News:

BECK has a song from his new album circling the Internet lately, I gave it a listen and added it to my playlist, give it a listen and let me know what you think. A little slow for a single if you ask me, still a good song but it doesn't make me too pumped for the album. Don't get me wrong I am super excited to hear what Beck's been a brewing with his fancy producer "Danger Mouse" but I'm also scared. Danger Mouse is one half of Gnarls Barkley and I just don't like Gnarls Barkley. Danger Mouse has produced several other albums that do not sound anything like Gnarls, The Black Keys for example, but I'm scared that with Beck's genre being kind of similar to Gnarls, Danger is going to push it in that direction. Let's keep our fingers crossed though. The Information is going to be pretty hard to top.
MUSE is in the studio again, thank you DEREK for the heads up on that one, after some research it seems the new album is going to be an experimental one. More electronic and dance than rock, while some tracks will have more of a symphonic feel. It's even rumored they'll hire an orchestra for a track or too. That'll be interesting. I seem to remember Metallica doing that a while back with mixed views on whether it was cool or not. I thought No Leaf Clover was a lot better with the backing of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Only time will tell us if this approach will work for Muse, and when I say time I mean me. I'll let you know. As long as they keep the piano coming I'll be psyched.
I just bought my first My Morning Jacket CD and I am very impressed. They kind of remind of the Flaming Lips only not so crazy. I'm excited for their new album coming out June 10th! So.........,Um..........,SEX AND THE CITY, the movie, is coming out this weekend, and if you know HEATHER at all you know that that is what we will be doing at our earliest opportunity. I actually don't mind the T.V. series too much. Hopefully, like the series, the movie will have enough T&A to keep me interested:) The Strangers also comes out, but not only do I dislike scary movies, but the trailer for The Strangers was on a movie that me and Heather went to not to long ago and just the trailer itself almost made me wet myself, it looks like it'll be a good scary movie, but like I said they're not for me. That's it as far as movies this weekend. I am looking forward to STEP BROTHERS a lot. I'm a sucker for Will Ferrel movies, if you haven't seen the trailer yet check it out! Also THE DARK KNIGHT is going to be awesome I hope. There's also a STAR WARS 3D CLONE WARS animated movie coming out to kick off a T.V. Series directly following, I'm super excited, but I won't geek out about it here. Thanks for reading everyone!
PS:In answer to some questions I had in comments, Jared I checked out MGMT and I like Time to Pretend, but every other song on that album sounds too similar to it, only not as good. I have only given it a couple spins, but they're not for me. Mindy, I'm not too sure I will buy Coldplays new album soley for the fact that Chris Martin thinks Coldplay is the best band in the world, if one of my good friends were to give me the album I would have no objection listening to it and telling everyone why they are not ;) Amy, I have checked out Arcade Fire and love the death out of them, I have a couple tracks down in my playlist if you scroll through a bit, Intervention is a rad song, as is Black Wave/Bad Vibrations. I haven't given Rogue Wave or Wolf Parade a listen yet but from the iTunes snippets I've heard they are alright by me! Talk to you all later!

IT; is what they are.

One Day, my unborn child said, "Yo Craig, what are the greatest bands alive?" I was not only excited to talk to my unborn child, but also to impress upon him the importance of that question, I said, "Dearest Baby, I will tell you...."

1. Radiohead-
Radiohead is a band I've grown to like in my later years of life. Junior High I said, "Radiohead, Shmadiohead." But to hear that said to me makes me sad for the ignorance of such a person. Radiohead is the band I want to be. Radiohead is amazing instrumention orchestrated together in such a way you have to listen to it five times to understand it's awesomeness. Their lyrics are out of this world, words, rhymes, stories and thoughts I could never even dream about. Thom Yorke's melodies he writes and the depth of his voice is second only to the amazing talents of Johnny Greenwood annihilating the standards for lead guitarist, his brother Colin Greenwood, thumping out the most somber, catchy, rythmatic and "make you want to dance" bass lines someone could dream to invent, Ed O'Brien, singing back up for Yorke and strumming alongside Johnny, and Phil Selway an amazement of a drummer, he makes sure everyone listening to Radiohead is tapping their feet or nodding their head. If any member went missing, Radiohead would cease to exist. I could go on and on. If you are unfamiliar with Radiohead check out, Karma Police, Paranoid Android, I Might Be Wrong, Knives Out, Where I End and You Begin, There There, 15 Step, Bodysnatchers, Nude and Jigsaw Falling Into Place. If you don't like any of those I'll give you five bucks! And I'll slap you.

