| The Continuing Saga of AEROSMITH |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|08:21 pm] |
It's been a twisty-topsy crazy insane couple of days for fans of AEROSMITH. It's been a left and right and now it's left again. Despite a surprise appearance by Steven Tyler at the November 10, 2009 concert of The Joe Perry Project at NYC's Irving Plaza, things are still up in the air.
From what I can make sense of things it all started where Steven Tyler was discussing through an interview that he was going to concentrate on some solo works and making "brand Tyler". This was followed by some tweeting on Monday (11/9/2009) by Joe Perry in which he mentioned that Aerosmith was not breaking up and they might be in the search for a new lead singer. He also stated that he hadn't heard from Tyler in months.
This sent news media into a frenzy blogging about who could replace Tyler. Lists upon lists and blogs upon blogs discussing it. Adam Lambert? Eddie Vedder? Axl Rose? Scott Weiland? I didn't see anyone suggesting say Nickelback's Chad Kroeger or Saliva's Josey Scott. I wouldn't mind seeing Josh Todd front the guys in Aerosmith either or possibly Kelly Schaefer. Although realistically? The only person who should ever “replace” Steven Tyler is the two other unofficial members of Aerosmith. Essentially The Bone Brothers, Marti Frederikson and Mark Hudson.
All of that seemed moot on the Tuesday a few days after all of this started as Steven showed up unannounced right before an encore at The Joe Perry's launch tour at New York City's Irving Plaza. Tyler hit the stage, told the crowd he wasn't leaving Aerosmith and then went into what seemed like a power play with Perry. I have no idea what "You're many colors Joe, but I'm the Rainbow" means... but Joe responded with some line about not knowing what kind of bullshit Steve was playing, but he's here, so let's just do "Walk This Way".
The next day Joe made a statement basically saying he had no idea what that was all about and that Steve didn't stick around after, so everything was still up in the air. Last I checked the news, it still is. Steven Tyler might be taking a two year break and the boys in Aerosmith might still be on the look out for a temporary replacement. There's a chance they might just wait for Steven and do their own thing. Joe has The Project after all, Joey Kramer teaches drums worldwide, and I'm sure if they wanted Hamilton and Whitford could find touring or studio musician work. People would probably rob, kill and maim to have them contribute to their sessions and recordings.
All this Aerosmith happenings and news is a great segue way for me to discuss them as a whole though. Aerosmith are in my list of my top 5 bands. There really is no in particular order of these bands which also include Big Star, Bon Jovi, Jellyfish and Superdrag. Out of those bands I can only sing a song of Aerosmith's word for word without needing reference or listening to the actual song for prompting. That song is “What It Takes...” I'll start singing it randomly at any time. It's not a happy song... it's actually one of the most hurtful songs out there. So much heartache and loss after a loved one has betrayed you and your love. For whatever inexplicable reason though, it's the one that has stuck with me.
I own a ton of Aerosmith albums (tapes and CDs and I think even an LP), including Japanese imports, singles, tributes, soundtracks they worked on and I can never get enough. Amazingly my two favorite Aerosmith songs are actually a B-sides... and yes, it's a different songs than the one I can sing off the top of my head. One is called “Head First”, it appeared on a collection called Young Lust. The other is “Deuces are Wild” which appeared on another collection called BIG ONES. Although my favorite album is the really lesser known DONE WITH MIRRORS. Songs like “Shela”, “Darkness” and “The Reason a Dog” are just fantastic.
You'd think with such a true love of the band I'd seen them perform live at least once. I haven't though. Money and circumstances just never allowed it. This year I got to hear Steven Tyler and Mark Hudson talk live though. They were being interviewed by Chuck Klosterman in what seemed a premature promotion for Tyler's autobiography. I say premature because from the interview it came across like Tyler hadn't even started writing. He also seemed pretty stoned out of his gourd. Now that might be a permanent state, but Mark Hudson was there like a handler. It was really fun, but I didn't push through the crowd of old librarians, press and whoever to try and just shake his hand. He didn't stay long after the talk anyways. A minute at most...
Hopefully I will one day get to just have a real sit down conversation with every member of the band. I have so many questions. Sure, many of them actually got answered in the very thorough WALK THIS WAY: interview collection/autobiography, but there's plenty more.
photo description: Mark Hudson and Steven Tyler on stage at New York Book Expo 2009
I want some real insight into the minds of The Toxic Twins... while they've discussed the song writing development, the true explanation of some of their lyrics seem to be lost in the ether.
While it's wrong after they both fought so long to be clean... I'd love to smoke some ganja or even drop some mushrooms and really delve deep into their minds. They're fashion sense, the way they designed sets, all of it... most especially I wanna know what the deal with Steven's occasional purple teardrop. I love it and have even expanded on it for myself, but I'm not sure what it means. I just wanna know what's up with tear drop, did he kill someone? Maybe... sometimes I feel he killed himself only to be reborn. I'd love to do that.
image descirption: a drawing I did of Steven Tyler
Until then I'll just constantly listen to the songs, and learn from them, understanding more and I live life more. The band do have 30 years of experience and way much more sex, drugs and rock n' roll then I'll probably ever have... but it's fun trying!
