The HeartRippers: "Elizabeth Says"

Sometimes we play an original tune...

The HeartRippers: "Gloria"

For the morbidly curious, some video of what me and my buddies do when we have some time to kill. The video/sound is rough and unedited, but then so are we...
Probably not for the musically inclined...



Some fucking loser:

Unrelated Segments

This Week in Hockey...

... my beloved Boston Bruins handed the Vancouver Canucks their collective asses on a platter. After losing the first two games (of a best of seven) in Vancouver--games which were very close and they could just as easily have won, the Bruins won the next two in Boston by a combined score of 12-1. The Bruins kicked ass. With two of the last three games in Vancouver, the Bruins will have to win one away. The next game is in Vancouver tomorrow morning (Japan time). I'll be watching with a hangover. I hope the Bruins are feeling as nasty as I will be...

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Link Land

--Future events such as these will affect you in the future.

--You won't.

--I grow concerned for your craniofacial integrity.

--The most feared punctuation on earth.

--Top thirty Japanese emoticons.


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Rainy Season

It's generally a chore for me to find anything positive to say about rainy season in Japan... Wait, here's something: Because it's raining, I can't walk the dog. Because it's raining, I can't go out for my regular walk and exercise. Because it's raining, I can start drinking beer earlier. Because it's raining, I can post something on my blog. Because it's raining, you have to read this drivel... I guess it's all a matter of perspective...


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It's possible, perhaps likely, that Sitemeter sucks.

I'm not really one to dwell on how many page hits my blog gets each day or month or whatever. Considering the effort I generally put into this blog, I figure I get about as many visitors as I deserve--sometimes maybe more. I *am* interested, however, in how people (aside from friends) end up here. I'm interested in the search terms they use, what pictures or posts seem to draw attention, that sort of thing. Like most (maybe all?) of my blogging friends, there are no ads on my site. Just me blowing my own horn... Like most bloggers I know, I've been using Sitemeter to keep stats for this site since Day 1.

Anyway, of late I've been checking out Blogger's stats for my site and comparing them to what Sitemeter says happens in these parts. (In fact, it was only recently that I even noticed that Blogger offered a "stats" tab.) The screen grabs below are from earlier today.

Here's what Sitemeter says (from this afternoon):

And here's what Blogger says:

Now, the two numbers that jump out at me have to do with today's visitors and the total, or all-time visitors. The daily visitors numbers tend to be much higher according to Blogger. And, Blogger has only been counting for about a year, but Sitemeter has been counting for about 8 years. The two systems, whatever they are, don't even come close to matching up.

Common sense tells me that Blogger/Google has a much better handle of traffic on its own sites that any third party could. The two services measure somewhat different metrics, but if Sitemeter's actual hit count is as far off as it seems, then it is pretty much useless.

I've noticed that Blogger stats records a lot of spammy-looking page hits. But I've also noticed that Sitemeter misses a lot of really legitimate page hits from actual links. (I'm reminded a bit of Technorati--is there a more useless site on the web?)

I'm very close to dumping Sitemeter...

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Heartrippers: getting ready to rock Miyazaki this summer.

We changed the name of our band...

Back down to a 3-piece, a little heavier, a little jammier. Now if only someone besides our middle-aged ex-pat friends would come and see us...

Still Alive and Well

Yeah...

The Dead Flowers

In the "Green Room" at Big Box...

I'll have more on this as soon as my head stops pounding...

Onstage Now!

Dork of Rock

This evening I'm going out to play drums and drink beer with my mates. Eeehaaahh!

Have a good evening!

We're (Not Really) an American Band...

Umm, right. OK, so it's The Dead Flowers minus a guitar player/vocalist. And viewers should be warned it should be said that there's some debate about who'd had more to drink at the time this was recorded, the band or the friend of the band who made the video. You'll see what I mean if you watch it.



There's a great scene in The Ninth Gate where Frank Langella pours gas over himself and then sets himself on fire. A few seconds before dying a horrible, agonizing death by fire he says something like, "Yes, I feel the power! The flames can't harm me at all! Hahahahaha!!!" I've had a lot of days like that...

Have you ever noticed...

... that when anyone in the band fucks up onstage they always look back at the drummer? It's worse, even, than the ball player who looks disgustedly at his glove, or the tennis player who gives her racket a dirty look, because we drummers are people, dammit!

So our guitar player makes up a little promo thing for the band and sends it to me:


This is the entirety of the message he included:

Hey,
You're not really in it, Rick. Sorry. But I like it.
c

Further proof, Ladies and Gentlemen, as if any were needed, that guitar players lack the ability to count to fucking four, yet still think everything's "cool" because they "like it"!

