toymaker

Hydra, it's heavier, it's proggier, it's more powerful, it's more mysterious. And it hasn't got Georgy Porgy on it! Like X 100 f**k that is a hideous song.

Milliontown totally sold me on Frost* - still my favourite.

Not bad at all! Trying not to think about age but valuing the things I have in my life. Although early life didn't seem to augur well, I am generally happy and content!

Road trip! Where to? We'll have to flip some coins. Good thing for modern tech because maps cost money. What's your top three? Graceland? The Jell-o museum? Carhenge?

"Pee-ral" And Tama is "Taw-mah" and Ludwig is "Lood-Veeg" and Drum Workshop is "Droom warks hop"

Road trip! Where to?

I had to look that one up. Thanks, Treeduck! I'm more of a secular toymaker - when I mess with my students' heads, I guess I am sort of making them my playthings...

Thanks, Lorraine! I'm trying to "feel young" as much as I can . . . mostly when I pick up a guitar or smash the drums for a while!

52? No, there must be some mistake... It's been okay. I got to sleep in, at least!

Thanks IbanezJem! Had pizza from one of the best joints in town. I've spent the evening throwing together a truly nasty chili, which I'm not sure anyone will thank me for!

Thanks, Chicken hawk!

Thank you! I think I mostly had a good birthday - although I foolishly made a draft version of an assignment due today - and it's something I need to give feedback for as soon as possible - and there are 54 students in this section. So I suppose the best birthday present I could give myself would be to make the final version due not next week but the week after! I did in fact buy myself a pretty cool birthday present - a '69 Silvertone Mosrite style guitar. I didn't buy it because it is a particularly great guitar, but because it's the same model I learned to play guitar on when I was 13. It belonged to my best friend, who was killed in a car accident when he was 25. So it's deeply nostalgic to me to have this guitar. And you wouldn't believe how many little specific memories it has brought back, just holding it in my hands! Thank you for the birthday wishes!

How did you get rid of food you didn't want to eat? In my house, when I was very small, if a kid refused to finish what was on his plate, my dad would just stand and make a show of removing his belt. That usually worked. However, I guess because I was the youngest, I got away with all kinds of stuff. I would very, very slowly slide down in my chair until I was under the table. I would just sit under the table until the meal was over, and either they didn't notice or didn't care.

Come on, be specific! Which albums would someone have to pay you to spin with no skips?! :P How much money are we talking about? Here's some tiers! $1.00 - x album $10.00 - y album $100.00 - z album How much for - an X-cruciating album? - an album that makes you go, "why? why?" - a zzzzzz album? Mostly kidding...it's usually individual songs, not whole albums.

Come on, be specific! Which albums would someone have to pay you to spin with no skips?! :P How much money are we talking about?

Not sure anyone can give me a legitimate reason "NOT to listen to Rush's studio albums"! (Well, there might be a few exceptions - certain later albums...)

Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare We have heaven, we have heaven, we have heaven Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare He is here, he is here, he is here To Look around, to look around, to look around, to look around We have heaven, we have heaven, we have heaven Deep. Hahahahaha! Speaking about deep. Funny enough I'm listening to Cream Live At The BBC. "I'm So Glad" just played. I had to turn it the fuckk off. Ridiculous. Oh, yeah. Can't stand it.

What his doctor prescribed him are meds to fall asleep, not stay asleep. I take two Ativans and one morphine and I sleep better than ever. Most of the time. If I awaken at 1 or 2 and my mind starts gong, I take another half of an ativan. It does the trick. I never even considered hemp oil. I won't be around much longer for one, and I have already told me that I do not want to be zonked out at the end. I want to know what's going on and be able to respond to people. But if anyone hands it to me and says use it, it is worth a try, I may try it. Thank you for the suggestion. For me, the strange thing about pain and cannabis is that you are aware that you have the pain, but you just don't care. I don't know if that makes sense.

Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare We have heaven, we have heaven, we have heaven Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare He is here, he is here, he is here To Look around, to look around, to look around, to look around We have heaven, we have heaven, we have heaven Deep.

IMO most of the songs listed so far are repetitive but have enough variation throughout the song to keep them enjoyable. The deal with pop music is you want the familiarity of repeated sections, but you do want to subtly change the arrangement of them to make the song seem to progress even as it's coming back to the same theme. I think Muse do this very well in many of their poppier tracks, as they usually include an element in the second verse that wasn't there in the first, which then takes the second chorus to another level. More recently they've been doing extended sort of outro's with extra words on pop songs too, sometimes before a final chorus, which I think really brings them home. What do you think of the Mike Rutherford album I mentioned? I dig the album, but I want the songs to end sooner! I'm so bad at listening to solo albums. I haven't heard solo works from Brian May, Roger Taylor, Geddy, Alex, Tony Banks, or Mike Rutherford. I have heard Gabriel, Collins, Hackett, and Mercury. Should I give that Rutherford album a listen? I think his first solo record is better - Smallcreep's Day. It has some cool stuff on it; however, like Tony Banks, I think he kept his best stuff for Genesis. I don't know if you want to put yourself through this: here's a song list from Acting Very Strange with descriptions of the endings: Acting Very Strange - repeats "I'm acting very strange without you - oh" for about a minute at the end A Day to Remember - repeats "That day you remember, that day you can't hide" with long pauses between for over a minute at the end Maxine - repeats "Maxine" for almost two minutes at the end Halfway there - probably the most tolerable - repeats the chorus a bunch of time in the fade Who's Fooling Who - repeats the key line for about 45 seconds at the end, with a repeating saxophone thing Couldn't Get Arrested - repeats the chorus for over a minute, although there's some interesting other vocals I Don't Wanna Know - repeats "I don't wanna be another fool" until you go f***ing insane - for over a minute Hideaway - a welcome reprieve - a long guitar solo

Still lots of variation there - and of course you can't really debate the message. Sure you can: see Hemispheres side 1 Nah, being ripped apart by wolves while starving to death is much better than suffering from ennui . . . :scared:

Hey Jude was one I never liked by the Beatles. The other Beatle songs referenced here don't bother me at all, that was the style of the time. Now George's song Got My Mind Set on You.... :eyeroll: way too much repetition. That's why Weird Al did a parody of it. :lol: Gruesome song, although if I have to listen to it, I prefer the original. I told my band that I would quit if they insisted on playing that song.

See, that's a great example of what I'm talking about! The backup vocals kind of save it . . ,

it's cool to stick with the theme - just add some variations so that it doesn't sound like the record is skipping.

IMO most of the songs listed so far are repetitive but have enough variation throughout the song to keep them enjoyable. The deal with pop music is you want the familiarity of repeated sections, but you do want to subtly change the arrangement of them to make the song seem to progress even as it's coming back to the same theme. I think Muse do this very well in many of their poppier tracks, as they usually include an element in the second verse that wasn't there in the first, which then takes the second chorus to another level. More recently they've been doing extended sort of outro's with extra words on pop songs too, sometimes before a final chorus, which I think really brings them home. What do you think of the Mike Rutherford album I mentioned? I dig the album, but I want the songs to end sooner!