Monday, October 1, 2012

Geeks of Doom Invade Your Inbox

Posted by entertainment at 6:01 AM

Geeks of Doom Invade Your Inbox

Link to Geeks of Doom

$5 MP3 Album Deal: The Hives ‘Lex Hive’

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 11:30 AM PDT

The Hives Lex Hive

As part of Amazon's monthly $5 MP3 album deals for September 2012, The Hives' Lex Hives is on sale for only $5.

If you would like a physical copy of Lex Hives, the CD is available for only $10.91.

Released in June 2012, Lex Hives is the fifth studio album by Swedish garage rockers The Hives. Containing boisterous, pogo-worthy sing-alongs such as "Come On" and "Go Right Ahead," Lex Hives took five years to produce as it was the band's first self-produced effort. Frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist said in an interview, "Rather than squeeze in some studio time, we could go in to the studio whenever we wanted. It turns out that having five producers who have an equal say of everything isn't that fast." And if that riff from "Go Right Ahead" sounds familiar, it's not your imagination. After The Hives recorded the song, they realized it sounded just like Electric Light Orchestra's "Don't Bring Me Down" so they called up Jeff Lynne of ELO, got his blessing and shared the songwriting credit with him on Lex Hives.

Browse the main sale page to see all 100 albums on sale for only $5 each in MP3 format through the end of September 2012 [...]

Book Review: The Eleventh Plague

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 10:18 AM PDT

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch

The Eleventh Plague
Written by Jeff Hirsch
Scholastic
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle Edition
Release Date: September 1, 2012

I began reading Jeff Hirsch's debut novel with no small amount of trepidation as it is intended for Young Adults and I'm a not so young adult. Living in a place with a conservative political climate and a seemingly permanent spot on the "Top 10 Unemployed States in America" list also tends to make an endless parade of dystopian survival stories set in the near future seem a tad redundant. However, I was encouraged by the cover blurb from Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games, which says: "The Eleventh Plague hits disturbingly close to home...An excellent, taut debut novel." If I am being truthful, thus far I have only seen the film The Hunger Games, but I was impressed and view it as a sort of sensitive person's bigger budget version of Battle Royale (which I love) with great costumes. Luckily, The Eleventh Plague more than lives up to her praise.

Biological warfare has wiped out two-thirds of the American population decades earlier, and as a result society has collapsed. Fifteen-year-old Stephen Quinn is only vaguely aware of a country ruled by a government, with running water and hospitals from the wistful stories passed down by those old enough to remember one. Opening the novel, he and his Dad are burying his grandfather together, with an unpredictable future ahead of them as "scavengers." They have always lived a nomadic lifestyle scouring the desolate landscape for discarded items to sell/trade for survival under the stern guidance of an ex-Marine grandfather to keep them alive. Up until now, their family goals included eating, finding shelter against the elements, and avoiding others to stay out of trouble. But with the grandfather gone, they begin to wonder if there is more to life than surviving like baser animals [...]

Remembering The Late Marc Bolan Of T-Rex On His Birthday

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Marc Bolan

Today marks the birthday of the late Marc Bolan, glam child who took that rock genre and amped it up several notches with his main musical ensemble, T-Rex.

The British-born Bolan fused together the sounds of the early Elvis-Sun-Records era coupled with some Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent, and electrified up with glam arrangements to become one of the genre's forerunners. He had spectacular success in England during the early 1970s on par with The Beatles, in fact, even being immortalized on film about the whole escapade in the motion picture Born to Boogie directed by none other than the drummer for The Beatles, Ringo Starr.

With his wild, curly, large Adonis-style long hair, glitter affixed to his face, and a kind of star spangled multicolored fashion sense alongside the great rock and roll on amphetamines sounds, Bolan and T-Rex became a sensation in what seemed like overnight. In truth, Bolan had been kicking around in musical groups for a while prior to the success of T-Rex, some much quieter and more baroque sounding, almost like pagan style sounds which was the norm during that British folk rock era which was during the windup of the 1960s. With songs like the jaunty, fried blues "Jeepster," the dreamy "Ride A White Swan," "Telegram Sam," the chrome fetishistic "Metal Guru," and the grooving on a neon stick "Get it On (Bang a Gong), Marc Bolan and T-Rex were the most popular band in England by far, untouchable really during their heyday. Many of the aforementioned songs were number one smashes in England for Bolan and T-Rex when first released, and the band enjoyed success in America as well, although more limited than the frenzy of T-Rexmania on the other side of the pond. "Bang a Gong" became a hit, but Bolan remained, and still remains, more of a cult figure here stateside [...]

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