By now people know who the Eagles Of Death Metal are, but when this album came out not too many folks did. The name of the band alone made people stop and think especially when they heard the music. It sounds nothing like the Eagles or death metal. It’s booty shakin’ rock n’ roll with a little southern blues touch that is written and performed for “the ladies” as continually stated by singer Jesse Huges when interviewed. On this album the band was only a 2 piece with Jesse “The Devil” Hughes doing vocals and guitar and Josh “Baby Duck” Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) on drums and backing vocals. In my opinion this is one of the best records to have come out this decade. It’s simple, it’s rocking and sure enough it gets the ladies shakin’ what their momma gave em. It’s funny cause this album too WAY too long to see the light of day. There was a release date announced and then it went back to TBA. Then a new date was released and then TBA again. Got to the point you never thought this album would see the light of day. Not exactly sure why this happened, but I’m sure as hell glad it came out.

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Eagles of Death Metal

Peace Love Death Metal

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So I really started paying attention to Small Stone Records a few months back when the new Sasquatch album was gearing up to be released. We used to listen to all the releases from Acid King, Tia Carrera, Dozer, Sons Of Otis and more when we had our “Metal Sundays” at Lou’s, but never really paid much attention to the fact they were all on Small Stone. This new Solace album is just another example of the quality stuff coming from Small Stone. Solid slow and heavy guitar riffs with a rhythm section to keep the songs rolling along and some guitar solos here and there. Cap it all off with some slightly distorted vocals and you got an album that is as good if not better than Monster Magnets “Spine Of God” and that album is one of the best stoner albums in my opinion. If you dig anything heavy you’ll dig this album. Check it out on the player below and go buy it if you like it as much as I do.

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Solace

A.D.

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The first time I heard this album was when Jeff at Lou’s put it on late one night and I couldn’t comprehend the brutalness of the album. I hadn’t heard anything like this before. Didn’t even know what to think of it really. Was it good. Yes. Did I like it? Not really sure. Would I listen to it again? Maybe, but it would have to be in a setting other than work so I could try and take it all in.

The story behind the album was the band had great press from the album “Holy Mountain” and was signed to London Records. They spent a couple of years writing the album and ended up with a 63 minute song called “Dopesmoker” but the label wasn’t to pleased since they couldn’t market it. The band tried to work with the label and retooled the “album” into a 52 minute track called “Jerusalem” and still the label didn’t want to release it. They were dropped from the label and ended up breaking up shortly after all this chaos happened. Rise Above and Music Cartel ended up releasing what came to be known as “Jerusalem” but the 52 minute track was split into 6 “tracks” even though the band didn’t want it to be split up. This is the version I first heard, the short version of the album. haha In 2003 Tee Pee records finally released the original version of the album the band first turned into London Records. All 63 minutes and 31 seconds of stoner greatness with an added bonus of a live version of the track “Sonic Titan.”

Last year Sleep got back together to play one of the All Tomorrows Parties and played the “Holy Mountain” album from start to finish. They will also be playing a show on in New York doing the same thing. Matt Pike said there would be some West Coast dates some time this year as well. I’m gonna make sure I don’t miss those cause who knows when/if they will do it again. Would be awesome to see em play “Dopesmoker” live as well. Members of sleep have gone on to play in other awesome bands such as Om, High On Fire and Shrinebuilder.

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Sleep

Dopesmoker

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This was the first Melvins album I ever purchased. I had really only heard the Melvins on the “Deep Six” compilation and on this album is a different band than what was on that comp in more ways than one. One reason being the addition of Jared and Cody of Big Business into the lineup of the band. The other is the fact the songs aren’t 15-30 seconds long. Solid album from start to finish with brutally heavy guitar and bass and booming drums thanks to the dual drummer set up. Because of this album I went back and got every Melvins album and have seen them live multiple times. It’s kinda weird how you’ll hear a band and not be that into them then years later give em another shot and wonder why you had not been listening to them the whole time.

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Melvins

A Senile Animal

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I’ve loved this album since it came out in August of 2009. At first I was a little bummed that the vocals were in English only cause mariachi music needs to be sung in Spanish, or so I thought. Matt and Joby did an interview with NPR and gave a very valid reason as to why they chose not to sing in Spanish. Matt doesn’t know how to speak it so it wouldn’t work if he tried to sing it. After hearing the interview I listened to the album again and it just seemed right, like everything finally fell into place. It’s pretty awesome that a punk band from LA could pull off a full on mariachi album and do it just as well as a full time mariachi band. I’ve not seen em play live but they go all out and got the suits hand made to bring it all together. It would be wrong if they played shows in jeans and t-shirts while playing mariachi music. I’ve seen some mariachi guys play in street clothes and it just loses it’s charm.

They’ve done 2 videos for the album so far with the first being the track “Cell Mates”. It features them playing at their favorite Mexican food joint in LA. They should do a tour of nothing but El Torito’s cause they’d fit right in.

Mariachi El Bronx – “Cell Mates” from Our Videos on Vimeo.

the second video was for one of my favorite tracks on the album. The video for “Holy” fits the track perfectly and is shot extremely well.

