Here's an announcement from an SF area Russian list:
KOROL and SHUT with ZAK MAY and SHIVA
The legendary Punk Rockers from St. Petersburg spinning Dungeons and
Dragons tales and charachters into punk anthems and ballads. Hugely
popular in Russia, and you know, hundreds of thousands of fans cannot
be wrong.
Now I read this, and I wonder -- can hundreds of thousands of fans be wrong?
I think they can.
Witness:
Titanic (the movie. and the ship)
McDonalds
Dubya
Most of network TV
and the list goes on.
But the combination of D&D and punk... Man, that's tough to resist.
I was browsing the website of one my favorite artists ever, Al Stewart and noticed that he had an album released recently called "Very Best Al Stewart Album Ever". What a stupid album name! If this was someone's first introduction to Al, they might think that these tracks were actually his very best songs.
Bollocks!
There are only two ways to determine what Al's best ever songs were. Okay maybe three:
1) ask Al. You don't have to be Al's best friend ever to know that there is no way in a million years he'd ever put "Song on the Radio" on that list. He'd probably tell you that it's rubbish.
2) ask me. I've been an Al fan for something like 25 years, so I have a pretty good idea.
3) ask Nick Straguzzi. He conducted and "MC"'ed the best "Best of Al" poll ever, and even though it was back in 1995 and would miss some awesome later tracks, it was still money.
Read it for yourself if you don't believe me.
1994 poll is here for reference.
Now I need to track down the 1992 Best of Al Survey for completeness.
Nick Straguzzi. Now there's a guy who should definitely be blogging, or at least saving all his stuff that *doesn't* get published...
Last year a friend of mine did a band workshop with the Blue Bear School of Music. Basically a bunch of amateurs get together, form a band and with a little help from an experienced instructor practice, get better and then do a little showcase performance in a bar where all their friends show up and get really drunk (if the band is really aweful) or just drink and have a good time if the band is decent.
Now, this is sort of a deep dark secret (hey, what are blogs for?) but I've always wanted to be in a rock band... "I should have learned to play the guitar" and all that. Now, wait a minute... I actually did learn to play the guitar, back when I was twelve. I haven't played at all in the last 10 years, but it's sort of like riding a bicycle, right?
Anyway, guitar, shmitar. The singer is the one who gets to be in front. And I could sort of sing. I could sing pretty well when I was a kid, and even was told I had perfect pitch (meaning I could tell when I sang off key, that doesn't mean I could consistently sing in key, that comes with practice). Of course other than an occassional karaoke outing, I haven't done any singing since high school.
And that brings us to my new hobby. Starting tonight I'm doing an eight week singing class with Jessica Will. I'm pretty excited about this, and I hope it goes well because I'm going to put myself on the list to be in one of those band workshops next spring as a singer. I hope I'm don't totally suck because I wouldn't want to subject all my friends (who'll certainly come to cheer me on at the show) to the sort of off-key renditions that I was subjected to at that showcase I went to (to be fair, almost all the singers were quite good, only one or two were out of their element).
Dates, of course, will be posted here, and everywhere else.
Some "middle america" newspapers are refusing to run this Doonesbury because it mentions masturbation. How much more pathetic can we get here?
My problem with it is that it gives men good news, but what about women? I'm sure there are lots of positive effects of masturbation for women (mostly psychological I suspect) but is anyone studying this?
Well... ahem... <tap-tap>
Is this thing on? Hello?
<clears throat>
Uh... Asya's blog is officially open for business.
I suppose I should have waited with the first entry till I have something funny to say. But then what's the fun in that?