All posts by Kev Brock

I'm a musician, singer/songwriter, blogger, writer, poet, bodybuilder, movie lover, music lover, video gamer, history/political buff, conservative/republican, etc. I like to do a lot of things.
music

Thought: Losing Saratoga Winners or any Capital Region venue is no sad loss at all, in my opinion…

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I just heard the news that Saratoga Winners has been burned down with an alledged suspicion of arson. I don’t really want to be blogging about local music with this blog, but I got to blog this one since this is one of the most talked about music venues in the area for years.

I don’t get why people get sad if venues close down or get burned to the ground. I don’t get heartbroken about these kind of things and I don’t get why everyone else gets sad about it too. It’s just a building, just some pieces of wood, metal and wires all over it to have a roof over your head. That’s all it is. Just some places where bands go there and play.

I have never been there before. I have seen local music message boards going on and on and on about it for years. Mostly people complaining about the place and the previous owner, I think his name was Solam or something like that? It’s puzzling me why people would complain about the place so much and now they are crying about it.

Isn’t your life more important than a music venue? This is just evidence that this music scene is dying and there is no music scene left anymore. I find that sadder than losing a music venue.

I understand how it’s an important venue ’cause legendary bands go there and play, but fuck, they all played there before they became big, rich and famous anyways. Do you think the Mighty Mighty Bosstones or Ben Folds would care if they heard that place burnt down? I don’t think so. These guys are too famous that they wouldn’t even remember they played there.

I don’t get all the emotion about this place. The place hasn’t been in business for a while before it burnt down anyways. It seemed like the public didn’t care that the place closed down before. The place booked a bunch of bands that I never heard of except for the most well known local and famous bands that played there.

Saratoga Winners, in my opinion, wasn’t anything special, so don’t take this as an offense. I love going to see live music myself, but if we lose any other venues, I won’t be sad about it. Things happen for a reason, life moves forward and you can’t change the past. I understand how important and legendary Saratoga Winners is but I think people grieving about this building is just pretty silly, in my opinion.

Kev

movies

Report: “The Lone Ranger” director found… it’s Mike Newell…

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A director has been found for, “The Lone Ranger”, set to return to the big screen. Mike Newell has been signed to direct this legendary character. If you don’t know who he is, his previous work includes films such as “Harry Potter and the Goblets of Fire”, “Donnie Brasco”, “Pushing Tin”, and he’s currently filming “Prince of Persia” that stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

Johnny Depp is already set to play Tonto the Indian for, “The Lone Ranger”, an actor hasn’t been found for the Ranger just yet. Rumours going around that the Ranger could be no one other than George Clooney.

More on it here:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14011/mike-newell-helms-lone-ranger-/

Kev

Youtube musicians

Cool Video: Iaz performs “Mental Case” live…

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Iaz performed “Mental Case” live with a full band at a local open mic at a venue called the Circus Cafe in Saratoga Springs.

This is actually a pretty amazing and a fucking tight performance. I’ve said it once before and will say it again that Iaz needs to get himself a rock n’ roll band together. I think he’s profesional enough to front a band and this video is proof of it. Look at the other guys in this band, they have smiles on their faces watching Iaz as they play their instruments, so they are definitely having fun with him and find him talented.

If Iaz ever decides to move out of this area, he don’t need to form a band here, but you can form a band anywhere. I want Iaz to form his own band and tour around, put out an album. Iaz even got the crowd for a standing ovation too.

Check out this cool performance, below. Come on Iaz, get yourself a band going! Start auditioning musicians by putting ads out!

Kev

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0OV8yYBj1c

5 Films A Week

Brock’s 5 Films a Week #2…

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Here we go… it’s almost at the end of the week, around the time where people begin to look for DVDs or Blu Ray to shop or rent to take home and enjoy. That’s what this new column section is for once again. Here’s my reccomendations for this week if you’re taking a trip to spend some cash on some entertainment.

1. Quarantine

(I just watched this movie “Quarantine” earlier tonight, and I thought this was one of the best new horror films in a long long while. It’s one of the most realistic zombie movies ever made. Sorry Mr. Romero but I think your zombie flicks aren’t as good as this guy did it. “Quarantine” was filmed on a low budget handheld camera, kind of like “The Blair Witch Project”. It’s a film about a female news reporter documenting everything about firefighters, the firemen have to go save the people in this apartment building which were taken over by these zombies…the zombies in this film were pretty scary…gruesome movie too, lots of blood and gore…if you love horror films, you would love this!)

2. Tropic Thunder

(Probably one of my favorite new comedy films in a long time. It’s Ben Stiller’s best film, I would say. Lots of laughs in this flick. This film would get you laughing up a storm throughout the entire thing just like it did to me. I usually don’t laugh that hard during comedy movies either and this movie really did it to me!)

3. I’m Not There

(One of Heath Ledger’s final flicks. He’s not in it very much, he’s only in it briefly. Cate Blanchett gets the most screen time. It’s not really a film about Bob Dylan but it’s a movie based on some of his songs. A great film. A very weird film but you’ll get it as you go along…)

4. The Wrestler

(Again, whether or not you’re a fan of profesional wrestling, you should still watch this. I’ll say again that this is one of the best sports movies ever made. I plan to watch it again this weekend)

5. 3:10 To Yuma

(I’m not into Westerns that much, but this movie is actually fuckin’ awesome! Russell Crowe’s a badass in this. Check it out!)

Kev

music

Thought: M.I.A is hands down, one of the best pop artists around today!!!!

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I can’t stop listening to her CD, “Kala”. I think M.I.A is definitely one of the best pop artists around in today’s music industry. To describe her genre, she sounds like a mix of African jungle music with rap and electronica. Her sound is unique, she comes up with great vocal melodies. Her music is just so much fun to listen to and it’ll give you goosebumps as you listen to it.

Yes, the main riff to the song “Paper Planes” was sampled from the Clash song, “Straight to Hell”, but I think she did the best job sampling a song from someone else to make a song of her own.

“Kala” was released way back in 2007, so I hope she goes back in the studio soon to make a new record. It’s understandable why she hasn’t made a new record yet since she just had a new baby and all.

I hate most pop music but M.I.A is great talent. I’ll see her live in concert if she comes around here! I never heard of this woman before until I started seeing the internet buzzing about her, so I decided to check her out and ended up really liking her stuff.

Kev

movies

More pics of Angelina Jolie filming “Salt” in Albany…

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More pics of Angelina Jolie filming “Salt” in Albany for the truck chase scene. Close up shots of her so you can tell it’s really her, indeed. I’m not really sure how long she’s scheduled to film in Albany for. Probably for just one full day ’cause I haven’t seen any new pics of her in Albany since these ones.

http://screenrant.com/pics-salt-angelina-jolie-action-kofi-6999/

I really am looking forward to this movie though. It’s looking really cool and really fun!

Kev

Health and Fitness

Trying to get the six pack abs of your dreams and you aren’t getting them. Here’s what you could be doing wrong…

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This article at yahoo wrote a great article on six pack abs mistakes for both men and women. For those obsesssed with trying to lose weight and getting the six pack of your dreams…here’s a piece of what you could be doing wrong…give this a read:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/exercise-myths-6-ab-mistakes-that-are-holding-you-back-451159/

I don’t do ab workouts every day, only a couple of times a week and you don’t want to do them for hours and hours either.

You think sit ups is a good exercise for a six pack, while it could be true, there are plenty of various exercises for the abs. Like the bicycle crunch and plenty of others.

You don’t need weights and those huge special machines to get abs, all you need is your body or use a workout ball for that. You gotta do research on what are the best exercises for abs are without using weights or machines.

Kev

movies

Michael Douglas: Celebrating his 40 years of acting…his 5 best films…

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Michael Douglas was  a guest on Jay Leno last night now that Leno is back to work. Michael announced his 40 year Anniversary of working for Hollywood film. He is a great actor and I enjoy his movies. In celebration of the long years of hard work he gave us, I wanted to name 5 of his best work in my opinion, in no particular order, these are my favorites of his:

Falling Down

Traffic

The War of the Roses

The American President

Wall Street

I know, “Traffic” is not everyone’s favorite movie, I absolutely loved that film, I also think it’s one of Michael’s best performances.

When he stars in “Wall Street 2”, I’m sure Michael will once again floor us with another haunting performance. Could Michael’s performance in “Wall Street 2” as Gordon Gekko get an Oscar nod? It wouldn’t surprise me if it will. I love the Gordon Gekko character and I can’ t wait to see him on the big screen again!!! 

Kev

movies

Report: Robert Zemeckis hints at being interested in bringing Roger Rabbit back to the big screen!!! P-p-plllleeeasssee???

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MTV News caught up with legendary film director, Robert Zemeckis, a man who did such movies like, the three “Back to the Future” films, “Cast Away”, “What Lies Beneath”, and of course, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” his most popular film.

There has been talks of a Roger Rabbit sequel ever since the first one came out but it never happened. Robert gives us a hint that he’s interested in working with Roger Rabbit again with all this new CGI technology, and imagine what you could do with all that while mixing animation with live action?

I really hope a sequel is being made ’cause I loved the first movie, I own it on DVD in my movie collection. I remember seeing, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” first came out at the drive-in theater when I was a young kid. Christopher Lloyd was fuckin’ awesome as Judge Doom! One of the coolest movie villains ever!

I don’t want Bob Hoskins back as Eddie since Bob is almost 70 years old now and he was pretty old himself when he played in the first movie. I would love it if Zemeckis wrote Judge Doom to come back from the dead and have Christopher Lloyd back, most definitely! I would prefer a younger star to lead in the sequel as long as they don’t get Shia Labeouf.

A Bob Hoskins cameo in the sequel would be alright for me though. The storyline for the second one could be that Judge Doom comes back to revenge Roger and Jessica. This time, Judge Doom is more evil and dangerous than ever. It’s just a plot idea that’s all.

I think Zemeckis will do the sequel, he wouldn’t give more details ’cause he didn’t want to break out the big news, he’s just giving out small hints. It’s great to finally hear news about a sequel though!

See it here at MTV News:

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/04/29/exclusive-robert-zemeckis-buzzing-about-second-roger-rabbit-movie/

Kev

movies, Videogame news

Cool Video: Bioshock clip…

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So Universal put the “Bioshock” live action on hold due to budget costs. Never heard of the “Bioshock” video game and want to see what the game is like?

What the game is about, I had a post on this before but I’ll explain again, Bioshock is about this guy that must save the underwater city of Rapture where the city is taken over by all kinds of monsters and zombies. There is this huge creature that is almost like a huge robot called a Big Daddy, where he has these possessed little girls, and you must kill the Big Daddy’s in order to save the little girls to turn them back to normal.

Here, I’ll post a  clip of the game. I’m still not done with the game yet, I’m still halfway through. Probably one of the toughest games ever! These are non spoiler clips though, just gameplay. Very cool game, and one of the best first person shooters I’ve ever played!

Kev