dear herr's
i have lived in the city of philadelphia for about two years now. i moved from michigan and a lot of things were different, including the potato chips. herr's has been one of the most pleasant subtle surprises coming to this part of the country. i am particularly a fan of the kettle cooked line, especially jalapeno and salt and vinegar.
as far as the regular chips are concerned, i prefer the old bay and red hot varieties, and this brings me to my suggestion. lately, i have purchased these flavors in both one ounce size and also the package that sells for 99 cents. i was surprised to discover that the chips were wavy style; i expected standard thin cut potatoes. while this is still an indisputably quality product, i would appreciate knowing precisely what i am purchasing. i realize that changing the labeling is a hassle in some respects, and perhaps even impractical in current conditions. however, the situation also heightens consumers' desire to know precisely what they are purchasing. please consider distinguishing different styles of chips on all packaging.
on another note, i am curious about whether the cheese steak flavor kettle chips have been discontinued. i would also like to note that i have recently been enjoying herr's hot fries, however, the supply seems to have run its course. please continue promoting this product at its present excellent value and overall quality.
thank you, sincerely
ben franklin
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
and i ate some good stuff
obviously, things wrapped up and we made it back to america without significant incident. i didn't get a chance to detail some aspects of the trip, mostly because a lot of those aspects aren't that interesting for other people. food, however, is a pretty universal topic, and there were some notable things to eat along the way.
the first stop was in the carousel capital of the world, home of the square deal, the one and only parlour city, binghampton new york. we weren't there all that long, but i saw a few things. i liked the feel of the place a lot; it reminded me of some places i have been back in the midwest, trying hard to find its place and assert its primacy in its niches. it is just over the northern border of pennsylvania, pretty much due north from philly. there is a SUNY location there and the broome county arena, host to a couple notable phish shows once upon a time. but our purpose was not carousels, colleges, up and coming jam bands, or even parlours. no, we sought a square deal in the form of the city's famed sandwich, the spiedie. basically, it is some tasty marinated pork (or some other meat) on italian bread. i was trying to keep things cheap on the trip, so i just picked up a basic six inch. to my surprise, the sandwich was straight up meat and bread. nothing else. fortunately, this turned out to be because nothing else was required. that was some damn tasty meat, and just the right amount of juices transferred to the bread to soften it up without approaching sogginess. totally delicious, would eat again, a++. perhaps i will even return for one of the multiple festivals dedicated to this unique and proud sandwich. the big one also includes a balloon rally. i'm sold.
the next stop was rochester. i felt quite at home there; it is totally the gun rue of new york. comparable size, climate, and cityscape. that feeling that there was something going on, but one had to know how to find it and help to make it happen. our stop was once again wholly food motivated, only this time we were in search of a unique combination of flavor and experience, as opposed to the more pure culinary delight that was the spiedie. our quest took us to the wizened establishment of nick tahou hots, an institution for nearly a century in a building that had to be a couple decades older. this restaurant is famed for and the holder of the unlikely trademark "garbage plates". while the name is certainly not particularly appetizing and a description of the dish might not tickle your fancy, we concluded this was an experience we could not pass up. the concept is fairly simple: there is a base of some combination of french or home fries, macaroni salad, and/or baked beans. on top of this base there will be a typical american meat item, i.e. hot dogs or hamburger patties or a fish fillet. on top of this there must be something akin to a medium-bodied bean-less chili called hots sauce (not to be confused with hot sauce), which is in turn topped with onions. spicy brown mustard, cheese, or other enhancements may also be implicated. i tried to find a better picture than the one used in the wikipedia article i linked above, but let's face it, food photography is never easy, and making something like this look good is pretty much not going to happen. but the concept is pretty easy. i must say, it was an overall satisfying experience. i got plenty of solid food in me and a novelty experience at a reasonable price, and this ninety year old hot dog shop gets by on its gimmick. kind of cool if you ask me. we were kind of nervous about ordering because of the old-school feel of the place and the grizzled employees. this is because we have all been living in philly and such a setting there means you had better know what you want and how to ask for it if you want a modicum of pleasant service. turned out everything was fine of course, and there was nothing to worry about, but it was definitely a not in kansas anymore moment. big ups to rochester.
we crossed at buffalo, but since we had just finished the plates all of like an hour ago there was no desire on anyone's part to look into the possible advantages of the original authentic wings bearing the city's name. maybe some other time. beyond buffalo, the border, and then to toronto. while there are certainly plenty of definitively canadian food items (i love this list) and many normal foods available "quebec style", we did not get to a whole lot of those due to budget, region, and the fact that toronto is a global city in canada more than a canadian city. there were endless food options in toronto, but i mostly ate peanut butter sandwiches this time around as restaurants weren't all that cheap and are loaded with some pretty striking and unexpected taxes. sometimes that is the way it goes. however, there was one canadian food item we had all been set on from the get-go and would not be denied: poutine. french fries. cheese curds. brown gravy. what's not to like? this is one of the best possible combinations of food ever. so savory. so delicious. so filling. my friend summed up the experience pretty well: tastes great, but as soon as you're finished you feel like you just swallowed a pound of quick-set concrete. but damn was that stuff unbeleivable. my mouth is totally watering now as i meditate on the street culinary genius that is this dish. just think about how good this would be right now.
in other canadian junk food news, i checked out a couple chip flavors unavailable to me normally. the definitive canadian potato chip flavor is ketchup, but i didn't bother with these as i had looked into them before back in michigan. if you're curious, they are a lot like barbeque, but without the sweetness. pretty good. the flavors i tried were both from a company called old dutch, which of course amused me. i do not really associate the dutch with potato chips, but maybe i should. the first kind was creamy dill. the name was not misleading. imagine a sour cream and onion chip but with dill instead of onions. that was about it. the dill doesn't cut through the cream as well, but instead leaves room for some sour taste, which might have been the first time i associated sour cream with anything bearing the attribute of sour. they were pretty strong and a little cloying, as was the other variety i tried. i checked out the "ranch" because i am always curious about what qualifies for that title and the french translation on the bag bore no resemblence at all to the english, instead proclaiming the flavor to be something about three peppers. these were some damn flavorful chips. pretty tasty, but i think my breath would have felled a horse at twenty paces. they were actually so strong that i didn't finish the single serving bag all at once. overall, solid stuff, a change of pace, but nothing so exotic as what i hear tell of and had an opportunity to sample slightly from the other side of the atlantic.
