I've been on a strange opening band kick of late.

I've had pretty great luck with opening bands. When I went to see Our Lady Peace, I discovered Ash, and when I went to see Tegan and Sara, I discovered Jets Overhead.

I got to meet (and have a very strange 2 am phone conversation with the manager of) the Ben Taylor Band when they were opening for Dar. (Part of me will forever regret not getting on that bus.) I've really grown to like their album. Then Gavin DeGraw told me I had good hair when he opened for Barenaked Ladies. I got that cd too, and have fallen for the song "Chariot". Rest of the album needs more listening.

I got to meet (and have a very strange 2 am phone conversation with the manager of) the Ben Taylor Band when they were opening for Dar.

Oh yeah, I saw them too. They were pretty good, though I didn't get addicted to them like I did to Ash and Jets Overhead.

Dunno if this even fits in the musick thread, but I saw a show this weekend: the Dan Band. BF & I were watching Old School, looked up the info on the band playing at the wedding toward the beginning of the movie and went to one of their New York dates a few weeks later. Their schtick involves covering female-empowerment tunes sung by a guy who looks like an unemployed mechanic with two backup singers who look like adjunct professors. The genius part of it is the dance numbers: nothing too complicated, just a little more elaborate than a 60s girl group. To be honest, the music got tired after awhile-- balls-out covers of "Shoop Shoop", "No Scrubs" and "Genie in a Bottle" liberally peppered with cussing sound great on paper, but Dan Finnerty didn't have enough charisma to carry it past a novelty act. But worth seeing on the cheap for the dancing.

I can't believe they are a real band. I think they showed up in Starsky and Hutch, too.

I won't lie. They make me laugh.

I had a friend who made me a cd by a man named Richard Cheese recently, too, along the same vein. If you saw the remake of "Dawn of the Dead", he's the guy who does the lounge version of "Down With the Sickness".

Ho. Lee. Fuck.

While I was running errands, I heard the new Velvet Revolver single, Fall To Pieces.

What an incredible song.

I was not terribly impressed with their first single off of the Hulk soundtrack. Their second single, Slither, was better but still not doing it for me, but this one is great.

It's a very pretty, melodic tune, very much in the 70's power ballad vein. 70's power ballads are not normally my thing, but somehow, this one succeeds where all the others failed. Weiland just belts out the chorus, with it's beautiful and sad falling melody and it's odd meter, and just sells it.

Like Robert Downy Jr., Scott Weiland is an incredible artist struggling with powerful addictions, and it frequently allows him to transform songs (both old STP songs, and now songs with VR) that would otherwise be rather unnotable from any other artist.

I don't know if anybody's heard the rest of the album, but if you have, please chime in. This one song has got me interested in picking it up.

Their second single, Slither, was better but still not doing it for me, but this one is great.

It sounds almost exactly like a Stone Temple Pilots song, but I can't place with one.

Wow, Jon, you really hate that guy who has the show after yours. He's obviously annoying the crap out of you.

It sounds almost exactly like a Stone Temple Pilots song

I think that's why I was unimpressed by both the earlier songs... Slither sounds like an STP tune, but somehow not as good, and the one from the Hulk soundtrack sounded a lot like a GnR tune.

Fall To Pieces is the first song that sounds like they're trying to find their own, new voice.

This is all I know of Velvet Revolver: [link]