(For the record: The most recent AP article.
More from Billboard.
and here's MTV News coverage...) |
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| Tom Green as an evil, serious as a heart attack bastard bad guy? |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|04:07 pm] |
Comedy Central is airing a fairly bad flick called SHRED. It's a Snowboarding dramedy. More focus on bad comedy than good drama. It's not the director's first time on the slopes. He also made Ski School 2 and Ski Hard. Those films benefited from Dean Cameron and Keith Coogan respectively. This one only has Tom Green and he's not doing comedy! None at all... he's not the loser good guy with all the good lines. He's playing his role completely straight. Not as a straight man though... just pure evil.
Why am I still watching it? Cause I am a bit too sick to consider something that requires my brain. (my head is swelling mostly at this point, so I'm alive at home, but half out of it)
BTW, I've noticed tons of ads in the background for Coors, VANS, ISDesign and tons of Skiing and snowboarding. |
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| What can a new search engine do for you? |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|09:32 am] |
Find you images of your work you'd completely forgotten you did.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phthoggos/4053657377/in/set-72157606566029871/
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| Kitty paws. |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|02:49 pm] |
 Kitty hands get their own post cause they look pretty cute.
Pads are painted fabric, glued onto white felt, which gave me something to stitch to the white fur.
Now when I make hands, I make a little template for size I want the overall hand to be, then work my way in for the foam. As just a foam hand it looked tiny, but now covered in fur it's the perfect size in relation to the head. I'm pleased with how they turned out. pain in the arse working so small, it's time consuming but worth it in the end, I guess.
I like how paw-like they look, but I can adjust it to look more like a hand.
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:44 pm] |
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Oh hey, you know who's Swedish & awesome? Kolbeinn Karlson. Check out something he did in English. He pretty much looks like he draws himself. Here is something from his blog. |
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| In which I quickly complain about my disgusting neighboors |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|03:10 pm] |
The garbage room is not a place to move your garbage into. There is a CHUTE, you open this chute and SEND the garbage down to a place where it can be compacted.
It's just gross to walk in there and see bags of garbage, stinky, dirty, spilling on to the floor, attracting who knows what vermin.
One could say they don't know enough English or American ways of things, except for the fact there are signs in Russian and the Russian neighboors who don't do this have told the others how to.
No, it's just blatant disgusting, nauseating stupidity and laziness. Luckily I never have to deal with these people other than that and the fact that they don't know how an elevator works or what stairs are or how to check the mail or... well... yeah... whatever. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|09:29 am] |
Happy Veterans Day. I'm in the lab working on some stuff. It's quiet as the tomb: whereas the place is usually full of students hiving around giving each other advice on how to format reports or just playing Farmville, today there are like three people here, and one of them is me.
I'm fairly frustrated with the people in my Photoshop class. They just can't track! An in-class demonstration that might take fifteen minutes to get through takes an hour, because people don't track on the instructions. The guy has to keep backing up, has to keep walking over to peoples' desks to show them where their new layers should be, or how to move and center a line of text ..
And there's the manic guy who keeps answering questions, then popping and waving his head around to see if everybody is looking at him. He gets frustrated very early if nobody pays any attention to him, so usually pops out his thumb drive and runs out early, and we're rid of him for the rest of the class.
I had hoped to have some free time to work on my next project at the end of class, but by the time I punched out my own drive and packed up, which was ten minutes after class ended, the instructor was still mired in showing people what to do. |
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| Rebuilding My Website |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|12:32 pm] |
So, I went Word Press for POP-CULTURE SPECTRUM.
Now I have to actually build it, which means choosing a theme, creating a new logo, creating a background, choosing widgets, etc., etc.
I honestly could use help and suggestions and offers of other types of help... design me a perfect theme? Build me a perfect logo? Whatever... have at it. I'll appreciate whatever you offer.
In the meantime I guess I'll just start making posts on it. Hoping that whatever changes I make don't break how those posts look. |
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| Sketches, pencils, photos |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:19 am] |
I've slowly been filling my sketchbook with people on the subway train. I love the brief moments of observation and then trying to get as much down as possible as unobtrusively as possible. There are people that can make a drawing in three minutes have such individual personality and character, and I would like to quicken my mind and hand to do the same.
I tried to show how his lips were pursed here in concentration, and his spindly fingers arched around the device.
Pencils for the previously mentioned illustration of Afternoon by Ralph Ellison.
I just can't get enough of the sky and the trees right now. Autumn is flying by, and I feel like we've had a great one this year. A brief trip up to Boston and Rhode Island this weekend gave me the opportunity to take some landscape pictures... something I am quite uncomfortable with. It's hard for me to find the personality in a landscape, I feel like I flatten everything out.
( Some photos beneath the cut! )
More photos on my flickr page. |
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