that is about it for the good food news. like i said, it was a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for me. i did have an epic enormous hot dog from a cart. that was delicious. we also scored two for five falafel, which was a great deal. but yeah, that was about it. and since there is no more food that must be discussed, i would like to say a word about the beverages. by beverages, i pretty much mean beer. i am not sure if i mentioned this in passing in a previous post, but damn did it leave something to be desired. first of all, ontario has some pain in the ass booze laws which are not entirely dissimilar from pennsylvania, although less restrictive in some ways and moreso in others. mostly it was a real pain in the ass to get takeout beer, which is near-impossible to acquire outside of the state run booze stores that have liquor wine and beer or the beer store (that is its actual name). after some difficulty locating a beer store, we broke down and went to a state store, and happened to wind up at the largest one. the good news was they had an impressive selection compared to the other one we had looked at, the bad news was that prices are not only fixed, but are fixed by the container, meaning no breaks on quantity. understanding that the situation was not going to change, we hoped to make the best of it and take advantage of the wide singles selection. most of what i got i believe was imported into canada, but much of it i had not seen in the states before. a lot more packaging in large cans. i picked out a couple familiar things, lowenbrau and a warsteiner dunkel, a couple of varietal bocks from the same brewer, a canadian ipa, some ten percenter man can needed for bang for buck, and another thing or two. my god, was that stuff bland. for all their restrictive ad laws (borne out through not-so-subtle changes to american ads on canadian networks), i can't believe they let this company call that beer an ipa. i think the brewery is owned by labatt or something? in any case, this was just ridiculous. it looked like fucking budweiser, and was about as hoppy as pbr. it wasn't a crappy beer, but there was just nothing about it that said ipa. it was kind of like yuengling's lord chesterfield. those bocks? apparently from the same school of bock as texas' own shiner. huber bock has at least quadruple the flavor, and that ain't sayin much. i mean they weren't offensive, but they were not that pleasing either. the bang for the buck beer was not worth it at all in a steel reserve kind of way. the saving grace in all this comes from the one canadian craft brewery we all know and love: unibrou. 750 ml bottles were widely available at the standardized price of $5.40 canadian. now that my friends is a deal. la fin du monde and maudite kick the crap out of the other options, especially at the price. now you know.
as i mentioned, the beer was kind of tricky to get the hang of aquiring the first couple days. but hey, we were all on vacation, it was the boys, we didn't have a lot of money to go out, weren't sure about how to get beer, and we were going through the duty free. that meant liquor. we had some bombay sapphire, which was nice because i haven't had good gin in ages and i rather enjoy it. that being said, i don't think bombay had ever been mixed with such shitty orange juice (thanks all night convenience store across from hostel) or such flat perrier. oh well, it was still alright. i am bad at making decisions about things to eat or drink when i have a lot of appealing options, so i was looking around back at the duty free for a while. i wanted to go cheap but not too cheap, enjoy my savings in quality more than quantity, but the setup wasn't completely conducive to that. so i'm looking around for a while and change my mind a couple times. jager sounded real good, but cost a little more than i wanted to spend. however, one shelf down a bottle called out to me. it said hey, i have as much liquor of equal strength and that strong licorice flavor you're looking for. all this at a savings of approximately ten us dollars. my name is sambuca. so sambuca it was, and i like the flavor but i didn't remember it being so thick and sugary. so yeah, i still have like a significant amount of sambuca. i think people drink it after italian. come over and i will make you pasta and we will drink this stuff. i could use a hand with it.
the first stop was in the carousel capital of the world, home of the square deal, the one and only parlour city, binghampton new york. we weren't there all that long, but i saw a few things. i liked the feel of the place a lot; it reminded me of some places i have been back in the midwest, trying hard to find its place and assert its primacy in its niches. it is just over the northern border of pennsylvania, pretty much due north from philly. there is a SUNY location there and the broome county arena, host to a couple notable phish shows once upon a time. but our purpose was not carousels, colleges, up and coming jam bands, or even parlours. no, we sought a square deal in the form of the city's famed sandwich, the spiedie. basically, it is some tasty marinated pork (or some other meat) on italian bread. i was trying to keep things cheap on the trip, so i just picked up a basic six inch. to my surprise, the sandwich was straight up meat and bread. nothing else. fortunately, this turned out to be because nothing else was required. that was some damn tasty meat, and just the right amount of juices transferred to the bread to soften it up without approaching sogginess. totally delicious, would eat again, a++. perhaps i will even return for one of the multiple festivals dedicated to this unique and proud sandwich. the big one also includes a balloon rally. i'm sold.
the next stop was rochester. i felt quite at home there; it is totally the gun rue of new york. comparable size, climate, and cityscape. that feeling that there was something going on, but one had to know how to find it and help to make it happen. our stop was once again wholly food motivated, only this time we were in search of a unique combination of flavor and experience, as opposed to the more pure culinary delight that was the spiedie. our quest took us to the wizened establishment of nick tahou hots, an institution for nearly a century in a building that had to be a couple decades older. this restaurant is famed for and the holder of the unlikely trademark "garbage plates". while the name is certainly not particularly appetizing and a description of the dish might not tickle your fancy, we concluded this was an experience we could not pass up. the concept is fairly simple: there is a base of some combination of french or home fries, macaroni salad, and/or baked beans. on top of this base there will be a typical american meat item, i.e. hot dogs or hamburger patties or a fish fillet. on top of this there must be something akin to a medium-bodied bean-less chili called hots sauce (not to be confused with hot sauce), which is in turn topped with onions. spicy brown mustard, cheese, or other enhancements may also be implicated. i tried to find a better picture than the one used in the wikipedia article i linked above, but let's face it, food photography is never easy, and making something like this look good is pretty much not going to happen. but the concept is pretty easy. i must say, it was an overall satisfying experience. i got plenty of solid food in me and a novelty experience at a reasonable price, and this ninety year old hot dog shop gets by on its gimmick. kind of cool if you ask me. we were kind of nervous about ordering because of the old-school feel of the place and the grizzled employees. this is because we have all been living in philly and such a setting there means you had better know what you want and how to ask for it if you want a modicum of pleasant service. turned out everything was fine of course, and there was nothing to worry about, but it was definitely a not in kansas anymore moment. big ups to rochester.
we crossed at buffalo, but since we had just finished the plates all of like an hour ago there was no desire on anyone's part to look into the possible advantages of the original authentic wings bearing the city's name. maybe some other time. beyond buffalo, the border, and then to toronto. while there are certainly plenty of definitively canadian food items (i love this list) and many normal foods available "quebec style", we did not get to a whole lot of those due to budget, region, and the fact that toronto is a global city in canada more than a canadian city. there were endless food options in toronto, but i mostly ate peanut butter sandwiches this time around as restaurants weren't all that cheap and are loaded with some pretty striking and unexpected taxes. sometimes that is the way it goes. however, there was one canadian food item we had all been set on from the get-go and would not be denied: poutine. french fries. cheese curds. brown gravy. what's not to like? this is one of the best possible combinations of food ever. so savory. so delicious. so filling. my friend summed up the experience pretty well: tastes great, but as soon as you're finished you feel like you just swallowed a pound of quick-set concrete. but damn was that stuff unbeleivable. my mouth is totally watering now as i meditate on the street culinary genius that is this dish. just think about how good this would be right now.
in other canadian junk food news, i checked out a couple chip flavors unavailable to me normally. the definitive canadian potato chip flavor is ketchup, but i didn't bother with these as i had looked into them before back in michigan. if you're curious, they are a lot like barbeque, but without the sweetness. pretty good. the flavors i tried were both from a company called old dutch, which of course amused me. i do not really associate the dutch with potato chips, but maybe i should. the first kind was creamy dill. the name was not misleading. imagine a sour cream and onion chip but with dill instead of onions. that was about it. the dill doesn't cut through the cream as well, but instead leaves room for some sour taste, which might have been the first time i associated sour cream with anything bearing the attribute of sour. they were pretty strong and a little cloying, as was the other variety i tried. i checked out the "ranch" because i am always curious about what qualifies for that title and the french translation on the bag bore no resemblence at all to the english, instead proclaiming the flavor to be something about three peppers. these were some damn flavorful chips. pretty tasty, but i think my breath would have felled a horse at twenty paces. they were actually so strong that i didn't finish the single serving bag all at once. overall, solid stuff, a change of pace, but nothing so exotic as what i hear tell of and had an opportunity to sample slightly from the other side of the atlantic.
