The Cure - 4:13 Dream - CD Review

The Cure formed back in 1976 in Crawley, West Sussex. Robert Smith is the only original member from the band of that time. They started to gain popularity in 1982 with their first hit Let's Go To Bed and have continued to gain a wide music audience for the past 25 plus years. Over that time they have released 12 studio CDs and now have their 13 one due out in October called 4:13 Dream.

The first feel that I get from this new CD is that it's sort of a mix of many past songs being revived to create this CD. I may be wrong, but hte jump of style from a song like Underneath The Stars, a song that reminds me of an epic ballad, then jumps into The Only One that becomes more pop like. Overall it really has a nice mix of songs and styles throughout.

I would have thought that they would have had this out earlier to fit in witht he tour of the US, but I'm guessing that they will end up touring again in support of the new music and getting the word out there. Regardless I think that they will get good reviews and a good amount of air play on this CD and it should sell well. It's not like it's a band who dropped off the face of the earth and just came back. They have been doing these tours and festivals for a good long time.

It's a fantastic CD with a really nice blend of songs. Some of my favorites on this one are Underneath The Stars, Perfect Boy, Freakshow and Sleep When I'm Dead. There are other really good songs, but these to me represent some of the classic Cure stuff that I've always liked and don't stray off to some crazy new stuff.

Certainly another CD I would recommend picking up.

Track list:

01 Underneath The Stars
02 The Only One
03 The Reason Why
04 Freakshow
05 Sirensong
06 The Real Snow White
07 The Hungary Ghost
08 Switch
09 The Perfect Boy
10 This Here and Now With You
11 Sleep When I'm Dead
12 The Scream
13 It's Over

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinalology - Review

I recently posted that Ryan Adams & The Cardinals would be releasing a new CD on October 28th, 2008 called Cardinalology. Now I have had a chance to hear the full CD in studio version and not only the live songs off http://www.archive.org/ I can write a little more about what you will expect to hear in next week when it is officially released. iTunes will be releasing a song called The Color of Pain as a bonus track. That is not reviewed in this blog.

Born Into A Light is the first track on the new CD. Typical alt-country track that lasts about 2 minutes. It has some nice guitar work and Ryan sounds great on it. Not totally mellow, but a little more of a ballad type song. Slide guitar sounds nice on it.

Go Easy picks the pace a little bit. The Cardinals sounds work this one together nicely. Good mix of Ryan singing with the electric guitar playing prominately with him through the track. It's a bit more up beat, slows it down a bit and tests Ryans ability to change the range of his vocals throughout. The backing vocals come in late and sound pretty good. Overall a nic etrack.

Fix It as I sort of reviewed in my early announcement of the CD coming out. It sort of reminds me of something from a Neil Young and Crazyforse CD. It is already released on iTunes and other places to hear it. ryan sounds good and it's a nice little tune.

Magick kicks it in a bit and starts off with some heavy guitars and keeps going. This is a more rocking song involving more vocals from the other members. I really like this one, certainly one of my favorites on the cd.

Cobwebs as I've heard the live and the studio version it's hard to tell the difference between the two. It sounds great both ways. More in the lines of a ballad type song and has a little U2 type feel to it. Good tune with a nice rolling drum through the song. another nice tune on the CD.

Let Us Down Easy feels like a lot of the Cardinals stuff that came out on Cold Roses and Jacksonville. Ryan sounds like he's struggling a little on the vocals at times, but that certainly is sort of his style at times. Good overall beat to the song and it's one that can grow on you.

Crossed Out Name is more on the mellow side of The Cardinals on this CD. More on the ballad style with a rolling acoustic guitar sound to it. Pretty cool and certainly will be one played more often in the future.

Natural Ghost is a nice country type ballad. I like this one, harder to describe or compare to something else, but it's a nice tune with a good acoustic feel with some added slide guitar in thee.

Sink Ships starts off with some good acoustic guitar work adding is some slide to it as well. Slower style song with a nic efeel to it and it picks up a bit throughout the song. Ryan sounds great and another nice song on the CD.

Evergreen again starts out with some nice guitar work, almost sounds like the start of Goodnight Rose and then changes up quick. Nice mix of slide guitar, piano and acoutic guitar. Certainly a slower one on the CD, but again a nice song.

Like Yesterday is more ballad like, has that nice country feel to it as it rolls along. Sounds like something off of Easy Tiger, but just can remember what. The guitar solo kicking in gives it the classic ballad feel of The Cards. I do like this one.

Stop kicks it off with piano and feels like a Neil Young style song again. I think this might have been used in a TV show. I had heard a song recently on a show, very mellow like this that I couldn't place and I think that this is it. Certainly the most mellow song on the CD. Just Ryan singing and playing the piano. They add some background by the end, but it certainly is a nice mellow song.

