New Phrases

From here on out, a public bathroom in which all stalls are occupied shall be known as "Murderer's Row."

You're welcome.

Rancid - Up to No Good

In this age of faux punk bands like radio-friendly Fall Out Boy constantly exposed on Mtv and Green Day receiving constant, albeit deserved praise for their ambition, it has become increasingly more difficult for those who keep the punk spirit alive to stay relevant. Despite this, Rancid has battled on without losing a step or a bit of their fire in now their 19th year as a band.

Listen below to "Up to No Good," on their 2009 release Let the Dominoes Fall. This song could easily have fit right onto the track listing on 1995's classic And Out Come the Wolves...

Buddy's Watching You

In honor the Eagles' big win over Kansas City today, I bring you a video I am sad to know exists.

HERE we have the 1988 Eagles performing a rap song called "Buddy's Watching You," which they recorded for charity. I know these professional sports raps were all the rage in the mid to late 80's after the 1985 Bears recorded the Super Bowl Shuffle, but I've always been proud to know my beloved Philadelphia teams had wisely steered clear of such nonsense....until now.

Home Sharing

From the "where the eff were you when I was in college?" files, iTunes newest update 9.0 brought us something called Home Sharing. With Home Sharing, up to 5 computers on the same network can share their iTunes music libraries with one another. This means all you need to do is click and drag someone else's music into your own library and it's now on your drive ready to be copied to an iPod or just listened to at your leisure.

There are some hitches, of course. Something called "copyright law?" doesn't want you sharing music with other people who aren't you, so you need to "authorize" iTunes with the same user name and password on each device to be able to share freely. But with some creativity and trust this can be just a small hurdle.

Beatles Rock Band Review

Beatles Rock Band is a beautiful game that gives a brief glimpse into the band's career. In it, you choose an instrument and difficulty on which you'll play the instrument before being taken via photo collage to various venues the Beatles played throughout their career. It starts in Britain's storied Cavern and ends, of course, on the rooftop of Apple Records. There are 9 levels, but 3 of them are just various Abbey Road sessions so songs played on these levels are usually spiced up with some trippy visuals like THIS. Or maybe the Beatles used to play in open meadows a lot. Either way, it looks so fantastic that even Ringo's virtual avatar appears to be somewhat handsome. Aside from that, here are a few other things I like:

1. In between songs and on loading screens, Harmonix has placed rare audio clips of the Beatles in studio before and after takes along with other relevant audio clips such as Ed Sullivan's introduction of the band onto his show in 1964.

2. Scoring well on individual songs awards you hi-def photographs, video, and rare music clips that can be explored at any time. For example, one of the earliest prizes is an edited version of the band's fan club Christmas record from 1963.

3. Unlike other Rock Band versions, this game allows for multiple vocalists: one lead and the rest harmonizing. I haven't used this feature yet, but I assume it's challenging and a welcome addition. It certainly adds an element of authenticity to your career as a Beatle.

4. The game seems to cater to parties and players new to music video games. It's quite simple to join in for a song and then drop out whenever you like. Also, choosing Easy Mode automatically puts you in "no-fail" mode, meaning no matter how awful you are the Cavern goers won't boo you off stage.

5. It makes you appreciate the proficiency of the musicians. I knew George was an excellent guitarist, but I think all these years I've been underrating Paul's bass skill and Ringo's creativity on the drums.

(Speaking of which, it's true playing a plastic guitar is no substitute for the real thing, but playing the plastic drums, I hear, is very close to what it's like to play the real thing.)

I realize it's just a game, but here are some things I would change if I could:

1. The UI is boring and simple.

2. The game should tell you who is credited with writing each song and who sings which parts. The way it is now the lead singer is the lead singer regardless of whether or not the song uses more than one lead (Eight Days a Week, for example).

3. I would add a "hardcore" version of the game that forces you to choose one of the band members and then perform that person's duties for each of the songs. For example, you'd choose Paul and have to play the bass on most songs and switch between lead and backup vocals as you go. It would require 4 players and 4 mics, but I'm okay with that. I'm just saying it should be an option.

4. Lastly, I really have to question the song selection. It really seems like the makers of the game tried so hard to include George and Ringo in the singing duties that the 45 songs in the game's song selection are disproportionate to the Beatles' career. For example, the game seems to intentionally leave out Strawberry Fields Forever just so it can keep Ringo's cover of "Boys." As another example, 8 of the 45 songs are sung by George. I understand keeping songs like Taxman, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Something, but in the first installment of this game did they need to include I Me Mine and Within You/Without You? But at least George wrote those songs. This game also includes 5 Ringo songs! I say they should have drawn the line with Yellow Submarine and Octopus' Garden since he actually wrote it. I might add Act Naturally, but again, personal preference.

