Snowblind

I'm not real hip on snow. Luckily I do live in an area where we don't have to deal with it more than once or twice a year on average. This winter seems to want to skew that average slightly higher.

Sunday through Monday, we got one of the biggest snows we have had in some time. I know 5 inches doesn't sound like a lot to those of you who live in the northern parts of our country, or even in the mountains of North and South Carolina, but for our area that's a lot. Not the biggest now I've seen here in my life, but it's probably been at least 6 years since we last saw this amount of show, and especially snow that has stuck around this long.

I have one of those love/hate relationships with snow. I don't really care for it now, as an adult, though I do find it nice to look at. Getting a day off from work was nice as well, but in all honesty, I could have made it in if I really wanted to. I do not, however, like the inconveniences this type of weather brings. While they are really insignificant, it just becomes a pain in the ass. Add on top of that a touch of cabin fever and I'm ready for it to be gone in 24 hours.

That being said, the kid inside of me loves the snow. I don't really play in it anymore, but seeing my kids go out and enjoy it brings a smile to my face. It beings back memories of the excitement of a snow day, playing outside all day, even when mom and dad are trying to get me to come in so as to avoid catching my "death of cold". If my kids were younger (and when they were), I would play outside with them in the snow any chance I got. Now, I just go out and enjoy it with them briefly before they're done with me because they have their friends to play with. I even offered to held build a snowman that was met with, "No. That's okay" and, "Not really". But I don't begrudge them... they had been out all day and I can understand the desire to thaw out for the night.

Another thing I don't like about snow is driving in it. I can do it... cautiously. I usually choose not to do it unless absolutely necessary. And the northerners who bitch about people not knowing how to drive in the snow ("Oh, it's easy. All you have to do is blah, blah, blah...."), while they drive recklessly because they're "great at driving in the snow". There may be some truth in that, but that overconfidence is probably a greater danger than the person driving 40 miles per hour on the interstate that you're complaining about being stuck behind.

Today the sun has come out, and even though it's just above freezing, the snow is melting quickly. The noises of large chunks of ice sliding off of rooftops and cars is a welcome sound. I still know that that we will continue to see ugly patches of dirty snow over the next week. It also wrecks havoc on the yards in the neighborhood causing more mud to be tracked into the house by kids who refuse to "stay in or out". And then there's the fact that tonight, when I leave work at 12:15, I'll be one of those people driving 40 miles per hour on the interstate for fear of hitting black ice.

It's painfully obvious...

As you can tell, I've fallen down on my duties. And by "you" I mean "me" since I don't think I have any readers. But if you are reading this, I'm not shutting the doors as I will still post here from time to time. As a side effect of posting less frequently, the music days I had planned are going out the window. I'll still post videos every now and then, but it won't be a themed day. I knew going in that was probably a little bit much of a goal for me to have. I will also be suspending the t-shirt of the day, though as with the videos, I'll still be featuring one on a less frequent basis. Not today though....

So this is not a goodbye, just an I'll see you later. At some point down the road I may pick back up with daily postings. It's just as likely that I'll forget all about this place and let it become yet another tumbleweed on the information super highway.

Heavy Metal Tuesdays

And now back to the present. Heavy Metal Tuesday is my favorite. I will really mix up the metal genre here and not stick to the bands you immediately think of when you think "heavy metal". I'll be posting the obvious choices too like Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Anthrax and possibly even Metallica (though I still hold a grudge, no matter how good their early stuff was). I won't be posting any "nu metal" or "rap metal", but you might be surprised at what you find here. And there is a gray area when it comes to some things that many consider punk. I'll let you decide when you see something like DRI or Suicidal Tendencies here, though that may be a while.

I'll kick this off with Motley Crue so I can go ahead and get this out of the way... I will be posting some bands that are considered "hair metal." You won't be seeing Slaughter or Warrant on this blog, but do not be surprised to see Ratt or Cinderella. Some of that stuff is excellent.

And one more note. I won't be doing it all the time, but now that I've introduced the different genre days, I will post more than one video a day sometimes. Occasionally it will be the same band, but more often than not I'll try to post videos by different bands.

Now on with the show....

Classic Alternative Mondays (a day late and a dollar short)

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but see my t-shirt post below for the excuses. As a result I'm going to post two videos today. I use the term "classic alternative" because I really don't know what else to call it. There's a music channel on my cable TV that is called classic alternative and they play some damn good stuff. Mostly stuff from the 80's through the early 90's. They even play a good bit of punk rock but I'll leave that stuff to Wednesdays. I'm going to start with Soundgarden, but don't expect this to be all "grunge" or even just music from the early to mid 90's. I'll definitely be hitting the vaults. Some things you may even ask if it's really alternative or not, but that's my decision so eat it! No, seriously... if you think I've erred in labeling a band "alternative" that's not, feel free to debate me in the comments section.

