Month: November 2010

3 Bands that will Never be the Same

I collect music much differently than most people I know. I find a sound that means something to me and I follow it through. I still listen to NIN just as much as I did when I was in high school (although I probably etch the logo into desks less often). Instead of having DMX in the heavy rotation one year and listening to bluegrass the next (sorry Dan), I slowly but surely build up the soundtrack of my life. This is why it pains me so when bands go in unexpected directions with their music. While it can sometimes be an amazing surprise we all have to admit that many times these changes don’t work out for the best. Whether still good or not, these are 3 bands that will never be the same.

Filter – The first record was rough and original- part Nine Inch Nails and part garage band. Richard Patrick and Brian Liesegang proved to be a creative force that infused simplicity with a temper. Hard, powerful songs made up the brunt of the album and were complemented with a couple softer, driving masterpieces. Everything looked roses for the group’s future but it wasn’t meant to last. Patrick thought Liesegang was too experimental and kicked him out of the group. Filter would never be the same again. The subsequent albums have been more focused on live music and less filtered effects, essentially forsaking the roots that led to the original’s success. There are plenty of good tracks among the rest of Filter’s collection, to be sure, but none have managed to capture the bold ideals of Short Bus.

Finger Eleven – Never have I seen a higher percentage of great (not just good) songs on a band’s first two albums. Finger Eleven was pure rock that hit you out of nowhere and didn’t take a break until the last track was done. At a time in the industry that was short on talent and full of copycats, this band proved that you didn’t need a gimmick to make a strong sound. Unfortunately, they didn’t prove that they could be commercially successful without one. Their 3rd album debuted with a foreign sound that was a makeover of their previous identity. New voice effects, new guitar style- Finger Eleven crumbled under the pressure and joined the throng of one-hit wannabes. Inauspiciously, they gained some popularity with One Thing and never looked back. In truth, the slow ballads aren’t horrible and there is a lot to like about the heavier outings but it is hard not to be wistful about the days when this band was uncompromising.

Pearl Jam – Extremely outdated to the point of being an afterthought, this band makes the list purely because it is the king of bands that will never be the same. Ten was not merely a great debut album- it was a cultural movement. The explosive vocals and sloppy guitar ignited a new era of rock and a new generation of listeners. I identified with this music, man. I remember not going back to class because I was busy listening to my Animal cassette. Even Vitalogy was a strong showing, but there were chinks in the armor. Eddie Vedder was growing to hate his success more and more and began taking it out on the fans with crap like Hey Crazy Mophandle Mama. Unlike the two bands above, Pearl Jam’s decline happened slowly and painfully. Every album would have less worth than the one before it until the point where I could not bring myself to listen any longer. I seriously can’t even think of another band whose music I don’t buy anymore- it’s that drastic.

So next time you are drinking a cold one and feeling a bit sentimental make sure to pour out a bit for your dead homies. We can always remember their past.

Taco

The League is hands down one of the best new comedies on TV. It’s about fantasy football. It’s about a group of friends ragging on each other. It’s a guy show that stands out from the other guy shows by being unapologetic about being a guy show.

Of course, there are some legitimate complaints about The League. The show structure is a bit formulaic after seeing a few episodes and the writers try too hard to create lingo in scenes that are heavily ‘inspired’ by Seinfeld. But by far the biggest problem of the series is the character named Taco.

All of the guys on the show have their thing. Taco’s thing is more or less being Joey from Friends. He’s the dumb guy who puts himself in odd situations without knowing any better for cheap comedy relief. He’s an easy way out for the writers any time they need something completely off the wall to happen. Seriously, his shtick is playing an acoustic guitar and singing wacky songs not unlike Adam Sandler from SNL in the 80s. Or Phoebe from Friends in the 90s. For a mostly original sitcom I really wonder what went on behind the scenes to have this happen.

Non Daylight Saving Time

We all know it – the clock shift is stupid. Days are longer in the summer so we can keep the mornings mostly the same and shift the extra sunlight to the evening. Whether or not you prefer daylight saving to standard time is your personal preference and I am not here to tell you which to like. But having a time system that requires a shift twice a year is retarded and it’s about time we did away with it.

What does shifting the clock actually accomplish? There are numerous studies and the short answer is either it saves electricity or it doesn’t. Seriously, that is about all we know about modern daylight saving time. Having more sunlight in the evening reduces the use of lights but very likely increases the use of air conditioning. But what do we need to deal with to keep it going? A giant pain in the ass, that’s what. Sunlight times are going to vary no matter what. Why not keep the change more gradual instead of throwing it in our faces in a single moment?

Reminding the country to change clocks once a year and then again to change them back sounds like an exercise in futility. It is like we are forever adjusting our perception to look for the perfect schedule but can’t quite pin it down. Listen, this is the deal. We can make time whatever we want it to be – there is nothing about the sun that says, “It is now 5:50 PM.” It’s all arbitrary since the rotation of the Earth causes days of different lengths that a fixed hour can’t deal with elegantly. Add the complexity of time zones and you could be in one place at 2:00 and 10 feet away it could be 3:00. Trust me, the sun looks to be in exactly the same position from both those vantages. Some countries, like China, don’t even have time zones and average it out so that most of the country is on an equal time.

But enough about the complexities of world time. The point is that we can declare time to be anything we choose. So whether we decide to roll GMT-8 or GMT-9 is of no consequence – what matters is that we keep it consistent to make it easier on, not only ourselves, but all the other countries who care to know what time it happens to be in the United States. I am a programmer by trade and one of my major beefs within my profession is when engineers try to be more clever than is needed. Usually the simplest solution works best. When you add underlying complexities to a system you are adding more points of failure- more moving parts means there is more to break down. There are scheduling, health, and economic repercussions to the change, and it is ironic that software engineers devote countless man hours to support the time changes because of their more dangerous cousins, social engineers.