As a result of the song selection, some songs are not as fun to sing. I realize this is personal preference too and probably a result of having less knowledge of some of these, but here are the songs I can't stand to have to try and sing: Birthday, Dig a Pony, Hey Bulldog, I Me Mine, Within You Without You, Tomorrow Never Knows, I Wanna Be Your Man, Boys, The End.

On the plus side, most of the songs are fun to sing and play along to. After all, it's the Beatles. Here are some personal favorites: Good Morning Good Morning, Taxman, Paperback Writer, Here Comes the Sun, And Your Bird Can Sing.

Having played with several people, I can say that the best part of the game is that everyone's experience and tastes are just as diverse as the Beatles' catalog, so there's something for everyone.

American Id...iot

When Green Day released its 2004 album American Idiot, it was met with a swarm of Tommy and The Wall comparisons for its uniform theme surrounding its central character, "Jesus of Suburbia." I understood the comparison on a basic level but I assumed the album could never work on film or stage because of its lack of any cohesive plot. I remember "rock opera" becoming the buzz phrase to describe American Idiot almost to the point of annoyance

Well, someone's since attempted to write a plot, and American Idiot made its debut as "musical theatre" in Berkely, CA this week. They say if it does well you can expect to see it on Broadway, but for now it seems the rehearsed singing of these trained actors sounds like it would ruin the energy of the original music. I'm told the set looks like it's been stolen from Rent. I think I'd have to learn more about this supposed plot before I'd sign up to see something like this, and I consider myself a huge Green Day fan.

Check out some video from a news cast HERE.

Cloudy With a Chance of Samberg

Cubsicle can finally move on from all of these slop posts about music to return to our regularly scheduled programming: fanblogging about Andy Samberg minutiae.

In today's video Samberg, one of the "lesser stars" of the upcoming children's movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, attempts to show the viewer how animation is made, even though he has no idea.

Like all Lonely Island productions it starts off seemingly legitimate and ends up...somewhere much different.

Watch it HERE.

Flip Flop Flyball

Craig Robinson is an English artist and designer who has made a career out of miniature pixel art like that which you see here. He hosts a career's worth of creativity at his website Flip Flop Flyin'.

Recently he started to apply his other, non-pixel related talents to the world of sports (mostly baseball), by making various charts and other visual aids to help explain fun sports facts. Above is a picture, also available here, that visually explores how often the regular season's best baseball team actually goes on to become world champion.

The website, Flip Flop Fly Ball, is full of a lot of other cool stuff, too. Check it out.

Yoko Oh No!

Good news! Looks like Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley and pop singer Avril Lavigne are on the outs.

For me, Sum 41 was never just another Green Day clone from Canada. They were different if only for two reasons: their angry, sarcastic lyrics, and their lead guitarist Dave "Brownsound" Baksh, whose heavy metal inspired guitar sound made the band stand out amongst its peers. Then Deryck married Avril, Brownsound left the band, and Sum 41 was left a power trio who wrote 2007's Underclass Hero, the band's (Deryck's) attempt at a conscientious record. The album failed miserably. It tried to be Green Day's American Idiot, only it wasn't smart enough and it needed a little metal influence.

I'm not sure how accurate these rumors of a split are, and I doubt Dave would rejoin the band with Avril out of the way, but it has been rumored that the other members refer to her as Yoko Oh No, so I'm sure it can only help. I'm at least looking forward to hearing what kind of lyrical content might be produced as a result of this pseudo-celebrity divorce.

Ozma

Of all the Weezer clones to come out of the mid 90s and into the 2000s, none would have your friends saying "this is Weezer, right?" moreso than Ozma. It was appropriate, then, that Ozma got their first big break in 2001 when Weezer fans voted them into an opening act on a summer tour. In fact, having put out 4 solid LPs since then, some might say Ozma has out-Weezered Weezer.

They're pretty good. But you don't have to take my word for it...

	Ozma - Spending Time
	Found at skreemr.com

Werth & Wurster

Today's we feature a bonus version of Separated at Birth.

After the conclusion of last week's episode of The Best Show on WFMU, fans (called the "Friends of Tom [Scharpling,host]) gathered at a bar near the station for a Gathering of the FoTS where they met the host and that night's guests Ted Leo, and John Hodgman. Also appearing live was one of the show's famous callers Philly Boy Roy, who is actually Jon Wurster, primary drummer for such indie acts as Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, Bob Mould, and touring or session drummer for a whole host of other bands like REM, Rocket from the Crypt, and The New Pornographers.

As you can imagine, Philly Boy Roy is rarely photographed so while checking out a fan's photographic account of the night, I thought it was interesting to see that he looks ironically like Phillies' RF Jayson Werth.

