Steven Tyler Is Having A Moment

What decade is it? Steven Tyler is currently on the cover of Rolling Stone and People and for once it’s not because he’s back in rehab. Whether you watch the show or not, you know that he is one of the judges on American Idol which is why Tyler is getting so much well-deserved attention. Instead of showing up to work slurry his words and staring with cocaine eyes he is charming the audience, the contestants, the other judges and, most importantly, the viewers watching at home. People are loving his funny phrases and hilarious outbursts – it’s like everything that comes out of his enormous mouth is a sound bite. One of my favorites is something he said to a 16 year-old female contestant: “Girl, I have sandwiches under my bed that are older than you!” Who talks like that? Apparently Steven Tyler does and the world is eating it up.

Everyone knows that Tyler has been the front man for Aerosmith since the 1970s – a band that has had 21 singles on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Here are a few you might recognize:

1975: "Sweet Emotion", #36
1976: "Dream On", #6
1976: "Last Child", #21
1977: "Walk This Way", #10
1977: "Back in the Saddle", #38
1987: "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", #14
1989: "Love in an Elevator", #5
1990: "Janie's Got a Gun", #4
1993: "Livin' on the Edge", #18
1993: "Cryin'", #12
1994: "Crazy", #17
1997: "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)", #35
1998: "Pink", #27
1998: "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", #1
2001: "Jaded", #7


Of course with the kind of success this band has seen over the last four decades, decadence inevitably followed and Tyler was no stranger to booze, drugs and subsequently, rehab. He completed drug rehabilitation in 1986 and maintained sobriety until 2008 when he checked into Las Encinas Hospital rehabilitation clinic to recover from multiple leg surgeries. He made a public statement saying that his foot repair pain was intense and that the months of rehabilitative care and the painful strain of physical therapy were traumatic. In the late 2000s he developed a painkiller addiction for which he successfully received treatment in 2009. At the end of 2009, Rolling Stone reported that Tyler had checked into rehab for pain management.

Since then Tyler has gotten his act together and is now the most likeable judge on one of the most popular shows on television. That being said, Tyler hasn’t lost his edge – he is still the same badass rock and roll front man but rather than shooting heroin he is giving up-and-coming young talent the advice and encouragement they need to become stars. His band is also releasing a compilation album called Tough Love: Best of the Ballads which will hit the streets on May 10. Although Aerosmith has released greatest hits albums in the past, I’m assuming that Tough Love is a result of Tyler’s favorable turn as a judge on Idol. Hopefully album will do well but since there isn’t any new music on there and most Aerosmith fans already have the songs that appear on the disc it will be interesting to see what happens. On the other hand, Tyler’s turn on Idol may have earned the band a whole new crop of young fans who don’t have the songs yet. I guess we’ll see how it goes – but in the meantime, to quote our rock and roll hero, “Well hellfire, save matches, fuck the steep and see what hatches!”

What Happened To DualDisc?

Remember when records were a big deal (the first time) and they had a B side that allowed you to flip them over and play more music? Well a few years ago a group of record companies including EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and 5.1 Entertainment Group decided to release a type of double-sided optical disc that was like the record except it was a CD on one side and a DVD on the other. It was called DualDisc.

DualDisc is a double-sided optical disc product developed by the record labels mentioned above and it first appeared in the United States in March 2004 as part of a marketing test conducted by the same five record companies who developed the product. The test involved thirteen titles being released to a limited number of retailers in the Boston and Seattle markets. The test marketing was seen as a success after 82 percent of respondents to a survey (which was included with the test titles) said that DualDiscs met or exceeded their expectations. In addition, 90 percent of respondents said that they would recommend DualDisc to a friend. DualDisc titles received a mass rollout to retailers throughout the United States in February 2005, though some titles were available as early as November 2004. The recording industry had nearly 200 DualDisc titles available by the end of 2005 and over 2,000,000 units had been sold by the middle of that year.

