In memory of George Carlin, here are some of my favorite quotes from him:
"Imagine meeting your maker and finding out it's Frito-Lay."
"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten."
"Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror."
"A laugh is a smile with a hole in it."
"Santa is satan spelled inside out."
"I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?"
"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."
It's been a long while since I've posted an entry on this blog. Honestly, it's been a long time since I've even thought about it. A few months ago I made it a goal of mine to regularly update this thing. At the time, I thought it would be a good idea to write my feelings out since I'm always bottling everything up inside. I don't have many friends and the ones I do have, I rarely "open up" to them so that really wasn't an option. I needed an outlet. Music used to be a primary outlet for me but lately, I haven't been into it as much as I used to. Music was a place where I could express my feelings but as time went on, my words became more bland and my melodies were less creative. The quality of my output was going to the shitter. I was writing about the same topic and the same situation over and over again. I grew tired of it. I wanted to write about new and different things but I couldn't. I guess a lot has to do with what's happening in my life. There is nothing happening which might explain no inspiration. It's been a really long time since I've been excited about anything. It shouldn't be this way. In the last couple years, I've made a lot of progress in my life and have taken myself places I never thought I'd go a couple years ago. With that, I feel a lot less happier and more drained than ever. It doesn't make much sense to me but maybe it does... I keep trying though. I haven't given up yet.
Okay...I explained why I started to blog again a few months ago but I haven't explained why I stopped. There are two reasons that I can think of. One, less than a week after I posted my last entry, my computer crashed and I was without a working computer for almost two weeks. When I got my comp back up and running, my blog was the last thing on my mind. There was also a situation with a woman but that's for another time. A second reason for my absence is the way I write. I take forever to type up a blog entry or an e-mail. I get too concerned with grammar and the way it will sound to others instead of just putting my words out there and not caring about the little imperfections. I'm getting better at it and this particular entry hasn't taken as long as some of my past ones so far.
Overall I would love to blog more often but like everything else I want to do, I let the petty things get in the way of my pursuit. I really really need to work on that.
Great news! Elvis Costello (with the Imposters) is coming back to Omaha! He will be opening for The Police on May 14 at the Qwest Center. I went to see Costello last October and he was beyond awesome. He is one of my favorite musicians/composers of all time. When he came, he didn't have a band accompanying him like he will this time with the Imposters. It was all just voice and guitar which made it alot more intimate and personal. He came along with Bob Dylan and Amos Lee. Bob Dylan is another one of my favorite artists of all time but he's had better days than the one I saw him on. You could hardly understand a word that Bob was singing, it was all grumbling. All of the songs he played were unrecognizable. I'm not saying it wasn't good, but it definitely wasn't great. Though being able to see Bob in front of me with my very own eyes was quite the experience.
Back to the Costello/Police concert, I really would like to go but if the ticket prices are too high, I'll pass on it. I'd rather not pay a hundred dollars or more to see one artist/group. I like the Police but I don't love them. I enjoyed their first album alot but anything after that, I'm not a huge fan. Also, I haven't heard too many good things about their performances in recent years so that doesn't help. I will need to make up my mind about this soon though as tickets to these type of events sell out pretty quick.
Writing about this got me to thinking about what artists/bands I would pay alot of money to see if they were coming nearby. One would definitely be Wilco. I saw them last October at the Orpheum and it was the greatest live concert I have ever been to. They are by far the best live band out there in my opinion. Here's a question for anyone reading this... if you were to pay a hundred or more dollars to see any active artist/group play live, who would it be and why? Feel free to leave your answers on the Comments section of this blog.
I was born in the slums of Hazard, Kentucky where I was raised by a pack of wild nuns in a roach infested monastery. It was your typical childhood. I did learn about sex at an early age due to all the action going on where I grew up. You see, these nuns were in the business of giving good times in the name of the lord to male civilians which is why I call them wild.
