaw – Holopaw
• The Strokes – Room On Fire
• Radiohead – Hail to the Thief

Did I miss one of your favorites? Let me know? I love to hear new music!

I saw the Matrix last night.

I will refrain from posting any sort of review or thoughts until the weekend so I don’t blow it for anyone…

Tonight @ 9:15! I’ll be at the Cinemagic in Rochester.

I haven’t read any reviews, and know nothing other than the trailers.

This is an exciting 45 days for movies. (Return of the King soon!)

With Cable TV at M.I.T., Who Needs Napster?

So the M.I.T. system, using the analog campus cable system, simply bypasses the Internet and digital distribution, and takes advantage of the relatively less-restrictive licensing that the industry makes available to radio stations and others for the analog transmission.

What’s ironic is that prior to this analog distribution… someone is controlling the playlist through the internet…

At some point, hopefully our lawmakers will realize that copyright law needs to be completely rewritten. It was written for a different era.

And hopefully, the lawmakers won’t be writing the new copyright laws in one room while taking checks from the RIAA in the other room.

We can hope, can’t we?