So I'm back. My near week long blogging hiatus is over (miss me?). I got busy doing job application stuff, sneezing, pushups, working, watching Prometheus a million times. Anywhoo, here's a fascinating article I stumbled across this morning on Yahoo:
I already knew Jim Carrey, Mark Wahlberg and Charlie Sheen never completed high school (Jim had a ROUGH childhood, Mark and Charlie were just crazy) but was pretty surprised at:
Drew Barrymore
Simon Cowell
and Johnny Depp
So remember kids. When you're cramming for that physics final and are sweating it when all your bills are due at once but you still need money to fill up your tank of gas for the next work week....think of the success a lad like Simon Cowell has achieved without a high school diploma, and weep. Don't worry, it feel pretty good after a while.
Kevin Talley is a legend in the underground metal scene and the dude is only 33 years old. He joined Dying Fetus when he was a teenager in 1998 and has been pummeling his way across the metal world ever since. Keeping track of the all the bands Kevin has played with over his career would require a graphing calculator and a coffee break but lets just say he's played with A LOT of top notch metal bands throughout the 2000's and it's safe to say he's made all of them better for it.
So Kevin first made a name for himself in Dying Fetus. I already gushed about the mighty Fetus in a previous Crunch Time post HERE, but long story short, Kevin's drumming on their 2000 album, Destroy The Opposition, is phenomenal. This is the record that put Mr. Talley on everyone's radar. After this he (and 3/4 of the Fetus dudes) jumped ship and formed Misery Index. Here's a clip of Kevin recording Misery Index's 2004 EP, Dissent.
In case you didn't notice from the video above, Kevin Talley plays drums like a fucking mad man. He hits loud and hard. I remember watching his instructional DVD and he said he never uses double strokes, always sticks with singles because he wants the maximum amount of power from his hits. Well, mission accomplished buddy. The last time I saw Kevin play was with Six Feet Under on this past summer's, er, Summer Slaughter Tour and man he straight up demolished those drums.
So Kevin is renowned for his creative grooves (especially in Dying Fetus where it sounded like he was playing Hip Hop beats sometimes), speed (Misery Index) and rock solid timing (Chimaira). He's also kind of like the #1 hired gun drummer in the extreme metal world. I watched him play for both The Red Chord and The Black Dahlia Murder (filling in for their MIA drummers) in ONE night. The drummer from Hate Eternal quit the band before a major European tour, they called Kevin and he learned their entire set in 8 hours. The drummer from Devildriver gets food poisoning...they call Kevin and he hops a plane, learns the set in 3 hours and plays their show that night.
Perhaps the coolest thing about Kevin Talley, at least in my book, is that he auditioned for Slayer back in 2002 and pretty much NAILED it. He was the top pick before Dave Lombardo (founding member of Slayer and DrumTHRONE honoree) rejoined the band that year. How amazing is it that this dude leaves home at age 18, becomes a professional musician and not only has a thriving career playing with Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Chimaira, Daath and now Six Feet Under, but he basically was accepted into Slayer. SLAYER man! All this and he's barely in his early 30's. Talley is living the dream.
At first I swore I would never pay to see this gimmicky cash grab nostalgia/exploitation movie. Then I started hearing how great Josh Brolin was impersonating Tommy Lee Jones so I almost changed my mind. Almost. Luckily my friend scored from free movie tickets so, I upheld my sacred oath and didn't have to pay/contribute to Will Smith's kid's crappy music career.
Anywaaaaays. I digress. So back to the movie. It wasn't horrible but sure as hell wasn't good. The first Men In Black was an awesomely tongue and cheek B-movie that rocked some cool special effects and played like a 90's version of Ghostbusters meets Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The sequel, well I don't really remember the sequel that's how much of an impact it left on me. So this third film really had nothing going for it other than a vehicle to refresh Will Smith's ATM card. I mean, he's a worldwide mega star so his cocky street tough character is hardly believable anymore and actually comes off as kind of annoying. Also, his character "J" is like 40 years old now, and he's STILL partners with Tommy Lee Jones who's pushing 70 in the film. I mean, Christ, they've been partners for 14 years and it's the most unnatural chemistry I've seen between two actors ever.
Shut Up Will.
Finally, the whole wow factor of MiB universe is just done also. CGI effects have been done to death nowadays. I remember the little animatronic smart ass aliens and the talking dog from the first film were like huge deals in the 90's. Now we've got Andy Serkis doing entire characters with computer/motion capture technology. Also, how many films about aliens have been released in the past two summers? It's just overkill.
The ONLY saving grace about this film is in fact, Josh Brolin, who does a good job playing the younger version of Tommy Lee's Agent K. That's it. There's a few cool gags with the whole time travel thing but even then, they totally dropped the ball with that also. I know not every time travel film can match Back to The Future but c'mon guys, this weak plot is kind of insulting.
If you want to kill some time and just chill out with some popcorn in a dark room then MiB3 might do the trick. Barely though.
So now that I'm officially in the 21st century, I've been listening to Pandora a lot. Oh the wonders of online radio. I had planned to do a different post today (Movie Review actually) but can't stop listening to this song on repeat so here we are.
Thank you Pandora for exposing me to this awesome little jam.
Perhaps, one of the greatest guilty pleasures in my life: the perverse enjoyment I get listening to musicians covering other artist's songs. The weirder the cover, the better! It doesn't matter how awkward or horrible the quality (shitty cell phone video, I'm looking at you), I'm an absolute sucker for this stuff. Here's the latest installment of "under-covers."
Today we feature one of the greatest singers of all time, Roy Orbison and his 1964 classic, "Oh, Pretty Woman." I'm sure everyone knows this song (and the movie...c'mon I know you do)
My god that voice! Orbison's voice is just uncanny. He could literally sing the phone book and I'd be stoked to hear it. It doesn't hurt that this is probably one of the catchiest tunes in the universe.
You know what else is catchy and totally rad in a different way? Van Halen. Here's Eddie and the boys cover of "Oh, Pretty Woman," from their 1982 album, Diver Down.
Spiffy. Spiffy stuff right there. I love how this cover remains so true to the original, yet sounds so much like a Van Halen song in it's own right. This just shows how huge an influence Orbison and all the classic early rock'n'roll pioneers of his era were on the band.
I love both of these covers but gotta say, nothing beats the original in my book. David Lee Roth is (er...was) one hell of a frontman but he's got NOTHING on Orbison when it comes to vocals. Roy's dreamy/lonesome voice is probably the most tragic yet heart warming thing I've ever heard. What do you folks think?
