Ramblings

Haven’t updated in a while as I was without internet for some time. As if anyone actually reads this but me.
New musical things for me:
New Elliott Smith song found at sweetaddy.com message boards. Sadly, the boards will be gone come October. I am hoping someone uploads a ton of unreleased stuff before the boards shut done. Someone already uploaded his entire unreleased collection all in one download.
Looking forward to the Jealous Sound/Sunny Day Real Estate show at First Ave this month. This will probably be the highlight show of the year for me. Both bands mean so much to me and will always remind me of early college. Back when life was so simple. Back when I could blow money on CDs. Music sure has changed since then.
Now both bands are both at it again. Jealous Sound is making new music and I am SDRE do the same.
Such a trip—One former Foo Figher and one current Foo Fighter back together. One who is also working with The Jealous Sound on their forthcoming album. All of it is a dream come true to me. I wonder what the Foo Fighter’s status is that Grohl is now doing the crooked vultures side project. Honestly, I could be happy with less Foo Fighter and more side project.
I love how the Jealous Sound has always been such a mystery. They go away for some time, release an EP out of nowhere, and post a message on myspace. Post another one about the tour, and keep us wating for the next message. In this internet era, you think you can keep up with a band on a weekly basis. I guess the Jealous Sound doesn’t have that much of a public demand for news updates as say how much Pitchfork writes about Radiohead farting on a snare drum.
Speaking of mysterious bands, I am still waiting for The Etiquette to release their new album online. I don’t understand what is taking them so long.
On my way to Chicago tomorrow! Love this time of year!

The Etiquette

One of my favorite bands from my hometown, Milwaukee. I can't express how much I love this band. I saw them by accident at Summerfest while waiting by the stage that the Anniversary and The Promise Ring would later play at. Saw them about 3 times in the early 2000's and listened to their EPs constantly.
Happened to catch them again around 2006 at Summerfest as they played the same day as Kings of Leon.
I would check their website and myspace frequently in the mid 2000's as I thought a full length would have been out. They kept delaying it and I was starting to give up my hope for new material. Just now they are making noise again as they just released their new album titled ...Eons. I believe they were originally going to call it Highly Unstable. I find ...Eons to be a better title, and I believe it is a continuation of the title of their EP, Ages...
So together it would be Ages...Eons.
I now live in Minneapolis and would have loved to have gone to their cd release show in Milwaukee. The band said their album will available on itunes. Hopefully soon...They also mentioned interest in playing Minneapolis!
I highly reccomend picking of their EP and I am positive that I will love the full length.
I found a very interesting article online about the band during the early 2000's. I had no idea they almost signed with a record label and could have been big during the "Garage Rock" scene, ie. The Strokes, The Hives, White Stripes.

My Michael Jackson tribute

I'm sure everyone is getting sick of hearing about Michael by now. Before it gets too old, here are some of my thoughts...
Now that Michael has passed, I'm sure everyone is trying to get a buck out of it. From T-Shirts to a new DVD. I wonder if he was recording up to this point. Doubtful, but there must be some new material in the vault. I don't think he will be putting out material like Tupac.
How about a duet, Nat King Cole or Elvis style? Janet Jackson could put out a duet with Michael. Oh wait...already did that. Well, they could do Scream 2...oh wait, that was a movie. OK, he should get Janet and the Jackson 5 and a bunch of celebrities to do a song. Oh wait, he already did that.
Speaking of movies, anyone remember when Michael and E.T. did a duet? You have to see it to believe it! It's actually a decent song until E.T. fowls it up. It's actually pretty funny. This links shows scenes from Michael's 3D movie Captain EO that they used to show at Epcot Center.
Anyone seen Steve Martin's impersonation of Michael? Pretty funny
Another fond Michael memory was his Sega game Moonwalker. That was classic!

I hear that they are going to put out a dvd of his rehearsals of the tour he was about to do. Should be interesting.
No matter what anyone says about Michael, this is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Jealous Sound TO TOUR WITH SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE!!!!!

The Sunny Day Real Estate tour was the best news, musically, that I heard all year...until now.
The Jealous Sound posted this on their myspace page:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Kanye West is practicing next door. Ok, even though that is true, i am writing to tell you that Nate Mendel and Asher Simon are writing and recording our new record with us. Blair and I couldn't be happier. Nate is possibly one of the greatest bass players i have ever heard live or recorded and Asher is absolutely destroying and bringing something very new and special to the band. We have been hearing all sorts of crazy rumors about who is and isn't playing with us as well as some other insane rumors about us going on tour with this band from Seattle called Sunny Day Real Estate. Wait, that one is also true.... I should cut this short, Kanye is going OFF next door and we have been playing this new song over and over trying to get it just right... I think we are super close. This would bring our current song count up to about 5 fully finished and another 5 or 6 only wearing their skeletons. Everything is in it's place friends so, again, thanks for being here and being a part of our lives. It is an amazing feeling indeed. I am assuming we will see you in a couple months, no? Love, Pedro TheJealousSound

Sunny Day Real Estate!!!

