Tool, Really? - My Review of Last Sunday’s Show

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Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 @ 4:10PM

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From this:

to this:

So I was pretty excited to see Tool last Sunday with some great friends I haven’t had a chance to see in a while.  They were excited too as we headed down 200 South to Energy Solutions Arena talking about times we had seen the band.  This tour is a bit odd considering Tool doesn’t currently have a new album out but whatever.  They had already taken the stage by the time we go there so we hurried in and found our seats then a couple friends went to get us some beers.  A few minutes later they returned empty-handed saying once the band went on they stopped selling.  This made no sense to me seeing that the venue would be forfeiting thousands of dollars of beer revenue.  We speculated that it was probably the band’s request for beer sales to stop, which was sad because it was have made the show much less boring that it was. 

I think Tool is a great band: talented musicians and Maynard’s voice of course.  I am sorry but playing over your own music videos is boring.  I have access to You Tube.  Many of the graphics behind and around the band I have seen more than once on different tours from Tool.  In comparison I have never seen NIN do the same show on different tours.  The “Lights Across America Tour” was about the most amazing concert I have seen and the E-Center was only half full. Oh well - your loss if you didn’t go.  Anyway, okay, fine, you have the same video playing.  Whatever.  Throw in some lasers.  Cool.  But when people pay $60 to see you perform you should perform.  You are a rock band.  Your fans came to see you.  I don’t know if it is an image thing but having the lead vocalist, nay, the star of the show hide in darkness next to the drummer was boring and insulting to me as a fan.  I don’t care how you contort yourself to look like a character off a Magic The Gathering Card or frequently leave the stage all together.  Why, Maynard when you used to wow us with your presence on stage would you take yourself out of the spot light?  They weren’t just antics but it seems the things I have seen you do on stage challenge conventional symbolism and signifyers.  The one interaction I did here was, “You are here and this is today.”  Well something along those lines.  I was falling asleep at that point.  But really?  How about, “Water is wet.” Or, “Lewis Black is really white.”  Maynard, do you hate your fans or just self-conscious of performing these days?  It is just an artist thing?

I know there are those who will defend Maynard’s performance or lack there of like morons defend Glen Beck and Rush - out of pride and perhaps ignorance.  So…while the music was good (as good as can be at ESA), watching prog-rockers stand still and pretend the movie screens, lasers and smoke will get you out of entertaining a crowd just isn’t enough.  I have your albums, laser pen and a friend that smokes a pack a minute.  What people don’t need is to blow $60 for a sub-par concert from quality artists.

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Beastie Adam Yauch aka MCA Has Cancer! :(

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Monday, July 20th, 2009 @ 2:46PM

Beasties will postpone album and tour so MCA can get cancer treatment.

I will save my rant about the Tool for tomorrow. 

From Stereogum.com

Well this is pretty sad. And it also sort of explains a lot. Despite generally looking spry and flowing admirably for their years, recent Beastie Boys performances live and on television have revealed MCA to be a little more sluggish than the rest. Today comes some bad news that may help explain that: Adam Yauch has been diagnosed with “a cancerous tumor in his left parotid (salivary) gland.” The good news: it’s localized, totally treatable, and won’t affect his vocal chords. The bad news: it’s a **censored** cancerous tumor and that just sucks. Our thoughts to you, MCA. But also, it’ll require surgery that’ll put the band out of commission for awhile, forcing them to cancel all upcoming tour dates and push back the release of their forthcoming Hot Sauce Committee Part 1.

Here is hoping for a fast & speedy recovery for Adam.  Beasties 5 O’Clock X-Set today.

-COB

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What Does This Make You Think?

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Monday, July 13th, 2009 @ 2:53PM

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Part 1:

Part 2:

Comment please.

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Let’s talk about Food$

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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 @ 2:49PM

This is from the Atlantic's website - original and comment board found here.

Tell Americans What They’re Really Paying for Their Food

by James Gibney

Picture referenced from the site above as well.

“Before you start spooning up your next bowl of Frosted Flakes, ponder this: driven partly by the demand for ethanol, the price of the corn in your flakes is about 40 percent higher than it was a few years ago; the sugar easily cost you more than double the world price; and your milk is at least 15 percent more expensive than it would be in many other countries.

Americans pay much more than they should for their food. Thanks to a thicket of subsidies and tariffs that support American farmers and tilt the growing field against cheaper foreign producers, we get ripped off twice: first as taxpayers who ante up for roughly $25 billion in agricultural subsidies each year ($4 billion for milk alone in 2006); then as consumers who pay higher prices at the checkout counter because we can’t take advantage of low-price imports.

Subsidies and tariffs were originally intended to help protect small farmers—a purpose they’ve largely outlived. They keep rolling on, though, because the only people who focus on them tend to be their direct beneficiaries. Spread over tens of millions of consumers, the costs seem small: the average American taxpayer, for example, pays only $322 each year to fund subsidies. But for some of the thousands of farmers who get such payments, the benefits are huge: from 1995 to 2005, roughly 75 percent of subsidy payments went to just 10 percent of the subsidy recipients, who took in an average of $91,000 a year; and 55 farmers received more than $1 million each. Talk about a green thumb.

Given the megadeficit now darkening our fruited plain, $25 billion each year is real money; so is the roughly $2 billion in economic benefits that the U.S. International Trade Commission estimates we would get each year if we lifted all tariffs on food and agriculture items. We’d bring in more than $800 million by lifting tariffs on sugar alone. What’s more, by ending this kind of subsidy profiteering and opening our markets, we would not only save money but enable some of the world’s poorest agricultural producers to make a buck in the bargain.

So, how can we get more Americans to look up from their feedbags and demand that Congress restore some sense to the marketplace? I recommend a little truth-in-packaging. Just as food manufacturers now list their products’ ingredients and nutritional value, they should also disclose their “free-market” value.

To wit, every product whose ingredients benefit from a subsidy should include the following language on the label:

  “This product has been subsidized by the U.S. government at taxpayer expense. For more information, please visit usda.gov.”

And every product that benefits from tariff protection should have the following language on the label:

  “This product is protected from foreign competition by U.S. import tariffs. Its price is higher as a result. For more information, please visit usitc.gov.”

Ideally, the Web sites of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and International Trade Commission would provide not just specific information on subsidies and tariffs, but contact information for the relevant congressional committees that oversee them—hmmmm, perhaps even their chairs’ home phone numbers.

Let the angry 2 a.m. phone calls begin!”

Here are some books to read if you are more interested about the food industry that I’ve read recently:

Great books.  I learned a lot from them.

Thanks,

COB

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How I Ugoogolize…

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Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 @ 2:42PM

I bet you didn't know I knew what a ugoogloizer was...

Usher sucks and all the other boring crooning cronies like him. That isn’t a legacy. It is boring. I haven’t heard anyone talk about MJ making new music or anything for a long long time. You heard his name when it was the punchline of a joke. You know why that is? He was a joke. No matter how much good he did alive he was a punchline.  That is the real tragedy.  He could have cured AIDS and Cancer with music and monkeys.  You would have never heard about it because of all the stupid things he did, things are on par with stupid things we all sometimes do while not thinking, which the media explodes to epic and annoying proportions.  Yeah, sure, the music was good sometimes.  When the occasional song pops up on iTunes I usually let it play through.  The reason everyone is sad is because he died. That’s is something we can all relate to: death.  Dead is sad no matter who it is.

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