Overall I have to say I really like the new CD by Ryan Adams and The Cardinals. It mixes it up with different styles of songs and it gives you a good range of what Ryan can do. On the latest tour he certainly has been playing these tunes out live and it is refreshing to know that the studio versions sound pretty amazing as well. Some bands are hard to tell, but with Ryan, he just knows what to do to put together a fantastic CD.

I highly recommend picking this one up on October 28th. No matter the media, CD, iTunes or what, you will be happy with this one. Now if we can just get him to reschedule that Kansas City date and I end up with a ticket that would be awesome.

Track List:

Born Into A Light
Go Easy
Fix It
Magick
Cobwebs
Let Us Down Easy
Crossed Out Name
Natural Ghost
Sink Ships
Evergreen
Like Yesterday
Stop
The Color Of Pain (iTunes Bonus - Not Reviewed)

Ryan Adams - Infinity Blues - Pre-Order

So first we find out that Ryan Adams has a new CD coming out with The Cardinals called Cardinalology. NOW - We get Ryan's first book and if you order now you get it in December, it's a signed limited edition and you get a book of poetry that only comes with it.

Here's a link to pre-order: http://www.akashicbooks.com/ryanadamspreorder.htm at some pont it wil come down and you can order the book that will come out in April, but this limited edition will be out in December and it's signed and numbered. Pretty cool - pick it up now!

Life on Mars - US Pilot 2008 - Review

The show Life On Mars was originally a BBC show that lasted for 2 seasons and had a Lietenant Gene Hunt spin off called Ashes to Ashes. The American version of the series produced by David E. Kelly but really follows the BBC series from episode to episode. I originally watch a pilot preview episode that certainly has been changed when producing the actual show. They moved the city from Los Angeles to New York and they changed Lietenant Gene Hunt from Colm Meaney to Harvey Keitel.

After seeing the initial pilot I would have suggested changing Jason O'Mara as Sam Tyler and asking John Simms to come over the pond and play the role again. Simms did a fantastic job in the role on the BBC and he also was great on Doctor Who for a 3 episode deal as well. The man has talent and would have been great. I think O'Mara lacks the personality to play the role and is trying to fill some big shoes.

Life on Mars is about a detective, in current time, is working a case and ends up getting hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973 with the skills and memory of 2008. So the big question, is he really in 1973 or a coma and just creating all these stories in his head. It's a great concept and it's funny when he starts talking about forencics and they haven't been created yet. So he throws some new ideas into the mix and needs to figure out how to adjust to being back in time.

I liked the original series a lot and really wish it would have taken off and continued on BBC. So my hope is that the characters grow on me and they make the American version a big hit. There's always the possibility that they will spin Lietenant Gene Hunt off to Ashes to Ashes, but I'd rather see them try to salvage the show and keep going with it. I also hope that they don't continue to use the exact same stories as the original show, but change it up and make create their own path.

It will be interesting to see how Harvey Keitel does as I did really like Colm Meaney as Lietenant Gene Hunt.

I'll probably add more when I see the new version of the pilot. I hope it's as good as the last one.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinalology October 28th Release

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals with be releasing their fourth CD together, even though the last one Easy Tiger was listed under Ryan only. Still all the musicians are the same. So Ryan has already started to sample many of the songs live and has pre-released the song Fix It on electronic media including at iTunes.

Fix It has a sort of Neil Young feel to me. I guess it's also a Ryan Adams feel as well. It's a nice tune and has a little rockin' feel to it. It certainly fits in with a lot of what Ryan and & The Cardinals have done so far.

Virually every song from the cd has either been played live or released on a TV show, so everyone should know what they are going to be getting when this CD comes out on October 28th. The question will be what sort of bonus material you will get depending on where you buy it.

I'm going to wait to do a full review when I hear the studio versions of the songs, but as they are now live, this sounds like it's going to be a sweet CD. Be ready to pick this one up and check out Ryan as he's on tour now.

If you want to hear some of the tracks live, go to www.archive.org and click through live music archives, browse by band and find Ryan and sort by date to get the latest shows on top. Enjoy!

Track List:

Born Into A Light
Go Easy
Fix It
Magick
Cobwebs
Let Us Down Easy
Crossed Out Name
Natural Ghost
Sink Ships
Evergreen
Like Yesterday
Stop

Sanctuary - Sci-Fi Series Pilot - Review

Sactuary started out as a web based series that was created by some of the Stargate producers. The show stars Amanda Tapping as Dr. Helen Magnus, who is 157 years old and keeps a "Sanctuary" for supernatural creatures. Some are there for their own protection and others are there on their own.

