1990 First Album Mystery Band??? My God, a ton of interesting bands that year.

 Somebody on the radio channel I listen to, this month, said that before the Cranberries, but similar to the Cranberries, a band put out a debut album in 1990, and it was pretty darn good. Also hinted they were less well known. 

Who the heck is it? 

Cranberries out of Ireland

The Breeders: part Pixies, Part Throwing Muses (Belly)

Can't be the obvious Breeders debut Pod in 1990. Too easy, too well known. So who then? 

Don't tell me I have to comb through this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1990_debut_albums

Surely it can't be:

Ani DiFranco, Tone Dogs (related to Soundgarden drummer), The Lightning Seeds (forgot about them), Boss Hog (see wikip, sound insane but I like the name and album name "Brood X" a cicada reference around 2016),  

JELLYFISH ?, 

Teenage Fanclub? - Scottish pop rock. 

The Heart Throbs? - British indie rock

Pale Saints - British alt rock shoegaze

Cop Shoot Cop - cult following, MTV etc., Industrial and Noise. Hmmm.

The Servants - Disinterest album, Brit, Mojo chart puts top of best indie albums ever. Why the heck not on Spotify? 

The Grid - electronic Brit, still making music

Energy Orchard - N. Ireland - folk and punk

Breakfast With Amy - Influenced by early U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen

The Divine Comedy - still making music, N. Irish, rock + strings + horns

Cherry Poppin Daddies - remember them? Still touring.

Eden (Australian Band) - some goth and synth from Australia? Lots of albums. 

Ween - the goofy nutters. Didn't know they had a DemonGod mascot called Boognish. And why is their 2nd album called "The Pod" a year after Breeders' had "Pod". On purpose you know it. 

The Jesus Lizard - Noise rock, apparently first two albums are something.

Tribe - Alt rock. from Boston. Also interesting a few of these have a "debut in 1990", but then in another place it has a debut album in the late 1980s.

Hindu Love Gods - R.E.M. side project ppl.

Power of Dreams - Irish pop rock, still active.

Eyehategod - New orleans Sludge Metal. They know Pantera right? 

No Use for a Name - punk band.

Winter - doom metal. And this label, Southern Lords, has this funny picture of Greg Anderson and Sunn o, two guys dressed up like mages with their hoods up playing music. Like the look. 

The La's - English rock. So... the funky apostrophe that confuses the world over all normal apostrophes appears here. 

Warrior Soul - still active. Somebody compared them to Nirvana, but not nihilistic. Hmm. 

Vic Chestnut - R.E.M. Stipe found him, promoted. Fugazi guy apparently admired. Paralyzed.

His Name is Alive - some experimental guitar(?) guy, gets new singers all the time. 

Red Rockers - old punk ->new wave band from nola, members then joined other bands. 

Raindogs - Celtic + rock. Made up of partially Red Rockers. (Holy cow, Spotify has every RainDogs combo but these dudes). 

Silly Wizard - folk band from Scotland. 

Ass Ponys - alternative country. Country rock. OK. 

Lightwave - ambient and electronic.

Christina Agular - Thai singer, not the other one. First Thai singer to have a plat album or something. 

Anything Box - Synth band. 

Learned this from wikipedia:

0.1 Cenobite is a religious title or something similar. 

0.2 Cenobita is a Mexican industrial band, influenced by Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly. 

1. Noise Rock, uses guitar distortions, etc. for percussion and such. 

2. Soundgarden was influenced by Butthole Surfers?!

3. Butthole Surfers, the 2 main dudes, were an accountant and an MBA student. What?

4. Technical Death Metal, is a genre of music. They have one great album art for Nocturnus, The Key:

"While noise rock has never had any mainstream popularity, the raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on shoegaze, which enjoyed some popularity in the 90s, especially in the UK, and grunge, the most commercially successful. Among them are Wisconsin's Killdozer, Chicago's Big Black, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk". The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden.^[18]"

The Schwa - Super Useful Sound (letter )

XKCD has the funny on it: 

https://xkcd.com/2907/

I've always liked the easy going laid back don't give a rat's schwa sound. In times of Grammar naziness, it's nice to know schwa is there to bring it down a notch... reduce it a tad... um... calm it, cool it... none of these phrases sound good today, but I get my meaning. 

