Band Alert

Lately I've been digging this band Throw the Fight, with their catchy blend of rock/emo/alternative rock/hard rock — not unlike Bullet For My Valentine, but maybe not as heavy.

• Their Blogspot page
• Their Myspace page
• Their website
• Their Purevolume page
• On Google
  

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In

The Onion cracks me up sometimes. Generally when I go to their site, there are a few posts that strike me as BRILLIANT satire.

The post below is one of them:

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In

July 14, 2008 | Issue 44•29

WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."

Enlarge Image

A prominent finance expert asks Congress to help Americans rebuild their ficticious dreams.

The current economic woes, brought on by the collapse of the so-called "housing bubble," are considered the worst to hit investors since the equally untenable dot-com bubble burst in 2001. According to investment experts, now that the option of making millions of dollars in a short time with imaginary profits from bad real-estate deals has disappeared, the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has never been more urgent.

"Perhaps the new bubble could have something to do with watching movies on cell phones," said investment banker Greg Carlisle of the New York firm Carlisle, Shaloe & Graves. "Or, say, medicine, or shipping. Or clouds. The manner of bubble isn't important—just as long as it creates a hugely overvalued market based on nothing more than whimsical fantasy and saddled with the potential for a long-term accrual of debts that will never be paid back, thereby unleashing a ripple effect that will take nearly a decade to correct."

Enlarge Image

"The U.S. economy cannot survive on sound investments alone," Carlisle added.

Congress is currently considering an emergency economic-stimulus measure, tentatively called the Bubble Act, which would order the Federal Reserve to† begin encouraging massive private investment in some fantastical financial scheme in order to get the nation's false economy back on track.

Current bubbles being considered include the handheld electronics bubble, the undersea-mining-rights bubble, and the decorative office-plant bubble. Additional options include speculative trading in fairy dust—which lobbyists point out has the advantage of being an entirely imaginary commodity to begin with—and a bubble based around a hypothetical, to-be-determined product called "widgets."

The most support thus far has gone toward the so-called paper bubble. In this appealing scenario, various privately issued pieces of paper, backed by government tax incentives but entirely worthless, would temporarily be given grossly inflated artificial values and sold to unsuspecting stockholders by greedy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

"Little pieces of paper are the next big thing," speculator Joanna Nadir, of Falls Church, VA said. "Just keep telling yourself that. If enough people can be talked into thinking it's legitimate, it will become temporarily true."

Demand for a new investment bubble began months ago, when the subprime mortgage bubble burst and left the business world without a suitable source of pretend income. But as more and more time has passed with no substitute bubble forthcoming, investors have begun to fear that the worst-case scenario—an outcome known among economists as "real-world repercussions"—may be inevitable.

"Every American family deserves a false sense of security," said Chris Reppto, a risk analyst for Citigroup in New York. "Once we have a bubble to provide a fragile foundation, we can begin building pyramid scheme on top of pyramid scheme, and before we know it, the financial situation will return to normal."

Despite the overwhelming support for a new bubble among investors, some in Washington are critical of the idea, calling continued reliance on bubble-based economics a mistake. Regardless of the outcome of this week's congressional hearings, however, one thing will remain certain: The calls for a new bubble are only going to get louder.

"America needs another bubble," said Chicago investor Bob Taiken. "At this point, bubbles are the only thing keeping us afloat."

- Suspicious Package Industry Falls On Hard Times April 9, 2008

The War on Drugs

I ran across a news article just now stating that 2 guys were arrested in the Tucson area with nearly 2 million dollars worth of pot.

Here's the info:

TUCSON- Two men have been arrested in connection with the seizure of nearly 2 tons of marijuana, authorities said.

Arnulfo Vega MontaIno and Guillermo Carrillo Garcia were taken into custody in connection with the seizure, according to Sgt. Mark Morlock of the Counter Narcotics Alliance - a multi agency task force.

Morlock said the marijuana, which weighed approximately 4,000 pounds, was seized from a vehicle during a traffic stop and from a home Tuesday.

MontaIno was arrested on a charge of transportation of marijuana for sale while Garcia was arrested on conspiracy to transport marijuana for sale.

Detectives then went to Garcia's home where they found 2,200 pounds of marijuana in the laundry room and another 1,000 pounds in the back of another truck that hadn't been unloaded.

Authorities said the marijuana had street value of about $2 million.

This immediately made me think to myself:

1) Damn, that's a LOT of f**king pot!

2) Why is marijuana still even illegal?

I haven't smoked pot since I was in my twenties, but I know a lot of people who do, and they don't cause any trouble (and if they do, certainly not as much trouble as they do when they're drunk.

They aren't robbing people/stores for drug money. They aren't panhandling for quick money so they can go get a fix. They aren't getting baked and then going out and crashing their cars. They aren't jumping off of buildings or stripping down naked in drug-induced hallucinations and dementia.

Think about these common arguments against it:

Pot's a gateway drug. C'mon! If anything, ALCOHOL's THE gateway drug. I bet that statistically, people who have tried any drug - any drug period - started with alcohol first.

