Saturday, February 18, 2012

Dashboard Confessional

Music
2012

In my quest for discovering new music (new to me anyway) a few years ago I came across a song while listening to Pandora.com that perked up my ears. It was called "Stolen" by a band I had never heard of - Dashboard Confessional. Wow, I thought, that's just good songwriting. Eventually I downloaded the mp3 and put it on my IPod and went on my way. As the song would pop up in the random rotation I would think wow, that's just damn good songwriting.

You see I fancy myself a songwriter too - I have an album coming out soon myself (more on that some other time) - and I am continually amazed at the plethora of good writers out there. Some shine brighter than others, and some can sustain that over the years, album after album. Christopher Carrabba's Dashboard Confessional has done just that.

Dashboard Confessional started as a side project for Carrabba in an effort to become more intimate and personal with his music. With his success a new genre of music was legitimized and has crawled out of the underground. I'm still not exactly sure what Emo is but it is described as a style of rock music characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. And yes that describes Dashboard Confessional exactly. According to the article on Wikipedia - Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000's with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional...

Leaving his band Further Seems Forever to pursue a solo career in the early 2000's Carrabba's first recordings were just him and his guitar. Even then he started to gather a legion of devotees. Later in 2002 the full-length album "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most" was released and featured a full band on several tracks. From that album the heart-rending single "Screaming Infidelities" found an immediate home on modern rock radio.

By 2003 with a permanent lineup (with bassist Scott Schoenbeck, guitarist/pianist Johnny Lefler, and drummer Mike Marsh) and a new album, "A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar" Dashboard Confessional was on it's way. The album topped the Billboard charts and spawned another hit single, "Hands Down," which peaked at number eight.

The thing put the band in the spotlight was the inclusion of the song "Vindicated" on 2004's Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. The band now had a wide audience, and a song that rose to number two. The album that featured Vindicated - Dusk and Summer - also featured the hit single "Don't Wait" which really epitomizes the whole emotional nakedness of the genre. Carrabba sets up the listener with a pensive, heartfelt verse then ratchets it up 10 notches as he delivers the punchline chorus:

Don't wait, Don't wait
The road is now a sudden sea
And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down

Over the years Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional have been savaged by the critics. The theme repeats itself over and over claiming Carrabba abandoned the true Emo purity he himself pioneered. As if it is a crime for artists to grow and change from album to album. You know the Beatles abandoned holding hands and Norwegian wood too. While DC may not be your thing the talent here is undeniable.

I find the songwriting - as mentioned, very, very strong - and the performances led by Carrabba's emotive vocals backed by solid rock components make for exciting music with rib-sticking hooks. I find myself humming these tunes long after the final notes fade away.

My favorite tracks are:
  • Stolen
  • Don't Wait
  • Vindicated
  • Until Morning
  • Belle of the Boulevard
  • Hands Down
You can download individual songs on ITunes or Amazon.com's mp3 site. Dashboard Confessional may not be a new act, but there are plenty of new audiences out there to be discovered. Yours truly, having cut my teeth on the sounds of the 1970's, appreciates the new generation of songwriters and in particular Chris Carrabba.


4 of 5 stars


CW

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Netflix (Streaming version)

Product

2012

We got a Nintendo Wii machine at Christmas-time and it came with a "free" month of Netflix. We were excited since the avenue for renting movies in a retail setting has really dried up in the last two years. We have rather old TV's and none with an HDMI connection and certainly none with built-in wi-fi. Ordering a movie through Comcast's On Demand is a serious rip-off - isn't that monthly bill high enough already???

So the Netflix offer through the Wii seemed a perfect solution. It was easy enough to get the Wii connected to the home wireless network, quite slick in fact. The Netflix app installed seamlessly and an account was created, so far, so good. The rest, however, is not so good.

I spent a good hour pouring through the initial offerings listed in several different categories only to become more and more disappointed. The movies were old and were repeated over and over within the different categories. OK, well, they have a search feature, surely the movies I wanted were just not "on the shelves" so to speak. I was interested in a Matt Damon movie called "The Adjustment Bureau". It was old enough that it would easily have been on the shelf at Blockbuster by now. Nope not on Netflix. How about that movie "Captain America"? Nope. My son wanted to see and old Ed Burns sci-fi movie called "Sound of Thunder". Not there either. My wife was interested in a TV series called "Justified". She wanted to see it from the first episode because it was one of those shows that won't make sense coming in half way through season two. That also was not there.

We went online to the Netflix site only to learn that the DVD service and the streaming service did not share the same content. Of course they don't share the same subscription either. You would have to pay double to have both. Not going to happen.

I would opt for the the DVD service if anything, but then we would have to weigh how many movies we would watch in a month as it compares to a service like Red Box. I have learned that Red Box is a pretty good deal and it has a slick reservation service too. The only issue I have is that our movie watching habits are schizophrenic and we would probably rent movies we never end up watching or endure daily late fees. Red Box only makes sense if you are disciplined. We are not. The Netflix DVD service is more forgiving for people like us.

Needless to say I will be dropping the Netflix Streaming service - it just not right for us. Perhaps it will get better with time. We can also explore Hulu and other online services once we join the 21st century and get a modern - connectable - TV.

1 of  5 stars



CW