More info: Stressed-timed languages like English... and the schwa, in the link: 
https://teachnews.gr/glwssologia-didaktikh/item/833-teaching-the-schwa

The schwa sound is everywhere in English. 

Thə shwə sound iz evrywhere in Eenglish. 

Let's try that again. 

America, let me ask ya. What in tarnation are ya gonna do if ya didn't have the schwa?  

Əmericə, let mee ask yə. Whət in tarnayshən ar yə gonnə do if yə didn't hav thə schwə?  

Can you have an uppercase schwa? Well I found it, but not sure that's right. 

And this crazy site claims it was getting added to the English language as the 27th letter, back in 2018-2020, but I guess that wasn't real:
https://omniglot.com/language/articles/newletter.htm

Smash Brothers Ultimate, Sonic.. beginner and more advanced notes.

The classic rivalry? Interesting how many things get thrown into Smash Brothers. 

Smash Brothers Ultimate. The kid is just about a dang pro... I finally started playing. 5 years to catch up, yeah no problem. Notes below. 

LEARNING SONIC, I'LL TRY AT LEAST

 Players are Sonix and KEN. 

Usually doesn’t need fast air drop for combos. 

Back Air att hits very hard. 

In neutral… Down BBB charge up far away, then safely cancel with jump n immediately down air (divekick). 

Fwd Tilt is quick dbl kick, very good n fast, safe. EDIT: And allows you to change directions immediately without the difficulty of accidentally dashing or plain old start attacking the wrong way, the bane of my existence in this game. 

Holding direction after attacking makes u annoyingly SLOW walk. All characters. EDIT: Use to my advantage???! It's very hard to position Sonic near the ledge when you want to attack ppl coming back up b/c more than a coat of Steve Irwin paint of a tap on the stick will make you dash like 10 yards. 

Dont air jump (AKA dbl jump) then use B ball or u risk rolling off ledge and dying bcuz no dbl jump later.

Ledge. Use HOMING att when u far off ledge to get closer. Esp if enemy above u. EDIT: Only if enemy above you? Maybe pros use the BB or BBB roll or something. Or maybe use the HOMING but hold it a long time cuz maybe you still rise up in the air (or is that only from the ground, yeah only from ground, huh?). 

Ledge, use down BB ball to roll towards ledge then dbl jump, up B.

 Homing B when facing wrong direction allows for a combo hit after. EDIT: And is probably safe if they block. 

Homing B attack when facing them hits further away but no combo bc it bounces u back a lot .

Throw them up, combo.

ADVANCED BELOW

Homing from directly above , facing backwards, allows u to air att after they block homing!

Ledge from hanging on, down then immediately jump plus up Air att to basically attack fromoff ledge. Then back air, back air combo vs bowser  

Ledge kill 2 frame is with fwd Smash w Sonic, which is great bcuz lots of characters have to use a weak att. See in the Ken vs. Light match below at end, commentators make big deal.

Tourney Port Priority 8  around Dec 2023 or Jan 2024, see Sonix vs Miya below… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkBxpHbc534

Some advanced combo thing player Sonix did with… something like up B (something hit eh?), neutralAir att(whiff to get better drift aka momentum), fast air drop(hold down during air att, even that whiff), back air to hit. He didn’t turn around midair, you can’t, but he caught player Miya using Mr. Game & Watch off guard eh? 

Advanced. Block a multi hit attack, near end stop ur shield, take one hit, then parry last hit so u can do a quick smash. See it around time 7 min 40 seconds in WTT 2023 - KEN (sonic) vs. Light (Fox) smash ultimate - SSBU

SIDENOTE TRIVIA: What the heck is Mr. Game & Watch? Looks like a dang gameboy from 1980 or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_%26_Watch

Low Budget High Fantasy Movies/videos

 Dragon Age- redemption 

.acting is quite good for a low budget venture, let’s say good enough for some hollywood movies  . Main lady is quite good  

.metal armor looks wrong  . Nonmetal armor looks very good  .

.story is pretty much fine

.I dig the gray mage guy

.magic effects are passable

.mages are strangely healers (part of their lore)

.All the characters are very likeable which makes for a good watch.

Immersiveness, details  -

.. Hollywood girl power is out of control. Women way more powerful than guys, so come prepared. 

..racial and cultural mix is super high and not very immersive at all. Other than maybe the gray demon looking dudes.   

..fight choreography fairly weak.

All in all, I enjoyed it. 