The series had over 4 million viewers on the web and was actually a pay service so that they could recoup some of their costs. It went over well and was eventually copied and put out on the web for others to see. Still Sci-Fi picked it up and is running the 8 episode series to see how it does.

The first episode was two hours and gave us a background of the main characters and the purpose for the Sanctuary. This episode starts off with the strange murders of two police officers and an old man. There is a little boy who has some abnormality that has a life of it's own, but feeds off the boys fears. This appendage attacks by striking a persons brain, killing them instantly. The boy was born near Chernobyl during the fallout out from the nuclear meltdown.

Dr. Magnus is looking to find the boy and bring him into Sanctuary to help him. She looks to Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), a forensic psychiatrist, to help her work with these patients and get into the minds of them. Dr. Zimmerman's background is that he saw his mother killed by a monster and even though he's told it never happened, he finds out that it did and that Dr. Magnus was there to rescue him. He was once with the FBI, but moved on to local law enforcement because of his tactics. Now he is asked to help assist with Dr. Magnus.

There are several other characters intoduced including Helen's daughter Ashley, who tracks down these creatures and John Druitt, who himself is a creature and has a past with Helen.

The first episode was a bit slow at times and seemed to be more of an attempt to develop characters instead of thinking that people would rather see more action and monster types moments. I know that's a LCD attitude, but I think that's a bit of what you need to get the popular viewing you want.

I thought the show was a bit dark and watching it at about 10pm I was almost ready to crash. So I'm going to give it more time to see if it peaks my interest over the next couple weeks. Amanda Tapping attempted and English accent, but I didn't feel it was good at all. Just stick to what you know best.

The plot is good and it leaves it open to a lot of things for the future if the show ends up having one. I know the last several shows have dies in season one including, Dresdan Files, Pain Killer Jane and Flash Gordon. Let's hope it can break the chain and continue on into a new season.

I would give it a couple of weeks to judge it. There are plenty of shows that gained momentum after the first couple weeks. Now pairing with Stargate Atlantis you might find more viewers next week. tune in and we will see.

Grateful Dead - Road Trips Vol 1 No 4: From Egypt With Love

Not only did we get the release of the Egypt 1978 shows we also were given a nice little bonus of a new Road Trips CD Vol. 1, No. 4 October of 1978 From Egypt With Love. This falls right in place with the Egypt 1978 release. After the return from Egypt, The Grateful Dead did a five night series at Winterland in San Francisco to give the hometown folks a little taste of Egypt. They had a slide show. Hamza El Din (a Nubian musician living in the Bay Area) reprised the Egyptian song he’d sung at the Sound & Light Theater in Gizah—called “Ollin Arageed” for the Winterland Fans. So you get to hear something new and different in both of the new releases.

The CDs are made up of mainly two performances 10/21 & 10/22/1978, but if you get the bonus CD you also get a couple of songs from 10/17 as well. See the Track List below for all the songs that made this release.

The quality of the recordings are nice. The remastered 30 year old recordings turned out pretty darn good. I'm always happy to hear some of these classic recordings.

There's some really good highlights on these cds. The Got My Mojo Working > The Other One > Stella Blue jam is really nice, a must hear. If I Had The World To Give is only one of 3 times this was ever played. Sugaree, what can I say, awesome as always.

The Scarlet > Fire on the second CD is awesome. Honestly I can't tell you that there is anything on here that isn't amazing. I really dig whole show. I wish there was a DVD companion to one of these shows as well. That would be a classic to see.

Great show, good quality, well worth the $20 for the 2 plus bonus CD ordered directly from www.dead.net.

Disk One - 10/21/78

Sugaree
Passenger
Stagger Lee
I Need A Miracle
Got My Mojo Working (with Lee Oskar)>
The Other One>
Stella Blue>
Sugar Magnolia
US Blues

Disk Two - 10/22/78

Olin Aragreed>
Deal
Peggy-O
Jack Straw
Scarlet Begonias>
Fire On The Mountain
NFA (with John Cipollina)>
GDTRFB

Bonus Disc

Bertha (10/21/78)>
Good Lovin (10/21/78)>
Estimated (10/21/78)>
He's Gone (10/21/78)
If I Had The World To Give (10/17/78)>
Around and Around (10/17/78)

Grateful Dead - Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 CD/DVD

The Grateful Dead played at the Sound and Light Theater just outside of Cairo in Egypt on September 14, 15 & 16, 1978. the orginal plan was to record the series of shows to release a live CD set as well as portentially making a concert movie out of it. When they returned to the United States they discovered that the first night and half of the second nights shows were flawed and not able to use for recordings. So the project was shelved and now 30 years later here we are and we get to hear what survived of those recordings as well as a DVD filled with some of the performance as well.

