Album Review: The Bellrays: Black Lightning

The BellRays
Black Lightning
4/5



To start things off let me show the my twitter post after I listened to the first track.

Rock should be the punch in the gut that reminds you you're still livin'. And thank God right now I think I got some bruised ribs.

The I only started listening to the Bellrays catalogue about two years ago, but damn it was some good stuff and this doesn't album disappoint. To be fair most of it sounds like that wierd place between hard rock, metal and punk in the late 60's and early '70s. Lots of interesting stuff going down man.

The studio was becoming an instrument and at the same time bubbling' below the surface, young rebels were howling at the moon in rage. The idealism of the left was beginning to fade into angry cynicism, and eventually nihilism. If the time to do good is over than you might as well have good times and screw the rest. That fucking malaise of Obam...uh Carter's.



Anyway so I'm probably giving it bonus points because that's my favorite musical era.

But the past month has been waaay too indie for my tastes. I just want old school blazing fast, blazing hard rock and roll. And the Bellrays deliver. God do they deliver.

Don't get me wrong there are some slow songs on this. But the slow songs never seem like they're pandering. Mostly this is due to Lisa Kakuala's voice. She could lift your heart or bend steel with that voice. Hell sometimes she can do both in the same song. The woman has soul. Which is something that disapoints me about the music industry. Over the past year I've heard no shortage of vocal talent and yet ... well that's a tangent.

Anyway look if you want a blast from rock's past this will do you good. If you listen to your parent's old records and go, "Da fuck" you'll do the same here. It's like the old joke in that 70's show. A guy likes this dude's music but he was a douche to him on tour so he tells the clerk, (Hyde) "You got any X but not X" If you want hard rock jams from the 70's but not, The Bellrays will do you good. You can only listen to "Kick out the Jams" so many times.

Will it just get to 55 Degrees F already (Day and Night) playlist

Day Shift


Back on - Chain


Smash Mouth- All Star


Smash Mouth - Walking on the Sun



Barenaked Ladies - One Week

Barenaked Ladies - Music - More Music Videos

The Seatbelts - Ask D.N.A.


Big Jim's Ego - Stress

Find more Jim's Big Ego songs at Myspace Music

Night Shift

Anna Tsuchiya - Rose/Zero


Mos Def- Umi Says


Erykah Badu - Next Lifetime



Alice in Chains - Got Me Wrong

Find more Alice in Chains albums at Myspace Music

Garbage - Bleed Like Me



Soul Asylum - Can't Even Tell


Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution


Eddie Brickell and the New Bohemians - What I Am


Common - I Used to Love Her

Keep on Pushing (Get Your Mind Right Brother) Playlist

Frank Sinatra - High Hopes



The Dirtbombs - Underdog


Smash Mouth- Come on Come On

Find more Smash Mouth songs at Myspace Music

Luthor Allison - Life is a Bitch



George Thorogood - One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer


Fort Minor - Remember the Name



Eminem-Lose Yourself


Ac/DC -It's a long Way to the Top



Kiss - God Gave Rock and Roll to You II


Slash -By the Sword


Soul Position - No Gimmicks

Find more songs like No Gimmicks at Myspace Music

Gil Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Find more artists like Gil Scott-Heron at Myspace Music

X- In this House that I call Home

Find more X albums at Myspace Music

Distillers - The Hunger

Youtube, and Anti-Corporate Rhetoric

Before I get into this I would like to say, most days I am a chaotic good anti-authoritarian dude who thinks that the powers that be should sod off, and let folks do what they're going to do. Annoyance makes me shift into lawful good where I want to wag my finger and say, " You... You can't do that. It's just not right." This is one of my lawful good posts. Enjoy.

I admit it. I waste a lot of time watching music videos on Youtube. Now there are a lot of stupid comments on Youtube, but this one is devoted to one special subset of stupidity, People who in the music video comments cry out about the ads. I'm not talking about those guys who just complain about them being a little annoying. Heck I am one of those guys. I'm talking about those jerkwads who think the concept of advertising is an affront to anything artistic.

I'll be honest. I think that as it stands copyright law in the U.S. needs some work, especially with the advent of the internet and new technology, but I understand why we have it. Most people think that copyright is just about making sure you give due credit, but actually it's about making sure that only the people who make a work, and the people they give permission to can profit from it though exclusive distribution rights. Like I said I think in this day and age we need to re-examine what that means, but this post isn't about that.

Youtube has costs. For any website to be able to handle the scale of users and content that Youtube does, massive amounts of bandwidth and server space are required. That costs money. Youtube is owned by Google and they've always made their money though advertising. That's why it costs us, the end user, bupkis to do a Google search. The same thing goes for Vevo, except for the ownership thing.

For years people have said that the reason why the record companies suck is that they don't offer online distribution for a reasonable cost. On Vevo they're doing just that. You don't even need a cable subscription like in the old days to watch music videos. Of course, MTV is no longer music television. That's another rant. Annnywaaaaay. It's frickin' free. It doesn't get more reasonable than free. Unless those idiots think they should pay us for the to listen to music. Everybody thinks things should be free on the internet and honestly I agree. The price we pay for that is sometimes we have to watch a 30 second ad.