So what the hell happened to them?

I remember attending a NARM convention with my mother in 2004 when they were introducing DualDisc. One of the swag gifts we were given featured this technology – it was a Dave Matthews album with their new music on one side and a concert DVD on the other. We were told the technology was going to revolutionize the record business.

Unfortunately, after graduating college in 2006 I’ve hardly seen DualDiscs. Were people just not that into a DVD on the other side of the disc or were they just not interested in watching a concert DVD at all? Or maybe it was too confusing for people to grasp – had we had been so trained to play the “correct” side of a CD that the idea of turning it over to a B side like a record was too unnatural to get used to? I hate to think that as a music-loving society we couldn’t handle the dual pressure so why has this format disappeared?

The challenge for the designers of DualDisc was to produce a dual-sided disc that was not too thick to play reliably in slot-loading drives and not too thin to be tracked easily by the laser inside the player. Engineers have tried to get around this by making the pits in the CD layer larger than on a conventional CD making it easier for the laser to read. The downside to this, however, is that the playing time for the CD layer of some early DualDiscs decreased, from the standard 74 minutes of a conventional CD to around 60 minutes.

Besides the loss of 14 minutes, the biggest issue was probably these two warnings that no one wanted to deal with:

1) “This disc is intended to play on standard DVD and CD players. May not play on certain car, slot load players and mega-disc changers.”

2) “The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore not all DVD and CD players will play the audio side of this disc.”

The fact that a customer might be purchasing something that might not work in their various CD and DVD players was a gamble and quite frankly a pain the in ass. Why buy something that comes with warnings that are pretty much telling you that the technology isn’t going to work?

I’m hoping that record labels (or someone, anyone) figures out a way to make the DualDisc technology perform that way it should. I believe that given the proper technology we could get used to flipping discs again.

Watching The West Wing

In the last few years I’ve gotten more into watching TV shows on DVD rather than movies. For whatever reason I like finding a good show and then watching the seasons on DVD – I’ve done this with shows like Brothers & Sisters, Rescue Me, Grey’s Anatomy, 90210 and Californication, just to name a few. If I haven’t already seen episodes of a particular show I usually download the first few from season one on iTunes and if I like it then I buy the whole season on DVD.

My most recent choice (thanks to suggestions from several people but especially Heidi) is The West Wing and surprisingly I’m loving the show. Knowing it was a political show I was a little skeptical at first but I was also excited because I knew Rob Lowe and Martin Sheen were in it. For those who haven’t seen the show before, it is an ensemble drama set in the West Wing of the White House—where the Oval Office and offices of presidential senior staff are located—during the fictional Democratic administration of Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (played by Sheen). Written by Aaron Sorkin (the genius behind The Social Network) the show aired from 1999 until 2006. It’s no surprise that Sorkin wrote this show as the dialogue is creative, engaging, fast-paced and extremely well-written.

Also, the cast works very well together – so well in fact that from the very first episode I believed that they had actually been working together on a presidential campaign for years. In addition to Lowe and Sheen there are some familiar faces including John Spencer (who played FBI agent Womack in The Rock), Allison Janney (who played the nutjob principal in 10 Things I Hate About You), Bradley Whitford (Adam Sandler’s nemesis in Billy Madison) and Moira Kelly (the bitchy, spoiled ice skater in The Cutting Edge).

Each character seems to be the best of the best in their respective fields and they are as smart as they are smart ass. With so many people on the show it could get confusing or frustrating but it doesn’t – Sorkin leaves no room for any unnecessary, boring characters or storylines. One of the most interesting episodes so far is the one where the staff takes the President’s daughter to a bar and when a few college boys try to get fresh the FBI is there in seconds. It was awesome – and not a life I would ever want to lead.

From what I’ve read The West Wing received positive reviews from critics, political science professors and former White House staffers which is no surprise. The show seems to get better with each episode. In total, the show won three Golden Globe Awards and 27 Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series, which it won four consecutive times from 2000 through 2003.

With all the political bullshit I hear about on a daily basis, whether its write-in candidates for Denver City Council or the birther issue for the millionth time, it’s nice to watch political drama that’s both interesting and fictional. I look forward to watching the rest of season one and I hope that it continues to be as good as the first seven episodes.

Barcodes! Tags! Smartphones!

Until recently I thought that barcodes were the black and white squares you scanned on the back of products at grocery stores and record stores to pay for your items. Clearly I’m behind on the times and clearly I need a Smartphone. (Yes Marshall and J.Reed, I finally admit it).

If you open a magazine and pay attention there are now small colorful Microsoft “tags” that enable those with a Smartphone to snap a photo or scan the tag which will then take you to an accompanying web site or video. Entertainment Weekly has included tags that will take you to summer movie trailers while Snowboarder features tags that will bring you to their web site. Even advertisers are jumping on the barcode bandwagon which is a good move – it links those who are reading hard magazines to those who spend more time reading online.

Here’s how it began: High Capacity Color Barcode (HCCB) is the name coined by Microsoft for its technology of encoding data in a 2D “barcode” using clusters of colored triangles instead of the square pixels traditionally associated with 2D barcodes. It has been licensed and serves as the basis for the Microsoft Tag mobile tagging application.

The technology was created by Gavin Jancke, an engineering director at Microsoft Research. Jancke has said that HCCB was not intended to replace traditional barcodes. Instead, “it’s more of a ‘partner’ barcode” and that “the UPC barcodes will always be there.” He continued, “Ours is more of a niche barcode where you want to put a lot of information in a small space.” The Microsoft Tag reader is compatible for Internet-capable mobile devices including many based on the Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Java, Android, Symbian S60, iPhone and Java ME platforms.

The question is whether or not this little tag trend is going to catch on and I think that it already has. Not only do these tags provide ways for the reader to learn more and see more, whether it’s a cool web site or the latest trailer for Hangover 2, it is also very cool. Taking a photo with your cell phone that immediately directs you to a web site that contains information, photos and videos concerning something you already think is interesting? Sign me up. Now I just have to wait until my AT&T upgrade kicks in at the end of June so that (as my hilarious cousin and friends would say) I can join 2011.

Ticketmaster Is Ruining Lives

As a person who loves live music I have the displeasure of dealing with Ticketmaster on a frequent basis. Since its 2011 and most tickets are purchased online I usually have no choice but to use Ticketmaster if I want to see the band or artist of my choice. Although I am willing to spend more money for good seats when it comes to live music I absolutely detest seeing my ticket listed at one price only to see it skyrocket after “service” and “convenience” fees. Convenient? Convenient for who??

If Van Halen wants to charge me $150 to sit close I’ll pay it – what I don’t want to pay is another $20 just for using Ticketmaster. A friend of mine recently went to buy tickets for popular San Francisco music festival Outside Lands. He thought he was paying $185 per ticket but once the Ticketmaster monster swallowed him up and spit him out he was paying $210 per ticket. Needless to say he was not happy.

Now that I’ve complained for two paragraphs let me provide some background on this beast. Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. was a ticket sales and distribution company based in West Hollywood, California with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010 it merged with Live Nation to become Live Nation Entertainment. Usually Ticketmaster's clients (promoters) control their events and Ticketmaster acts as an agent, selling the tickets that the clients make available to them. Apparently, Ticketmaster does not receive any of the advertised ticket prices when a ticket is sold. Instead, Ticketmaster makes their money from service fees and because buying tickets through them is usually your only option I would call this a monopoly- wouldn’t you?

The worst part is that the consumer doesn’t get any kind of discount for buying more tickets. In the newspaper business if you advertise for 12 months instead of six you get a better rate. In the abyss that is Ticketmaster the more money you spend the more you get charged. How the hell does that make any sense? It doesn’t.

So what can be done? Alternative ticketing companies have emerged but due to Ticketmaster's exclusive agreements with a large percentage of venues none of them have the range of the almighty Ticketmaster. As a result, people turn to scalpers, brokers and Craigslisters in an effort to do whatever they can to avoid extra fees. Some small venues give you the option to buy tickets at their box office to evade fees but these places are few and far between and their box office hours seem to get shorter and shorter.

I’m hoping that some hot shot attorney figures out a way to sue Ticketmaster into being fair and not overcharging people who just want to see some live music. In the meantime, try using other sites and try not to jump off a building when you see that your additional fees are equivalent to a third of your initial ticket price.

It's Baseball Season!

Although basketball is my favorite sport to play and watch there is something alluring about baseball season in America. I grew up playing with my Dad, my cousin and then on softball teams - which was during a time when baseball movies were all over the place. And I couldn’t get enough of them.

Between 1988 and 1994 baseball movies ruled the theatres and my childhood memories:

Bull Durham (1988)
Major League (1989)
Field of Dreams (1989)
The Babe (1992)
A League of their Own (1992)
The Sandlot (1993)
Rookie of the Year (1993)
Angels in the Outfield (1994)

Other classics that were released more recently include:

For Love of the Game (1999)
61* (2001)
Fever Pitch (2005)

Don’t get me wrong – The Natural (1984) and Bad News Bears (1976) are classics as well but not ones that I really grew up with.

This weekend I will be going to my first Rockies game of the season so to get myself geared up I present a list of my favorite baseball movies of all time (in order by year) and why there are so damn good:

Bull Durham – Featuring heavy hitters (pun intended) like Kevin “Mr. Baseball” Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, this movie about how a minor league baseball team evokes one hell of a love triangle is so much fun to watch. Costner and Robbins, who play the catcher and up-and-coming pitcher, are so young and talented you can see why they are now household names. Meanwhile, Sarandon is a force to be reckoned with – and she hasn’t aged a day since.

Major League – This one was all about Winning! Way before Charlie Sheen went off the deep end he was hilarious as diagonal haircut-sporting, 100 mph pitch-throwing, skull glasses- wearing Ricky “The Wild Thing” Vaughan. And Tom Berenger wasn’t so bad to look at either.

Field of Dreams – Everyone knows this is THE baseball movie. The “Stairway to Heaven” and “Free Bird” of baseball movies. I don’t even have to go into why this movie carries so much magic – you just have to watch it. If you haven’t seen it – step away from the blog and buy it, rent it, Neflix it or steal it. Now.

The Babe – John Goodman perfectly depicts Babe Ruth becoming a legend and everything that comes with it. Starting with his father abandoning him at an orphanage to realizing his ability to hit homeruns to his bad drinking habits – this movie is all heart.

A League of Their Own – Apparently casting big names in baseball movies is a good way to go as this one brings together Tom Hanks, Madonna, Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, John Lovitz, Gary Marshall and Bill Pullman. This movie is the epitome of my childhood as I was playing softball at the time and had an incredible team. With so many quotable lines (“There’s no crying in baseball!”) and a story with such a huge historical relevance, this movie (again with the puns) smashes it out of the park.

The Sandlot – “You’re killing me smalls!” How many times have we heard people say that? A coming-of-age movie about a kid who moves into a new neighborhood and finds friends through baseball shows how the sport has brought so many different kinds of people together for so many decades.

For Love of the Game – Costner does it again – this time as an aging pitcher who flashbacks his life and career while pitching the perfect game. Exuding both humility and sincerity, Costner (with the help of Kelly Preston) shows the other side of being a professional baseball player who is forced to see the light at the end of his career.

Thanks for the memories and see ya at Coors Field on Saturday!