On that note, let's listen to my all-time favorite track from Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.

	Ted Leo / Pharmacists - Timorous Me
	Found at skreemr.com

Separated at Birth: NFL Edition #4

Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is like the two-face from that one episode of Seinfeld. Sometimes he's on the cover of Michigan Avenue looking clean and athletic, but most of the time he looks tired, fat, and unfortunately a lot like notoriously ugly (but funny) comedian Eugene Mirman.

Separated At Birth: NFL Edition #3

Now that Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is finally out of Brett Favre's shadow, I can finally share that I think he looks like BJ Novak (The Office's Ryan Howard), and people might actually know who I'm talking about.

Novak, by the way, plays a small but important role in this summer's Inglorious Basterds which is very much worth seeing.

Rush

When the movie "I Love You, Man" wasn't making gay jokes or poking fun at Lou Ferrigno, it was basically an hour of two men and their mutual admiration of their favorite band, Rush. Paul Rudd and Jason Segel refer to the band as the "Holy Triumverate" on more than one occasion, and the band even plays on stage in a concert scene. However lame this may seem, the director did a good job of making it sound like Rush really rocked more than I'd previously thought, so I decided to delve a little further into their discography, and I think he may have been on to something. Rush rocks. Remember, they did show up at #5 on this link for Rolling Stone's top power trios. Not only that, but I can hear a lot of their style in many of the younger bands I listen to today. In a post I wrote: about power trios I said

I would submit that it's actually Rush who are the best, mostprolific (power trio) of all time because even though I'm not a big fan, it's amazing to listen to the sound they produce with three people in a live performance.

Well, now I'm a big fan.

In an upcoming post I'll do my best to compare Rush to Coheed and Cambria, but until then I highly recommend The Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974-1987 as a good Rush starter/catch-up album. And if you need a push, I find this song helps:

	Rush Remix Project - Limelight REMIXb
	Found at skreemr.com

Sparkpeople: A Cubsicle PSA

Contrary to everything I believed about eating before I took a Nutrition course in college, I don't necessarily think calorie counting is such a bad dietary practice. Doing so religiously is probably a little crazy, but we should all know a little about what we eat and how much and what kinds of foods we should eat to attain our dietary goals, even if that goal is to gain or maintain weight. I don't mean everyone should meticulously catalog what they're eating, just that it's helpful to care and pay attention to at least your habits. Other than that, you should eat when you're hungry, you should stop when you're full, and in general if you're trying to stay thin just don't be an idiot about what you put in your body. But if you need help paying attention, the web is a great place to start looking.

Enter a website I've been using called SparkPeople.com.

When you first sign up for a FREE account on Sparkpeople, it asks you if you're trying to lose weight or if you're just trying to maintain a healthy weight. Based on this decision you can set goals that the website will help you track, including fitness goals which you can track on the site. Then there's the nutrition tracker, which allows you to approximate how many grams of carbs, proteins, and fats you're consuming every day just by searching for the site's database of popular foods. It can be easy. For example, Sparkpeople is pretty sure it knows how many calories (and grams of fats, proteins, and carbs) each specific Dunkin Donut has. (This information is pertinent to me). Where it can get tricky is if you're eating or drinking something that's not listed. The other night I ate stir fry made by a company called Pictsweet, and while Sparkpeople actually did know a bit of Pictsweet foods, it did not know anything about this particular bag of stir fry. So in that instance, you can pick something similar or find the bag and input the nutritional facts (down to specifics like grams of magnesium) for you and others to use in the future. Here is a screen shot of what the nutrition tracking looks like.

At the end of every day Sparkpeople gives you a report about the specific goals you reached and did not reach for that day. This is pretty funny at times, because it tries to give you report before you're done logging your food intake for the day, essentially saying "you're done, right? You can't possibly have eaten more than this." Helpful, nonetheless. And I stress "FREE" because there are a lot of programs for purchase out there that essentially do the very same thing.

Beatles Rock Band: Easter Eggs

Well I've made my 45 song iTunes playlist so I can practice singing, and I am this close to making every post on this blog about the new Beatles Rock Band game until it comes out next Wednesday. And yes, I'm taking at least one day off of work to play it all day. But don't worry, I'll spare you the more boring, technical details about the game should I follow through on this threat.

Today, a contributor to McSweeney's wrote this funny piece called The Beatles Rock Band: Easter Eggs. "Easter Eggs," by the way, are like hidden secrets inside a video game that require codes or certain button pressing combinations to unlock. Here's an example from the writing so you can see what I mean, and to get you interested.

If you press the B button just before "Ticket to Ride," the band will admit that they were high for seventy percent of the filming of Help!