With Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello help create the hard rock/rap mash up genre that got ruined by lesser bands in the late nineties. Then he took a step back in time with the seventies arena rock of Audioslave. Now he is going even further back in time musically with his latest outfit, The Nightwatchman. As the one man band, Morello is channeling such folk heroes as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. The Nightwatchman came to fruition during the Audioslave era when Morello needed an output during the Bush administration with lead singer’s Chris Cornell’s moratorium on political songs.
So between Audioslave gigs, Morello would go to local coffee houses and sign up for local mike nights under the moniker The Nightwatchman with songs about the war. And with Audioslave on indefinite (and it looks now like a permanent) hiatus, Morello had time on his hand to make an album of these songs called One Man Revolution. And just like Audioslave was pretty much how you expected a combination of Rage Against and Soundgarden, The Nightwatchman is pretty much what you would expect Morello would sound if he unplugged and did his best Bruce Springsteen circa Nebraska impression.
With his weapon of choose, the guitar, rendered useless by going acoustic, Morello has to rely on his voice and lyrics to get his point across without a front man to do it for him. To hear him sing is at first a little jarring with the deep baritone. The lyrics are hit and miss as Morello isn’t adept to writing folk songs yet and even clumsily steals the line, “three times I shot the sheriff, but I did not spare the deputy.” And with the little background noise, you will notice Morello’s out there political views, which is something you can overlook with Rage because, well, the rock.
Though hearing anti-war songs from Tom Morello are much more palatable than ill-advised ones from Maroon 5 or Sum41 who just seem like jumping on the “Yeah we hate Bush too” bandwagon because it is in vogue. Although oddly enough the only administration aide Morello calls out by name is Colin Powell who is long gone but Morello never cared about letting the lesser of two evils off the hooks as Rage famously protested the Democratic National Convention. But as anti-war albums, Neil Young’s Living with War is still much better than One Man Revolution.
Song to Download - The Road I Must Travel
One Man Revolution gets a ![Terror Alert Level: Elevated [YELLOW]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-iVFV0hXCTSYP16K_V0Rrxp3GqFrtBIJKeTUyQ2LpxZQ9XKHFj6QGtqqa7oxhLadLV8vUj8R84AftD8IKUSfN0u_u0CYDtJwhrpCPN2DBWquAIDv0jbVlhZL0mDFKlPKluGyxw/s400/small_elevated.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale.
The first quarter of 2007 was easily the worst quarter ever for the music industry. To put things in perspective, when the soundtrack to Dreamgirls topped the chart in January, it wouldn’t have even cracked the top twenty five years ago. Granted when you don’t release albums people want to buy you should expect some low numbers with only Norah Jones and Fall Out Boy being the only big name acts to release an album in the first three months of the year with the latter certainly not living up to expectations. But the consumer is partially to blame too as Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse both put out great debuts that were widely ignored by the general public. Apparently you have to be featured on crappy television shows before anyone will buy your record these days.
Things may be starting to pick up as record companies are starting to release albums featuring songs that will be the soundtrack of your summer. Here is part one of my spring preview with the second coming later this week. If there is anything I missed feel free to drop me a comment and maybe I’ll add it to the second part, if it is not already there. Keep in mind, release dates are scheduled to change.
April 17
Best Damn Thing - Avril Lavigne: Avril has already perfected the pseudo-punk girl attitude, but after adding a few years, getting married, and putting out a Celine Dion type balled last year, it looks like she is swinging back the other way with the straight out pop song of the first single off the album, Girlfriend. Click her name to pre-order this album on iTunes and recieve a bonus track.
April 24
Favourite Worst Nightmare - The Arctic Monkeys: One of the biggest buzz bands of last year. Well at least until they actually released an album. They did still land at number 14 of my 50 Best Albums of 2006 list. Click there name to pre-order this album on iTunes and recieve the video for Brianstorm for free.
One Man Revolution - The Nightwatchman: Rage Against the Machine were legendary, Audioslave were great (at times), now after conquering rap-rock and classic rock, Tom Morello gives the singer-songwriter genre a try with what he calls, “the vibe of Springsteen’s Nebraska, Dylan’s The Times Are a-Changin’ and maybe a pinch of Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen.”
Evil Dead: The Musical -2006 Orginal Off-Broadway Cast: I never knew they made a musical of this but if it is a third as good as the movie it will be great. Can we dare hope for an Army of Darkness
musical in the future?