that is about it for the good food news. like i said, it was a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for me. i did have an epic enormous hot dog from a cart. that was delicious. we also scored two for five falafel, which was a great deal. but yeah, that was about it. and since there is no more food that must be discussed, i would like to say a word about the beverages. by beverages, i pretty much mean beer. i am not sure if i mentioned this in passing in a previous post, but damn did it leave something to be desired. first of all, ontario has some pain in the ass booze laws which are not entirely dissimilar from pennsylvania, although less restrictive in some ways and moreso in others. mostly it was a real pain in the ass to get takeout beer, which is near-impossible to acquire outside of the state run booze stores that have liquor wine and beer or the beer store (that is its actual name). after some difficulty locating a beer store, we broke down and went to a state store, and happened to wind up at the largest one. the good news was they had an impressive selection compared to the other one we had looked at, the bad news was that prices are not only fixed, but are fixed by the container, meaning no breaks on quantity. understanding that the situation was not going to change, we hoped to make the best of it and take advantage of the wide singles selection. most of what i got i believe was imported into canada, but much of it i had not seen in the states before. a lot more packaging in large cans. i picked out a couple familiar things, lowenbrau and a warsteiner dunkel, a couple of varietal bocks from the same brewer, a canadian ipa, some ten percenter man can needed for bang for buck, and another thing or two. my god, was that stuff bland. for all their restrictive ad laws (borne out through not-so-subtle changes to american ads on canadian networks), i can't believe they let this company call that beer an ipa. i think the brewery is owned by labatt or something? in any case, this was just ridiculous. it looked like fucking budweiser, and was about as hoppy as pbr. it wasn't a crappy beer, but there was just nothing about it that said ipa. it was kind of like yuengling's lord chesterfield. those bocks? apparently from the same school of bock as texas' own shiner. huber bock has at least quadruple the flavor, and that ain't sayin much. i mean they weren't offensive, but they were not that pleasing either. the bang for the buck beer was not worth it at all in a steel reserve kind of way. the saving grace in all this comes from the one canadian craft brewery we all know and love: unibrou. 750 ml bottles were widely available at the standardized price of $5.40 canadian. now that my friends is a deal. la fin du monde and maudite kick the crap out of the other options, especially at the price. now you know.
as i mentioned, the beer was kind of tricky to get the hang of aquiring the first couple days. but hey, we were all on vacation, it was the boys, we didn't have a lot of money to go out, weren't sure about how to get beer, and we were going through the duty free. that meant liquor. we had some bombay sapphire, which was nice because i haven't had good gin in ages and i rather enjoy it. that being said, i don't think bombay had ever been mixed with such shitty orange juice (thanks all night convenience store across from hostel) or such flat perrier. oh well, it was still alright. i am bad at making decisions about things to eat or drink when i have a lot of appealing options, so i was looking around back at the duty free for a while. i wanted to go cheap but not too cheap, enjoy my savings in quality more than quantity, but the setup wasn't completely conducive to that. so i'm looking around for a while and change my mind a couple times. jager sounded real good, but cost a little more than i wanted to spend. however, one shelf down a bottle called out to me. it said hey, i have as much liquor of equal strength and that strong licorice flavor you're looking for. all this at a savings of approximately ten us dollars. my name is sambuca. so sambuca it was, and i like the flavor but i didn't remember it being so thick and sugary. so yeah, i still have like a significant amount of sambuca. i think people drink it after italian. come over and i will make you pasta and we will drink this stuff. i could use a hand with it.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
totale
i have seen a lot of baseball in the last few days, and it has been excellent. i got to see the us hang up 8 runs on venezuela in the sixth, the italians upset the candians, and the terrible result of a near-mercy match between italy and venezuela. all sorts of great stuff, huge home runs, a bunch of triples, the best defense i've ever seen. don't let anyone tell you that this is supposed to be spring training. i've seen spring training games, this is far from it. the competition has been intense in most if not all cases. the whole competition is pretty compelling at this point, things like australia scoring a massive upset, the korean's dramatic 1-0 win over japan, and more importantly, the dutch beating the domincan republic in not one but two unthinkable upsets to advance to the next round, and the finale tonight in shocking fashion further heightened by the competition's esoteric rule about starting with two runners after twelve innings, which isn't too offensive of an idea really. tomorrow we find out the groups for the next round. the dutch could play the americans, and that is a wild prospect. the cubans are playing the aussies right now, and it is tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth with two on two out and a full count. i can get into this.
but it is really the setting that brings it all together. toronto, ontario, canada is an incredible place. the stereotype is that the people are really nice, and while this certainly proves true in some cases, it isn't pervasive. "courteous" and "thoughtful" are more accurate. this is still a big big city, but the underlying interactions of its inhabitants result in a populace that leads a less stressful atmosphere. human beings are very fickle creatures, and slight changes in environment undoubtedly have occasionally far-reaching influences. obviously, i'm on vacation, and away from some cares people at home here aren't. but from where i'm standing, this is a place with all of the upsides and opportunities of a major city in this region of the world and but missing a lot of the downsides of many different other places. this is a marvelous city.
and the aussies just pulled ahead. if you are into names that begin with "y" you should really see the wbc cuban baseball team roster (which is sadly missing yunieski bentancourt - perfect combo) also witness the pants of the cuban team. yeah, it is always like that. they have hit three batters this inning, and should cut that out. the thing is, you can do a good job of "accidentally" hitting someone with a pitch, whereas you cannot "accidentally" charge the mound like richie sexson.
anyway, enough baseball for a moment. let me say something about curling. the most important curling tournament in canada is also playing right now. i like just about everything about it. it is inexplicably called the brier. it is sponsored by tim horton's. they have an ad that is funny enough but still makes some sense and they play it enough but it isn't overdone. the teams are determined by nationwide competitions that go as low as different groups of clubs within the same small town. this is totally possible with games that are not very strenuous and have teams of four. i think it is pretty easy to learn the rules of a game that has simple basics while you watch it and have rules references in front of you. there are some pretty good terms. let's go stack the brooms, eh. can't quite tell if they got a biter there or not. this is our favorite dude, who yells incomprehensibly (in an extremely quebecois manner) whenever his team is curling. martin crete, ladies and gentlemen: "I'd like to think I'm passionate and I'm loud," Howard said in a break from covering the curling chorus from the broadcast booth at the Canadian men's curling championship. "I know I sound annoying to a lot of people. "I've had many older people come up to me and say, 'You're the reason they invented the mute button.' "
but it is really the setting that brings it all together. toronto, ontario, canada is an incredible place. the stereotype is that the people are really nice, and while this certainly proves true in some cases, it isn't pervasive. "courteous" and "thoughtful" are more accurate. this is still a big big city, but the underlying interactions of its inhabitants result in a populace that leads a less stressful atmosphere. human beings are very fickle creatures, and slight changes in environment undoubtedly have occasionally far-reaching influences. obviously, i'm on vacation, and away from some cares people at home here aren't. but from where i'm standing, this is a place with all of the upsides and opportunities of a major city in this region of the world and but missing a lot of the downsides of many different other places. this is a marvelous city.
and the aussies just pulled ahead. if you are into names that begin with "y" you should really see the wbc cuban baseball team roster (which is sadly missing yunieski bentancourt - perfect combo) also witness the pants of the cuban team. yeah, it is always like that. they have hit three batters this inning, and should cut that out. the thing is, you can do a good job of "accidentally" hitting someone with a pitch, whereas you cannot "accidentally" charge the mound like richie sexson.
