12 Great Bands Plus 3 More

This is a list of 12 great bands. None of the 12 bands listed below are new to this blog - there was an existing label for each and every one of them so I have included an appropriate link in the list. I think it's interesting that Motley Crue and Guns-n-Roses have so many pages.

1. Quiet Riot (15)
2. Bon Jovi (9)
3. Motley Crue (62)
4. Cinderella (8)
5. Twisted Sister (11)
6. Poison (19)
7. Europe (4)
8. Guns-n-Roses (35)
9. Dokken (34)
10. Winger (4)
11. Ratt (18)
12. Warrant (9)

In contrast, when asked, I often will say that Metallica, Bayside, and Count the Stars are my 3 favorite bands. Here's how many labels for each of those bands exist on my blog:

• Metallica (1154)
• Bayside (241)
• Count the Stars (19)

 

Ranking Albums by Some Awesome Bands

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The Closest This Comes is to Chicago on a Saturday

From RATT, TOM KEIFER, SKID ROW And SLAUGHTER Join Forces For 'The Big Rock Summer Tour' comes the news about a massive tour this summer. It features Ratt, Tom Kiefer (vocalist for Cinderella), Skid Row (without Sebastian Bach), and Slaughter.
While I won't go to Chicago to see those bands, I would go to see them if they were playing at, say, the Riverside Casino.

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Crazzee! Mama We're All Now!

WOW! I remember when Frankie B. played a huge MASSIVE Pearl kit with double bass and at least 3 mounted toms and now, he's got a Tama single kick and one tom on a snare stand. Times sure change, but he and the rest of the band sound great! I saw them in 2007 with Dokken, Cinderella, & Poison at a festival in Des Moines, IA - won't ever forget seeing KDB in concert...

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The Grunge Gold Rush Followed the Hair Metal Gold Rush Part I

I had to smirk when I read this article about how once Nirvana exploded with tons of sales, the record labels went scouring for similar bands. At the time, many people seemed to treat that action like it had never been done before, but it had. I lived through the record companies doing it the previous time - I call it "the Los Angeles hair metal explosion" that followed the success of Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noize" in 1983ish. Soon after that, Dokken, Ratt, Poison, LA Guns, BulletBoys, and other CA bands emerged. Not to be outdone, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and Britny Fox emerged from the East coast.

Nowadays, there is an authentic disdain for many of those bands. What irks me is when people grumble about how those bands were not talented. I never agree with those statements. Granted, Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" is not Chopin, but neither is AC/DC's "Back in Black" or Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love." The point is that those aforementioned bands that grew to popularity in the 80s metal movement were musicians. White Lion's Vito Bratta constructed awesome guitar riffs; Ratt's Warren DeMartini did as well.

Usually what happens is that fans who make generalized statements about an entire genre of music didn't grow up listening to it. That's why I think I have more patience with those bands than with the 90s Alternative / Grunge movement. In 1991, I was a senior in college and by spring 1992, Nirvana was a 'thing' that was followed by Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. I can wholeheartedly deny ever spending as many hours with Soundgarden's "Louder than Love" as I spent with Ratt's "Out of the Cellar" and that's really okay. Alternative / Grunge bands were just too trippy for me - too out there. I wanted Pearl Jam to make tunes like "Even Flow" and "Alive" instead of "Jeremy" (which I still consider to be an awful tune) because that was what I was used to hearing from bands. Smashing Pumpkins didn't do anything for me until they released the tune with the "Today is the greatest day" lyrics; I'd deny I ever purchased "Siamese Dream" but it came with the CDs I purchased in Indy from the fireman - can't say his name.

Continued in Part II

Forgotten and the Need for an Organization Strategy

I left my wireless USB mouse on my desk at home, but, thankfully, Matthew (Lou's Classic Ride bassist) had one in a drawer. Then, suddenly, the song I heard just the other day on the "Classic Rock" station came through my brain. The idea of working today and being productive and only using my laptop's mouse pad ranks up in the world as one of the worst visions of hell I can fathom.

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Meanwhile, I worked on the conversion project last night. After running the DOS batch file, I have this for a total:

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62366 File(s) 525,387,949,119 bytes

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Because I am well over 62,000, I am feeling good about the project. Actually, just by looking at what I accomplished last night, I think I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know I have two spindles of 100 each waiting for me. I just remembered I do have a box of CDs in the sump pump room that, I think, need to converted - I think they are all ones I have to manually enter song information (title, artist, album, etc) because they are either local bands or bands that aren't in the database that Windows Media Player uses to obtain that information automatically, but if I had to guess, I don't think there's more than 100 in that box.

