Sounds better than the live version that premiered on Conan a few months ago. As much as I still love Pearl Jam, I admire them more for evolving the music industry more than their actual music now adays..
Case in point: they premiered their new single on MySpace today. They better make the album available for donation ala Radiohead this time around.
New song and new album announced last night on Conan…
I’m pretty excited to finally go to the Gorge up in Washington. Here is the schedule so far, still need to listen to the bands I haven’t heard on the schedule:
It has been quite the week so far. On Saturday we had our exit interviews for the MBA program all day where we shared stories about what inspired us to go to graduate school and what we each hope to aspire to some day. Needless to say it was a pretty moving day for everyone and we stayed out late celebrating afterwards. Hard to believe school is all over. Tonight marked the end of another thing and probably the biggest thing outside of school or work I’ve been involved with – nowlikephotographs. Chris and I broadcasted one last time tonight (stream it at nowlikephotographs.com in a few days) and he even let me produce the whole show by picking out my favorite instrumental tracks of all time. Chris has been an amazing friend over the years and I’m glad we were able to incubate this show from an idea to a success. After 7 years on the radio and 4 years of the show it is sad to see it go but the support from listeners and everyone else was amazing over the years and the show will at least live on for some time with Chris. I plan to continue producing the podcast and we’re giving some thought in to expanding nowlikephotographs.com so it is the end of an era but not the end of the show. Tomorrow will be the last day at work in Roseville after 4 1/2 years. And then this weekend – I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am to see everyone this weekend! The agenda is looking SOLID.
I’ve bought music online before plenty of times. Pearl Jam live albums, rarities, digital only compilations, things like that. But today for the first time I bought a legit normal full length album from Amazon instead of going to Best Buy to get the physical CD. I have a slightly embarassing obsession with the Killers for awhile and their new album is full of ridiculous 80′s synth pop goodness. I was pleasantly surprised at how well Amazon worked. The album cost $3.99 (for 10 songs), the MP3′s are variable bit rate 256k with no DRM and the little program thingie automatically added them to iTunes and started playing after 1 click on the website. I’m still hesitant to buy through iTunes with all the DRM garbage and I feel like Apple already owns enough of my soul but for $4 I can definitely get use to this. I especially enjoy that you can stream pieces of all the songs right before clicking on buy which has gave me second thoughts about buying the new Kanye – what is with all the singing? Lame.
Last night I went with Chris to the most anticipated show I’ve wanted to go to this year so far. While Bloc Party might be my new favorite band, I had heard they were not very good live so I didn’t have much expectation. Editors on the other hand though were totally different. I’ve heard some good things about their live show and I love their new album even more than the last. They didn’t disappoint at the Fine Line. They played a really tight set, moving from song to song without saying more than a few words in between. It was clean and polished like you had just bought their CD and played it through the stage speakers with the perfect mix. The lighting was the most dramatic I’ve seen at the Fine Line with white and red back lights casting shadows of the band members on the brick walls as the lead singer twisted his arms like he was trying to crawl out of his skin. It reminded me a lot of the Interpol show in Chicago. I was happy to hear every song I wanted to off of both albums and they even opened up their encore with “You Are Fading” a B-side off of the Bullets single. The highlight of the night though was in “An End Has A Start” where everything but the guitar and vocals cuts out. Every time I hear it I feel like I’m going to be lifted off the ground and fly away, it’s that good. Hearing it live was even better and I warned Chris ahead of time in case I passed out from hearing it. I braced myself with the chair next to me though and survived the amazement. I can’t remember the last time I’ve left a show that happy, great sound, great songs, and a great performance. If you haven’t listened to this album yet, go get it. It’s great stuff.
Friday night I flew in to Chicago and took the train to Pat’s place where I met up with Wipert and him to go to the Bloc Party show. I’m so glad I finally got to see them. They’re the first band I can honestly say I like more than Pearl Jam and they put on a pretty good show despite being outside and having a bad sound mix. They played everything I wanted to hear off of both their albums. “Like Eating Glass” was the highlight of the night for Pat and I. Wipert claims “Banquet” was the best but they had the second guitar turned down WAY to soft so it didn’t sound as good as it could have. The stuff off their second album seemed to come across live better than “Silent Alarm” even though they are slower and have more production effects added to it. Something about the complicated timing off of Silent Alarm just doesn’t work as well live. Either way I am really glad I got to see them and I can’t wait to see them in a proper club sometime. I have a feeling they will always remain a better studio band. Continue reading
I needed an excuse to blog since nothing very write-worthy has been going on in my life right now so I’ll talk about a fun weekend I just had. Work has been a little less hectic lately with our new release out the door so Friday when I realized I had stayed late a couple of nights already I decided to duck out a little early with Jim to go play golf. Jim had some family friend who work at a course that got us 9 holes for free. I was playing particularly well (and consistent which is even more rare) so after 9 we decided to play the course again and make 18 out of it. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside, mid 70′s, light breeze and a long weekend ahead to look forward to. It was a perfect way to spend a late Friday afternoon.
The Rest of the Weekend
I just finished up a class at Augsburg so this was the first Saturday in a long time I didn’t have to study and get stuff done at home. I slept in nice and late and then bummed around to get some errands and grocery shopping done. It wasn’t until I was at the Quary (the Target and grocery store by campus is called the Quary) that I realized it was move in weekend for school. There was an ape-ton of people out but it made me glad to be out of undergrad and not dealing with moving every year and all that fun stuff. Continue reading
Man what a weekend. This is going to be a long post reviewing the festival, so set some time aside if you want to read it or skim for the bands that are bold below. Wednesday night I went down to Chicago, flying first class thanks to work upgrading my frequent flyer status to “Silver Elite” on Northwest. I’m definitely going to try and fly as much as I can before the end of February to try and get enough miles to have Elite status for another year. Flying first class is really sweet. Anyways, I got in Wednesday night driving around with Pat trying to find a place that was open to eat. A lot of people go to bars on Wednesday night in Chicago since a lot of people were drinking but the kitchens were closed. Resorting to Wendy’s we went back and crashed at Pat’s place. Thursday we met up with Dave for lunch at Qdoba and then I hung out at the 311 building next to the Sears Tower since Pat had to work and I had a paper to write. I forgot how much I love hanging out at a coffee shop when I’m on the computer. Something about people watching is just really entertaining to me, not in a creepy way. Continue reading
has always been to be front row center at a general admission show. Well maybe a long chat with Eddie would be the wildest but this is up there. And it looks like this fantasy will become a reality next Thursday night. Brayshaw pointed out this morning that the PJ blog announced a ticket pre-sale this Thursday for fan club members so I am going to pick up a pair. I fly in to Chicago next Wednesday night so I’m thinking lunch with Dave on Thursday and then camping out in the line for the show. My hold off of not seeing them with Tom Petty last year is paying off with seeing them twice in a week with both shows being general admission. Pat says the Vic theater is a nice place too. Has to be better than the other venues that I have seen them which end in Arena, Center, or Valley. Not theater. Man am I pumped.
Updated: I suppose I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. I must have hit refresh on the Pearl Jam store a million times but the “buy” button never showed up. I was logged in 30 minutes early and everything. Ah well, I’ll revert back to my post last year on my changing feelings for Pearl Jam. I’ll always love their music and the latest record was a huge musical improvement but I lost yet another piece of my lust for them this afternoon.