Skipping ahead, when I was 14 I finally learned to walk after many failed attempts. I guess I pushed myself a little harder after schoolboys started throwing rocks at me and called me Crawly since I crawled around everywhere. After seeing that I could accomplish anything that I can put my mind to, I decided to pick up an instrument. I had a classmate named Donny who was a champion flutist and let me tell you this, he was the Queef master. I didn't want to copy him by picking up the flute so I settled on the harpsichord. If I was going to be the captain of any womans dreamboat, I had to learn something cool like the harpsichord. From that point on, I ate, breathed and slept harpsichord. I learned all the hot licks like the intro to the Partridge Familys "I Think I Love You". I was knocking them dead left and right. Everyone wanted to be my friend. It was great times to say the least.
Towards the end of the school year, my school decided to host a talent show. Finally! It was my chance to show the ENTIRE school my talent. Then I heard Donny the flutist was entering too. I knew this was going to be a clash of warriors. I practiced 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. I played til my fingers bled all over the keys. It was intense. On the night of the talent show, I couldn't decide what to blow people away with. Maybe a classical piece? Something original? Something popular? I had to decide quick. Donny was onstage blowing harder than any man has blew before and was clearly the winner that far into the contest. 30 seconds to go and I had nothing. They called my name and I walked out on to the stage. It was dead silent. I sat down on my bench and placed my fingers on the keys. Suddenly, the song came to me. The perfect song. The song that would make me into a talent show winner...The Addams Family Theme. The crowd loved it! My heart was pumping with joy as everyone snapped their fingers and sang along with me. It was the single greatest moment in harpsichord history.
Since that moment, My life has been pretty bland. I'm completely broke but atleast I had an experience like that in my lifetime. I still have people stop me while I'm picking up their trash and tell me how much they enjoyed that night. It brings me to tears hearing others talk about how much that night had an effect on them. I'm glad that I was the one who could bring such joy to others. Now that I think of it, what am I doing with these raggy clothes? This trash bag in my hand? I wasn't made for this! I was made to Harpsi-rock. I am announcing my comeback. Watch out for here cometh the Harpsichord man!
Nothing like good ol Valentines Day to make a single man like myself feel like a complete loser. I shouldn't even buy into all this Valentines Day crap anyways. Truth be told, I've never had a valentine before. I know it's hard to believe but yes...I, Brian Von Lovinmaker has never experienced the joy of being someones valentine. And before you mention it, those forced valentines from elementary school don't count. Perhaps it's a good thing I haven't been anyones valentine. I don't need to waste my money on buying someone a box of chocolates or humiliate myself by staring into someones eyes while lip synching to James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". Now that I put it that way, it's a blessing in disguise. Ahh...who am I kidding? I'm just bitter. If I had a valentines this year, I'd probably go all out for them. Somewhere in another dimension, the alternate me who can actually get a girl is dressed up as a big heart and is sprinkling Sweethearts candy all over the place.
On a completely different topic, it's freaking cold outside! It's 5 degrees out right now. 5!!! It's colder than a well digger's ass in the Klondike out there!
I'm really not feeling good today. Whatever has been going around has found its way into me. This is as sick as I've been in years. I should still be laying down right now and resting but I had an idea for a blog entry so I got up. I thought it would be fun to compare my taste in music now to my music taste 10 years ago. At first glance, my taste in music now seems like a big departure from what I used to listen to regularly but when I really think about it, it's not that much of a difference. For those who know me, they know I'm a melody man. It could be soft, heavy, weird, dumb but if it has a good melody, I will enjoy it.
Here's a list of my top 5 favorite bands (as best as I can remember and in no particular order) from 1998:
01. Nirvana - For years and years this was my favorite band. They were my very first music obsession. I was turned on to them by a guy who lived down the street from me. One day I went over to his house to see if he wanted to ride bikes around the neighborhood with me. He was sitting on his front door step with a boombox next to him playing Nirvana's "Lithium". I asked him who it was and he told me Nirvana. I had never even heard of this band before which is odd since they were pretty big at the time. I asked him if he could make me a cassette with some Nirvana songs on it and he did. The cassette contained only two songs: "Lithium" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit". A few days later, I ended up buying Nevermind and From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah. Eventually I became a Nirvana junkie and was addicted to every single note Kurt Cobain produced. Not only did I purchase all of their albums, I also had quite the collection of Nirvana bootlegs. Saying I was obsessed would be an understatement.
