That last one really gets up my nose. The best way to improve music sales is to make it really easy to find and buy music. Why can't I go to "findmusic.com" or something and search for some obscure track and have it tell me that that track is available on iTunes for 99 cents, Napster for 99 cents, on CD X, Y and Z at Amazon for $X, $Y and $Z or just tell me "that track is not available anywhere because the artist doesn't want you to have it, try eBay".
That still really bugs me.
Why I bought it: Gift for Christmas, the first CD is pure gold.
In a sentence or so: A few great songs, a couple of good, a few bad. I guess maybe I'm over the joke.
Tell me more...
I'm a huge fan of the HBO TV series and the album ("Tenacious D") that followed. Both technically great and amusing, I like the songs enough that my band has covered a couple of them at times. The songs on that album are sourced from years of touring and improved versions of songs from the TV series.
The movie is set before the TV series and so covers a lot of similar territory.
The songs on "The Pick Of Destiny" serve as a soundtrack for the movie and so typically tell a story, much like the first album. Some of the tracks really don't work without the visuals, particularly "Master Exploder" and "Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)". Both of these tracks are fantastic in the movie but are missing a lot when reduced only to audio.
Other tracks are little more than bridges between the movie Acts, short and sweet and vaguely incidental.
In fact, I can barely think of any tracks that work outside the context of the movie. "The Metal" is great (played over the credits) as is "Classico" ("spoiled" by the trailer). The only track I think is better outside of the movie is "Dude (I Totally Miss You)" who's visuals perhaps reduce the heartfelt nature of the song.
By far the best song in both music and movie context is "Kickapoo", the story of a young JB growing up metal in a god-fearing family. It includes guest appearances (in vocal and actor form) from Meatloaf (JB's Dad) and Dio (as himself). Watching Dio record his part (an extra on the DVD) was almost enough to have me joining the Dio cult.
Unlike the last album which only had a couple of spots I don't like, this album has two songs I actively don't like, "The Pick Of Destiny" (the first single, played over the credits) and "The Government Totally Sucks" (cut from the movie).
Perhaps I did this in the wrong order. Maybe I should have listened to the album, then surprised myself with the great "music video" that went with it? Or perhaps, as I secretly believe, I think the "Tenacious D are a struggling band telling their stories with their songs" joke is just wearing a little thin.
Especially now we have "Flight of the Conchords", who's new series is a totally different spin on the struggling two piece acoustic joke band theme that has totally won my heart.
For "The Pick Of Destiny", the album is good, but the movie is better. And neither is fantastic as a whole. Ultimately it's only so disappointing because the first album is so good.
The fact the album has quite a few good songs should really be celebrated, as it's far more than many a band can manage.
Computers and the internet are to blame for global warming and the increased rudeness of all and sundry. Please leave cars alone.
Why trust a job to a person who probably costs a hand full of Weatbix to feed a day when you could trust the job to ten computers running software written by tens of people for hundreds of thousands of dollars supported by five separate people 24 hours a day to do the job half as well?
Who expects anything to not need replacing in two years time? Computers did that. The expectation that companies will be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week to answer your every question? Blame the internet. All these computers running 24 hours a day to serve you with information you don't particularly want and not one of them can answer a simple question a billionth as well as a trained monkey.
But my life is paid for with such craziness so I should keep it quiet. Don't tell anyone...
Mill Market Geelong has a very similar set up in Daylesford which I remember visiting on our way back from Ballarat at the start of this year.
The market in Geelong was disappointingly small. It's nice and all but after an hour+ drive I was hoping for more. A similar length drive to Tyabb at least leaves you with four antique barns to check out. Also Mill's set up is a little too neat. They seem to have way more space than is needed for their antiques and so everything seems a little too spread out for my liking.
On the way back we noticed another smaller antique place (who's name I have forgotten). They had a much more pleasing set up, crap piled everywhere. I discovered in a pile an awesome photo of Princes Bridge in Melbourne from the south shore looking toward Flinders Street station. $5. I hope to pop on down there some time this week and take the same photo and frame them both together.
On the way into Geelong we had a long look at the Ford engine plant that will be closing in three years time. As far as industrial building go it's lovely. Hopefully they turn it into something. The Geelong newspaper was full of stories about the 600 jobs that are to go, one of which had a charming picture of Chicken Little ("the sky is falling?"), while another indicated that a similar job loss in Newcastle (BHP) made no difference to their overall unemployment rate. Numbers numbers numbers...
A letter to the editor I read recently said that 1000s of Telstra employees who's jobs were sent to India wished they'd had three years notice.
Meanwhile Ford has just announced the creation of 300 or so jobs but I doubt 300 Geelong citizens will want to move to Broadmeadows.
A compilation CD of this boxset was later released called "Sliver: The Best of the Box" with three extra unreleased tracks.
Why I bought it: It was only $9 and I like Nirvana and I have an unusually high tolerance for bad quality recordings.
In a sentence or so:: Terrible quality recordings of the private beginnings and ends of a very influential band. Mostly shit.
Tell me more...
It's hard to blame Kurt for the recording technology of the 90s. Boomboxes with built in microphones have served many a musician well for capturing an idea. He did not have the luxury of a minidisc recorder or an iMac.
It's also hard not to blame Nirvana fans for wanting to hear this stuff. The curse of the internet is the high availability of knowledge. Once fans know these tapes exist, they want to hear them.
The majority of the recordings on this "Best of the Box" are of very very low quality, filled with tape hiss and tape warps. The recordings are though of very high historical importance for the Nirvana fan. Kurt playing scratch demo versions of songs to himself to the microphone.
If you believe Wikipedia, the "Spank Thru" demo (one of the 3 extra tracks) is the Holy Grail of Nirvana rarities, probably equivalent to hearing tapes of Courtney Love front Faith No More. I understand the excitement of Nirvana fans, but from the outside it's really hard to ignore the simple fact the song isn't that great and the quality of the recording sucks.
If this boxset was of Faith No More unreleased tracks I'd be all over it. Although I suspect even then I'd be able to admit the quality (of both the tracks and songs) was terrible.
It's an interesting historical document, but as a listen, it's not much fun.
Feel free to email me and tell me.
Update: The Wikipedia article on the book ("Deathly Hallows") now helpfully includes a list of everyone killed in the book. Hooray!