The Tip of the Iceberg.

How's everybody?

It is rare when we are touched or shall I say teased by greatness or near greatness for that matter.

Months ago I witnessed, for a moment, one of the horrific award shows that seem to come as hard and fast these days as "reality" shows, which for the record I am not a big fan of... but hey, that's me.

But, on this particular occasion I happened to flick thru the channels to hear some rubbish about the debut of some fantastic new band and how friggin'amazing they were gonna be and just watch this commercial, buy this crap and wash your hair with this B.S. our sponsor is trying to force feed you and, blah, blah, blog.

Well, I must have been distracted by my dog Buckley stealing my pretzels or worst, drinking my frosty cold brew, otherwise I would have changed the channel and all would be status quo... when on comes the revelation "they" were hyping as the next or second coming. Boys and girls, much to my surprise, they've arrived. And I am now, months after the fact, writing you as I am listening to their "The Resistance" CD, that's right. The band is MUSE and I am sold and loving it.

I am not a music critic, don't wish or care to be. Just a music lover. I don't desire to hawk mine or any others music or soap for that matter, but, I must share this with you all who may not have had the pleasure of experiencing their music.

Yes, experience. That's what I'm doing as I confer with my spell check more frequently than I care to admit to. In fact one day I will just let one of these blogiddy-blog tranmissions go thru just to shock you. But, I digress.

The first song I encountered was a catchy little (Actually not "little" in the least) anthem by the name of "Uprising". It got my attention immediately. Melodic, rythmic, intelligent. The band was young, hip and appeared genuine and confident considering the fact that this was their big American debut. Could the Grammy's or Mammies or whatever the @#$%&* I was resistantly watching be right? I dare say yes, but... yes. And... this was just the tip of the Iceberg.

There I was, walking down the aisle of the local Target store ( for those of you outside the US, this is a slightly hipper version of the dreaded Wal-Mart and K-Mart stores. All three of which I would frequent as often as possible on tour. So much that I was eventually dubbed the nickname of "Stevie Walmart" by my always witty and humorous band buddie, Ross Valory.) Anyways, while in search of the perfect tube socks my eyes caught a glimpse of the ever shrinking CD section and I could not resist.

Here I am nearly a week later, and I'm like... hey where my MUSE CD. What pile of clothes or lyrics did I hide it under? Well, from top to bottom , MUSE had my attention and then some. I guess it doesn't hurt that at times they are reminisent or has musical moment that are Queen-ish, yes the band and not the Tina Turner impersonator. Musical is an understatement.

It is reassuring to know that someone out there is making music of this caliber. And I for one am a brand new fan.

I did however come across a video (May or may not be the official video) of perhaps one of my favorite tracks, "The United States of Eurasia" and was less than pleased with the visual content. But, hey. This is America where we do have, and exercise our freedom of speech. Hence my rambling.

If you've got some music that has impressed you lately, please share it with me and the rest of us. I can only listen to my old Led Zeppelin albums just so many times in a week.

So, this music has inspired me to write and there it is. I don't want to tell you all the details as to why I think it's extraordinary, I want you all to have fun finding out for yourselves. It's the Journey right? I can't believe I really wrote that:)

Enjoy, 'til we meet again.

Steve