Concert Shirt Of The Day Apr.30th (Guns N' Roses)

Today's t-shirt is from the Guns N' Roses show I saw in 1987 when I saw them open for The Cult at The Convention Centre here in Edmonton. This was GnR's first tour outside of the states. GnR's debut album Appetite For Destruction had just come out about a month before this show. I was already a fan of them as I already had their Live Like A Suicide release. I have never been a fan of The Cult, therefore I thought GnR kicked their ass, a real rocking show put on by the boys when GnR were actually a good band and not the crap they are now. Very few people at the show had any idea who GnR were at the time.

I just wish the t-shirt had tour dates on the back, but no such luck.

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Gruesome Twosome Concert Review

It's been a good week for me for free concert tickets. Last night I got to see the Gruesome Twosome Tour featuring Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie at Rexall Place in Edmonton courtesy of The Edmonton Sun. This was a co-headlining tour,with Alice opening last night, to a crowd of about 6,000.

This was my fifth time seeing Alice in concert and first time since 1990, so I was looking forward to seeing how he would do. After all the guy is in his 60's now. I thought he put on an alright show, he sounded good, vocals were a little strained but what do you expect after all these years. The song selection was good, opening with School's Out and playing such songs as Billion Dollar Babies,I'm Eighteen,Department Of Youth,Ballad Of Dwight Frye, what surprised me was the 2 songs in a row from the album From The Inside including the title song and Nurse Rozetta and then he had to ruin it with the god awful song Poison, man that song blows.

During Alice's set he was put to death 3 times, with the guillotine, the hanging and then the hypodermic needle during Poison. Now when I saw him years ago, the death thing happened once, now he does all three in the course of a 80 minute set. To be honest, I think Alice is killing himself with his shtick, it's getting old and he has played Edmonton, I think 3 times in the past 5 years. Little bit overkill.

I had read that this Alice tour was going to be a big production show as he hasn't played a big coliseum show in years, but to me it was more of the same old shtick.







Headlining the show was Rob Zombie, who also has played here a few times in the past couple of years. This was my second time seeing him perform (first time at Ozzfest in Vancouver 1999). Now his show was a big production, big stage,lots of lights,flashes,cool skull microphones,couple of naked women at one point streaking across the stage,lots of video images playing on screens and on his monitors, but then you have him in his Road Warrior get up and his music. Now, I don't mind some of his tunes, but after about 3 songs, they all just start to sound the same. he did play one song I like "More Human Than Human" bu the rest were just boring. Having said that though, this was definitely his crowd, he had everyone chanting Zombie and raising their fists and carrying on.




All and all not a bad show, not one I would have payed to see, but am glad I got to see it. I was really hoping to see Alice put on a bit of a better show.
I went to this show with my friend A-Bomb. he had a good comment on Rob Zombie, that I would have to agree with him on "Rob is a lazy singer".
I give this show a 6.5 out of 10.



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Concert Shirt Of The Day Apr.28th (Joe Satriani)

Today's t-shirt is from 1990 when I saw Joe Satriani play at The Agricom. This was quite the guitar virtuoso show, I still think Stu Hamm the bass player stole the show with his awesome bass solo of the Peanuts theme.
This show was put on by radio station K97, look at the price on the ticket stub, they had early bird special on tickets.

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Band Of Skulls Concert Review

Last night April 26th myself and A-Bomb went to see Band Of Skulls with Silver Starling and Saint Motel play at The Starlite Room in downtown Edmonton.

The evening started with the four piece Los Angeles based band Saint Motel. Unfortunately we arrived a little late and only caught the last 4 songs of there set, but was very impressed with what we saw and heard. The band sound like a cross between Weezer and Vampire Weekend, they rocked big time, tight band, good lyrics and really cool visuals on the three screens playing behind the band. They obviously did some research on the city they were playing in, as they had cool old footage of the Edmonton Oilers playing the Flames, some goals, some scraps and old time hockey. They also had footage from the local CTV news, shots from the weather channel showing winter temperatures -30 and such, and footage of our cold winters, howling winds blowing snow, winter driving, just a really cool montage of local stuff.

After their set, I had the chance to talk to a few of the guys at the merch booth, all of them were super nice guys and more then happy to take the time to talk. Two of the guys are visual art students and the other guy I talked to is a photographer. So they had a pretty good idea of how to put together such cool footage. All and all a very good opening band. I will be watching for more music by them. I did manage to pick up their 6 song EP called "For Play" (5 dollars) which also includes all their videos. Best opening band I have seen since catching Blitzen Trapper a few years ago.




Next up was a band from Montreal called Silver Starling. We caught their first couple of songs and then left for a few beers next door at Hawkeyes. We weren't all that impressed with them. I found them to be a bit too artsy fartsy for me.

Headliners, Band Of Skulls from the UK were next. I have been listening to them for about 6 months now and was excited about getting to see them play live. And they didn't disappoint, they were awesome as well. They played for about an hour basically playing their whole debut album (Baby Darling Doll Face Honey) They sounded good with a great guitar player and a lady bass player who looked a lot like one of the Ramones. One part that bothered me through out the show was the couple of dufuses who felt they had to yell Coachella after every song. Ok, we get it, you saw Band Of Skulls a few weeks ago at the Coachella Fest, get over it, we don't care. Even the band themselves said " hey we aren't there, this is Edmonton" lol.
I would give this show an 8 out of 10, a good time was had.

I would also like to thank Sandra Seprounes for putting me on the guest list for this show after winning a contest through her blog, click here to checkout her excellent blog on the local music scene.

Oh ya, I also picked up a 10 inch limited edition Band Of Skulls picture disc single featuring "I Know What I Am" and "Blood" for 10 dollars (sweet deal).

