Wednesday, July 26 2006, 11:36 PM

Just about anybody that was alive and listening to the radio in the mid-to-late 80s knows the song "Land of Confusion" by Genesis, and to a lesser degree, knows its video. I remember watching it with my dad, and cracking up because of the funny puppets they used to portray all of the people in the video. The funniest had to be the Pete Townsend puppet. (Well, I think it's Pete Townsend.) It's one of the few videos that's ever stood out in my mind as being really cool while staying on topic with the subject matter being discussed in the song. Here's the video in case you've forgotten, or never seen it.

The reason why I mention all this is because I recently stumbled across the video for a cover of this song by the band Disturbed. I have very mixed feelings regarding them, mainly because they're a Nu-Metal band, and a good portion of their stuff is really simple and boring. Their singer, David Draiman, also has some really annoying vocal tendencies, namely his monkey-grunting sounds that he puts in between lyrical passages. If he were to lose those annoying vocal tendencies, he could be a very good metal vocalist. He's got the requisite angry vocal sound, yet he's very clear in his delivery and has a decent range. The rest of the band also has glimmerings of talent, but they also seem to let it slip away when new-album-time comes around.

My first thought was that Disturbed had no business covering the song, let alone making a video for it. I decided to take a look at it after reading a few positive comments about it, and I have to say that I've shifted my view. After hearing their cover of it, the song actually seems like it was written for their playing style. They have a somewhat herky-jerky rhythm style in a lot of their songs, and the synth bassline of the original was easily converted into a metal riff of that same style. The song retains the same vibe, yet it seems perfectly at home with metal feel instead of an 80's pop feel. They even throw in some vocal harmonies at the end of the song, so maybe there's hope for them after all.

The video for the song is also quite cool. They took the song's concept and applied it to the modern day, where it still fits very well. Here's the video, for your viewing pleasure.

I guess I think it's neat that they covered the song somewhat well, and made a video that's modern and referencing our time, but still holds true to the original song. Am I out to lunch?

disturbed genesis music videos

Saturday, June 12 2004, 7:53 PM

This is going to be one link filled post. First off are the guitar clips I alluded to in the last posting. I did the clips kinda funky, so follow along. Note that all clips are just me, so it can get kinda boring in the places where there's no guitar. Also, I neglected to change the equalizer settings on the distortion pedal for recording, so the clips are really heavy on the bass and treble. It might be in your best interests to turn down your bass and treble on your player if you choose to listen.

First there's the whole thing (1:23:51, 102MB). This has all the bullshit in between songs, like me doodling, tuning, etc. If you're really really bored, you can listen to this. Next I've divided that huge ass clip into two parts, first clip (26:45, 31MB) is when I'm playing on the Carvin, tuned to C. I played a few Prong songs here, and did some goofing around towards the end. The second clip (57:02, 71MB) is me playing on the Strat, in a normal E tuning. I jammed to some of the old Megadeth and Metallica favorites here.

Those are the big chunks. Now, for those of you with shorter attention spans (read: everybody), here are the individual songs. First off were Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck (4:06, 4.7MB), Test (6:09, 7.2MB), and Whose Fist Is This Anyway (4:42, 5.6MB) by Prong. These are the songs played on the Carvin. Then I switched over to the Strat and played (in no particular order) Orion (8:00, 9.9MB), Ride The Lightning (6:34, 8.6MB), Master of Puppets (8:30, 12MB), One (7:06, 8.6MB), Sanitarium (6:24, 8MB), and Disposable Heroes (8:14, 11MB) by Metallica, and Symphony of Destruction (3:51, 4.7MB) by Megadeth. Yah, I didn't branch out very much here, what else is new.

Next are some more funny Family Guy clips that I've been meaning to post. They're hilarious! But what part of the family guy isn't hilarious? Here are the vids...

Six Million Dollar Man (6.7MB)

Gumbel-2-Gumbel (20MB)

Black to the Future (42MB)

familyguy guitar guitarclips humor videos

Wednesday, May 12 2004, 1:33 PM

Mike sent me this video clip from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, recorded a few weeks back. Very funny... The spammer guy on here is quite the genius... it's sad that we have to deal with this crap every day because of guys like this...

humor spam videos

Tuesday, April 27 2004, 1:38 AM

Alex sent me this video showing a bunch of people at a Nickelback concert in Portugal throwing stuff at the band and getting them to walk of the stage and cut their concert short. I don't condone the throwing of rocks at people, but they defintely had the right idea.... Nickleback sucks. It's about time people started realizing this.

humor music nickelback videos

Friday, April 16 2004, 12:31 AM

Matt sent me this video clip today, showing John Petrucci doing what he does best - totally kicking ass on the guitar. The environment seems like it's a small venue, and he's taking Q&A from the audience too. But then he lights up the guitar, playing a piano piece by Chopin that was written using Chromatic scales... totally crazy. I stand by a statement I made a when I first started really listening to Dream Theater - If I could play like John Petrucci for a day, I probably wouldn't ever need to play guitar again.

dreamtheater guitar johnpetrucci videos

Monday, April 05 2004, 10:36 AM

Wow... a torrent of content updates... Joe found the full video of the Rick James / Charlie Murphy skit from Chapelle's show, and I had to post it. It's too funny.

Check it out here.

humor videos

Friday, March 19 2004, 1:22 PM

Yah, the family guy is hilarious. Some video clips for your entertainment.

Irish Heritage

George W. Bush is not a quitter!

familyguy humor videos

Thursday, March 18 2004, 10:39 AM

Mike showed me this video earlier today, and I about laughed my ass off. I also had a bit of disgust, as stuff like this is one of the main reasons people around the world hate Americans so much. It's still pretty funny though.

Linkage: Don't Loot!

frustrations humor videos

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