At long last…the moment you have all been waiting for…I present you:
The Morning Show
A webcam based show from my office along with my colleague in crime Phil, in the year 2001.
The collection follows Bob and Jethro through the trials and tribulations of hosting a morning show, and how you can only go so far with moose jokes.
Episode #1 – Download Here
Original Airdate: November 9, 2001
(tech notes: 8.09 MB, AVI File)
If you take a look in the comments section of Trish’s Rant, you’ll notice the topic of artists pushing their political views on people.
Granted, Bono pushes a lot, hence, you see a lot of him in the media.
But let me ask if there are any artists out there that haven’t pushed their views on their audience at sometime or another? I suppose there are quite a few.
Wasn’t the good old days of Rock n Roll about rebelling? Alright, maybe not every band rebelled against something, but I’m sure a lot of them did!
What about John Lennon? Speaking of which…25 years…coming up soon.
I enjoy a good political rant at a concert. I enjoy hearing about their views against the current political climate in the States, or the myriad horrible issues affecting Africa right now. I like how it informs people. I was very oblivious to current events until musicians took it upon themselves to inform me.
But back to my main point…I like it when rock n roll is rebellious. They want us to rock out. They want us to rock the vote. They want us to change something. I like when they speak between songs…you get to hear what they are thinking. It’s cool. It’s more than just the music. That’s what I like about a concert. You get more. You hear new variations on songs. You get to feel the energy in the crowd. You get to hear the band’s thoughts on stuff and see how it translates into their music writing.
You can keep the discussion alive in Trish’s Rant section…I don’t want to squash it.
Since Ryan has been gracious enough to let me be a guest ranter on his blog, here are a few things that I need to vent about today. For the past few days I have had that fabulous Band-Aid song “Do They Know Its Christmas” stuck in my head. This stems from the compilation of my Fromage de Noel album, which will be on sale shortly.
In this song, we distinctly hear our very own Bono, champion of poverty prevention, sing “Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” in reference to the poor starving children of Africa. Thank God the children are starving in Africa? Doesn’t sound very charitable to me. For a guy who is so quick to tell us all his political views and insists during his concerts that we call our political leaders and share our views on poverty, he might have put a little more thought into that line. (editor’s note: I think Trish is on crack.)
Another line that gets me: “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime.” Is this as opposed to every other year when they do get snow? Do you really think snow is their biggest concern? I mean really, it is fabulous that all sorts of famous singers got together to save the children of Africa through song, but I think they could have put a little more effort into the lyrics. (editor’s note: Who says there isn’t snow in Africa? I think Trish should do some research on this one.)
The Simpsons also agree with me. Please refer to the episode “Radio Bart” where Bart uses a microphone and pretends to be an orphan boy named Timmy O’Toole, who has fallen down a well. Celebrities from Springfield and Sting put together their own Band-Aid.
Sideshow Mel: Though we can’t get him out, we’ll do the next best thing…
McBane: We go on TV and sing, sing, sing! (well, if it was in the Simpsons, I can’t deny Trish’s comments above.)
In other ranting news…ever since I have had a car again, I have been noticing that there are a lot of stupid people out there. For instance:
Ok. Done for now, but don’t worry. I am just getting warmed up. I’ll be back (it’s up to you to imagine the Terminator voice here).
I’m going to send some props out to Mike for introducing me to my new fave show: Prison Break.
Before I forget, Benoit resurrected his blog. Check it out here.
Back to my props. Mike told me about Prison Break around Thanksgiving…since I was a little low on good shows to watch, I decided to download it.
Holy crap this series is great. I love television these days…all serialized format where it’s like you’re watching a mega-movie. (sidenote here about how Quentin Tarantino directed the season finale of CSI last year just to see how TV production is. Now he loves it and thinks he can do a lot more with story in a series than in a 2 hour flick. Awesome.)
Anyhow, the show revolves around one guy in jail on death row and his brother getting himself thrown into jail so he can break him out. Oh yes, and supposedly the brother on death row didn’t do it, so there’s that side story of lawyers/friends trying to prove he is innocent.
Why do I love this show? Excellent storytelling for one. I am engaged the whole way through. I thoroughly enjoy the cast and the character development. Working inside a prison, you can create a character you need out of thin air since there are thousands of people there. It’s not like they are on some mystical island in the land of nowhere…actually this brings me to Lost (my other fave show right now) and how they smartly said that there are more people who crashed on the island than they actually show. So if they ever need a new character (read: someone to blow up, like the ensigns on Star Trek) they just pull them from this random pot of survivors.
Anyhow, I haven’t finished watching the season yet…about half way through (I download them off the Internet since I don’t have TV cable) but I may try and have a marathon run this coming weekend to finish the season off.
—–
Should I start talking about how Alias is biting the royal big one lately and how I’m not depressed that the show is getting cancelled? For the past two seasons, I have found the show to start out slow and uninteresting…but then they ramp it up near the end to make it all worthwhile. I’m hoping they will do that for the series ending.
