In America on the 4th of July

I wanted to share something on this 4th of July weekend. This is a song I wrote over 20 years ago (with some help from Paris), and recorded with our old band Galen Paris and the Critical Mass.

The song is actually a composite of two different songs I had written. The music is from a song called Angel, and the lyrics are from a song called In America. Paris was listening to Angel while reading the In America lyrics and had the idea to put the two of them together. I thought he was bat-shit crazy, but we gave it a shot and sure as hell, it worked.

We then worked on setting up the song for how the band would play it, and in the process for that, we came up with what could be considered the 2nd bridge (the Having picnics on the 4th of July part). The thought was we needed something to break up the song a little bit, so I stripped down the drum track a bit. Paris worked out the piano part, and after fumbling over lyrics for that part, the idea smacked me in the face that since most of the song is about America's ills, we could put in some of the traditional good ol' American imagery into it. And thus was born the 4th of July picnics, apple pie, and fishing down by the stream part of the song. I remember us both being kind of giddy about how it all worked out.

The song helped get us to where there were talks of a recording deal that also included a movie. Which came with the dubious task of Paris and I (well, mostly Paris) working on a movie treatment. I still have that treatment down in my basement somewhere. The song features Paris on lead vocals and guitar, and Lisa on backing vocals and bass.

Anyway, 21 years later, I have the audio of the song up on youtube. So go give it a listen.

Prince and WB Sitting in a Tree...

There is a little something I want to get off my chest. It was recently announced that Prince signed a new deal with Warner Brothers. As I am a somewhat smitten fan of Prince, I saw hundreds of posts about this, and on almost every one of them there were people talking about how greedy Prince is and that it is all about money money money. This is my attempt to educate the masses. Yes, Prince is gonna get paid. It's his music, he should be getting paid. But this deal wasn't anywhere near being just about the money. The reason Prince and WB got into their spat 18 years ago is when an artist pours their heart and soul into recording a new song, the record label then claims it as theirs. The song writer/artist has absolutely ZERO rights to the song anymore. THAT is what drove Prince nuts and drove him to write slave on his face and get out of his deal with WB in the first place. This deal Prince just signed gives him ownership of his songs again. Here are a few other details about the music biz that 99% of you do not know. When you, as a fan, purchase an album from your favorite artist, do you know who gets that money? The place you got it from get a couple bucks. The artist/band gets around fifty cents to a buck, and the record label gets the rest. That's right, the band gets the short end of the stick. And in most cases, out of that buck the artist gets, they will then have to pay back the studio for the recording time to make the album, and pay for most of the production marketing costs. The artist will also have to pay for most of the music video expenses. For a good story on this, check out how TLC sold over 10-million albums, and had less than $100,000 to split between the tree of them to show for it. So, yes, part of this new deal with Prince and WB is about money. More of it will be going to the artist instead of the record label. And hopefully this is something other artists/bands will benefit from down the line. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled Easter festivities.

The Original 7ven

This is my favorite track off of this album by the members of the original Time.

Condensate is the fifth solo album by the American funk ensemble now known as The Original 7ven and formerly known as The Time. Released on October 18, 2011, the album was the group's first release in 11 years. Condensate peaked at #58 on the Billboard 200 album chart and #10 on the U.S. R&B album chart. "#Trendin" was also released as a single and reached #77 on the U.S. R&B charts.

Carrie Underwood - Two Black Cadillacs

Two Black Cadillacs is a song released by the American country recording artist Carrie Underwood. It was written by Underwood, Hillary Lindsey and Josh Kear. It was released as the third single from Underwood's fourth studio album, Blown Away, on November 26. Underwood announced the single on her official Twitter account. Underwood debuted the song with a performance at the 40th American Music Awards on November 18, 2012. "Two Black Cadillacs" speaks of a married woman planning on killing her cheating husband with a mistress. Apparently, the mistress did not know the man was married. After the wife learns of the affair, she and the mistress plan to kill the man because of his actions. The woman and mistress had never actually met, but they first made contact when the wife discovered the mistress' number on the husband's cell phone two months prior to the murder. After the killing, both women travel separately in two black Cadillac automobiles (hence the song's title) heading to the funeral, where they meet for the first and only time. How the two women killed the man is never specified in the song. "The song itself is so visual that I feel you can fill in the blanks and let your imagination do the work when you listen to it. You can come up with this really dark story about a guy who pissed off the wrong women!" Underwood says, laughing. "It’s just juicy and good."

Gary Clark Jr - Blak and Blu

Bruno Mars - Young Girls

"Young Girls" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, from his second studio album Unorthodox Jukebox (2012). The song was written by Jeff Bhasker, Emiley Haynie, Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine, while production was handled by Bhasker, Haynie and The Smeezingtons. "Young Girls" is a midtempo pop, R&B and rock ballad about how he can't help but succumb to the dubious charms of young girls. It received favorable reviews from music critics, who noted that it is a "sweet and enjoyable" track, while also praising Mars's vocals. It charted in some countries, such as Australia, Canada, France, South Korea and UK.

