I’ve posted once so far this year. It used to be that I had a rule of updating at least once a week. What happened? What have I been doing?

Lately I’ve found it hard to muster the concentration to sit and write anything, as I’m sure you’ll note as the last several posts are primarily just embedded video. Also, I’ve spent much more time on various micro-blogging sites, like twitter and such (I’m on nearly everything). Services like those really cater to the semi-retarded ADD freak in me.

I also hate looking at my site. It’s outdated and cramped and I’ve not had the concentration or motivation to whip out a new design. Excuses, excuses…excuses.

So what have I been doing?

• I attended 45 concerts in 2008. 5 so far this year.
• I took lots of photos.
• I started doing yoga, which is mildly embarrassing to my manly ego, but whatever. I’ll live.
• I discovered a TON of new music, which I have failed to post about like I used to.
• I’ve watched an impressive amount of Horror films and , like above, failed to post.
• The rest… pretty much the same.

Thrilling stuff, kids. I’m a lazy lamerz. I have no excuse.

Still, it really bothers me that this site just rots here on it’s server. So, I promise to get off my ass and back to posting at least once a week. It’s good for me. The redesign…god help me. I’ll do it when I do it.

My feelings precisely. I’ve never purchased any music, crippled with DRM and I never will. Instead, I use emusic to legally purchase MP3 files and if i can’t find it there, I get it by “other means” and I don’t even remotely feel bad about it. Chances are, if I ganked your album, I paid for at least one of your live shows and possibly bought a t-shirt as well.

[comic from xkcd.com]

Moral of the story? Dummies buy DRM!

Meet me down by the expressway exit ramp. Bring hairspray.

[Link to video]

Amon Amarth has posted a new video. I can’t wait to get their new album next week. Come October, I see them live again. They put on a great-ass show. Vikings!

[Link to video]

I used to be really into The Cramps as a teenager. They’re one of the few bands from my adolescence that I can stand to hear and still rotate in my playlists.

[Link to video]

Putzing around last Sunday, I decided to give MPD a try. I store all my MP3 files on my desktop computer, which runs Ubuntu and I’ve wanted to be able to control music playback on that machine from my laptop, wherever I happen to be lazing about at home.

I had a bit of a hard time getting MPD set up, working and compiling a database. The main issue was file permissions, but once I got that hammered out, installed MPC so I could run commands, it worked nicely.

However, I much prefer a GUI to manage music, so I hunted around for a front-end for MPD. I first tried gmpc, which worked fine. But, I need support for last.fm and to handle this with with gmpc, you have to compile a plugin, which was a huge bitch.

While trying to get through the plugin compile, I stumbled on Sonata, which seemed popular and well regarded and contains built-in support for last.fm. Also, it’s in the Ubuntu repositories, which is a big plus for me. So, I dropped gmpc and gave it a try.

Sonata works well, it displays album art and all that fun stuff, but doesn’t have the smart playlists that I’ve grown used to with Amarok and exaile, which were two programs I’ve loved and relied on in the past. Truth told, it’s low on features, but so are most MPD front-ends. It works, though. It handles last.fm and doesn’t look too fugly. I’m going to stick with it for a while and see how it goes, since I really like being able to run a central music server. But, if there’s a better front-end out there, I’d like to know about it.

On some Public Access show, circa 1997:

[Link to video]

This is how I’m rolling today. Rock it:

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My general feeling about Metallica is they’re washed up, used, irrelevant and more than a bit embarrassing for many years now. The drummer is annoying and what they put out now is hardly what I would consider Metal, Thrash or otherwise.

From the whining over Napster, back in 2000 to the overall, professional douchebaggery of their drummer, they lost whatever was left of any respect from my adolescence.

Now, I see they want you to pay for the ability to watch promotional in-studio videos of their up-and-coming album. With price packages ranging from $24.99 to a whopping $124.99, with hardly any real value in the products, I’m thinking they’re sounding their own death knell to whatever is left of a paying consumer base that retains more than a couple brain cells.

Since when did a successful marketing and promotional campaign start with requiring consumers to pay? Is the album that bad?

With their bratty and self-defeating stance on digital media and DRM, they basically beg to be pirated. Why drop cash onto their already significant earnings if they treat some of their base as criminals and the rest as suckers? Really, why even listen to them?

It’s a late Saturday morning for me (past noon, for you other people who get up early on the weekends). This normally consists of camping on my couch with some coffee, a laptop and a shitload of RSS feeds to go through. During this time, I like to listen to a little music. It’s nice, you should try it. Anyway, I just finished listening to the first album by the Norwegian Psychedelic Stoner Doom band, Sahg for the first time and it’s so fucking good, I’m compelled to write a blog post about it.

Sahg combines strong influences from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and a host of other awesome 70’s bands, bringing it all together into an original, modern sound. They kill. Sahg is one of those Norwegian super-bands, comprising members of well known bands, covering several genres (the bassist from the Black Metal band, Gorgoroth is a member, for example). Their sound is tight and the production is very high quality. All together, they make you want to grow your hair long, take a few bong hits, knock back a bunch of beers (possibly with a tab of acid), bang your head, nail some groupies and worship Satan.

Trust me, it’s good. Get it.

[Official Sahg website]