One of These Days...

Dave Grohl one day will actually bring out an album that will be disappointing.
BUT not Wasting Light. This album is without a doubt, the best his career has had to offer yet. I couldn't think it would have got better than The Colour and The Shape, Foo Fighters, etc. . It did, in the form of Wasting Light.

By God, is this an album to listen to. Obviously speaking as a hardcore fan here, but these are songs to walk to, dance to, scream to, and be all melancholy about. Everyone.

The album starts with the simply tremendous "Bridge Burning", a heralding start. The guitars swoop down and knock you unexpected ... then the song descends, swooping into Dave Grohl's signature scream on "These are my famous last words". His famous last words, perhaps, that this album would be the Foo's heaviest so far. It definitely is quite contrasting to say, the acoustic Skin and Bones album, with the classics. But these songs are actual thrashers. You can air drum to them, air guitar, and even do the backinbg vocals for goodness sakes! That makes a good rock song. I particularly enjoy singing to the "Burning in the ashes!" backing vocals. A start like this practically sets you up for disappointment after but then comes "Rope". I didn't particularly like this one at first, it was mainly because it was THE mainstream one, and I prefer to dig a little deeper on an album as a whole. The riff at the beginning is slightly annoying, but the mixing in this song is fantastic. What else could we expect from the team that produced Nevermind? Exactly. But this one has got some nice hooks, including the nice drum solo from Tay Tay and guitar solos galore. It soares, and it's a rock song you can REALLY sing along to, even the girls. You can almost hear Pat Smear's (formerly of the Germs, and then to join Nirvana as their 2nd guitarist in 1993) contribution, glowing as he is, the extra instrument really mellows the sound. And I suppose the sound is aging with Dave's voice, but what could you expect? They performed at Radio 1's Big Weekend for an 80 minute set, and it was like an explosion, the climax was there, the show was brilliant, and then it was over before you knew it, a path of destruction left. Dave Grohl was still the man, and the only sign of aging he shown was his clambering back upon the stage...

My grandad even enjoyed it. I say even, well really, we are the people that go to see 60-odd year old rockstars play blues. That's our thing.

All in all, the biggest and the best pick of the album have to be: 'These Days' ("Easy for you to say... your heart has never been broken") which is soon to be a smasher in terms of Foo Festival songs. If I get the chance to see them (Our father, who art in heaven...;)) THAT will be the song I'm singing at the top of my voice, at sundown; 'Arlandria' which, among the usual critiques of Foo teens on twitter, seems to be a favourite ... I featured it for purely popular circumstances; and finally, another favourite 'Walk' ("I never want to leave, never say goodbye, forever and ever, I'm never gonna die") which has some beautiful melody lines. I will also recommend 'Better Off' which is a mix between early esque Foo and Tenacious D... it's proper boy blues rock. Nice riffs, too.

Can you tell I'm trying desperately to pass my English exams?

Sorry about excess Dave lately, but it's probably because I AM JUST LOVING the sounds that he's making right now. And a bit too excited about Pat's return...

Peace, Love and Burning Bridges (in the name of a brilliant new foo record!)

riotgrrrlivesx

I'm actually doing Cartwheels... My Song of the Month

Happy BRITISH SUMMER TIME! The time has come: my favourite time of the year, a time for steadily increasing prosperity... and a whole bunch of good times to come this summer- it's going to be the best summer of my life... So I've had a great weekend, so I'll have to celebrate by posting this very pleasant song indeed, which no guesses needed, came from one of the O.C. soundtracks... I picked it up on one of the episodes, and it's just perfect... so as the month closes, this is certainly my song of the month. have a great week everyone!



riotgrrrllivesx

All in a day's work

A MONTH TODAY. WE WAIT PATIENTLY.

WHITE LIMO, WHITE LIMO, WHITE LIMO!


Warning: features a very scary looking Lemmy and a very beautiful certain Grohl's wife.