Lyrics Of The Day Apr.26th (Pavement)

"Harness your hopes to the folks
with the liquor with the ropes,
Red, red ropes, periscopes
They've got everything you will ever need
stored under the chair"

Lyrics from the song "Carrot Rope" off the album Terror Twilight (1999) by Pavement.

Pavement have just reunited for a tour, no word on an Edmonton show, but they are playing in Vancouver on Sept.7th.

Concert Shirt Of The Day Apr.25th (Dave Matthews Band)

Today's t-shirt is actually a long sleeve concert shirt I bought when I saw The Dave Matthews Band play at The Plaza Of Nations in Vancouver in 1998. On the day of this show, I actually went to two concerts in one night, as I also saw Bob Dylan play a bar that same night in Vancouver, at a bar called The Rage. It was a very eventful evening to say the least. I had been hanging out with a friend of mine (Miles) for the day drinking beers and such, had an awesome glow on for the DMB show, I had to leave about two thirds of the way through the show in order to catch Dylan, but still a very good show and fun night.
I actually kind of consider this long sleeve shirt a dress shirt for me,lol. Just the colour and design kind of looks fancy to me, although now the shirt has a stain on it, therefore I know longer have a dress shirt.

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Concert Shirt Of The Day Apr.23rd (Jethro Tull)

Today's t-shirt is from the Jethro Tull concert my friend Nerraw and I went to in Calgary at The Jubilee Auditorium there back in 1994. They were on their 25th anniversary tour.

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Lyrics Of The Day Apr.22nd (Blitzen Trapper)

"Baby's got a worship like a river on the coast
Crashing through the land and moving with a mighty rush
It's a long way, oh, joker, to let the fire burn
And that's a slow-rolling country caravan of innocence"

From the song Country Caravan by Blitzen Trapper on the album Wild Mountain Nation (2007)


Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation
Uploaded by BlitzenTrapper. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Concert Shirt Of The Day Apr.21st (Iron Maiden)

Today's t-shirt is one I bought back in 1987 when I saw Iron Maiden with opening band Waysted at Northlands Coliseum. Maiden were touring for their album called Somewhere In Time. I like what they called this tour "Somewhere On Tour". I actually bought a few t-shirts at this show, as I was a huge Maiden fan and had money to blow back then. Also t-shirts didn't cost you an arm and a leg back then either.

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It was also at this show where my good friend Joe caught Dave Murray's wristband when he threw it into the crowd, which he was nice enough to give to me. We had row one on the floor for this show.


Iron Maiden will be playing here in Edmonton at Rexall Place on Saturday June 26th with opening band Dream Theatre.

Grady At The Starlite Room

Well, my ears finally stopped ringing after seeing Grady play at The Starlite Room on Saturday April 17th. This was my sixth time seeing Grady play live and yet once again another great fucking show. I went to the show with Buzzard,Hurl,A-Bomb and Cuz and a great time was had by all. We timed it perfect, beers at my place, a few at Buzzard's and beer at Hawkeye's,reefer in parking lot, walk into the show, get to front of stage and BAM, Grady in your fucking face. Holy fucking loud this show. I have seen Grady lots, but I think this was the loudest I have heard them play. I give this show a 10 out of 10 again. What a great way too top off Record Store Day :)

In other Gordie Johnson news... rumour is, his old band Big Sugar will be playing a few reunion shows this summer. The only confirmed show I have heard is April 23rd in Whistler, B.C. Here is hoping Big Sugar can make it through Edmonton this summer, that would be awesome.

Record Store Day Purchases

Saturday April 17th was Record Store Day, a celebration of independent record stores. I managed to get out and visit a few of the local record shops here in Edmonton. It was good to see the shops busy all day.

I made my way to the record shops on Whyte Ave, my first stop was Blackbyrd Myoozik, I was there bright and early 10am, and the place was already packed with customers searching out the special record day limited edition releases. Unfortunately most of the special releases never made it up to Canada or there orders didn't make in time for Saturday. I did find a few interesting things though.

At Blackbyrd I got the new Pavement release Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement. This release is a special limited edition Record Store Day version with different art work and track listing then the original version that came out a month ago.




Also at Blackbyrd I found an Elvis Costello 7" single released for Record Store Day. It is a limited edition release, not sure how many were put out, but mine is numbered 1126. The single is called Live At Hollywood High Side One has the song Pump It Up and Side Two has Lip Service and Waiting For The End Of The World.




My next stop was Megatunes which was also very busy. At Megatunes I got another Record Store Day special release, a limited edition John Lennon Singles Bag which is a pretty cool package containing 3 seven inch singles (Single One has Mother on side one and backed with Why, Single Two has Imagine backed with It's So Hard, Single 3 has Watching The Wheels backed with Yes, I'm Your Angel) all the singles have the original artwork also in the package are three postcards,a 24X36 poster of John and Yoko and it also came with an adapter to play the singles,overall a very cool package, it too is a limited edition release of only 7000, mine is numbered 6859.







My last stop of the day was at Sound Connection which wasn't quite as busy as the other shops but still is a classic record shop for used vinyl. Though they didn't have any of the special releases for Record Store Day as they didn't get there order in time. Talking to the owner there Steve is always good, as he is a super nice guy, he told me to drop in early next week and see if he got any of the special releases. While at Sound Connection I did mange to buy a few old records. here is a list of what I picked up.
- The Royal Court Of China - Self Titled album released in 1987
- Sir Douglas Quintet - Rio Medina released in 1984
- Sir Douglas Quintet - Quintessence released in 1982
- Wet Willie - The Wetter The Better released in 1976

All and all, another successful Record Store Day.