R.E.M. has split up.  They’ve called it a career.

And the Rock and Roll world is worse off for it.

I saw them in ’89 at the old Boston Garden.  Mike and I sat behind the stage.  We could see maybe a third of the action.  It was a surprising set.  They skipped pretty much all of the hits and stuck mostly to the back catalog.  It was a great show.

As great as it was, though, a few months later at Great Woods was even better.  That time they spent more time with the A list songs.  We were right in the middle of the crowd and actually got to see the band.  They were off the wall fantastic that night.  I would like to think that they were pushed to a higher level by their opening act, Throwing Muses.  The Muses were spooky and frantic and wonderful and the perfect band to match up with R.E.M.  It was college radio rock bliss.  That show will always be on my short list of favorites.

For my money, R.E.M. in the recording studio had a streak from about 1982 through 1992 where they never missed the mark.  From Chronic Town through Automatic for the People I loved every second of just about every song.  They seemed to get a little unfocused with Monster, although it was still a great album.  After that they started losing me a little.

Still, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document may be two of the best rock and roll records ever made.  You can throw Green and Reckoning in their too.  Near perfect records. 

The music industry is falling apart all around us, and not having R.E.M. anymore just makes the future look that much bleaker. 

Thanks for the great music, guys.  Must appreciated.

R.E.M “call it a day” after 31 years, many hits

Have you ever taken a psychology course?  I took one at Middlesex Community College that was called Intro to Psychology.  I got an A and I learned a little bit about how the brain works.  Just enough, in fact, to be annoying in group conversations.

One thing I can’t remember though is the little factoid about how many days the human brain needs to repeat an action before it becomes a habit.  For instance, how many days do I have to faithfully follow the Slim Fast diet plan before it becomes a habit and I can do it without thinking about it.

The answer is probably more than three days, but after three days I am still doing okay.  Although I am SERIOUSLY HUNGRY RIGHT NOW I tells ya.  Seriously hungry.

Oh, and Coke Zero is good… but not that good.  Know what I mean?

Go Slim Fast!  

Two of the worst things imaginable have happened within the last 8 hours or so.

First, the Red Sox blew their seventh inning lead in the eighth inning last night and lost to the pathetic Orioles. Who’s pathetic now? They are 5-15 in September.

I was too young to remember the epic collapse in 1978, although I have clear memories of Bucky Bleepin’ Dent, so I can’t say how this year’s pain compares… But it’s got to be similar. This blows.

Second, and much more distressing, the snooze button on our bedroom alarm clock has been acting strange lately. Sometimes you would have to press it 5-6 times before it would work.

This morning it appears to have given up the fight completely and just stopped working at all.

How are we supposed to survive without a functioning snooze button? The horror at the thought is overwhelming!

I’m actually kind of proud of myself. The Star Wars Blu-ray boxed set is out and I have not emptied my life savings to buy it. (do we call these versions the special-special-special editions?). I’m going to put the super box set with the 40 hours of extras onto my Christmas list and let Santa take care of it.

How responsible of me.

Two pieces of good news from the world of Boston sports:

First, the Red Sox are winning in the seventh inning. Barely. Hang in there, Sox.

Second, Bruins defenseman and convicted woman assaulter Joe Corvo left today’s black vs white scrimmage game with an injury. Reports are that he is day to day, but I’m hoping for season ending so we Bruins fans won’t have to root for the kind of asshole who would beat up a woman.

Go Red Sox!
Go Bruins!

I just had the baseball crap scared out of me.

Normally around this time of year I write a lot of boring and meaningless posts about the Boston Red Sox playoff race. Over the past month+ I have wanted to, but it has just been too painful. Loss after loss after loss. What was a nice lead in the division has been reduced to a tiny lead in the wild card.

Yesterday I had tickets to the first game of the double header but… Well… I couldn’t find them (they were originally for a game in May, so they’ve been bounced around the house probably a dozen times and… Well… They’re just gone) so I stayed home and put it on the tube. I had the volume off because I was recording music, but it didn’t stop the escalating panic as they lost to lowly Baltimore.

We watched the second game while playing WoW. I told Jen we had to watch because this game was going to be the start of the turn around. The ship shall be righted. The lead in the wild card was down to 1.5 and the September collapse is of epic proportions, but as Captain Picard once said, “this far, no further!”

Fortunately they came through with a very large win. Whew. This morning I checked the MLB11 app and almost shit a brick. It listed the lead over Tampa Bay as one measly game! As if the Sox lost game two! Panic!

It was an error. The lead in the wild card is two games and two games is a whole ton safer than one.

Whew, indeed!

This comes from my first time ever playing with GarageBand. Initially it was just meant to impress my step kids. That’s it. I forgot about it until I was looking through my files today and decided to finish it off. I added two guitars and two vocals and now it’s a crappy new song.

Enjoy.

Oh and that’s it for today. I still don’t have calluses on my left hand and all this guitar noodling has my finger tips burning.

The third of possibly four songs written either just before or during Hurricane Irene’s visit. Not sure If I am going to bother with the fourth one.

Nothing special this time.