Andy Allo - Superconductor

I seriously can't get enough of this song. It reminds me of some of Prince's earlier songs he wrote for Apollonia 6, but in Andy Allo, he has a MUCH better singer and protege.

Prince - Dolphin

Dolphin - Prince

This is one of Prince's most underrated songs, in my opinion. And he has a TON of underrated songs. It is also one of my favorites of his. The video was shot in one take, with one camera.

Outkast - Rosa Parks

Man, when this song was new, and was playing in the clubs everywhere, I would dance dance my ass off to this one. Love this track, and it still makes me get up and get my groove on.

"Rosa Parks" is a song by the hip hop group OutKast. It was released as the first single from their 1998 album Aquemini, and was that album's most successful single. The song's title comes from the civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Foo Fighters - Best of You

I had enjoyed this song, but when Prince covered it during his Super Bowl Halftime performance, it made me really truly love the song as one of my all time favorites.

"Best of You" is a song by American alternative rock band Foo Fighters, and the first single released from the band's fifth studio album, In Your Honor. Dave Grohl notes that the song was written following appearances at 2004 American presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign trail and is "about breaking away from the things that confine you." To date, it is the band's only single to reach Platinum status in the US. The song holds the band's highest chart peaks in the US (#18), the UK (#4), and Australia (#5), and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. The song won the Kerrang! Award for Best Single. It also topped Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for four weeks and Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks. Following the band's performance at Live Earth, the song again entered the UK charts at #38.
Prince covered the song during the halftime show at Super Bowl XLI in Miami, Florida, on February 4, 2007. Drummer Taylor Hawkins expressed surprise by the performance, due to Prince's prior criticism of the band's desire to release a cover version of his song, "Darling Nikki", in 2003.

Kings of Leon - Use Somebody

This is absolutely one of my all-time favorite songs.

"Use Somebody" is a song by the American alternative rock group Kings of Leon. It was the second single from the band's fourth studio album Only by the Night (2008), released on December 8, 2008.
The single received heavy airplay in Scandinavia, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, where it was number one on the Official Airplay Chart for six consecutive weeks. It was a huge success in the U.S., where it topped multiple airplay formats and reached number four on the Hot 100 and number one on the Pop Songs chart. The song received positive reviews and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Song and was also nominated for Song of the Year.

Gary Clark Jr. - When My Train Pulls In

Un-fucking-real. Gary Clark Jr. has some absolutely insane guitar playing skills. And some insane song-writing skills. This song will blow you away. Just listen to it.

Andy Allo - People Pleaser

People Pleaser by HolyRiver9

Man, Prince can be a maddening guy to be a fan of. He has this new hot protege, with a new single, and a new album out, and he pulls all the videos from Youtube. So, I found this one on Dailymotion. This is Andy Allo. She has a new album out called Superconductor, and this is the first single off of it and it's called People Pleaser. I haven't picked up the album yet, but this song is better than anything Prince has put out himself recently. There is also a video of her performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and it's on youtube! I'll post it here for your viewing pleasure.

Dave Matthews Band - If Only

Every time this song comes on, and I hear that beginning guitar riff, I just get a big smile. Not just on my face, but my entire soul, my entire being smiles. This song is just beautiful and magical and I can't stop listening to it.

Van Halen - Big River

This is where the music business is screwing up. Big name artist from the 80's keep releasing some kick ass material, and it gets ZERO airplay or recognition. This here is one of my favorite cuts off of Van Halen's 2012 album "A Different Kind of Truth". This band hasn't lost a step. Eddie still can write some kick ass rock music, and he can still rip in on his guitar. And the music biz will gladly play Owl City instead of this? Come on, stop bitching about poor record sales until you start pushing GOOD music again.

Haley Reinhart - Undone

I don't know much about this girl, except that she was on American Idol, and that she has now had a couple of songs on the radio that don't sound like the typical cheesy pop fluff. I'm digging this track of hers.

Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven

Holy cow does this song ever kick ass! I loved it on the first listen, even with the song sounding very much like something The Police would have done back in the '80's. And since that first listen, this song just keeps getting better and better every time I listen to it, even as it creeps up the play charts and gets played all the time on the radio. I have also seen Bruno perform this song on a handful of TV shows, and along with this show, it is very refreshing to see a current artist able to put together a live band, and to have his songs sound just as good live as they do recorded, which is something 98% of today's pop artists simply cannot do. Gotta give it up to Bruno, he is very rapidly rising up my favorite artists list.

P!nk - Try

I just posted another video where the song was awesome and the video absolute rubbish. This song, is a pretty good song, and the video kicks ass. P!nk doesn't do the typical dance moves, she does some classically trained moves, and some moves that take some incredible body strength and control. You have to give her a lot of credit, she does things her own way. It is still pop music, but there is nothing cheesy about her music or video performances.

Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

I'm not exactly breaking any news when I say this, but Journey's "Seperate Ways (Worlds Apart)" is one of the best rock and roll songs ever, and also one of the worst music videos ever. As epic as the song is, the video is just as cheesy.

John Lennon - Imagine

While it is a very subjective subject, one could easily say John Lennon's "Imagine" is one of the best songs ever written. So simple, so beautiful, so powerful, and so so true.