This is such a wonderful album for so many different reasons, it holds so many great ideas and sounds so good in the process. It's an experimental indie-pop masterpiece and no one should live there life without at least giving it a listen. I think thats all that needs to be said about this one. Check it out!

iTunes link:



P.S. - There is a great dvd full of videos for the songs on this album and I would recomend any fan of this album do a bit of looking around for it. It is well worth the money!

Sigh...

I had read that Beck had a new video featuring these recently discontinued robots from Sony a while back and in all honesty could not bring myself to deal with the Real Video feed that it was being shown with on Beck's own website. Maybe it was Windows media, who knows, they are both buggy, terrible ways to show video. At any rate I was oh so excited to start watching the newest Channel Frederator episode to find that the first short was this video. Although it is not really an animation and broke away from their typical content, I welcomed this little break with open arms. I thought it was amazing that the label let this get released on a free podcast such as this and I just had to share this news with everyone because it is a great video that everyone should check out. Remember, these are real robots! As soon as I heard that they were not going to be produced I immediately found myself wondering how much one of these go for... hmm...

link

Since the beginning of the iTunes music store I have wondered when artists would be able to put up their own music for sale outside of being on a label that has access to iTunes and today I have come across a way to do so. It looks as thought this company, Tunecore, has opened a service that allows you to go through them to add your own music to the iTunes music store or Rapsody. You have the ability to add your music to online music stores all over the world and still get all the profits from the sale. After pouring through the FAQ on this site I have decided that this service is pretty legit which is very very cool! They charge you for each song that you want to ad to an online music store as well as an annual nine dollar service fee. I am going to keep digging around to find out more about the service because I hope to give the a shot here in the coming week's.

Link

I havnt the slightest idea why I havn't posted a link to this site yet because I have been following it for quite some time now and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. It's an ever growing collection of unbearably cute animals. You have to browse through the various galleries, it is very much worth your time to check this one out!

link

there would appear to be a strange issue with the rss feeds on the site and i am looking into it. the images within the feed dont show up! i believe that if you use the 'rss feed" link in the sidebar it should work. the feed for this weblog is: feed://twistedsun.net/misc/files/page3.xml

ill try and resolve these issues soon though, sorry for the inconvenience!

Well nearly a month into 2006 I am finally getting my best of 2005 music list up and going. It represents the albums that I listened to and enjoyed the most from the past year that were released in 2005. I hope that there is a little something for everyone in there so take a look in the music reviews page for that.

Well 2005 brought us quite a handful of great new music and I wanted to get a list of my favorites from the past year all in one place. This list is not a top ten or anything specific, its just a list featuring the music that I enjoyed the most and the music that was found being played the most during the year. I will let you know which ones, in my eyes, are the must have albums from the year. There was a lot that I cut from the list in the end but it left it showing what were my very top favorites from the past year, heres to another great one in 2006! So lets see here, where to begin... in alphabetical order:


Artist: Akron Family/ Angels of Light
Album: Akron Family/ Angels of Light
Description: I first heard this record while I was setting up for a show at a local cd shop that used to have a lot of in store concerts and I would always bring in a PA and run it. The owner, Andrew, gave me an advanced copy of this album to play before the show and I was instantly hooked. The music on here is amazing rock / folk / sing along music that is playful yet well crafted and has a really unique sound that is over all pretty hard to describe. Check it out to see what I mean.
iTunes Link:






