Yep, I went to the Bon Jovi concert on Sunday and hey, it was pretty good.
I've always been back and forth with Bon Jovi. When "Slippery when Wet" came out, I was 10 and I was totally down with it. My aunt Gayle got me the tape, but it was unfortunately stolen by some asshole. "New Jersey" was ok too, but by then I wasn't as into the pop-metal they so shamelessly churned out. The Jon Bon Jovi solo soundtrack to Young Guns 2 did spend a fair amount of time in my tape deck though...
And after that, Jon went into hiding during the so-called "grunge years" only emerging to make frantic phone calls to his management team, asking "has enough time passed yet? Can I come back? What if I cut my hair?"
And cut his hair he did, but by then I had moved on and wasn't really paying attention anymore.
But that's not to say I didn't notice what was going on. On the one hand I was unimpressed by Bon Jovi's new music, but I was happy to see they were still around and moving forward. Hey, come on, they were my favorite band when I was ten, I collected all the Bon Jovi stickers from the Hostess chip bags, how could I wish them ill?
The show itself was good, they played the entire new "Lost Highway" album, most of which I liked, except for one song, I think it was called "We've got it goin' on." Wow, did that one suck, it sounded like bad new country, they definitely did not have it goin' on when they wrote that one.
After the new album though, they played most of the hits, and man, they have a ton of 'em, when they played "Livin' on a prayer" I thought GM place was going to explode.
I guess it was the last night of the tour so they played extra long, and since they recorded their three biggest albums here they really seem to like Vancouver, so that's cool.
Anyway, I didn't have my camera, so instead of a new picture I decided to find the most embarrassing old one I could. Enjoy!
Yes, I went to the Spice Girls concert on Sunday, and fuck yes, it was awesome.
We missed out on getting tickets for ourselves so I kind of tried to forget about the show. Then when it was a few days away I decided we should try to head down and see if we could get some from a scalper, but then fate intervened and sent tickets (really great seats as well) our way.
Yes, I was finally going to see the Spice Girls.
Now if you've read my blog at all you've probably realized I'm more of a heavy metal, punk rock type of guy, but I confess, I've always had a soft spot for the Spice Girls. I can't understand it myself, I should really dislike them, but I guess it's one of life's great mysteries.
Anyway, the show was really great. They played all the hits, and each did a solo number except Posh, what's the deal with that?
I also couldn't help but notice that Posh was far and away the most popular of the bunch and always got the loudest applause. I guess marrying someone way more famous than you can only help your status. Hey, it worked for Tommy Lee!
Also Sporty spice, while usually the least favorite back in the day really kicked ass! I can't believe we all missed it before, she rules!
Wow, this is just getting embarrassing now, but what can I say, it was a really fun show, I would totally go again.
And, as I was one of about 20 guys there, using the washroom was great, no waiting!
If you weren't lucky enough to get in, there's already some decent video up on YouTube, which is almost as good as being there. Well, not really, but whatever.
Wow, I recently stumbled across the best "worst film ever."
I was on YouTube and found a video called "Worst '80's video ever" or something like that, and being the '80's connaisseur that I am, I had to check it out.
It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen, so I read the comments and found out that it's from a movie called "Creating Rem Lezar."
With another YouTube search I was able to find that someone has posted the entire film online. I started part 1 thinking "I'll just watch a few minutes to see how bad it is" but I couldn't stop. I had to keep watching till the very end and I've had the one stupid song in my head ever since last week.
I cannot stress enough how crappy yet strangely compelling this movie is.
I always wonder when watching stuff like this, How did they convince someone to give them money for this?
Did they think they were making something that would turn out half-decent?
Anyway, there's an internet cult developing around the film, with VHS copies selling on ebay for $50 and up! Luckily (?) for us though we can just watch it online for free!
I decided to post part 4 below because It's the first part I saw and it totally sucked me in. Check out that fiddlin'! If you want to watch the rest, just do a search for "creating rem lezar" on YouTube. But beware, you may never see things the same again...
I just noticed that almost all my titles end in exclamation points!
I guess that's why my blog is so popular!
You can type pretty much anything and it will seem exciting if you end it with an exclamation point!
Even a total douchebag like Steven Seagal will seem interesting!
Yay!
Wow, I've been waiting to see the Wagbeard video since 1995. At least I think that's when it came out... anyway, Wagbeard were a really great band from Calgary that never got as famous as they deserved to. I guess that's pretty standard.
They put out a tape, a split 10" record and one CD, all of which are worth seeking out, but good luck finding them! (Your best bet would be Melodiya records in Calgary, I know he has a few of the 10"s for sure. You're welcome)
They also made one video, it was probably played on MuchMusic only one time, and I missed it, but thanks to YouTube I saw it for the first time ever yesterday!
It's not a great video, it's pretty standard mid-90's indie stuff but it was still nice to finally see it. check it out below. Unfortunately, the band still doesn't have a MySpace page but if you like the video song and want to hear more, send me a message and I'll post some mp3's.