anyway, enough baseball for a moment. let me say something about curling. the most important curling tournament in canada is also playing right now. i like just about everything about it. it is inexplicably called the brier. it is sponsored by tim horton's. they have an ad that is funny enough but still makes some sense and they play it enough but it isn't overdone. the teams are determined by nationwide competitions that go as low as different groups of clubs within the same small town. this is totally possible with games that are not very strenuous and have teams of four. i think it is pretty easy to learn the rules of a game that has simple basics while you watch it and have rules references in front of you. there are some pretty good terms. let's go stack the brooms, eh. can't quite tell if they got a biter there or not. this is our favorite dude, who yells incomprehensibly (in an extremely quebecois manner) whenever his team is curling. martin crete, ladies and gentlemen: "I'd like to think I'm passionate and I'm loud," Howard said in a break from covering the curling chorus from the broadcast booth at the Canadian men's curling championship. "I know I sound annoying to a lot of people. "I've had many older people come up to me and say, 'You're the reason they invented the mute button.' "
"Martin Crete? He's a little aggressive," Alberta lead Ben Hebert said after Monday morning's 7-4 victory over Saskatchewan's Pat Simmons.
"Just today, I was in the hack on one of Jean-Michel's shots. Martin was losing his mind, so I just sat there and waited a couple of seconds. Usually, it doesn't bother me at all, but that was a little over the top.
"I don't know what he's yelling. I think he just yells, 'Ah' as loud as he can. His girlfriend must get an earful."
once you understand the game, it is kind of like the love child of pool and bowling. there is a ton of great strategy, gameplay is very deliberate, and it is totally relaxed to play. it has been great to have it on to fill gaps and often because it is not tough to play a few games a day. i really really want to try it.
even if you don't like sports, some things are just cool as cultural institutions. that is certainly the quality of the hockey hall of fame. this was like a museum/shrine. the sign says welcome to the cathedral of hockey. i don't know french, but the french version of that sign uses the same word as it does in the translation of just plain "hockey all of fame". it seemed a little silly until i got inside: it is a house not simply of artifacts, but relics. i had a friggin blast, but the cup would have been worth it all on its own. it is in an extremely own building that was once the bank of montreal location. the kind of place that has a sweet vault. but it isn't like a bank, it is like a train station mixed with a church. the atmosphere is hushed. no one speak loud when they are near the cup. i think the best friggin stained glass ever might have something to do with that. the main thing is that unlike almost every other much revered comparable item, you get to touch the stanley cup. the real friggin thing. it makes the trip a true pilgrimage. really an incredible and indellible experience.
more to say than there is time to say it, and that makes it a great trip.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
classic
i am in toronto to watch a bunch of baseball because it is spring break and there is the second world baseball classic which had cheap tickets. toronto, as everyone probably knows, is an awful lot like america but it is much nicer in some ways. the world baseball classic is major league baseball's attempt to grow global interest in the game and hold an international tournament similar to the world cup. this is the beginning of the competition, where teams are playing in pools of four. the countries in the pool here in toronto are the us, canada, venezuela, and italy. two teams emerge from each group, and the us and venezuela were heavily favored in this one. oh wait, i'm in canada, they were favoured. anyway, the games today were us/canada and venezuela/italy, in that order.
the us/canada game was of course viewed as a huge deal. there are a decent number of talented canadian players, but as the competition is somewhat fledgling, it doesn't draw all the marquee names that any of the teams involved might boast, including the states. last time around, the canadians did beat the us, adding some steam to a game that was already pretty significant in toronto. the games were at the rogers center, which is enormous. the size of the venue is breathtaking from the outside, as it has a retractable dome that adds more height to an already generously sized arena (it ordinarily houses the baseball team and the argonauts, the canadian football league team - canadian football needs a very large field, bigger than american). so this large stadium was totally packed out, and mostly with canada fans, but there were a lot of americans too. the interesting thing was that despite the tense atmosphere and the obvious passion of the fans, there was little to no jawing between opposing supporters. the game itself was absolutely amazing and extremely competitive. there were a lot of home runs. in fact, i think it was the only way the us scored at all. maybe not quite. it was not much different from the way the tigers play, speaking of which, there were a lot of detroit fans there, not too surprising given proximity and the glut of representatives on the venezuelan roster. at the end of the game, the canadians were behind by one with a runner on second and a great player batting. the count worked to full, followed by a couple of foul balls. needless to say, this was pretty tense. the ball was hit hard into play, and with the dowmed roof it was difficult to gauge how far it might go, but it dropped into middle right field and was caught to end the game. good times.
the venezuela/italy game was much different. whereas the the us/canada match was expected to be competitive if not as close as it was, everyone was quite certain venezuela would crush and perhaps mercy the italians. also, toronto is not in or near either of those two countries. however, there were a lot of venezuelans in for the game, which was great to see. their fans brought a great atmosphere, sort of the world cup feel i am sure baseball would like to achieve: lots of country colors, face paint, silly hats, various percussion instruments, good chanting. if you make it from venezuela to canada, you are probably pretty serious about this stuff. as for italy, well, not the same sort of presence, but a respectable amount of canadians of italian heritage showing support, bringing some flags and such. the italians batted first, and things started out as expected. before the third out, though, the italians got a couple hits but didn't push anything across. good enough for the venezuelans as they set in to their strength, hitting. the second batter cranked a ball to the gap in deep right, and my thought was well, here we go. the right fielder, however, had different ideas, and hustled his best, but it didn't look like he would get it. he made a great dive and made a shocking catch, quieting the vociferous venezuela supporters. it was totally a game-changer, as for the next few innings the italians looked a lot better than the venezuelans. despite much threatening, however, no runs were scored. eventually, things shook down more or less as expected and venezuela won like 7-0 or something, but that it happened is not as important as how it happened.
the story of the significance begins a couple years ago, with the aforementioned detroit tigers. the tigers, while showing some great stretches over the last couple years, have had little luck with their relief pitching. one of the lowlights of the tiger bullpen recently was a man by the name of jason grilli. although he was born in america, the world baseball classic rules allow him to play for italy because his parents or grandparents moved to the states from there. although there have been several terrible tiger relievers over the last couple years, and probably a couple are in this tournament, jason grilli was markedly one of the worst, and has become somewhat of a representative joke between myself and my buddy from law school who went to grand valley. he also has a disdain for italians based on his experiences in rome and greater italy this past summer, and so on the way up here i was making jokes about getting him a game-worn jason grilli jersey. before then, it was always an autographed one or something along those lines. point is, we hate jason grilli, have hated him for a while, and have had several conversations about how terrible of a pitcher he is. the tigers did trade him away last season, and jim leyland was forced into talking about why, and talked some great smack on grilli. basically, this is one of our favorite dudes to dog. he showed up in a bunch of promos because he is one person on their roster who has flawless english, and we boo him every time they show him on the screen, and we booed him when they announced him on the roster, and so on. so the game is headed into the fifth or six, the italian starter has held the powerhouse venezuelans scoreless, and we see grilli is warming up in the bullpen, and sure enough, they bring him in. we boo him when he is announced. he warms up a little and the inning begins; the first batter is carlos guillen, former contemporary of jason grilli in detroit, but unlike jason grilli, a player worth having around, good hitter, some good skills in the field, not a superstar power hitter, but a solid daily guy. grilli delivers, and it is high and outside, not a close pitch, not a good pitch. grilli throws again, and guillen sees it well and gets all of it, sending it well over the left field wall. two pitches, and grilli gives up a home run to a guy who rarely hits them, and things begin to unravel from there. grilli gets a little help from his defense on the next ball in play, and then serves up back to back walks. despite being one of the few major leaguers on the roster, grilli has quickly run to the end of his manager's patience, and gets yanked. venezuela scores three more times, and the batters grilli walked are charged to him and he gets the loss on the night. grilli finishes with a era of 81. if you don't know what that means, it means he is fucking awful and was completely useless. in a bizarre way, it totally made my night. i'm having a great time, and i don't expect that to stop tomorrow with the highly anticipated us/venezuela tilt.