Artist: Autechre
Album: Untilted
Description: Ignore the silly name of the record here and trust me when I say that this album holds as always a sound that leads the way for many leading IDM artists. Autechre has always had their little spot among electronic music fans and it seems like any time they release an album there is more than enough debate on why the new album sucks or why it is their best yet. It seems like their fans are always really divided on which albums are amazing and which are just terrible. I never really could figure out why this is the way I see it, Autechre's albums have all bounced off of each other pretty logically in my mind and like any developing artist they have shown that they still have a good bit of creative thinking in them even after releasing album after album over the years. For those of you who are not familiar with their music, think minimal electronic music that will sometimes have you bobbing your head and other times leave you scratching it wondering how to react. All in all this release holds fast to all of the classic Autechre stereotypes while still introducing some new tricks and rhythms that I just can't seem to get enough of. HIghly reccomended for anyone looking to try something different.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Beck
Album: Hell Yes EP
Description: Im Sure many of you are aware of Becks newest full length from 2005, Gurerro, and I really enjoyed that album a lot but I found that looking back on the year I liked this EP more then his full length release. Although it is not as varied in sound and is only four songs long I really love this EP. The whole 8-Bit remix thing going on on this whole release really worked well and once I heard the Original versions of these songs I was somewhat disappointed because I was so used to hearing these 4 songs and I had come to love to listed to them so much. And just look at that cover, how could you pass that up?
iTunes Link:




Artist: Ben Folds
Song: Late
Album: Songs for Silverman
Description:While I am not the very biggest of fans of Ben Folds music I do like some of his tracks and when they are good they are really good. I had heard this song as a bootleg from a live show after reading about it somewhere online a while back. The reason I have decided to feature this song is because of it's subject matter which is the late Elliott Smith. Elliott's music has held a place in my life that has not been able to be replaced by any other artists music and this song is a wonderful nod to his career as a songwriter.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Bonobo
Album: Live Sessions
Description: This is one of a few albums featured in this list that I have reviewed on this site and at the moment I have no way to link directly to that review but that will change in the coming weeks so sit tight for that ability. At any rate I would have to say that this is one of the single most played albums that I bought in 2005. It has a really amazing mood that never seems ill placed in any situation. The mood that is put forth with this music can be stretched to fit any moment in life, it holds a really nice somber feel for quieter moments but holds enough of an upbeat kick that lets you get your groove on at any given moment. (I can't believe I just said "get your groove on") Anyone and everyone could find something to like in this short but sweet release.
iTunes Link:


Artist: Des Ark
Album: Loose Lips Sink Ships
Description: These guys have been around for a good while now here in the local scene in NC and have finally recorded a proper album. This record brings this edgy two piece rock group to the comfort of your own home. I remember catching them live here and there at shows around this area and I was always impressed with their ability to draw the audience towards them making every show I've seen of theirs an amazing show. It's hard to find intimacy within music that gets so intense at times but they manage to pull this off both at their live shows and on this record. Wonderful song writing and inventive compositions can be found on this record so check out this amazing release!
iTunes Link:





Artist: Dixie Dirt
Album: Pieces of the World
Description: As far as my favorite albums or 2005 go I would have to place Pieces of the World up on the top of that list. As with a few other albums on this list I have reviewed this album on this site already and I suggest you check that out to get a few more details. This was one of my very favorite records to be released in 2005 hands down. There is something in these songs that moves me to listen to them over and over and I simply can not get enough. I was really disappointed to find an article online speaking of how they have since broken up as a band. Hopefully this will be a temporary break? At any rate I would highly suggest you check out this album as well as their first release. Simply wonderful music all around. this is not to be missed!
iTunes Link:





Artist: Electronic music Composer
Album: Abandon Music
Description: I love electronic music and I wish that I had more access to some of the more obscure acts putting out music today but It's hard to come by in this area so in the past years I have mostly been exposed to labels that are easier to find being the ones who are either available online, have decent distribution, or things I have picked up while traveling. I have come across all kinds of great new electronic music in the past year but a lot of it was not released in 2005 so it's not going to come up here on the list. So anyways, this year there was a few electronic music albums that stole a good but of my life as far as listening time goes and this is one of them. If you do a bit of digging you will find that this artist (Kenneth James Gibson) has released a huge amount of music under all sorts of various aliases each of which carry their own style. I cant think of to many musicians doing this as well as he is. This album is a wonderful venture into the more experimental side of IDM which will have you both nodding your heads as well as smiling at the tight control he has over his sound.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Gorillaz
Album: Demon Days
Description: This has got to be the most commercially successful album on this list and that should not deter you from giving it a listen. It's a great album all around and full of really great ideas. Apparently the group is really just two british guys, one of which is a former member of blur. This album reminds me of a good beck album in the way that it covers so much ground within the music. It has the low end head nodding aspects of hip hop, the get stuck in your head melodies of pop, and the edginess of indie rock. Easily one of my favorites this year.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Great Lake Swimmers
Album: Bodies and Minds
Description: I love a good relaxing album full of gentle acoustic ballads and this fits right in there with this years best. I'm not sure that "ballads" was the best word to use there, you know what I mean though, a guy sits down with his guitar sings gorgeous songs about life and the intricacies within it leaving you at peace while listening to it. I mentioned this record in the favorites section of the site and it is very much a favorite. Simply put its a beautiful piece of work which was recorded in a church that gave the album a really warm tone. Fans of this kind of music should not pass this one up.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Jamie Lidell
Album: Multiply
Description: For more on this brilliant album dig though the reviews from August and read about one f the years secret hits. This record is simply amazing and really gives Jamie a chance to get the attention he deserves. It's not quite soul music and its not quite dance music but it really tight and a lot of fun. Makes for a great party album, nothing but gold can be found in these songs so check it out!
iTunes Link:





Artist: Jose Gonzalez
Album: Veneer
Description: Man did this album come out of no where! I just happened upon it while browsing through iTunes one day and I am really happy to have picked up a copy of it. From what I understand this was released a few years back but just now got a proper release in the US and Im glad it did. I can only hope to hear more from this wonderful musician soon.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Kid 606
Album: Resilience
Description: This marked quite a milestone for electronic musician Kid 606 because nearly all of his albums prior to this were really quite elaborate dance/IDM albums and most were really edgy and full of loads of energy. There were moments of ambient poking through this fog of his reputation as a noisy producer with albums like the soccergirl ep and the two P.S...Love... ep's. With this album he took a step away from his traditional approach and released a brilliant album of slower and much more simplistic jams all of which have a nice warm analogue feel to them. My favorite track on here has to be the track Short Road Down which I featured here on the favorites page.
iTunes Link:





Artist: M. Ward
Album: Transistor Radio
Description: This was another surprise this year which I discovered through my local record shop. The record holds a diverse bit of what many would classify as americana but I would simply call indie rock. It holds a Lo-Fi warmness that makes for a good listen on a cold winter night. Tracks on the record range from calm acoustic songs to fun electric guitar rock songs. It was one of the most played albums this year on my record player because it always puts me in such a good mood whenever I hear it.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Magnolia Electric Company
Album: Trials and Errors
Description: This is now officially out of print but you can still buy it over on iTunes thankfully because this is one of my very favorite albums by musician Jason Molina which now as a new band and a somewhat more bluesy sound called Magnolia Electric Company. It is really similar to his past efforts but it really shows that he has a full band backing him now. I really love these recordings. There are a few songs that also appear on their new full length but I prefer these versions of the songs by far they just feel more honest. For fans of indie rock fused with a somewhat classic feel if that makes any sense.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Matt Sweeny and Bonnie Prince Billy
Album: Superwolf
Description: I really enjoy most of Will Oldom's (Bonnie Prince Billy) music and I prefer his more scaled back personal work. This album is a wonderful collaboration and for a while this past year was all I was listening to. The record has a raw feeling about it that I really like. Its gritty style and the almost odd song writing on this album really draw me in. It's not for everyone but I would at least give it a listen if you are looking for some great acoustic song writing with a really unique almost dirty touch. It feels like it came from somewhere out in the country or was at least inspired by it somewhat if that helps describe the sound a bit.


