Love!! Obsession!! Incest!! Suicide!!

All wrapped up into one grandiose majestic masterpiece of post-ambient-shoegaze-prog-metal.

What more could you ask for!?

The second full-length album by Boston’s (their based out of L.A. now) Isis, is probably one of the most creative and original metal albums of all time. Oceanic has been cited as the album to spawn the post-metal (or ambient-metal or metal-gaze or whatever you wanna call it) genre.

Even though the album is categorized in the metal genre it is far from what you would typically think of as heavy metal music. There’s no cheesy guitar solos or pulse pounding double bass rhythms. Oceanic is filled with slight electronic texture, ghostly female vocals, slow paced instrumentation, and sprinkled with occasional screams and big distortion.

The concept is based on a dude that is all bummed out and fed up with life, he meets a girl and becomes obsessed with her. But, he finds out that the girl has been hooking up with her own brother. This bum’s the dude out even more (understandable) and he commits suicide by drowning himself in the ocean. Oh, the drama!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_(Isis_album)

This album really is the coolest. If you don’t own it already make this your next music purchase. But you can’t just download it; you have to actually buy a physical copy of it. The artwork and the cerebral outline of the story listed inside the booklet are important to truly appreciating this business and you have to listen to it all the way through. It’s art!! Serious!!

http://www.isistheband.com/Home.aspx

Jon

For many years now I have been obsessed with Chevy Chase. There is something about the characters that he plays in the majority of his movies that is classic. He always has a way of sneaking in some sort of comment or facial expression that just kills me every time. There are three movies that define just how pimp Chevy Chase really is, Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation and Fletch. I know that he has made several other movies that are pretty good. But, to me these three movies are the best. One because they are rated R so he can be kinda raunchy, two this was when he was in his comedic prime and three Chevy Chase is my hero.

I would have to say out of the three that Fletch is my favorite.

-sidenote-

Look how ridiculous Rodney Dangerfield looks on the cover of Caddyshack, I love it!! Ha!!

Jon

To usher in the first dusting of blissful snow for the ‘08-’09 season, Absinthe Films and Milosport held the world premiere for the new Absinthe video at the Tower Theatre on Saturday night. The movie is awesome and got me stoked to ride some pow. Check out a little highlight video of the premiere and follow the links below to see the real teaser for “Ready” - Absinthe’s 2008 release.

http://www.sphereofinfluencetour.com/newSite/hiResPlayer/

My introduction to Her Space Holiday was several years ago when a friend of mine passed along the 2003 release The Young Machines.  It was an instant hit for me, with stand out tracks Tech Romance and My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend being played out on every mix tape I had made that year.

Oddly enough, up until a couple of weeks ago, The Young Machines was the only album I had from Her Space Holiday.  Until couple weeks ago*, I was on my weekly new music hunt and I stumbled upon their newest EP, Sleepy Tigers**.

Yes, the title of the EP is great and the artwork is perfect (see below please), but the title track steals the show.  Granted it’s a blatantly obvious declaration of love, but there is nothing wrong with that.  It’s a fun little ditty (yeah that’s right, I said ‘ditty’) that’s already made one mix-tape of mine and will probably make a couple more before the year ends***.

Regards,
H

* I apologize for the delay.

** I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a huge fan of anything that falls into the category of wild felines.  I promise, I’m not trying to drive the point home, all of these feline related posts are just coincidence really.

***Wow, the ending to this post is blatantly obvious too and perhaps a bit cheesy.

I wanted to share some of the albums that I have been buggin out to lately. All of this stuff is old and some of the bands are broken up. But the music is still Bodacious as ever.

DJ Shadow – Entroducing

This album is a classic and the first album to be 100 % compromised of samples. DJ’s are always biting this albums style. All of DJ Shadow’s stuff is good except for The Outsider, that one is weak.

Björk – Vespertine

By far the most emotional album she has put out. The beats are random and slight. Favorite Track right now “It’s Not Up To You”. Also check Homogenic and the music video collection Greatest Hits: Volumen 1993-2003. I wish I could be magical like Björk.

 Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters, Big Me Single, (Late! – Pocketwatch)

I busted the Foo’s 1^st album out a couple of weeks ago and it’s actually really good, much better than the corndog music they put out now. The big hit off that album “Big Me” was released as a single and has bunch of b-sides from the 1^st albums recording session. I also started digging on Dave Grohl’s first solo tape under the pseudonym Late!. You can’t buy it, but go to the myspace www.myspace.com/latedavegrohl and you can get directions to download it in the blog section.

 June of 44 – all 6 of their recordings

 If you are obsessed with Slint & Rodan (honestly who isn’t), Then check these guys out. All 6 of their albums are amazing. The music may seem kind of one dimensional at first but, I’m telling you this band is the top of the pops. Best song “Of Information and Belief” off of Four Great Points. Too bad they broke up in 2000. Check out all the offshoot bands especially Shipping News. www.myspace.com/giugnodel44

 Mineral – EndSeranading

This band sounds so similar to Sunny Day Real Estate that upon listening to the bands final recording before they broke up in 1998, You might think that you are listening to a long lost SDRE recording. Only problem is the original bass player for SDRE, Nate Mendel (he’s my favorite) is much better then Mineral’s bass player Jeremy Gomez. But it’s cool, I won’t hold it against him. www.myspace.com/mineralmusic

So thar it be!! A bunch of old Bodacious music to bug out to!!

I didn’t put any links on the album covers, because I decided I have been pimping amazon.com too much!!

Jon