the us/canada game was of course viewed as a huge deal. there are a decent number of talented canadian players, but as the competition is somewhat fledgling, it doesn't draw all the marquee names that any of the teams involved might boast, including the states. last time around, the canadians did beat the us, adding some steam to a game that was already pretty significant in toronto. the games were at the rogers center, which is enormous. the size of the venue is breathtaking from the outside, as it has a retractable dome that adds more height to an already generously sized arena (it ordinarily houses the baseball team and the argonauts, the canadian football league team - canadian football needs a very large field, bigger than american). so this large stadium was totally packed out, and mostly with canada fans, but there were a lot of americans too. the interesting thing was that despite the tense atmosphere and the obvious passion of the fans, there was little to no jawing between opposing supporters. the game itself was absolutely amazing and extremely competitive. there were a lot of home runs. in fact, i think it was the only way the us scored at all. maybe not quite. it was not much different from the way the tigers play, speaking of which, there were a lot of detroit fans there, not too surprising given proximity and the glut of representatives on the venezuelan roster. at the end of the game, the canadians were behind by one with a runner on second and a great player batting. the count worked to full, followed by a couple of foul balls. needless to say, this was pretty tense. the ball was hit hard into play, and with the dowmed roof it was difficult to gauge how far it might go, but it dropped into middle right field and was caught to end the game. good times.
the venezuela/italy game was much different. whereas the the us/canada match was expected to be competitive if not as close as it was, everyone was quite certain venezuela would crush and perhaps mercy the italians. also, toronto is not in or near either of those two countries. however, there were a lot of venezuelans in for the game, which was great to see. their fans brought a great atmosphere, sort of the world cup feel i am sure baseball would like to achieve: lots of country colors, face paint, silly hats, various percussion instruments, good chanting. if you make it from venezuela to canada, you are probably pretty serious about this stuff. as for italy, well, not the same sort of presence, but a respectable amount of canadians of italian heritage showing support, bringing some flags and such. the italians batted first, and things started out as expected. before the third out, though, the italians got a couple hits but didn't push anything across. good enough for the venezuelans as they set in to their strength, hitting. the second batter cranked a ball to the gap in deep right, and my thought was well, here we go. the right fielder, however, had different ideas, and hustled his best, but it didn't look like he would get it. he made a great dive and made a shocking catch, quieting the vociferous venezuela supporters. it was totally a game-changer, as for the next few innings the italians looked a lot better than the venezuelans. despite much threatening, however, no runs were scored. eventually, things shook down more or less as expected and venezuela won like 7-0 or something, but that it happened is not as important as how it happened.
the story of the significance begins a couple years ago, with the aforementioned detroit tigers. the tigers, while showing some great stretches over the last couple years, have had little luck with their relief pitching. one of the lowlights of the tiger bullpen recently was a man by the name of jason grilli. although he was born in america, the world baseball classic rules allow him to play for italy because his parents or grandparents moved to the states from there. although there have been several terrible tiger relievers over the last couple years, and probably a couple are in this tournament, jason grilli was markedly one of the worst, and has become somewhat of a representative joke between myself and my buddy from law school who went to grand valley. he also has a disdain for italians based on his experiences in rome and greater italy this past summer, and so on the way up here i was making jokes about getting him a game-worn jason grilli jersey. before then, it was always an autographed one or something along those lines. point is, we hate jason grilli, have hated him for a while, and have had several conversations about how terrible of a pitcher he is. the tigers did trade him away last season, and jim leyland was forced into talking about why, and talked some great smack on grilli. basically, this is one of our favorite dudes to dog. he showed up in a bunch of promos because he is one person on their roster who has flawless english, and we boo him every time they show him on the screen, and we booed him when they announced him on the roster, and so on. so the game is headed into the fifth or six, the italian starter has held the powerhouse venezuelans scoreless, and we see grilli is warming up in the bullpen, and sure enough, they bring him in. we boo him when he is announced. he warms up a little and the inning begins; the first batter is carlos guillen, former contemporary of jason grilli in detroit, but unlike jason grilli, a player worth having around, good hitter, some good skills in the field, not a superstar power hitter, but a solid daily guy. grilli delivers, and it is high and outside, not a close pitch, not a good pitch. grilli throws again, and guillen sees it well and gets all of it, sending it well over the left field wall. two pitches, and grilli gives up a home run to a guy who rarely hits them, and things begin to unravel from there. grilli gets a little help from his defense on the next ball in play, and then serves up back to back walks. despite being one of the few major leaguers on the roster, grilli has quickly run to the end of his manager's patience, and gets yanked. venezuela scores three more times, and the batters grilli walked are charged to him and he gets the loss on the night. grilli finishes with a era of 81. if you don't know what that means, it means he is fucking awful and was completely useless. in a bizarre way, it totally made my night. i'm having a great time, and i don't expect that to stop tomorrow with the highly anticipated us/venezuela tilt.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
in which i review the shit out of chinese democracy
i love the leading off with "in which" and i decided to snag that one, thanks to my sister and i think someone else a little while ago and the beginning of the let it be album. i've been giving chinese democracy a lot of thought since the most recent and finally true release information came out. hope i don't jinx it somehow, since it hasn't technically been released yet. i like guns and roses just fine, but they are not exactly my favorite of all time. i think they squandered what they had in a lot of instances. but they also made some pretty damn good music. enough to make me pretty curious about what axl rose would do over the course of fifteen years with a small army of sometimes bandmates. they're streaming it now, and i'm not doing much, and i was mostly unsatisfied with the reviews i've read thus far. so i am going to review it myself. probably favorably. if you do not want to hear a lot about chinese democracy, do not read this. or for a fun trick, imagine all references to the title of the release refer to the notion of democracy in china. don't forget your free doctor pepper.
starts out epically enough by building with ambient noise and gradually crescendoing unintelligable speaking? deliberate note-by-note guitar lead in before dropping into super heavy riff and an old school axl howl. starts off with pantera-esque bombast, giving way to prevalent overdubs of axl over himself in his upper end of the range. the rocking guitar is enough to carry this track on its own, although it seems to shift a lot, i am assuming different people played parts for this one. but hot damn. the song is satisfying overall, even if most of it sounds like late 90s metal acts (the ones not flirting with rap stylings) that had obvious g n r influences and a sick lead guitarist.
i guess the next one has been out for a while, and it is pretty grating at first blush. it sounds like it wants to grind along like something that could keep background, but then decides to assert itself rather intensely again. this one is a little over the top but not in a funny yet totally awesome way like the finest gunners stuff, just kind of silly, screams pay attention to me. there are a lot of abrupt changes, and now the sort of barked vocal noises are more like the awesome stuff i was references. but it has to change again and end the monkey noises, and just goes in reverse like it had started out. a definite listening experience, intriguing if not entirely pleasurable to hear.
