Twostepcublog

Well, at least one of these guys didn't shoot a captive bear . Brooks & Dunn are the quintessential country duo churning out nine hit studio albums since 1991 by combining honky tonk coolness like in "Hard Workin' Man" and epic ballads like "The Long Goodbye". With Hillbilly Deluxe , the pair continued the success rekindled with the Red Dirt Road album. For rabid fans of their music, it'll be a big success. For everyone else, it's touch and go. Hillbilly Deluxe starts off innocuously with the lead single "Play Something Country", a corny white bread-neck slogan song that only is listenable because B&D sell it well enough. It's the usual name-dropping urban-bashing swill that would've been lost save for the infectious beat and Ronnie Dunn's voice. This and the next bunch of tunes retread a lot of material already gone over and over on previous albums, and for once sounds it. Well done, but nothing new. At least until ...

I loves me some Trisha Yearwood . She's got to be one of the most consistently good female singers in country music. Though not having the superstar career of a Faith or a Shania, she didn't fizzle out quickly (I'm looking at you , Gretchen) but has built up a classy body of work through the last fifteen years. From "Down On My Knees" to "On A Bus To St. Cloud" to "I'd Still Love You More", Trisha has songs that may not have been chart champs, but have a timeless quality about them that defies dating. On her tenth studio album (including a Christmas disc), Jasper County , Yearwood eschews the sheen from her last couple albums for a more down-home country feel. Starting out with both barrels on with the best track on the album, "Who Invented The Wheel", a bluesy scorned-woman powerhouse of a song (actually outdoing it's writer Anthony T. Smith 's version). She mixes up the requisite swingers ("Pistol", "It...

Sorry again for being so late, blogger's really been acting up lately. Here's my tunes for this week. As always, you can click on the name of the artist to bring up their webpage (rightclick to bring up in another window). This week Snow Patrol reaches the top spot, and leaving the chart are songs by Danielle Peck, Audioslave, and L.E.X.. Big moves are coming from Kenny Chesney, Sun, Helena Paparizou and My Chemical Romance. Cheers! ThisWeek Song/Artist (last week's position in parentheses) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol (2) 2. Call Me When You're Sober - Evanescence (8) 3. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae (1) 4. Every Mile A Memory - Dierks Bentley (6) 5. What Hurts The Most - Rascal Flatts (7) 6. When You Were Young - The Killers (10) 7. I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic At The Disco (3) 8. I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters (16) 9. Wai...

Hey, More pilfering inspiration from other websites, this time from Gay Men Rule . Really funny but thoughtful video.

Yeah, there'll be Cher, cockroaches, and Keith Richards after the apocalypse. And with A Bigger Bang , the Rolling Stones 25th studio album if i'm counting right (not counting compilations or live albums), Mick, Keith, et. al are getting the usual "this is the best album in years" hype that's been thrown to every over-50 artist that's churned out an album lately. (heck, over-40 if you count Morrissey). Given the Stones' longevity but scattershot output, does this set cut the mustard (or cut the cheese)? Well it depends on what you're looking for. This set is definitely Keith's album, with guitar riff after guitar riff throughout the 16 songs on here, from the somewhat-familiar chug of "Rough Justice" to his second vocal lead on the album, the slinky "Infamy". In fact the first three songs are sparse, guitar-driven numbers that recall the Tattoo You album ("Justice", "Let Me Down Slow", and "It Won...

I had written a lovely little diatribe about the lastest Rolling Stones album, but in sending it in, blogger crashed and I lost it all. Rather than retyping it tonight, I'll try another time (i gave it a B-, by the way) and in the meantime in celebration of New Jersey's ruling (which I'm not sure if its a good or bad thing as yet) and total thanks to Crooks & Liars for originally posting it, here's Jon Stewart in perfect glory about the subject.

Hey folks...sorry for the light posting, I'm heading to Nashville tonight for the IGRA gay rodeo convention. But here's my music tunes for the week, sorry for the lack of links this time. I'll put them back next week... This week Corinne Bailey Rae takes the top spot, and big moves are made by James Blunt, Carrie Underwood, and Luther Vandross. Saying goodbye are songs by Nickelback, Little Big Town, Bananarama and Madonna. Yee-haw! This Week Song/Artist (Last Week In Parentheses) ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae (2) 2. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol (4) 3. I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic At The Disco (1) 4. Move Along - All-American Rejects (5) 5. Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera (3) 6. Every Mile A Memory - Dierks Bentley (8) 7. What Hurts The Most - Rascal Flatts (9) 8. Call Me When You're Sober - Evanescence (14) 9. Waiting For The World To Change - John Mayer (10) 10...