Our three heroes(?) in Curse of the Dragon Slayer. 

Curse of the Dragon Slayer - AKA, SAGA:Curse of the Shadow aka other stuff. 

.surprisingly good fight choreography. The main elf lady is damn good, by the way... moves well, has heft to her sword attacks and kicks, flexible back... has to be a real life athlete of some kind.

..acting is quite solid. I like the Irish lead guy and the niceish orc, especially... they are charismatic. 

..I like the main guy’s remote speaking to his lady boss… fittingly magical, eerie vibe, and adds to some plot elements.

Immersiveness

.hollywood girl power meter is at pre-Xena levels. Aka low, meaning men are stronger than women. 

.racial appearance vs. cultural believability meter… fairly high marks here. As in, it feels like LOTR movie levels..Except there is a semigood orc .

 .costumes are really good. Metal Armor seems functional and realistic.  Makeup for orcs is outstanding… literally as good as LOTR movies. The elf eye contacts need more detail, they look wrong. The main orc’s eye contacts are OK but slightly too big or something.. his face was designed to be more sympathetic so it seems it was a choice.

..settings look good. I especially love the crazy sky colors and the watery areas. 

.callbacks to the 1980s… yes, the wristgrab handshake, nice. Very tame,  not rated R. 

All in all enjoying this one too  Solid ending boss and eell ending, too. Character arcs, etc.  Surprised how much I enjoyed it actually.  

Pretty Good synopsis here, https://www.nerdly.co.uk/2014/05/09/curse-of-the-dragon-slayer-review/

The Street Fighter 1974 movie, influenced Tarentino, Sf2, Mortal Kombat

 Aka Gekitotsu! Satsujin-ken    , google translates to something like

  Clash! Murder-hit/punch

Another site goes with

Clash!Killer Fist, another with Clash! Assassination Fist

Note that the kanji for “ken” is not something common, because M is not familiar with it other than to say the kanji for “ke” meaning hand, as in karaTE, is part of the ken kanji  . 

Watching now… pretty entertaining! At first worried the weird not-so-smooth kung fu influenced karate was a mistake,  but it fits with the character’s personality. He is a scoundrel. He isn’t Mr. Suave, Mr. Accurate, or Mr. Niceguy . He is sneaky, wild, dangerous, fearless, and deadly  

1974… so while a lot of it feels like Bruce Lee, it does take a different direction (while the dub states in the first line or two of the movie that the guy in the cell must think he is Bruce Lee, heh). Bruce was always the perfectly cool hero who rarely kills. Sonny Chiba is an antihero all the way, and kills all the minibosses. 

I figured it influenced Tarentino’s movies (grindhouse top 20 list of his,yeah, omg and Sonny Chiba was even in Kill Bill) and the name of The Street Fighter arcade video games… and I noticed several low sweeping kick attacks which surely is a direct inspiration for the games… but didn’t know it influenced Mortal Kombat with fatalities.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Street_Fighter says, and I have often heard, “ It is notable as the first film to receive an X-rating in the US solely for violence.” It was mostly talked about as being the castration death scene movie back in the day.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles likely got Rafael’s Sai weapons from this movie  .. one sai pops up at time 49 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sai in a non-ninja turtles movie before actually!

Awesome quotes-

“That’s a load of sukiyaki” at time 34 minutes. Hilarious… the movie got a X rating for violence, but they can’t say “shit”.  Heh.  And Netflix is where I am watching it… the damn thing edited out the gore.  Kinda surprised since modern gore is like 1000 times worse yet they leave it in on all these streaming things  

SF2 Game borrowed-

Sweeps, one looks just like crouching roundhousees of Ken and Ryu  

Jumping off wall kicks, a la Chun Li, (time 32 minutes…) and even the jumping roundhouse kick looks identical to Ken and Ryu’s. 

—-

Related, Kazuya (ya ku za .. rearranged) in Tekken and Smash Brothers dresses like a Yakuza man. 

Related. Goglo 13 -Kowloon Assignment was a 1977 Sonny Chiba movie?! Cool  

Sparkly water looks cool. Was blue white a minute before but now golden. 

Cool rain battle scene (Kill Bill?) and love the way he throws his jacket off screen here. 

And this is a Street Fighter 2 Guile flashkick, cool. Time around 52 minutes. 

And a SF2 M.Bison dictator or Vega claw slide before the flashkick moment. 

