H. P. L.

It's all good my friend!! Somehow I knew I could bet 10.000 $ that there would be "Yes" in your answer!! :lol: What about the new AC/DC? Sounds good to my ears. Any classic AC/DC that you particularly enjoyed this year?

Great song and great video! It's my favourite Radiohead song ever. I sometimes use the video in my classes. It's interesting to see the reactions of young kids that never saw it before.

All the interwebz world is going crazy with year-end lists, best ofs and all that stuff, but the more I get old, the more I realise it's a funny excercise but, in the end, pointless. Our lives are not defined by year's end or year's beginning, our feelings and moods shift like tides, in my case taking up months, they can't be holed up in the cells of "album of the month" or "album of the year". That said, this year I'd like to try something new and ask everyone: could you spare a moment and share the songs that were more meaningful to you this year? They don't have to be new songs. Just the songs that somehow defined your 2014. Of course, I'll start. This year I finally decided to explore the works of the great Townes Van Zandt. I got up my a$$ and went through all his discography. I found many many wonderful songs. The one that proved more precious to me was Our Mother the Mountain. Summer was totally dominated by Trova, traditional Cuban music. My favourite song is by Trio Matamoros and is called Lagrimas Negras. Everyone in Cuba can play that song. Think you want about Cat Stevens/Yusuf, but his last album is phenomenal. The song Tell 'em I'm gone is my current hymn. I feel a little like a moron for having neglected for so many years the brilliant Blue Oyster Cult. I mean, I started listening to them when I was 18, but then I swapped them under the rug, considering them just Black Sabbath posers, and badly recorded too. The bad recording is true for their 2 first albums, but the song that brought me back to them is the awesome Veteran of the psychic wars. In our world and age, we are all veterans of psychic wars. This song is about us!! Of course I listened to a lot more stuff, but these are the ones that really stand out. Now, what are yours? Narpsky, you have no excuses now!! :lol:

Today's Christmas treat is especially dedicated to the woman of my dreams, Lorraine! I don't know if she'll be able to see it, but I really hope she will. Remembering our time together in Rome during the YBG fiasco, I am resurrecting this old opening theme from an original mystery TV series of the early 70s. If memory serves well, it had an audience by the millions. The music is pretty generic, but the real treat is seeing über-muse Carla Gravina wandering around the streets of old Rome. In the series she plays a ghost and you can easily see she's very good at that.

Cry me a river, junior Aww dude...at least we got Rush in common! Not only them... but really, when it comes to DD and SB I have nothing but hate for them. Had you been in Italy in the 80s you would too.

Cry me a river, junior

If there's one band I hate more than Spandau is Duran Duran. They made the 80s hell for me, from a musical point of view. I hate hate hate hate hate them! Metallica's "Kill 'em all" was always directed to them in my personal opinion.

You're on the brink of becoming a little bit... predictable, my friend! :lol: :lol: :P I know. I know. There is so much I don't know or haven't heard of though.... :codger: I honestly cannot think of better music for your Christmas tree than Babymetal!!

I'll be brief... blah blah blahblah blahblahblah blaaaaaaah! blah? blahblah! ... No, ok, seriously. This means a lot to me. Not just to show a badge but because it's a symbol of my belonging to this community. When I arrived here, after lurking alt.music.rush for years, I was also a part of many different online communities. Guess what, I left them all behind, except this one. There must be a reason for that. My thoughts go to people like Necro, Ladyrushfan, Geds, Pags and many others, whose Rush-related (or not) shenanigans kept me in awe for a long, passionate time. And since things come in waves, love to my pals Treeduck, HatchetPete, Earl, Lorraine and all the ones I'm forgetting. Also many thanks to you, 73, for being a great admin and always replying back to me with respect and fairness. Thank you all.

You're on the brink of becoming a little bit... predictable, my friend! :lol: :lol: :P

Congrats, darling!!!

