Dear god, there's so much to catch up on.

- I saw Hair at Shakespeare in the Park on Sunday night. I know what you're thinking: When did Shakespeare write an anti-establishment, anti-Vietnam musical? The answer: around 1967. I could spend some time here, railing all over the Baby Boomers (again) and discuss how those greedy, selfish fucks basically pissed away the last chance this country had at true change, because their parents stopped paying for their pot and they needed to get jobs to support themselves, so they just sold out to the highest bidder, got fat and became the people they swore they never would when they were in charge. But I won't do that.

Instead, I'll just tell you that the production is outstanding, even if it does come off a little dated. And if you're inclined, wake up early, get your ass on line, and get some tickets for this bad boy. You won't be sorry.

- They finally shut down Scrabulous. That'll make people buy the board game. Thanks for ruining Christmas, Milton Bradley.

- In a horrific turn of events, the external hard drive that contained 90% of my music was completely erased. Now I'm in the unenviable position of having to rebuild the entire collection from scratch. To be fair, I'm not entirely free of blame in this situation, I am looking forward to getting reacquainted with Frampton Comes Alive and Jerry Vale's Greatest Hits by re-stealing them.

- In case you forgot, I've got a book on the shelves. You should consider purchasing this book. I believe that you would enjoy it very much. If you don't like the book, I'll personally come to your home and tell you the story about the time I asked Sally Field if I would write her biography.

- I wanted to say something about the election: since I already know who I'm going to vote for, is it possible for me to vote now and then stop paying attention? I consider myself a news guy. I watch the cable news channels. I read the Times. I just can't take anymore of this. People actually said, out loud, that it's a bad thing that people outside of the U.S. (in addition to 54% of the U.S. electorate, as polled by Quinnipiac University) like Barack Obama. This is the attack? People abroad like him, so we shouldn't vote for him? Someone's going to have to clean my brains off of the wall, because my head just exploded.

** Update: It should be noted that I don't *actually* hate my parents. They're lovely people who raised me very nicely. I just have an unfocused hatred of their whole selfish generation.**

Labels: books, Hair, iTunes, music, politics, Scrabulous, Shakespeare, Underrated

As usual, I'm late to the party, but I got an album by a band called Rogue Wave the other day that I'm really enjoying. It's called Asleep At Heaven's Gate and it came out last September.

The music sounds Brit-poppy to me, but it turns out the band is from Oakland.

Anyway, if you're looking for music advice from someone that knows very little about music released after about 2002, you should check this band out. They're going to be on Letterman tomorrow night.

Also, I picked up the Black Keys' most recent album, Attack and Release and it's outstanding. It's a departure from their usual sound and I'm loving it.

Labels: music

The Telegraph has a list of the 100 best movie soundtracks around. It's pretty comprehensive (as are most things that the Telegraph does) and includes some movies that I've never seen and scores that I've never heard.

[Tip of the hat to IMDb.com]

Labels: movies, music

VH1 aired their list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s last week.

This list is pretty much what you'd expect, especially since the show has to appeal to a wide audience. On the whole, they did a pretty good job, catching a ton of one-hit wonders (like Sir-Mix-A-Lot and Vanilla Ice) and bands that had a little more staying power (like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and U2).

A list like this would be better if they were picking albums, because the single is almost never the best song on the album. And the show would be better if they didn't HAVE to do make every show with D-list comedians trying to make a career for themselves. Can anything stand on its own anymore? I don't care what Frangela thinks about Ice Cube. Not even a little bit.

Labels: 1990s, music