Old Bill used to rule the SNL stage. Here’s a gem. The pipes on this guy - giving dumb George a run for his musical postings.

Murphy’s Law used to be the opening act for many of the Beastie Boys early shows (and by early, I’m refering to when the Beastie Boys were still a punk/hardcore band, and not a hip-hop group)… Jimmy G, the front man of Muphy’s Law walks the walk and talks the talk… He’s a great front-man and one of my favorites. He steps up from backstage about 1 minute in… New bands should take note; its not what you sing, but how you sing it…Anyone that can sing a song about a Care Bear and make it this rad deserves a gold star.

I’m sure alot of you remember the ‘Fight for Your Right” video by the Beastie Boys, the original line up of Murphy’s Law was there there partying and making a scene with the Beastie Boys during the making of their video.. This ML video reminded me alot of that Fight for Your Right video..

-these guys are still touring, so if you get a chance to see them, don’t miss it.

I’ve always hated Michael Jackson’s music. I’ve always hated pop / dance b.s. music ever since I was a kid. Even when MJ did that collab with Slash, that song sucked in my opinion. The only good thing MJ did for me musically was inspire some of these gems
Yo, ding dong, man, ding dong, yo

and of course, you cannot forget the song the paramedics were singing as they tried to revive the pedophile.
beat it!

Paddock is pretty beat up about the whole situation though. He wore his white glove and red leather jacket today and was crying a little bit when he came into work this morning. I’m not sure if he’ll get over it.

my opinion does not reflect the opinion of Rome SDS (just most of us)

It’s hard to believe this was 30 years ago.. take note

And another from the Bad Brains.. Some of the East Coast’s finest.

We’ve gone 6 days without a post on here, so to avoid back to back Wednesdays with Bill, here goes Rock and Roll Tuesday..

With a light rain falling outside, and the season at Stowe about 24 hours from being over, i’ve been flipping channels aggressively this afternoon. I came across a re-broadcast of the Glastonbury Music festival from 2008, and it reminded me of one of the best disses in music history, and quite possibly all time. 

When Jay-Z was announced as a headliner to the all-rock festival, Oasis frontman, and half of the volatile sibling duo that makes the band so awesome, Noel Gallagher lashed out on Jay, claiming there was no room for hip-hop at Glastonbury. The following video is Jay opening his set, and lashing back at Gallagher. Prop guitar, way off-key vocals and a huge shit-eating grin. One of Brooklyn’s finest indeed.

I have to say we’ve been blessed with good opening days up here the past few years.

We had 8-10″ in the last 24 hours.  It was a little windy so the main open trail was a little firm and will do well with the groomer on it a few more times.  They also had the rope dropped on a couple runs that they were blowing snow on.  The first few runs were pretty fun as the snowmaking rollers offered some good opportunities to launch and slash.

Some of us ventured to another area for one run as well, unfortunately the natural snow was arguably too light as the conditions over there would be best described as dust on granite (as opposed to dust on crust).

So I’ll try and get back to the original goal of my posts…

So my shred today was an Anthem 59 with Shift Bindings.  I liked the Anthem today because on the firm snow it had the control and power to rail confidently.  The directional nose was a nice advantage in the fluffy.  Paul updated the shape on the Anthem reflecting what people like in the Agent while maintaining the responsiveness that the Anthem is famous for; that new shape helped make buttering and lauching off of rollers a blast.

I’ve been riding the new Unibody bindings on my groomer set-ups since last year.  I really like the feel of them; I would argue that they have a nice “skate-y” feel to them.

Pictures…

Looking down the Nose

Midway Shack

This is the first song that came on my Shuffle today as i was riding…

Sunday Update…

Well I had fun Saturday, but I really had fun Sunday.  There was no question the wind was blowing both days, so you look around and say “where did the 14-18″ that they advertised go?” (storm total)

Well, I found it all…in one spot.

I can’t claim I found it first…but there was plenty for three laps.

Sunday song…

So the other night I drove up to Stowe and put a Zep CD in my CD player. Now, my love of Zep has been well documented in my other posts so I won’t get into here.

But a little later in the evening the Zep was still playing and a lady had joined me…I couldn’t help but think of Damone’s advice (specifically Point 5)…

Hey everybody…welcome to my addition to the Rome SDS blog world.  I’m gonna try and make some of my posts a place where you can get some insights on what products members of the Syndicate are using and why.  For the most part, I’ll try and focus on stuff we use on the hill.  It may be Rome stuff, but, like in this case, it may be something from another company that adds to our experience of being a rider.

Back down to business…

My array of iPods

Music is pretty important to all the employees at Rome.  Whether it’s Ron playin’ some Dylan, or Cavan needing to narrow down stuff for everybody’s part in NCW, all of us have a deep connection to our music and probably take ourselves a little too seriously as aficionados (myself included).

So this week I got my third iPod.  When iPods came out it was kind of like get this 40gig hard drive that you could fit in your pocket and take anywhere.  In reality, over the years I’ve found different iPods fit different uses.  Today I’ll run through all my iPods and why I have (and use) so many.

