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New group "CSS Web Designers" is for those of you who do CSS-based web layouts (as opposed to old-hack table layouts).

It's also for those who are learning to make the switch from table layouts to CSS.

Come and discuss your CSS woes, success stories, or help others if you consider yourself a CSS expert. ;-)

As long as you have an interest in making the net a better place with CSS, you're welcome!

Table-based troublemakers will be shown the door. :-P

CSS Web Designers Group

L.A. Guns - Tales From the Strip (2005)

The Guns release a new studio album, their second since Tracii left.

I have high expectations for an L.A. Guns release. With 4 excellent releases at the beginning of their history (s/t, Cocked and Loaded, Hollywood Vampires, Vicious Circle), they did a serious ball-drop with the incredibly horrid 5th album, American Hardcore. With that release, they switched lead singers more often than Dave Mustaine changes the Megadeth line-up. Some of the other releases after Hardcore had their moments, but just didn't sound like L.A. Guns without Phil Lewis doing the screaming.

But then he returned for their 2001 release, Man in the Moon. While that wasn't the "killer comeback" album, it was a return to form, and better than anything released since Vicious Circle.

All skepticism on whether the Guns could release a doorblaster album left with the mother of all albums, 2002's Waking the Dead. 3 years later I still find myself listening to that one quite often.

Then Tracii left. Everyone kept saying it's not L.A. Guns without Tracii Guns. But that wasn't my opinion. My opinion was that it wasn't L.A. Guns without the unique voice of Phil Lewis, and that was easily proven with horrid trash like the American Hardcore release.

It was also proven not to be the case when the Gunners released "Rips the Covers Off". A well-done covers release, and the guitars were just as good as any from the Tracii days.

So after 3 good-to-killer releases, I've gotten the brand new release, "Tales From the Strip", a 58-minute, 14-track semi-conceptual album.


My first-listen thoughts are that I'll be listening to this one quite often as well. It's no "Waking the Dead", but it's damn good in its own way.

Some tracks, like Gypsy Soul and Original Sin, sound best as part of the album rather than tracks on their own. But then, that happens on (semi-)conceptual albums. Others like the straight-on rocker "It Don't Mean Nothing", or the haunted-style "Vampire" can be played regularly on their own.

The Guns obviously weren't just trying to "rush out a product" here. The lyrics are well done, and the music fits each song perfectly. The "Cocked and Loaded" and "Hollywood Vampires" sounds poke their heads out here and there throughout the album, and of course several tracks like "Hollywood's Burning" could have fit nicely on Waking the Dead or Man in the Moon.

And halfway through the album, you get an excellent drum-based instrumental in "6.9 Earthshaker", with guitars complementing the drum work beautifully.

Overall: Phil's vocals are as good as ever. For those who think Tracii's disappearance actually means anything, they've found a more than excellent replacement with ex-Roxx Gang guitarist Stacey Blades.

Long-time L.A. Guns fans will very much enjoy this release.


High Points: The overall album sound and concept, excellent musically throughout. Particularly "It Don't Mean Nothing", "Vampire", "Skin" and "Shame".

Low Points: Not worth mentioning. I guess I'll go with "Crazy Motorcycle". While listenable, it's the weakest track IMHO.

Just a "kudos" to the amaroK devs for taking a great player and making it even better.

So far everything in 1.3 is running beautifully, bar a very minor nitpick or two. (I guess they gotta leave something to improve in the next release? hehe)

I actually popped open XMMS for the fun of it yesterday. Having gotten so used to amaroK now, I don't think I could ever go back to that. Even the new XMMS2 being developed seems lacking. The lack of actual updates for that program didn't help it in the least bit.

Of course, I used XMMS for a long time before I could run amaroK without it regularly crashing (that would be roK's 0.x days). It's not a bad program. It's just... seriously dated, and less friendly.


Looking forward to seeing what the roK devs have planned for future releases.

VH-1's "Metal Mania: Stripped" CD was apparently successful enough to warrant a Volume 2.

These discs are acoustic and semi-acoustic versions of popular 80's hair metal songs. Some of the versions are previously released, while others are original recordings by the original artists exclusively for these discs.

"Volume 2: The Anthems" will be out October 18th and this is the track listing (remember, it's acoustic versions of these songs, not the originals):

Volume 2: "The Anthems" Track listing

1. "Rock You Like a Hurricane" Scorpions

2. "Here I Go Again" Whitesnake

3. "Talk Dirty to Me" Poison

4. "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" Night Ranger

5. "Madelaine" Kip Winger

6. "The Killing Words" Queensryche

7. "Round and Round" Stephen Pearcy (Formerly of Ratt)

8. "Heaven's Trail (No Way Out)" Tesla

9. "Cherry Pie" Jani Lane (Formely of Warrant)

10. "Shake Me" Cinderella

11. "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" Nelson

12. "Up All Night" Slaughter

13. "Into the Fire" Dokken

14. "Smooth Up in Ya" Bulletboys

15. "Rock Me" Great White


The word is that 10 of these 15 tracks are all-new recordings. More than volume 1 where only 5-6 were new recordings.