Of course, even if I had 300 more CDs to go - and I don't know if that is a realistic count - I need to audit my CDs. What I told Matthew this AM while borrowing his mouse for the day is that I didn't have an "organization strategy" for this project when I started. I didn't mark the CDs as I converted them and I didn't designate specific locations within the den for where I would put "done" CDs and where I would put "not done" CDs. I also have to decide what to do with the inlays / booklets for all of them and how I ultimately want to be able to access the physical CD in the future. I have thought about some sort of Excel file or perhaps even some user-defined field within Windows Media Player that would identify the spindle the physical CD is located on. That would also allow me to identify if it is a promo CD or a non-promo CD, which would be helpful in figuring out just how many promotional CDs I have accumulated. I don't remember my very first promo CD I received - I don't think I have it documented anywhere because while I thought it was awesome to get a free CD (or maybe it was a cassette?) I had no idea I would accumulate as many as I have from that day. 

But, back to the conversion projects. Just because I seem to be nearing the end of the CD to MP3 conversion does not mean there is not more to do. Once I am convinced I have all of my CDs converted to MP3 and I "sign off" that it is complete, I will resume work on the cassette to MP3 conversion. That child story of the parent Conversion Project story has rapidly slipped down the list of priorities in life. I will need to wrap my head around the VHS to "digital" (I hate saying VHS to DVD because I can't imagine the undertaking of completing a 1:1 VHS:DVD conversion with the number of VHS, VHS-C, and Mini-DV tapes we have floating around in our house. I think we would simply be better off to convert to digital and then, if necessary, to burn a DVD.

That said, I don't really see a lot of free time in my schedule - our family's schedule - for sitting in the den and working on these conversions. While the rest of October is totally crazy, November into December doesn't look much more relaxed. I'd love to squeeze in a few Lou's Classic Ride rehearsals - tentatively, we are rehearsing next Wednesday night - so as to not lose the momentum from the Courage Ride gig and to progress to playing at Gus' or playing at J&A Tap or playing at Todd Philpott's bar in Tiffin or some other place I'm not thinking of at the moment. We are not rehearsing this week, but are getting together on Wednesday, 10/9/13.

That leads me to next week, which is obscenely crazy:

• Monday - after conferences at school for the kids, go see the Metallica movie in 3D in Cedar Rapids with Phil - hopefully, Matthew joins us - at 7:30. 
• Tuesday - Alex has basketball and I need to pick him up @ 8:30 (maybe I can work on the conversion projects)
• Wednesday - Lou's Classic Ride rehearsal from 8 PM to 10ish PM
• Thursday - Alex has basketball and I need to pick him up @ 8:30 (maybe I can work on the conversion projects)
• Friday - Megan has surgery
• Saturday - Kids have the band car wash fundraiser and then we have our parish picnic, which is a fundraiser for NCYC
• Sunday - Maybe, possibly, nothing!
• Monday - Bayside in Des Moines with Megan
• Tuesday - Possibly a Lou's Classic Ride rehearsal
• Wednesday - Sounds of the Stadium band concert (why I'm seeing Bayside on Monday in Des Moines instead of in Iowa City on 10/16) 
• Thursday - Gene Hoglan drum clinic at the Iowa City Yacht Club!!!!
• Friday - Maybe, possibly, nothing!
• Saturday - Maybe, possibly, nothing except I know Alex serves @ 5:15
• Sunday - Alex has Confirmation class

The week of 10/21 looks remarkably bare, as of now, but I'm sure it will fill up!

So much too few moments

Where did this week go?

Baseball, softball, ER season finale (just who really was in the ambulance that blew - Pratt or Sam?), Lost, Grey's Anatomy, baseball, softball... where does the time go?

Big news is that I bought tickets for Rush for Tuesday night. I didn't know this, but they have a new live 2 CD release. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_&_Arrows_Tour

In other news, Lamb of God's drummer Chris Adler is going to be writing a monthly column for Modern Drummer. I used to subscribe to MD but it has been years since I bought an issue cover to cover - at least 15 years, closer to 20.

At work, I have been working hard. There is a lot of work to do and I am trying my best to put my head above water. One reason that makes my life difficult is the virtual machine I have been using since late March. It is not working for me. I wrote this email to my cool manager that summarizes my issues and removed references to my company:

The problem is that the Virtual Machine session of my old PC doesn't perform adequately. I discovered yet another issue today: the inability to paste formatted text when it is copied in Internet Explorer (IE) and pasted into Word.

My workflow has been to always write documentation in Dreamweaver (DW), preview the text in Internet Explorer (IE) and then paste into Word. I have used this workflow for nearly 2 years on my Windows 2000 (W2K) PC. This workflow worked without any issues when I was using a non-virtual PC. I developed this workflow because it is faster to work DW ==> IE ==> Word than it is to work Word --> DW. I experimented with both workflows while developing the most efficient way in which to write documentation.