things slow down at start out with a sort of trippy drum track and vocals. things snap together into a lean riffing mid-tempo rocker that trudges on methodically before predictably once again giving away dramatically and cranking it up to eleven. this is really my kind of track at some points, and it seems like axl might have actually been paying attention to the world around him and not just what he already had. i like that he managed to pick up some influences of major-league indie rock (not an oxymoron, i say). overall, my favorite track so far.
ballad time, which for axk means piano plinking time. i can dig that. stays pretty low key for a while before going monster ballad style. pretty old school right here. the strings come in to complete the scene. crunching riff and a guitar solo that doesn't soar quite as high as it could or should, no reason not to sustain the notes on something like this. it goes all the right places, but there are way better solos in this set, and that would have been prime time for one that was wasted alongside another elsewhere on the record. false ending, oh hell yes. almost makes the guitar fail forgivable, this is what i love about this band, epic cheese and unashamed. great structure to that track.
next one starts out with some flamenco guitar over electronica drum machines before a funk riff and strings (why now?) kick in. very strange stuff, axl trying to move in new direction is interesting. i hate to say it, but chuck kobesaw was totally right about this song. he said it sounds like a late pierce brosnan-era bond film both titularly and musically: "if the world". this is the counterpart to when the smashing pumpkins tried their hand with electronica influences for that batman and robin movie around that time. so while it is an update on gnr, it is not really current. total gorillaz moment there, sounds good but also dated and derivitive. it is not bad, just kind of forced indutrial sounding.
next one kicks off with some choir and then jerks into something that sounds like the backbone of a mid-tempo rap song. things shift into ballad mode again, and once again there is a lot of muscle backing it. this is some classic axl singing. there are some strange samples kind of muffled in the background, chalk that up partially to streaming from myspace i guess. kind of dragging a little before getting to the guitar solo, this one is more appropriately sonorous, if a little mournful, appropriate for the melancholy lyrics. everything comes together for a while before another solo, this one more of the bitchin' variety. things get pretty extreme here as they really rock it out, very well-orchestrated. incredible guitar part, really letting it all go. the conclusion is exactly what is expected, and does not disappoint at all for what it should be, and bring that choir back to finish things up.
another plodding rocker with a desparate, dramatic feel. this song would probably be much more appealing in a different place in the order, but at least the synthetic drums elements aren't present three times in a row. more good to great guitar work, enough to spare. this song is a somewhat definite member of a species, and a fine specimen at that, but out of its natural habitat. the listen begins to take on a little bit of an indulgent feel at this point. i must say the piano playing is right on and the guitar remains a respectful distance at appropriate times. this song is like a mountain without a peak, carrying a lot of weight and considerable height but it doesn't lead to anything in particular since it tries to be the big punch everytime the music shifts.
this starts out with some positively ridiculous vocal exercizes, almost an r&b kind of a thing but with an awful lot of axl. the guitar is menacing but immediately loses its effect as a result of the high-pitched response backup vocals and becomes merely cartoonish. once those go away, this goes back to the late 90s power metal feel and does do a great job of it, yet remains consistent with the proto-version of the sound the band named the same thing these guys are using did early in its career. predictably, the backup vocals return for the refrain. i don't really care for most things that come of as trying to be anthematic, and this song crosses the line at certain points. if i spent fifteen years on this song, i think i would realize that the lyrics sounded a little ludicrous even by gunners cheese standards. don't try and stop you axl? don't worry about it. we all wanted that dr. pepper.
this doesn't sound like axl at all at first, or like gnr for that matter. axl just did something really really weird with his voice there. slow tune but not a ballad. wait for it, you know it is coming... psychedelic rock out. the whole thing is like some perverse interpretation of late-era beatles and its descendents up to and including the turn of the century. yet another stylistic element comes into play with a notably bluesy guitar solo. the song takes on a very comfortable feel, a more resigned angst than the bitter nervousness that gives some gnr material its edge. this is like a take on alice in chains, and it works out well overall. still, a lot going on and some parts are better than others.
brooding opening, tries to be spooky and then spacy before picking up a dancy feel for a moment. more vocal shenanigans before any lyrics. another abrupt change here, another strange electronic noise there. rocking out pretty hard for the most part, a song that lurches between classic driving guns and roses and iron maiden filler album cuts. those vocal shenanigans return, and it sounds like he is almost trying to do his own immigrant song thing. fortunately, guitars to the rescue. pretty sweet, sounds like something zakk wylde might play.
classic rock time, and they do it up right and proper. there is a fine line between a feel-good song you just want to sing along to and trying to be anthematic, and axl gets it right this time around. i don't know the words yet, but i am considering learning them and ordering a whiskey and putting this on a jukebox somewhere for a good time. not that i would really be able to keep up with some of the screeching axl does here. i really wonder when that part of the vocal track dates to. this one is a highlight for me, but there isn't any real ending to it, which is unfortunate, i wouldn't have been opposed to another false ending in all honesty.
horns first, then strings on top of it. once again, it is unclear who is even singing here. it is the same person always, but it wavers between sounding like axl rose sounds and sounding like no one else ever has sounded. kind of strange. things slow back down but not too far. more mechanical-sounding drums drive a steady pace, and things culminate with the guitar paired along more samples from cool hand luke and something else, i don't know. the strings add some bravado at the right time but then put things back to where they came from after a brief rock-out. for some reason this track seems like it should be the last one on the record. it is just that kind of a song. not bad, not the greatest all the time, but really good when you want to hear it. when you don't want to hear it you can be pretty comfortable about ending the listen there, and that is why it should be last. anytime you sample martin luther king jr, that is just something that should finish things. this one fades out the way it should but the final strings flourish is a little unnecessary.
this is not a cool ballad right now. painful axl. too much, even the piano isn't doing it for me right now. predictable strings. the soft music just makes axl seem that much more piercing. this is one of those times he should stay down in the range. the mandatory guitar solo is quality but restrained.
the final cut is not as good as the song that should have ended the album, but it does have that same the record finishes here feel. the two songs are relatively disparate, but they accomplish the same feel in different ways. this one almost seems even more deliberately crafted for that regard. makes sense, if you're going to spend fifteen years on something and keep it from sprawling out of control, presumably you also have an interest in some album-craft to the point of specific beginning and closing songs. this is a long, dramatic, choreographed farewell sequence. it serves its purpose well. personally, i was so ready to say goodbye at the twelth track that i am more than ready to do so with this one. it was, however, good to me.
all of these songs are really full of ideas and the 15 years thing makes some sense. i think he could have made just as good of a record, and bizarrely as cohesive, if he just spread things out instead of trying to do too much at once. this could have wound up like the white album. being what it is, chinese democracy stands even less of a chance of a fair review than just about anything else in some time.
people almost always approach any given thing with the sum of their life's experiences in relation to whatever the context is. lots of things factor in, and just about all of them, at the end of the day, are opinions. the point is, a lot of people have a lot of opinions about this record before they have even heard it. it works that way for everything, but in this instance, those opinions are particularly strong among certain segments of the population, namely just about everyone who has any interest in hearing a guns and roses album that was fifteen years in the making and is made up of basically axl rose and a bunch of other dudes who are not recognized for their extensive credits on previous studio material under the name guns and roses. those are just a few of the aspects that make people inclined to either want to love or loathe this record.