This one should be interesting. Volume 1 was mostly ballads, so acoustic versions weren't too different. I've got it, and it made for an interesting listen.

Some of these tracks, like "Smooth Up in Ya" and "Cherry Pie", I can't picture in acoustic form. Will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Ya gotta wonder what's going on in the heads of people who form two bands with the same name.

Tigertailz is such a group.

Ignoring two singers they had prior to releasing albums, they've had two singers that have recorded albums. Steevi Jaimz was the singer for the first album, Young and Crazy.

He was dropped from the band, replaced by Kim Hooker. The band went on to record their successful sophomore effort "Bezerk", which happens to be one of my all-time fave hair metal albums.

Kim remained with the band after that, releasing 2 more studio albums and a live one in 1996.

Steevi, meanwhile, had released a solo album.

The band Tigertailz disappeared for a long while after that.

Suddenly they were back... as 2 separate entities.

Steevi released an album under the Tigertailz name with demo material from his days with them. He hooked up with Ace Finchum (who was in Tailz for the debut album and Bezerk), along with 2 no-names and formed a new Tigertailz line-up.

However, at the same time, founding Tigertailz members Pepsi Tate and Jay Finchum got back with their more popular singer Kim Hooker. This is 3 of the Bezerk-lineup members now, with 2 being founding members of the band. These 3, along with a new drummer formed a different version of Tigertailz.


The current situation:

1) Both bands are touring under the Tigertailz name.

2) Both bands are prepping new albums. The Kim Hooker lineup is recording "Bezerk 2.0", Steevi's version is recording an unnamed album. The Steevi lineup already released a song from it as a limited edition single.


Who should have the name? There's no lawsuits that I know of. Both claim to be the "real" band.

This is my journal, so here's my opinion.

The Kim Hooker line-up should get the name, for several reasons:

1) The lineup includes 2 of the founding band members, both of which were in the band longer than either Kim or Steevi.
2) It also better represents their most popular line-up, having 3 of the Bezerk-era members.
3) Steevi's stint in the band lasted less time than John Corabi was in Mötley Crüe even. No members of his band are original Tigertailz members. Hell, even the most popular song on the album he recorded was re-recorded with Kim on vocals for the single release!


Having said that,

1 - I can't wait for Bezerk 2.0.
2 - I'll listen to anything the Steevi line-up puts out, as I don't dislike his music, I just don't think he should be abusing the Tigertailz name.


Bezerk and Banzai!, 2 of the Kim Hooker-era albums, have just been remastered and re-released after being out of print for years. Both are definitely worth picking up.

More info on each band:

1 - Tigertailz (Kim on vocals) Official Site
2 - Tigertailz (Steevi on vocals) Official Site

Are you one of the elite? ;-)

If you write Perl code, whether a lot or just on occasion, whether stand-alone scripts or CGI, welcome to the Perl Coders group!

http://www.last.fm/group/Perl%2BCoders

New group Power Scrobblers created for anyone who has Scrobbled more than 40,000 songs.

Yep, those of us who listen to way too much music. ;-)

If you've scrobbled more than 40,000 tracks, become a Power Scrobbler!

Join: http://www.last.fm/group/Power%2BScrobblers

OMFG, Alice was as amazing as ever! So was his daughter, Calico, but don't tell my gf I said that. Hehe...

This is a must-see tour for fans of his 70's material. He pulled out quite a few songs from that era that he hadn't played in years, including "I Never Cry" and "Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills".

The latter of those included Calico dressed up and putting on a show as "Paris Hilton" fighting off paparazzi. Quite funny. :-)

There were 2-3 tracks from the new album, 2 from The Eyes, and 1 from each of Trash, Stoopid, and Temptation. Everything else was straight from the 70's. No Brutal Planet/Dragontown, nothing from the pre-Trash 80's albums.

Alice simply cannot put on a bad show. This one was most definitely an homage to his early years, which the tracks from the last 2 albums fit in with beautifully.


PICTURES! Sorry, my camera sucks so their slightly blurry, more so in some pics than others. The pics of Calico definitely don't do her justice. I didn't get any decent shots of drummer Eric Singer either. :-/

But what I did get is here: http://burningdownthe.net/flamester/flashed/gallery/alice-cooper-2005.html