2. Weezer
Weezer, oh where to begin. Weezer is a moving band, they can make you happy and sad with the same song, nay, the same sentence. Weezer can write the catchiest melodies known to man. Everyone can sing along to Weezer. Weezer invented music as it is today. Weezer is the grandfather of punk, emo, rock and indie. Weezer is amazing melodies, indetifying lyrics, over simple yet epic use of instruments. Amazing solo's by lead guitarist Bryan Bell, Pat Wilson know's when to use and not to use his awesome talents on the drums, their ever changing bassist added their own contributions to their greatness, and last and most certainly not least Rivers Cuomo. Rivers is Weezer. He writes and sings all Weezer songs, his dorky/mysterious demeanor make fans go crazy for him. Live Weezer is dead on, and like Craig always says, if you can't do it live you can't do it at all. Key tracks, Say it Ain't So, Only in Dreams, Island in The Sun, Hashpipe, Slob, Death and Destruction, Burndt Jam, Haunt You Everyday and soon to be classics, The Greatest Man That Ever Lived and Pork and Beans.

That's all I have time to tell you today, those are the two best bands still making music. Let me know your favorites! More of mine to come in the following weeks.
-CRaig

Narrow Stairs

Narrow Stairs is Death Cab for Cutie's newest album. It came a week or so ago, May 9th. In the weeks leading up to the release of this album I replayed all my old Death Cab Cd's. I love rediscovering all my old favorites preceding the release of any follow-up. I watched all the Indiana Jones before we went to see the new one, I played Rainbow Six Vegas 1 for about two weeks non-stop before number 2 came out. I feel it's the only real way to see how the band/movie series/video game or whatever has improved/declined. So in the weeks preceding the release I really got psyched and excited to see what they were going to bring to the new album.

Death Cab is their own style, choir boy vocals, cleverly put together lyrics over subtly layered instrumentation, they are one of the few bands that have not really changed their style throughout the years.

People get mad at bands if they reinvent themselves album to album and complain they're not like they used to be and people also dislike bands for sounding the same album to album. Narrow Stairs has stayed true to DCFC style with enough subtle changes to keep it fresh.

This is Death Cab's second album released with a major label. Fans, including me was scared about their switch from their independent label to Atlantic. Most Indie bands that make that switch make an album and then fade away and are never heard from again. DCFC's first album with their new label, Plans sold 90,000 units the first week while Narrow Stairs sold 144,00. It would seem the switch has paid off.

While Plans was mostly recorded in parts and mixed in the studio, Narrow Stairs was mostly recorded live. Apparently the band wanted to get back into the natural feel of making and playing music. I personally think it paid off. Plans was more Poppy than the usual Death Cab album, while Narrow Stairs has gotten back to the dark, almost creepy lyrics of their past. With tracks like I Will Possess Your Heart, Grapevine Fires, Cath, Pity and Fear, You Can Do Better Than Me and Bixby Canyon Bridge, I highly recommend purchasing a copy for yourself, if your not too sure I have a couple tracks on my playlist so give them a listen. It's hard to find an album now days with more than two or three great records on it. The only song I skip when listening is Talking Bird. Pop it in, crank it up and just chill out with the cold and smart lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie.

Craig's Score: 81%

PS: They are playing in Utah at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, I unfortunately have a wedding to go to that night, so if anyone goes please let me know how the show was! Later!

What It Is.

I'm making a seperate blog from the one me and Heather "co" write, I usually just take up space on our married blog about stuff I'm just doing. So I'm writing my own blog about all things that rule to me. My playlist at the bottom is the songs I'm listening to and love. Let me know what you think!

For my first post these are the things I'm into right now.

Weezer has a new self-titled album coming out the 3rd of June, pushed UP from the 24th of June, anybody who has waited for their favorite artist to put out a new CD knows how rare it is for a band to push the release date anything but back so I'm super excited. There are three released singles from their upcoming album on my playlist. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived, Troublemaker, and Pork and Beans, all of them are super cool, especially The Greatest Man That Ever Lived, it's like twenty different parts all thrown into one song, and the other two are just classic solid Weezer songs, check them out!


Also, if you've never heard of ChaCha, you should check it out, basically it's a huge group of people that will answer any and all questions you can think of. Really any questions, I asked it what ship does Dash Rendar pilot, and I'm sure 99.9% of anyone in the world doesn't know the answer to that, and it texted me back the answer in like 2 minutes. It can give you traffic conditions, band information, weather, movie showtimes, movie reviews, seriously anything. Just text your questions to 242242, that spells ChaCha on most phones I believe but give it a try, try to stump it. It doesn't cost anymore than your regular text messages cost, so if you have unlimited texts it's absolutely free!

Too, Whiskey Militia is a website that sells semi cool stuff for dirt cheap prices, I was first turned onto it by my friend Neal, the owner of the resteraunt I work at, him as well as many other managers and co-workers are now addicted to this website. You can get really nice 200 dollar watches for like twenty bucks, board shorts for the same, cheap shirts, belts, wallets, pants, you name it. www.whiskeymilitia.com is the address it's also linked under my sites over on the right.

That's it for this post, let me know what you think! More to come soon!
Craig OUT!