"Wasted Light" is released on April 12th at all Good record stores.
Foo Fighters plan to record a 13-track record of covers for Record Store Day in approx a month.


Pray for Japan, pray for life,
riotgrrrlives|x

Arise, Sir Dave Grohl...

Dave Grohl has always been much more than the drummer from Nirvana. Maybe because of the fact that he has, actually, penned more hits than Kurt Cobain, and is the award winning Frontman of Foo Fighters, arguably the best rock band on the planet to the present day. Award winning.

As the reputation as the "Nicest Man in Rock" and simultaneously the "Hardest Working" one, he is quite a man indeed. This post is a kind of a tribute to the Man himself, as myself being one of Foo Fighters' biggest fans, and everyone who knows me well knows, he is one of my biggest inspirations in life.

So, naturally, Iwas thrilled to be casually looking through an NME Special issue tribute to Mr Davey when it stated clearly that Mr Grohl himself will soon be picking up the Magazine's iconic "Godlike Genius" award, where previous recepients have been Mr Roger Daltry and Mr Paul Weller. In my opinion, Dave Grohl is the perfect follow on from these. Not just a drummer: a impressive vocalist, beautiful songwriter, producer, member of many a supergroup (Them Crooked Vultures, I ask you!), generational inspiration and generally, a really nice, hard-working guy. Not bad for someone who started life learning drums by hitting his pillows. The awards were this week, and the YouTube vid of his acceptance speech has lots of hits. He has many grateful fans just like me supporting him in everything, you see.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Mr D.Grohl's and one of my favourite icons' acceptance speech...

"You guys realise you gave this to a drummer, right? OK... this one's for the drummers! No, but honestly, I remember twenty years ago I walked in the side door over there, it was the first tour I ever did with Nirvana, and we arrived adn we were so jet-lagged but the Pixies were playing Brixton Academy that night! And we begged and begged and begged to get in, but they were like 'No, we can't get you in' but finally someone snuck us in through the side door and I stood right there as the curtain came up and they played 'Debaser' and I was so incredibly moved, I thought 'I hope someday I can be in a band that's big enough to play fucking Brixton Academy!' So this one goes out to The Sir George Robey, and The Astoria, and the side tent at Reading Festival and Brixton and Wembley and... this one's for Kurt! Thank you very much."

Only an actual Godlike Genius like him actually deserved this award.

Thank you, Dave Grohl. I love you.

P.S. The NME Awards 2011 magazine in very good, features many Davey among others on the cover and beautiful pictures and words of their post-gig, too. A must read.

Have a great week, everyone, and let Dave keep inspiring you all!

riotgrrrllivesx

I like Punk Rock.

I like Mudhoney very much, you must know that.
I like Mark Arm even more- He's like 47 now and BY GOD has he still got it. That's all I'm saying.
So you can imagine how pleased I was to stumble across this track on the 'Roots of Nirvana' CD compliation I got with last month's Mojo.

This song, In'N'Out of Grace is probably the definition of the early Punk Rock/Grunge movement in Seattle in the early nineties. Mudhoney were destined for stardom and they were always considered to probably be bigger than Nirvana. Sadly, they never made it that far into the mainstream, but they are one of the BEST to come out of that era, with Mark Arm still managing stuff at Sub-Pop, which I find pretty cool. He's very reliable when it comes to staying himself. Through everything. Mudhoney didn't make any mistakes. They just weren't Nirvana.



Hear that scream :"JESUS TAKE ME TO A HIGHER PLACE!"

Have a good week folks,

riotgrrllivesx

The Ultimate Nirvana Skill- Improvisation.

I'm very agitated at this very moment at the stresses of modern life as a 15 year old teenager in Britain, so I think it's the perfect time for a blog post.

Okay, admit it, everyone has done it: Improvised.