02. Korn - Out of the 5 I'm listing, this is the only one that I haven't listened to at all in the last couple years. I was turned on to Korn by a classmate in Junior High. The very first song I heard by them actually was "Twist". That song was crazy. I really thought they were just a novelty band at first. Later on I borrowed a copy of Life is Peachy from someone and really enjoyed it.
My favorite memory of Korn had nothing to do with the actual music. The day before I started my first day of high school, Korn's Follow the Leader was released. I went and bought two copies of it, one for me and another for my friend Jake. I met up with Jake to give him the CD on my first day of HS right before we walked into the doors of Northwest High. So now whenever I think about that album, it reminds me of him. He was the only person I knew at school at that time and it made things alot easier for me.
03. Green Day - I forget how I was turned on to Green Day. I want to say through my friend Kyle but I'm not 100% on that. At this point in my life I only owned their Nimrod album which I still think is pretty good. It showed they were capable of more than just the pop/rock/punk sound that they were popular for. When I think of Nimrod now, I'm reminded of the horrible ice storm that hit Omaha in late October 1997 that resulted in no school for an entire week! Conditions were so bad that I really couldn't go anywhere (except maybe to go sledding). I ended up with a lot of free time and it gave me a chance to give Nimrod a good listen as I had just bought it the week before.
04. Sublime - Much like Nirvana, Sublime was another band that was a favorite of mine for a long time. It was the same Jr High classmate that turned me on to Korn that gave me my first taste of the Cali-pop-ska that is Sublime. The songs were so catchy and unique that it was hard not to like them. My best Sublime related memory is learning the solo to "Santeria" on guitar. At that point, I didn't know very many guitar solos and the ones that I did know were rudimentary. "Santeria" was the first 'difficult' solo that I learned. Though it isn't difficult for me to play now, it was a huge step for me at that time.
05. Bush - Every single time I mention this band to someone nowadays, it always results in a conversation about George W. I can't imagine how the band members feel. Who knows...maybe they are staunch supporters of the man and enjoy the connection.
The very first album I heard by Bush was Razorblade Suitcase. I remember listening to it for the first time at a friends house. We were bored and were playing CDs that he owned and that was one of them. I also remember that later on that same day, I asked a girl out for the first time. She said no but at least I got some Bush that day. Now that I think of it, Bush (the band) and women don't really mix well for me. I remember giving a copy of The Science Of Things album to the first girl that I had a crush on. Man I was nuts. I don't think she even liked me. Oh well. There's $11.55 (average price of a CD in 1998) I'll never see again. Dammit Bush! Now I know why I don't listen to you anymore!
As for my current Top 5, I'll list those at a later time with stories to accompany them. Stay tuned...or not...your choice.
Looky here! I've got a MySpace music page. Last spring I decided to freeze hell over by putting up a page with my music on it. I had wanted to put one up for years but always procrastinated. A huge part of why I put it off for so long was because I was scared that it wouldn't be received well. I didn't think anyone would care about it and that it wouldn't matter if I put it up or not. One day, after some persuasion from a friend (more like a dare), I bit the bullet and put it up. I'm glad I did. Who cares if no one cares about it? It's there for the taking. I'm not losing anything by putting my music out there. I can only gain from it. If someone doesn't like what I have to offer, they can find another one of the thousands of MySpace music pages out there that will suit their taste better. I should really learn to stop caring about what others think when it comes to my music. It's something that I love to do and will always love to do as long as I'm breathing.
As far as my song selection on my page goes, it's really not the best or worst of what I have to offer. I wanted to show off all the different sounds that I'm capable of producing. I like it and I hope you will too.
The Kinks are great. They are currently one of my favorite bands. Out of boredom, here are my favorite songs from each Kinks album from Face To Face to Muswell Hillbillies.
Face To Face - "Party Line" Something Else - "Afternoon Tea" Village Green Preservation Society - "Sitting By The Riverside" Arthur - "Some Mother's Son" Lola Vs. Powerman... - "Strangers" Percy - "God's Children" Muswell Hillbillies - "Alcohol"
In memory of George Carlin, here are some of my favorite quotes from him:
