First out of the gates is a Scottish artist who has been around for some time. But like most musicians, he'd paid his dues on the road and is starting to make a name for himself. Recently featured on the Tonight Show, where I first noticed him, Paolo Nutini has amazing soul, range (both vocally and stylistically), and a timbre similar to Joe Cocker or Caleb Followill lead singer of Kings of Leon.
After listening to his entire Sunny Side Up album on MySpace Music I was moved to hear more on his previous These Streets album. I enjoyed the samples I heard so much that I requested it from my library so I can listen to it on a proper stereo. Click on the above link to his MySpace Music page for either album or watch his performance from The Tonight Show w/ Conan O'Brien below.
I'm going to be putting forth a larger effort towards my blog in hopes of posting almost daily for your enjoyment, excitement and benefit. I have set aside specific topics that we'll be touching on everyday day of the week (except some Thursdays and most Saturdays.) Here are the sections we hope to be unveiling this week and following up with on subsequent weeks:
MAD ABOUT MUSIC MONDAYS - In this weekly section we'll post a 'new' song for you to hear. It may be from a new artist, an artist you've never heard of or just a song from a popular artist you never knew they performed. Or, if I'm fresh out of cool music to share I may post a new music countdown for you to agree with, completely discount or just try to amend it yourself to your own liking. I hope you enjoy this Monday update.
TUESDAY BREWSDAY - Here we'll feature a different beer from a top-flight craft brewery. More likely than not the beer will carry with it some international beer festival awards, medals and top accolades. Check us out every Tuesday for you to pick up your Brewsday knowledge.
WEBSITE WEDNESDAY - Make sure to check with us every Wednesday for you find out about a wonderful website for you. Some of them will be informative, some may aid your effort to kill time, others maybe so useful that you'll add them to your favorites.
GUEST BLOGGER THURDAY - Yeah, I know. There's no catchy name for today. Oh well. Here I'll feature friends and colleagues and allow them free-reign into whatever topic they wish to address. Beer? Sports? Video Games? Movies? Who knows, check back to see our first guests.
SONGS FROM ALBUMS I DON'T HAVE AROUND ANYMORE FRIDAY - It's a very sad concept, and something that inevitably we all suffer from. We once had this badass album, and it got a lot of wear in our CD player, phonograph, or ghetto Walkman. We misplaced it at some point and now we reminisce about good times past and how those songs used to be a magic experience, when they were still around. So I'll hunt down some tracks from that album on YouTube and elsewhere and allow us to sit back and kick on our 'remember when' shoes.
OPEN SATURDAY - I am not planning any overwhelming plans for Saturdays. More likely than not I will take a day off from posting unless some issue, story, article, or video is twisting my arm to post on Saturday.
STREAMING SUNDAY - Make absolutely sure that you check back on Sundays. I will be either embedding or posting a link to an online streaming movie that is either still in theaters (very often right after opening weekend) or a New Release on DVD. These links are not likely to be active very long so I highly suggest watching them as soon as they are available.
I hope that you enjoy the new weekly topics I wish to touch on. Please come back daily to check out what new feature I have unveiled. Also feel free to provide feedback on how to improve this blog as well providing you with more content that interests you.
This is another new section in the blog where every Sunday (I know, it's Monday) we'll embed a movie that is either still in the theaters or new to DVD on this blog. I have no affiliation with the sites hosting these movies nor am I the source of the links. I am merely the presenter of wonderful streaming movies that help you save some cash and enjoy a day cleaning the house while watching these films. The link may not be active for that much longer so please enjoy it soon! You can have the DIVX player automatically download the file so you can view it at a later date or show others. Enjoy.
This is a (hopefully) weekly column of a song or two from an album that I once owned and loved but since have misplaced and long for dearly. As we grow old we each grow attached to certain artists, songs and albums. They help define us as kids, teens, and later on adults. As we listen to the lyrics more closely all these years later they either mean vastly MORE or considerly LESS than what we had perceived. Hopefully this outlet will allow both you and I release some of the fond memories we have of our free-spirited youth. I regularly recall very specific moments, persons, or places when I hear songs as I moved often as a child changing scenery, friends, and surroundings as quick as the top Billboard hits would change over. Please sit back and enjoy "Song from Albums I Wish I Still Had Around."
This week's entry comes from the album Loud Rocks! The hip-hop/rap studio Loud Records released a collaboration album with many of the hard rock and nu-metal bands that were coming out in the late 90's. The 1999 release had match-ups like Ozzy Osbourne and the Wu-Tang Clan, Sevendust and Xzibit, Sugar Ray and the Alcoholiks, along with Incubus and Big Pun. The track I chose to select is another collaboration from the Wu-Tang Clan. This time they've paired up with the Armenian band System of a Down. Please enjoy this rendition of "Shame'. **Added bonus** beneath it I have included Wu-Tang's original version of the track.
. . . I know, I know it isn't. However, in a recent Facebook thread I was told such, TWICE! Now this is not a candid reply to such, merely a developed explanation on how this simply is not the case.
Now not only can this be refuted in an instant but it begs to ask the question, "Why would someone think this is so?" The answer to that is probably the massive marketing campaigns that BIG BEER produces. These campaigns dominant marketing all over television, radio, and the internet, telling you that their beer "Tastes Great" and is "Less Filling," enticing you to tell another "I Love You Man" to snag a beer, or that their beer is "As Cold as the Rockies."