May 1
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Miranda Lambert: Think Carrie Underwood if Before He Cheats was considered one of her nicer song. Miranda even has her own karaoke background as the loser of Country Star.
May 8
Strength & Loyalty - Bone Thugs-n-Harmony: My boys form just a miles north of my back and hopefully they didn’t bring any Phil Collins samples this time around.
The Boy with No Name - Travis: Remember them? No? Oh, never mind then.
May 15
Minutes to Midnight - Linkin Park: I featured the video to What I’ve Done last week which sounded pretty much like their old sound without the beats or pseudo rap and the guitar turned up fitting into their no rap-rock credo. But with Rick Rubin at the helm, last seen actually making Justin Timberlake not suck, it can’t be too bad. Click there name to pre-order this album on iTunes and recieve two exclusive bonus tracks (one only available for pre-ordered).
Okay, the title is a little sarcastic because I fully believe that it should only snow on December 24th, two to three inches, and melt by the 26th. Instead it was snowing when I woke up today and the ground was already completely white and it rarely stopped all day netting about five inches so far with a chance of more to come. Yippee. Shoveling today made it twice for this winter which was the exact amount I did the last two winters. What happened to this global warming that Al Gore went on and on about? Do I need to buy a bigger SUV to keep it from snowing again? Should I shell out for a Hummer?
What’s worse that actually looking out your window while the snow piles up is driving through it. I though I would be saved from having to trek all the way out to class tonight because all the snow but the cancellation didn’t come. Is there a worse feeling then hearing all the school closings and yours is the only one missing? I remember in grade school our superintendent had his own snow plow so he would refuse to close down our school system. One time we were out at the bus stop after every other school had closed and he actually drove by with his plow and said school was just going to be delayed one hour while he finished plowing.
But back to driving in the snow, I know all you Sammy Hagars out there can’t drive 55 but when visibility is less than a hundred yards could you please avoid weaving threw traffic like you were part of the Turn Left Only Circuit at Daytona on a clear day in the summer? Seriously, if you have a death wish can you please just put the shotgun in your mouth so you don’t take any innocent bystanders with you? Because instead of getting to your destination a whole two and a half minutes early what you actually end up doing is make everyone behind you late after you bring the traffic to a halt while the police scrap the remains of your car off the highway divider.
There are reasons why the government set speed limits the way they do and it’s not solely to spite you because you are too lazy to leave on time. If you have a lead foot you need something to take your mind off needing to break the law, you can always try listening to Have You Ever Been Mellow, look how well it worked for Dean O’Dell. Personally with all the driving I’ll be doing the next couple months I plan on passing the time listening to my main CD collection, which is already alphabetically ordered, all the way through. After two weeks I have been threw eight albums and is up to the self titled Audioslave album. Maybe I’ll give a prize to anyone who can guess the eight albums I have already listened to. Just a hint, I don’t have any Greatest Hits, Soundtracks, Live albums, or Compilations in my main collection.
Oh and by prize, I mean a pat on the back. And by pat on the back I mean a virtual pat on the back.
Audioslave was always a band that I was hesitant about. I was a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine fan and the only rap/metal band worth listening to with Zach de la Rocha’s great delivery and Tom Morello’s eccentric guitar as a backdrop. But things reportedly fell apart when bassist Tim Commerford bum rushed the stage at the 2001 Video Music Awards after the band lost out the best rock video to Limp Bizkit embarrassing de la Rocha to the point that he quit the band to work on a yet to be released solo album. The other three members, including drummer Brad Wilk did not rest on the laurels, instead recruited Chris Cornell of Soundgarden to form an entirely new band that luckily didn’t involve Cornell rapping. Instead it sounded exactly what people expected, Soundgarden’s melodies mixed with Rage’s raucous guitars. But I was still hesitant as I still wanted more Rage.
Much of the same can be heard on Audioslave's third album Revelations, that you heard on the first two. But as the band progresses, the more it sounds like dark seventies rock with Morello’s signature guitar licks only coming out during his solos as Cornell channels his inner Robert Plant. This is prevalent right off the bat with the opening title track. Until We Fail plays very similar to I Am the Highway off their self titled debuted but loses its momentum unlike the previous song. Original Fire is an upbeat romp that can be the first song in either band member’s history that calls for you to hand-clap thought the song and has a soul music through a rock filter to it. Broken City is a bluesy song highlighted where Cummerford shines with the bass groove. When the band it at full throttle on Shape of Things to Come, it’s one of the greatest rock sounds in recent times. The album closes with Moth, a haunting song that is the closest the band has gotten to sounding like Soundgarden.
Each of the songs on the album could become a rock radio staple like previous songs but as David Fricke of Rolling Stone put it best calling the band, “a supergroup that keeps making good records that fall shy of great” and Revelations is no exception. And Revelations is the most average of their outings. But then again I’m still holding out for a Rage Against the Machine reunion.
Song to Download - Shape of Things to Come
Revelations gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form so here they are courtesy of YouTube. I advise you to watch them before you read my reviews if you don’t want me to spoil things. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
Waiting On the World to Change - John Mayer
Who would have thought it would be John Mayer that would best sum up Generation X/Y’s thoughts on the current state of the world? But politics aside it’s cool how the blue tint syncs up John’s deeper decent into the blues. Though it is still a little weird looking at the New York skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge and not seeing the Twin Towers. The graffiti in the video but it was kind of cheesy that they put that disclaimer at the end. More on this song when I review his new album Continuum in September
Original Fire - Audioslave
Yeah, the video has been done many times before (but this time with red tint!) the video is cool, not as cool as the simplistic firework themed Cochise, but cool nonetheless. But what’s fun with videos like this is questioning who gets pictured (is that the dude from Quiet Riot near the end) and people who didn’t make the cut (did I miss Bob Marley somewhere). More on this song when I review Audioslave’s new album Revelations in early September.
Far Away - Nickelback
Yeah, Nickelback still sands for everything that’s wrong in rock music today, but this is one of their songs that sucks the least. And music aside, the video is cool and hard not to get rapped up in the story.
Listen!!! - Talib Kweli
After review some extremely boring rappers lately, it looks like quality rap is making a comeback with The Roots coming out with an album soon as well as Ear Drum coming soon from Talib Kweli. Much like the Audioslave video, the graphics are cool, but just as the song title suggests you should just listen. Just shows you how bad rap on the radio has become.
Shelter - Kelly Clarkson
As I mentioned in my review of The Last Kiss Soundtrack (see All These Places Feel Like Home) Ray LaMontagne may most be known for have Kelly Clarkson cover one of his songs at a Katrina Benefit and here is that performance. I’m sure all the phone numbers running across the screen are still active and since New Orleans still looks like Hell even as we come upon the one year anniversary. Which is why I posted this video instead of the one of a drunken alcoholic Clarkson at a Metal Skool concert which is the funniest video I’ve seen in a while (and begs the question who took the bigger credibility hit: the dude from Yellowcard for hanging out with Clarkson, or Clarkson foe hanging out with the dude from Yellowcard). Well maybe not as funny as Denis Leary’s anti-Mel Gibson tirade at a Red Sox game. Or Neil Young on the Colbert Report. Or any interview Samuel L. Jackson has give for Snakes on a Plane. Okay maybe the Clarkson video isn’t that funny except when they rag on Britney Spears.
Vh1’s Big in (insert year) Awards have quickly become the most solid award shows even though it brings in less star power than the America Music Awards. And that could be the reason why, where other award shows have just become a vehicle for artists to promote their latest projects (I’m talking to you Video Music Awards), VH1 cares more about putting on a good show rather to pander to get stars. This year’s host, DL Hughley was entertaining enough to make anyone wonder why CBS picked the dude from Drew Carey to replace Craig Kilborn on the Late Late Show and why MTV still invites Jimmy Fallon back to host after bombing every time. Here are some other observations:
- The festivities starts off with a lame pre-show hosted by an extremely gay Ant and the not all that attractive chick from My Fair Brady. She actually won a modeling competition?
- During the pre-show they gave the Old School Triumph Award to INXS who dedicated the award to Michael Hutchence. I’m sure he’s thrill that you guys are trampling his legacy by doing a reality show to replace him.
- The Big show starts off with a Lost parody that was more entertaining than the show has been this season. Of course if the writer of Lost only had to fill five minutes, maybe it would be better.
- Ten years after becoming Playmate of the Year Jenny McCarthy is still hot as ever, granted she’s still as annoying too.
- Jessica Simpson for some reason wins the Big Stylin’ Awards. I have a feeling that VH1 stuffed the ballot box just so they could have her first post break up apperence. Then after she rambled threw her acceptance speech, including laughing at apparently at what she thought was a joke, I understood why Nick would let her go. I just hope he didn’t sign a pre-nup. Now I ain’t saying he’s a gold digger…
- The chicks from Laguna Beach seemed to get lost as they walked right in front of INXS to present them. And after seeing INXS perform with their new lead singer, I can’t believe this guy actually won. I didn’t watch a second of the show, but did everyone else actually suck worse than him. It’s like the chick from My Fair Brady winning a modeling contest. Get that dude a chorographer quick.
- Jeremy Piven rightly wins the Big Breakthrough Award even though I’ve been a fan since the PCU days.
- Kanye West wins the Big Entertainer Award and he was so big he didn’t bother showing up.
- Audioslave’s performance was cool but where was Tom Morello? Is this band breaking up already? Hopefully there won’t be a Rock Star:Audioslave.
- Hollaback Girl wins Big Download. Funny, I wouldn’t bother stealing this song let along spend .99 cents.
- All I got to say about Dancing with the Star Wars – classic. Funny than anything MTV has produced for their award shows in years.
- Again with the Gotti Boys? They make Paris Hilton celebrity look well deserved.
- Bo Bice Bice Baby wins Big Reality Star. Not bad for being a loser. Say hello to Justin (what’s his name?) in relative obscurity at the Big in 06 Awards.
- Peter Gallagher stoops low to introduce the Reality All-Star. I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t recognize 90% of the singers. Unfortunately one I did recognize was Johnny Fairplay who is always unwatchable. Can he just overdose already and put us the viewer out of misery.
- Another person who just needs to go away – Kathy Griffin. Although her joke about Hilary Duff’s teeth sure got Lindsay Lohan laughing.
- Lohan then picks up the Big It Girl Award and makes some lame joke about the paparazzi. So let’s recap, she can’t act, can’t sing, can’t make a joke, and no longer has breasts – why exactly is she an It girl?
- But this lead to the best shot of the night as they showed the chick from Laguna Beach looking pissed that she didn’t win. Where’s the dude from The Real World who called out his roommate for thinking he was Ben Affleck even though he was only on a reality show.
- Best line of the night, “UPN has better ratings than George Bush”
- Hulk Hogan comes out and say, “do you wanna see big?” and proceeds to take off his shirt only to show us he has bigger breast that Lindsay Lohan.
- You know you a low on stars when you recruit someone from Entertainment Tonight to present, not that I have a problem with Maria Menonous, I just think they should be a law that she must always wear the dress she wore at the Oscars a couple years back.
- That Fall Out Boy just isn’t entertain without an appearance by the antler boy from the video. But I must admit of all the pseudo-punk bands that have replaced boy bands on the walls of Middle School girls in the last couple years, they suck the least.
- The best part of the show was actually a commercial for the upcoming show, Flavor of Love where Flavor Flav picks girls Bachelor style. This has to be good.
- The best dresriuption of Kelly Clarkson during the Big Music Artist, “She’s accessible like the girl who works at Subway kind of way but you don’t have to wash the samwich smell off of her.” Needless to say, I’d totally hit that.
- Of course the Big in 05 Awards ends with a performance by a band that hasn’t been big since 88. Um, yeah.
Amazing day yesterday as I spent over ten hours glued to either my TV screen or computer screen watching the Live 8 concerts. I was a little disappointed in the MTV/VH1/ABC coverage as I was under the impression that MTV and VH1 would be doing two separate broadcasts with maybe one focusing on the Philadelphia concert and the other focusing in on the London concert. Instead we got one solo show just showed on two separate channels. What a waste of airtime. And being that it was MTV, what we got was small snippets of some the performances instead of full one or even full songs in most case. They rarely went outside of London of Philadelphia stopping into Paris once (Shakira), Berlin three times (twice for Green Day, once for Audioslave), Japan once (Good Charlotte), Canada twice (Jet, Simple Plan), Africa twice and they never went to Rome once. And there is a good list of great performers that didn’t even make it to TV:
Sarah McLachlan (with some dude named Josh Groban on Angel)
Brian Wilson
Snow Patrol
Ms. Dynamite
The Cure
Sheryl Crow
Crosby, Stills and Nash
Duran Duran
Barenaked Ladies
Byran Adams
Pet Shop Boys
P. Diddy
Lauryn Hill
Neil Young
Rob Thomas (Well that wasn’t much of a loss actually)
And the song selection was poor sometimes too. We had to sit threw Will Smith’s Switch when they could have let us see the classic Summertime or the cheesily entertaining Theme to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. So I found myself watching more and more from my computer thanks to AOLMusic.com. Here are some of my highlights.
