And here’s the official word on the new record today, from Billboard.
• Bruce Springsteen - Workin’ on a Dream (acoustic version from Obama rally).mp3
The new track list:
Bonus Tracks
Posted in Music, mp3 | Tagged bruce springsteen, barack obama, mp3, workin' on a dream, working on a dream | No Comments »
GateHouse — Barack Obama is a better human being than me for a number of reasons so large that it was discovered only last year by researchers in Denmark. These reasons include, but are not limited to:
But the most pressing reason that Barack Obama is better than me is that apparently he can prepare for the idea of abandoning his BlackBerry and not explode in hysterics. Like a 4-year-old boy when you tell him he can’t have his third chocolate milk of the night while he reads night-night books because it will most likely cause him to assertively expunge said chocolate milk directly into his bedsheets at some point in the evening. And Dad is tired of doing sheet laundry three times a week, not that this something I have a lot of precise experience with right now or anything.
Posted in Columns, GateHouse | Tagged barack obama, blackberry, denmark, facebook, john mccain, scarlett johansson | No Comments »
Billboard — Last year, Mavis Staples released a revelatory collection of protest songs (”We’ll Never Turn Back”) that, though such a thing was hardly needed, reaffirmed her vitality in the current music scene. “Hope at the Hideout” is her victory lap, a joyous house party that benefits from a wonderful alignment of the stars: It was recorded in her return to a cozy, sold-out blues house in Staples’ Chicago hometown and released on Election Day. At 69, Staples’ power-train voice is close to rugged perfection throughout, and she’s wonderfully fired up. And while the studio versions of these tracks are driven by a singular purpose, their live cousins shimmer and shake. Nowhere is that clearer than on a lively and soulful “For What It’s Worth,” a soaring “This Little Light” and the singularly majestic “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
Posted in Billboard, Music, Reviews, mp3 | Tagged anti, hope at the hideout, mavis staples, mp3, we shall not be moved, we'll never turn back | No Comments »
Billboard — Sammy Hagar isn’t all tequila and sunburns on his first solo disc in eight years: This new set kicks off with a lightly industrial collaboration with young Iraqi songwriter Steven Lost that finds him reviving the “Right Now” approach to addressing deeper issues than the nation’s unreasonable speed limits. Hagar spends half the record in such uncharted waters, but before things get too serious, there’s “Loud,” a Spandex-and-codpiece rocker that teleported in from 1986; a cover of “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!),” which did the same; and a country track called “When the Sun Don’t Shine,” basically a tribute to Jimmy Buffett, rock’s other premier tequila pitchman. The second half of the record depends on how you process the phrase “album-closing nine-minute unplugged version of ‘Dreams.’ ” But if you’re a 61-year-old beach bum with a pretty decent day job, what else would you do?
• Interview: Sammy Hagar aims to ’slap some sense’ into audience.
Posted in Billboard, Music, Reviews | Tagged cosmic universal fashion, sammy hagar, van halen | No Comments »
Island Packet — If you are a regular runner in the Lowcountry, there’s a reasonably solid chance that you will, at some point, be attacked by an animal that will try to eat you, probably with its teeth, for three reasons:
There really aren’t many places you can go enjoy a nice, animal-free run around here, except on your treadmill in a gym that’s inside a building, but whatever. For instance, if you jog in Sea Pines, you run the risk of seeing a salivating alligator, which — and I say this as someone who’s been running around here now for years — is not something that you EVER GET USED TO. You are NEVER NOT BLOWN AWAY BY DISCOVERING THAT YOUR RUNNING PATH IS GATOR-ADJACENT. It makes you WRITE IN ALL CAPITALS FOR LIKE THREE CONSECUTIVE SENTENCES.
Posted in Columns, Island Packet/McClatchy-Tribune | Tagged running, sarah palin, outback, sea pines, captain hook, pitfall, prescott, looney tunes, diplodocus, jogging, fox | No Comments »
GateHouse — First of all, let me say that yes, I know that when at the movie theater, the food available for purchase come in absurd, gigantor sizes that make you want to slap your head and call your momma. And keep in mind that I’m using “food” here as a sweeping, generalizing noun that covers everything that could remotely be considered put-in-mouthable (sorry, Arby’s) and, thus, most of the globular sugar-clump-balls that have been the primary source of theater-based nourishment ever since movies were invented in 1967.
