What with the new Civilization for PS3 and 360 hitting the store shelves yesterday, I felt somewhat inspired to do a Civ toon.  I’ve been a Civ enthusiast since Civilization 2.  And the idea of playing it on my PS3 and TV is extremely compelling.  :D  Bring on the nukes….

My buddy Brian sent me this several days ago and it’s just awesome.  So I wanted to post it.  Good ol’ Hokus Pick.

Guitar Hero 3 players get a piece of free DLC this week from Blizzard house band “Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain” who apparently miss the metal heyday of yesteryear.  I almost considered it too crass to post, but hey, it’s CG and made me laugh.

OK, now that the family’s been playing Rock Band for awhile and I’ve been watching the Harmonix forum for news about new DLC, I think it’s only natural to form a mental wish list for future Rock Band content.  And my little pet wish-list is of course Christian rock themed.  So I began thinking what a Christian Rock Band song list would look like.  In order to mirror the philosophy behind the original Rock Band content, I think you would have to have some golden oldies, some hip new rockers, some quirky out-there stuff, and a fair bit of mainstream radio hits.  So this is what I came up with:

Alien - Third Day

Reality - Newsboys

God Gave Rock and Roll To You - Petra

Flood - Jars of Clay

Forever - Chris Tomlin

The Great Adventure - Steven Curtis Chapman

I Want to be a Clone - Steve Taylor

Field of Flowers - Sixpence None the Richer

Lamu - Michael W. Smith

Bye Bye Babylon - White Heart

Fireproof - Pillar

Jesus Freak - DC talk

Lead Me On - Amy Grant

To Hell With the Devil - Stryper

Boycott Hell - DeGarmo & Key

Made To Love - Toby Mac

Boom - P.O.D.

Rawkfist - Thousand Foot Krutch

Dare You to Move - Switchfoot

Barlow Girls - Superchick

Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? - Geoff Moore & the Distance

So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt - Keith Green

Never Gunna Be As Big As Jesus - Audio Adrenaline

Paper Thin Hymn - Andberlin

The Show - Hawk Nelson

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything - Relient K

Beyond Belief - Petra

I’m sure there are several that would be great Rock Band experiences that I have forgotten, so please, feel free to chime in with what you think would be awesome new content for the game. 

Recently I witnessed a new music video for a band which I mentioned before on this site and was sternly and correctly admonished.  Therefore I will only hit at their title with the letters NKOTB.  This experience, along with the Shout/Ken Tamplin musical musings I posted earlier, has brought an interesting topic to mind.  Since obviously I in no way ever wanted to lay eyes on NKOTB ever again (in fact, I now realize how wonderful my life has been for the past several years, thanks in great measure, I’m sure, to the absence of any conscious thought relating to them or their past audio recordings.), I asked myself what musical acts from my youth would I be excited to see make a comeback in the future.  So I’ve given it some thought and made up a top ten list.  I’m sure that someone will remind me of a band or artist that I forgot, but I will have to settle with the names that did manage to rise from the blackened depths of my barely-functional memory.  So, without further introduction…

10. One Bad Pig - A Christian punk/speed metal band from the late 80’s, One Bad Pig had an unusual and refreshing sense of humor to go with the skater image, screaming lyrics, and cartoon pig album covers.  It was safe rebellion in the midst of a conservative culture that openly demonized a much-needed musical genre in its infancy without any care to examine lyrical content.  They flat rocked.  And they did it for Jesus.  And I was one of the kids that loved it.  I even did a cartoon panel showing a church youth group getting ready to lead off a worship service with “I Scream Sunday” for the Boise Bible College newsletter.