So on Halloween night I finally saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater.
It was pretty fun.
I was glad to have something to do because I love Halloween, it just never seems to work out for me. You know how it goes, last ditch efforts to throw something together usually end up falling apart, so it's nice to know that no matter what, Rocky Horror will be playing at midnight on Halloween, probably till the end of time.
I decided to dress up as "Eddie" (aka Meatloaf) mainly because I had a leather jacket and could get my hair to look somewhat like his.
When I got to the theater there was a girl putting big red V's on the people who had never seen the movie in a theater before. I didn't want a big red V so I totally lied to this poor girl. What a jerk!
Once inside though, I started to get nervous that I would be exposed as a fraud. Not only have I not seen the movie in a theater, I've never even seen the whole movie!
Well, I lucked out, the movie started, people yelled at the screen, we threw rice, toast, toilet paper, put newspapers over our heads to shield us from the water guns, did the Time Warp and I think we all learned a little something about ourselves.
It's such a weird movie, but seeing it like this is so much fun, I'm really glad I went and I plan to go every year for the rest of my life. We'll see how that one turns out.
So I got to meet another of my childhood idols last week, but it was just kinda ok.
I guess the best way to say it is, meeting Nikki Sixx was better than not meeting him.
Anyway, Nikki was super cool, very nice and friendly, the problem was that it was at Chapters in Metrotown, a huge stupid mall.
The staff were just kinda shoving you through to get you out of there (granted, there were several hundred people there to get their book signed, but it just made us all feel like cattle.) and one person said I could get my record signed, but when I got to the front some tubby manager bitch took it and gave it back to me after I'd met the man himself.
I know other people got other stuff signed, so what's the deal?
Anyway, like I said before Nikki was super friendly, I'm really glad I got to meet him, I just wish the staff hadn't been such a bunch of jerks.
Doesn't the title say it all?
Priestess is a really great band from Montreal. I've played their first album at work probably 100 times, sometimes twice in a row, So I'm pretty glad to hear something new from these guys. It sounds good, and the video is so strangely entertaining it just makes it all that much better. Check it out below and go the band's MySpace page here!
I was listening to "Bark at the Moon" last night and I realized that I really like Ozzy's solo stuff. But that's not the point of this post. When I was listening to the album it reminded me of something I saw on TV when I was a kid.
It was during the whole "Heavy Metal Satanic Cult" scare of the '80s (people sure were dumb back then) when I saw a show about headbanger kids.
One guy in particular really stuck with me. I think he was about 17 or so and he had been homeless for a while. When asked about it he said "My dad didn't want me listening to Ozzy so he kicked me out."
Well, I'm sure there was more to it than that, but I always found that weird, especially later when the Osbournes was on and Ozzy was exposed as a good-natured goofball.
Did that kid ever talk to his dad again? Did his dad feel like a numb-nuts when he found out how harmless Ozzy really was?
I guess we'll never know... That cover sure used to scare the hell out of me though!
So I finally met a member of KISS today.
Yes, I touched Ace Frehley's arm once about 12 years ago, but today I actually met and talked to Gene Simmons. And he was really, really nice.
Anyway, let's start at the beginning. I was disappointed about the cancellation of the KISS show in Whistler, but I heard Gene wold be in town anyway to promote his new clothing line.
So the autograph session was today at a ritzy store downtown from 4-6 PM. I figured I should get there early to make sure I got a good spot in line.
I got up early this morning, packed a lunch, charged my iPod, brought a book, the record I wanted signed and my camera. I was thinking I was going to arrive to a huge line-up as I had gotten downtown at about 10 AM.
I was pretty surprised though, no one was there yet, where were all the huge KISS nerds? Could I really have been the first one there?
I asked a guy in the store and he said to come back around 12 or 1. I considered it, but then I thought, No way, I want to be first in line since I'm already here.
So I hung out for a bit, then got a tip that Gene would be arriving early. Then he showed up. It was so bizarre actually seeing him in real life. I guess you would have had to have known me in high school to know, but I basically lived for KISS. Obsession does not even begin to cover it. If I could have had a Time Machine that could have been used for one round-trip, I probably would have gone back to see KISS in the '70's. Geek.
Anyway, Gene was with his usual crowd of ladies, I had him sign my first pressing copy of the first album and got a great pic with him. He was really very nice, I can't stress that enough! I was also filmed for "Family Jewels" so hopefully I'll make it on there. That would be weird.
I figured it couldn't really get any better than that so I decided to leave once he went inside, but I walked about half a block and couldn't resist going back. I had to give him my business card, what if he needed a haircut?
So I went into the store, gave him the card, gave him a silver sharpie because I knew he'd need it, he said I was a 'good man' I thanked him again and left in a daze.
I guess this was probably pretty boring, but I wanted to get all the details down while they were still fresh, so whatever, I'll write something more entertaining later, I promise!
