Turbonegro, dead whales, Kurt Cobain’s money and Gen X’s victory over the Baby-Boomers

Since I am still enjoying the rock’n’roll vibes, I want to share this great picture with all of you.

It’s of course the only real thing that Norvegians should be proud of, especially since they are currently only the country in the world (with Japan, of course) that allows the practice commercial whaling, which should be harshly condemned because is brutal and completely useless.

Anyway, the picture above is Turbonegro playing live at Ankkarock in Helsinki in August, and this is the gig after which they weren’t even able to drink all their beer as reported earlier in our blog. Aren’t they the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world? Probably. If you go there and scroll down the page a bit, there are more great Turbonegro live pics from the same gig.

Still in keeping with the rock’n’roll theme, I just read that according to Forbes’ magazines listing, Kurt Cobain was the dead rock star making most money in the world last year. Kurt, or isn't it actually Courtney and Frances Bean, earned about 50 million dollars while The King himself only made 42 million dollars.

Let’s take this as a clear indication that the baby-boomer generation with all their money are finally losing the battle and that Grunge will never die!

Metal Hipster? That’s me, sir!

Ok, here it comes, my official announcement: I am a Metal Hipster ©. No more any of that boring old rap/indie/electronic-crap, just pure metal music for me, thanks. I am on that bandwagon now.

I (mostly) only listen to these bands now:

- Earth
- SUNN O)))
- Khanate
- Boris
- The Sword
- High On Fire
- Sleep
- Om
- Wolfmother
- Mastodon

And I started playing guitar again, as reported earlier, as well as developing an unhealthy appetite for scoring old guitar effect pedals from the ‘bay.

Why? I don’t know really. But right after having been listening and really getting into all that stuff, partially thanks to my man Mark, I read a newspaper article about Metal Hipsterism and I realized immediately that it was talking about me.

As it turns out, Metal Hipster, which is of course a very negative term to any real head banging metal-dude, is a nerdy white male music fan who has recently started listening to some of these particular metal/stoner/doom/drone/whatever bands. And who used to be really into something else before that. And apparently it is mandatory to dig all and any bands that's on Southern Lord label. But I used to be really into metal as a teenager, you know? And the fact is that those bands really rock AND/OR play interesting and fresh music, mostly without that stupid Spinal Tap-style irony/self-parody, or on the other any of that technical wanking usually associated with metal bands. At least I think so.

And hey, if you put together early Motorhead, early Black Sabbath, some Black Flag & Stooges, some Celtic Frost, early Sonic Youth, Bleach-era Nirvana, Metallica’s first album etc. and mix ‘em well and turn it up really loud, can you really get anything else than just good old rock’n’roll music? And please note the ‘early’ in front of all those bands.

Another point is that most of these new metal hipster's favorite bands are simply too left-field and strange for the mainstream of metal music and they will never be accepted into that genre. After all most of the metal audiences are some of the most conservative popular music audiences, along with Country & Western fans. Yeah, come and kick my ass for saying that, you spiky-haired dude in your Slipknot long-sleeve t-shirt.

But maybe I am wrong. Or maybe next month I am really into something else again.

Summer jams

rap is good
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

I'm really not usually one to look back and reflect on things, i prefer to look forward. But since this is only short-period nostalgia, i gotta say it has been one hell of a year for rap music!

I mean, no disrespect for any other types of music, the past summer was crazy-filled with excellent hiphop & r&b singles and some very good albums. I gotta say that with some exceptions, most indie rock records this year has sucked. There hasn't been many hot dancehall singles (beside Cham!) this year. Dance/electronic? naaaaah, forget about that dude.

I'll give you a list of the ghottest s**t 2006 closer to the end of the year, obviously (you cant tell yet, since there is new Jigga, Jeezy and possibly Kanye still on the way). But i'll tell you what you'll remember as "those insanely hot summer 2006 tunes"... in, say 3 years to come.. Yes. these are all BIG hits, but after a couple of years, that IS all you will remember.