Artist: Quinoline Yellow
Album: Dol-Goy Assist
Description: I had been a big fan of this artists previous two eps on skam records and I was really excited to see that he was releasing a full length and it was worth the wait. This album has a really classic IDM feel and it brought my mind back to remembering why I got into the genera in the first place. Quinoline Yellow's music still feels like a cross between Autechre and Aphex Twin. I remember loving every song on his ep's and here on a full length album I can see that he was stretching it a bit with a couple of these songs but over all it's a fantastinc release that deserves much more attention than it got.
Buy it on Bleep


Artist: Sun Kil Moon
Album: Tiny Cities
Description: Sun Kil Moon's first record really really impressed me and I can not get over just how much I enjoyed it so I was overjoyed to hear that he was releasing a second album. I remember seeing him play live before this was released and all of the songs he played were so familiar for some reason. I did recognize that he had covered a couple of songs during the show but it wasn't until later that I realized just how many of them were covers. Turns out this whole album is a cover album and they are all covers of Modest Mouse songs! I love his versions of these songs because it gives a good bit of respect to the wonderful song writing of Modest Mouse. Check my full review for more on this great album.
iTunes Link:





Artist: Venetian Snares
Album: Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett
Description: And Last but not least, an electronic music epic by Venetian Snares. Inspired by Hungarian orchestral music and laced with classic Venetian breaks this album will not disappoint, it will leave you catching your breath. The whole album is nothing short of amazing if not simply because it's so nice to see him trying some new things with his music. Take classical music and combine it with breakcore and you have got this albums feel in your head. Having trouble imaging it? have a listen and see for youeself! You just cant beat track 3 with its amazing composition and use of Billie Holiday's singing. The song he had chosen that she sung is perfect for this song and his additions make it all the more dramatic and epic in scale. If you do some research on the song (Gloomy Sunday is the name of the Billie Holiday song I am referring to, which she did not write by the way.) you will find that she added a verse to the end to make it less depressing and that verse has been left out of what he used in this song. So at least pick up that song if nothing else. It is a lot different than the other songs on here but fits right on in. Sorry this is a scattered little review, it really is pretty hard to describe so just check it out for yourself and see what I mean.
iTunes Link:

Looks like nintendo finally has decided to give the DS a redesign! lighter and smaller. I still with the screens were closer together though. Maybe, just maybe, its time for me to pick one of these up when they come out later in the year.

Lets say you just got out of a busy day at work or your leaving a hectic party or show and your mind is fried and needs a break from the world. If you were me you would reach for the iPod (or whatever music player) and look for something to calm your nerves. Well this is that something that you need. Distance by Marconi Union is a wonderful EP that is full of ambient guitar goodness with this hint of a post-rock edge.

From start to finish you simply can not go wrong with this release, the opening track is a great example of this with its subtle use of guitar, synth, and swirling electronic sounds to put the mood on auto pilot for the next half an hour. As with a lot of my favorite music I just happened upon this one day and I am so very glad it did.

If you are ever in the need of something san-words but full of emotional landscapes of sound then look no further than this EP.

iTunes Link:

Back home from out west and getting back in the swing of things, im going to try and post a couple of desktops, a couple of new reviews and well see what else might show up here later on tonight. I have also been thinking of a redesign here for the site. I have been messing with a few ideas but I have not gotten it to the point where I am ready to make the switch just yet but soon I hope. At any rate, I'll see you tonight or tomorrow, see you then.

Just thought I would share some more photos from the trip, a video may follow.


ok everyone, what is the significance of this wall? there may be a prize if you know?


now this is a record shop! and full of nothing but independent music.... it was a bit overwhelming to say the least.


capitol records headquarters


odd people were dressed up as movie characters for some reason here on hollywood ave. notice the stars on the sidewalk.


more halloween costumes out in front of the chinese theatre place. crazy fans or employees? you decide.


and we made a stop by chinatown which was very cool.






dinner was at beef bowl, well veggie bowl for me. mmmmm

I will write some more as soon as i get settled back at home, i have a good bit of work ahead of me after this week which is exciting. ill tell more later. until then, have a good one.

This site that I came across recently has some really amazing illusions, toys, and articles. The site does not simply feature the same old illusions you may have seen in the past, it features some great videos that show off some very cool things from all around the world that just have to be seen to believe or understand. I can't recommend you check this out enough, it's just too cool!

