“Merry Swiftmas” to all…

As you know, Christine and I are crazy Christmas music geeks with KOST 103.5 playing non-stop in the casa and XM Radio’s handful of holiday-themed channels pre-programmed in the Chenbot. And though we usually pick up a couple of new songs and CD’s here and there every year, it is very rare that a song [...]

Amazon’s 25 Days of Free!

One of the only things we love more than Christmas music this time of year are freebies — actually, who am I kidding, we love freebies all year long! — so when our friend, Ginger, told us about Amazon.com’s “25 Days of Free” Holiday Music downloads, we couldn’t click over there fast enough!
Not only do [...]

Scarlett Johansson + Pete Yorn = Best Music Video Ever!

Longtime readers know of my deep and abiding love for Scarlett Johansson, but what even I didn’t know until this morning is that aside from looking lovely and acting her ass off in some amazing movies, Scarjo can actually sing! I mean, I knew she had an album a while back, but, no offense, so [...]

Kanye West: A-hole extraordinaire!

OK, normally MTV’s Video Music Awards are totally fast-forwardable. Overlong, boring and packed to the gills with live performances by people who Christine and I can’t stand — last year offered us the Jonas Brothers and Lil’ Wayne, nuff said — but as you can tell from my previous post, this year, the show was [...]

My apologies to Lady Gaga…

Dear Lady Gaga,
I know that in the past I have disparaged you to no end in both my blog and in conversations with my friends and family, but after watching your totally bizarre, insanely awesome performance at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, all I can say is…please forgive me. You seriously rock!

I don’t know [...]

Paula Abdul quits “American Idol”

According to the Los Angeles Times (and her own rambling Twitter feed) Paula Abdul announced this evening that she is not, I repeat, not returning to “American Idol” next season. Whoa…big mistake, FOX! I mean, love her or hate her, losing Paula is the beginning of the end for “Idol” in my book.

Sure, Abdul is [...]

AMtv rocks!

I know it seems like all we watch these days is MTV, but, well, it is kind of our first click on the remote when channel surfing, and we don’t get TCM or Bravo anymore…so, can you really blame us?

And while even the cheesiest of their shows are imminently watchable — “Parental Control” is a [...]

Last Call Doritos for the King of Pop…

On the eve of what I expect will be a pretty rocking memorial to Michael Jackson, Christine, Greta, Ryan, Laura and I climbed into the Vue to do a little MJ memorial tour of our own. First Laura, Greta and I drove to the Staples Center to see the crowds and sign the massive placards [...]

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

First Ed McMahon, then Farrah, and then, inexplicably…Michael Jackson? Yikes! What a lousy week to be a 1970’s icon. Not only is Jackson’s death completely shocking, but, it’s also very sad to me for one key reason.
See, I loved Michael’s early stuff with the Jackson 5 and his groundbreaking music videos are literally seared into [...]

Free live album from Coldplay!

I know it seems like all I’ve been blogging about these days is “Not Forgotten”, but there have been several other cool things going on in the past couple of weeks. And the free live album download from Coldplay is totally one of them!
Released as a “thank you gift” to their fans, the album is [...]

Rockabye Baby CD’s rock!

Christine and I had read about Rockabye Baby CD’s — which are basically lullaby versions of popular rock songs — a while back but it wasn’t until our friend Ginger got us the Coldplay album that we actually heard one in its entirety. And though the concept sounds a bit odd, I gotta tell ya, [...]

Radiohead and the USC Marching Band make Grammy magic!

Just as Nostradamus predicted, this year’s Grammy Awards were as boring and fast-forwardable as usual, but there was one live performance that truly rocked our world. You guessed it…our boys from Radiohead did it again.

Not only did Thom Yorke and company take home two awards (one for Best Alternative Album and one for Best Box [...]

Lux Interior (1946-2009)

Found out late last week that Lux Interior, the “Godfather of Psychobilly”, and lead singer of The Cramps died at the age of 62 in Glendale, California. Yes, that Glendale, California. Who knew that a rocking dude like Interior lived and died a few blocks from the place my brother calls home. Crazy…
Crazier still was [...]

President Obama on the radio…

Since I was out of town last week and have been sick every since I got home, I didn’t have the pleasure of watching President Barack Obama — Wow! Still so cool to type those words! — take the oath of office in our nation’s capitol until last night. Yep, last night. Thank God for [...]

Enya: “And Winter Came…”

OK, I know I can’t be the only Enya lover out there…I mean, the woman has four Grammy’s and an Oscar Nomination for God’s sake. But in our circle of friends and family (barring my Grandma Romero and my Dad), I am the only hard-core lover of all things Enya.
It’s not that Christine doesn’t appreciate [...]

