There are a couple of songs in my iTunes that when come on, just instantly motivate me and get me all jazzed up. Some are from the baseball days, when I’d listen to Death Metal to get myself geared up. I got me thinking of what other types of songs people listen to to get themselves pumped up and excited. For getting ready for a baseball game or beating the snot out of 12 year olds in Call of Duty 4 I listen to either/or:

Three Days Grace - “Animal I have Become”
Slipknot - “Wait and Bleed”
Emarosa - “Utah”
A Day to Remember - “Speak of the Devil”
Tears Don’t Fall - “Bullet for My Valentine”

Slipknot would probably be the best for getting me insanely worked up. I used to listen to that song before every game I pitched in college. I would make sure to be the last one off the bus while I waited back and pulled a mini Dwight Shrute by rocking out to that song. Really any song that has heavy guitar riffs, loud drums, and good intense screaming will get the blood flowing. Later I’ll follow up with a list of songs that calms me down and makes me more productive.

I have been looking for posters to put up in the office for awhile. I was specifically interested in the ISO50 posters and was looking around for them for awhile. The other day I was dropping Tommy off at this detailing shop when right next door I notice these posters. They had boxes and boxes full of them, the exact same ones I was looking for. I immediately got out of the truck and took a look. Apparently, tucked away between a detailing shop and a auto repair shop is a place called Merchline.

Merchline specializes in online store fronts for bands, artists, etc.. They had all of the ISO50 prints right there. They also had hundreds and hundreds of t-shirts, stickers, hats, cds.. anything and everything. We talked for the guys running the place and they were awesome. There are only three of them that do all of the online orders, packaging, shipping, inventory, updating.. everything for the sites. They have a huge list of clients. I definitely recommend checking them out.

In the last two weeks I have been consumed with freelance projects and working with a bunch of people that contacted me through my portfolio site. The site was featured in a handful of showcase galleries, so that response has been awesome. I really appreciate everyone checking it out and all of the positive feedback. I don’t really consider my work anything extraordinary, but it’s nice to hear the comments and encouragement from others.

Last weekend I also made the jump to Leopard Mac OS 10.5. My initial reaction was, “Wow, this looks beautiful.” The screenshots that I saw did not do the enhancements justice. My favorite feature might be time machine. When I purchased Leopard I also got another external hard drive, just for that. It has already saved my world once. I was having some trouble with Firefox, so I thought deleting it and re-installing would work. It did, but then I lost all of my bookmarks, passwords, usernames, everything.. Just flipped back a few days with Time Machine and grabbed the necessary files. Bam, back to normal.

I don’t know if it’s because I only did a fresh upgrade to Leopard or what, but I do notice a couple little quirks. For instance, when I drag a file from Finder onto my desktop, sometimes the icon/file doesn’t appear. I have to adjust the grid positioning on the desktop and they just magically appear. Firefox is also a pain in Leopard. I don’t think I can go an entire session without having to restart Firefox a couple times. It just locks up and I have to force it to quit. Another little thing is when I click to open finder, it doesn’t always come into focus. That happens to a couple other programs as well. I also had a problem with conflicting fonts. I have hundreds of fonts on my system and when i re-installed Leopard a couple were duplicated I guess. I just went through and deleted the problems and so that was easily fixed.

Ok that probably seems like a lot of problems, and it is, but that is expected from a new release, especially from Apple. They are notorious for releasing things that are bug ridden. But with all of that, I still really enjoy using Leopard. The look is still very impressive and I have faith that updates are soon on their way to fix these little things.

Well that’s about it for now. Sorry for the delay in postings, just been so consumed in these other projects lately. There was one post between now and last one where Leeks wanted to “F” the Red Sox but I thought it would be best to censor him. He said he was going to post about “The Man” holding the little guy down, but I just said I would censor that too. Alright well back to work.

Last night I was totally pumped up to go and watch what I thought was going to be an awesome concert. The bands that playing were The Dear & Departed, Alexisonfire, Norma Jean, and Saosin. Alexisonfire and Saosin I have been big fans of. Saosin’s recent full length CD is one of my favorite all time CDs. Alexisonfire is a little edgey but awesome melodies and choruses. Anyways let the review begin:

The Dear & Departed
We showed up just as The Dear & Departed started playing. They seemed alright at first, until you looked up on stage and saw the lead singer sliding across stage, dancing as if his manager had told him.. “Hey if you want to make it big, you gotta dance.” Obviously the dude couldn’t dance for a lick, and it didn’t help that his voice was horrible. They didn’t have much stage presence at all and their songs lacked energy. Luckily the beer tasted good.

Alexisonfire
This band always puts on a great show, even if the crowd isn’t into them a whole lot. These guys are the definition of “Screamo” but they follow it up with great melodies and rifts. Every song is full of energy and excitement. They played a very good collection of songs, but their last song kind of lost me. I hadn’t heard it before and it slowed down dramatically from the rest of their set. All in all I was very please with their performance, just a little disappointed in their last song. They were without a doubt the only highlight of the concert.

Norma Jean
I’m going to try and keep an open mind about this band. Definitely not my style of music at all. They bring it hard and loud with angry vocals and constant screaming. I will say for their fans though, they put on a great show. With all of the fanfare and lighting effects they seemed to be the headliner of the tour. The fans were really into it and for that I give them props. I’m not a huge fan of their music but I can respect them for putting on a good show. It was the first band to draw out the crowd surfers, and anytime you’re at a concert and start seeing crowd surfers you start to get a little energized yourself.