Sunny Day Real Estate have announced a reunion!! With all original members! Very excited for this as Diary was the soundtrack of my early college years.
The band will be re-releasing Diary and LP2 with some extras in September.

First Ave date: September 23rd. My guess is that it will sell out in seconds.

Pete Yorn

Pete Yorn tickets for the Fine Line on sale today! 2 dates: August 12 and 13. Get em while you can! Saved me a bunch of Ticketmaster fees and got them at the Fine Line!

Video game stores...

I created a blog to write about music. Today, I would like to rant about used video game stores. Money is tight, but I want to get Pete Yorn tickets. What did I decide to do? Sell some old video games that I don't play anymore. I will never in my life walk into a Game Stop again, and besides, I was trying to sell SNES games.
Let's first go back a few years, and let me explain my hatred towards Gamestop. When I was in a kid in the early 90's there was a store called Funcoland. It was the first used video game store of my knowlege. From what I remember, the store was great! It had tons of stations to try out any video game that you wanted. I remember the new games being over priced, but the used games seemed to be fair. I was into Sega Genesis at the time.
I got into N64 and PS2 later on, but I always had a love for the old NES which I never owned. When I was in high school/early college, I bought an old NES for about 20 bucks or so. This was around the late 90's/early 00's when Funcoland seemed to be phasing out the NES. They were selling systems and games, but they weren't too interested in buying unless you had some rare game like Zelda with the gold cartridge. They were selling games for dirt cheap and I had a blast playing NES with my friends. The employees at Funcoland weren't as nice as they were when I was 11 and they would give me wierd looks when I would come up to the counter with a stack of NES games.
Then one day Funcoland turned into Gamestop...
I still went into the store, but my interest gradually turned into hatred.

Scenerio 1.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
This game was huge! I decided to get the game the day it came out. All stores were sold out...except for Gamestop...only if you bought the players guide with it. That would cost you another 20 bucks. They told me I should have reserved a copy at there store.

Scenerio 2.
The PS2 was still a hot item, but I was losing interest in videogames. I decided to sell it while I could still make a buck off of it. I took great care of my PS2 and games. Never had a problem with it...until I brought it into Gamestop. For some mysterious reason, when they tested it there, the screen was distorted. I was shocked! He told me he would give me 20 bucks to take it off my hands. I left and sold it at Pawn America for a decent price. They didn't even check to see if it worked.

Scenerio 3.
The wii was still hard to get after the 2nd Christmas season that it was out. My sister-in-law wanted one for her son. My wife called Gamestop and they told here there was a good chance there would be a wii shipment at 12:00. I went there and the guy treated me as if I should have known there would be no chance for a wii. I explained that my wife called and he acted like I was a complete idiot.

Now I came to accept that there will always be video game snobs. There are record store snobs, video rental snobs, and so on. But these are usually at independantly owned stores. I don't see too many snobs at the check out at Best Buy or Sam Goody (When there was one).

Flash forward to 3 years ago. Gamestop wasn't selling used NES games anymore. This brought in a new market. I first saw an old school video game store at the Edina Mall. I was in heaven. The clerk seemed cool and there were tons of great games for NES, SNES, etc. Last year, I saw tons of small island stores in malls that sold used old school games.
I decided to go to the Mall of America and sell my copy of Chrono Trigger at this place called Hi-Score. I know it's a great game, but I don't have the time to play it, and I figured I could get at least 20 for it. Ebay was too much of a hassle, so I went to Hi-Score.
He put the game in this machine that played NES and SNES games, but it wasn't a real SNES. I have seen these emulators for sale before. He put the game in and...all of the data was erased!!!! I had 3 saved games on it, and when he put it in his little machine, they were all wiped out. He asked me if I could save a game so that he could tell that the saved battery feature still worked. It would have taken me 30 minutes to find a saved point and I had my daughter with me. There was no way I had the time. Plus, his machine could have ruined my save feature if I tried to sell it elsewhere. He offerd me 20 bucks, but would have given me 35 if I could have saved it. I took the money. He had another copy of Chrono Trigger at his store for 99 dollars!! I could find it on ebay for 25-30.

Now this is the second time I went to a used video game store where a game of mine hasn't worked. Does anyone know if they have something that makes games appear defective? Please let me know! My guess is that most of the games people bring in are stolen and don't care what money they get for them.
I found some videos of an ex-Game Stop employee that tells about how crappy it is to work there and how they treat their customers, but there has to be someone that knows if they mess with your games. See his videos here. They are quite amusing.

Anyways, that's my rant. I should have gone to Discland, but I figured this Hi-Score place would give me more since they sell it for more. Discland in Bloomington has always been good to me and their clerks are cool.