Now I know both of these terms are outdated because there is no b-side of itunes and no hidden tracks for that matter. When I was in high school, it was a hobby of mine to search for hidden tracks on CDs. That was the band's chance to let their hair down and just be themselves. Sometimes, it was my favorite track on the album. I have a playlist on my MP3 player that is comprised entirely of hidden tracks.
Bands often had a lot of fun with their hidden tracks. Tool had some sort of poem recited at the end of their Undertow album. Nirvana had their Endless Nameless, in which Kurt smashes his guitar audibly. Aaron of Staind performed an unnamed song at the end of their Dysfunction album which was just him and a guitar. Before he starts the song, you can hear him set up a chair, take a drink and light up a cigarette. At the end of MateFeedKillRepeat, Slipknot perform an unnamed live song that sounds like it was recorded in a bar or a restaurant. Mushroomhead did a cover of Crazy by Seal on a hidden track on their album, XIII. Strangely enough, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes also did a cover of Crazy that year.
Speaking of Me First, here's a funny thing I noticed. This takes some setting up. At the end of NOFX's album, Punk In Drublic, there was a track where the singer was having trouble finding the note that starts the chorus of the song "Perfect Government". As you may know, Fat Mike is in both NOFX and Me First. He decided it would be funny to mock that hidden track as an intro to "Blowing In The Wind" as covered by Me First on their Blowin' In The Wind album. It's hilarious!
In the past, many bands would put out an album or b-sides, rarities and previously unreleased tracks. One thing I've noticed is that that was often my favorite album of theirs. Here's a list of what I mean:
-Pearl Jam: Lost Dogs
-Nirvana: Incesticide
-Blind Melon: Nico
-Smashing Pumpkins: Pisces Iscariot
That's just to name a few. I think that often, bands put out the songs that are the most polished and catchy for their albums. It's the songs they only do live or weren't deemed to be good enough to include on an album that often show you a more personal side of them. That's what I love about them. I like to know that a band I admire, who has made it huge, is really just like me behind the curtains. It makes me feel as if I can achieve my dreams.
On a related note, just not about music, my favorite Far Side compilation is where Gary Larson reveals some of the inspirations for his cartoons, his humble beginnings, some rejected ideas, as well as some sketches that never got developed into cartoons. It gives me a glimpse into his head. I guess that's kinda what I'm doing with this blog. It's as much for me as it is for anyone else. I'm trying to get out what's in my head to attempt to make sense of my rambling thoughts. If I can set things in order, maybe my writing can be more cohesive and concise.
I don't even know what I'm doing on a day to day basis, but when I go back and read my blogs, I can recognize patterns in my thought processes. I have cycles rolling around in my head, alternating between cynical, philosophical, spiritual, thoughtful, mean, happy, angry, depressed, whiny and so forth. I'm sure you can point out which mood I've been in when I was writing which blog. Writing really is like therapy for me. My only hope is that people out there can see a bit of themselves in my incoherent ramblings.
Bands often had a lot of fun with their hidden tracks. Tool had some sort of poem recited at the end of their Undertow album. Nirvana had their Endless Nameless, in which Kurt smashes his guitar audibly. Aaron of Staind performed an unnamed song at the end of their Dysfunction album which was just him and a guitar. Before he starts the song, you can hear him set up a chair, take a drink and light up a cigarette. At the end of MateFeedKillRepeat, Slipknot perform an unnamed live song that sounds like it was recorded in a bar or a restaurant. Mushroomhead did a cover of Crazy by Seal on a hidden track on their album, XIII. Strangely enough, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes also did a cover of Crazy that year.
Speaking of Me First, here's a funny thing I noticed. This takes some setting up. At the end of NOFX's album, Punk In Drublic, there was a track where the singer was having trouble finding the note that starts the chorus of the song "Perfect Government". As you may know, Fat Mike is in both NOFX and Me First. He decided it would be funny to mock that hidden track as an intro to "Blowing In The Wind" as covered by Me First on their Blowin' In The Wind album. It's hilarious!
In the past, many bands would put out an album or b-sides, rarities and previously unreleased tracks. One thing I've noticed is that that was often my favorite album of theirs. Here's a list of what I mean:
-Pearl Jam: Lost Dogs
-Nirvana: Incesticide
-Blind Melon: Nico
-Smashing Pumpkins: Pisces Iscariot
That's just to name a few. I think that often, bands put out the songs that are the most polished and catchy for their albums. It's the songs they only do live or weren't deemed to be good enough to include on an album that often show you a more personal side of them. That's what I love about them. I like to know that a band I admire, who has made it huge, is really just like me behind the curtains. It makes me feel as if I can achieve my dreams.
On a related note, just not about music, my favorite Far Side compilation is where Gary Larson reveals some of the inspirations for his cartoons, his humble beginnings, some rejected ideas, as well as some sketches that never got developed into cartoons. It gives me a glimpse into his head. I guess that's kinda what I'm doing with this blog. It's as much for me as it is for anyone else. I'm trying to get out what's in my head to attempt to make sense of my rambling thoughts. If I can set things in order, maybe my writing can be more cohesive and concise.
I don't even know what I'm doing on a day to day basis, but when I go back and read my blogs, I can recognize patterns in my thought processes. I have cycles rolling around in my head, alternating between cynical, philosophical, spiritual, thoughtful, mean, happy, angry, depressed, whiny and so forth. I'm sure you can point out which mood I've been in when I was writing which blog. Writing really is like therapy for me. My only hope is that people out there can see a bit of themselves in my incoherent ramblings.
Paul, what I see in this blog is "spinning cycles" and "I don't know what I'm doing day to day". This is common with all of us who become as sluggish as a computer in which routines bring us into that pattern. It is a pattern that keeps us in that virtual self-imposed imprisonment of self. It is called bondage of self looking for a way out. The pain traumas once flushed from the mind is like exactly as rebooting a computer.. the unplugging it from the wall has no code such as a virus protection program or a bit of software that speeds the CPU up. There's always a conflict. We get a rebooting of the system simply by reinviting ourselves as we were pretraumatized when born into this world in an unnatural way. Since 2010 your blogs maintain the common thread that once broken, you'll have moved into a whole new world of creative thinking. One of them will be devoid of morbid thoughts of zombiism and all that the rest is thriving on. We are human and we need to express humanistic characteristics as opposed to glorifying, or minimizing, a sorrowful state of being. I really wish you peace and happiness! Do the therapy and you'll see;) Lee
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