Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 10:33:01 GMT -5
#1(B) - Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
I know these guys. I have a couple of friends who are well into them. I even recognise the album artwork! This is good stuff, very much in the same ballpark as Steve Earle or Green On Red. Really nice crisp production on these tracks too and I love the sound of those crunchy telecasters on "Carl Perkins' Cadillac". I really should check this album out properly.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 9:19:42 GMT -5
Carrying on with more favourite albums from 2004... #3 - Scissor Sisters by Scissor SistersSubversive pop is the best pop! And the very best thing about the Scissor Sisters was that they made deliciously subversive pop. I don't believe the band had very much commercial success in their native America, but over here in the UK they were massive in the mid-to-late 2000s, scoring half a dozen hit singles (including a number 1) and two multiplatinum selling albums. Named after a lesbian sex position, the band wrote songs concerned with the seedy, sexually decadent underbelly of New York City's after dark street life. Their self-titled debut album is full of songs about sex freaks, drag queens, transvestites, and ghetto prostitutes, while covering topics like the tale of a gay man coming out to his mother in a nightclub and a couple having sex on the back seat of a taxicab, while the driver watches and masturbates. Not your usual Top 40 pop fare, to be sure! But then again, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of record buyers had no idea what the songs were about. Musically, these edgy and taboo subjects are all couched in songs that are infectiously catchy, brilliantly arranged, candy-coated slices of retro pop – any one of which could've been a single! Honestly, this whole album plays like it could've been a "greatest hits" record. Even the band's Bee Gees-style cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" is such a brilliantly irreverent cover of a song that is a staple of the chin-rubbing, "serious rock" crowd, that it's kinda subversive in itself. Scissor Sisters is a really fun album; a kitschy mash-up of '70s pop songwriting, disco grooves, new romantic guitars, and glam rock decadence. Here's the single "Take Your Mama", but honestly, every track on this album is great…
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 9:16:04 GMT -5
#3 – Two Dollar Pistols – Hands Up!
Another act I've not heard of before. That song "There Goes My Baby" really sounds like a Roy Orbison cover -- I had to actually look up the album's writing credits to make sure it wasn't! This sounds like pretty good stuff overall though.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 5:27:58 GMT -5
All this thing seems to do is conduct a search of on-line sources and stitch different information threads together in complete sentences (of a sort), but with less critical thinking than a lazy C-student doing a report with Wikipedia and Google. By the way, they are being sued over pilfering the works of various newspapers, including the New York Times. This is way off-topic for the thread, so forgive me my rant... I know there are serious medical and scientific applications for AI, but let's get real: here in the real everyday world, all AI is being used for is plagiarising copyrighted art from artists, stealing work from writers and journalists, helping turn women into porn without their consent, and undermining our democracies with political deepfakes and propaganda bots. That's without even considering the ethical and moral implications of the use of deadly autonomous AI in the military. So yeah, f*ck AI.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 7, 2024 16:58:24 GMT -5
A question for our British members - My wife and I watched a movie that took place in Yorkshire. In one scene, two teenagers were arrested for smoking a joint but were released when the joint turned out to contain oregano instead of pot. The question - everybody in the movie pronounced "oregano" as "or-eh-GAH-no". Is that standard UK pronunciation or just Yorkshire? I know they have a distinct dialect. Over here we would say "uh-REG-uh-no". The internet tells me that in Italian it's "oh-REEG-ah-no", so apparently we're both wrong. No, it's not a Yorkshire specific thing. Everyone in Britian pronounces it "or-eh-GAH-no".
