CD Review: Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin

 

Ya Guys! lately it's hard to post something here because of lack of time, but here I am today and to do a review on cd that came out recently, Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin.
As the name says the album is a collection of his most famous songs of the band Breaking Benjamin, in fact it is a double CD, the first has no new material, if you're already a fan of the band will not interest you much, but if you don't know the band is a good way to know the sound they make.
In the second CD there are songs not previously released, which are "Better Days" and "Lie to Me," there's a couple of covers studio version of "Who Wants To Live Forever" by Queen and "Enjoy the Silence" by  Depeche Mode and finally, B-sides that were very interesting but difficult to obtain.
And one of the things I liked best were the acoustic versions of some songs, as was the case of Polyamorous and I really recommend to fans of the band and for those who want to know.
This is the original version of Polyamorous (the music video is the version for the game Run like Hell):

 
Oh and I almost forgot the new version of Blow Me Away (the first was part of the Halo 2 OST) is also present on the second CD.

Music recommendation: Zebrahead

Today I am here to recommend a band, it might be well known to some readers, the name is Zebrahead. (interesting name no doubt).
The band is classified as punk rock, a high ranking in this category since entering the memorable (and sometimes infamous) Blink 182 and Sum 41, in general the sound Zebrahead is really very close to these bands.

They are from Orange County, California and started in 1996 and are active today.Currently have 9 studio albums and several music videos.
Something interesting is that the popularity of this band was quite high in Japan, and in 2006 the band's two vocalists
were called to record a song for the game Sonic the Headgehog (Xbox 360 and PS3) and after that they also recorded an alternate version with the band, the song is called His World. I will leave here some tracks (including His World).

 

Well, please listen and comment what you think about the band.
Cya!

Recommendation: Flashpoint (2011)

After a time without news, here I am back.These days I've been very busy, the university has sucked all my strength, but returned to full power now.
Today I will recommend the latest arc of DC comics, after this arc the total reboot will happen in all the DC universe. (All DC comics will start again with the number #01)
I'm talking about Flashpoint, as the name tells the story now revolves around Flash (duh...)and what happens in this story is that Reverse Flash with his ability to travel through time , change the entire universe.

 
Now in this universe Flash no longer has his powers, Bruce Wayne died and his father survived the assault that occurred in the early history of Batman and Thomas Wayne (Bruce's father) becomes Batman, but now is a knight of vengeance killing his enemies.
Hal Jordan was never been a Green Lantern, because Abin Sur never crashed with the ship on Earth and never died.
Aquaman became an emperor, joined his brother and flooded throughout Europe to create the new Atlantis, Wonder Woman is now part of the Amazons and took the whole London to be the new land of her people, and kill any human who crosses her path.
The war between Atlantics and Amazons is destroying the whole planet, and only Barry Allen remember how the world was before all this, and without his powers of Flash , now he had to save the world and try to restore the timeline.
That's Flashpoint!

Failure: an unknown legend

Here I am again posting the first news of the blog, because it almost didn't read and was in Portuguese and was so incomprehensible to many readers.Failure is my favorite band, has a very unique sound especially when it comes over the sound of bass.Unfortunately the band no longer exists but has left a legacy even hard to find, but if you depend on me will never be forgotten.

Los Angeles, California, United States (1990 - 1997)
Failure was a band formed in 1990 by Ken Andrews (guitar, vocals) and Greg Edwards (bass/guitar). Andrews and Edwards met through a classified ad in Los Angeles, and soon began recording four demos and play on the outskirts of LA with drummer Robert Gauss. During 1991 the band made ​​some recordings with producer Paul Lani (who had previously worked with Enuff Z'nuff) and engineer Randy Pekich. Four of those tracks were made ​​in sessions in the defunct label Sweet Smelling Records in a pair of seven-inch vinyl, "Pro-Catastrophe" and "Comfort".

Failure has a unique sound emerged around the time that bands like Nirvana was doing the same, but Failure existence today is something that most people don't know, the band has recorded three CDs while in activity (Comfort, Magnified and Fantastic Planet) and two posthumous CDs (Golden and Essentials).

Unfortunately the band no longer exists but has left a legacy, even hard to find, but if depend on me will never be forgotten. The band has a video clip of the song "Undone" (fantastic music in my humble opinion) and a video clip of "Stuck on You":

  

The band also recently received a CD that is a tribute to his songs, the name of the album is "The Nurse Who Loved Me: A tribute to Failure". The CD has 16 tracks, all tracks are covers, one of the most outstanding songs of the band "Stuck on You" was now sung by Paramore, Emotron sings the song "Undone" and several other bands do their contribution for this great album.

Failure has created a unique style, style I see lacking in today's bands many times, I still hope to see great works by Ken Andrews. 
 
Have you ever heard of Failure? Comment

CD(cassette) review: Late! - Pocketwatch

Today I am here doing a review of a somewhat rare cd(In truth is not a cd, but a cassette) and unknown by many people,But the first question is
Who's Late!?

Late! a.k.a David Grohl

 
Late! is the pseudonym used by David Grohl (of the former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman), this album was made ​​between 1990/1991 and originally recorded by David in secret, and was released in 1992.
There is  not a CD with a lot of story to be told, most of the songs as written by David, and one of the songs is very interesting, the track "Friend of a Friend" is often interpreted as a kind of posthumous tribute to Kurt Cobain, even if it is not possible by the time the song was made.
In fact the music speaks of David's first impressions about her life with Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, his new bandmates. This track was recorded in secret in 1990.

The lyrics talk about the behavior of Cobain
"He needs a quiet room
With a lock to keep hin in
It's just a quiet room
And he's there

He plays an old guitar
With a coin found by the phone
It was his friends guitar
And he played "


PS: the old guitar refers the acoustic guitar of Cobain, Grohl stumbled upon an acoustic guitar owned by Cobain.


Another part probably refers to Krist:

"He's Never Been in Love
But He Knows Just What Love Is
He says nevermind
And no one speaks

He Thinks he drinks too much
Cause When He tells his two best friends
"I think I drink too much"
No one speaks
No one speaks
No one speaks"

This song was later re-recorded the album In Your Honor Foo Fighters in 2005 and the band's live album Skin And Bones in 2007.Personally I love this music, I am a big fan of Nirvana and grunge in general and this cd shows a David Grohl that people dont' know.

I will leave were this song: 

Music Around the World: LadyHawke

Hi everybody, today I will present here some songs from a singer from New Zealand, Philippa Pip Brown (a.k.a. Ladyhawke).In the city of Wellington was part of the band Two Lane Blacktop, a name given because of the film 70 years with the same name.

Before assuming the name Ladyhawke it was part of the double Tennager sydney with Nick Littlemore Pnau group, Ladyhawke began to be called so because the movie Ladyhawke. Her first album was released in 2008 Ladyhawke,has not released other albums yet.
The first and only album has 12 tracks (13 in the UK version), Ladyhawke follows the style of synth pop, electro pop and new wave. He had some success when it released music single Paris is Burning.
Particularly I think a very good sound, and I hope the release of second album soon, I will
leave here the music video form "Magic", which I think portrays a fine atmosphere of the 80s:

And some few tracks from the album:


Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning


Ladyhawke - my delirium

 

Reliving the legends of the past: Depeche Mode

I come here today to talk about a classic by many of the young is not known or has been forgotten, Depeche Mode.

 
Depeche Mode was formed in 1980 is a British electronic music band, but in particular synth pop and new wave.The band began in 1977 but only completed his training even in 1980. It currently has 12 studio albums, 9 compilation albums, and 2 live albums, plus much more singles and remixes.
Actually I'd prefer not to focus too much on the history of this band, because it is interesting how far their influence extended(they influenced bands like The Cure, The Killers, Deftones, Franz Ferdinand, Linkin Park, Pet Shop Boys, and many others), many covers of Depeche Mode were made, and sometimes many do not even know are covers of this band. So I picked a few tracks that I find incredible touched by Depeche Mode and their covers that I selected.
I'll start with one of the most acclaimed band's songs, Enjoy The Silence:

 

This song has many covers I would list all day, so I chose particularly the version I like the most that was done by the band Failure (my favorite band), the interesting thing is that , the members of Depeche Mode were reportedly very pleased with the album, and track with the Failure Particularly, Andrew Fletcher (co-founder of depeche mode) Actually he said that prefers their cover over his band's original version.

 I chose another song of Depeche Mode that I really enjoy is
Shake The Disease:

 and the version made ​​by Odyssey Band from the album "Re-Inventing the Past" (2010):
 

 
Another classic People Are People:

 
and a really cool cover made ​​by Dope:

and finally Personal Jesus:

 and the version made ​​by Marilyn Manson:

Well I would like to post so many covers of Depeche Mode but it would be too extensive, but I leave here the link to the wiki with most of the covers made ​​of Depeche Mode, I believe you surely have recognized several bands of the list.


List of covers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Depeche_Mode_covers

Smells like... what?

