Had no idea what to post today.  I go to YouTube and there's a featured video - "Rise Above Plastics."

Huh?

Whatever.  But it made me think of this Black Flag song.

Hear "Rise Above" on YouTube.

Perhaps you're one of those people who appreciates or even likes (horrors!) Dream Theater's instrumental prowess, but just can't get past the wailing, banshee vocals?  Then Liquid Tension Experiment may be worth checking out.

LTE is essentially a prog-rock Frankenstein's monster that formed when DT's Mike Portnoy (drums) and John Petrucci (guitar) joined up with keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess (who has since become Dream Theater's full time ivory-tickler) and veteran session bassist Tony Levin, who has played with, oh I don't know, everybody?  What followed in 1998 was a 74-minute self-titled album full of some serious instrumental ass-kicking, with no hair-bandy singing contained within.

Really, I hear tracks like "Paradigm Shift" and simply cannot fathom why so many automatically label prog-rock as "boring."  Oh well.  I guess I'm just weird like that.  Different strokes, yada yada...

Watch a fanvid for "Paradigm Shift" on YouTube.

Watch Portnoy perform part of the song in a studio.

If I post a song from Leonard Nimoy, then I am required to put up a song by William Shatner.

It's in Bill's contract.

Hear "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" on YouTube.

Been Netflixing the remastered Season 2 of the original Star Trek, so I have that franchise on the brain.

As such, I am posting this ridiculous Leonard Nimoy tune, because I always have goofy novelty schlock on the brain.

Watch the video for "Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" on YouTube.

Bleh.  I can't think of a song to post.

Go watch this interpretation of the spaceship scene from Close Encounters instead.  It's much more amusing than any music-related bloviating I'd do anyway.

Today's post is a bit late, I had to have some work done on my car.  So, here is "Cars."

Yes, it's the one Gary Numan song everyone knows.  There have been a couple of instances here where I've gone out of my way to highlight a Gary Numan song OTHER than "Cars."  Still, I'll admit I hold a fondness for this song.  So go hear it for the 1,000,006th time already.

Watch the video for "Cars" on YouTube.

Still playing the hell out Dream Theater's Octavarium.  No, I will not post another song from it, but I will post a song that clearly influenced it.  DT trap-smasher Mike Portnoy stated openly that he was pretty heavily into Muse while Octavarium was being made.

And upon further listening, it's pretty obvious.  Go hear "Panic Attack" again.  And then give a listen to "Never Enough" while you're at it.  Then, go hear Muse's "Stockholm Syndrome."

Um, yeah.  Ya think?

Hear "Stockholm Syndrome" on YouTube.

Hey guys, check this out.  I just discovered this great punk band.  They're called the Vandals.  Seriously, I just happened upon them.  Holy crap, they are awesome.  They're from southern California, I think.  Their drummer's pretty decent, he's named Josh or something.

Their Fear of a Punk Planet album is, ya know, kinda rockin'.  It has this song about Farrah Fawcett dying... wait, didn't she just, like, die for real?  There's a cool one about some Vietnamese girl.  Oh my God, they're parodying a tune from Grease?  How utterly wacky!

And there's this song called "Anti."  Oh boy, this track is just balls out.  I wonder if any song in all of recorded history has ever rocked as hard as this one.

Hear "Anti" on YouTube.

(This is obviously a sarcasm-riddled post for the 2 or 3 people who read this thing somewhat regularly.  If you happened upon this entry directly, I've posted a cubic assload of Vandals songs here, including several from Punk Planet.  It's just that "Anti" was just posted to YouTube, and that's probably my favorite track from that record.  I wonder genuinely if any song in all of recorded history has ever rocked as hard as this one.)