Outshined!

The verdict is here, before I turn 37, I am going to select the best music album of my entire life! Something I never thought would be possible but for some strange reason is quite obvious now. Drums rolling .... "Bad Motor Finger" by Soundgarden (1991) is at the all time number one position! Decision is made based on the music, vocals and lyrics and the magical fact that all of the tracks in this album are exceptional. The mysterious note is that every track you hear from this album feels better than the previous one, once you reach the end, listening to the first track one more time feels even better than the last. This is the concept of a strange loop, exactly like an Escher painting, an ever growing loop, like everything else in life.

Another major point is that for some reason I am absolutely certain that there will not ever be any album better than "Bad Motor Finger" in the future! Thank you Soundgarden for this miracle!

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Bad Motor Finger
Strange Loop
Escher
Honorable Mentions: 10 by Pearl Jam, Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains, Far Beyond Driven by Pantera, Undertow by Tool, Black Album by Metallica, Use Your Illusion by Guns 'n Roses

Master Eddie

I just had the pleasure to watch Peal Jam Unplugged one more time, thanks to PSJ. It is even more exciting to watch now than 15 years ago, the music is wonderful, improvisations fascinating, all the great songs from the Ten album and Eddie Vedder himself becomes one with the music. Watching him with the mic is a school of life in itself.. so pure ... so strong .. so focused ... so real!

It was also a trip to nostalgia land with memories of great friends around and the "Anything is Possible" days.

Oops.. gotta go since Alice In Chains unplugged is up next :).

The Torch is Burning

Torchlight is a wonderful game. Very well polished and fun. Made by the guys who have their roots in the creation of the Diablo series. I really like such RPG styles and I remember the good times with Titan Quest and Dungeon Siege.

It is nice for us to know that Torchlight uses OGRE as its rendering engine.

The new Slayer album is out. It is great, not super great but just great as usual, I wished they had a bit more magical melodies in there. Rammstein, very strong, very nice and artistic ... the track "pussy" should be dedicated to all music video clip directors.

Spiral

Well, now that adoosh and xerxes have reflected some valuable meanings which have always emotionally been said by Maynard, here goes the one which always hangs around me,

"Black then white are all i see in my infancy.

red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.

lets me see there is so much more and

beckons me to look thru to these infinite possibilities.

as below, so above and beyond, I imagine

drawn outside the lines of reason.

Push the envelope. Watch it bend.



over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.

Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.

Reaching out to embrace the random.

Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.



I embrace my desire to

I embrace my desire to

feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow

to feel inspired to fathom the power, to witness the beauty,

to bathe in the fountain,

to swing on the spiral

to swing on the spiral

to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.



With my feet upon the ground I move myeslf between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.

I feel it move across my skin.

I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.

what ever will bewilder me.

And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.

We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going."

Like a good wine

Oh these guys are so inspiring.... so many years and still fresh.... Mick Jagger is 63 and Keith Richards is 65 ... wow.

What is the secret of these rolling stones?

Waiting to see the new Scorsese movie by the way.

"Start me up !"

Music blues ...

The music industry has been complaining about the losses they face because of people downloading all kinds of music using the internet. Is this the first time that technology has been against an industry, a business or an individual? What about the guy who had a distant small restaurant by a road and sold warm food to travelers and suddenly because of the advent of railroads and trains, no body passed through that path and he went broke. (Actually this was a fictitious story and I don't know the guy)

We all know thousands of such stories, but usually these people and businesses are not as strong as the music industry to be able to make such big issues out of this reality and try to enforce all kinds of rules against it.

Lets face it, what is really happening here is a degeneration of values. Degeneration of the value of music for people. There used to be a time when you would wait for the release of a CD, buy it really quick, listen to it all day long, love it and sing it everyday .... but now, you have the music before you even know it has been released, there are so many artists and bands out there which are rather similar... you might even forget to listen to some music that you have because of this abundance and this has led to the degeneration of values that I am talking about... maybe because we have limited cognitive powers... we can not really find the value in situations of abundance of resources .... when you have lots of books available around you .. it would be hard to find the passion for following one of them as compared to the situation when you have a hard time finding a book.

So I think the root of the music industry crisis right now is this real value of music for each individual which has been lost and thus they will not be willing to pay much for something they don't care as much and this phenomena can not be changed much with enforcing all kinds of restraining rules and regulations... Dear artist (if I can call you so), your work is not admired by people these days as much as it used to be, and justice says you shouldn't expect to make as much money as you used to, don't push it.

So what about the poor artists ( ... poor really) , well they should do a research and see what all the people in the world did when they were faced with a change in the business ecosystem due to technology change and find another way of playing the game, a new game. Will some artists have to not be in the music industry anymore? Well I hope so... it will open possibilities for some real lovers and artists and also help in increasing the values... breaking the existing business driven monster. Maybe we have to start all over in this case and see how music should really be ...

The world will balance itself sooner or later...

Tool Band

This fabulous work illustrating my favorite(probably) band , Tool, is done by a friend of mine and our concept artist Soheil.

"Wear the grudge like a crown. desperate to control.
Unable to forgive. and were sinking deeper.

Defining, confining, sinking deeper. controlling, defining, and were sinking Deeper.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Lets you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Give away the stone. let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges Into gold.

Let go"

.... Yes .. . we have to let go... or Saturn will come down ....