by Peter Marus

This week I picked up two things, one DVD and one CD. the Cd I got is Sevendust's new album “Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow”, and I like it for the most part. It's sounds a lot like their past couple albums, which is a good thing for the most part. Their first single off the album is “Prodigal Son”, which is a strong track to start off with. There are a couple other tracks I can see being released, “Scapegoat”, and “The Past”, which features Chris Daughtry. Both tracks are good, but I think “The Past” would more likely get released since it involves Chris Daughtry. Speaking of featured artists, thats one thing I noticed, and not really sure if its a good thing. On this album there's three tracks that feature other artists. I personally think that means they ran out of material as they were recording, and needed to get to the number of tracks they planned for. It's not a bad thing per se, just something that stood out. I got the album off of Itunes, and I got a bonus track called “Disgust” that is actually pretty good (usually a bonus track is a throw away track).

That's the thing I was thinking about lately. A lot of the things that has been going on lately is that more and more media (music, TV episodes, movies) are going more the digital route. While this was expected due to the expansion of broadband and the idea that there is more control by the distributer over piracy, it still gets me nervous. I back up my computer at least once every two days, but I still feel safer having a physical disc with the media on it. Pretty soon I can see people with 4-5 external hard drives on their desk, one for computer back up, and the rest for storage of media, videos, movies, and any other media. I”m petrified of my backup hard drive could shit the bed, and I'd be fucked. Yeah, some things about the digital media I am still trying to adjust.

OK, the DVD I got recently is called “XXX Main, Three”, no it's not what you think, it's actually a video of R/C stunts and racing. Best way I can describe it is that it's like the old skateboard videos,-take a camera, some subjects, do something crazy/dangerous, get some independent/unknown/local bands, and edit together using every type of edit possible crammed into an hour. Some are probably saying “Geez, what a stupid thing to buy and watch.” Well I like it and this is my space, so I am writing about it. they have clips of all their videos on the various video sites. Look up XXX main on any of the sites and some of their more known bits may come up.