A Band...er uh...Artist A Day...Eric Lewis

I normally pimp metal bands and hard rock groups on this site...but during this week, I went on Absolute Punk and found a video of this guy performing.

I couldn't believe my eyes or my ears.

This guy was playing both the inside and the outside of the piano. 

Not to mention, he put a dark, but brilliant spin on a song from my favorite band.

Not to knock Vitamin's String and Piano tributes to bands, but it's not what Lewis covers that makes the music sound great, it's how he covers it that makes it sound great.

His influences range from Coltrane to Mudvayne. As weird as that may sound, you may actually hear a little bit of both in the way that he plays the piano.

According to a poster on Absolute Punk, his band ELEW intends to record a full length album of covers from bands like Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and Thrice.

Epic would not even begin to describe that.

Who makes Steve Guttenberg...A STAR?!?

For those of you who don't know, I'm a major Simpsons buff and the Stonecutters song is one of my favorites on that show.

However, I'm not referring to that Steve Guttenberg, I'm referring to the one that made this article.

In the article, he talks about how the current industry is going to falter in three years and how the filters that separated us from the music industry have disappeared with the growth of the Internet and implied that it's hurt the business.

Which leads me to these questions:

Has the era of Myspace hurt the music business?

Have the multitude of bands to listen to actually negatively impacted the way you listen to music?

Has music become disposable?

Are you willing to pay for music? If not, why not?

Is too much music, too much?

For an audiophile like me, it's really hard to believe, but it sounds like a legitimate argument.

A band a day...Lovers and Liars

I've heard of this band for a couple of years, but I can't believe I've yet to give them any props.

Lovers and Liars is:

Stacy Hogan

Adam Nagel

Jason Stout

Stephen Taylor

A band from the bustling music scene of Nashville, Tennessee, this band has played for many national acts such as Seether, Shinedown, 10 Years, Theory of a Deadman, and more.

Their blend of rock may be very much different from the bands that they play with, but it is every bit as intense.

They are most influenced by and sound similar to Blue October. 

Last year, they put out a concept dual EP called Before & After the Awakening that deals with introspective struggle and cathartic release.

It's so good, even Jesus likes it. Jesus...Chad Kroeger...I get the two confused from time to time. How do you explain all of that radio play?

Anyway, Lovers and Liars is definitely a band worth checking out.

If they don't rock your socks off yet, perhaps you should check out performances of Nothing Left to Burn and a cover of Peter Gabriel's Digging in the Dirt.

If you're convinced you can buy their dual EP on Amie St. for less than $2 provided you don't wait too long.

Sexiest Songs...

My lists are going to be a little bit different. I don't want to post round numbers all the time. It makes things a bit easier to qualify and a bit more interesting.

1. Nine Inch Nails-Closer: OMG, duhhhh. You can't have a list like this and not expect this song to be on it. It's just not possible. While I'm at it, I'd like to add 2. "La Mer", 3. "Even Deeper", 4."The Hand That Feeds", 5. "All the Love in the World", 6."Me, I'm Not", and 7. "Discipline" (if you're into that sort of thing).

8. Deftones-Digital Bath: Even though NIN is #'s 1-7, I think that the Deftones' Digital Bath is perhaps sexier than those. 

9. Deftones-Change (in the House of Flies): I'd heard this song covered at a Seether song a few years ago, turned around and saw two people basically dry humping. It works.

10. Finger Eleven-Paralyzer: You may think this is a surprising choice, but this is like the rock version of "Jizz In My Pants".

11. The Lonely Island-Jizz In My Pants: That's right I said it.

12. Flyleaf-All Around Me: This song is less about being closer to God and more about being closer to God...

13. Hoobastank-Inside of You: Notice how most of the songs on this list are danceable. You can't have a sexy song without being close to someone.

14. Hurt-Pandora: A recent song off of their new album Goodbye to the Machine. It's less tongue in cheek and more tongue in somewhere else.

15. Melissa Auf Der Maur-Taste You: I don't know what's sexier...this song...or this song in French.

16. A Perfect Circle-Thinking of You: This may very well be my favorite music video ever. It's violent, it's sexy...exactly what masturbation should be about!