As famous beer critic and writer, Micheal Jackson 'The Beer Hunter' put it, "Now someone farts and they put a TM after it. Even Miller Lite says 'A Fine Pilsner Beer' on the label. It is a crime."
The late Michael Jackson, "The Beer Hunter"
The Big Beer I refer to would be the three largest breweries on American soil, Anheuser-Busch (brewers of Budweiser), Miller, & Coors. I unfortunately have to say on American soil because they no longer are majority-owned by Americans. Miller Brewing is owned by SAB Miller, a British company based in London and listed on the London Stock Exchange. In 2005 the Coors Company merged with Canadian owned Molson and is now MillerCoors, a joint venture created in 2007 between British-owned SAB Miller and the now Half-Canadian, Half-American MolsonCoors, to be one third American owned. Last to join the foreign market is Anheuser-Busch. They were purchased in August of 2008 by the Belgian owned InBev to the sum of $52 billion. This makes InBev the largest brewer by volume with all of the Anheuser-Busch brands (Bud, Michelob, Busch, Rolling Rock) joining notable brands like Bass, Beck's, Stella Artois.
The Boston Beer Company is America's leading brewer of handcrafted, full-flavored beers. Founder and Brewer, Jim Koch, brews Samuel Adams® beers using the time-honored, traditional four-vessel brewing process, and the world's finest all-natural ingredients. With 18 distinctive, award-winning styles of beer, Samuel Adams offers discerning beer drinkers a variety of brews. The brewery has won more awards in international beer-tasting competitions in the last five years than any other brewery in the world. Samuel Adams is an independent brewery and has half of a percent of the domestic beer market. The Company's flagship brand, Samuel Adams Boston Lager®, is brewed using the same recipe and processes that Jim Koch's great-great grandfather used in the mid 1800s. The result is a beer renowned by drinkers for its full flavor, balance, complexity, and consistent quality.
With that I'll continue to refute the statement of "All Beer is Yellow." The following styles in the there nature are anything but yellow; stouts, porters, ambers, brown ales, dark largers, bocks, lambics, and irish red ales. For the majority of their styles you need not read their BJCP Style Description but simply read their name. Some lambic's colors are so vibrant they are more akin to pure juices than beer or even wine.
As you can see from the BJCP Color Chart, each style varies in color greatly. While most lagers and pilsner styles are meant to be clear with a golden yellow hue, most porters and stouts are meant to be dark and slightly opaque. These are attributes to their style and are not necessarily for better or worse. I sampled a wonderful pilsner by Green Flash Brewery in San Diego called, in fact, Fizzy Yellow Beer - a Bohemian Pilsner. It was full-bodied, had Belgian yeast notes, as well as a nice finish.
So in closing, I state that there is good beer that is yellow. I do not think, however, that the yellow beers that are worth drinking would be classified as 'fizzy' and 'yellow'. On the other hand, most beers brewed in corporate mega-factories in Golden, CO, St. Louis, MO, and Milwaukee, WI are more than likely LESSER THAN to say the least.
If these are your beers of choice fine, that's okay. No one is saying we should ban such products from the market. Be that as it may, you cannot argue that a box wine is better than an aged wine, nor can you argue that a cheaply produced beer made with rice and corn can rival that of a true craftsman and artist. Paint-by-numbers isn't Picasso, so let's not pretend such with our evening libations. Okay?
"I Am A Craft Brewer" is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media...and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg's Keynote Speech entitled "Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion."
A program is in development to include even more of America's amazing craft brewers. Please stay tuned!
For the past few weeks I have been watching Ryan Van Duzer ride his 3-speed New Belgium Cruiser from Oceanside, CA to Washington, D.C. on YouTube. Yes, I said 3-Speed Cruiser. No Ryan's not riding on some lavish expensive road bike, or a high-tech 21-speed mountain bike (although he did once ride from Honduras to Colorado on a mountain bike) Ryan is merely riding an old school beach style cruiser across this beautiful country.
He's gone through the Arizona and New Mexico deserts, over the Rockies, through the Plain States and over the Appalachians, and now he's on the doorstep of democracy, Maryland. The Duze has almost finished his journey to D.C. and now he needs our help. Please help spread the word about bike riding, sport cycling, pushing small children on bikes or anything that would get more people on one, two or three wheels and out of their carbon polluting vehicles.
Ryan supports bicycle co-op's like his local Community Cycles in Boulder, CO. He wants you to donate money, bikes, or time to your local bike co-op to help those in your community get on a bike or stay on a bike so they can stop putting the pedal to the metal and start putting their own feet on the pedals. Please watch Ryan's incredible journey across this great nation of ours and help him on his journey to convince Washington that NOW is the time to get behind bicycles and the HUMAN POWER that makes them move. So hop on your bike and tell people about bikes and Ryan Van Duzer's amazing ride across America.
Check out - Duzer Duz America - on a cruiser . . . (click link at the bottom to view vids on my blog.)
Also if this intrigued you Ryan has a whole bunch of videos on YouTube throughout all of his crazy adventures around the World. He's also been featured on the Travel Channel with some of his antics.
