Theme Park Experience

Tonight I plan to go out and see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , thus making this my second trip out to the movies this year. Yes, the yearly amount of times I go out to the movies is now about average with the yearly amount of times I go to a comic book store or a video game store. I'm still very satisfied with watching movies at home, but there are some movies that I can't wait for rental. The experience of seeing a movie on a screen 200 times larger than my TV is a cool spectacle. The sound effects are great and deafening at times (in a good way). So, I hope to have a good time tonight. Even my fidgety nature of being in a dark room full of strangers won't stop me from seeing this picture. I used to often go out to movie theaters, but that was when I had a student ID or was still considered a "child." As the cost of a ticket grows closer to the cost of owning the movie on DVD, I'm more than willing to wait a few months. I understand that in most place...

Last week I wondered if we are close to a time when the pomp and posy excesses of '70s and '80s stadium rock are once again en vogue. Folks, we're even closer after I saw Dropsonic play Friday night and read an article on Avenged Sevenfold in Rolling Stone . You've been warned. Here's why: Dropsonic is a pretty tight trio from Atlanta, GA, with mathy and glammy leanings. I don't think I've ever seen a band combine the shifting rhythms found in math rock along with the kind of guitar solos and flamboyant vocals found in glam rock. I thought they put on an impressive set as they played on the bill with powerhouses Traindodge and Saboteur . Traindodge rocked hard with their mix of melodic, dropped-D post-hardcore and Saboteur blazed through their inspired, punk-fueled post-hardcore. Dropsonic fit very well on the bill, but one certain thing set them apart (for good and bad reasons) was the presence of guitar and drum solos. I'm not talking eight bars of a...

Placebo was first recommended to me via Matt when the band's second album, Without You I'm Nothing , was first out in '98. I didn't care for the album's first single (and sole US hit), "Pure Morning," but he said I would really dig some of the faster, punkier album tracks like "You Don't Care About Us." As it turned out, my roommate at the time had Without You I'm Nothing and I gave it a listen. Matt was very right and I bought my roommate's copy because he only liked "Pure Morning." I couldn't really call myself a big fan of Placebo, but I really dug most of the tracks on Without You I'm Nothing . This claim was very much the case when the band's follow-up, Black Market Music , came out. The songs didn't perk my interests, so I moved on. Now that I live with a housemate who really likes Placebo and happens to have a DVD of all their videos, I decided to give Placebo some more attention by watching most of...

I'm not the biggest fan of Hot Hot Heat but I really enjoy their Make Up the Breakdown record and I've liked what I've heard off of their most recent record, Elevator . While their twisted, guitar-and-keyboards pop is cool, I find something rather odd when I read about why their guitarist Dante DeCaro left the band while recording Elevator . Thus is another tale of differing stories as to why band members really leave bands. In multiple interviews, HHH's current members often say that the reason why DeCaro left was because of touring. “Once someone has established that they don’t want to be on tour, it’s kind of like a disease,” frontman Steve Bays explained to Straight.com . “It spreads to everyone. And so if you’re at that point during the day where you’re just so burnt out, and you need someone to come up to you and say, ‘Remember, this is our dream,’ and instead that person comes up and goes, ‘You know what? Not only does this suck, but it really sucks,’ that rea...

Rolling Stone has this article on how this fall's big CD releases didn't boost overall CD sales. Kanye West's Late Registration sold a ton, but titles by Ashlee Simpson and Destiny's Child didn't sell as much as expected. On the flipside, downloading is way up. How all this translates to me is this: CD sales will continue to decline but CDs themselves won't become extinct. I still buy plenty of CDs every year. New records by Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, My Morning Jacket, The Go! Team, Foo Fighters and others have been added to my library this year. I don't know if I buy as much or less, but I also buy a number of older releases, including reissues and albums that I never got around to buying. I like a wide variety of rock music and I doubt that I will buy fewer CDs in the upcoming years. Even with all my CDs, I have become a big advocate of iTunes too. I enjoy building up my digital library with my favorite songs so I can have them in one convenient spot....

Last night was spent eating dinner, walking Juliet and watching Coheed and Cambria's Live at the Starland Ballroom DVD. While I was watching it, I got to thinking: if emo, cheesmo and screamo are becoming passe with a younger audience these days, is something like what Coheed and Cambria does that far off too or about to become even bigger? For those that don't know, Coheed and Cambria is a four-piece with three records out: The Second Stage Turbine Blade , In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness . (Yes, those are the full titles) Previously, I had only heard a little of In Keeping Secrets but after reading interviews with them and seeing their video for "The Suffering," I had to find out more. Why? Because I think we're only a few steps away from having a rebirth of pompous virtuoso rock, last seen in the 1970s. I will credit C&C this: they have great energy and some...

Growing up in Houston, I always loved coming to Dallas. Once the city’s skyline was in view, I got excited. I don’t exactly know what I was excited about other than cooler weather and seeing my relatives, but it was always a welcome change. When I lived in Fort Worth, I liked the town, but if I wanted to go to the good record stores and venues, I’d have to make the 40-50 minute drive to Dallas. Now that I live in Dallas, I rarely go anywhere else because everything is in Dallas. However, something that keeps coming to my attention is the fact that people in Dallas don’t like going to Fort Worth and vice versa. Here’s my question: Why? I’ll admit it: since moving to Dallas in 2002, I’ve never wanted to move back to Fort Worth. I still enjoy going to Fort Worth from time to time for various things (like the Good Show or a show at the Ridglea Theater or Wreck Room), but I usually stay within the Dallas city limits. I like it here because it’s so spread out and there is no shortage of fun...