Here's a specific example:

I write this text in my HTML file:The Word_01 Word_02 system option is available.

I preview the page in IE. I select the above text and press Ctrl+C to copy the text.

I navigate to Word 2003 and press Ctrl+V. I get this:The Word_01 Word_02 system option is available.

In other words, my bolded text doesn't carry the formatting from the IE text.

The impact of this issue is that I then have to manually highlight text and format it as bold. There is no macro or automated way to do this. This adds time. For lengthy passages, it might make sense to copy a sentence at a time but this is not a long-term - definitely NOT permanent - solution. It is a [...] standard to bold names of menu options, system options & system values so that they stand out. Not bolding these items would make the documentation confusing to read as all the names would be title case but they wouldn't stand out. Bolding these items is a common and accepted practice among most technical writers.

I tested to see if this could be reproduced on my Vista machine. No, it cannot. I can select formatted text in IE 7, copy it to my clipboard and then paste it into Word 2007. The text will be copied as formatted text, working as I expect.

In conclusion, the inability to paste formatted text is yet another issue with using a virtual machine. This issue joins the list with 1) general slowness of the virtual machine, 2) the inability to scroll in any applications, and 3) the unstable PDF creation. I know that these issues did not exist on my non-virtual PC session. I am confident that they will not exist on my Vista PC. These issues would be resolved if [we] obtained the new versions of the software - RoboHelp, Dreamweaver, SnagIT, Adobe Acrobat - so that I can migrate from the Virtual PC to my non-virtual Vista PC.
To my manager's credit, she is working very very hard to get this squared away so that I can move along.

And... if you got through all that, you should be rewarded so here you go. Def Leppard, Everclear, Night Ranger, Cinderella, Warrant, and 38 Special are playing at the Iowa State Fair this year: http://www.iowastatefair.com/entertainment/mediaPlayer/grandstand.php

I just learned that Disarray is still around and kicking. They are one of my favorite bands. I am hoping to get a review copy of their latest CD to review for DV.

We are going out of town this weekend so don't bother checking this site again until Sunday PM - and even then, it'll depend upon how tired I am. We are going to pick up our camper tomorrow night, then driving to Balltown. On Saturday, we're going to 4 PM Mass and then to the casino in Dubuque. On Sunday is a birthday party for my niece and nephew. Then we return home to North Liberty and park the camper next to the house - hopefully before the finale of Extreme Makeover and Desperate Housewives!

Take it easy or any way you can get it.

Not really worth 4.5 hours in the car... right?

As a continuation of the lack of quality events (concerts, pro wrestling) in my area, I noticed that http://www.tnawrestling.com/content/view/596/40/ announces TNA is coming to Spencer, Iowa! Hey, at least it's in the state - I guess that's some sort of progress - and since I live in North Liberty, IA, I plugged my address and the address of the venue into mapquest.com and... dang geography. It's 4.5 hours away, my favorite TNA wrestler (Sting) isn't even mentioned as being on the card and, well, if the show starts @ 7:30, I'd have to leave work no later than 2:30 and have excellent driving weather. Then, after ~3 hours (at least), it'd be 10:30 (see, us English majors can do math) and then I'd have another 4.5 hour drive, getting me home @ 3 AM! Hypothetically, I could stop-over in Cedar Falls - possibly - to stay @ my brother-in-law's house overnight and then finish the drive in the AM. Tickets for that show start out @ $18 and the 'best available' per Ticketmaster.com were not great - not even with the ring straight ahead of me. I don't understand TNA - they could have booked the US Cellular Center - I know there's probably no concert scheduled there! - and had a good crowd. Instead, they book Spencer, IA. What the heck is in Spencer? The venu only has the TNA show and a Frank Sinatra tribute booked. Doesn't make sense.

In other news, way back in 2006, I went to the Waterstock concert in Des Moines, IA. Poison, Cinderella, Quiet Riot, Dokken, and a slew of other bands played - you can read the review - and it was a really great time. I got in for free through Poison's publicist, made some friends for a day and had a blast. According to this site, there isn't any indication that the event will happen this year.

So since that show doesn't seem feasible, I looked at the Picador to see what they have coming up. They have an excellent - on paper - all ages show on Friday, April 18. I have a CD from Destrophy, but I haven't heard any of the other bands on the bill which include

Freaklabel - from Cedar Rapids
Marcato - from Cedar Falls
Far From Falling - from Twin Cities - WOW! I like this!
doors at 5pm

That's silly. I don't get out of work until 5 and it's a 1/2 drive to my house, plus ... well, the earliest I could be @ the venue would be 6. Maybe that'd be when Far From Falling would kick off - if they are indeed first and Destrophy is headlining.