Crazy Anime Faces

 From Kengan Ashura

Melvins music, url blog

 

Melvins art info, kiss copy atyle info etc.

https://utsurface.blogspot.com/2019/06/melvins-singles-overload-mega-post.html

Homages (Movies) site

 https://www.tasteofcinema.com/2018/the-10-best-movie-homages-of-all-time/

Pronunciation and Grammar time - E̸̲̘̝̩͍̝͈͎̝͎̜͚̬̥͈̟̊͑̌ͥ͌̅ͯͬͬ̇ͩ̔ͧ̈́̔ͪͧ̒̇ͪ̐͜͢͟͠ͅn̸̸̨̫̭ͤg̶̴͇̣̖̱ͧ̒͒͝lͣ̊̎_̵̢̨͕̰͎ͧ̔ͦ̇ͪ́͛ḭ̰̅͛ͭ͜ͅ_̶̧̨̧̖̞͙͕͈̳͉ͤͤ̈̽̃ͦ͐̈ͨ͆͜s̐ͧ̏h͕̱͑͐̾̒̔̊̔̽͡͡ L̩͈̯̮̼̲̦̱̤̲̺̍̀͛̊ͬ̍ͧ͐̅̚a̵̢͎̺̗̘̯̭̱͉̼̪͕̥̻̟̥͉͎͖̟̒̉̂ͣ̎̒ͯ͂͂̐̈̈́͐ͬ͋̈ͪ̕͜͟͝͠͝͝ń̵̡̢̛̰͓̭͚̪͔͎͓͕͈̫̌ͬͨ̽̇ͥ̊ͦͪ̽̓̓̈́ͭ͑ͪ͐ͨ̄ͨͩͫ̚̚͟͝͞ͅg̷̵̡̧̛̟̼͔̗͎̙̳̗͕͚̪͆̍̋̿̊̀ͬͧ́́̑ͥͭ̉̋͑́ͤͣ͜͡͞͠͠u̷̡̡͙̞̦̳͍͚͙̙͙͙͍̗̜̮̩͖͆͒͂ͤ͗ͮͥͮ̍̆ͩ̍́ͦ͛̽̆ͮ͝͠͞a̴̩͕͉͈̖̻̙͕͆̅͐͑̑̈̇ͤͩ͆̎̓ͮ͟͢ģ̴̺̟̰̼̆̎ͮ̉̈́́͋̍͌͊́ͤ́̒̇̾ͦ̅͘͢͟ẹ͖̼̪͇̹̦̀́̔͂̇ͫͭͦͦ̐ͧ́͘͡_̵̧̖̦̺̤̣̗͐̃̏ͧ͌ͮͫ̌̓ͭ̃̑͐͂̈́̚͟

It's time for a new edition of grammar/pronunciation/English language stuuuuffff! Why do I love weird English grammar type rules... it weirds me out sometimes. How do you like the crazy font in the subject... it looks slightly artistic on this bland site- I'm leaving it. 

• What's the deal with various pronunciation notation methods? The schwa, ə, vs. the not schwa "uh" thing. 
• Example: The word "what" written as (wut) or (wət).
• Example with caps vs. the single apostrophe accent on what syllable thing
• m-w.com has pə-ˈlēs  and that is what I learned back in school, but it is missing parentheses. Although it is inconvenient to type a schwa (I google copy paste it) or the long vowel thing that is a bar over the vowel... (I also duckduckgo search it and copy paste it). 
• dictionary.com has the opposite type, [ puh-lees ].  Wow, they even use bold. Maybe I made up the uppercase version. 
• Oh check this out, IPA is close to the version I learned in school but different. 
• / pəˈlis /
• While they call this new fangled (pretty easy) version PHONETIC RESPELLING. 
• [ puh-lees ]

Homage and the 3 or 4 pronunciations. See here https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/469289/recent-change-in-pronouncing-homage

Seems to me, the general idea is leaning towards, oh-MAJ = French pronunciation for movie specific type stuff. The AH-muj version is more related to some fealty or honor thing to ancient people to people swearing allegiance for protection, etc. 

• Why is it spelled pronunciation instead of pronOUnciation?

• This sounds right, from https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/217014/why-did-the-letter-o-disappear-in-the-word-pronunciation

• The direct answer to your immediate question is because it never had one — and so of course it couldn’t possibly lose something it never had.

