Theme Park Experience

Much in part to the fantastic documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage , I've had a hankering for completing my Rush collection. What's strange is that my "collection" is really bone dry. So completion is a bit of ways away. Back in middle school, I remember my friend Tim talking about the Chronicles compilation. He didn't describe what the band sounded like; he only spoke of it as an awesome sort of thing. I was curious. His tastes were very much in line with mine, and still are to this day. Eventually I'd have my own taped copy of Chronicles as well as Roll the Bones , A Show of Hands , and their current record at the time, Counterparts . I would foolishly sell Roll the Bones and Counterparts in college (something I regretted until I heard they had been digitally remastered and reissued a few years ago) in order to create shelf space. Now I'm at a point where my digital copies of Spirit of the Radio and Permanent Waves are simply not enough. I

For the first time since college, I'm happy to see a real Christmas tree in my home. Not in any way am I slighting people that put up a fake one, but there's something fun about getting the real thing. Even the sap. On a fluke last week, Matt and I talked about getting a real Christmas tree from a local lot. We picked one out on Saturday with our respective girlfriends and decorated the whole thing last night (before The Walking Dead , of course). Positioned underneath my TCU toilet seat and in front of the fireplace, there's a seven-foot tree with a tree skirt like one you'd find in Whoville. I can recall when the most amount of Christmas decorations I put up was a strand of lights that draped over my sliding glass door. Coming from a house that was filled with decorations to that was very deflating, but I didn't really see the need to go all out. I understand there are people who think Christmas is a bunch of phony materialism, but I've always enjoyed the w

As much as I missed being with my immediate family for Thanksgiving (I spent it with relatives instead), I'm very glad that I didn't miss the Posies show at the Granada. Here's my review .

This week's edition features an interview with Jon and Ken from the Posies, a band I have loved since the mid-90s. Since I have to work on Black Friday, I'm sticking around in the area and having Thanksgiving with various relatives. The upside is that I get to see the Posies tonight.

Ryan, Diana, and I saw Black Mountain and the Black Angels play at the Kessler Theater. This was the first time we had been to the venue, and it certainly will not be the last. Great intimate place with spectacular sound. Here's my review of the show.

As I hear a few rumblings about 3D Blu-ray coming down the pike, I'm not making any plans to replace any titles I already have if and when it comes to fruition. As for Blu-ray itself, I'm still quite happy with the format and still choose to buy copies of new movies or reissues. I have replaced a couple of DVDs with BDs, but not many. If I've learned anything in my two years as the owner of BD player and a high definition television, it's the transfer that's most important, and not necessarily the disc itself. I recently watched the standard Criterion DVD version of Videodrome and I found the transfer pretty stunning. The Blu-ray version is due to come out in a couple of weeks, but I'm not going to double-dip on this one. I'm perfectly satisfied with the version that I have. (Plus, all the standard DVD's supplements have been imported with no new, high-def features.) A couple of months ago, Diana and I watched The Sure Thing , an 80s road movie that

In this week's edition , I talked to the drummer from the Octopus Project about the first show he saw. Since I clearly remember when Weird Al put out Off the Deep End (because I listened to it quite a bit when I was in middle school), this was a great little reminder of how awesome Weird Al is to youngsters.

While a number of the campers at Rock N Roll Fantasy camp got to play with some of their idols from their teen years, I had a chance to meet a guy who was quite helpful in my drumming skills early on. It wasn't like meeting Dave Grohl, Lars Ulrich, or Stewart Copeland, but I came to know who Sandy Gennaro was by Christmas 1994. Sandy was featured on a VHS tape called Drum Basics 1 , something my father got me for Christmas. I had started playing a drum set earlier that year and my dad thought the tape would be helpful. It was to a degree, but it was really designed for people that had never sat down behind a drum set before. The degree that was helpful involved playing straightforward beats as solidly as possible. That's something I still find a useful technique. I had a chance to meet Sandy about seven years ago when he played with the Monkees at Billy Bob's. As I stood in line to get a picture with Mickey and Davy, Sandy walked by all sweaty and tired. I decided to let

