Nov 18 2020

The Day Wolfgang Van Halen Learned His Dad Was Famous

Wolfgang Van Halen says he was “six or seven” years old the day he learned his father Eddie was a famous rock guitarist. “They were doing all the CD remasters” for the six David Lee Roth-era Van Halen albums, he tells UCR. “I found a box of all of them, and I saw my name on it and a picture of my dad. I said, ‘Dad, what’s this?’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, uh … this is what I do.’ And he kind of introduced me to everything.”

Source: The Day Wolfgang Van Halen Learned His Dad Was Famous: Interview


Nov 18 2020

Eddie Van Halen is Irreplaceable

“I think a message to the Van Halen fans [would be that] some things just really suck. I don’t have a dad anymore and I have to figure out how to process that and deal with it. And, that’s the process that Van Halen fans need to go through and realise that you can’t have the band anymore without Eddie Van Halen. The music will live on forever, but you can’t have [the band] without him. Impossible.” On why his dad wouldn’t want him to do it, he added to ‘Entertainment Tonight’: “My dad would probably be rea

Source: Wolfgang Van Halen: The band is ‘impossible’ without Eddie Van Halen – Music News | Music-News.com


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Jun 14 2016

This is Live. No. Really. Sort of. (DaddyTube)

This video, of Hatsune Miku, a Japanese Vocaloid star (?), blew my mind. You have to watch long enough to really get the effect I got. I don’t want to spoil it but I will tell you that this is a live concert. Watch a bit of it. Hell, watch the whole thing, it’s under 3 minutes.

Did you see what I saw? Actual real-live musicians playing along with a hologram? In front of an audience of actual humans?

Wow. Just… wow.

On the one hand, it’s End Times stuff. But the technology behind it is fascinating. There is a Vocaloid Keytar! (Warning: the video is very strange and includes a person in a dinosaur suit, dancing.) It goes deep.

I haven’t found anything that indicates there are any English versions. However, listening to a couple of songs (literally a couple, I only checked out two, both by Hatsune Miku, who is not a real person but performs with a live band) I’ve decided that it isn’t as bad as some current pop music. Plus you don’t have to worry about lyrics like “brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack” because it’s mostly in Japanese.

Not too bad, right? I mean, for pop music. It depends on how you feel about that sort of thing.

Mostly it was seeing the real musicians performing alongside a hologram that freaked me out.

h/t to the folks who showed this to me, one of whom was Lucas Gonze and the other of whom was Tom.


Jan 21 2015

Patrick Stump’s Dad Big Deadhead

Fall Out Boy has a new album out, American Beauty/American Psycho. The “Beauty” part comes from the Grateful Dead album of the same name; the “Psycho” is for the Bret Easton Ellis novel.

American Beauty/American Psycho

(There are actually movies with the same title — “American Beauty” and “American Psycho“, the latter being actually based on the Easton Ellis novel, which I’ve read and don’t recommend because it’s very disturbing. Never saw the movie, which stars Christian Bale. “American Beauty” the movie has nothing to do with the Grateful Dead album as far as I know, and I personally found it to be a bit overrated. The Dead album is good. Now that you know my opinion of everything, let’s move on with the article, shall we?)

I read that Fall Out Boy sampled a Mötley Crüe song on their new record but after listening to every song on American Beauty/American Psycho I couldn’t find it. So I hit the Google. An Billboard article from December 2014 clued me in that a bit of “Too Fast For Love” is used on the title track. I’ll have to listen to it again. (Note: I like Fall Out Boy a lot. This isn’t their best album but I’m OK with that.)

Further down in the Billboard story is this little tidbit of info:

Despite the nod to the Dead, there is no “Box of Rain” cover, though it would score Stump some points with his family. “I was talking about that record with some friends the other day. My dad is a huge Deadhead,” he said.

I’m trying to imagine a Fall Out Boy cover of Box of Rain, and it’s not easy. I could see Patrick Stump singing/playing it acoustic, whereas if the whole band did it they’d need to do it more hardcore, in my humble opinion. Like most of what Fall Out Boy does, I’d give it a listen.

