Like Clockwork

Queens of the Stone Age, one of my favorite bands of the modern era, are releasing a new album on Tuesday.  This will be the first album they've released in 6 years.  When it was announced late last year that Dave Grohl would be drumming on the album, I became very excited for its release.

For those who don't know, Dave Grohl is arguably the most prolific rock n' roll personality of the last 20 years.  He was the drummer for Nirvana when they hit it big, playing on hits like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Heart-Shaped Box."  After Kurt Cobain died, he went on to form the Foo Fighters, playing every instrument on their debut album and continuing to play both guitar and drums on the follow-up.  Foo Fighters have gone on to become massively popular, though he still takes time to do various side projects.  He released a metal album titled Probot featuring a different metal vocalist on each track while Grohl again plays every instrument.  He played drums on Queens of the Stone Age's best album, Songs for the Deaf, which is why the idea of him coming back excited me.  He also played in a supergroup known as Them Crooked Vultures with Josh Homme, the vocalist/lead guitarist of Queens of the Stone Age and John Paul Jones, the multi-instrumentalist of the little known band Led Zeppelin.  At the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief, he reunited with the remaining members of Nirvana to play with Paul freaking McCartney.  So it's safe to say he's had a pretty successful career.

Dave Grohl

After the jump, some samples of Grohl's work and the main point of this post - my debate over whether I should buy the new QotSA album or not.

Hatfields & McCoys & Brothers in Arms

     I had DVRed Hatfields & McCoys when it was on last week.  If you haven't heard of it, climb out from underneath your rock.  The History Channel had been promoting it fairly heavily, and I was glad to see something on what used to be my favorite channel that actually gave its namesake some meaning.  For the uninitiated, the story revolves around the feud that took place between the titular Hatfield ad McCoy families in the 1880s in the states of Kentucky and West Virginia and how it nearly brought the U.S. into another Civil War.  I just finished watching the final part of the three part miniseries about fifteen minutes ago, and I must say it was phenomenal.
 

Kevin Costner (left) plays Anderson Hatfield while Bill Paxton (the other left) plays Randoph McCoy, the leaders of the two families.  Both portray their characters convincingly.