I also know that making big-food jokes is sort of like riffing on Sam’s Club these days, or flight attendants, or the C&C Music Factory. But I have recently returned from a screening of the film “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” with the family, and my body is currently attempting to form structurally sound sentences while working through enough popcorn to fuel the Large Hadron Collider, the state of New Jersey or up to three Ford Expeditions for a week.
Posted in Columns, GateHouse | Tagged sam's club, arby's, c&c music factory, madagascar, madagascar: escape 2 africa, large hadron collider, cialis, sour patch kids, anne geddes, david schwimmer | 2 Comments »
From Island Packet staff reports, starring Tim, Other Tim and Jim
We at the Guide have come up with these Suggested Names for the Obamas’ New Puppy. (Yeah, that’s a lame lead-in, but frankly, this is like the only funny Obama-related thing we could come up with. If the nation’s self-appointed comics are to survive, this guy need to get lamer, fast.)
Please make your own suggestions in the comments (though the following are outlawed: -Blank- The Plumber, You Betcha, Wealth Redistributor and Phyllis).
• Checkers
• Karl Rover
• Rin Tin Hussein Tin
• Freddie Mac
• Gimmick
• Hopey McPuddles
• Maverick
• Yes We Canine
Posted in Columns, Island Packet/McClatchy-Tribune, Page 3 | Tagged barack obama, puppy | 6 Comments »
What was I gonna do, let him not vote? He held a lightsaber to my throat, for Pete’s sake. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure he wrote in the Curious George/Sir Topham Hatt ticket, which is not a bad idea. Hatt gets some things DONE on the island of Sodor.
(Besides, Jake is registered to vote through ACORN. Nine times.)
Posted in Columns | Tagged acorn, curious george, sir topham hatt | No Comments »
GateHouse — I have written about daylight saving time before — so frequently, in fact, that I have written the sentence “I have written about daylight saving time before” before. I am thinking about writing it again, right now, because I am making a galvanizingly important point here, and also because if I keep writing it over and over I can get this column done quicker and return immediately to the couch, where I can continue immersing myself in the rich and rewarding world of the Ice Road Truckers.
But I am going to write about daylight saving time again, partly because I have sworn to do so until someone in the government pays attention to me — and it doesn’t have to be anyone important, it can be Sarah Palin, it’s cool — and partly because I have recently discovered that daylight saving time can kill you. And I don’t mean “it can kill you” in that nebulous, cable-news, plastic-water-bottles sort of way, I mean it can actually give you heart attacks. Yeah. Bet you’ll think twice before turning the page to “Cathy” now, huh.
Posted in Columns, GateHouse | Tagged daylight-saving time, sarah palin, time zones, ice road truckers, lori mosca | 4 Comments »
Billboard — “Just when I discover the meaning of life they change it,” Mike Skinner raps with typically uneasy, endearing coordination on his fourth album’s opening title track, but those aren’t the gutter scribblings of the desperately hungover—they’re a swelling carpe diem with a soaring hook (as soaring as you can get via Skinner’s keyboard-in-the-bedroom-closet vibe, anyway). Skinner has spent the few albums since his grand debut “Original Pirate Material” getting progressively more thoughtful, melodic and predictable, and where “Everything Is Borrowed” might lack the hair-singeing novelty of his debut (or its story-time follow-up “A Grand Don’t Come for Free”), there’s still plenty to keep things interesting: “Heaven for the Weather” is positively jaunty, “I Love You More (Than You Like Me)” is rather sweet, and Skinner’s dancing wordplay hits the beats on the gently meandering “On the Flip of a Coin” just right.
Posted in Billboard, Music, Reviews, mp3 | Tagged a grand don't come for free, everything is borrowed, heaven for the weather, mike skinner, original pirate material, streets | No Comments »
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