Whether you haven't got the appropriate lie set up for your parents to swallow, you improvise. When your music falls off the stand at a concert with whatever instrument you happen to play, you get pulled up for a speech at an awards ceremony at school/the oscars (delete as appropriate!), you have to create the perfect arrangement in a week and you've done hardly any work: You improvise. These may not be your desired situations, but when faced with the scary, the extreme, the unexpectable, the annoyance: you improvise it. Everyone's done it, and it's an essential skill that musicians derive over their lifetime: the improvisation. I did it this friday, in an own arrangement, usually solely modal scales and blues scales. I pulled it off, and apparently it sounded "Free and funky". Kudos for me!

The way it's used in Popular culture is interesting: Blues, R&B, even Dance Club Music...

But this is by far the best one I've seen, and it's relevant to the theme of Nirvana on this blog. The scream at 2:26 is singularly the best Nirvana moment I have EVER seen, so I thought I'd just share it with the world. The improvisation at 2:11 is certainly that of a real musician in a real band, where his guitar cuts out eventually (Note: this is French television they are all dressed up for) and he throws it down in a rage. The rest is his mind acting spontaneously, and if the scream at 2:26 wasn't already planned because it was in the song already, the sudden "Kurt Cobain does Jazz Solo Act" wasn't expected: the way he throws the microphone stand around is like something reminiscent of the jazz age.

A impeccably passionate performer, to say the least. And the sexiest (that tie and waistcoat- phwoarrr + anger at his guitar blowing)

riotgrrrlives|x

Happy New Year, Popular Music!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Hope you all had a happy Christmas and hope the music you choose to play today wishes you another great year of making memories..

Last year was pretty basic, on the blog front. My tags were either Hole or Nirvana... this may continue for the rest of the new year!

I am buying more into music that isn's the grunge era, and just the day before yesterday, I remarkably bought a CD from HMV that was actually produced in 2010!! A remarkable fate for me, and my close friends would even let out a shriek of surprise.

No Age's "Something Inbetween" is produced by Sub Pop and was the band was hopefully helped by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe inviting them on his show and stating them as a "fine band". They were good, so I bought the album. That's how it should go! No downloading necessary, just make the effort, and for me definitely I feel that that is SO much more rewarding!

It's a great album, and I had a great year, plagued by the same music, always influencing me.

My Grunge Box is the epitomy of my obsession, and I hope it never dies anyway...

But now I move onto a new obsession: the music of the O.C.

The O.C. is, of course, A brilliant pinnacle of California dreamy drama, where there's loads of rich kids that somehow have more problems than you. But the commercial impact of this show were amazing; although it ended nearly 4 years ago now with Season 4, the producers brought out multiple "mixes" of music with the music featured on various episodes, depending on what series you were looking at. Mix 2 and Volume 2 were from the first series (which I successfully finished a week ago; known to be the best season, that was a full 20 hours of my life I spent watching that- time spent well, for me!) and these include some best music moments and the songs I favour at the moment. Thanks to these compilation discs, my iPod will now have more variety. Songs like South's "Paint The Silence", the Killers' "Smile Like You Mean It" and obviously the theme tune "California" by Phantom Planet are all, with the exception of The Killers, songs from pretty obscure bands. This is VERY CLEVER. The musical director of the show really knows her stuff, and by putting these previously unknown mainstream acts there's lots in it for her (You can tell I've been reading a book with a guide to the music industry and record labels, huh?) It fits the situation, makes the show look even more gorgeous than it already is, and it also means bands like Death Cab are known. Death Cab For Cutie practically made themselves on the use of their songs in Season 1.

So the main resolution for this year is new music. My music library is rapidly expanding, so your should too. Maybe just impulse buy an album because you're curious? Link bands with other bands you already like. It's the only way you can start on the million of unheard music in the USA alone.

Happy New Music!

P.S. Will post pics of the ever famous "Grunge Box" soon, or you can access them on Twitpic from my twitter shown on the top of the page on the left hand side :)

^ Mix 2 features the greats like The Killers, Death Cab For Cutie and a great cover of "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Jem, orginally from that of Paul McCartney. Enjoy!