Link

Well I spent the entire first day wandering around the show floor trying not to feel overwhelmed by it all but id just didnt seem to work out that way. It is simply amazing how many companies are represented here! I am thinking that tomorrow I will be having a bit more of a detailed look at a few things that I came across today. Today I got to check out the booths I wanted to visit the most and I hope to revisit some of them to get more time spent playing with the newest gear out there. Some early awards should be handed out would have to be the Harmon group for having the most smug little booth of the show, Roland had the most elaborate booth which seemed more like a small city, and well I think thats all for now. So many new toys but so little time. Lets take a peek into my day with a few photos shall we?


its funny, the more i travel looking to find interesting new places, the more i find that most of them are the same, only ever so slightly different.


transportation of the future! (or just a disneyland tram, believe what you want.)


the secret door that led to secret things that i cant tell you about because they made me sign a contract saying i wouldnt. (seriously though, i think they blackmailed me but im not sure.)


new roland portable recorder! the r-9. it seems a little too stripped down if you ask me what with its lack of any decent input options. when will someone get this right anyways? i hear marantz has a new one to that im looking to check out tomorrow. it was a pain getting by the hoard of sweetwater reps in their suits and snoody attitudes to see the thing.


check this out! a wood casing built for an imac at a guitar company showing off that they had custom options for their guitars.


ah blue mics are so odd yet i am so hooked on how cool they are. cant wit to get my hands on a snowball one of these days, they are pretty big! like the size of a softball!


and i couldnt get away without checking out the apple booth which was showing off logic and such and....


the new macbooks!! very nice.


if only i had the money for just one of these things all of my storage woes would be solved.


this is one of korgs newest offerings, seems like they are going after the m-audio trigger finger or the akai midi drum pad with this one, it seemed really nice and all but i still think that the trigger fingers pads are my favorite.


then there is this fun little synth that has some really wild industrial design. they had it set up with a kaos pad lying on a shelf that was beside the synth there.


more from the telex booth.


this place was chock full of rock stars!


the creepy creepy ceiling of the house of blues where i went for dinner and to be part of the exclusive telex after party thing.


complete with a few musicians.


including this all girl ac-dc band which just wasnt rocking hard enough in my opinion. 'A' for their effort though! they were working the audience like puppets.

Well kids its late and I need rest for day to so come back later to catch some more specifics on the show and things I come across. hopefully i will get a chance to play with more of the stuff around.

The wonderful illustrator David Lanham was kind enough to mail and point out something really interesting about one of my desktops.

"Just thought I'd let you know i found some weirdness in your 'windsheild' photo!  I've been using it for a while now and I just happend to have some windows positioned correctly and all of the sudden I was like "holy crap!  There's a skull!".  So yea, in your photo some burnt crispies are making a pretty accurate skull shape (nose hole and all), kind of cool, yet kind of freaky  O_O" - David Lanham



Thanks for pointing that out David! I'm not sure how I missed that one! You can find this desktop in my Classics section within the desktops area.

ah the wonders of traveling on a plane. I'm sandwiched between two people, one of which is creepy, large fellow that is really cramping me but he seems just as akward as I do and I'm sure he likes this about as much as I do. and im wondering if maybe he is reading this, doesnt seem to be. The guys in fromt of me seem like they are trying to pretend that they are in first class seating with their attitude toward the world, they cant seem to get settled at all and I think this guy is trying to push his seat all the way back up into my lap. Im sure he would if he could. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I could have much less in the way of movement unless I was wrapped up in a straight jacket. I think my legs just might fall off when I finally get to use them again.

But what can you do right? Not to much longer on the flight I don't think and I don't mean to complain really, I generally love traveling on planes. Airports are always fun to wander around in and unlike most people I enjoy a nice bit of time during a transfer to another flight. I started to whittle away a bit more on the top music of "05 but I ended up feeling like just writing a bit of commentary on my trip. I just finished watching a few episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on the ol' video iPod and decided that I would save the battery for music and podcasts the rest of the flight.

