Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

This is the mandatory God/Jesus movie for 2012. I mean for me watching. To be honest, I didn't set out to watch a movie about a thug who found Christ. Nor did I set out to watch a movie that was based on a "real-life hero". Gerard Butler is a bad-ass for the lord. Bad is the operative word.
So, white man goes to Uganda, wants to see about the fighting in Sudan, and decides to spend all of his money on building an orphanage. Then of course there are the machine gun fights, which of course is how we get the name of the movie. At some point be builds a church across the street from his house in Pennsylvania and becomes a preacher because the speaker doesn't show up and then all the crap he sees in Sudan.
I don't really want to come down on this movie - it's about a real dude dealing with some real bad shit. I get that and respect it. Hell, I made it through all the way to the end of the film, so I guess it's not that bad of a movie. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never really did. I mean people die and he goes through a rough spot with his marriage, I guess, I'm thinking there were probably a lot rougher spots that didn't make it into the movie, especially when the credits roll and they show us the real Sam Childers and everyone else and mention that he and Lynn are still together.
There is one good reason to watch the whole thing through, and that's when the credits are rolling and we're all seeing the pictures and videos of the real people portrayed in the movie, Chris Cornell is singing the song, and he's back to his routes in rock instead of the dancy hip-hoppy whatever his last album was doing. I guess for me that makes it worth sitting through.

Machine Gun Preacher at IMDb

Thanks Sol

This morning was brilliant. Sunny instead of rainy or snowy. No one tried to run me over. No pieces of gravel in either one of my shoes. Sure, nobody said "hi" to me - I went zed for three on extending greetings to my fellow pedestrians. I had a great playlist, though. Throughout these fifteen songs are some of my favorite lyrics. And talk about up-tempo, which I mean in the literal sense, trying to match the tempo to my walking speed, I shaved seven minutes of my average time, which is a full ten percent. Hot damn!

Bob Dylan - Tangled Up in Blue
Marcy Playground - Sex & Candy
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Chris Cornell - Doesn't Remind Me
Buffy Sainte-Marie - No No Keshagesh
The Breeders - Cannonball
Jerry Cantrell - Spiderbite
She & Him - This Is Not a Test
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dear Prudence
The Black Keys - Lonely Boys
Lily Allen - The Fear
Metric - Help I'm Alive
Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinee
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
Soundgarden - Hands All Over

I'm willing to bet there are at least a couple of songs, maybe even artists, that you're not familiar with. If you want to know more, let me know. :)

Bring on the Funk

One of the best live shows I've ever seen was George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars at La Luna in Portland sometime in teh mid-90s. I'm just a little too young have seen Parliament. Hey, no complaints though, this was an awesome show.
I believe I went to the show with Jim and Jenny, but they spent the whole show in the bar and after my one drink, I moved out to my favorite spot on the floor beside the soundboard. Over the years going there, I met quite a few musicians as they came back to the soundboard to talk about something or other.
The highpoint of this night was definitely standing and smoking joints with a full-grown man dressed in a giant diaper. Mr. Clinton didn't speak much, I guess he was letting his onstage performance do his speaking. This was the third coolest concert experience I've had.
Well, I guess I can't say that and not list numbers 2 and 1. Interestingly, they all involve pot (which, for the record I haven't smoked in just shy of 10 years).
The second coolest concert experience was seeing Neil Young perform on the Portland waterfront during the Timberfest in '94. Mr. Young was the warm-up act for Vice President Al Gore. I went on this mid-afternoon adventure with Mark. We did bring any pot with us. We didn't need to. According to the media there were 400,000 people crammed into the waterfront. It seems that every other person was pulling out a bong or a pipe. The police and National Guard troops just contained the crowd. Mark and I were somewhere in the middle of all the madness, maybe a third of the way back in the crowd. It was truly an awesome experience, especially when Mr. Gore buzzed the crowd in his black helicopter.
But, the coolest conert experience happened during the 8th and final Mayor's Ball in Portland. While the Crazy 8's were playing a set in the main room. I found myself in a circle of about 20 guys at half-court. We were passing about five pipes aaround in a clockwise manner. I don't know exactly when I noticed who I was standing between, but pretty early on, because I got to talk to them a little bit. On my left was Kim Thayill, guitarist for Soundgarden and on my right was the band's lead singer, Chris Cornell. If anyone from the bank ever heard that I had a Soundgarden story, well this is the reason I couldn't tell it.

Ohh, to be young again.

Best Rock Band Ever

Okay, let's just get this out of the way up front. I think the Beatles are the best pop band ever. I may even be wililng to grant them the status of best over all. But, they're not the best rock band.
The best rock band ever is hands-down, Soundgarden. "What?" you say. "Didn't the win the Grammy for best Heavy Metal band or something?" Well, the Grammy was actually for "Best Hard Rock" band, which greatly surpriesed lead singer, Chris Cornell, who considered his band to be a "Rock" band. Me too.
I guess I need to lay out what genres I break music down into. There are essentially a few major categories, and then some sub-categories for each. I think the main groups are Jazz, Gospel, Opera, Classical, Country, Hip-hop, Pop and Rock. I listen to all of these genres, but enjoy some less than I do others. I mostly listen to Rock and it's sub-genres, Pop, Hip-hop and Jazz. That is when I get to choose the music. My brother is a hardcore Country music fan, if not actually into hardcore Country music (he's more a Pop-Country kind of guy).
In furthering my effort to get stuff out of the way so I can talk about Soundgarden, I'll leave the non-rock categories only at their highest level and say at the moment, best Jazz is John Coltrane and best Hip-hop is Outkast. I see Rock being further broken down into Soft Rock, Hard Rock, Alt(ernate) Rock, Prog(ressive) Rock, Psychadelic Rock, Butt Rock/Hair Rock and Heavy Metal. I don't really have favorites in those last two, just groups that I hate less than others. So, Soft Rock - Coldplay, Hard Rock - Jerry Cantrell, Alt rock - The Shins, Prog Rock - Modest Mouse, Psychadelic Rock - Jefferson Airplane (w/ Jane's Addiction a very, very close second).
I guess that soon I will have to list all of the sub-genres and my favorites. I'll have to do a top five for each (to honor 'High Fidelity' of course).

I have all 5 Soundgarden albums on my iPod, not to mention all 3 of Mr. Cornell's solo albums. I have a few of the "other" songs, from movie soundtracks, compilations, etc. I don't have any of the new/side projects for Ben Sheppard or Matt Cameron, not counting Pearl Jam. But what makes this band the best? Well, it's harder than I thought to just list reasons, other than, "I think they're the best." I really like their voal stylings, especially when mixed with the driven lead guitar. The bass and drums are always solid and lend to the blend, but don't stick out particularly, which is not a bad thing. I think the lyrics themselves are very thought provoking and in some cases pure poetry, both for content and syballince.
I'm the first to admit that I'm biased, but I think choosing the best of anything necessarily is. I came of age with Grunge and cut my teath on Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney, the Screaming Trees, the Afghan Wigs, etc. etc.
I think another big reason taht I really like this band is that each album took them further along a path. You can listen to a song and palce the album immediately, because their sound was continuing to grow across the arc of their work.
Plus, I think they're cool.