Goosebumps moments:
- Paul McCartney with U2 in doing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band live for the first time ever with some faux Beatles in Pepper outfits playing french horns
- U2’s set including their version of Unchained Melody
- Coldplay bringing out Richard Ashcroft to sing Bittersweet Symphony
- Black Eyed Peas with Stephan and Rita Marley to sing Get up Stand Up
- Kanye West backed by a Sting section - Dido joined by Youssou N'Dour during Thank You
- The opening to Dave Matthews Band's Dreamgirl - Robbie Williams singing Angels they way it supposed to - without Jessica Simpson
- Green Day covering Queen’s We Are the Champions
- Stevie Wonder and Adam Levane of Maroon 5 doing a duet on Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours
- Pink Floyd whole set, extra Goosebumps at the beginning of each song
- Maroon 5 covering Neil Young’s Rockin in the Free World
- Alicia Keys’ tribute to Luther Vandross
- Jay-Z backed by Linkin Park who did a faithful Public Service Announcement
Tear Jerkers:
- Bob Geldolf bring out an African Girl who, at the time of Live Aid, was only given ten seconds to live
- Annie Lennox playing Why over a montage of AIDS victims
- The finale in London with everyone singing Hey Jude with Paul McCartney
Other interesting tidbits:
- Snoop Dogg was able to get 5 F-bombs pass the MTV censors (and the N-word once). Granted he mumbles some and they weren’t part of the song. The bigger slip was they Pink Floyd let the blatant word in Pink Floyd’s Money or maybe they let it slip because it Floyd.
- Beyoncé wore a skirt that was as short as it could have been without showing off her Kootchiepop.
- I was a little disappointed that no one pulled a Phil Collins this year.
- The only American acts in Rome - Tim McGraw & Faith Hill?
- UB40 were introduced saying they were going to perform a medley of their hits. Shouldn’t it been a medley of other people’s hits?
- Who invited Randy Jackson? I had to laugh when I spotted him playing a tiny keyboard when Mariah Carey already had two keyboarders on stage with two large keyboards themselves.
- What was up with Stevie Wonder’s moustache/beard thing around his mouth? Who let him out of the house like that?
- There were a lot of lyric changes to reflect the festivities including U2, Sting but my favorite was Kanye West switch the line in Jesus Walks into, “And George Bush gets paid off of all of that.”
- When I saw you could download Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club from the concert on iTunes, I thought the whole concert would be available, but alas the only other song available (for now hopefully) was The Long and Winding Road. Click on the links to get them for yourselves.
If you missed the concert, AOLMusic.com is still streaming Paris, Canada, and Philadelphia. London was stopped sometime during the 1st rebroadcast and Berlin was taken offline sometime last night. Hopefully there is a comprehensive DVD coming because, even after all I watch, there is still a lot I missed.
What I would like for you to do is to take a look to the left of your screen at the banner I have had up for a couple weeks. I’m sure you have all seen the annoying ads on the TV by now with the likes of Brad Pitt and Bono. But at the heart of the campaign is a good cause. They are trying to get the United States as well as the worlds other wealthiest countries to eliminate extreme poverty and global AIDS. As a fiscal conservative (unlike our spend happy President) I am almost always against more spending that will raise are already massive national debt, but the thought of people, including many kids, who die daily from starvation (50,000 or every three seconds to be precise) trumps any fiscal concerns I might have. So if you would like to join the cause, go ahead and click any of the links and fill out the simple declaration. While you are there, you can even pick up one of the wristbands that have become the official charity accessory (myself, I just stick with the solitary LiveStrong wristband). Also check out the Live 8 concert on MTV and VH1 airing this weekend featuring Coldplay, Snoop Dogg, Audioslave, Dave Matthews Band, Stevie Wonder and a reunited Pink Floyd in London. I hear a DVD will follow too, and even if it didn’t go to a good cause would be worth the cost with the Pink Floyd reunion.