music is by its nature a very subjective thing, but the people interested in chinese democracy can probably agree on a few basic things. axl rose has previously been involved with quality studio material. he is, whatever else one might say about him, a reasonably talented individual. fifteen years is a lot of time to spend working on a single release. there are therefore bound to be at least some good points about chinese democracy.
all that aside, people have several reasons to know how they want to feel about this music before they have even heard it. admittedly, i wanted to like it. i also wanted to appraoch it as objectively as possible, but it just doesn't work like that. music is a language that doesn't function as one. this is why everyone has different ipods and pandora stations, and moreso why you'll always skip something on someone else itunes library or especially why your carefully whittled internet radio station eventually plays something you have no interest in hearing or downright detest. the pandora thing is based on the objective elements, and sometimes they just do not add up right at all.
this is not too far off from what is going on with chinese democracy. axl has an established palette to draw from, but he adds to it appropriately for the most part. the occasional offending elements are certainly present, but most of the time, this record is actually precisely what it should be considering the incubation and perfectionism. it has its own relative spectrum of good and bad. as a whole, though, this is really pretty good music. everything on chinese democracy is well-crafted if a little too deliberate at times. it deserves to be listened to closely. i just wrote down my first impressions and certainly went back for more. if you think you would like something like what was described above, this will be worth checking out. if you don't like guns and roses, of course you won't like it. if you think fifteen years means it will be the best album ever, you won't like it. if you just want to listen to a strange record some time, you might like it.
starts out epically enough by building with ambient noise and gradually crescendoing unintelligable speaking? deliberate note-by-note guitar lead in before dropping into super heavy riff and an old school axl howl. starts off with pantera-esque bombast, giving way to prevalent overdubs of axl over himself in his upper end of the range. the rocking guitar is enough to carry this track on its own, although it seems to shift a lot, i am assuming different people played parts for this one. but hot damn. the song is satisfying overall, even if most of it sounds like late 90s metal acts (the ones not flirting with rap stylings) that had obvious g n r influences and a sick lead guitarist.
i guess the next one has been out for a while, and it is pretty grating at first blush. it sounds like it wants to grind along like something that could keep background, but then decides to assert itself rather intensely again. this one is a little over the top but not in a funny yet totally awesome way like the finest gunners stuff, just kind of silly, screams pay attention to me. there are a lot of abrupt changes, and now the sort of barked vocal noises are more like the awesome stuff i was references. but it has to change again and end the monkey noises, and just goes in reverse like it had started out. a definite listening experience, intriguing if not entirely pleasurable to hear.
things slow down at start out with a sort of trippy drum track and vocals. things snap together into a lean riffing mid-tempo rocker that trudges on methodically before predictably once again giving away dramatically and cranking it up to eleven. this is really my kind of track at some points, and it seems like axl might have actually been paying attention to the world around him and not just what he already had. i like that he managed to pick up some influences of major-league indie rock (not an oxymoron, i say). overall, my favorite track so far.
ballad time, which for axk means piano plinking time. i can dig that. stays pretty low key for a while before going monster ballad style. pretty old school right here. the strings come in to complete the scene. crunching riff and a guitar solo that doesn't soar quite as high as it could or should, no reason not to sustain the notes on something like this. it goes all the right places, but there are way better solos in this set, and that would have been prime time for one that was wasted alongside another elsewhere on the record. false ending, oh hell yes. almost makes the guitar fail forgivable, this is what i love about this band, epic cheese and unashamed. great structure to that track.
next one starts out with some flamenco guitar over electronica drum machines before a funk riff and strings (why now?) kick in. very strange stuff, axl trying to move in new direction is interesting. i hate to say it, but chuck kobesaw was totally right about this song. he said it sounds like a late pierce brosnan-era bond film both titularly and musically: "if the world". this is the counterpart to when the smashing pumpkins tried their hand with electronica influences for that batman and robin movie around that time. so while it is an update on gnr, it is not really current. total gorillaz moment there, sounds good but also dated and derivitive. it is not bad, just kind of forced indutrial sounding.
next one kicks off with some choir and then jerks into something that sounds like the backbone of a mid-tempo rap song. things shift into ballad mode again, and once again there is a lot of muscle backing it. this is some classic axl singing. there are some strange samples kind of muffled in the background, chalk that up partially to streaming from myspace i guess. kind of dragging a little before getting to the guitar solo, this one is more appropriately sonorous, if a little mournful, appropriate for the melancholy lyrics. everything comes together for a while before another solo, this one more of the bitchin' variety. things get pretty extreme here as they really rock it out, very well-orchestrated. incredible guitar part, really letting it all go. the conclusion is exactly what is expected, and does not disappoint at all for what it should be, and bring that choir back to finish things up.
another plodding rocker with a desparate, dramatic feel. this song would probably be much more appealing in a different place in the order, but at least the synthetic drums elements aren't present three times in a row. more good to great guitar work, enough to spare. this song is a somewhat definite member of a species, and a fine specimen at that, but out of its natural habitat. the listen begins to take on a little bit of an indulgent feel at this point. i must say the piano playing is right on and the guitar remains a respectful distance at appropriate times. this song is like a mountain without a peak, carrying a lot of weight and considerable height but it doesn't lead to anything in particular since it tries to be the big punch everytime the music shifts.
this starts out with some positively ridiculous vocal exercizes, almost an r&b kind of a thing but with an awful lot of axl. the guitar is menacing but immediately loses its effect as a result of the high-pitched response backup vocals and becomes merely cartoonish. once those go away, this goes back to the late 90s power metal feel and does do a great job of it, yet remains consistent with the proto-version of the sound the band named the same thing these guys are using did early in its career. predictably, the backup vocals return for the refrain. i don't really care for most things that come of as trying to be anthematic, and this song crosses the line at certain points. if i spent fifteen years on this song, i think i would realize that the lyrics sounded a little ludicrous even by gunners cheese standards. don't try and stop you axl? don't worry about it. we all wanted that dr. pepper.
this doesn't sound like axl at all at first, or like gnr for that matter. axl just did something really really weird with his voice there. slow tune but not a ballad. wait for it, you know it is coming... psychedelic rock out. the whole thing is like some perverse interpretation of late-era beatles and its descendents up to and including the turn of the century. yet another stylistic element comes into play with a notably bluesy guitar solo. the song takes on a very comfortable feel, a more resigned angst than the bitter nervousness that gives some gnr material its edge. this is like a take on alice in chains, and it works out well overall. still, a lot going on and some parts are better than others.
brooding opening, tries to be spooky and then spacy before picking up a dancy feel for a moment. more vocal shenanigans before any lyrics. another abrupt change here, another strange electronic noise there. rocking out pretty hard for the most part, a song that lurches between classic driving guns and roses and iron maiden filler album cuts. those vocal shenanigans return, and it sounds like he is almost trying to do his own immigrant song thing. fortunately, guitars to the rescue. pretty sweet, sounds like something zakk wylde might play.
classic rock time, and they do it up right and proper. there is a fine line between a feel-good song you just want to sing along to and trying to be anthematic, and axl gets it right this time around. i don't know the words yet, but i am considering learning them and ordering a whiskey and putting this on a jukebox somewhere for a good time. not that i would really be able to keep up with some of the screeching axl does here. i really wonder when that part of the vocal track dates to. this one is a highlight for me, but there isn't any real ending to it, which is unfortunate, i wouldn't have been opposed to another false ending in all honesty.