Time for another Christmas treat. Wanna know who dominated young HPL's secret beauty top 100 in 1979? Well, look no further. She's down here. Her name is Heather Parisi and, being from somewhere in America, she changed the way people danced in Italian television. At the time, she might as well been a martian. I'm still a fan of her BTW. Pity the quality of the video is so lame. Leaves a lot to imagination.

I like their concept more than their songs.

Actually it was the Blackwater Park tour. Maybe it was 2001 or 2002, I might mix up the dates. That summer I was stuck in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland, it was constantly raining, so I went to the grocery store and bought something to read... "Metal Hammer"! And there was a small feature on Opeth, they weren't big at the time, it was just a very short article, but it caught my interest so when I got home I bought Blackwater Park... Fan for life! I remember that show for the great musicality and the fact that the band and the audience seemed to be together on another planet. I also saw the Deliverance tour but Mikael seemed less sincere in his talking, more like a working man routine. Also, they didn't play good that night. They had another awesome band, Madder Mortem, opening for them and they were great. I don't remember Damnation taking so much flack at the time, not the way Heritage did. The difference between the two is that the songwriting on Damnation is top notch, on Heritage is unfocused at best.

Glad you had fun, Earl! I saw Opeth live for the first time in 2003 and it's still one of the best concerts of my life. Following experiences were less fulfilling. I don't know if I'd go and see them now, after losing Lindgren and Lopez they've lost so much of their sound, IMHO. I don't like much Heritage because it's full of rambling, Pale Communion is better but somehow I find myself not listening to it much.

I was planning to see it. How is it? It's pretty good. I hadn't read the Poe story so it was all new to me. It's an interesting story, with a Gothic feel. The atmosphere is good, a nice cast and a few twists near the end. All in all a good Gothic mystery/horror. Oh my, don't tell me it's based on "The System of Doctor Tarr and Prof. Feather". I suspected that on the poster art alone. If that's so, I'm already spoiled.

http://www.unisi.it/sites/default/files/styles/paragrafo/public/contenuto_generico/immagini/locandina_pif.jpg?itok=fsoBaBWn Italian movies today SUCK. BIG TIME. I have this prejudice and sometimes I'm glad to be proven wrong. This is a truly great little movie. If you get the chance to see it, do it.

I was planning to see it. How is it?

Yesterday gifted singer-songwriter MANGO died, during a concert, apparently of a heart attack. He had a very unique voice, and although his memory will be forever linked to single songs instead of great albums, let's pay a little tribute to a singer like no other. http://youtu.be/Azq9K4Sztcc

Congrats to my latin friend and fellow Ricardo Darin fan!!!

Christmas is a time of gifts and treats and I'm gonna give you all some treats in the coming weeks. Let's start with Modesty Blaise herself, the one and only Monica Vitti, singing a very strange and weird song about... sauerkraut!! It's a song that's been around a long time and almost everyone knows it, it's what you'd call a drunken song or a paesant song, anyway here it goes. She's wonderful!!

I thought that myself, really! After all they had the same moustache!! Apart from that, did you like it?

Actually I'm saving the Crank movies for a time when I'll be alone to watch them. I can sit my wife through Statham movies where he plays the cop, and she will TOLERATE the Driver series, but the Crank premise is off limits. I remember when a promo for the first movie came up on tv and she said: what kind of s*it is that??

http://www.primissima.it/images/uploads/before_i_go_to_sleep.jpg Do you ever miss the good old mysteries, just like old Hitchcock used to make 'em? Well, this is clearly an effort to make a "Hitch" movie in 2014, and Ridley Scott producing notwithstanding, it looks and feels like a B-movie. I like Mark Strong's presence, and Firth plays the creep quite expertly. Even Kidman isn't annoying. All in all, an ok movie but nothing more.

A totally different kind of "Best Albums of 2014". http://thequietus.com/articles/16739-albums-of-the-year-2014 Even I didn't know any of these bands :lol: (just kidding, some I did and also made a couple of interesting discoveries).