17. Psychostick-Orgasm = Love: This song is pretty. This song is disturbing. This song is pretty disturbing.

18. Red-Lost: Not so much an obvious choice, but listen to the words and I think and hope you'd agree.

19. Skratch n'Sniff-Addicted to Lollipops: Who knew that a remix would ever make this list? A mashup of Saving Abel's "Addicted" and Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop"...it's as if the songs themselves had sex and made a baby with facial tattoos.

20. Framing Hanley-Lollipop: While we're on Lollipop...as far as videos go, this was the sexiest one of all of last year. Unlike the porn I'm accustomed to, this one actually had dialogue! Well, that and strip poker.

21. Korn-A.D.I.D.A.S.: This is not a song about footwear, unless you're referring to fuck me pumps.

22. The Urgency-Fingertips: Because subtlety is overrated.

Giggidy.

CFW Rocks Live: Summer Music Preview (Part I: May and June)

Just as today begins the summer season for movies with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I'd like to use today as the beginning of the summer season for music and with that...there are some big releases coming up.

Starts with Decyfer Down on May 5th with new lead singer TJ Harris formerly of Fighting Instinct.

At first, I didn't know how I'd react to TJ Harris being the replacement for Caleb. However, TJ is the real deal live. No question.

Decyfer Down:

Crash

Moving On

Ride With Me

May keeps it going with Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown on May 15th (yes, that's a Friday).

Green Day:

Before the Lobotomy

Viva La Gloria!

Murder City

June starts off with Taking Back Sunday's New Again. 

Taking Back Sunday:

Sink Into Me

New Again

Scooter Ward's alt-rock project The Killer and the Star will be putting out their self-titled debut and the first album for Sonicstar Records/Universal/Fontana in June.

The Killer and the Star:

Hallelujah

Symphony for a Mad World

Starts When You Fall

Dredg puts out The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion on June 9th.

Dredg:

I Don't Know

Saviour

The Information

Evans Blue will be releasing their third album, a self-titled and their first with new lead singer Dan Chandler.

Evans Blue:

Sick of It

Buried Alive

Finally, Killswitch Engage will be putting out a self-titled new album on June 30th.

Killswitch Engage:

Light in a Darkened World

All of these songs are brand new and are something to look for in the coming months.

May = List Month.

I've decided that the month of May will be mostly dedicated to lists of songs or artists.

Could be as simple as what I like right now, but I'm going through a kind of lull as far as bands are concerned which is why I haven't posted as much.

Hey, why all the Christian bands?

I don't know if you people have noticed or not, but throughout the blog, I've posted a lot of bands that would probably classify themselves as Christian artists.

It's not intentional, but it's just so you know. I don't mean to offend, but I guess it's that some of these bands just have great messages in their songs...some subtle...some, perhaps not so subtle.

I think of a Billboard article that I stumbled upon from big-time modern rock producer Howard Benson. At the time, he was producing Third Day's new record at the time, Revelation, which featured huge crossover artists such as Robert Randolph, Lacey Mosley, and Chris Daughtry.

Benson said this in Billboard:

I personally like Christian artists because they believe in something. As a producer, a lot of times what you're trying to do is find something that the artists believe in or something to be confident in. With a Christian artist, you know what that thing is.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but just look at his past history with artists like P.O.D., Flyleaf, and his most recent work with Skillet. Clearly, he's onto something.

*goes on tangent*

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey is a great documentary that discusses the history of metal, debunks stereotypes, and plays to stereotypes. The film, in part, discussed satanism's connections with metal. 

However, I'd actually like to see something that discusses modern Christian metal bands such as Demon Hunter and Underoath. You can't have one side of the story without the other and I think it'd make for an interesting spiritual debate when you consider that these artists could be influenced by the same artists but in completely different ways.

I guess a part of why I made this entry is because I don't want people to think that I would only listen to Christian artists. I don't want people to think that I'm any particular type of musical elitist.

Heck, I even listen to Dredg, who's upcoming album in June The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion seems to be inspired by themes of atheism and agnosticism.

I was born and raised a Christian, but I suppose we're all entitled to question or be inspired by our own spirituality from time to time.