Should I start talking about how I love the fact that I can download TV shows and watch them whenever I want instead of being pulled from my every day doings to go sit and watch a TV show? I just wrote an essay on this subject which I should put up here which analyzes how broacasting companies like the CBC should offer up their shows on the Net as free downloads and keep an archive forever. I like the ‘on-demand’ society better than the ‘must be in front of the TV at 8:00. No worries I can set my VCR…NOOOO! I forgot to set my VCR!!!’
Granted, it takes awhile to download a show…overnight usually. But hey…if I’m not in a rush to see them anyhow, I’m saving some sweet cash from not paying for TV cable. Granted, this may change when Mike moves in with me in January. Heck, I don’t mind paying for TV cable. Scratch that…I do mind. We’ll see what we can do to get around that. In no way am I talking about illegal means that I was using at my previous home. 
Turns out that the Internet would rather that Eric stays away.
We believe that we can see Benoit, Claude and I at this concert in this photo. We could not locate Joelle though who is standing right next to me.
What can I say? Their first set of 90 minutes flew by. It felt like 15 minutes. That is what the U2 experience is all about…it allows your entire being just get into the music.
Setlist:
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / In A Little While (snippet)
Beautiful Day
Original Of The Species
Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
Love And Peace Or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet)
Bullet The Blue Sky / The Hands That Built America (snippet) / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
Miss Sarajevo
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Where The Streets Have No Name
One
Encore(s):
Until The End Of The World
Mysterious Ways
With Or Without You
Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
Yahweh
40
Highlights of U2:
Everything was beautiful.
Quick review of the Arcade Fire: I love these guys. Mega-band on tour. They switch instrumental positions. That’s so wild. Drummers playing guitar. Fiddlers going on the drums. Back and forth and round again with people banging the ski helmets with their drum sticks. Excellent opener.
Links of interest:
http://www.u2-vertigo-tour.com/
Benoit’s Review
Your very own Ryan is making bread this coming Thursday. 50 loaves of bread for fundraising activities for work (needy families, etc.).
We have 10 loaves left for order if you would like to have one. They are $5 each.
Let me know!
iplaying: Somewhat of a Complication – Steve Cuch
Benoit managed to snag me a digital copy of Christmas in the Stars.
Excellent.
I cannot say I’ve listened to it yet, but there’s a song that’s called What Do you Get a Wookie when he already has a comb?
Classic. I’ll let you know how it is.
A great review of the album here.
In other news, Trish came through for Ben and Claude and they snagged two tix to the U2 show. At first, they were behind the stage, and now they have floor area tix. Man, those guys are lucky. I’m super happy that we are all going. We’ve been waiting for months!
Tonight’s mission – Go to some scalper’s and upgrade our tix to Floor. I’m willing to spend $100 to do so. Should be enough.
Everywhere I turn in this city, it’s all about U2.
I must admit that I am pumped. I felt that my experience at the Elevation tour in 2001 was a religious experience. Bono transcends the rock star persona to something more.
In other news, I’m trying to figure out how long are all-seasons good in the snow for? aka, how many kms? Dad suggested I look into getting winter tires…there goes my recording equipment fund down the drain. But seriously, I know the benefits of winter tires, yada yada yada, but with all-seasons with 36,000 kms on them, do I direly need them? Fill out the comment section with answer! I’m searching for the answer!
The lack of winter tires will allow me to purchase this:
http://fostex.com/index.php?file=products/digital/mr8hd
I’ve been looking at getting recording equipment ever since our trip to Boston last year where I found out that I wouldn’t have a warranty covered in Canada. I’ve waited a year and now that Mike is moving in, I’m thinking of picking up something. This little ditty has a built in hard drive AND four inputs. What does this mean?
Let’s say Mike and I are on the road somewhere touring. We can plug in two guitars and two mics into the system and record ourselves. Instant soundboard recording.
Let’s say Mike and I just want to jam at home and we get something good but don’t want to forget about it in a week’s time. Boom. Tape it.
What if I want to write Tributes to Michael Bolton for a night? Well, I would just laugh that one off and go record some good rockin’ tunes.
Something tells me this may be a long post and I have time to kill. Bear with me.
I’ve realized that with Vero, I’m not sure what music she has listened to. I have an idea of what she enjoys, but I have no idea if she knows the same music which has created a solid foundation of love.
I’ve given her a few albums when we first started dating…just trivial things such as Econoline Crush – Devil You Know, and Pearl Jam – Ten (pretty well they’re best commercial album.)
After hearing that she didn’t really know U2 at all, and didn’t even know THE U2 song; Where the Streets Have No Name, I decided I would take the next step in our relationship. We’re going to see what she thinks of my top albums.
How did I judge my top albums? Simply enough, I looked through my album collection and pulled out anything that either:
I have this theory that even though you may think the majority of the songs on an album are amazing, it can all go to hell with ONE song. That ONE song screws everything up for being the best album. Example: Master of Puppets – Metallica. It can be the killer album except for freakin’ Leper Messiah. Guh. I hate that song. The rest of the album is bliss.
I will be honest that I tried to create a Top 10 list, but there are way too many albums here.
(in no particular order)
At this point, heck, I’m tired of writing my thoughts on the albums, so I’ll come back to them tomorrow, but I’ll leave the list here:
There you have it…my top albums.
If you’ve wondered how to get an idea of what I think and feel, listen to these albums. The answers are written right there.