Drain sth - Horror Wrestling

There was a period of time where I had a knack for finding bands that either just broke up or were about to. It was depressing. My more recent period of this is the aforementioned "baby years". Actually, that was a period of just not finding bands. Case in point: Drain sth This band from Sweden released two albums, Horror Wrestling and Freaks of Nature, in the late nineties but I had not heard of them until a year or two ago. The singing on Horror Wrestling reminds me of Layne Staley at his most hypnotic and the music rocks (check out I Don't Mind and Mirror's Eyes). This is one of those albums that gets better with each play and I'm going to get the other one. Alas, they are no more. Lead singer Maria is now married to Tony Iommi. The other three members were working together in a band called Superfix for a while (listen to the demo they posted last year, Your Addiction (Superfix), which I really like) but it didn't work out. Drummer/singer Martina is now the new lead singer of Snake River Conspiracy (check out the new song they just posted, Methlehem). Their next album is something I'll be keeping an eye out for.

Metallica - Live at the 2004 Download Festival

On June 6, 2004, Metallica were scheduled to play the Download Festival at Donnington, England. However, drummer Lars Ulrich had a medical problem en route and ended up in a hospital. Did Metallica cancel? Of course not. With not much time before the show, the band auditioned drummers from the other bands at the festival and chose Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Joey Jordison from Slipknot, and Flemming Larson, Ulrich's drum tech. The result, while not Metallica's greatest show ever, is an interesting curiosity for fans. Since they needed to stick with songs their new drummers knew, it was a night for songs from the Black Album and earlier. Metallica is making recordings of virtually all the shows from this tour available for purchase as digital downloads. You even get unique CD artwork for each gig. It took them a while to get the European dates up but they're finally available, including the Donnington show. Check out Battery with Dave Lombardo and Creeping Death with Joey Jordison. Lars who? :-)

Mediæval Bæbes - The Rose

Finally, some female choral music that is not Bulgrian folk music. Not that I have a problem with Bulgarian folk music, it's just that variety is a good thing. When I have tried to find more female choral music, I pretty much come up empty-handed (I am sure this is no surprise to you). Thanks to my recent Blackmore's Night purchase, Amazon recommended The Rose by The Mediæval Bæbes, a group of women who "perform music influenced by the Mediaeval period and sing in ancient and modern languages." It's not as cheesy as it may sound because they are really quite good. Check out Byrd One Brere and The Circle Of The Lustful to see what I mean.

Françoise Hardy - The Vogue Years

There is a scene in the film Broadcast News where Albert Brooks puts on a French record and starts singing along with it. I wondered where in America he would find out about a French song that he liked enough to learn all the words (it didn't occur to this homebody that he might have actually travelled to France but bear with me for a bit). I can tell you how I came across a French singer that I like (though I can't say that I sing along much). Françoise Hardy sang a song, Je Changerais d'avis, on an Ennio Morricone collection I have, Canto Morricone Vol. 1 (The 60's). That song really stuck in my head so a few years later I have purchased one of her collections, The Vogue Years (Vogue was the name of the first record company she signed with). The best way to describe the music here is "French Pop", if that means anything to you. Françoise was no flash-in-the-pan pretty face, though, as she wrote much of what she sang. Her very first single, Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles, sold two million copies in 1962. She has followed that with forty years of music, including Tout Ce Qu'on Dit from 1965. Beats the heck out of freedom fries.

So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star by Jacob Slichter

1998 is a big blur for me. Actually, 1998 and several years after it are a big blur. The summer of 1998 was when my twins were born. I pretty much withdrew from popular culture in 1998 and still have not fully recovered. That's okay, though. It's one of those easy choices a daddy makes. Every so often I come across things that happened during "The Baby Years" that completely passed me by. One of those things was Semisonic and their song Closing Time. Apparently it was a big hit. Apparently it was a huge hit. I had not heard the song until this evening. I had not even heard of the song until I read So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star by Jacob Slichter, the drummer for Semisonic. Heck, whenever I saw the word Semisonic I experienced some sort of dyslexic thing because I kept seeing it as Seismonic. Weird. Anyway, Slichter has written a very interesting book about his experience with the nuts and bolts of the music business during Semisonic's roller coaster ride into and out of the spotlight. It is a memoir rather than a guide to making it big in showbiz, though if you want to read about drugs and groupies, look elsewhere. If you want to read about what is really involved in making a hit, how record companies help and hurt their artists, the power of radio stations, the things artists have to go through to promote their music, the rush of being on stage, and how quickly stardom can slip away, then I recommend this book. Slichter doesn't go into his relationships with his bandmates much and for someone who goes on and on about the band's escalating recoupable costs, he doesn't write at all about his income (surely he made some money from Semisonic). Minor quibbles, though. Good book.

Jethro Tull - Bursting Out

Ian Anderson has been going through the Jethro Tull catalog and remastering their albums in chronological order. He has made it up to one of the albums I have been waiting for the most: Bursting Out. Recorded on the Heavy Horses tour, Bursting Out captures Tull at their late seventies folk-rock peak, (arguably an artistic peak but definitely a commercial peak). It was a good time to be a fan of Jethro Tull. Bursting Out was a double LP when originally released. When it came time for the CD, the album was too long to fit onto a single CD so it was decided to keep the selling price low and remove two songs. I happened to really like those songs on the album so I never bought the CD. I never listened to the LP once I started buying CDs, either. Now the album has been remastered and the missing songs are back. No bonus tracks but I have plenty of live Tull tracks, so that is not a problem. Listen to Sweet Dream and A New Day Yesterday to hear what a good time it was to be a fan of Jethro Tull.

Stan Ridgway & Pietra Wexstun - Mark Ryden: Blood

I have movie soundtracks, TV show soundtracks, original cast recordings, a radio show soundtrack, and LPs that have dialog from movies and TV shows (there was an era before you could rent and buy videos for your home, you know). Now, with Mark Ryden: Blood, I have the soundtrack to an art show. Stan Ridgway & Pietra Wexstun have created music to go with each of the paintings for a 2003 installation of Mark Ryden's works at the Earl McGrath Gallery in New York. It has a real soundtrack feel to it, too, rather than just being a collection of fluffy ambient tracks. The pieces seem to work well with the paintings, though to get the full experience one probably needed to actually be at the gallery. However, the music does stand on its own, as Rose and Entrance demonstrate.

Motörhead - Inferno

Motörhead fans, like those of AC/DC and The Ramones, generally come in two flavors. The first has just a few albums, which they really like, but after that all the music starts sounding the same. The second has nearly all their albums and can't believe that they manage to keep things fresh after all these years. Where do I stand?:

• The Ramones - One greatest hits album.
• AC/DC - Two albums.
• Motörhead - Twenty two albums and a few singles.

The mighty Motörhead is back with Inferno. This is one of the better ones; of the more recent albums, I'd put it up there with Sacrifice. Still loud, still in your face, still rough around the edges, still loud, still Motörhead. Witness In the Name of Tragedy and Smiling Like a Killer. How do they manage to keep things fresh after all these years?