I believe that many of you probably know the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit of Nirvana, which was a big hit of the 90s.In fact it seems Cobain wanted to do a song to criticize any move that some pop songs had
and were made ​​only with a commercial purpose, as a result Smells Like became very popular, perhaps the plan Cobain.
Anyway I will speak here of a somewhat interesting parody of this video clip made ​​by musician "Weird Al" Yankovic (aka Alfred Matthew Yankovic) Weird Al has won numerous awards for his parodies, was very successful with most of them.
And in 1992 released the video clip of the song Smells Like Nirvana, he criticizes a bit as the singing of Kurt Cobain is hard to understand sometimes and satirizes various elements of the clip, Al got permission from Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain to do the parody while Cobain was doing an episode of Saturday Night Live. Cobain initially thought the song would be about food.
The same janitor qparece the clip of Nirvana was hired to this clip of Weird Al, and even the cover of the album Nevermind was parodied.
Let's see them:

Nirvana's album Nervermind

Weird Al version

And now the videos:


The original:

The parody:

Funny no?

Brazil: facts and myths

Lately I have noticed even in the media several statements about Brazil, and I believe most of them are wrong because the image is shown in TV commercials and documentaries around the world show only a small part of what Brazil is.
I'll just make clear some trivia and would like to comment on what you knew or not, I'm doing because I am not Brazilian, but first of all because I'm a history teacher in training and find it disturbing that the media talks about other countries.
Let's start then:
-The capital of Brazil is Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina and the capital of Brazil is Brasilia

Some pictures of Brasília

 
-Do not have monkeys loose in the streets, they are in the zoo!

 
-Not all Brazilians enjoy beach, sun and they are not always tans,(I'm so white I can't sunbathe lol)

Fernando de Noronha beach

 
-In fact a large part of Brazil is composed of European descendants , in the south of the country sometimes you might not believe that someone is actually brazilian)

-Another curious thing is that many believe that people walk with bathing suits on the streets all day, this is not true that only happens in Rio de Janeiro and other cities with beaches that are very busy.
 
-Important fact, Brazilians speak Portuguese not Spanish, and the brazilian portuguese is different from the one of Portugal.
 
-The media focuses in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to talk, but actually  Rio is a city not so spectacular, it has a lot of violence and slums, but the rest of the country is not so, the south of Brazil is a very peaceful and is often called European-Brazil sometimes.
 
-In general people think that Brazil is just carnival, beaches, bikinis, samba and tanned girls, but that's just a stereotype, much of the country does not share this taste, and some even hate it all.


I hope this clarifies a few points about the country.Comment with your questions if you have any.

Music Around The World: Wolfsheim

Well, here we are , and again I come to talk about music (just to clarify, this blog is not only about music but there are so many recommendations I would like to do, so becomes inevitable for me not wanting to talk about them). 

So through that I intend to periodically talk about some bands from different countries, these bands are generally unknown, particularly I love bands that are almost unheard of (my friends call underground syndrome haha)
I will begin with a German band called Wolfsheim, formed in 1987 by Markus Reinhardt and Pompejo Ricciardi,  the band was named because of a Scott Fitzgerald novel "The Great Gatsby" and Meyer Wolfsheim was a character in the book.

Wolfsheim

Peter Heppner

 The band went on to become a triplet when Markus' brother Oliver Reinhardt joined the band. but after producing the first demo tape, Pompejo left the band and was succeeded by Peter Heppner.
Peter Heppner has a really fantastic voice, and released his first solo album in 2008, in addition to being lead singer of Wolfsheim, Heppner has made several partnerships.Currently the band's future is undefined since 2008 because there is internal conflict between members.

In general it is difficult to describe in words this band, it is nicknamed as eletronic synth pop and the best way to understand its sound is listening. I will leave here the music video for Kein Zurück (means "No Going Back") of the 2003 album Casting Shadows:

This song depicts the nostalgia of childhood that no longer returns, where everything seemed easy and concerns do not exists, kind sad but a very good song.

And also leave here a music of Peter Heppner with the German musician and actor Joachim Witt
called "Die Flut":

Comment what you think of the band, and I also added Wolfsheim songs in the playlist on the blog home page for those interested.


PS: My English is not very good because it is not my native language but I'm working on improving it, if there is a very big mistake I ask you please report to me.

Odd things around the world: Theremin

Theremin is a musical instrument almost unknown by most people, is characterized by a strange sound and different way to play it.
It was created by Léon Theremin (Russian: Lev Sergeivitch Termen), which was a Soviet inventor
At the beginning of his career Léon created weapons of spying for the Russian military, but to see the horrors of war left this life and decided to focus on his true passion, music.
The Theremin was the only instrument not requiring any physical contact to produce music and was, in fact, the first musical instrument designed to be played without contact, it is performed by moving hands in the air to produce sounds used by some "spooky".

Léon and the instrument

Well, talking about music is important but we must remember that listening is also necessary, so I'll leave here a music video of a Brazilian band who made the curious use of this instrument and also tells a bit of a funny story of Leon Theremin:

And a classic Zelda music played in Theremin too: