Diamond in the Rough

On many occasions I've thought about spending time going to second hand stores and places like that where you can buy used and random stuff but never seem to have the motivation but this story I read today makes me think it might be time to give it a shot.

Beth Feedback is an artist from Greensboro who went to Goodwill to grab a sweater and picked up 2 large paintings for $10 each. She didn't like the paintings but was going to reuse the canvas for her own works. A few months later, she noticed an art gallery tag on one of the paintings and decided to look up the original artist before she turned the paintings into scrap. The artist turned out to be Ilya Bolotowsky and the painting is worth over $15,000! Here's Beth, her hubby, and the painting:

How freakin awesome is that? $10 for a $15,000 painting! It's not a common occurrence so don't start searching planning on making it rich but every once in a while instead of shopping at the mall or some big chain store, hit the thrift shops or swing by a local yard or garage sale and give it a good once over. You may not find something worth a ton of money, but you may find some of the coolest collectibles or random treasures you've ever seen.

Under the Covers

There are several ways to cover a song. You can do a direct cover where the new song is essentially a copy of the original or throw the whole format out the window and use the lyrics to build a totally new sounding song. And covering a song isn't a new thing BUT it seems to me that in today's world where music comes and goes at the speed of light, that some people have started to abuse the cover.

In the past covers were a rarity. Most bands didn't even record them but would use them as a cool extra or encore song in concerts. Then slowly but surely more and more covers were added as "hidden tracks" or "bonus tracks" added to a re-release. Nowadays, there are whole albums of covers and even bands who built careers doing covers... but that's not always a bad thing.


Two of the biggest "cover bands" out there have got to be Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine and Me First And The Gimme Gimmes. Richard Cheese takes popular rock and metal songs and twists them into a lounge/swing style. Me First does the same but with a punk sound instead of lounge. Both acts have built careers on covering other songs in their respective styles but both do it with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that makes it more about having fun than making money off someone else's ideas. Here's a sample from each:

Then you have albums that compile covers like Fearless Records' Punk Goes... series. Each album focuses on a genre like pop, 90s rock, and hip hop and modern punk and metal bands cover songs from that genre. Some bands stick more to their personal style and others stay more true to the original track with a touch of their own style mixed in. These are also more about having fun as the artists doing the covers all have active touring and recording schedules and make plenty of their own music. Here's an example:

Then you have bands like Puddle of Mudd or Counting Crows who, after years of making original music, crank out a cover album and start releasing singles like it's a new album. This is where my love of covers ends. Covering a song to honor the original artist or even to have fun and blow off some steam is all well and good, but just because you've run out of creativity, don't start trying to peddle someone else's wares as your own. 

Happy Birthday America!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. For most countries it's just the 4th day of the 7th month, but here in America it's got a slightly different name... Independence Day!

Every year we celebrate July 4th as the day we officially became an independent nation, but that may not be exactly right. Turns out July 4th was the day the Declaration of Independence was approved. Congress had actually voted to approve our independence on July 2nd. There's even rumor that the Declaration of Independence may not have been signed until early August. But regardless of the specific details, we became seperated from British rule in the summer of 1776 and that's a damn solid reason to celebrate.

Celebrations have been held every anniversary, and even back in the 1700's they partied similarly to what we do now: a 13 gun salute (for the 13 colonies) at sunrise and sunset, a big dinner, parades, speeches, fireworks, and red, white, & blue EVERYWHERE! Most of the traditions started there ring true today. Honestly, the only major changes since 1800 were in 1870 when July 4th became an UNPAID federal holiday and in 1938 when it switched to a PAID holiday.

Have a safe and happy Independence Day tomorrow. Celebrate being an American and hold your drinks high in toast to the freedoms we enjoy here. Take a moment to remember that no matter how bad you think it is here, it's much worse in many other places. Remember that even though government makes us crazy sometimes, the fact that we can complain openly about that government is a privilege not many have the luxury of enjoying.

I'll let Bill Pullman close this blog out for me. Bill...