There's something to talk about, Ghost in the Shell. Has anyone here ever seen this series? I absolutely loved the two movies and slowly became hooked on the TV series. I am generally really picky when it comes to any anime but for whatever reason the movies and show really conected with my mind for some reason. Maybe it's the philosopher hidden away in me that enjoys that side of the stories. (Val, if your reading this then remind me to tell you about it sometime.) I would highly recommend this to any fan of si-fi, action, or just plain good writing. Check out the movies first though because from what I have found not everyone likes the shows nearly as much as I do. I love how they have tied J.D Salanger's stories, mainly the Catcher in the Rye, into the story line.

Which brings me to another topic, my favorite books! I would still have to list The Catcher in the Rye as my old favorite but there are so many other wonderful novels out there! I guess it would be hard to pick any sort of favorite. I would reccomend anyone interested in philosophy at all to check out a book called The Solitare Mystery, I forget the authors name but its an amazing read full of thought for food or food for thought. Anyone care to mention their favorite books here? Maybe ill talk about other books sometime later on but for now it looks like my battery is running down low and I don't feel like digging out the spare. Hope I didn't bore you all to much here with this entry. I suppose by the time it's posted I will be on land.

And as I mentioned, I will be reporting nightly on anything interesting I find out at NAMM so come back soon. Till then...

Well im off again, this time im heading to the wonderful world of NAMM out in California. For those of you who dont know, NAMM is a huge trade show featuring anything and everything you could ever see that has anything to do with the music industry. Guitars, concert PA's, software, recording gadgets, and plenty more. There are hundreds of vendors and thousands of people from what I hear so it should be fun. I will be reporting here about interesting things I might come across each night so stay tuned! (and maybe on that 7 hour plane ride later today I will get a chance to finnish some more of the top music of last year!?

link

my brother mailed me a bit of good news for the day, the onion has a podcast! check it out!

The title tells all.

Well after many many months I have a new song for everyone if they care to hear it. Say hello to the newest Garageband masterpiece called 'cheddar.' For those of you not in the know, these songs are just songs that I have out together in apples Garageband software using the built in loops.

cheddar

So as some of you may know there was a new version of apples iLife software suite released about a week ago and I have since had the chance to get my hands on a copy of both iLife and the new iWork software. The software packages are broken down like so; iLife includes updates for iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Garageband, and the newest member of the family, iWeb. iWork includes Pages, and Keynote.



Of all of this new software the upgrades that I was looking forward to the most were iPhoto and Garageband. iPhoto is a wonderful app and I have used it for quite some time now to upload and organize photos from my camera and keep track of all of the photos I take. On average I will end up loading a good 3000 photos or so every couple of months and the program handles this very well and makes it easy to make quick edits via a nice full screen editing mode as well as order calendars, greeting cards, books, and prints of photos. There is also a slick new feature that allows me to make a quick 'photocast' using any album in my library. This is in essence an rss feed that can be viewed using a rss reader or another copy of iPhoto.



Garageband also has a whole slew of new features and Id have to say that it is very very cool. It is simply the best program out there for making a quick, easy, great sounding podcast and one the newest features within the app is a podcast studio of a sort so now you can either work the program like before and use it for simple multitrack recordings or use the great new podcasting features that let you make an enhanced podcast so so easily. There is a track for photos now and a place you can title sections of the podcast and add links to the file as well! Very nice. There is also a way you can import movies you are making in iMovie to make a soundtrack for the movie using a video track within the program. This has got to be the first consumer level app that I have seen that will let you sync music and sound effects so well and easily into your home movies!

I have to admit that iMovie does not get as much love from me as iPhoto and Garageband but it is a wonderful piece of software as well! Maybe once i get a chance to look into the newest in that app I will write a bit about my impressions here. I did see some amazing new motion graphics that you can add video into that are included within the program. Its amazing what they have done with that software. No other Consumer level video editing app can come close to working as elegantly as iMovie. iDVD is the same way and although I do enjoy using this to make dvd slideshows I have now yet used it and so I cant really say to much about it at this point.