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 7, 2024 8:29:48 GMT -5
More favourite albums of 2004... #4 - Eye to the Telescope by KT TunstallScottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall had toiled away for years on the Edinburgh indie rock scene with limited success before finally signing to independent label Relentless as a solo artist in the early 2000s. The label sat on her for a few years though, unsure of how to market her. They finally released her debut album Eye to the Telescope in 2004 and it shot up the British charts, spawning a number of hit singles, and eventually going 5x Platinum in the UK and Ireland. It's a very accomplished debut album, with tight, modern-sounding production and catchy songs. Tunstall's folky, bluesy compositions, beguiling voice and the album's polished production combine to create something that is perhaps best described as adult alternative music. Though the production is a little too slick for my usual tastes, it's the strength of the material that makes the album so appealing for me. Standout tracks include "Black Horse & the Cherry Tree", "Silent Sea", "Other Side of the World", and "Suddenly I See". Here's the video for the album's lead single "Black Horse & the Cherry Tree", which is still the best thing that Tunstall's ever done IMHO…
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 7, 2024 8:05:32 GMT -5
#5 – Eleven Hundred Springs - Bandwagon
That track "Thunderbird Will Do Just Fine" is funny...enjoyable stuff. I too have fun memories drinking T-Bird when I was underage. Wouldn't touch the stuff now though. #4 – Steve Earle – The Revolution Starts Now
I really like Steve Earle, but I only know (and own) his albums Guitar Town (1986) and Copperhead Road (1988) -- both of which are great. Those two tracks sound very much like business as usual for Earle, although his voice sounds a little bit more world-weary than the late '80s. Great snare drum sound on that track "The Revolution Starts Now" too. As for Earle's politics, I've always basically agreed with any of the sentiments he's expressed on the albums I'm familiar with.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 5, 2024 19:29:32 GMT -5
R.I.P to actor Bernard Hill (King Theoden in LotR, Captain Smith in Titanic, et al), dead at 79. And Yosser Hughes! An early 80s icon here in Britain. He was a great actor.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 5, 2024 19:26:05 GMT -5
MWGallaher's already mentioned this just a few posts back. Well, then, that comic would have an audience of at least two of us! With Cody's ideas, they could expand from the one-shot mine would have been into a whole miniseries! OK, great! I'm envisaging something in REALLY bad taste. A totally offensive comic. Like, the Stormtrooper has hit his head so often that he's got brain damage and has badly compromised coordination and cognitive skills...but it's all played for cheap laughs! Call it, Star Wars: Spaztrooper.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 5, 2024 19:21:00 GMT -5
They didn't get you as many favors as a Hershey Bar, though. Which is weird because Hershey chocolate tastes like sh*t. No wonder a slang term for the arseh*le is the Hershey Highway!
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 5, 2024 19:14:22 GMT -5
I think they should do one about the stormtrooper who bonks his head on the door, on the Death Star. Follow him from Imperial Boot Camp, through Star Destroyer duty, to the Death Sta, then have him in sick bay, with a concussion, when the Rebels attack. MWGallaher's already mentioned this just a few posts back.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 4, 2024 6:27:15 GMT -5
Carrying on with more of my favourite albums from 2004... #5 - Where the Humans Eat by Willy MasonU.S. singer-songwriter Willy Mason was just 19-years-old when he released his debut album Where the Humans Eat, though his world-weary voice sounds much older. It's a lo-fi collection of earthy, sparsely arranged confessional songs that tend sneak up on you and worm their way into your heart, rather than bash you over the head. Slam_Bradley -- this is the guy I was telling you about a few days ago who doesn't sound a million miles away from Dave Alvin. Where the Humans Eat is a fine debut album, with Mason's songwriting sounding fully developed and much more mature than his tender years. Standout tracks include "Oxygen", "Fear No Pain", "Hard Hand to Hold", and "Where the Humans Eat". Overall, this is a gentle, reflective collection of folksy, bluesy originals that creak with the "warp of wood of old America" (to quote Jack Kerouac). Here's the single "Hard Hand to Hold", which is pretty representative of the album as a whole…
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 3, 2024 20:16:26 GMT -5
My Dad. I'd love him to meet my wife. He passed away 17 years ago, so it's been a while. Dude, you're my brother from another mother. I chose my pop too. He met my wife, it's just that I miss him and he was my hero. Yep....same as how I feel about my Dad.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 3, 2024 20:15:19 GMT -5
Here's a bit of related trivia: the guy who invented them was inspired by the British sweets Smarties. He wasn't inspired enough, because I don't find M&Ms nearly as tasty as Smarties. But perhaps it's just down to which one you get used to as a kid.
If we're talking just milk chocolate in a crispy shell, then yeah, Smarties are the go to. But I love peanut M&Ms.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 3, 2024 18:32:47 GMT -5
I didn’t know this until now: Here's a bit of related trivia: the guy who invented them was inspired by the British sweets Smarties.
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