geez..”how long have I been here?”

Led Zeppelin’s “Song Remains the Same” and Pink Floyd’s “Live at Pompeii” are so time consuming….but it’s sac-religious to walk away!!

xx
biggles

Two loud-mouthes=something ultra offensive

Jay-Z and Kayne West have been all over the press with the release of their joint album “Watch the Throne”. The headline for their video Otis caught my attention; telling of their ostentatious destruction of a Maybach automobile for the video. Upon viewing the video the lyrical content loosely went by me while the images of the rappers joy-riding in the destructed car jumped around my screen. The video is like a bad action film geared towards a rudamental mentality; ensuring the song and their album great success in the general American market. The lyrics throughout the song are drowned by the fast delivery and primal “ughs” stringing them together, but a certain verse by Jay-Z leapt out in the most offending fashion possible midway through the video.

"Welcome to Havana
Smoking cubanos with Castro in cabanas
Viva Mexico, Cubano
Dominicano, all the plugs that I know
Driving Benzes, wit’ no benefits
Not bad huh? For some immigrants
Build your fences, we diggin’ tunnels
Can’t you see? We gettin’ money up under you"

um what? Nobody smokes cubanos with Castro...everyone is repressed there; unless Jay-Z is saying that he brushes shoulders with communists by keeping the company of Castro? Seriously, Sean Penn hanging with Chavez didn't exactly do him wonders in the public eye.  It's just all kinds of politically incorrect and offensive. The rest of the verse makes no sense at all as it turns to an attempt to give a shout out to illegal immigrants?? If they were trying to show sympathy for Latinos in America they did it so incompetently. Statements made by these "rap moguls" have fallen sour on the public's ears before; thus only leading me to question why they are still allowed to spew inaccuracies as arrogantly as they please?

“a thousand rainy days since we first met”

I rant from time to time about how much I love The Police. It’s torture that I can never put all the little reasons together to make a simple explanation as to why. When a friend sees their poster and records around my apartment and asks “Are The Police good?” It’s hard to explain at any length shorter than if you asked an Evangelical “Do you like Jesus?”.

In my shortest form yet, I’ve concluded that I love The Police because they take you to a place of your deepest heartbreak and make you dance in it.

I believe you haven’t lived until you’ve laughed while you were crying. The Police have the power to do that.

xx

biggles

Wild Horses when they were still wild

Here Keith Richards and Gram Parsons created and captured the spirit of what it was they loved and were.

The basic ‘Wild Horses’ sounds like something you found that’s unpolished and rough, but still holding its own beauty.
So much so that it frustrates a trained mind, a wild horse is perfect at being imperfect. Just like rock and roll.

I’m finally finding patience to submerse myself into understanding Gram Parsons.
more discoveries soon to come

xx-Biggles

Wild Sweet Orange

Wild Sweet Orange are no longer a band. The sincerity in their music was the same sincerity in the members. Each band disillusions me like a bad politician at some point, but the honesty surrounding WSO’s work comforts and inspires me to write about and share music. Something that, until I found WSO, I didn’t think it could happen in modern music. Their solo projects will individually inspire, but collectively WSO made ‘We Have Cause to be Uneasy’ one of the albums nearest and dearest to me always.

xx-Biggles

“El Pipita”

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is over and it brought me great joy and immense eye candy.Though my team (Argentina) reached the quaterfinals but got stomped by Germany, I was still happy about Uruguay and Spain. So in overall my back up teams did favorably well (SPAIN WON!) But apart from all of that, another aspect of watching the biggest sporting event in the world is the amount of gorgeous fit athletes. One that stuck with me after the world cup was over and well after his team was eliminated was Argentine and Real Madrid striker Gonzalo “El Pipita” Higuain. Not only is he beautiful to look at but he is just getting better and better on the pitch. He left South Africa with 4 goals on his belt including a hat trick against South Korea in the first round. Plus from the interviews I seen of him in youtube he comes across as  calm, down to earth, educated, respectful, confident and hard working (interview in the Spaniard show “Punto Pelota” ). I’m officially in love with him. Don’t take my word for it…see for yourself.

Bilo.

“Raising a toast to Saint Joe Strummer” and Craig Finn

Tonight the 40 Watt club of Athens, Georgia lit up with strings of anthemic sing-alongs and guitar solos. Just don’t mistake those taking the stage for cubicle cohorts on the path to the water cooler. The short-sleeve dress shirt, costello-glasses, crew cut, and calculator watch clad singer is his own boss, leading the Hold Steady (every ’9-5′er fantasy rock and roll band). Started at 32, Craig Finn’s lyrical social satire of America’s youth consistently delivers albums of “sing-along scriptures” that come to life at the Hold Steady’s live shows.