horns first, then strings on top of it. once again, it is unclear who is even singing here. it is the same person always, but it wavers between sounding like axl rose sounds and sounding like no one else ever has sounded. kind of strange. things slow back down but not too far. more mechanical-sounding drums drive a steady pace, and things culminate with the guitar paired along more samples from cool hand luke and something else, i don't know. the strings add some bravado at the right time but then put things back to where they came from after a brief rock-out. for some reason this track seems like it should be the last one on the record. it is just that kind of a song. not bad, not the greatest all the time, but really good when you want to hear it. when you don't want to hear it you can be pretty comfortable about ending the listen there, and that is why it should be last. anytime you sample martin luther king jr, that is just something that should finish things. this one fades out the way it should but the final strings flourish is a little unnecessary.
this is not a cool ballad right now. painful axl. too much, even the piano isn't doing it for me right now. predictable strings. the soft music just makes axl seem that much more piercing. this is one of those times he should stay down in the range. the mandatory guitar solo is quality but restrained.
the final cut is not as good as the song that should have ended the album, but it does have that same the record finishes here feel. the two songs are relatively disparate, but they accomplish the same feel in different ways. this one almost seems even more deliberately crafted for that regard. makes sense, if you're going to spend fifteen years on something and keep it from sprawling out of control, presumably you also have an interest in some album-craft to the point of specific beginning and closing songs. this is a long, dramatic, choreographed farewell sequence. it serves its purpose well. personally, i was so ready to say goodbye at the twelth track that i am more than ready to do so with this one. it was, however, good to me.
all of these songs are really full of ideas and the 15 years thing makes some sense. i think he could have made just as good of a record, and bizarrely as cohesive, if he just spread things out instead of trying to do too much at once. this could have wound up like the white album. being what it is, chinese democracy stands even less of a chance of a fair review than just about anything else in some time.
people almost always approach any given thing with the sum of their life's experiences in relation to whatever the context is. lots of things factor in, and just about all of them, at the end of the day, are opinions. the point is, a lot of people have a lot of opinions about this record before they have even heard it. it works that way for everything, but in this instance, those opinions are particularly strong among certain segments of the population, namely just about everyone who has any interest in hearing a guns and roses album that was fifteen years in the making and is made up of basically axl rose and a bunch of other dudes who are not recognized for their extensive credits on previous studio material under the name guns and roses. those are just a few of the aspects that make people inclined to either want to love or loathe this record.
music is by its nature a very subjective thing, but the people interested in chinese democracy can probably agree on a few basic things. axl rose has previously been involved with quality studio material. he is, whatever else one might say about him, a reasonably talented individual. fifteen years is a lot of time to spend working on a single release. there are therefore bound to be at least some good points about chinese democracy.
all that aside, people have several reasons to know how they want to feel about this music before they have even heard it. admittedly, i wanted to like it. i also wanted to appraoch it as objectively as possible, but it just doesn't work like that. music is a language that doesn't function as one. this is why everyone has different ipods and pandora stations, and moreso why you'll always skip something on someone else itunes library or especially why your carefully whittled internet radio station eventually plays something you have no interest in hearing or downright detest. the pandora thing is based on the objective elements, and sometimes they just do not add up right at all.
this is not too far off from what is going on with chinese democracy. axl has an established palette to draw from, but he adds to it appropriately for the most part. the occasional offending elements are certainly present, but most of the time, this record is actually precisely what it should be considering the incubation and perfectionism. it has its own relative spectrum of good and bad. as a whole, though, this is really pretty good music. everything on chinese democracy is well-crafted if a little too deliberate at times. it deserves to be listened to closely. i just wrote down my first impressions and certainly went back for more. if you think you would like something like what was described above, this will be worth checking out. if you don't like guns and roses, of course you won't like it. if you think fifteen years means it will be the best album ever, you won't like it. if you just want to listen to a strange record some time, you might like it.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
i heart google ads
i did find something to do yesterday after that blog post. it was quite an adventure, but it is not the story i intend to tell at this time. right now, all i want to say is:
(link) Supreme Court
Browse a huge selection now. Find exactly what you want today.
www.ebay.com
(link) Supreme Court
Browse a huge selection now. Find exactly what you want today.
www.ebay.com
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
hot dog
oh man i just ate a couple of pretty excellent hot dogs. on par with epic sandwiches? not quite. it is, after all, a hot dog. however, this has been a breakthrough in its own realm. this was achieved with the assistance of the achewood cookbook. a number of small but important adjustments make all the difference. first of all, toasting the bun. this is very simple and absolutely key. also, cooking in a little bit of water in a frying pan. this is probably the ideal way of heating the dog, very even and undamaging. typically all i really care about on a hotdog is ketchup; other things seem to get in the way of this basic enjoyment. i do like onions, but you never need a whole onion's worth of onion for a hot dog or two. fortunately, roommates with the assist. the fridge had half a small red onion (still only needed a couple slices), some dank mustard and crucial relish. this was truly the budget gormet, and having the little things required in small amounts on hand makes all the difference. i have not felt this good about eating a hot dog in some time. i mean, yesterdog is good, but it has been a long time and also i still recall that one almost never feels good about eating yesterdog.
the whole hot dog thing started with a conversation a couple days ago that dwelled on them for a while, although i cannot recall the exact point of the conversation. i awoke the next morning with an acute desire to eat a hot dog. i thought about it for a second and decided that was a silly thought. after a while i realized the craving had been ignited by that conversation and that i still wanted a hot dog. after about four hours i decided that i really truly did want a hot dog and would probably be pretty satisfied if i had one. it isn't a huge investment, after all, and they make for reasonably priced personal food units. and so i did indeed purchase hot dogs to sate myself and i thought it hit the spot. i must say that the much-desired albeit overly and unevenly microwaved and ketchup-slathered object possessed a very small fraction of the crude culinary delight i have just experienced.
the point is, sometimes the little things kill, and sometimes the little things never let you down, never run around and desert you. if you have also gone some time without a hotdog, you should probably have one. a delicious one. that goes double if you are a vegetarian. no matter who you are, do it for taste. do it for america. do it for freedom.
sweet jesus, did i just write a blog post about hotdogs and close out with references to bush and rick astley? i should probably go do something.
the whole hot dog thing started with a conversation a couple days ago that dwelled on them for a while, although i cannot recall the exact point of the conversation. i awoke the next morning with an acute desire to eat a hot dog. i thought about it for a second and decided that was a silly thought. after a while i realized the craving had been ignited by that conversation and that i still wanted a hot dog. after about four hours i decided that i really truly did want a hot dog and would probably be pretty satisfied if i had one. it isn't a huge investment, after all, and they make for reasonably priced personal food units. and so i did indeed purchase hot dogs to sate myself and i thought it hit the spot. i must say that the much-desired albeit overly and unevenly microwaved and ketchup-slathered object possessed a very small fraction of the crude culinary delight i have just experienced.
the point is, sometimes the little things kill, and sometimes the little things never let you down, never run around and desert you. if you have also gone some time without a hotdog, you should probably have one. a delicious one. that goes double if you are a vegetarian. no matter who you are, do it for taste. do it for america. do it for freedom.
sweet jesus, did i just write a blog post about hotdogs and close out with references to bush and rick astley? i should probably go do something.
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