The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
----
I wouldn't want to ask people to just give me money cause they like my website, but do please take a quick look at Barger's Boutique. You might find yourself a little something-something for 2 or 3 bucks that you just can't resist! Any of the round images you find around MoreThings will get you to an Amazon page to buy my stuff and help ol' Al keep the lights on.
Links
To explicitly state the obvious, these external links go to interesting and provocative websites, but they speak for themselves. I don't necessarily agree with anything they say - especially that no-goodnik Richard Marcus.
*************
All original content on MoreThings.com copyright 2008 Albert Barger or the respective authors
March 14, 2006
Pearl Jam "World Wide Suicide" Pearl Jam is beating the (anti) war drums for a big new album release coming May 2 on J Records, after a long association with Epic. Here's the track listing:
This is such a big new thang for them that they are releasing it eponymously. Indeed, they're so excited to get this best work of their career out that they generously gave away an mp3 of the first single "World Wide Suicide" for at least a couple of days. Anyway, it's widely circulating on radio and the internet for free.
It's way overpriced. Besides the space on the hard drive, this is 3:27 of my life wasted on nothing. "World Wide Suicide" has even less melody and hooks than the broadly similar guitar rock of U2's mediocre "Vertigo." There's not one even vaguely memorable turn of melodic phrase, just two or three notes of random shouting with no significant or unique patterns. The more times I hear it, the less substantial it seems.
I am not known as much of a Pearl Jam fan, so I'm trying to go the extra mile here, listening carefully to this song a dozen times. There's nothing memorable, no spark of creativity. They play guitar real frantic and all like it's supposed to mean something, but there's absolutely no there there. I cannot think of one good thing to say about this as a composition.
In fairness, the band seems to be performing their material very skillfully. They're probably generating a somewhat more interesting, fluid sonic palette than tired latter day U2.
But there's no song under it. The greatest band in the world couldn't make anything out of this. Eddie Vedder sings like his life depends on it, but there's only so much anyone could do with such a totally indistinguished composition.
I could imagine this coming out pretty compelling in a live show, though. The song sounds like a million others, but there are less than a million bands that can play like them.
Anyway, they have announced the following dates as the first leg of a tour supporting the album:
May 9 - Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre 10 - Toronoto, ON - Air Canada Centre 12 - Albanym NY - Pepsi Arean 13 - Hartford, CT - New England Dodge Music Center 16 - Chicgo, IL - United CEnter 19 - Grand Rapids, MI - Van Andel Arena 20 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena 22 - Detroit, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills 24 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden 27 - Philadelphia, PA - Tweeter Center at the Waterfront 30 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center
June 1 - East Rutherford, NJ - Continental Airlines Arena 3 - East Rutherford, NH - Continental Airlines Arena
