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Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy by The Refreshments

Overall, this is a more consistent album than The Bottle & Fresh Horses but I think that album has better individual songs. Generally, I find The Refreshments' songs a bit cheesy and a little too conventional but they have their moments and there's something about their sound that makes them better than similar bands of the southern-rock persuasion.

1991 Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I
1992 Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience
1993 Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
1994 Tom Petty - Wildflowers
1995 Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
1996 The Refreshments - Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy
1997 Elliott Smith - Either/Or
1998 Elliott Smith - XO
1999 Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway
2000 Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers - Real To Reel
2001 Ryan Adams - Gold
2002 Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers - Sonoran Hope and Madness
2003 The Format - Interventions and Lullabies
2004 Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell
2005 Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cold Roses
2006 The Format - Dog Problems
2007 The National - Boxer

The Bottle & Fresh Horses by The Refreshments

Truth is, The Refreshments aren't really that refreshing. They pretty much sound like a million other bands. The thing is, though, sometimes they scratch that itch I get for straight-up, no-frills rock-and-roll. On this album, I listen to Tributary Otis, Dolly and Good Year and pretty much skip the other songs.

It's true. And frankly, I don't want it. Sure I like a song with a pleasant rhythm if I'm in the mood to dance (read: do the monkey and/or hand jive and/or Charleston), but generally I can live without a thumping beat. What I've gathered from my twentysomething friends, however, is that the beat is their main attraction to music. They put on some electronic noise (haha am I 65 or what) with a heavy bass line and jam out.
No, friends, I don't jam.
And then they look at me quizzically and ask,'Well, don't you ever just listen to music without words and zone out?' To which I reply a resounding, 'Generally not.' Unless it's jazz or classical, music without words becomes background fuzz and I don't like background fuzz. It becomes the equivalent of smooth jazz in an elevator, except music in elevators generally had words before they met whatever soulless orchestra mutilated it, and I usually know them. A band banging on electric guitars and screaming undecipherable obscenities while I'm trying…

I'm rocking out to Stabbing Westward's Wither Blister Burn & Peel at the moment. The critics are correct: some producer must have decided that making this aggro synth band sound more like Nine Inch Nails would make some money! They aren't deep, the lyrics are usually pretty adolescent, but it sure is fun to bop around to and remember my first love by. He was a damned cute little goth boy.

Speaking of those times, I do miss the early to mid 90s. It was an exciting time musically. First, I was at the age to really start appreciating the artistry of music. Second, Nirvana had swept through and started a New Big Thing In Rock. Bless them.

Blame Live 105 for this wave of nostalgia. I like to listen to their morning show and their 90s at Noon program, which is showcasing the listener's top albums of the 90s. Here is my own, comprised of albums that really changed things for me in my teens, or that looking back really just changed things:

My teen saviors:
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Will update this every now and then.

13/12-04: Motörhead, Sepultura, Meldrum
Baltiska Hallen, Malmö

14/3-05: John Fogerty, Jacob Andersen
Baltiska Hallen, Malmö

16/7-05: Sommarrocken Svedala: Wilmer x, Backyard Babies, Grime

23/8-05: Malmöfestivalen: Paul Di'anno

7/10-05: Motörhead, Hardcore Superstar, Meldrum
Lisebergshallen, Göterborg

14/7-06: Sommarrocken Svedala: Hardcore Superstar

20-25/8-06: Malmöfestivalen: Nationalteatern, Paradise Lost, Cryptopsy, Darkane

20/9-06: Lordi, Sabaton
Baltiska Hallen, Malmö

21/9-06: Blind Guardian, Astral Doors
KB, Malmö

17/11-06: Slayer, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Lamb of God, Thine Eyes Bleed
Malmömässan

1/2-07: Amon Amarth, Tyr
KB, Malmö

9/3-07: The Haunted, By Night
KB, Malmö

30/3-07: In Flames, Avatar
Mejeriet, Lund

11/5-07: Saxon, Masterplan, Hellfueled
KB, Malmö

18/5-07: Bullet, Hellbelly, Hasty Haze
Club Powerhouse, Malmö

31/5-07: Venom, Nifelheim
KB, Malmö

6/6-07: Type O Negative, The Defaced
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My top 100 artists... The ones I have seen live are in bold.

1. Coheed and Cambria
2. At the Drive-In
3. The Smashing Pumpkins
4. Ani DiFranco
5. A Perfect Circle
6. Panic! at the Disco
7. Tool
8. System of a Down
9. The Mars Volta
10. James Blunt
11. The Academy Is...
12. Otep
13. Sparta
14. Belly
15. Sublime
16. Stone Temple Pilots
17. Thousand Foot Krutch
18. Soil
19. Beck
20. KoЯn
21.Disturbed
22. Indigo Girls
23. Supreme Beings Of Leisure
24. Pearl Jam
25. Rage Against the Machine
26. Collective Soul
27. Foo Fighters
28. Red Hot Chili Peppers
29. Cake
30. Fiona Apple
31. Jack Johnson
32. Knee Deep Shag
33. Deftones
34. Queens of the Stone Age
35. The Cure
36. Alien Ant Farm
37. Marilyn Manson
38. Mudvayne
39. Poe
40. Sarah McLachlan
41. Mushroomhead
42. Porcupine Tree
43. Filter
44. Kittie
45. No Doubt
46. Type O Negative
47. Slipknot
48. Static-X
49. Faith No More
50. Outkast
51. The White Stripes
…