Intoxication is the same, regardless of the drug. Again, c'mon! I have seen more people get in their cars drunk and drive like stupid idiots, then those who are high. If you could magically turn every person who's driving drunk, into someone who's driving high, I'd feel a certainly feel a lot safer on the highway. Have you ever seen anyone drive high? They are the slowest, most paranoid "Am I keeping it between the lines" driver on the road. I'd even go so far as to suggest a high-school girl with a cell hone to her ear is the BIGGER threat!

My point here is this: I think that keeping pot illegal is stupid. Make it legal, tax it and control it like alcohol, keep people under control by keeping the DUI and public intoxication laws, and take the MONEY out of the hands of people smuggling and dealing.

Look, I know this is an INCREDIBLY oversimplified argument towards decriminalization. There are a lot of valid arguments against this thinking.

All I'm saying is this: we've seen that PROHIBITION doesn't work — isn't it time to take a long hard look at the WAR ON DRUGS, and take marijuana off the list?

Metalcore

Just like with hardcore, I'm not as big into Metalcore as I once was. At one point, I was fully into Hatebreed, played their cd "Satisfaction is the Death of Desire" constantly - simply an AMAZING release, and considered by many to be a classic - probably one that brought metalcore further into the mainstream than it's ever been.

Flash forward ten years, and I'm married now, and have a good-paying job that helps bring the creature comforts when I want them. Simply put, I'm just not as ANGRY now. Sure, I have my moments, but as a whole, there's not a lot of heavy music lately that WOWS me like it used to... except maybe Lamb of God's "Ashes of the Wake" or Thowdown's "Vendetta".

Thinking about it now, the thing that has always made a heavy album stand out for me has been if the band can write good hooks, and create songs that are memorable for more than just being heavy.

A recent cd that caught my attention has been Sworn Enemy's "Maniacal."

"Maniacal" has hooks. Period. I was never really into Sworn Enemy all that much. I couldn't really tell you why - maybe it was the vocals, maybe it was simply I didn't find the songs all that memorable.

With "Maniacal", it seems that Sworn Enemy has learned how to turn up the HOOK quotient. Check out this review from AMG's Alex Henderson:

"Much has been written on metal and hardcore websites about the evolution of Sworn Enemy, who came out of New York City's hardcore scene in 1997 and became increasingly thrash metal-minded as time went on. This 2007 recording/2008 release definitely turns up the thrash factor, drawing on influences like Slayer, Exodus, Megadeth, and Anthrax. But Sworn Enemy haven't forgotten their hardcore roots; in fact, "thrashy metalcore" is probably the best way to describe Maniacal, which was produced by Tim Lambesis (of As I Lay Dying fame) and guitarist Joey Z. (Life of Agony).

Lead singer Sal LoCoco still sounds like a hardcore/metalcore vocalist; he screams and yells his way through this 34-minute CD, never failing to sound angry and rage-filled. And Sworn Enemy have no problem making metalcore and thrash sound like a perfectly logical combination because that is exactly what they are. It's true that hardcore and thrash had different beginnings; hardcore was a direct offshoot of punk, and thrash came about when headbangers were influenced by punk and starting playing a lot faster (Motörhead was arguably the first thrash metal/speed metal band, and the likes of Venom, Slayer, and Metallica weren't far behind).

Essentially, hardcore was punks acknowledging metal, while thrash was metalheads acknowledging punk -- and on Maniacal, punk and metal elements unite to create a loud, vicious, head-kicking sensory assault. There are, of course, numerous bands engaging in metalcore-related activities in the 21st century, but the thing that ultimately makes Maniacal worthwhile is the band's ability to come up with a fair amount of strong hooks.

Perhaps working with Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta taught them the value of hooks -- Hatebreed, after all, has had some of metalcore's best hooks -- and while Maniacal isn't quite as consistent as it could have been, it is still a generally decent example of Sworn Enemy's ability to thrash their way through metalcore."

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Hardcore

I've always been a quiet fan of hardcore. There are sooooo many bands I could name here that would give you an idea, but here's a couple:

• Quicksand
• Sick of It All
• Hatebreed
• CIV
• Snapcase
• Strife
• Agnostic Front
• Minor Threat

There are so many, some of them straight-edge, some post-hardcore. But no matter what the label was, the music's aggression and a sense of striving for unity, responsibility, respect -- it all spoke to me. I'm almost 40 now, and hardcore's come a long long way. It's no longer a common thing for me to get excited about a new hardcore band. But just the other day I got a sampler that had a song that grabbed me and made me want to check out the band.

Here's that song: Soul Control - "On Survival"

Check out their Myspace page too if you're interested. www.myspace.com/soulcontrolhc

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Pandora Internet Radio

Internet radio has been around for a long time, and I'm tried my share of sites / programs streaming music over the 'net. Remember MusicMatch? Spinner? Live365?Well, my favorite place for online radio as of late has been Pandora.com.

Pandora is based around something called the Music Genome Project® -- and essentially you tell it what you like -- a song, or an artist -- and it starts playing. You then tell it what you like and don't like by giving a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" to each song.

You really have to try it. Creating your own customized station is SO easy. I have 5 differents stations; two are based around the bands Anberlin and Hot Water Music, and the others are "genre" related: Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, and Adult Alternative.

I've turned so many people on to this site I should get spiffed. Hey Pandora, how about a referral program, huh?

Blogged with the Flock Browser