9.  P.I.D. (Preachers In Disguise) -  In 1988-1990 I remember enjoying a period of discovery in Christian rap.  DC talk was the big name to hit the Christian book stores and many of us young Petra/White Heart fans ate up “Heavenbound” for some odd reason.  It was different from anything we’d heard before in CCM and even thought it’s extremely corny now, it was awesome back then.  Production quality wasn’t that great for Christian music, so often we fans had to settle for a sound noticeably sub-par compared to secular radio.  People like Toby Mac were about to change that for us.  But this isn’t about DC talk, it’s about P.I.D., another one of my early experiences with Christian rap.  I had “Here We Are” on tape and I played it so much I had it all memorized.  Me and my best bud used to quote it all the time and still do occasionally just to get a laugh out of each other.  ”We’re two def brothers and we’re feeling real good…”

8.  Halo -  Many many many many CCM bands in the 80’s in some way crossed paths with the power duo of John and Dino Elefante.  They were rock production powerhouses back in the day.  And occasionally, when they weren’t busy turning some Christian rock band into THE hottest thing to grace the cover of CCM magazine, they recorded their own music.  Halo was one of those vehicles for these two brothers.  It was typical, late-80’s hair band stuff, loud and glorious, and it featured John Elefante’s unmistakeable voice.  They had figured out just the right sound.  And Nirvana was just around the corner.  But it was great while it lasted.

7.  John Lawry - He joined Petra in 1984 just in time to record “Beat the System,” one of that band’s most popular albums of their career.  And if you listen to “Not of this World” followed by “Beat the System” I think you’ll see just how the band was changed by his presence.  Both albums are great, but John Lawry really gave Petra a boost that made them even more relevant and a sound that would contribute to their arena-filling success.  When his Petra days came to a close, he gave us a single solo album titled “Media Alert.”  I loved it and I have always wondered why he never followed it up.

6.  Mastedon - Another John and Dino Elefante collaboration.  This one tended to get much more metal than Halo did.  Halo was more the mainstream pop/rock sound while Mastedon fit in more with the likes of Tourniquet and One Bad Pig.  My first exposure to them was with the song “It’s a Jungle Out There” that appeared on one of those “Ultimate Metal” compilations that Star Song released in attempt to gain new fans for their bands.  However, the next album, “LOFCaudio” was a bit different and while still maintaining metal status, was closer to the Halo sound than “It’s a Jungle Out There.”  I managed to grab “LOFCaudio” on tape as a kid and wore it out to the point where I was forced to get it on CD later at a Jesus Northwest festival.  Fortunately, though, both albums are available on iTunes so someday I’ll have to grab that first album, too.

5.  Uthanda - Now these guys were just a great straight-up rock band.  Even now their CDs sounds great to me; not dated at all.  They recorded 2 (”Groove” and “Believe”) in the early 90’s and then just kind of disappeared.  A favorite of mine and a college roommate.  Their quirky joke song “Midnight Jasmine” is awesome to the point that I have to wonder if Audio Adrenaline is mad that they didn’t think of it first.  The 2nd CD advertises a “Go Bowling with Uthanda” contest.  I wonder who won that…

4.  Midnight Oil - Not all of the music of my youth was CCM.  But although I did appreciate “Beds are Burning” when it was a popular top-40 radio staple, I didn’t fully appreciate Midnight Oil until I had several more years of listening to rock music under my belt.  The frontman, Peter Garrett, left the band in 2002 to pursue a new career in Australian politics.  Which I’m sure has been great for the Aussies, but it’s undeniably bad for the rest of us.  When, oh when will iTunes put “Diesel and Dust” up for download??

3.  Trevor Rabin -  I’m a huge Yes fan.  I have every studio album on CD.  But unlike those Yes fans that can remember the 60’s, I happen to also be a big fan of Mr. Trevor Rabin.  A South African musician who travelled to Great Britain and began working on a new solo album in the early 80’s, he met up with Chris Squire, a legendary bass player still practicing his craft after his band, Yes, had called it quits following the “Drama” tour.  Long story short, that solo album became Yes’ “90125,” their greatest commercial success driven by “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”  This version of Yes went on to record “Big Generator” (highly under-appreciated in my opinion) and “Talk.”  Trevor Rabin then went on to become a film composer for several movies, many of which were large blockbusters such as “Armageddon” and “National Treasure.”  I bought his solo effort “Can’t Look Away” during summer break in 1989 and wore it out also.  Have it in digital form from iTunes now and I still love that entire CD.  I will always consider him a musical genius.