You can read about my experience doing Rock N Roll Fantasy Camp here , but I wanted to add something that I briefly mentioned. Aside from the Pull Tabs playing a bluesy rendition of "Strange Fruit," I had no real experience playing blues or southern rock. But when it comes to the blues, plenty of it is in jazz and rock music. I might have never listened to a Muddy Waters song in my teenage years, but I definitely learned a lot of his swing and bomp from Led Zeppelin. So I essentially learned a portion of the blues by default. Like a truncated history lesson if you will. I enjoy playing the blues, but I'm not about to rush and grab as many blues songs to hear. If ever I'm jamming with somebody who wants to play the blues, I'd be happy oblige. Matter of fact, when I first sat down in the room with my fellow Shotgun Brothers, I offered to them that I can "play anything." Since the two guitarists were more comfortable playing songs by the Allman Brothers,

The plug on Staff Trax was pulled last week due to low readership. I'm happy that it ran weekly as much as it had. The reach of DC9 has always been way more than Theme Park Experience's, so the chance for me and fellow writers to share what we shared was great. Replacing the column is My First Show, a chance for me to interview bands about the first show they ever saw. No matter how embarrassing or unhip the show was, we all have a story. In my case, the first live show I ever saw was the Indigo Girls at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I saw plenty of local shows after that, along with seeing REM and Radiohead (with my parents) and the Cranberries and Toad the Wet Sprocket (with my dad). The first national act I saw alone (I can't remember if I paid or not) was Metallica at the Summit. The first show with a national act that I paid money to see (and went alone) was Shudder To Think in 1997. (Brainiac opened and only a week or so later, their singer was killed in a c

Two episodes in, I'm very happy to say The Walking Dead is all that and then some. As much as I am a fan of the comic, I'm loving how it's been adapted for television. Given the show's large ratings ensuring a second season, I look forward to seeing how the show progresses. Especially knowing where the comic goes, this could be really interesting season after season. Given the nature of the comic, I'm quite happy that the show has kept up a very similar tone. That said, I'm amazed at what is OK to do on a cable TV show these days. Not that I'm a prude; I'm just a little too aware of those TV watchdog groups whose sole function is to go after shows they think are corrupting people's minds. When you have a show where zombies are shot in the head, it's pretty much a guarantee that it's going to turn people away. Since Mad Men is priority watching in my household, I don't blame Matt for politely passing on The Walking Dead . As a fan of g

Last year, in the middle of the holiday shopping season, I decided to take a leap of faith I rarely take: buy a DVD of a movie I have never seen, but I'm sure its commentary track will be worth hearing. Prior to last year, I had done such for True Romance when I saw that Tarantino had a commentary track on it. Prior to that DVD, Tarantino only showed up as a guest on commentary tracks. He had a desire (and I believe still does) to not do commentaries for the movies he's directed. Since he only wrote the script for True Romance , I'm guessing that an exception had been made. And I'm glad that it was because it's a wonderful track. I bought David Cronenberg's The Fly on Blu-ray for less than $10 last year. I remember hearing about the film when I was in elementary school, but I never got around to watching it. I knew Cronenberg did fantastic commentaries with thoughtfulness and a calm demeanor. I think I learn a lot when I hear him speak. A recent listening to

This week's edition spotlights Kylesa, a band I'm really now getting to know. Can't argue with two drummers . . .

It's understandable to have jetlag for a few days after you come back from a trip in a different time zone. Your body will take a few days to adjust -- when you normally would have lunch, you're thinking about hitting the hay for the night. But what if you are used to a certain work schedule (because you've worked it for a few years) and it takes months (even years) to adjust body's clock? A few weeks ago, Matt took a promotion at work and started working a shift that was the exact opposite of what he worked before. Instead of waking up at 3am to be at work at 4:30, he goes in at noon and doesn't come home until 8:30pm. Sleeping in until 9 or 10 doesn't work for him. He still wakes up a few times around his previous wake-up time before deciding to get up for the day. I remember how it took my body more than a year to get used to having two days off in a row. I had worked six or seven days straight for a couple of years before working the schedule I've work

For the past two years, Halloween was on nights that I could go out and stay late. To avoid the surge of families coming from other neighborhoods to get a lot of loot down my street, I usually went to the movies and then went to a Halloween party. Knowing Halloween was on a Sunday this year, I knew I couldn't do that kind of thing. Essentially, my street is barricaded by police from 7:30 until 9:30. That's how big of a bonanza Halloween is on my street. Getting in or out of our driveway is a pain, so I simply braced myself for a few hours of feeling like Robert Neville in the I Am Legend novella (and not the various movie adaptations). I can't say I enjoyed leaving those candy seekers hanging. Again, I'd love to pass out candy if I didn't have to shell out an entire week's worth of groceries on candy. If I answered the door once, more people would come and more people would come. Plus, since Diana had to work, Matt was visiting family for the evening, and ou