As much as there's craziness in this world, it does seem this day gets easier and easier for people, and that make me smile. 'nuff said.

I am so still trying to wake up in this picture (I wasn't supposed to be there till 1230pm, but t got changed to 11am cuz of the weather). this is before we headed out. I'm still happy as a clam, though. This is one of the last pictures i took before i dropped my camera. After we got it back I decided to just leave it on my beltstrap. By the way our organization, the Liberty Gay Rodeo Association, does a trail ride on the first Sunday of every month. Click here for more information .

I honestly don't understand certain media and public adoration for John McCain. Sure he served nobly in Vietnam, but something apparently has fucked up his brain, where someone's implanted a short-circuiting "Manchurian Candidate" chip in him. He is by all means middle-of-the-road, with his whack-job views on choice, HIV, gay, and separation of church & state issues firmly plant him in the holy roller category, which pretty much goes with the republican/evangelical hypocrisy path, since he started fucking around on his wife after she had a car accident. He continuingly provides a "good cop to bad cop" shield to cover for all the signing statements Bush has made on the "torture" law and other laws. And now this genius who looks like Paul Simon with a glandular problem has the balls to hawl himself around the TV news shows blaming Bill Clinton for North Korea's current nuclear program. Click here to go to Crooks & Liars (right click to ...

Hey boys and girls, it's that time again, my tunes for the week...as per the drill you can click on the name of the highlighted artists to bring up their webpage (you can rightclick to bring it up in anew window, I wish blogger would have an easier way for this) so you can find out more about them, hear some tunes, sometimes see some videos. This week Panic At The Disco is still at #1 for the second week, with the top 10 staying relatively inert. There's big moves by songs by James Blunt, OK Go, and Stefy, while tunes by Kim English, Pink, and Conjure One leave the chart. And who'da thunk Bananarama has two songs on here. Cheers... ThisWeek Song/Title (last week position in parentheses) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic At The Disco (1) 2. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae (3) 3. Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera (2) 4. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol (6) 5. Move Along - All-A...

This sure as hell ain't Josie & The Pussycats. Gorillaz has grown from a sideproject from Britpop royalty Damon Albarn to being bigger and more influential then anything his band has done before. If "their" (their being relative, this is really Albarn's show with guests flowing in and out) first self-titled album was a darkly funky experience geared to those who can discern the difference between "comic book" and "graphic novel", their/his second venture, Demon Days , is a full-blown realization of the concept act as well as the concept album. In the course of 14 songs we're blown through an apocolyptic ruin where four "characters", 2D (the most "Albarn-ish" one), Murdoch, Noodle, and Russell Hobbs venture through isolation ("Last Living Souls") and lawlessness ("Kids With Guns") with a combo of backbeat and Lou Reed-like deadpan delivery. Things pick up a little (well, beatwise, though not in ha...

Sam , the ex, was on HGTV's " Cash In The Attic " tonight. It's really kinda creepy watching someone you know so well be like tv-handled for reality-show consumption. But he and Rob were great troopers. And I knew he couldn't part with the old Spidey.

No narrative, just Level 42's "Leaving Me Now". Feeling it tonight.

Dennis Hastert is second in line for the presidency after Dick Cheney. Sweet Dreams.

I know I can't get enough of this song, so I wanted to share the You-tube love. Here's the Scissor Sisters (who I'm so majorly bummed I can't see live) performing "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" live on English TV. They hit #1 with it. Woohoo!

I think there's two camps of 50s white rock afficianados - those that think that Elvis was the most innovative influence on early rock-n-roll, and those that think just the same of Buddy Holly , and the two rarely meet. Where Elvis was the raw emotion of rock-n-roll, Holly brought craftsmanship and innovation to song structure to the game. The 2-CD set Gold attempts to prove the Holly side of the equation, bringing you 50 songs from Holly and the Crickets, a way bigger collection than the album that made #92 on Rolling Stone 's "500 best albums of all time", 20 Golden Greats . While that album has most of his charting US singles (which Gold has all of) it only has one song missing from Gold - the remake of "Bo Diddley". Now of course it isn't missed - Holly's could never possible either eclipse or transform Bo's classic - but in it's stead are a more indepth set of album cuts and stray singles. However the collection's track order can ...

