I'm 20 and proudly blare Stevie at red lights. I actually turn it up so people in the other cars can listen and think "damn that young girl has good taste in music.....so unlike the other 99% of her generation."

I knew one of you young Ledgies would respond positively.

March 21, 2012
 

While not as dreadful as "The Paul Reiser Show," "Bent" (9 and 9:30 p.m. on NBC, TV-14) is merely lazy, unoriginal, unambitious and unnecessary.

Amanda Peet stars as Alex, a lawyer and a mother recently divorced from her husband, who was sent away for insider trading. At loose ends, she decides to hire a handsome but shaggy contractor, Pete (David Walton), to renovate her home. Pete's a surfer and a stoner and catnip to ladies who don't seem to care that he doesn't remember their names when they wake up in his bedroom. Or that he's 35 and lives with his dad (Jeffrey Tambor).

Brief shots of Pete attending a Gamblers Anonymous meeting are supposed to give his character some depth and a whiff of pathos. He's basically a one-dimensional riff on Mark Ruffalo's character from "The Kids Are All Right," the sexy man-child heading for a dismal reckoning. But sitcoms aren't the right format for angst; instead, we get cute scenes with Pete and his dad, a failed musician who plays the piano at a local department store and breaks into Fleetwood Mac songs when he feels sad. Mentioning Fleetwood Mac and sight gags involving a mannish woman contractor are about as topical and "edgy" as things get here. It seems almost designed to make NBC's "Whitney" seem witty by comparison.

Only in sitcom land could a barely employed father and son share a gorgeous house on a canal in LA's Venice neighborhood.

"Bent" offers a real throwback, or setback, for Amanda Peet. She has long been Hollywood's go-to girl when playing the beautiful and smart object of desire. Having put her on that pedestal, writers seem to have forgotten about developing her character much beyond the part she played in her breakout WB sitcom "Jack & Jill" way back in 1999.

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/...1/-1/ENTERTAIN

I once had Edge blasting out when I was stopped at some traffic lights, and it was so funny cause a toddler waiting to cross with her mum just totally started rocking out to it, totally cracked me up. :laugh:

i've heard EO17 played at pop station my 8yo daughter listens to. she doesn't realize it's an old song.

albums that transcend time
 

Stuart Derdeyn’s Essential Album Alphabet: Letter F

http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/03...abet-letter-f/

What does it mean for an album to transcend time? When the music laid down is so timeless that it doesn’t appear to ever sound dated and keeps grabbing the ears of subsequent generations of listeners while still being entirely representative of its era is a totally rare thing. My top album in the letter F certainly qualifies as just a quick survey of office co-workers spanning a four decade age difference have all appeared to have heard it and had it resonate to greater or lesser degrees.

Obviously, if you were there when it happened, it is always going to be a different experience in terms of popularity. But as everyone knows, when you can own an audience every time one of your tunes is played, you’ve achieved true greatness. The top album in this category does just that and it is:

ESSENTIAL ALBUM ALPHABET: E
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner 1977)

From its origins as a passable to good blues rock outfit featuring the deeply disturbed guitarists Peter Green and the vanishing Jeremy Spencer, Fleetwood Mac had morphed into a somewhat popular pure pop group by the time that this career-changing/defining 11-song set was released. Still a soap opera in terms of the emotional lives of the members – the recording period was full of divorce, infidelity, separations and a lot of really hippie-era dysfunctionality – it didn’t cause the creative juices to dry up or get lost in trivial streams. From the opening notes of “Second Hand News” to the closing clank and twang of “Gold Dust Woman,” this is as perfect a pop album as the seventies produced. And it stands the test of time so well because of the immaculate attention paid to the arrangements and hooks by taskmaster Lindsey Buckingham whose production remains an influence to this very day. Given the personal tensions inside the group influence every lyric and emotional turn on the album, it’s somewhat like being a fly on the wall for all the heartaches, raw passion and regret taking place with the musicians. But out of this come anthems such as “The Chain” or the fist-punching potency of “Go Your Own Way.” Add in the utterly fragile “Songbird” and it just keeps getting better.

Mick Fleetwood is still struggling with the death of his friend and former brother-in-law George Harrison because they both really appreciated the beauty of life in Hawaii.

The Fleetwood Mac drummer admits he often thinks about Harrison as he watches the sun set from his log cabin retreat on his sprawling estate in Maui - and recalls the fun the two friends had there when the former Beatle was alive.

He tells Playboy magazine, "I've been thinking about George Harrison more than ever since he died. We were more than just brothers-in-law for a time; he was one of the very best friends I've ever had.

"We both loved Maui and Hawaii equally, because we both understood how special this place is.

"George is the reason I'm playing ukulele lately too. He was such a great player, and he was obsessed with it. He used to drive around Maui with literally 20 of the things in his trunk, handing them out to friends, hawking the wares of this local guy who made them."

Harrison lost his battle with cancer in 2001.

http://www.kimt.com/entertainment/st...ujyc_YmPg.cspx

Teresa Frohock names her favorite musical artists:

http://scifisongs.blogspot.com/2012/...antasy_22.html

4. Fleetwood Mac

I adored “Gold Dust Woman” and “Tango in the Night”, my two favorite Fleetwood Mac songs. Fleetwood Mac’s music ran the gamut from playful to magical. Where Janis taught me to be tough, Stevie Nicks said I could be gentle too. I named my daughter Rhiannon. If that doesn’t say it all, nothing does. Rock on—ancient queen …

Blood Red Shoes talks FM influence:

http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/artic...se-your-voice/

It’s always interesting when you find out what specific influences a band had when making an album, and this time is no different. “I think on this album [Stevie Nicks-era] Fleetwood Mac is what we took most influence from. Just because of all the harmonies and stuff that they did.” Now, Blood Red Shoes couldn’t sound much more different to ‘Rumours’, but this shows the band’s new focus on vocals and harmonies. Of course there are the more obvious influences as well, “Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Queens Of The Stone Age”. But Steven really does emphasise their current obsession with vocals.

Now THIS I'd love to see. ;)

YES! haha, same here, I love doing that (I'm 21).

Why do so many music "journalists" say the early FM was a mediocre or second-rate blues band? I've read this kind of sentiment before and it annoys me. They were easily as good Mayall's best outfits and vocally more apt, since Green's manly baritone has a broader, more authentic appeal than Mayall's high-pitched whine. And the music from 1967-69? It holds up beautifully, I think. 1970's Kiln House (not pure blues but certainly influenced by it) is just as good.

But you don't live in Austin anymore. :distress: Did ya know Robert Plant lives here now? He's dating Patty Griffin.

REALLY?!? That's awesome! Have you seen him around town? I would die.

I miss Austin so much, all the music and especially SXSW. How was it this year?

SXSW was crazy, as usual - but fun, as usual!

I have not yet personally seen Mr. Plant around town yet, but I hear he goes to the Continental Club a lot and a friend of mine saw him walking a dog on the hike & bike trail. He allegedly bought a house in SoCo. Check the Austin Chronicle's site - Margaret Moser wrote an interesting tidbit in her column about his behavior backstage at the Music Awards - it was in last week's issue.