What is Will Thinking

OK, we have a few more answers for the 75 bands post below. Here we go:

1.)White Zombie
2.) The Rolling Stones
3.) The Smashing Pumpkins
4.) The Lemonheads
5.) The Sex Pistols
6.) Gorillaz
7.) The B-52s
8.) The Eagles
9.) Matchbox 20
10.) Alice in Chains
11.) Led Zepplin
12.) Guns N Roses
13.) Garbage
14.) Whitesnake
15.) The Pixies
16.) Blur
17.) The Black Crows
18.) The Red Hot Chili Peppers
19.) Seal
20.) The Dead Kennedys
21.) Ratt
22.) The Manic Street Preachers
23.) The Postal Service
24.) U2
25.) 50 Cent
26.) Black Flag
27.) Korn
28.) Green Day
29.) The White Stripes
30.) The Cars
31.) The Police
32.) The Bee Gees
33.) Hole
34.) Iron Maiden
35.) Eminem
36.) Radiohead
37.) Dinosaur Jr (questionable)
38.) Great White
39.) Queen
40.) Prince
41.) Deep Purple (questionable)
42.) Phish (questionable)
43.) The Beach Boys or the Butthole Surfers (questionable)
44.) Blind Melon
45.) Talking Heads
46.) Cypress Hill
47.) The Blues Brothers (very questionable)
48.) The Rembrandts
49.) The Cowboy Junkies
50.) KISS
51.) The Cranberries (questionable)
52.) The Doors

Nobody has any idea what’s up with the yellow guy, the spoon, the circus twisty people, the three girls running holding hands, the scissors, the eels, the people on the balcony, and the people having a party in the building on the left.

As you can see, we don’t have too many left. Although if you remove the questionables, we’re not quite two thirds done.

Thanks go out to Eddie, Tim, and Cory. I can’t remember if Brad actually came up with any answers or not, but thanks anyway. (edit – Brad did come up with Eminem)

Keeps posting up in the comments if you see more.

Will Uncategorized

I’m kind of a big music junkie. There are genres that I typically stay away from, but I can handle myself around a lot of music. I think it comes from my mom. She had a big collection of records, including Juice Newton, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, all kinds of stuff.

One thing about listening to music as much as I do is that there has always been a few songs I remember that I can’t figure out the artist. Over the years, I’ve solved a few with the help of some friends and some extremely knowledgeable employees at a few record stores. A very patient clerk in San Francisco helped me find “Lowrider” by War after listening to my very twangy rendition. I was so stoked to grab the Greatest Hits cassette and cruise back across the bay in my VW Beetle, blasting that song as loud as my crappy tape deck would go. A tall, skinny (at the time), country-assed white kid driving a tired VW Beetle with “Lowrider” cranked all the way up was probably an interesting site to see. Even in San Francisco that must’ve been funny, and between you and I, those folks don’t shock easy.

Anyway, up until recently there were a couple songs that I had always wanted to find since I was a kid, but had been unsuccessful until recently. With the help of a few ‘name that tune’ websites, I managed to find out “New Frontier” by Donald Fagen. I remember that one when I was 11 years old, hearing at a friend’s house on MTV. I remember the video was a Keith Harring-inspired sort of animated thing, and I thought it was the coolest song in the world. Of course, I heard it a few times from then until last year when I found out what the song was. Once I found it, I put it on my Rhapsody playlist, and it’s still there today.

I found my latest one today. I’ve been on a big funk kick lately, and this song straddles the fence between funk and disco. It has one of the coolest beats I’ve ever heard, and I couldn’t understand a single lyric. Jack FM plays it every now and again, but never when I’m in front of my computer with their player open so I can see what the current song is. For some reason, they can’t seem to keep their Recently Played Songs list up to date within 24 hours, so they’re no help. I figured I’d try firing up Sirius on the Soul station and Jack FM’s player at the same time and hope I got lucky. Surprisingly, it came on Sirius within an hour. How great is that?

If you’re a serious music junkie, I have to recommend that you get Rhapsody or an equivalent. Try to get one of those car stereos that displays the track info of the current song (and find a radio station that transmits it). Don’t be afraid to ask your music junkie friends. There are lots in Nashville. Check out a few websites (lazyfrog.net and adtunes.com are my recommendations). If you see a giant white guy in a white lowrider, you can stop and ask him. Of course, if you hear it in a mall or somewhere like that here, chances are that no one in your immediate vicinity is going to know who it is. Plus, my wife hates when I stop in the middle of a store and try to get people to help me figure out who sings the music playing at the moment. I tried that in Kohl’s before I figured out New Frontier, and she didn’t much appreciate it.

