George Carlin - RIP

I think he was one of the funniest stand up comics out there of all time. His comedy on religion, conformists and government was always the best. He died at 71 and he had an HBO special just a few months ago which was great, so he never lost his comedy greatness.

Anyway, here's a bit of his comedy genius:

The Cure at MSG 6/20/2008

It's always fun to see a Cure show. They play for three hours and cover a lot of material from their back catalog. There was this moment of uplift when they played these blocks of songs that consisted of Feels Like Heaven, In Between Days, Friday I'm in Love, and Push. Then there was this whole other part where they did songs like Shake Dog Shake, One Hundred Years, Primary. Then there was all the encore songs that was the best. Boys Don't Cry, 10:15 Saturday Night, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Killing an Arab. Pictures of You brought a lot of cheer from the crowd and on a lot of the songs, you can hear the crowd singing along.

I wish I had known earlier that The Fuse network was filming the whole thing and showed two hours of it last night from 11PM to 1AM. It was already over by the time I got home and I don't know if they'll air it again. If they do I'll post the info. It really was great show and I'm glad I held on to the ticket from past September 2007 when they had postponed this show.

They did pretty good with the stage. The light show was pretty amazing and the visual backdrops were great too.

Picture credit goes to JLBNYC. Check the Flickr site for more pictures of this show.

Here's something from YouTube from last night: The Cure doing Baby Rag Dog Book.

Blondie facts

From Chris Stein (taken from Blondie.net news)


1. First ever Video album released for "Eat to the beat" in 1980

2. First American #1 New Wave single "Heart of Glass"

3. First #1 Rap single in America "Rapture"

4. First reggae #1 single in America "The tide is high"

5. Oldest woman in rock with a #1 hit, when "Maria" debuted at #1 in 1999 in the UK

6. Parallel Lines sold sold over 20 million copies

7. Blondie has 4 American #1 singles and 7 in the UK

8. Blondie are the biggest selling american band in the UK Singles chart of all time

9. The single "Rapture" has been a Top Ten Dance single on the Billboard Dance charts in the 80's/90's/00's, 3 consecutive decades

10. Blondie appear on more soundtracks and compilation albums than any other artist in rock.

11. "Call Me" was the #1 single of 1980 in America on Billboard

lets also not forget what is kind of my favorite: blondie the only band besides the Beatles to have a back to back #1 and 2 on WABC in i guess 1981... rapture bumped tide from the top spot

WABC was the biggest NYC rock radio station for a long time now gone
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For more Blondie news, check out Blondie.net.

Front 242 "First Moments"

I got the e-mail with the link for the files a couple of days ago and surprised that it was a torrent link. Well, whatever. It didn't matter to me. What I was expecting, though was two NEW F242 songs. One of them was probably called "First Moments." I was surprised after unzipping the files that they were in fact live versions of "U-Men" and "Im Rhythmus Blieben." My first reaction was, WTF. But then I got over it, listened to the two AWESOME live tracks and was satisfied with it. They were free downloads and the point of the thing was that they wanted you to determine different quality mp3s. I would not pay a cent for any mp3 that was less than 360kbps. I oped for the Apple lossless download. I have listened to these tracks quite a bit since I downloaded them. They are from a recent live show and I hope I get to seem them perform these songs again. Especially "U-Men." It's not disappointing if you're a huge F242 fan. I definitely appreciate the free stuff and the point they are trying to make. But on Side-Line's comment section to this, there were a lot of negative talk. Eh, kids today.

Yaz & Furs Plus Ladytron

I suspect that if you like Yaz, you may also be a fan of the Psychedelic Furs. I read somewhere that they are the opening act for the L.A. show.

I hope they do open for Yaz here! That would be a kick for me. It will be the first time in years I show up for the opening. I usually come an hour later just to miss it.

My favorite Furs song? Love My Way.

I must write to you about Ladytron's Velocifero! A tip from my friend at Middle Eight. For now, I will say that it is FAR better than Witching Hour. It's like "Destroy Everything" many times over. Total electroclash goodness.

This is the time, now gimme the beat

I bit the bullet on Yaz. I had a feeling they weren't just going to end it at a small venue for two nights. They booked at the Beacon Theater and as usual I waited around for a good seat to open up. I hesitated it for a while though. Tickets are way overpriced for my taste. But in this case, it's a once in a lifetime thing to get to see Alison and Vince together performing those great songs. These bands all seem to be touring at the same time. I wanted to check out Duran Duran, but who can make all these shows with these ticket prices? Then there's Echo & The Bunnymen coming to Radio City. They've been together for 30 years and to commemorate, they are performing their most celebrated album Ocean Rain with full orchestra. This is in October, but tickets are already on sale. I'm overwhelmed.

Ladytron plays at Terminal 5 on 6/25. I'd like to check them out. Also at the same venue, Boy George on 8/15 and The Faint on 8/18.

I got e-mail from Alfa Matrix about two new Front 242 tracks free for download. The premise is that they are providing downloads in several different compression methods for you do decide for yourself as to the quality of these mp3s. I think since the days of downloaded mp3s, people have forgotten how quality music is supposed to sound like. I'm not talking about the taste of your music choices, but the sound itself.

From Alfa Matrix:

It's up to the listener to hear the difference between the various audio
sound formats and thus hear for him/herself what good quality audio sounds
like. To get hold of this free 2-track download, which will hit the online
world on June 15th, you need to register here