Phases and Stages

It's amazing what doing your research can do. I was all prepared to kind of write this album off. Twangy country that I can at least tolerate. Not quite as good as Johnny Cash or any of the old classics, but not as annoying and conservative as the new country. But then I decided to see what information I could find about this album. It really changed my perspective.

For those who don't know, Phases and Stages is about a marriage falling apart from both sides of the relationship. Side one is told from the woman's side (Washin' the Dishes, Pretend I Never Happened, the really powerful [How Will I Know] I'm Falling in Love Again, etc.). Side two is performed from the man's side (I Still Can't Believe You're Gone [which is equally powerful] , etc.)

It's a really interesting concept album and that's something you never expect out of a country musician, no matter how much he or she loves pot. All that said, it's still sounds like traditional country that my grandma listens to. I'm not sure if I should deduct points for that or not.

Rating:6/10

Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious

Took the girl to see Mary Poppins on opening night for our anniversary. For the most part, the show was fluff, but really well performed fluff. It was exciting to see all the little special effects and the big ones as well. The dude playing Bert actually tap dances on the ceiling at one point. That was impressive.

We realized sitting in the back three rows of these big shows is still enjoyable and for only 20-25 bucks, we can go to more of the big shows that we sometimes want to see. Which means that I get to go see RENT with Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. That's going to be great!

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Esquire sent me an e-mail yesterday with 75 albums they say every man should own. I decided to procure the ones I didn't own. Now I've decided to make it a feature on my blog. Everyday I'm going to listen to one and record my thoughts. Today we start with...



Upon looking over the titles of these songs, there's three types of Springsteen song titles. Biblical, Industrial, and Darkness. Of course I know this isn't true, but focusing on this album, it is.

I'm two songs into this album. I certainly love it. It sounds exactly a Bruce Springsteen album should. What is that you say? It sounds like a lot of auto mechanics get together at the garage after work and they just jam out. I really get this great image of these guys sitting on the hoods of cars playing when I listen to Abel Raised a Cain, especially in the backing vocals.

All of the songs are really solid. They are really ordered well too. I've always been curious about the process that an artist goes into with the track listing of an album. All of the recordings I've done have essentially functioned as demos, so we never really put much thought into it. But this album seems to have a really great up and down progression. Hard and dirty, slow and heartfelt, hard and heartfelt, and slow and dirty, in that order for the most part.

Final summation:8/10 It's definitely a guy album though. Something I picture my dad listening to while he's doing housework on Saturdays.

I think this blog needs something more.

Every post goes just like this.

Last night I went to the Playground to see Kristen's group play with Williams and Martinez. Crowd wasn't the most high energy, but it was still a fun show.