Mariachi El Bronx – Holy from Our Videos on Vimeo.

Anyway, check out the album. It’s great to put it on and eat some home made guacamole while sipping on an ice cold Tecate.

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Mariachi El Bronx

Mariachi El Bronx

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Watching the Ken Burns National Parks documentary on KPBS. It makes me want to rent an RV and drive around this beautiful country of ours. Only been to Yosemite so far in my life, and I got so much more to see. There is so much beauty in the US, but we forget about it or don’t think about it cause we don’t take the time to sit back and enjoy it. I think one of the next places I want to visit is the Redwood National Park. It’s crazy to think that when they first became a National Park, 85% of the forest had already been logged and only half of what remained was set up as a National Park.

Last year when we went to Joshua Tree for some camping it made me want to do even more. Just to get out in nature and get away from it all is the best thing you can do for yourself. Even just getting out into nature and going on a hike will clear your head. Hell, last week when I was feeling down I took a “personal day” and went outside for a few hours and weed whacked the shit out of our front yard. Who would of thought doing “work” outside on a beautiful day would be so cleansing of the soul. Back when I was a kid, I wanted nothing to do with being outside working. And with that, the city of San Diego is planning to turn the Plaza De Panama in Balboa Park back into a pedestrian area and remove all the parking and traffic in the area. There are lots of people who are against it cause they feel the parking is needed cause they don’t want to walk their fat asses too far to get to the museums. How could you not want one of the most beautiful areas of San Diego changed from a parking lot into a large open area where you can sit an enjoy the day? I understand the handicap spaces need to be saved and I’m completely cool with that, but for all you other fat asses you need to stop complaining. Yeah that sounds kinda harsh, but it’s true. You don’t want beauty for your city cause you don’t want to walk any further to get to the museums?

I’m gonna get a bike soon so I can ride around the town and enjoy my weekends. Being able to ride a bike from my home to Balboa Park, around North/South Park, maybe even down along the bay any given day is something I now look forward too. A year ago I never would of thought this would be enjoyable. Now I can’t wait to do it. If anyone has a good suggestion for me on a good bike to get, I’d appreciate it.

Seems like there’s so much I wanna do, but don’t want to do it at the same time. I don’t know if you’d call it being lazy or not, but if there’s something I want to do or somewhere I wanna go I end up thinking of all the reasons not to do it. Most of the time it’s cause I’m wondering what people at said place are gonna think or say about me. So the final solution is to not go and then I won’t have to worry about it. Good plan right? Hell no, makes me miserable. When I do go out I tend to sit by myself and not say a word to anyone unless I know em cause then I won’t have the chance of making a fool of myself.

I’m fine when I’m going out to meet up with friends for the most part. It take a little bit of nudging to get me to go out, but once I do I’m good. Now if I’m going somewhere by myself, that’s when this all happens. If there’s a show I want to go to I stay home. Never been that good at making friends on my own and all the folks I’m friends with now are cause of other friends. Once I get a few drinks in me and someone strikes up a conversation I’m pretty good with being social, but more often than not I feel like the one guy at the bar that everyone points at cause he’s drunk and on his own.

Playing music used to bring me joy, but now I don’t even want to play cause I don’t have faith in my playing ability. Yeah I was in a band for some time, but when you play the same songs over and over you get pretty good at em. Trying to come up with new ones was rough to say the least. Now to have to start it all over just doesn’t seem like something I want to put myself through, but at the same time I want to. The only thing that’s bringing me joy these days is hockey and that’s fucking expensive to do all the time. If I were to play every chance I could that would be like $60 a week and I don’t have that kind of cash.

Maybe I just can’t wait to get away from it all for a little while. I wanna go on an extended vacation, or better yet move out of town and get a fresh start. I do think about that once or twice a year and my time to act on it is getting shorter and shorter. Ohhh well, here’s to better times.

Testing updated iPhone app. More updates coming in the future.

NBC is horrible when scheduling what Olympic event they are showing and at what time. For example, they make a big deal about the Russia vs Czech Men’s hockey game which started at noon yet they show it at 3pm. At the same time the biggest game for North America, the US vs Canada Men’s hockey game, is shown live at 4pm. WTF were they thinking? 2 of the biggest games being shown at the same time even though they were staggered by the Olympics so people could watch both. This isn’t the first time they’ve messed up either cause all of the games up to this point have either been cut to mid way through or they make the viewer change stations mid way through a period but it’s not seamless cause when you get to the new station they are still finishing up with what was already being shown on that station. Not to mention they don’t take TV timeouts in international play so when they come back to the game from commercial you’ve missed parts of the game.

I understand that there are so many different events going at the same time, but you have like 5 different channels showing stuff yet you still delay showing em so you can get better ratings. Meanwhile all the news agencies around the world post the results of who won which metals and takes the excitement out of the Olympics.

First they fuck up the Tonight Show with giving it back to Leno, now they destroy the Olympics. Massive FAIL on their part.