Ben Folds and Nick Hornby-Lonely Avenue

3 of my favorite bands put out albums within one month. What a treat for my birthday. I really wanna delve deeper on this blog and put actual reviews and music from that artist up. If anyone knows how to arrange this properly on blogspot, let me know at comptamos@gmail.com. Anywhen, on to the first review.

Ben Folds With Nick Hornby-Lonely Avenue
This album is, in one word, fantastic. Ben's collaboration with British author Nick Hornby scared me a little at first. Then I saw Ben play the new song 'Levi Johnston's Blues' with the Utah Symphony and my fears immediately subsided. Other than Ben's potty mouthed portrayal of Hornby's written lyrics, the song is brilliant. I'm usually very conservative politically, so this satire of the VP Nominee's Daughter, Bristol Palin and her pregnancy/relationship with Levi Johnston was hilarious for a right-winger. Concerning the lyrics I need to point out that the chorus comes straight from Levi's Myspace page so I sort of forgive the swearsies. The other songs here range from the subdued piano melodies Ben does so well on 'Picture Window' and 'Belinda' to the flashy, danceable new wave pop of 'Saskia Hamilton'. 'Doc Pomus' rollicks along with the amazing piano part made effortless by Ben's genius piano plucking. I'm surprised how much more I'm paying attention to the lyrics this time around with Ben's album. I normally just pick out a few clever high notes per album, but I found myself discovering gems throughout this album. Am I becoming a lyric guy instead of a music guy or are Hornby's lyrics just better? I think it's most likely the former, with due credit going to Hornby's amazing lyrics at the same time. In other words Ben and Nick write great lyrics. This album is brilliant and I look forward to how this songs come alive on the stage.

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School is starting. Less time for searching for music.

The more classes I take per semester, the quicker I can be finally done with this damn BA degree. The Electronic Media emphasis has been fun so far, and looks to be another fun semester. My last Math class, Statistics, will be completed after 10 years since I graduated high school. Anyhow, I am taking a big load (of classes) this time around and I'm actually not too scared. I have two online Business classes along with my Stats and other Communications courses. Video Production promises to be the most fun from what it seems. Only one thing to decide; do I go into Audio Production or Video Production within my emphasis of Electronic Media? How much does that matter? In other, non-music news, my 3-year-old son Rhett had another seizure about a week ago. He's medicated to prevent seizures. A couple of days after the seizure we discovered there was an error between the Neurologists office and the Pharmacy. We were supposed to be giving him a larger dose. Did this cause his second seizure? Time for a little bruhaha with the Pharmacy and the Neurologist to find who is at fault and what we can do about it. We ended up giving Rhett his emergency medicine (basically Valium) that stops his seizure, but he was still loopy and mostly non-coherent. My wife called his Doctor's office and they said to take him to the ER. Does this mean we can have either Walmart or Rhett's Neurologist pay for this ER visit. We do have insurance, which will hopefully bring the bill down to 100 from almost 700, but shouldn't the people who made the mistake pay for this debacle? Well, that's about all for the life ramblings outside the realm of my passion for music; onto the music news. I saw John Prine for the second time and he was fantastic. He has so much fun on stage and has that old dude chuckle to him that is pretty cool. If I can be doing something that I love for as many years as he has I will surely die a happy man. Headed to The Avett Brothers show on Friday and I'm pretty stoked for that. I've heard they're really good live. Other than that, new Old 97's, Guster, and Ben Folds all have new albums coming out soon so I look forward to those. That is all. Night Night all.

Ramblings of a sane man.

I thought I'd post on my thoughts about life in general. This post will mostly be about things other than music, but music is very important to me, so I'll get back to posting about new bands I've found soon enough. School is starting after my summer off. It's been a nice enough summer but we haven't gotten out camping like I wanted. Anyway, Rhett is still getting cuter everyday. He's 3 now and has fun and makes fun wherever he goes/whatever he does. Lots of good concerts coming up: The Avett Brothers, John Prine, fun.. Also new albums from Ben Folds, Guster, and Old 97's. Great stuff coming up music wise. Other than that, things are going great. I'm not stressed at all, but school is starting soon so I'm sure that will change. That's all for now; check back for music posts soon to come. If anyone has suggestions for me, please comment here or send them to comptamos@gmail.com, and keep reading. I wanna get a podcast up with a bunch of music too, so if anyone knows how to get that going, please let me know.

Guster: Easy Wonderful

When one of my favorite bands, Guster, decided to take four years between their last release 'Ganging Up on the Sun' and their newly announced 'Easy Wonderful', (Out October 6) I was slightly annoyed. The announcement came from the band on Tuesday after "technical difficulties" barred them from releasing the information on Monday through their twitter/facebook/website. After becoming frustrated whilst recording in "the dungeon", a basement recording studio with no windows, the band retreated to multi-instramentalist Joe Pisapia's new Middletree Studios in Nashville. The band describes this experience as completely opposite from New York and they felt free and the recording process moved along swimmingly. The result is much anticipated and us fans got a teaser with brand new single Bad, Bad World. The free download was released via the band's website and email list. Let's just say I'm excited and pleased with the news song. That would be an understatement but let's just go with that.



GUSTER ‘EASY WONDERFUL’ TRACKLIST

1. Architects and Engineers
2. Do You Love Me?
3. On The Ocean
4. This Could All Be Yours
5. Stay With Me Jesus
6. Bad Bad World
7. This Is How It Feels To Have A Broken Heart
8. What You Call Love
9. That’s No Way To Get To Heaven
10. Jesus & Mary
11. Hercules
12. Do What You Want
Guster Online:
http://www.guster.com/
http://www.facebook.com/Gustermusic
http://www.twitter.com/guster
http://www.myspace.com/guster
http://www.youtube.com/guster

New Bands and Stuff.

Sorry for the almost one year hiatus. Well, if anyone read this that's what I would say. As it is now, I'll just get right into the bands I've gotten into since I last posted. I struggle to make the music I am describing interesting for some reason, so I'll just list a bunch of bands and their overall style in general.

Local Natives-Great indie/pop/rock. These guys have really catchy tunes.
Surfer Blood-A little edgier rock than what I normally like, but this band is really good.
The Mynabirds-A really great band called Georgie James broke up and out of that project comes this one from the girl that was in Georgie James. Really good mellow rock and roll. She has an amazing voice as well.
The Thermals-Great straight ahead rock and roll.
Fanfarlo-Really cool orchestration, folk/rock feel, and a really cool sounding lead singer make this band really good. Check them out.

That's it for now. I'll try to stay more on top of this blog, and hopefully improve it so I can have links to listen to songs from some of these bands either on my playlist at the right, or, hopefully, on each seperate blog so after you read my one or two sentence description of the band you can just click on the button and listen to the song for yourself. If anyone is reading this that knows how to make this happen on this here blogspot page send me an email or leave a comment.