I’m In A Rock ‘N Roll Band

…well no, I’m not, I’ve just been watching a programme of that name on iPlayer.

The show’s website asks for suggestions for who would be in your fantasy band, so I offered my opinion.

If they were all around at the same time, I would’ve loved to have seen what these guys might’ve done together:

Freddie Mercury on lead vocals

Jimi Hendrix on guitar

Flea on bass

John Bonham on drums

Matt Bellamy on keys and backing vocals

Musings On Religion, Part 2 (Resisting the Truth)

You could read religion into more lyrics than I have written about here, but I’m probably taking this a bit far as it is.

Guiding Light

I’m lost, crushed, cold and confused with no guiding light left inside.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” – Jesus

you’re losing life’s wonder

Ignoring the reason life was created is bound to lead to problems, and the results can be seen in the number of abortions that take place. Between 1967 and 2007, 6.7 million babies were killed. 0.4% were due to risk to the mother’s life. 1.3% were due to foetal handicap. 1 in 5 pregnancies in England and Wales ends in abortion.

Unnatural Selection

 

No religion or mind virus, is there a hope that the facts will ever find us?

So religion is compared to a “mind virus”. I’m glad he doesn’t just lump all religion together though. In an interview with Q magazine he says: “I want to decipher the motive and the beneficiary behind things. Like Catholicism. Is it about God? No. It strikes me as more likely being about power, money and child abuse.”
Bringing up child abuse is probably crossing a line, but he has a point, if religions are false (and they can’t all be right), then the power they have over people is quite scary.

I think science has limits to what it can tell us, so if that’s all you’re relying on, then I don’t think all the facts will find you. “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein

Musings On Religion, Part 1 (Origin of Absolution and Revelations)

I’m not aware of anything about religion on Showbiz, so we begin with the end of Origin of Symmetry.

Megalomania

“Paradise comes at a price
that I am not prepared to pay.
What were we built for?
Could someone tell me please?
Take off your disguise,
I know that underneath, it’s me.”

I would say “Paradise comes at a price that I am not able to pay.”

And in answer to the question what were we built for?

“Q. 3. Why did God make you and all things ?
A. For his own glory.”

 

Spot The Difference

Sing For Absolution

“There’s nowhere left to hide;
in no one to confide.
The truth burns deep inside
and will never die…
Our wrongs remain unrectified…”

Definitions of absolution on the Web:

“the condition of being formally forgiven by a priest in the sacrament of penance
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn“

Ok, well, only God has the authority to forgive sins (the Jews wanted to kill Jesus when he claimed to be able to do so), so if we are only absolved by a priest, then our wrongs do indeed remain unrectified. When we meet God there will be nowhere left to hide, and if he hasn’t forgiven us there will be no one to turn to. The truth burns deep inside, and will never die.

Thoughts of a Dying Atheist

“Are you afraid to die?
It scares the hell out of me.”

I wonder why, if our lives are just chemical reactions anyway, it should be so scary that they should end.

Four Horsemen?

Take A Bow

“You will burn in hell.”

The possibility needs to be taken seriously. You need to be absolutely sure that you’re not going to hell. If you don’t believe hell exists, is there any possibility you could be wrong?

City of Delusion

“build a fortress and shield your beliefs…
Can I believe
when I don’t trust?
All your theories turn to dust.
I choose to hide
from the All-Seeing Eye…
You will not rest
or settle for less,
until you’ve guzzled and squandered what’s left.
Do not deny
that you live and let die.”

In some ways I think he has a point here, a lot of us Christians don’t live our lives as very good examples. I can only point to the example that Christians are aiming to imitate (that would be Jesus) and suggest that trying to hide from the All-Seeing Eye might make quite a cool lyric, but in practice it’s not sensible.

Shake Shake, Shake Shake a-Shake It

Don’t worry, this post has absolutely nothing to do with Metro Station.
There are enough Cyruses in the world without that one tagging along on his sister’s success.

Shake is Friday night at Moles in Bath.

I’d been waiting about 3 years to see Blackbud again.

To be honest, this time around, I prefer them on the album (listen to the whole thing for free here). I dragged along two friends who don’t know them (one had heard 3 songs prior to the gig), I can imagine if I didn’t know the songs that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. I don’t think of Blackbud as a loud band, but they played their louder songs and properly went for it. I’m also not a fan of guitarists playing with feedback much. Not that I think bands should just try and please the crowds, but I think if people choose to listen to that sort of noise, they’re a bit weird.
Also, like Port Erin’s album launch, it seemed to be a rather short set.

There were positive sides to the gig though.

Port Erin opened. It must be pretty disheartening to play in front of that small number of people, but they’ve grown on me since last I saw them. Again there was the loud messing about with feedback, but overall I’m more likely to buy their album now than I was before.

The other support act were called Bow. I really liked them, as did my friend who had not heard anything of Blackbud before last night. They looked like they should sound like Foals, but the best comparison I can come up with is Fleet Foxes, with maybe a bit of Starsailor thrown in. I’m always sceptical about bands with more than four members ‘cos I like to be able to pick out every part, but I definitely want to hear more from them, although I do think they could have done without either the keyboard or the lead guitar. Also, I reckon if you’re gonna play a Manson guitar à la Matt Bellamy, you gotta really play it, not just provide atmospheric background noise, but seriously I really liked them. The trouble is, with a name like Bow, it’s so far proved impossible to find them anywhere on the internet.

Musing

Matt Bellamy - he's from Teignmouth. My grandparents used to go there on holiday.

New Muse Album and Tour later this year.

‘Otherworldly disco’, ‘orchestral monsters’, ‘at least one 15 minute space-rock solo’, ‘it may just be one 50 minute symphony’, ‘like a full collaberation with an orchestra’, ’we’ll be knocking on Classic FM’s door, you know?’

…and apparently Matt’s composing all the orchestral parts himself ‘cos he’s worried about another composer changing his music.

Sounds awesome.

I tend to think of Origin of Symmetry as their most consistently brilliant album so far, but there are great things about all of them.

I would possibly choose Unintended from Showbiz as their single best song, I tend to find that if I can play a song on guitar it makes it less impressive, but in this case, even though I can play and sing it (sometimes even at the same pitch as Matt) at the same time, I still love it. Escape is also a favourite. I’m not necessarily opposed to lots of production, I think music should sound how the artist intends it to sound, I’m mainly interested in quality of lyrics and composition than ‘sound’, but this is a good ‘raw’ album.

My favourite songs on Origin would have to be Space Dementia, Citizen Erased, and Micro Cuts has grown to be one of my favourites after initially being the weird song that I usually skipped.

Absolution has Butterflies & Hurricanes. It’s worth having just for that really. I’m not a big fan of Time Is Running Out, although I do play and sing along to that too. Obviously there’s Stockholme Syndrome and Apocalypse Please which are also great.

Black Holes & Revelations excites me less, but works well live. I would like Knights of Cydonia a lot more if it didn’t contain the suggestion that God falls asleep on the job. Watching the Invincible guitar solo is one of the highlights on the HAARP dvd, and I love the Maggie’s farm ending to Map of the Problematique (obviously that’s not part of Black Holes, but to me it’s part of what Muse are about). If you don’t already have the Grand Omega Bosses Edit of Assassin (B-side to Knights of Cydonia), you have to hear it, I can only assume it was left off the album because it’s too good, the rest of Black Holes sounds boring in comparison.

Muse’s ‘best yet’ – BBC
Theories about the new Album at MuseWiki
Tour Details coming soon – Muse official website