And in case you're reading this, Colin, have you and the boys given any thought to my suggestion of switching to an all Backstreet Boys format?

An Update

I haven't posted anything about our band for a while. We're playing downtown Miyazaki this Sunday for a local festival (Erekocha, for the search-inclined). We continue to improve.

Road Trip to Hippy Land

This past Friday night after work I threw some socks and underwear into the car and headed up to Mt. Aso in Kumamoto for a weekend of peace, love, and all that other hippy stuff. There was a music festival happening, and our (non-hippy) band had a gig. Yes, we were playing in the the coveted "second band after lunch" slot. (Some bands might see this as being a somewhat lowly spot on the slate of events, but they're probably more interested in exposure than the drinking time that opens up when you finish your set early...).

As an ex-rocker cum existentialist cum university teacher cum aging rocker, I'm not particularly prone to touchy-feely expressions of universal brotherhood, so I felt a bit out of place at this particular gathering. I mean, everyone was nice to us and all that, but damn, these hippies wear different clothes and are all, like, "back to nature" and stuff. And, to be honest, I didn't really like most of the music I heard performed there. (I will say, though, that every band I saw was better at their "thing" than we were at ours.)

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I may come back to this, if only to post a few pics (although I didn't really get very many good ones).

The following tune is a comfort to me...


... although I wonder if I'm the only one who doesn't sense something ironic about it...

Well, OK, here are a couple of pics. Maybe more to come...

Rockin' in the Free World

I suppose I should post this before our guitar player comes over here and punches me out or something. Here's another clip from our Weather King gig a while back. We're doing another Neil Young tune. Kind of Christmas-y, I guess (if you're a cynical bastard like me, that is).

Come Together

Here's another clip from The Dead Flowers' triumphant (ahem) Weather King gig. The song is "Come Together" by The Beatles. Bonus for anyone who listens through to the end of the clip: we completely botch the ending.



What did I tell you?

Beast of Burden

Got nuthin' much to say right now. Here's another Dead Flowers video, in which we do "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones.

Down by the River

This blog ain't all FARK links, ya know. Sometimes I (in this case "we") post original stuff.

The Dead Flowers dig Neil Young.



As always: be nice or be anonymous!

[UPDATE: In case anyone didn't know, I'm the hot (but humble!) drummer stuck behind the guitar player from Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley (Dullsville, believe me). You can't see me, that's how you can tell I'm "humble"! By the way ladies, did I mention that I'm free for a couple of days...?]

Keep Your Hands to Yourself

Here's our band, The Dead Flowers, playing at Weather King here in Miyazaki a few weeks ago. The song is "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" by the Georgia Satellites. You've clicked your way here, and I know who some of you are. I can tell if you've watched/listened to the video. For the sake of international harmony and all that shit, please post rude comments anonymously!



Heh. As I recall, there was actually some clapping when we finished (we had a couple of friends at the gig). The sound mix is coming straight from the board, though, so there's no ambient noise.

Aoshima One World Festival: Band from Hell!

[Many thanks to Takeshi Qualisho for the band photos. We owe you a beer, Takeshi!]

The Dead Flowers: "Hide Your Valuables" Tour '08.

Rendered semi-catatonic by cult indoctrination.

Years of alcohol abuse have taken their toll.

A looser and a moran.

Busy

Aside from the "normal busy" of family and work, these days our band has been preparing for a couple of "big" gigs that are coming up this weekend. Saturday evening we're playing a "live house" at The Weather King here in Miyazaki:

The God of Live lies in our basement...

Er, yeah. Whatever. Actually this is a pretty big venue for these parts, and I'm a bit psyched to play on a real "rock" stage again.

Sunday afternoon we're doing an outdoor show at the Aoshima One World Festival:

The goal of the Aoshima One World Festival is to bring many different people together in Aoshima to share in stimulating experiences from different cultures and to realize that it is together that we create and enjoy culture. Each of us has her own role to play in the making and sharing of this One World

Boy, does that sound like a gig from hell made for a guy like me, or what? (Just kidding, guys!)

Anyway, the regular crap that the few of you who still check in here have become accustomed to should resume sometime in the next few days. Don't say you weren't warned.

More Dead Flowers!

From a completely different video source (who nonetheless must have been sitting directly behind my wife), another song from our triumphant (heh!) Erekocha Festival gig. Here we are doing Neil Young's "Helpless":



This one quite definitely has a better drum sound...

The Dead Flowers... Live!

OK, so the sound quality is a bit crappy, and my lovely wife (bless her heart) can't operate a camera worth a damn... Ahh, shit, enough whining!

Here's our band, The Dead Flowers, playing The Band's classic "The Weight."



Be nice, now!