unbibium

i'm kind of running out the clock today at work and decided to play some old 80s videos on my phone. saw Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" and was like that's the most 80s song ever, all keytars and saxophones, sounds like a good time. but this is the first time I paid attention to it and if you edit out the title line, literally the whole song and video is about life in a collapsed war-torn country. according to Wikipedia, Henley wrote it about the Reagan-supported Contra takeover of Nicaragua.

i've been missing a lot of stuff haven't I?

When you first start Wii Music, one of the songs that is already unlocked is "Daydream Believer" by the Monkees, who started their career also pretending to play their instruments.

Rush's appearance on the Colbert Report reminded me of a great local band I saw by accident once: Freewill, a Rush tribute band.

I was going to Bash on Ash, expecting to go swing dancing, but there was a record release party there, and Freewill was playing a monstrous set. How monstrous? Well, it must have been at least two hours, because I stayed for a good few songs, left the Bash, walked to the relocated swing dance party at Tempe Beach Park, danced a few times, then walked back to the Bash and they were still playing. Holy fuck. I think they played most of 2112.

One thing I noticed on TV just now is that Geddy Lee talks like a human being. I don't know whether he goes into high-pitch screaming mode when he's at a concert, bantering with the audience. But I know our local Geddy Lee impersonator does.

I just spent the last 45 minutes staying up too late trying to find the night I saw them, in my Livejournal. It was a big night; I'd be surprised if I hadn't mentioned it.

I was listening to the soft rock/smooth jam at CVS Pharmacy just now. There's a song called "Baby I Love Your Way" or something like that.

The voice changed in the middle, and for the first time ever7, I noticed that he was singing Free Bird. Free Bird is in the middle of a song they'd play on KEZ.

As soon as I get home, I'm going to find out as much as I can about that song.

Update: I guessed right, but the Free Bird part isn't from the original version. I confess to knowing absolutely nothing of the works of Peter Frampton, even though I'm pretty sure I've heard this song a hundred times, mostly in pharmacies.

It's almost 1am again and I'm not ready to sleep yet, so I'll post.

Last night was a much needed Hung Dynasty show. I saw the band, and some familiar people who I've seen at other shows, and a couple of new fans. atillathehung even helped me with a minor bike problem that had just befallen me. Thanks, Bicycle Repair Man!

A sign of the times was near the end of the show where I could have sworn someone yelled "Rickroll!" As time goes on, that could replace "Free Bird" as what drunk people yell at bands. But it hasn't yet broken out of the Internet geek ghetto, for atillathehung didn't know what it meant. He thought the guy said "A Brick in the Wall", and he may have been right. I think they recorded the show, so we may know for sure soon enough.

That last paragraph reminds me, I thought I saw a guy with a phone camera there, catching a clip of their last song, that Judas Priest cover they useed to close with but brought up as an encore this time. I checked YouTube tonight, and sure enough!

I was unpacking a box in the closet, and in a late 1990s paperback edition of "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", I found as a bookmark, the first concert ticket I'd ever purchased. I bought it at Dillard's, and got it for $20 with my KUPD Red Card.



It was for Ozzy Osbourne, and it was actually postponed at the last minute because Ozzy had gotten ill, so my best friend Donnie and I had to wait in the parking lot for his gigantic Ford Galaxie to cool down. He wore a T-shirt from the "Filthy Smelly Puking Habit" anti-smoking campaign of the time, which he proudly described to other concert-goers while smoking. I ended up getting a cheap (though possibly bootleg) T-shirt in the parking lot, and we met up with some other pissed off concert-goers while we waited for Donnie's car to cool down. Some of them had driven in from Tucson. But since I hadn't, I had fun anyway. It's also the first time I peed outside within the Phoenix city limits.

And a few months later, we got our concert, though the opening act had changed. It was just Sepultura then, which I didn't really care for.

The reason for the poor condition of the ticket could be the ravages of time, but it could also be because I dropped it in a puddle of beer. I actually left it at my seat while I went out to get refreshments, and had to sneak past a security gate as a result.

And just as Ozzy was about to come on stage, the lights to the seats went out, and I still hadn't found my seat yet, and as a result I crashed into some guy and made him drop his beer. He got angry enough to raise the attention of security, but before he got there, I'd diffused the situation by covering the cost of the beer, with a $20 bill. I didn't care about making change, I just wanted to not get in a fight, not get kicked out, and not miss the beginning of the show.

I don't really remember much else about the concert, except it being my first concert I didn't really know how to emote properly.

Funny, now that I'm working for Ticketmaster, I don't see many concerts anymore.

I posted that Tay Zonday video, and another one, to my Facebook profile last night.

Today, they both showed up as "Popular posted items in [my workplace] network."

So if you want people to watch what you share, you can probably get more face time than you expect by sharing it on Facebook. People I never heard of are probably watching Canon in Z in their cubicles right now and wondering what the big deal is.

Forget about Enterprise vs Death Star.

Who would win in a space battle: the Boston flying saucer, or the Journey Escape ship?

Celebrate the Sopranos finale with the History of Pop Music in 4 Chords!