Hi I'm John Mellencamp

Last night 59-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee John Mellencamp put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen when he played for two straight hours at the Buell Theatre in downtown Denver. As humble as he is talented, he introduced himself to the audience as if we didn’t know who was standing there before us and sitting next to my mother, who has seen virtually everyone except John Mellencamp, I was thrilled to be witnessing a rock and roll legend.

Since buying the tickets in October 2010, I had read a few interviews Mellencamp gave where he said that if people were looking for a greatest hits show they should stay home. Although I was happy just to have the opportunity see one of the true pioneers of rock and roll – someone who is up there with Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen – I was a little disappointed at the idea that I wouldn’t get to hear at least a few of the classics. Wow was I wrong.

Before Mellencamp came on stage there was an hour-long documentary on the making of his latest album No Better Than This. We caught the last 15 minutes of it and when it was over I realized how much influence Johnny Cash has had on our believed Johnny Cougar. After a short intermission the theatre’s lights went down and, like clockwork, the auditorium boomed with one of my favorite Cash songs of all time – “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” It gave me goose bumps.

After Cash set the tone the announcer came on and said: “Ladies and gents, from Bloomington, Indiana, John Mellencamp.” The crowd went insane and it was on. While Mellencamp is short – he may or may not be able to clear the height requirement to ride roller coasters – his voice, personality and charisma are massive. He is a storyteller and songwriter who has been a real American rebel his whole life and as a result his songs bleed truth. He is also a performer and a real showman as he never stopped moving for the 120 minutes he played – dancing, talking and smiling. He was in constant motion. He is also one of the most gracious artists I’ve ever seen as he thanked the audience at least a dozen times – everyone was so excited to be there and he was too. You could see it in his face.

Although the music never stopped the show was sort of broken up in three parts – the first and third Mellencamp was backed by his extraordinarily talented band that consisted of his lead guitarist who has been touring with him for 40 years, another guitarist dressed in a full suit, a bass player who played traditional and upright bass, a drummer, piano player, accordion player and the most talented of all, the fiddle player. This ensemble was so good it reminded me of Springsteen’s legendary E-Street Band. Every single musician on that stage was getting done – going above and beyond to make the show the best it could be. It was overwhelming.

The middle part of the show featured Mellencamp by himself on acoustic guitar talking to the audience and telling stories. He intertwined these stories with songs in a vignette-like format which made me feel like he was talking just to me. He talked about his grandmother, the devil, the women that have come and gone in his life, being a sinner and how “there is nothing worse than a dangerous old man.” During his acoustic set he stripped down classic favorite “Small Town” and then told the audience that while walking around downtown a man named Jerry came up to him and asked him to play “Jackie Brown.” Mellencamp explained that he hadn’t planned on playing the song but he did it for Jerry.

Mellencamp and his band ended the show with more favorites like “Jack and Diane,” “Pink Houses” and “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” but he put a new spin on every single song. And it was a good spin. A great spin. The songs were so different that you almost didn’t recognize them from the first few notes but it worked. I was actually surprised when he played “Pink Houses” because in the beginning of the show some asshole in the front row screamed, “John! ‘Play Pink Houses’” and, being the cool guy that he is, Mellencamp said to him in a very jovial manner: “I told you guys this wasn’t going to be a greatest hits show. Do you know how old I was when I wrote that song? I was like 27 years old. I’m 59 fucking years old now - give me a break!”

While Mellencamp is clearly one-of-a-kind, the Johnny Cash influences were not only in his documentary but also in his style of playing. Like Cash, Mellencamp holds his guitar like a rifle and blatantly talks to the audience in a deep, raspy voice that is as alluring as it is badass. He tells the audience he doesn’t care about the past, “life is short even on its longest days” and “save some time to dream.” There is something to be said about seeing a legend live – they have a different swagger, a different voice and they have real stories. Mellencamp has written and does write every single one of his songs. People just don’t do that anymore and it shows. If John Mellencamp’s music tells the stories of a sinner then I’ll go outlaw with him any day.