2.  Sixpence None the Richer - Most bands come and go and after they have run their course you kinda figure they did their thing and had their time to shine and then dwindled away at the appropriate time.  I have no idea what was going on in the lives of the Sixpence duo, but personally I feel they still had a lot to contribute musically.  When I heard they broke up it was like being kicked in the gut and I’m still not over it.  They started out sort of quirky Christian pop and then as the years went on got more and more polished.  They will forever be known for recording “Kiss Me” but did many songs far better.  The last album, “Divine Discontent” was an absolute masterpiece.  I will forever pine for a Sixpence reunion.

1.  And the band I wish most would stage a comeback….

Noisy Little Sunbeams - These guys ROCKED!!  They did one self-titled release which I picked up on tape in college and the 4 of us that roomed together at the time were addicted to the thing.  I managed to pick up the CD on Ebay a few years ago so fortunately I can still enjoy it.  The whole thing varies in style from beginning to end from metal to rock to light pop.  They never could seem to figure out what they wanted to do, but it was OK because it was all good.  From singing about Madonna, to recording the most frantic cover of “Kids Wanna Rock” ever, to yelling about door-to-door evangelists, to finishing with a quote from Rush Limbaugh referring to maggots, it was just a fantastic piece of Christian rock.  One of the best examples ever.

OK, so that’s my list…  Anyone care to put in their 2 cents? 

There are a couple of really super cool interviews out there this week on a couple of sites I frequent.  I’ve watched/listened to both of them and found them to be very enlightening.

Check out Extra Life Radio’s interview with Todd McFarlane here

….Aaand check out iFanboy’s interview with Stan Lee here.

Enjoy.  :D 

So I was listening to some ChristianRock.net this afternoon and this song comes on called “Radio Bikini” by Magdallan.  Yeah I thought it was pretty awesome, too.  I wasn’t familiar with Magdallan, but I instantly recognized a voice from my youth.  Mr. Ken Tamplin.  I was a fan of Shout and Ken Tamplin when I was in high school, so suddenly a rush of memories returned to me.  Mostly memories of being addicted to Shout’s “In Your Face” for awhile.  I must still have that tape somewhere…  But I figured wouldn’t it be uber cool to have “In Your Face” on CD so I can re-live the memory of laughing at the front cover photo (shown above) (but hey, they did it all to bring some good Jesus music to the kids, right?) and rock out to some 80’s hair metal once again.  Darn those guilty pleasures.   So I hit the Google and found this.  Mr. Ken Tamplin actually has a few of his older, out of circulation recordings available for download on his website.  All he asks is that we donate to one of a handful of linked-to charities for his trouble.

Now isn’t that just the coolest thing you’ve ever seen a musician do on the web??  Rock on, Mr. Tamplin!!  Now I’m going to have to make a donation and grab me some mp3’s from “An Axe To Grind” so my trip down memory lane will be complete.  :)

CNN doesn’t offer the ability to embed videos into blogs or I would have done that, but here is a story that shocked me today.  Watching the video gets the idea across best.

Is this a small, shocking sign of significant trouble ahead for America’s way of life?  I have to wonder.  Our government has acknowledged the sad state our economy is currently in, but are the rebates too little too late?  I’m starting to hear about people taking more serious action in response to the rising costs of living.  Fuel costs have forced us to look hard at our driving habits.  Food costs have forced us to change our grocery shopping habits.  Are these temporary annoyances or is life about to change drastically for the USA?

Hhmmm… 

Picked this game up this weekend on clearance for $7.50 at my local Target.  That store has some wicked awesome deals on the electronics clearance shelf occasionally and this was one of them.  Just had to post and share because I have had a ball (pun intended) with this game.  Sure it’s not realistic at all, but it’s just dang fun and that’s what video games ought to be.  Check out the video…if you have a 360 or PS3 at home, I highly recommend this title.

I dunno, guys. I just don’t know. It looks like another embarrassingly underproduced Christian movie that probably has a great message which will probably be lost between mental snickers. Which is unfortunate because Kevin Max and Kerry Livgren are in it… I mean, dang.

Any thoughts?