Music Meridian

Some Depression has up a 'part one' of a Wilco download from their show this week in Boston.

Nice little set from the show. Great re-working of 'Airline to Heaven'.

Check it out.

Jake Parrillo has passed me The Musical Baton, which asks these oh-so-interesting questions:

• what is my total volume of music
  
• what is the last CD I bought
  
• what song is playing right now
  
• what five songs do I listen to a lot because they are special to me
  
• five people I'm passing the musical baton to
  

Let me preface this by the fact that any person who knows me, knows I'm a music freak. I'm constantly talking about music, thinking about music, playing music etc. Heck, I have my own music website that you're reading!

I've been playing drums since I was in the fifth grade, I can't imagine not playing. It's totally embedded in my psyche. Ever since I went on the Bozo show as a child and watched the drummer in the Bozo Show Band I knew what my destiny was.

So lets get to the questions!

1. Total volume of music? Staggering. I think at last count it was upwards of 3500 CDs. I have hundreds of songs floating around in mp3 format on my 2 computers. Add on to that around 300 cassettes and about 200 records and you're looking at a monster that's out of control.

2. Last CD I bought? It was that damn Dream Theater CD I ranted about in an earlier blog. I also bought the new Orthrelm CD at the same time.

3. What song is playing right now? "Things Change" by Dwight Yoakam.

4. 5 special songs? As with Jake, I'll change it to albums, because I'm more of an album guy.

The first would undoubtedly be "Joe's Garage" by Frank Zappa. I first bought it because I heard the drummer Vinnie Colaiuta was fantastic. So I bought it to hear his playing. This started an absolute obsession with Zappa. 10 years and over 100 albums later, I'm a Zappa fanatic...and it lead to stuff like Captain Beefheart, Free Jazz etc.

Next I'll site Rush "Hemispheres". The height of Rush's prog-rock excesses. But still includes a fan-favorite still played in concert today (The Trees). Started me down the road of prog rock snobbery...

Let's see...#3 would be The Flying Luttenbachers "Infection And Decline" which pretty much changed my drumming obsessions for many years. It brought me into the "brutal prog" movement of bands incorporating elements of death metal and prog rock. Led me to Lightning Bolt, Orthrelm, Hella, etcetc. Also led to me to playing in the band Inshi.

#4.....They Might Be Giants "Flood". A friend in school way back turned me onto the album at the height of my heavy metal phase. Made me return to goofy pop songs with quirks. It's still an extremely fun album.

#5. Ok, I'm totally cheating here. The Police's "Message In A Box"...absolutely essential. I feel it needs no explaination.

Shoot, I'm up to five already? I guess I have to stop...

5. Five people I'm passing the baton to? Let's keep it to the musicmeridian.com contributors. Jen, Rob, Andrew, Patrick, Lisa...I'm looking in your general direction.







You can now add comments to any of our headlines! Fire away!

I want to stress to you right now...for those considering the new Dream Theater album Octivarium....stop that line of thinking right now. It kinda yanks.

Especially coming out of their last album, Train Of Thought, which I thought was great. That album had them exploring the darker, heavier side of their playing. The drums were all over the place, the pieces were long (but not too long) and intricate. It was exciting.

But the new one...not exciting. In fact I found myself mostly bored. I went straight to the 24-minute title track on my first listen, and that was a big mistake. A total snooze-fest. The rest of the album, aside from 1-2 tracks is ballad heavy and a bore.

A major gripe is drummer Mike Portnoy seems to be phoning it in here. I hear spots where in days of yore I'd imagine him coming up with really intricate parts and now it's just straightahead. It's almost like he's too busy thinking about the next Transatlantic or Liquid Tension Experiment album to really care about this one. Stay away!

What's better is John Petrucci's (DT guitarist) solo album, Suspended Animation. Look past the cheezy album title and move in to the songs. Very cool playing, exciting, high energy, no lame vocalist and only one ballad. Hey, and the drumming is totally over-the-top...is that Portnoy? Let me check the liner notes. Aha!! It's some dude named Dave DiCenso !!! He's amazing, and it's quite telling that Petrucci chose him instead of Portnoy for his album.

Even better than both of these, however is the new EP by the band Zs called Karate Bump. It's only 18 mins long [shorter than the title track on the new Dream Theater] but it's waaaaaaay more exciting and interesting. 2 saxophones, 2 guitars, 2 drums. They go through quite a lot of changes in the time alotted. And it goes from very quite delicate music to full on assult. Progheads, you'd do well by tracking this album down. Get their other albums too. All good stuff.

Also good is the brand new Orthrelm that Ipecac released called OV. Initially I was very skeptical. Their claim to fame was always 100's of non-repeating parts put together to form compositions. This time they flipped the script and are all about repetion. Only a handful of unique riffs in one long 45 minute track.

I bought the CD after finding it used and figured I'd give it a go and keep my Orthrelm/Octis collection "complete" at the very least. But I must say I'm quite impressed. Ipecac has a sound-clip for those curious. I like the repetion...it builds tension waiting for the next part and when it arrives it's usually surprising and throws you off balance. I found myself listening to it over and over. (Probably driving the neighbors insane!) I wouldn't recommend this as a first Orthrelm experience (start with Iorxhscimtor or Norildivoth Crallos-Lomrixth Vlrthiln,), but for seasoned listeners it's well worth picking up.

Well we can all now breathe a sigh of relief that the Double Door has been saved from certain death. And thank God for it, because it's shows like last Thursday night that make the Double Door a valuable asset to Chicago.

Astaire opened in what was arguably the most enjoyable opening act performance I've seen in I don't know how long. "L-l-love" (once a free download from i-Tunes) should be all over the airwaves as a single, and the live performance elevated it to a level beyond what I expected. The group gels in its performance, and has great stage presence. My friend Christine likened them to the Cardigans, with less disco. Pop, with good rhythms and awesome lyrics. If I had a convertable car, Astaire would be what I would listen to all summer.

I didn't expect as much from Ivy. I had been disappointed with their latest release "In the Clear", and had heard reviews of their east coast shows (also not favorable). I was blown away. They opened with "Undertow," Dom wearing a cute baby T and Adam with his hair afro'd out (huh?). Other than that weird side-to-side head thing Dom does when she sings, the stage presence was great and Andy's harmonies were beautiful, smooth and rich like beer (though not the cheap stuff I was drinking, more like a nice Guinness). It seemed like there were almost too many people on stage with their traveling band all in place (with that many, though, couldn't they add a trumpet? please? pretty please?). "Corners of your mind" is so much better live that on the CD, but "4 in the morning" is still boring. Sorry. I was so very happy they did "L'anamour" as their first encore, and "Get Enough" as their final song was just as good as the first time I heard it. Overall, an amazing set, an energetic crowd, and one hell of a show.

The Double Door is a Chicago music institution. And now it's landlord wants to close it and replace it with a national retail establishment for your shopping pleasure. I, for one, say that sucks. I've seen some great bands there, and I would hate for Chicago to lose another small piece of itself to mass consumerism. It's not just the trendy stuff either, but local music and all kinds of genres that will miss out if the DD closes. Please click on this link or go to the Double Door website to see how you can help.

You can now get Music Meridian headlines onto your personalized Yahoo! page or the NewsGator application. Consult the right side of the site for the buttons to magically make this happen.

As mentioned earlier, you can also get an animated headline scrolling dealie on your site as well. This is also available by taking a gander at the right hand side of the site.