T-Shirt of the Day

I knew this would happen so I might as well amend my rules. I'll post a new t-shirt any day I make an update to the blog. So if I miss a day, it's because I didn't post anything else. I'd like nothing more than to be able to post daily (or even several times a day if I got paid for this... never going to happen), but with a family and everything else life entails it's not always going to happen.

Melvins is an awesome band. One of the best shows I ever saw by them was on this very stage I'm playing on right here, at the World Famous Milestone. I won't go into the details of the show other than to say that it was 10.25.06. I was definitely buying a shirt and this one had an octopus on it so the choice as a no-brainer.

I Want to Make One of These

Drawdio: A Pencil that Lets You Draw Music

Hip Hop Friday

I'm going to start this one off with the great Das EFX.I don't feel like the got the respect that they deserved, especially compared to some of the lesser groups of the time that were highly regarded. Riggity Rowe!

T-Shirt of the Day

This picture was taken at the Brewgrass festival in Asheville, NC that I mentioned in my last TSOTD post. One of our "Single Serving Friends" let me borrow the sign for this picture. Actually Lee... who's a republican, asked them if I could hold it for the picture. He's a good friend. As a side note, this is one of my favorite pictures of me.

Now about the T-Shirt... Prince Of Dorkenss. That describes me fairly well. I loved the play on words and the design was genius, so how could I not buy it. I would post the link to Torso Pants (who I ordered it from) but they have been absorbed by T-Shirt Hell. Before I give you the link, let me preface by saying I do not agree with nor endorse many of the shirts on this site. There are some very funny shirts here, but a lot of their shirts are just plain offensive. To find the Torso Pants section click on the link at the top of the page. This shirt is no longer available, but you might find something you like either there or on the main T-Shirt Hell site.

Vivv La... Whatever We're Called.

For those of you who don't know (which is probably all of you since I doubt anyone at all reads this crap), I play bass in a punk rock band. Actually, punk rock is kind of pigeon holing it a little bit. We're punk rock influenced and that's probably the genre we most closely sound like. We also have metal, "classic alternative" (I'm still not sure how I feel about that term), indie rock and just plain rock n' roll influence as well, so our sound is somewhat varied.

The band I'm in used to be called Los Accidentes and The Accidents before that. The Crusties before that and Popes on Dope in the beginning. I also played in a band called SJA that started in high school and have been playing with the drummer ever since (about 20 years now). Now, back to the present... or at least recent times. A couple of years ago our singer/guitarist/song writer decided it was time to quit... for the second time and that was okay with us. We even played a "farewell show" that turned out to be one of the worst shows we ever played due to drunkenness. It was still fun though, for both us and the crowd, and ultimately that's all that mattered. After that, the rest of us tried to move on and just kept playing the Accidents stuff, figuring we'd get around to writing new songs later. About 4 months later, Saunders (singer/guitarist) came back and we picked things up. He wrote a bunch of new songs and we were about ready to play out again when he dropped it on us that he was once again leaving. This time it was for good. Even if he decides he wants to come back, we've moved on. Still love the guy, but that's about all we can take.

So that brings us to now. We don't have a name yet, though we've thrown a bunch of ideas around. I've been writing songs and now Eric's gotten in on the songwriting as well. Our only problem? No lyrics! I hate writing lyrics and am not sure about singing either. I've never had a problem with doing backup and we did have two songs that I sang, but doing all of it? That's going to be a challenge. I'm going to try to get started on those pesky lyrics this week because we've got 6 songs ready to go, but don't want to start working on anymore until these are finished. We also want to play out again at some point, but the lack of singing in our songs is holding that up at the moment. It's going to happen though. I promise.

In case you want to see what we're all about (or were all about anyway), I'm providing a few links. The Myspace page hasn't been touched in ages, the iLike page provides free downloads and the YouTube link has one of our best shows broken up into different songs for convenience. Enjoy... or don't. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.

http://www.myspace.com/losaccidentes

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Los+Accidentes

http://www.youtube.com/user/slywookie

Also, if you're a fan of odd videos and music videos of all genres (mostly live stuff), check out my favorites. That should keep you busy for a few days.

The main picture for this page is of Los Accidentes on stage at the World Famous Milestone and was taken by Steve Munsell.

Classic Rock Thursday

Classic rock, but not just any classic rock. I'm going to try to stay away from the stuff you'd hear on AOR classic rock stations. A lot of that stuff is great, but we've heard it all over and over and over again. I'm going to try to dig a little deeper and pull out some gems that don't get airplay. You may or may not have heard some of these, but sit back and enjoy anyway.

Today I'm going to go with Judas Priest. You may be thinking this should be posted on the Heavy Metal day (whenever that will be), but this is really their pre-heavy metal days. Seriously, if you haven't heard the Rocka Rolla album, find it. Even if you think you don't like Judas Priest, you may totally love this album. Good stuff.