It’s funny to think of the lead singer’s dad being “a huge Deadhead”. It’s a small, personal detail that made me smile. One of the things I like about Fall Out Boy (other than their music) is that they come across as honest and fairly normal. I don’t know them, and of course it’s possible that they’re all weird dudes. But that’s not the impression I get when I read about them. It helps that I like their music.

via Fall Out Boy Talk New Album, Motley Crue & Grateful Dead | Billboard.


Dec 17 2014

Electric Menorah on SomaFM – Chanukah Music

Chanukah is here, and that means you should be listening to Electric Menorah on SomaFM. Specifically their NSFW Xmas in Frisco channel.

Electric Menorah logo

They play our music every Chanukah. Here’s proof:

See? It’s on Twitter. To listen to the channel (which is great, but sometimes plays songs with dirty words so be careful when listening at work or with kids in the room), click here. They have a lot of other good stations as well, but Xmas in Frisco is the only one that plays Electric Menorah ever year.

Anyway, here’s the point. We want to be on the charts. Last year Chanucore, our Chanukah EP, made it into the top 10 “Playlist Adds”. On the last night of Chanukah 2013, Electric Menorah was the 15th most popular artist.

Electric Menorah on Xmas in Frisco

 

In fact, just now, while we were listening to the station (we liked it before they added Electric Menorah to the rotation), they played Oh Chanuqa Bush.

This is our way of encouraging you to listen as well, and click links and share on social media and whatever else it is the kids are doing these days.

Happy Chanukah! (We’ll wish you a Merry Christmas when the time comes.)

SomaFM – Xmas in Frisco


Jun 12 2014

Songs About Bad Dads (Daddy Issues)

As a former contributor to The A.V. Club I vaguely wish I had contributed to this list of Songs About Bad Dads. Just in time for Father’s Day, of course. Then again, I haven’t heard of most of the tunes on here, so maybe I wouldn’t have been the best writer to tackle this assignment, despite my penchant for all things Daddy Issues.

Cyclops and Cable Have Daddy Issues

This isn’t a song, but nobody has more daddy issues than Scott Summers, aka Cyclops.

There are the obligatory indie-rock bands (The Mountain Goats have two entries) but also some surprises, including, I shit you not, Shaquille O’Neal, who apparently recorded a song Biological Didn’t Bother, which I have to admit is a pretty good title. (By the way, because Amazon truly has everything, if you decide you really love Shaq’s song and want to sing/rap it yourself, you can get a karaoke version. Yes. Seriously. For reals.)

Make your way through the full list (it’s not that long) and you will be rewarded with a tune titled Daddy Wasn’t There from Austin Powers in Goldmember, performed by the fake band Ming Tea. It is, as the A.V. Club writers point out, rather catchy, kinda funny, and just a teeny bit sad to those of us with daddy issues of our own. Here’s the video (Bonus: you get to look at Susanna Hoffs.)

The Austin Powers’ movies are, in their way, filled with daddy issues, particularly Scott and his father Dr. Evil.

Click the link below to check out the full list of Bad Dad Songs from The A.V. Club. Here’s a tip: be a great dad and no one will write one of these about you. And happy father’s day!

Bad dads: 19 songs about shitty fathers · Inventory · The A.V. Club.


May 20 2014

How To Find The Clean Version On Spotify

I’m trying out Spotify Premium on my Sonos and so far I love it. I want my kids to have good taste in music, or at least be able to introduce them to bands that they wouldn’t otherwise experience. Regular radio — top 40 — stinks, with very few choices and far too many songs by Ke$ha. I don’t want to force my taste onto my kids, but I do want to share my musical interests with them. Spotify Premium is a good way to do this without buying every album or downloading stuff illegally. Of course, not everything I listen to is free of dirty words. I’m no prude, but sometimes I’d prefer to have the kids listen to the non-explicit version of an album. So how to find the clean version on Spotify? Read more »