Now that we have our Will And Grace , Brokeback Mountain , and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy , it's easily to forget the period where there were no mass marketing of gay culture that there is today. And as recently as the 90s, the biggest chunk of gay-produced gay media came in the form of books and music. I used to go down to Giovanni's Room in Philly and A Different Light in New York to pick up cassette from gay and lesbian underground musicians such as Romanosky & Phillips, Phranc, and Cris Williamson. Primo among them is the genius that is Michael Callen. Before his death from AIDS in 1993 at the age of 38 (coincidently my age now), he had provided us with two classic solo albums ( Purple Heart and the 2-CD Legacy which by all means find if you can) as well as one studio and one live album with his a cappella group the Flirtations. Live: Out On The Road was recorded in Toronto in 1991, and captured the group at their peak. Consisting of Callen, Jon Arterton, Aureli...

No reason for this, other that I love this song. I was searching for the gay a capella group the Flirtations, and founds clips for the Northern soul group "The Flirtations". I would love to know if this was shot in Edinburgh, since it reminds me of the damaged church in the royal grounds there.

The late 80s was the last hurrah for the mature-pop wonders before Nirvana and gangsta rap threw all that into "elevatormusicland". One of the other casualties of this is the idea of black singers as adult contemporary singers. Either you had to be "street" or white. No inbetween. A shame, since it spells doom not only for singers but for songwriters, one of whom is Brenda Russell . Best known for #1) writing "Get Here" which became insanely popular for singer Oleta Adams during the whole Desert Storm thing even with the line "cross the desert like an Arab man", and #2) having a top 10 song of her own, "Piano In The Dark" with Joe Esposito (the member of the group Brooklyn Dreams that wasn't Mr. Donna Summer). 1992's Greatest Hits of course includes these two songs, as well as eight other breezy, unassuming, cafe-pumping tunes. Starting with "Piano In the Dark", which is still just as cool as when it first was out,...

Oh my god. After 45 years of business, Tower Records is being liquidated. In financial trouble for quite a while, the company that bought them in bankruptcy auction has announced that they're gonna start out-of-business sales tomorrow. In the age of "big box stores" like Best Buy, Circuit City and discount cutthroats like Walmart and Target, Tower was the biggest and the best of the remaining "content-only" music/video chains left. As my ex Sam can tell ya, I've spent many a day combing through their bins to find some obscure CD or import single. I used to call the store on 4th and Broadway in New York "church". Like "Sam, I'll be back I need to go to church". It seemed to be the last bastion of balance between a big store and the mom-and-pop stores. Such a shame. Hopefully there'll be a way to get back catalog stuff liek you can at this store. I don't picture Best Buy carrying every one of James Browns CDs .

R.I.D.E. is the third album from bar-band-cum-semi-successful-country-act Trick Pony . Trick Pony started out as a couple of session hacks (hippie-looking Ira Dean and suave-looking Keith Burns) with (peppy-looking) singer Heidi Newfield doing a competent but way watered-down version of "saloon country". (hmm... Ira, Heidi, overcompensation, much?) I mean from their website alone is this statement of purpose: Trick Pony, America's most energetic, hard working, and orneriest barroom rockin', buttkickin' hard-core honky-tonk band, will look you straight in the eye and lay down its new album R.I.D.E . Butt -kicking? Ornery ? Can you imagine Johnny Cash describing himself this way? In the immortal words of sage Whitney, "Hell to the no!" Ornery is what you call your cow. You can more say music to play in steakhouse chain restaurants who want to seem edgy without upsetting the blue-plates or soccer-moms. Their first two albums consisted ...

Hey boys and girls, it's that time again. As usual you can click the name of the highlighted artist to go to their webpage (you can right-click to bring up in a new window) so you can find out more about the artist, listen to their music, watch videos, yadda yadda yadda. This week sees Panic At The Disco taking over the top spot, with songs by Trace Adkins, Billy Currington, Shakira, Nick Lachey and Kelly Clarkson leaving the chart (first time in a long while with no Kelly Clarkson song on here). Big moves are made by Evanescence, Scissor Sisters, and Kaskade. And Tim McGraw's back with an old song and a new one, while Rascal Flatts is back in the top 10 for the second time with the same song. Cheers! ThisWeek Song/Artist (last week's position in parentheses) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic At The Disco (2) 2. Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera (1) 3. Put Your Record...