The packaging is quite unique as well with the fold out pyramid and the moon and stars. See picture in the blog related to this.The CD/DVD set package is pretty cool in itself. Still to me it's fun, but after they get loaded to the iPod I don't usually see that stuff unless I'm loading up the DVD.

It would have been great if they came back with all the recordings intact, but without the first night and part of the second,, we can be happy that we still have some pretty awesome footage to hear and see.

Some of the highlights of the recordings are the unique Ollin Arageed that shows on Road Trips Vol 1, No 4 as well. Overall, there's some great tunes on this. Jack Straw, Row Jimmy, LLR & Deal highlight the first CD.

The second CD brings us a always favorite Shakedown Street. Iko Iko is a good one as well. Fire in the Mountain is awesome as always. There really isn't anything bad with this whole CD. It's fun and worth owning.

The DVD adds a little different flavor to the song selection and you get a bonus extra called the Vacation Tapes which gives you an inside look to what was going on.

Overall, a nice piece of history to be had. Too bad they didn't capture the whole thing to give us another limited edition set of the who trip along with that cool DVD as well.

You can get this on line or you can pick it up at www.dead.net. I believe if you order directly you get the Bonus CD that I forgot to list the songs below. I will pull those and add them later so you can see them. For me it was worth the extra money for shipping, etc. to get the bonus CD.

Pick this one up however you can, but it's well worth it and you get both audio and video of shows that took place over 30 years ago.

Track List:

Disc: 1
1. Jack Straw
2. Row Jimmy
3. New, New Minglewood Blues
4. Candyman
5. Looks Like Rain
6. Stagger Lee
7. I Need A Miracle
8. It's All Over Now
9. Deal

Disc: 2
1. Ollin Arageed
2. Fire On The Mountain
3. Iko Iko
4. Shakedown Street
5. Drums
6. Space
7. Truckin'
8. Stella Blue
9. Around And Around

DVD:
1. Bertha
2. Good Lovin'
3. Row Jimmy
4. New, New Minglewood Blues
5. Candyman
6. Looks Like Rain
7. Deal
8. Ollin Arageed
9. Fire On The Mountain
10. Iko Iko
11. I Need A Miracle
12. It's All Over Now
13. Truckin'
14. The Vacation Tapes(DVD extra)

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul - CD Review

Oasis has come out with their seventh studio CD in a career spanning the past 17 years. First starting out as a big hit in the UK in the mid 90's after a complete change of the original line-up, the Gallagher Brothers remain the only two original members of the band. Noel and Liam have been around and creating controversy since back when "Definately Maybe" & "What's the Story Morning Glory" came out in 1994 & 1995.

The band had it's top days and then went into a funk and split up for several years. They came back together in 2005 and hit the charts with "Don't Believe the Truth". Following a successful tour around the world, they were back and ready to go.

Now they have a new one coming out "Dig Out Your Soul" the first week of October. They just finished up a Canadian Tour and will be doing a US tour with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals supporting them.

The new CD is a lot like the past and keeps the traditional style of Oasis with some good rockin songs as well as a couple ballad types along the way. I first saw them play in about 1995 in a small venue in Milwaukee, WI called The Eagles Ballroom. By this time Liam was alread drinking up a storm and fighting with his brother and at times walking off the stage and not performing. This was the height of their popularity in the US, but also had dammaged their reputation and could have easily been dismissed as a has been one hit wonder band at that time. Something kept them going long enough to create several smash hits and had everyone wondering if they would be the next Beatles.

They never really achieved the status of The Beatles, but they certainly can still sell out large venues all over the world and have sold more than 50 million copies of their CDs.

The first couple of tunes on this CD are pretty much in line with a "Supersonic" and then there are a few in the "Live Forever" type status, but maybe not as good as the old stuff that really made the band what they are. I really like this new CD and the band sounds like they did 15 years ago. Certainly a CD worth picking up on October 7th.

Also if you get a chance to see them live, you really should and especially with Ryan Adams opening, you get two awesome bands in one night. Well worth seeing for sure. Xheck out their website at http://www.oasisinet.com/ and check out the tour section to see if they are playing near you. They are currently touring the UK and will be back in the US in December. Too bad they are skipping over Kansas City, because it would be great to get a chance to see them play again.

Track List:

1. Bag It Up
2. The Turning
3. Waiting For The Rapture
4. The Shock Of The Lightning
5. I'm Outta Time
6. [Get Off Your] High Horse Lady
7. Falling Down
8. To Be Where There's Life
9. Ain't Got Nothin'
10. The Nature Of Reality
11. Soldier On