[acidtripwow]

Picked up the following CDs yesterday.

Patricia Barber - Verse. If you are the artsy fartsy type then you will love this CD. It's not really my taste. It just seems geared more toward the French poetry type with spoken words replacing any type of singing. It's a very slow paced CD where to me all the songs sound very much the same. There is really nothing here that stands out for me. It's great for some background music if you want to take a nap.

Geoff Tate - Geoff Tate. Geoff Tate from Queensryche solo effort. I think Geoff should have probably retired a few years ago. Long gone are the high energy Rock songs from Queensryche. This is mostly a bunch of low energy pop songs. A couple of the songs are catchy but none are killers. Geoff, please take your millions and buy an island instead.

Meredith Brooks - Bad Bad One. Finally something good. I've been in lust with Meredith Brooks ever since I saw her in a DVD I have. She was just smoking. In more ways than one. This is a very good CD with some very catchy Pop/Rock tunes. Some are even top 10 material. Which really isn't saying much these days but what the heck. This one gets 2 thumbs up.

 

[scottpaul_iu]

Acid,

Got to agree with you on the Geoff Tate disc, cuz I thought this disc sucked big time. A big major disappointment.

At least there are a few discs I am looking forward to. The new Gov't. Mule, Derek Trucks Band and Allman Bros Band.

 

[kelly]

I don't really agree that the Geoff Tate album sucks. Comparing it to Queensryche is a little unfair. It's like comparing a Ferarri's front passenger tire to the whole Ferarri.

I like Geoff's voice and these are the kind of songs I expected from him as a solo artist. They're a synth heavy and pop'ish but rock inspired. It makes me think that if Queensryche had any female audience members that he might actually sell a few copies of this.

The talent of Queensryche was guitartist and songwriter Chris DeGarmo, as evidenced by Queensryche's last rather poor effort without him. Though I think the bassist and drummer were also awesome talents, my interest in the band left with Chris. Geoff Tate is simply nothing special to me, and never really was.

 

[Tuberoller]

Acid,

I gotta say.I was a bit disappointed by the Patricia Barber disc as well.I found only one track to my liking and it had to grow on me a little.This is not her style and straying away from what she does best is not a good thing for her to do.I dislike this disc as much as the Diana Krall "The Look of Love" release.

 

[acidtripwow]

Quote:

The talent of Queensryche was guitartist and songwriter Chris DeGarmo,

This is what I think, too. I have the last Queensryche DVD without Chris and it's just not the same.

 

[scottpaul_iu]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly The talent of Queensryche was guitartist and songwriter Chris DeGarmo, as evidenced by Queensryche's last rather poor effort without him.

Kelly,

Great analysis of the impact of DeGarmo's departure.

I saw Tate live in Metro Detroit. The songs were better live. I am a QR fan going back to 83 and their EP. I have been disappointed with everything since Empire.

 

[scottpaul_iu]

Quote:

Originally posted by acidtripwow This is what I think, too. I have the last Queensryche DVD without Chris and it's just not the same.

Gotta agree. I got the live CD and DVD. Really disappointed in both. Kelly Gray was never a good fit.

 

[kelly]

I'm actually not one of the people who didn't like anything after Empire. In fact, I listen to Promised Land on headphones a lot.

I've seen Queensryche in concert once on the Mindcrime tour (opening for Metallica), once on the Empire tour (they headlined and played Mindcrime in its entirety), once on the Promised Land tour, once on the Hear in the Now Frontier Tour, once on the Q2K tour and once when they were touring this last time with Halford and Maiden.

The last several times were great. They played EM156 back to back with Screaming In Digital once, even. The band had always been very theatric on stage and very professional.

This last time I saw them I really felt like they were a bunch of has beens from the 80s. They played only the hits/fan favorites and Geoff Tate screwed up some of the words--almost in a lounge act kind of way, as if he just didn't care at all. The one immediately before that was a combination of almost all Q2K and Mindcrime material, as if to say, "Hey we're that cool band that does Operation Mindcrime, please go buy our new crap."

Bleh. I'm kind of glad to see them break up entirely. It's better than having them drag out to be another one of those bands that was "only good from year x to year y."

 

[pigmode]

Ha!! I quit while I was ahead---I know nothing of Queensrysche post Empire. I could even do without Empire if needed.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Actually, I saw Queensryche on the Promised Land tour, and was quite impressed. They really did a "show", in my favourite sense of the word -- lots of interesting visuals, but not to the detriment of the music. I would have seen them again, except...well, I forget why not, prolly because DeGarmo left...

Hey, pop-quiz -- does anyone know (without looking it up) what that thingy that's almost the Queensryche logo is? For example, on the cover of Empire:

(Will try to come back on Saturday with an answer if no-one has guessed it.)

 

[kelly]

It's a triiryche. (sp)

(that thing on the Promised Land cover is called a totem pole, though)

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly It's a triiryche. (sp) (that thing on the Promised Land cover is called a totem pole, though)

Yeah, but...maybe a better question is, what does it represent?

 

[pigmode]

When I was at the HardRock Cafe Lahaina this past weekend, up on the wall there was DeGarmo's guitar (could have been Wilton's, I guess), that was shaped in that exact form.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dusty Chalk Yeah, but...maybe a better question is, what does it represent?

It's a map of the electrical activity in the human neural system (brain, spine, etc.). The giveaway is the cover on Operation: Mindcrime and one of the videos from that era.

 

[pigmode]

Ohh. And to think that for all this time I took it for a fantasy depiction of a halberd/dagger/sword, fashioned in a pseudo batman motif with a big side order of adolescent male heavy metal styling...