- Ross: Hustlin' (did anyne doubt that for a sec? no, i didnt think so)
- Jibbs: Chain Hang Low
- Cassie: Me & You
- E-40: Tell Me When To Go
- T.I.: What You Know
- Yung Joc: It's Going Down
- Kelis: Bossy
- Field Mob ft Ciara: So What
- Ghostface: Back Like That
- Too Short: Blow The Whistle
- 8Ball & MJG: Ridin' High
- The Pack: Vans
- Lupe Fiasco: Kick Push
- Chamillionaire: Ridin

Along with some 20 more songs, these will be the jams you'll remember summer 2006 of. This is what i think. Save the list and check for yourself after a couple of yrs.
Rap is still number one.

Keep your B.C. Rich and sell your crappy oilpaintings

It seems that the prices for classic electric guitars are now on the rise. According to Business 2.0 magazine the index for collectible guitars has gone up 80 % since the year 2000. That's far better than the index of paintings (up 20 %) or Dow Jones industrial average (up about 0 %).

The reason for this is that the baby boomers with spare cash are now buying the instruments that were played by their idols way back. 50's Stratos could go for like 40.000 bucks right now, and a 1960 Les Paul was sold for $192.000 dollars and a same type of a guitar manufactured only a year earlier went for $250.000.

What is excpected to be the next trend after these pre-70's classic models is actually early 80's heavy metal models made in the US: B.C. Rich, Jackson etc. You could easily make a good money on those babies, if you buy 'em now and wait a few years.

My metal shredding baby from the eighties is an Ibanez RG-750 from the year 1989. I guess I'll have to wait 5-7 years until those babies are worth a lot. But I ain't still gonna sell my baby, we go way back a long time...

Front Lawn Mowin' Hustler

I guess that Al is the king of musical parodies.

Just listen to the lyrics:

...They see me mowin'...My front lawn
...They see me roll on, my Segway!

Tower Records Out Of Business

AP reported a few days ago that...

On Oct. 6, a federal bankruptcy judge in Wilmington, Del., approved the sale of Tower to Los Angeles-based liquidator Great American Group for $134.3 million.

While no firm date has been set for the stores to close, "Going Out of Business" signs went up this week at Tower's 89 stores in 20 states and the chain's 3,000 employees have been told they will be laid off.

The company owes creditors about $200 million and filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in August. In its filing, Tower said it has been hurt by an industrywide decline in music sales, downloading of online music and competition from big-box stores such as Wal-Mart.


Quite cheap izznit, if you think of what Google paid for Youtube...

The future seems pretty hard for the people working in the CD-selling industry. Tower records is the first big one to fall, who's next? Virgin Megastores? In the days of ipods and such, old fashioned media consumption is about to change for good. Why bother buying stuff offline, if you can get the same stuff cheaper online, or even for free

But then again, I may not miss Tower Records all that much, 'cos I'm not into buiyng cd's anyway. I'm more like a Beat Street and TurntableLab kinda guy, But wait, whattaheck is happening over here www.beatstreet.com. Should we start bidding or whut????

Shit on the streets

I almost stepped on this on my street couple of days ago:

"Yak!
COLLECT YOUR CRAP
(So that other dogs and dog-owners don't get blamed for this!!!)"

Makes sense to me.
Who doesn't like dogs and who likes shit on the street?

AdSense is getting out of hand & Dalai Lama

Those AdSense ad links up there are getting getting way too wierd. Erickson Sky Cranes? Come again?

AdSense is supposed to scan thru the text of our blog and to offer links to stuff that should/could intrest people reading our posts but sometimes those links are just too far out there. Yo Google! Get a grip. Anyhow people, even though I am not supposed to say this as it apparently against some rules, please click on thosew Adsense links as many times as you like. Every click earns us €€€, in theory at least. Thanks!

* * * UPDATE!!! * * *

Right after I posted this, the AdSense link changed into "Himalayan Heli Skiing Adventure"-thing, which brings me into completely different subject: His Holiness Dalai Lama, the 14th Dalai Lama, the Spiritual Leader of Tibetan people , who is in exile in India because of China having taken over Tibet, and who I have enormous respect for, mainly because I used to be big Beastie Boys fan I guess, is currently visiting Helsinki.

Well, my pregnant girlfriend claims to have seen him yesterday in downtown Helsinki, checking out latest mobile phone models at a DNA store. At least she saw a tibetan buddhist monk shopping for a new mobile phones. Whether it was actually Dalai Lama or not, I am very disappointed that she DID NOT go to that monk and ask him to hold his hand on her belly to give a blessing or to transfer some good vibes or something to our baby. Damn.

But remember this: FREE TIBET !!!