  The problem is that you’ve asked a bit of a backwards question; the frontwards question is:

  Why did pronunciation, annunciation, enunciation, renunciation all change their vowel for the verbs pronounce, announce, enounce, renounce?

  The answer lies in how we acquired them from Old French, where the verbs already had Latin’s u changed to o and which we later diphthonged, but where the differently stressed nouns did not.

  More recent exports — well, or envoys — from Rome that didn’t pass through France suffered no such frobnication; just ask your nearest papal nuncio.

  Here are the OED’s etymology entries for these:

  pronounce

  ME. pronunce, pronounce, a. OFr. pronuncier (1277 in Godef. Compl.), for earlier purnuncier (mod.Fr. prononcer) :– late L. prōnunciāre for orig. prōnuntiāre to proclaim, announce, rehearse, narrate, pronounce, f. prō, ^_PRO1 + nunti-āre to announce: cf. _^ANNOUNCE, _^ENOUNCE.

  announce

  a. OFr. anonce-r, earlier anoncier, anuncier :– L. adnuntiā-re, f. ad to + nuntiāre to bear a message, f. nunti-us bringing news. See _^AN- pref. ⁶.

  enounce

  ad. Fr. énoncer, ad. L. ēnuntiā-re (see _^ENUNCIATE), after the analogy of _^ANNOUNCE.

  renounce

  ad. Fr. renoncer (OFr. also renuncer) :– L. renuntiāre (-ciāre) to announce, proclaim, also to disclaim, protest against, f. re- re- + nuntiāre to make known, report: cf. _^ANNOUNCE, _^DENOUNCE, etc.

  nuncio

  a. earlier Ital. nuncio, nuntio (now nunzio), = Sp. and Pg. nuncio :– L. nuncius, nuntius messenger.

  Understand that this is the same thing that happened to Latin uncia meaning one-twelfth part of something, which coming to us by way of Old French eventually gave us an ounce, twelve of which make a troy pound.

  However, the more direct borrowing from the Latin uncia into Old English itself was ynch, a different vowel that ultimately became inch, twelve of which make a foot.

  There is also the ounce that means lynx, but that word traces a slightly different route between Latin and English, having confused the leading l- for an article and therefore losing it, much as a napron became an apron over a confusion about articles, just as occurred with an orange which originally had a leading n- in the noun.

• Why do words get a new way to be pronounced when they get an extra couple of syllables? Is it some snobbery nonsense (feels like it sometimes) or is it just easier to say (yeah, sometimes). 
• https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/essentialsoflinguistics2/chapter/14-3-phonological-change/ 
• This detailed page also says that it was "SK" in ask first in Old English, then "X" or "KS", then back to "SK". So is that Word lady on youtube PBS wrong? 
• https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/281611/root-pronunciation-change-when-adding-suffix
• Gives some examples, less explanations why we think it happens. 
• The funny southern US new pronunciation on purpose. POH-lees, etc.
• Examples: 
• Police as POH-lees instead of puh-LEES (I would never say this myself, but I can understand it, and it kind of makes me crack a smile, b/c the sayer (made up that word I hope?) is saying it "wrong" on purpose most of the time.  
• Umbrella as UM-brella instead of um-BREL-la
• ??
• I know that youtube accent coach for celebrity people talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A
• I think he just sums it up as "Sometimes in Southern American English, people change it up and put a long vowel sound on the first syllable" or just the stress on the first syllable instead of the 2nd or something. 
• Hard to find it written down, but maybe here somewhere: https://mrenwick.franklinresearch.uga.edu/southern_speech/linguistic_features
• Rules for underlining, italicizing, etc. book titles, movies, newspapers, magazines, etc. So much print stuff is going extinct, I wonder what the hell is used now. Kids seem to just have website references for literally all their research. Libraries still exist but are they used for research now? 
• According to https://www.grammarly.com/blog/quotation-marks-in-titles/
• I notice they aren't saying to underline ANYTHING anymore
• Personally, it seems pretty stupid to use quotes for some and italics for others. It would be more clear to just use italics for all of it. Why the hell not? I'm especially being anti-grammar-ruley here b/c they have two different versions based on... a single city's rules? That just seems silly if that is the case. 
• The general rule is to use quotation marks for titles of short works such as articles, poems, songs, essays, or short stories. By contrast, use italics for larger works such as books, movies, and the names of periodicals. We provide a complete list below.