Saosin
Well normally you would save the best for last, as it goes with any concert. This is the band that we paid 20 dollars to go see. Their CD was absolutely amazing with great melodies, rifts, vocals.. everything. Great mixture of songs. We were about 30 feet back and just off to the right of center when they started. I couldn’t help but notice a very obvious echo coming from the lead singers mic and the back up vocals of the bass player and rhythm guitar were horrible. I figured it might be where we were standing so we moved back and towards the middle of the stage. Nothing changed, they just flat out sounded bad. I think the sound guy even realized how bad the bass players voice was and turned down his mic, but then the Tool just walked across stage and used the other guitarist mic. They sounded so bad I wanted to leave half way through. It was a total disappointment and might even have a lasting effect on whether or not I go see them in concert again. Along with them sounding bad, the over all performance of the show was very cheap and not entertaining at all.

With that said I would rate the bands as following: Alexisonfire (Great sound and good songlist), Norma Jean (Good overall performance, just not a fan of their music), Saosin (Just because the first band was that lame), The Dear & Departed (First band, can’t expect too much out of them.)

Tonight Saosin, Norma Jean, Alexisonfire, and The Dear & Departed will be preforming at Jannus Landing. Hands down the greatest place to watch a show, especially during this time of year. It’s an outside venue that’s located in the middle of a city block. Leland and I always thought it would be the greatest place to live, cause of all the sweet shows you’d catch. Well tonight is going to be a great show.

We first heard Saosin when we met our friend Rob. They were playing at the Orpheum in downtown Ybor (Tampa, FL). I believe they were either the first or second band to play that night, and to tell you the truth I wasn’t all that impressed. I liked them but it wasn’t the best I have ever heard. Then about a year later they released their first full-length album. The CD completely blew me away. Every song is very well crafted and unique in their own way. I have probably listened to the entire CD in it’s entirety 200 times.

I’m also a pretty big fan of Alexisonfire too. Not big on the whole screaming part, but the lead guitarist (Dallas) has one of the best voices I have heard. His solo work, City of Colour (He’s Canadian), is amazing. A definite addition to any music collection. I’m planning on the night going something like this:

• Get to Jannus just before 7:00pm, as the first band is just starting.
• Quickly grab a huge $8 Bud Light.
• Proceed to our designated viewing spot (Right around mid-court, next to the sound board).
• BS about how sweet the concert is going to be, ignoring the first band
• Rock out like a 13 year old for Alexisonfire
• Listen to Norma Jean and talk about all of the suicidal teenagers, “Death is my Bitch Lover..” “You tell that mean ocean Todd.”
• Go crazy for Saosin. (Crazy as in nod our heads and cheer after each song.)
• Reminisce how great of a concert it was with Leland.
• Go home.

And that’s pretty much it. Each concert has it’s ups and downs, but really they are all about the same. The music ends up being great, by the bands we goto see and the other bands leave something to be desired. I think the greatest part about these concerts though, is that it’s still the time when Leeks and I throw back some tasty beverages and just have a good time. Definitely excited about the show.

Ever since the RIAA went on this witch hunt for illegal downloaders, this whole music issue has gotten out of hand. A similar organization is suing a auto shop in UK. Mechanics at the shop have apparently been playing their radios loud enough for others to hear it. Performing Rights Society (PRS) has logged over 200 incidents of this happening and are asking for nearly 200,000 Pounds in compensation.

I completely understand the idea of having a license to play music at a bar or in a retail store, sort of. A license like that would cost a business around 30k a year. That is insanely crazy! 30k just to play some music. If someone buys a CD for 10 dollars they should be able to play that CD however they like. Do teachers get fined when they read a book to kids in school? Maybe they do need a license for that, I’m not sure.

Pretty soon there will be tickets given out to people with their windows down at stop lights, and their music playing. I think this whole copyright music issue has come about because of all the downloading. These agencies are finding any last resort to scrounge up every last penny they can. Even if that means coming up with absurd lawsuits like this one.

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Leland and I went to a pretty sweet concert this weekend. There were a couple bands we were familiar with, and then one that seemed to be the crowd favorite that we didn’t. One of the bands we went to go see, didn’t disappoint, the other did. In all it was a good concert, filled with loads of “NO” kids. “NO” is what they put in big black permanent letters on the hands of kids under 21. I’m not sure if it’s for the bartenders or predators. Anyways, while sitting around after the concert, Leland and I were trying to come up with the best concert ever. Who would play, if only for one song.. and you could choose 10 bands.

Obviously the time it takes to change stage doesn’t matter, just 10 of your best concert songs from your favorite bands, or not so favorite bands. It’s all about concert experience. I have seen bands that totally rock on stage, but suck otherwise.. or even bands that sound awesome on their CD then totally blow live (more often).

Here is my list, in no specific order:

Days Away - Keep Your Voices Down
MXPX - The Darkets Places
Armor For Sleep - Dream To Make Believe
Less Than Jake - Look What Happened
Taking Back Sunday - Cute Without The “E”
Receiving End of Sirens - Planning A Prison Break
Fall Out Boy - The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes
Alexisonfire - Accidents
Matchbook Romance - Promise
Moneen - Start Angry…And Mad

Those are probably the most memorable songs from concerts that I have been too. I’m sure I have missed a couple and Leland will be able to add to this list.. but I’d like to hear of other great songs from great concerts.

I might be the biggest critic when it comes to songs on the radio. They totally take a good song and beat it into submission, then all the teeny boppers and everyone else wearing eye-liner destroy a song and a band. I can’t blame MTV so much anymore cause they don’t play any music, but anything on their is forever forgotten for (lots of fors there) me. I just have this huge thing with other people listening and going crazy over the songs I listen to I guess. I don’t like to see good bands go mainstream and their concert prices jump up to 35-40 bucks a pop, cause that usually means the beer is more expensive