Buy This Now

Media Addicts’ first album.  They’re a jazz quartet led by my boy Billy Graczyk on guitar.  It’s one of those things that might not be your speed at first but if you throw it in and go about your business it’ll grow on you like melanoma after a long day at the beach… except way better.  From CD Baby:

Media Addicts is a quartet featuring Billy Graczyk on Guitar, David Hirsch on Saxophone, Brent Wallace on bass, and Eric Miller on drums.    They came together while attending McNally Smith college of Music in St. Paul Minnesota.  They’re influenced by such artist as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Chris Potter, Miles Davis, Tool and countless others. They have a very diverse taste in music which creates for a unique and different sound that is completely their own.  They pride themselves in working endlessly on mastering their craft, always keeping there music honest, and having no boundaries.  You can check out myspace.com/mediaaddictsband where you can find all the latest details.  Look for great things from this quartet in years to come!

Update: Band summary edited for grammar and spelling.  McNally Smith College might teach its students how to play sick diatonic chords but apparently not the difference between “their” and “they’re”

Turn off Your Radio

… and listen to this. I Want My Youtube is a blog with hundreds of the best, most eclectic pieces of music on the web. The selection was put together by a guitar player who has spent large portions of his life in Santiago de Chile, Sydney, London, Delhi, and Hong Kong.  Not all of his choices are for everyone but it’s very obvious that each selection is among the best in its genre.

I’m drawn to this because I like many kinds of music but don’t know crap about Jazz, Blues, or pretty much anything else before 1960. As a result I usually end up listening to what I know. I Want My Youtube provides an easy entry point into less mainstream kinds of music and I’m not going to listen to much else on my computer for a very long time.

Chivalry is Alive and Well

NHL heavyweight George Laraque was wearing a microphone during this fight with Raitis Ivanans. Pre-fight Laraque to Ivanans – “Want to?… Ok…. Square up?…. Ok, good luck man.”

Football is Beautiful

I work at a social media website for football (soccer to us Americans). One of the perks of the job is I get to speak with football crazies from all over the world on a daily basis. Their passion is enviable and highly addictive. I don’t pretend to know the sport or culture but one thing that stands out to me at least, is the difference between American sports where the focus is more on individual athletes as opposed to football where a greater emphasis is placed on the club, community and tradition (or so it appears to this outsider looking in). So here’s my two cents – and it’s probably worth half that

Football is Beautiful

It’s far bigger than the players or the clubs

Football is a people, a culture, a community

It’s a history, tradition

And tradition, not measured in decades but moments.

It’s religion. Not a religion but the religion

More people in this world have met heaven on the verdant pitch than through a god of any other name

It requires faith, not faith in the unknown but faith in spite of what is all too well known.

Football is human and bares its own shortcomings and injustice

Football is life, hardly perfect but worth pursuing

Football releases the purest of emotion in spectators and participants.

In an instant men turn to children and boys to Gods,

Ecstasy and anguish separated by so little it must be fate

Or the capricious nature of a benevolent host.

Football is beautiful.

Update: Here’s the other side of the coin, an excellent post appropriately titled F*** Football

The Definition of Dichotomy

One of the best new bands in America, The Airborne Toxic Event, absolutely rocking the s*** out of the worst late night show in the history of television – Last Call with Carson Daly