Musical Worth Your While

So I was watching “Sweeney Todd” yesterday, and for whatever reason, it reminded me of “The Evil Dead” musical, based off the “Evil Dead” trillogy, which is directed by the “Spiderman” dude. Anyway, it’s a musical worth looking at.
I mean, it’s not for little kids, and it has a lot of running gags that get on your nerves after the first hour, but the songs like “What The Fuck was That?” are very well done.

Special Promotions 6-16-09

Hey there folks,

This post is dedicated to spreading the word about to musicians who are very popular in the Youtube community. I usually do them in fives, but these are the only two I’ve got so far, so I guess I’ll use them as a kickstart.
First is Tiffany Alvord This sixteen-year-old does various covers of pop songs–my favorite being “Last Christmas” by Wam–and always manages to put her own spin on things. She also writes her own songs and has over 20 fan sites. She is seemingly down to Earth, with a very friendly disposition.
Next is CJaye LeRose From Texas, this artist does primarily country music, and she’s very enthusiastic about her work. She also has fan pages, and is against cruelty to animals.
I urge you to please take the time to check out these artists. Like writers, being noticed is half the battle for them. When commenting, just remember if you can’t be nice, be vague. If you want to know how you can appear here, see the rules and guidelines below.
In other news, I’m considering starting a twitter, but not until late August or so because I won’t be around the net on a regular basis after this week.

Get Yourself Promoted

Hi Guys,
So I’ve got a membership to Youtube, and I’ve noticed that a lot of people sing on there, trying to get noticed. So if you’re one of these people, just look for my channel on Youtube under Nickoomba.
Rules and Conditions:
1. All promotions are subject to my opinion. If I don’t like you, forget it, and I’ll let you know.
2. I reserve the right to request any song for you to sing. I like to see how you do under pressure.
3. I AM NOT A RECORD LABEL!!!! All that happens here is promotion to a larger network.
4. Promotions will be done in fives, rather than one post for each person. The quicker you can get four other people to band with you, the faster you’re up here.
5. In exchange for my promotion, you must also do a promotion for my blog, including name and web address.

Have fun and good luck!

Dirty Little Secret

I’m a fan of classic rock and Celtic music mostly, but that’s never stopped me from listening to the occasional rap or country or disco or punkrock song, but sometimes… When I’m alone because everyone is miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles away, creating the feeling that the characters in The Stand or I am Legend must have had… Well… I like to crank that NSYNC.
I know, I know. They’re gay and they’re so ’90′s, but I just can’t help it. I hear “Bye Bye Bye” and I’m in the zone, doing the dance and using the bottle of Band deodorant oon top of my dresser as a microphone, hitting the occasional flat note and screaming “Damn it, Joey, will you ever get it right?” and dodging an imaginary punch. Lance will make us hug later, but we have a show to do now.
I kept this up for 7 years, my dirty little secret, knowing I had a problem but unable to help myself, telling myself on sleepless nights that there were worse things in the world but unable to think of a single one. Then I met Shelly.
Even though she was a goth girl and her pants were easier to get into than Florida Gulf Coast University, we hit it off. We had some good times, spending many a night with her bending over a toilet, puking because she was just unable to admit that just couldn’t hold her liquor because all the goth people drank, and me holding her hair out of the line of fire, trying not to lose my grip on the jel greased mop that was her attempt at spikes. Then the inevitible happened.
She came over to my dorm. More importantly, she got a look at the music folder on my computer. I tried to tell her I didn’t know the NSYNC folder was there. When you use Isohunt so much, it’s hard to keep track.
Of course the story didn’t stick. She said I had to choose between Justin and her, and like a lovestruck fool I told her I deleted the folder, but in reality I’d just moved it into the Norton Antivirus folder under Program Files. I thought I beat it, my nasty little habit, but then Shelly and I had our first big fight.
She wanted me to start eating Reese’s cups, but I liked Twix. “I can’t stop eating them,” I told her, “it’s the only candy with the caramel cookie crunch!”

And so she left me in my dark apartment, surrounded by inhuman furniture and whatever the hell was living in the garbage that I hadn’t taken out for six months. I began longing for the days of my youth, and I fell off the wagon.
There I was, standing there singing the millionth “Giddy giddy giddy-up” when Shelly stormed in, grabbed me by my nipples and spun me into the wall where I slumped in shame. She had come by to make up–who would’ve thunk it? And so she left for real this time, eventually throwing up on a cop, being charged with DUI and ending up someone’s prison toy.
I guess the moral of the story for guys is be true to yourself. For girls… Don’t ever try to change a man’s candy preferences?

Bow to Technology

Technology is taking over our lives. That is neither good nor bad; an elderly man from Joplin, Missouri is now behind bars for unlawful discharge of a firearm after shooting his TV because he couldn’t get his converter box to work, while I was able to find Fountains of Wayne’s cover version of Britney Spears’s “Hit me Baby One More Time”. Personally, I think that Fountains of Wayne did a better job, but you can watch the video and make that call for yourselves.