Christmas Wishes on KOST FM

OK, I know I sound like a broken record going on and on about the all-Christmas playlist at KOST 103.5, but, seriously, the only thing Christine and I love more than their non-stop Christmas jams are the sad-ass Christmas Wishes that the station grants their listeners every holiday season.
I’ve never called in a wish myself, [...]

“The Christmas Shoes”

OK, if you read my last post, you have some idea of how much Christine and I love Christmas music — at last count we had upwards of 50 Christmas CD’s in our collection! — and as far as holiday tunes go, the cheesier the song, the better!
And our favorite cheesy Christmas song ever is [...]

Radiohead rocks the Grammy nods!

OK, I know what you’re thinking, the Grammy’s haven’t been cool or relevant since, well…never. But that said, I was still very excited to hear that Radiohead scored a whopping five Grammy nominations for their lush, rocking “In Rainbows” album yesterday.

Also glad to see Coldplay in the running for so many awards and Eddie Vedder [...]

“Wicked” at the Hollywood Pantages

Although Christine and I saw the Tony-award-winning musical “Wicked” a couple weeks back, am finally just now getting around to blogging about it. But please don’t take the delay as a lack of enthusiasm, because this show rocked our world…HARD!
Not only are the songs great and totally catchy, but the story itself is really, really [...]

Um…is this really news to anyone?

Clay Aiken, the Barry Manilow of the 21st century is gay?! Shocking! Next thing you’ll tell me that old union-busting scab Ellen Degeneres is married to a woman! Oh, wait…nevermind.
Congrats on the whole coming out thing, dude. And for the love of God, please stop repeating your Christmas Special, because, cheesy as it is, Christine [...]

Nano-chromatic: The new 4G iPod Nanos are here!

Since Christine and I are already a three iPod household — our old grey iPod mini, Yoda, is for the cats, yo! — we need another iPod like we need another season pass on our Tivo. But, man alive, the new iPod Nano’s announced today by Apple are so damn pretty, we might just change [...]

Radiohead @ The Hollywood Bowl

After all the drama associated with scoring the tickets back in April, Christine and I finally saw Radiohead in concert at the Hollywood Bowl this week. Hooray!
The band was in town for a two night stay at the Bowl and we saw the Monday night show (8/25), which according to the vastly different set lists [...]

“American Mall” song on Rock Band!

Heard the other day — from my non-gaming friend Ginger, of all people! — that the video game Rock Band is releasing some new downloadable songs to the Xbox 360 this week. And while the bands involved are both very cool — Duran Duran and Devo! — the biggest news in this household is that [...]

A sad day in Memphis…

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. And though we didn’t get to travel to Memphis this year for Elvis Week, Christine and I did sign up for a free three-day membership to Sirius Radio so we could listen to the live broadcast of the candlelight vigil last night from Graceland.
And [...]

Wii Fit Jams: Music to sweat by…

OK, let me start by saying that the one and only complaint I have about our beloved Wii Fit so far is that several of the workout “games” don’t have any musical accompaniment. Sure, the hula hoop workout has some music and the yoga has some dreamy sounds floating by in the background, but the jogging [...]

Weezer: “The Red Album”

Six studio albums into their career, one of our all-time favorite bands, geek rock pioneers Weezer, have released what is probably their finest CD yet.
A nerd rock masterpiece, the so-called “Red Album” — a companion of sorts to their self-titled Blue and Green albums — finds our boys boldly branching out in whole new directions. [...]

Nine Inch Nails: “The Slip”

Let me start by saying that I am, at best, a casual fan of Nine Inch Nails. I mean, sure, I bought “The Downward Spiral” just like every other grubby, unwashed, flannel-shirt-wearing film student in 1994. But since then, I just haven’t really bought much of Trent Reznor’s music.

It’s not that I don’t dig his [...]

Coldplay: “Violet Hill”

On Tuesday, mood-meisters extraordinaire Coldplay released the first rocking single, “Violet Hill”, from their upcoming album “Viva La Vida”. But the big news isn’t the song itself — which is awesome! — but the fact that it is available for one week only for FREE on the band’s website! Yeah, you heard me…free.

Even non-fans of [...]

I hate Ticketmaster!

Just spent more than half an hour trying to score Radiohead tickets on Ticketmaster.com and, man alive, what a nightmare!

Aside from the ticking clock at the top of every new window: “You have two minutes to complete this page before your tickets are released”, I guess I took too long on the last window — [...]

“In Rainbows” Album Art!

With the upcoming release of the CD version of Radiohead’s previously download-only album — the staggeringly beautiful “In Rainbows” — I was thrilled to see that the band has finally released pictures of the actual album cover art. Yeah!
True to form, the bold cover art was designed by frequent Radiohead collaborator, Stanley Donwood. Wow…all those [...]