Skip to main content

Day Three Hundred Twenty Four (Year Two)

Tonight was one of those nights at work where I had to fight not to buy something.  It was a terrible night, and my usual response to that is to buy music.  I held off, though, and was proud of myself for it.

I made it through half of the new Grace Potter & The Nocturnals record today.  It's really good, yet again.  Both she and Brandi Carlile make music more consistently than pretty much anyone else I know of.  The best, most beautiful part of that, is that the new music seems to fit flawlessly into the music that's already there.

Oh yeah, another thing that happened today: I figured out what the two records are that come out the 19th that will serve to make it an all-around amazing month for music:

1) The Idler Wheel... - Fiona Apple
2) Oceania - Smashing Pumpkins

I'll admit straight off that the Pumpkins record is more of a curiosity than anything else at this point, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to help myself.  Part of me is genuinely intrigued as to whether or not Billy Corgan can make revolution relevant again in the way he was able to in the 90's.  The other part of me is equally terrified that he'll screw it up entirely and damage any cred that he might have left.  On the other hand, Corgan is one of those people that will either:

1) Put something out that's of a lower quality just to spite all of us who walk around in the hope that a Pumpkins record can be an EVENT again.

OR

2) Would pull the record at the last minute if he had even the slightest fear that it wasn't going to measure up.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure that he believes without a doubt that every record he puts out deserves to be as big as Mellon Collie.  In reality, I don't know that he will ever be that brilliant again.

It does raise the old question again, however:  If Corgan and Cobain had switched places (i.e. if Billy had died after the Pumpkins 3rd record, and Cobain had lived), which one of them is the bigger legend today?

Nirvana's first three records were:

1) Bleach
2) Nevermind
3) In Utero

while the Pumpkins first three records were:

1) Gish
2) Siamese Dream
3) Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness

Discuss amongst yourselves, and feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments section below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Six (Year Four)

Today was the first official day of the second half of my "album-in-a-month" challenge. As for today's goals, I wanted to see what I could get done in regards to track order, and get at least a little bit of a start on the lyric writing process. I spent more time working on the track order question than I did on the lyrics today, but as a result of that, I ended up with something that I think will work in terms of order. I did sit with the notebook for a few minutes at the very end of the day, and got a solid starting line of lyric and some other ideas that I hope will be jumping off points for lyrics. What I'm thinking I might do, however, is switch my focus from the lyric writing part of the process directly to the recording part of the process.  That way, if I can get the music recorded and burned onto a CD, I can take the music with me in the car, and listen and try to see what images and thoughts the music brings up.  It's a tactic that has worked for...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Ninety Nine (Year Four)

Tonight was one of those nights where absolutely nothing went right, but somehow, some way, I managed to get into the studio for a little bit, and make what felt like good progress, all things considered. I went back through the second half of last night's chapter in The Guitarist's Guide To Scales Over Chords , just to make sure that I had a decent grasp of everything that was covered, and then made the move to the next chapter. After the theory-heavy chapter I had just gotten through, it was a great relief to have the next one be more music (playing) centered.  It was all about putting the scale examples they cited in the early chapters to use in a musical context. I've seen a great number of books try to do this in a successful manner, and end up failing spectacularly, but so far I'm liking what this book is putting forward.  They give you "starter" examples, that don't necessarily make the best use of note choices, etc. and then present you with an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Ninety Two (Year Five)

Today was the last seminary village cookout of the year. While we were all sitting around the picnic tables eating dinner, I got a chance to talk with a few of the Mrs.'s classmates about guitar related stuff. As it turns out, more than one of them wants to be more proficient on guitar. I'm not saying that this will lead to more teaching opportunities, but I told one of them that I would throw a folder together for them. Essentially, anytime I get a chance to talk shop is a great chance for me to reinforce some of the things I have been focusing on. If nothing else, it gets me thinking ahead to tomorrow's day off and a chance to get into the studio for a decent amount of time.
Post a Comment
Read more