Anyway, the time we spend with some sort of technology (cell phones, .mp3 players, computers etc.) is increasing daily because the things yu can do with any one piece of technology increases with every new version of it. Remember when cell phones were the size of Fred Flintstone’s shoes, and you couldn’t make a call half of the time because there was no reception, meaning that there was still a lot of time when you weren’t in touch with your friends or loved ones? Not anymore. With the innovation of Myspace/Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc., telling your friends that you just haven’t had the time to get in touch holds just about as much water as a screen door on a submarine as far as excuses go.
In fact, technology has taken a life of it’s own, and it’s development is similar to that of a child. It started out as an amusing novelty whose tasks were simplex and only people who were well-to-do owned these innovative tools. Now, however, technology has taken on a mind of its own, beginning to undermine authority. People who text in meetings aid the technology in challenging a boss’s authority. President Obama is not above the challenge, either.
So does that make technology bad? The easy out would be to pick either yes or no, and then defend your position because we would have a scapegoat in a lot of instances. Objectively, though, it is a fact that technology is taking over, but it is what it is. On one hand, we have the old guy who is in jail for shooting his TV. On the other, it makes it easier for people like you and me to share ideas, so it’s good. But what about Britney Spears?
The ability to transmit media across distances at a faster rate has loosened the leash on journalists considerably. Spears stated in an interiew in Feburary of 2006 that she felt endangered by the constant presence of reporters, fearing for the safety of her child. Of course, this was just before she went off the deep end, and it followed her declaration that she could actually sing based on her ability to sing “Mary had a Little Lamb” for her son, who seemed to enjoy himself. But does even that seemingly pointless revellation kill Spears’s credibility?
Technological innovations have made it easy to hone even live performances to sound good. If she was constantly behind a key corrector, than it is possible that Spears never knew her capabilities, but one wonders why she hasn’t demanded that she be unplugged for any of her albums since.
The answer, then, is that technology is taking over, but its goodness or evil all depends on the circumstances and how people use it. All the things the developers thought of, and they never imagined that technology would have the power to make people stop blaming other people and things–how shocking!

The Cal behind the Cal

So I saw last night that Simon Cal would like to be criogenically frozen after he dies because he feels that science will be advanced enough to bring him back in a hundred years for the 107th season of “American Idle”. Never mind how death is Earth’s way of making sure it can sustain a population and how it’s all part of the Circle of Life and being reborn is unholy; how self-centered do you have to be to think that (a) people would want you back, and (b) that “American Idle” will be around that long?

People have always thought Cal an asshole, but I just always said he knew what he liked and had the decency to be honest, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Now, though, we have a whole new spin on things. Wouldn’t it just be perfect if one of the people he humiliated was one of the scientists in charge of bringing him back? Do you know how easy it would be to screw with him at that point? Maybe we could just lop off an arm, or put his head on backwards. Just would be ten points for Karma and the Circle of Life right there.
Of course, Simon isn’t the first to attempt escaping the passage, Walt Disney is said to be Criogenically frozen and hidden within the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. Wouldn’t he be surprised to learn that his empire has turned into one big stench pile that only cares about selling stuff, and that they’ve abandoned musicals altogether? I think he might.

Retro Movies Day

So I finished my homework earlier than I expected yesterday, and was flipping through the channels and ran into the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. I haven’t watched it in years, so I was happy with it. I saw that ABC Family was showing “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” later last night.
Usually, with movie remakes/sequels, you can say that you liked one or the other better, like “Grease” is definitely better than “Grease II”, but I couldn’t pick a favorite between “Willy Wonka” and “Charlie”. The 1971 version is a cool musical and the original, but the 2005 version is closer to the book and to Wonka’s true nature of self indulgence.
I guess I’m saying I like both equally because even though they are the same story, Tim Burton had the decency to not try to outdo the original when he was making his film, and the critics apparently agreed. To like a remake/sequel and the original having equa value is a rarity, meaning that Tim Burton is immortalized.

I Sought Amy, and she’s one hot button lady!!!

So I was listening to the radio this morning, and it seems a number of stations are considering pulling Britney Spears’s “If You Seek Amy” off the air because it sounds suspiciously like “f u c k me”.
Of course the radio wouldn’t play the unedited version–they just expect you to take their word for it–so I looked it up. You can hear the song and read the lyrics here. I think Britney did it on purpose. She may have done some stupid things, but she’s not stupid–she’s getting allthe opress she could possibly want out of this. I don’t think it should be pulled off the radio, though, it’s no worse than the inuendos you see in some cartoons.

Is it True?

So I was hanging around on the college campus yesterday, and I heard that high school kids are listening to 80′s music because they just can’t handle the crap that’s coming out these. Is this true? If so, I can’t blame you. I used to listen to Rick Dees’s “Weekly Top Forty”, but even he can’t get me through to sit through some of the stuff that’s being turned out.
I like some of Fall Out Boy’s stuff, Keisha Cole was the bomb (although it may be just because I love the name Keisha), but it’s just no good. Pink’s “Rockstar” has a great beat, but stupid lyrics.
It’s like the powers that be in music just said “What the hell, everything else’s going downhill–let’s jump aboard!”
So once again, I don’t blame you, I’m just curious.

Celtic Music Rocks

I’m a quarter Irish. I’ve picked up a few things from it. I suspect my love of myth and legend is one. My tolerance for liquor is another. I’ve also been known to slip into an Irish accent for no apparent reason. But most of all, is my love for Celtic music. There’s just something about that combo of guitar, banjo, drum and flute that isso appealing.

You don’t find it too much in Florida, accept for a band called Celtic Stew based out of Fort Meyers. They’re my favorite Celtic band next to The Irish Rovers. You can find out more about them at this myspace page. I don’t have Myspace. I think updating that constantly’s just a major pain.

So it’s time for everyone else to get their Irish on!!!