My 40 Gig click-wheel

The old stand-by

So not my first MP3 player, but my first foray into the Apple side of things.  Before I got this bugger, I really was against iPods.  My biggest problem with Apple is the lack of openness to the products; I still don’t think iTunes is as good as Realplayer used to be at managing music and playlists.  That said, that lack of openness is what makes Apple computers run well (albeit at a premium price).  I bought this refurbished from the guys at Small Dog in Waitsfield.  They have a bunch of riders who work there (even some who used to work at Alpine Options, our dealer up at Sugarbush). Pretty much it being “Recertified” and the price it was at made buying it a no-brainer at the time.

I have my full music collection on here.  Sully (our sales manager) and I have combined our CD collections onto a network drive at the office;  So I have over 9000 tracks on here.  I keep this at the office to give the day its soundtrack.  Sully and I need to have background music on all the time, and we probably annoy the piss out of everybody else on the first floor of the building (and I’m okay with that). We’re probably guilty of listening to Johnny Cash too much.

Since I only listen to music on this puppy, I don’t mind the old-school monochrome screen.
To keep it fresh, I wrote a smart playlist that eliminates any songs that I’ve listened to in the last three weeks.  That makes sure we don’t feel like we’re always listening to the same stuff.  I don’t have too many iPod shame moments with this playlist, but they certainly have happened.

Note the iPod sleeve from the 2007 line.  I love this sleeve.  It’s so simple in its design and doesn’t add any bulk.

My new 4 GB Nano.

My digi-cam is cheap so I stole this pic from Apple

I just bought this to keep in my car.  I bought it recertified from Apple for $99 (buying direct ensures that you get the full warranty).  In my old car I had a twelve disc changer but my new car’s stereo isn’t really conducive to being replaced by something aftermarket.  Without the changer, I was always feeling like I didn’t have the right music with me for my mood; also I hated having to always remember to grab my 40gig on my way out of the office.

I already owned a Monster FM transmitter for the car so I wanted to make sure what I got had the full iPod jack.  I probably won’t ride with this because I have my shuffle and I rock the Dragger’s Only, but this would be a good iPod if you were looking for one to connect to your Vagrant or Swagger jacket.  (if you didn’t know, those jackets will plug right into all iPods except the shuffle).

Obviously, Cover Flow is a pretty cool upgrade over my old model, but isn’t that important to me.  As a consumer, you always need to be asking yourself if you really need a certain feature of a product or is just an attempt to get you to spend more $$$ that you don’t need to part with.

Haven’t had this too long, but I’ve been listening to Eagles of Death Metal in the car this week.

My shuffle

This is one of the few products that I remember seeing come out and knowing I needed to buy it right away.  I guess people have that in their head right now about the iPhone, but at $79, or whatever it was when it first came out, it made it just something I had to have.

I totally saw it for what it was: the perfect riding iPod.  The clip helps make sure you don’t lose it.  You don’t have to worry about perspiration hurting it as much with the flash based memory.  It’s also small enough you don’t have to worry about crashing on it.

I use a Highway bag to store my gloves and goggles in; the shuffle fits nicely in that business card pocket so I can find it quickly without having to dig too much.

At one gig, I just load it up with songs that I want to hear when I’m riding.  I don’t really manage my music on the hill that much, so I don’t need a screen or integration into my coat; I just hit play in the parking lot and get on with the job at hand.

Some of my great pow riding memories are associated with songs that have randomly come on at the top of a line (Hurricane and Sixteen).

Sometimes I do forget to charge it, which brings me to an honorable mention…

My MiniDisc player

The Warhorse

Before the shuffle, and even when I had my 40gig, I would always ride with the MiniDisc player. I had no problem burning a disc with some riding music and just rolling with a tight playlist.  Like the shuffle, this was cheap enough that I wasn’t afraid to crash on it.

Now, I still keep my MiniDisc player in the bottom of my Highway bag just in case the shuffle has no juice left.  I pretty much just keep a Led Zeppelin mix in it; you can never go wrong riding to Zep.
(The first time I went to ISPO we needed to pump music into the booth and all I had was my Zep disc; I don’t know if Paul can listen to Zeppelin ever again after three days of non-stop Zep)

Fin

So hopefully you enjoyed this tour through my music listening habits in the office, on the road, & on the hill.  Check back over the next few months as we roll through some of the other items we’re using.  By the end of the year I hope to go through all of Rome’s product categories.  As the snow flies, I’ll look to give some reports from where we’re riding and what we’re using in those conditions.

Think Snow.

Some additional music links…

Wolfgang’s Vault Sully and I like to put something on from the Vault when we’re looking to shake things up.  I think Mark Joyce turned us onto this site.   I’m a big fan of the 1977 Pink Floyd concert from the Animals era.

Pandora Sean Larkin showed me this a few years ago.  I don’t really listen to it that much, but I know the guys in Warranty put it on to help mix it up over there.