Oh, the song…

Dazz, as performed by Brick

Will Uncategorized

OK, supposedly there are 75 bands represented in this picture (click for a bigger version).

Here are the ones I recognize:

1.) White Zombie
2.) The Rolling Stones
3.) The Smashing Pumpkins
4.) The Lemonheads
5.) The Sex Pistols
6.) Gorillaz
7.) The B-52s
8.) The Eagles
9.) Matchbox 20
10.) Alice in Chains
11.) Led Zepplin
12.) Guns N Roses
13.) Garbage
14.) Whitesnake
15.) The Pixies
16.) Blur
17.) The Black Crows
18.) The Red Hot Chili Peppers
19.) Seal
20.) The Dead Kennedys
21.) Ratt
22.) The Manic Street Preachers
23.) The Postal Service
24.) U2
25.) 50 Cent

That’s about as far as I got. Anyone see some I missed? I’ll post up the ones I discover on my own in the comments.

Will Uncategorized

OK, I’m starting to think that maybe I watch too much TV. There are some commercials that just make no sense, and others that I really enjoy watching.

Example 1: Bridgestone tires – that whole ‘The wheel goes round and round’ thing that they’ve been doing for the past few years. That really gets on my nerves. First off, Bridgestone makes tires, not wheels. I would hope that people understand that tires, the product they sell, are the black rubber things that actually touch the ground. Wheels, on the other hand, are the metal things that bolt to the car. Maybe if Bridgestone sold wheels, I could warm up to this commercial a bit. My second beef, what exactly is the connection between a bunch of dancers/models carousing about doing a tango or (in more recent spots) an urbanized, pseudo-hip-hop version of that song about the product they don’t actually sell? I mean, who would see that and make a mental note that Bridgestone tires are the ones to get? It’s baffling to me.

Example 2: The one reason I’m thankful that the NFL season is over is that hopefully I won’t have to see any more commercials with the New England Patriots. Five layers of protection commercials with linemen, Coors Silver Bullet train commercials where a train interrupts a footbal game by driving onto the field through the tunnel (where does it leave the field exactly?), Diet Pepsi machine, and even the Sirius radio commercials with Tom Brady and John Madden. Hoo boy, am I tired of the Patriots.

Example 3: Goldfish commercials. ‘The tasty snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off’. If that line doesn’t creep you out, then you’re a psychopath. ‘Nuff said.

Example 4: I think the people who used to make the wacky Mentos commercials are the same ones who make the new Bailey’s commercials. All these wacky 20-somethings hanging out doing wacky things with smarmy looks on their faces. If that’s what you turn into from drinking Bailey’s, please count me out. When I first saw the Foo Fighters video that made fun of those Mentos commercials, I LOL’d.

There are lots of commercials I like. The post before this one was about the new VW ‘un-pimp your auto’ commercials. That shit’s funny. There was one ran by GM a couple years back for the Silverado SS that had a bunch of lowriders hopping in it and had some killer music (‘Return of the Tres’ by Delinquent Habits, if you’re curious). That commercial was pretty cool. They had another Impala commercial a while back that had some old Impalas and ‘I’ll be around’ by The Spinners that was pretty cool too. I love commercials where there’s cool music. I’ve searched out the name of the songs from commercials I’ve seen on countless occasions. It’s how I’ve found Modest Mouse, Delinquent Habits, Dirty Vegas, Thievery Corporation, Orquesta Del Plata and many others. Always cool in my book if you find out about a cool tune from a commercial.

Seriously, how hard can it be to make a commercial that at least doesn’t piss me off?

This post is tagged TV commercials

Will Uncategorized

OK, VW commercials are kind of hit and miss.

Remember the ones with the two people driving down a street, and everything was in sync? That one was great.

The new “fast” commercials? Not so great.

Anyway, I love the new VW commercials with the german engineers respresentin’ and whatnot. That’s some funny shit. Check out the links below:

Trebuchet

Crate

Wrecking ball

Vee Dub, respresentin’ zee deutschland!

This post is tagged VW commercials

Will Uncategorized

Hmmm.

Porn star to meet George W.

Will Uncategorized

Congratulations are in order for my old navy buddy Brad and his wife Jennifer. A new baby boy was born to them this morning at 4:27 PST. Unless I wrote this down incorrectly, He’s 9 lbs 11 oz and 20.5 inches tall. Mom and baby were doing fine last time I heard.

That’s one hoss of a baby.

Will Uncategorized