So onto the new kid on the block, iWeb. I have only spent a small amount of time with this app so I dont have to much to say on its behalf. First off this app is best suited to be used with a .mac account. You do have the ability to export pages you make with this program and upload them to a server of your choice but the program is designed to be as tightly integrated with .mac as all of the others are. First off I would like to comment on the user interface which I see as needing a good bit of improvement in the future. Although it is really straightforward, I would like to have seen a more refined interface to work with. That is probably my only complaint other than not having the ability to have one click publishing to a server of your choice. Other than these things the program is really impressive. It handles laying out a web page as if you were laying out a brochure with a layout program like Pages. You can layer images over one another and rotate them, you can even add a nice little reflection to images and place text anywhere on the page. Its really pretty remarkable how they allow you to do all of this and export it to look exactly the way you want it onto the web. I am looking to possibly moving my podcast over to my .mac space and using iWeb to handle it because it makes it so easy to do so. It works along with Garageband so you can export your podcast directly from Garageband to iWeb and sets up a new entry ready to go. One other addition i would like to see here is the ability to save a template that you etit for use on multiple pages on your site. It seems as though this would be an easy addition to the app.

I think I have gone on long enough for now. I wanted to talk a bit about iWork a bit but I need to get going with my day so I am going to leave it at that for now. There is a whole lot more to the apps that I talked about here and if you are curious to know more I suggest you check out apples website for a better overview. Man, I love being a mac guy.

link

New desktops are up and a little storyish kind of a thing over on the desktops page. Also I have been working on the top music of 2005 list but its a good 20 albums strong so its taking a while to get it all written out. It's going to be good though so sit tight.

-john

Well I recently came across a new game that I have had my eye on for quite some time now and thanks to my shiny and tiny new PS2 I can now play this piece of gaming heaven. Those of you who might have been following along here on this weblog, I'm a sucker for video games that are fun and different than your average game. I like games that bring something new to the table and Taiko Drum Master does just that.

I know that this game has been available for quite some time now so it may be old news for many of you but I am just now getting my chance to play around with it so it's new to me and so I thought I would share my thoughts. The game is seemingly really simple at first glance. You might wonder how challenging hitting a drum to a song could really be and how could this possibly be worth my time. I guess you could compare this game to karaoke only rather than reading words to the song and singing along you are watching a flow of circles move towards a point at which you must hit the drum either on the main drum head or on the side of the drum. I'm not sure if I could express just how fun this game is in words and as far as a challenge is concerned, there are various difficulties to choose from and believe you me, they get really hard!

I rank this game right up there with my recent favorite games and would recommend anyone check this out if they have the opportunity to do so. I did some searching and unless you find the game for a good used price there is no good way to get a second Taiko controller for the game. There is one 3rd party manufacturer that has their own drum controller designed for the game at a pretty reasonable price and you can find that here if you are interested.

I am a huge TMBG fan and have been so for a long long long time. The first album that I ever bought (and i dont mean just TMBG albums, I mean my first cd ever) was the album Flood and since then I've never gone back. They have released an amazing out of material over the years and I have yet to hear an album of theirs that was not amazing through and through. I thought that it would be good for me to take a moment to feature one of their older albums here. I have chosen the album that seemed in my mind to be a big crossing point for them. Before this album they had been known as a band with two members, John Linnell and John Flansburg, but with this album you notice a huge change in pace. There was now a full band backing the two John's. When I first heard the music on this record I heard it at a live show. The first of many times I have seen them live through the years, and I loved it. Looking back now I can see that they were obviously simply maturing as a band. Years later after watching their documentary called Gigantic I found that there was a huge amount of unrest with in the fans of TMBG because they were breaking away from their roots because they now had a backing band. In my mind John Henry is one of their best albums and probably my personal favorite. I see this as one of the best written albums by the band. They have always had this amazing ability to write these goofy little pop songs that hold this secret meaning buried beneath them. Often if you pay enough attention to some of their songs you will find an entirely different way to look at their music. I would suggest anyone who loves well written indie pop music pick up this classic as soon as possible.

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