Posts Tagged ‘Powers Booth’

Mike Baron

The Pop Underground Strikes Back

by Mike Baron

Few shows illustrate how low the state of popular music has fallen than American Idol.”  While AI regularly finds singers of talent, the songs they feature are mostly chestnuts.  The show also encourages the type of singing that is more at home on Broadway than in small smoky clubs.  The judges put an inordinate amount of focus on vocal pyrotechnics encouraging contestants to test the outer limits of their ranges.  The most exciting news to come out of the most recent season is the possibility that Adam Lambert might join Queen, replacing the ill-considered Paul Rogers.

I would love to see Adam Lambert join Queen.  I already know all the songs.  And that’s a problem.  Singer/songwriters have been moving off-grid since the nineties.  With the demise of the major music conglomerates, innovative talent understands it’s up to them to record and release their own material.  The internet makes this possible.  No one knows the extent of the effect downloading has had on the music industry, but if we are to judge from the reaction, it has been devastating.  The Recording Institute Association of America has brought suits against parents whose children illegally download songs. (more…)

Jude

LIVE-BLOGGING 24, Comments

by Jude

In loving memory of Andrew’s youth, here we go…

Ok, so we’re late to the party.  What are you going to do, set up a perimeter?  This is the show I love, then love to hate, then actually hate, then come back to to see how much Kiefer’s drinking has wrinkled his face, because I also like to drink.  Every year, it seems that Jack Bauer, the most bad-ass little man since Wolverine had his chest waxed and grew 8 inches into Hugh Grant, makes choices that put those he loves just slightly ahead of national security. Everyone else who does this pays for it dearly, often with the perp walk….but not Jack…  SO FAR this season, Jack was compelled to come back from lovely Africa to face a Senate hearing about his…methods of interrogation.  CTU is no more (which is good, as it was the single most penetrable security organization in the United States), but when the FBI comes calling for Jack’s help, it isn’t long before the old gang gets back together.

First we find Tony Almeda, whom we like to call Schlumpy, for his round-shouldered sensitivity.  He’s rockin’ a goatee, still has amazing hair, and is apparently one of the bad guys…EXCEPT HE ISN’T ANYMORE!  Schlumpy is back with the angels, in the form of modern dance versions of Old Man Buchanan and The Scowl (Chloe).  The three of them are trying to save the world from super-secret evil that has infiltrated the U.S. Government, all paid for with African diamonds, which really helps in a recession.  It’s a hard job for 3 people…but now they have a 4th, and his name, is Jack Bauer.

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