Live music in a CD format. It sucks.

I was on my way to the Cubs game and I decided to stop into Best Buy to buy three albums, mainly for three different specific reasons.

Here are the albums and reasons.


The Cult, Sonic Temple.
I owned this fucking tape in High School, and remember it distinctly for two separate reasons. It was right before I made the switch from tapes to CD's thus kinda making all my tapes useless (Same thing happened when I bought Stargate on VHS) and it had two really good songs on it. One of them we all know as "Fire Woman", and the other was "Sweet Soul Sister". "Sweet Soul Sister" being the better, but less popular of the two.
Weirdly I never bought the CD after I lost the tape in High School, and reminded myself to buy the fucking thing. I remember back then thinking that The Cult should be the next big thing in rock music, then they fell by the wayside as the hair band era came of age. (Which is even weirder because the drummer on the Sonic Temple tour was Matt Sorum, who then went on to play for the wildly popular hair-glam band Guns and Roses) The Cult should have been bigger than they were, as they were an amalgamation of everything that was great with Rock music, which is of course why they never really became that great. I guess the lesson learned here is that little slices of good do not equal a big chunk of awesome.





Damn Yankees, Damn Yankees
I only really bought this CD to prove to Jules that she actually knew two, if not three songs by Damn Yankees. I, of course was completely fucking correct. She knew "High Enough", "Coming of Age", and I believe she was lying about knowing "Runaway" but I gave her the benefit since I already proved that I know more about her shitty musical tastes than she does. (I forgot about the song "Come Again")
The funny (not funny ha ha) thing (I think) about Damn Yankees is that all four members of this 1 album making group had a larger than life past or present than when they were with Damn Yankees. The critics dubbed them a "Supergroup" (which of course is right, but kinda not either) Damn Yankees is made up of Ted Nugent from Ted Nugent's band Ted Nugent, (IZZY WANGO TANGO!) and his band Amboy Dukes , Tommy Shaw of Styx (Como...Como...), Jack Blades of Night Ranger (a band that for some reason I am constantly getting confused with ELO) and Michael Cartellone who (none of you nor I should know unless you currently reside in the state of Mississippi) is the current drummer for Lynard Skynard.
If the band that you were with (either before or after) far outsells and is more of a critical success than the combined "Superstars" that made up Damn Yankees, than what's so fucking super about it? If you teamed up pork sausage and pancakes together, doesn't it become better? Of course it does, that's why pigs in a blanket were invented This analogy is completely fucking lost on the critics and Damn Yankees.



3 Doors Down, Another 700 miles
I bought this CD because I finally sat down and made a decision that I was going to suck it up and buy some of their music. While I couldn't name any of their songs (a complete lie, I know two. "Duck and Run", and "Here without You") I knew that whenever one of their songs comes on the radio I always enjoy it. (With exception to "Kryptonite")
Years and years ago I made a steadfast rule of CD purchasing, I won't buy a CD unless I know and like at least two songs on it. This all began in 1997 when I bought the 311 album "Transistor" Of course back in 1997 everyone loved 311 and any of their songs could be heard on every rock station in America. Their first self titled album was a hit, and I wasn't going to wait around for the second one to go gold, I was trying to be a cool 21 year old and was gonna be ahead of that curve. I, of course, was a complete fucking idiot and the only good song on the whole 21 song album was "Beautiful Disaster" Thanks to 311, I became fiscally responsible in the late 90's when it came to musical purchases. This steadfast rule isn't as steadfast as it used to be since the invention of digital music, Napster, Limewire, and other nefarious ways of getting (my)shit for free. Now of course we can, as a music consuming culture, buy a song off of the Internet without purchasing the entire CD. This means that we all buy less and less CD's, and now I usually only buy about 10-20 CD's a year. My CD buying skills have obviously atrophied, since I haphazardly purchased this live 3 Doors Down CD. Obviously this leads to the where title of the post comes from.
"Another 700 Miles" is a fucking live CD. I hate live CD's. Loathe them. Other than this CD, Nirvana's unplugged, and an Eric Clapton CD, the rest of my collection is (was) studio produced. I don't believe in live CD's, and every time a band puts a live CD out, I feel like they are artistically grasping at straws. Live music should never be taped because there is nothing that can make it better than a studio produced CD. It also feels like when a band is putting out a live music CD, they are saying that they don't really have any other material and just taped a show where they weren't completely fucking wasted on alcohol and Oxycontin's that sounded halfway good. It just another stream of revenue. (I'm not going to say that there isn't good live albums out there. etc. "Live at Leeds" by "The Who", and "Cheap Tricks" "Live at Budokan"....but I don't own these albums either)

I looked up the top selling Live Albums of all time and they are as follows:
Garth Brooks-Double Live
Kiss-Alive
Little Feats-Waiting for Columbus (Who?)
Bob Seger-Live Bullet
Peter Frampton-Frampton Comes Alive

The only one that you could argue wasn't done for purely monetary reasons is "Frampton Comes Alive". Before Peter Frampton made this album he was unknown. He released three records that were commercial failures as well as being in the band Humble Pie. (And the only reason you or I have any knowledge of the band Humble Pie is that in the Cameron Crowe movie "Almost Famous" there is a scene where the character Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) is traded from the band Stillwater to Humble Pie for a case of Heineken and 50 bucks) I would presuppose that the only reason that this album ever sold was because it was different. Different and the fact that no studio producer would have ever let Frampton use that stupid fucking voice synthesizer. (To even make my point, this douchebag currently does a Geico commercial using the voice synthesizer! One step above a fucking gecko people!)

There are two kinds of people that listen to live music. And possibly only really one kind, but two instances.

The first is the kind of fan that can't get enough of a bands music. Like Grateful Dead, Phish, and Dave Matthews fans. They have heard every fucking song a hundred times, they have all the underground shit, they know the band's wives names, they have spent an in-ordinate amount of time learning about the mundane facts of the band. (I sometimes come close in skirting this line) These are the same people that try to get you to listen to their band every time you see them. "What? You haven't heard the unreleased UK version of "What would you say", the harmonica by John Popper from Blues Traveler, and I didn't know that the harmonica could be trenchant, but it's fucking trenchant in this version!"


The second instance is the when someone is a huge fan of a bands music and has to get the live version of their songs because the concert they went to was so enjoyable. As if the live version that they have in their cars CD player puts them in the way back machine to the time they heard The Pixes play The Fillmore in 1996. Sure we all get nostalgic sometimes, we remember the time we got laid for the first time, or when we shaved our head at that kegger in college, but these people take it to a whole new level. We all have great memories from concerts and live music shows. (I can remember Joan Jett giving me the finger after I screamed for her to go fuck herself. Then I started a mosh pit to the song "Crimson and Clover") Trying to relive that experience makes them weird. Listen stoner, we all love concerts, and I'm pretty sure that you're suspect if you don't, but playing the live version of the band just to take you back to a better time in your life says a lot about you as a person. Its on par with High School Gym teachers and junior high football coaches still living out their glory days being the jock in High School who got all the pussy. Its just kinda sad.

I want studio produced music, and that's what I paid for. But it's not what I got. So thanks 3 Doors Down, I'm just gonna start stealing your music from now on.