Raise a toast to saint Joe Strummer
I think he might have been our only decent teacher
getting older only makes it harder to remember
we are our only saviors
we’re gonna build something this summer

xx-biggles

Mother’s Day Biggle’s Way

Biggles has seen him. Have you seen him? Well my moma wanted to see HIM.

One of the finest in modern hard-rock is Finland’s HIM. They happen to be my moma’s favorite band  (apart from Aerosmith,duh).

Walking into the House of Blues Orlando, we started scouring the crowd for a good vantage point of the stage. We settled for a spot side stage on the steps of the pit and watched the last half of opening act, We the Fallen? or We are the Fallen?. I’m not sure on the name exacts, but the lead singer finally stood out to me when she shouted “Lets do some Iron Maiden!” Never have I seen a girl-fronted band cover Iron Maiden. It was a great performance. I could tell she’d achieved that “I can rock as hard as the boys” status she was desperately striving for.

I then seemed to be out of sync with the whole crowd’s enthusiasm when Jane’s Addiction played over the sound system. Between bands, their singing and dancing had ceased and channeled to me throwing my arms up as “Coming Down the Mountain!” screeched out the speakers. Maybe they were just reserving for when HIM takes the stage.

Soon after, HIM took the stage to dramatic red stage lights. Every goth girl (and my moma) swooned as Villa Valo began to sing in his darkly baritone voice. His dapper attire and sultry looks proved to be too much for one heavy set girl by song three. I then found myself a human speed bump to her NFL line backer force. From my stance on the steps, I only caught a glimpse of her making way out the crowd towards me before I was hit. I figured the only way to survive was to let the steps catch me, go fetal position and hope to avoid complete crushing. Luckily, moma picked me up by the arms before the second part of my plan. Surrounding crowd hadreached for me while my attacker continued on her path in bull fashion and she was thus, never confronted. But that was my second ‘first time seeing or experiencing something’ at a concert.

The third ‘first time concert experience’ came a few songs later when I couldn’t help noticing how long the couple beside me had been hugging. As the song ended, “I just got engaged!”  could be heard throughout the venue. Aside for feeling excited for them, it was still a bit odd to be practically sharing in their moment. I hope they make it, I think it’ll be a lovely story to tell their kids one day!

I was glad to have the crowd keeping me so occupied as moma revelled in her favorite songs. I eventually caught on to their vibe and enjoyed the small dose of metal enough that I would have fancied meeting their guitarist to compliment his playing and his Bad Brains t-shirt! I had fully caught myself enjoying the concert when I was bopping about to the encore cover of Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell’.

xx

Biggles

Albion sails on course…

After 6 years of waiting, The Libertines are reuniting!! They will perform at the Reading and Leeds festival in mid August. Though the reasons behind the reunion might be not in the Libertine spirit at the end of the day…what does it matter?

Seeing the interview in the NME, got me so emotional. With the passage of time, memories pilled up and it sort of made me realized how fast life goes by. It feels like only yesterday I was a  listening to them for the first time and being completely enamored with their sound. They were the band that made me get into music- that made me fall in love with music in general. They were the first thing that I felt was my own. Thank you, Pete, Carl, Gary and John.

bilo.

If only our ships hadn’t sunk

The Takers

A little more than a year ago, I remember walking through crowds and past stages on a night of Harvest of Hope festival when ‘Curse of a Drunk’ stopped me in my tracks. As it boomed off of one of the festival’s smallest stages, the performance captivated me in a way that didn’t just momentarily excite me like the slew of new bands I stumbled upon throughout the festival.

I initially thought the way the song resonated would fade and I would surely forget the band’s name. Because I had caught only their finale, I desperately pen-scribbled The Takers on the side of my hand as they left the stage. My school friend was biased towards appearance of the mature, country outlaw band and was hasty to get to a tent-stage for a squeaky, punk-acoustic duo; which spontaneously decided to do only Bruce Springsteen covers instead of their own material (a year and I’m still debating which would have been worse). Nevertheless, we didn’t stick around to meet the would have been easy to approach, band.

Upon returning home from the weekend festival, the only new band I could think to seek out was The Takers. To my luck, the Gainseville natives were in a short drive’s reach, yet, the bars they play usually 21 and up. Despite that I now live farther away…I find myself living by if there’s a will there’s a way.

In the meantime, I still find the lyrics to Curse of a drunk resonating in my mind, and I’m expanding the library of free downloads I’ve collected of their only full length album, “Taker Easy”. I’m aiming for seeing a full show over this summer.

“Curse of a drunk is he’ll go home alone. Meet me out back in five. Meet you there. Get stoned. And we’ll talk about where we’re from, and how we’d go back if our ships hadn’t sunk.”

xx-Biggles