Tag: Music

Categories
Pop culture

Killers singer ‘offended’ by Green Day

Apparently, Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers, was a bit annoyed by Green Day‘s 2005 DVD ‘Bullet In a Bible’. In particular, the performance of American Idiot and how Billie Joe pumps the audience during it.

“I just thought it was really cheap,” he explained. “To go to a place like England or Germany and sing that song – those kids aren’t taking it the same way that he meant it. And he [Billie Joe Armstrong] knew it.”

After reading the article, I tend to agree with him. There are parts of ‘Bullet In A Bible’ that kinda struck me as Green Day deliberately missing their own point and playing up anti-American hatred. That said, to get offended is somewhat ridiculous if you ask me. What were they supposed to do, not play the song?

That said, the phenomenon he’s referring to does bother me. While I was in Ireland in 2004, there were a ton of kids wearing ‘Not My President’ shirts with swastikas drawn on Bush’s forehead. I wore that shirt with pride as an American just as I sing along to American Idiot. With pride in my nation and what it stands for, in civil disagreement of my government’s policies. Not because I hate my country, but because I love it. Somehow I don’t think those kids in Europe get that. In that sense, I agree with Flowers, and it scares me.

It’s just a shame it he is saying it a year too late, and for shameless self-promotion:

The Killers frontman said he believed that his band’s new album ‘Sam’s Town’ is a much better representation of America.

“People need to see that, really, there are the nicest people in the world here!” he declared. “I don’t know if our album makes you realise that. But I hope it’s from a more positive place.”

(Via Punknews)

Categories
General Pop culture Technology

Allegedly this is not a blog…

…unless I update it.

Fair enough, I guess I’ll work on that. I’ll try to make this brief. I’ve been busy for the past few months, but things seem to be settling down for the moment, which is good.  Work is good, back to school season is just ending so hopefully things might ease up, that’s about all I can say. I’m hoping for new products soon, but I have no clue in truth. I plan to pick up a MacBook Pro whenever they put out a new version. My 12″ Powerbook’s AppleCare has just expired. While it’s still running and treating me well, it’s time to move to something with a little more power, something that can run Aperture or actually interface with a video iPod. (12″ had USB 1.1)

So I’m back playing Halo 2 again, that game will not die for me I still enjoy it every bit as much as I did when I bought it. Oh, that reminds me, I officially, after what… 4 months, have decided that my X-Box 360 was a completely worthwhile purchase. 3 reasons:

  1. I finally used it as a DVD player and a messaging center at the same time. I have my old wired Apple Keyboard plugged into it. Being able to voice chat as VoIP or text message while watching a movie is incredible.
  2. X-Box Live Arcade is finally actually worthwhile. I downloaded Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting and have been getting my butt whupped by strangers on the internet while listening to music streaming from my PowerMac. (Thank you Connect 360)
  3. Dead Rising. Nuff Said.

Other stuff….

So I’ve been keeping busy, not working on any major design projects at the moment, mostly studying new programs and trying to (re?)teach myself how to draw. That said, I have been working at getting MediaRebellion.com back up and running. I’m not sure what we’re going to use it for, but I moved all the content over to WordPress, and as of yesterday two days ago I installed the Beta of phpBB 3 on the site which seems to be running REALLY smoothly, it’s leaps and bounds better than any other free message board system I’ve used.

I’m also now hosting/administrating the official message board for The Epoxies. In case you haven’t checked them out, they are a new wave/punk band from Portland, Oregon that totally rocks, I highly recommend checking them out.

Canon put out a new version of the Rebel… I want it.

Categories
Pop culture Technology

Impressed with myself.

So recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Streetlight Manifesto and the earlier projects of their singer Tomas Kalnoky.

Tomas was the original singer/writer for the cult favorite ska act, Catch 22, best known for their 1998 record ‘Keasbey Nights‘, which many will argue to be the band’s best (or only good) album. Well back before Catch 22, Tomas was in a punk band named Gimp.

After Gimp disbanded, Tomas reworked one of their songs, ‘Supernothing,’ from a slow acoustic track to the faster, more upbeat version that appears on Keasbey Nights. The original, perhaps because it is so different, has become a favorite among fans. Sadly the only copies of this album floating around the internet are of poor quality. Probably due to having been taken directly from tape copies that, it seems, were not high fidelity to start with.

Tonight I had a bit of free time and decided to throw Supernothing into Soundtrack Pro to teach myself the software and to see if I could do anything about the quality. I was surprised by the results. I managed to correct the volume problems and remove almost all the tape hiss with just a few clicks. I’m impressed with Soundtrack and how easy it was to do without noticeably distorting the audio. If someone like myself, who is virtually tone-deaf, could manage to do something with it in a matter of minutes, that says a lot.

The immediate difference is subtle but evident at loud volumes, through a car stereo or headphones. The removal of the hiss, and the boosted volume makes it vastly more listen-able than before in my opinion.

I’m debating doing more of this type of thing with some other projects, including ‘Rules of the Game’ Catch 22’s pre-Keasbey demo that is also only on tape, but I’d like some feedback on how people think this sounds first.

Anyway, I’ll let you be the judge of my work.

You can check out the original here:

And my cleaned-up version:
http://www.subism.com/audio/gimp/supernothing.mp3