June 1

Big-name music acts don't come to my town that offer (especially the ones that don't wear cowboy hats.) Apparently, it's a big deal that Brandi Carlile is coming to town. She's a new name to me, but the last time this singer-songwriter came around, tickets to her show were gone as soon as the word got out.
Guess there's a lot of "Grey's Anatomy" fans in the area; four songs from her first two album have been used by the show. "The Story", her second album's title track, was used as a 3rd season recap, and became an iPod darling shortly thereafter.
She's got a new album this year, and her new tour's brought her back to my neck of the woods. (Two weeks, Grumpy, if you haven't got your tickets already!) Rick Rubin produced her latest, so I might give the album a try. Meanwhile, here's Brandi's biggest song so far...

May 21

Today's Laurence Tureaud's birthday, but you can call him Mr T. He is the closest thing we have to a living American myth, but I can share some historical tidbits with you: He created the Mr T persona while working as a bouncer. While working the door at some club, he would wear the gold chains, rings and other jewelry that got left behind after some fight in the establishment, so whoever lost their items could get them back without re-entering the club. He wears the Mohawk in the style of a Mandinka warrior, an ethnic group of the African continent; he discovered the hairstyle while reading National Geographic.

His combination of radiating strength and public saavy made him a natural as a celebrity bodyguard, in every sense of the phrase. He parlayed that into an acting career, then into cartoons and pro wrestling, then merchandising. Matter of fact, I started a cereal box collection a few years ago, just to have an excuse to buy a box of Mr T cereal again.

Never mind that the box was empty. Never mind that the cereal tasted like tart packing material, even back in the day. Ebay had that box, and I went for it.
A new generation's discovering Mr T: besides his current status as a pitchman and reality TV star, he's been doing impressive work in cartoons like The Proud Family and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In 2010, he has a CGI "Mr T" movie in development, and he's got his own video game forthcoming, as well. That's not so surprising, considering what he did to World of Warcraft.

That's enough jibba jabba for today. Stay in school!

March 8

If you know the name Ralph H Baer, you probably know too much about video games. He's the inventor of the first video game console (The "Odyssey"), from which all video game systems are derived. Sure, that deserves props, especially with how hard his team fought to get credit for their work. Baer touches on those legal fights in an article about the creation of the SIMON game, which is what I'm thanking him for on his birthday.
I mean, video games are nice and all, but back in the day, SIMON was the shizz:

Now, who doesn't want to be Johnny?

August 25

I’m not simply trying to well-wish celebrities, or snatch some of that sheen of fame for my pseudo-journalistic exercise. If I wanted blog hits, I’d write about Blake Lively or Claudia Schiffer. And then where would we be?

Allow me to confirm that birthday boy Kel Mitchell is not dead. Remember “Keenan and Kel”? While Keenan Thompson is an SNL castmember, Kel may seem like an Invisible Boy to some of you. But for a few years, solo Kel has made his mark as the R & B Weird Al, with the occasional acting role (“Honeydripper”, “Like Mike 2”) Now, he’s building a new generation of fans, voicing characters in cartoons like "Clifford The Big Red Dog" and "Pink Panther and Pals.". It’s okay, man. We’re all dudes here…


Hey, remember Powerman 5000? Band mastermindSpider One has a birthday today. He’s the Demolition Man to Rob Zombie’s Rambo, claiming sci-fi to his bro’s horror rock schtick.

I have never forgotten “Words Collide” and the Yu-Gi-Oh hair.
While he's not getting into the moviemaking business yet, he seems to be treading closer to his brother's territory, with his new gig as blogger/correspondent for FEARnet.com...

Happy birthday to Takeshi Ueda, of the Mad Capsule Markets. They’re a Japanese rock band that I didn’t realize I was a fan of, until I dug out my PS1 copy of “Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3”.

Every time I hear that song, I forget how uncoordinated I am. In 2010, he's released his second solo album, and continues designing new t-shirts and haircuts...

Most of all, I have to say “Happy Birthday” to Rollie Fingers, Hall of Fame baseball player and personal inspiration.


Someday…

Tomorrow: a couple of spooky chicks…

August 23

Welcome to chapter 1. I learned my daughter was going to be born today, and it got me wondering who was born today. I’m a former rock journalist, aspiring writer, eternal trivia addict, and current blog junkie. So I started looking around today, and here’s the interesting stuff I found:

Ytcracker’s a nerdcore artist, so if you like your hip-hop with cheat code references, he’s your man. He’s not your typical net-saavy hip-hop poseur; the boy was programming in BASIC at the age of 4, and made national news vandalzing government websites before he was out of high school. He got out of the game to spit flows over Nintendo beats.

Shifty Shellshock’s blowing out candles today. He was the lead singer in Crazy Town, which was kind of like Sugar Ray before they figured out what kind of music girls want to listen to.

Today’s a great excuse to listen to “Butterfly”, a catchy ditty that did for CrazyTown what “More Than Words” did for Extreme: totally made them an ironically-named one-hit wonder. But how can you hate this song? Actually, the dude’s girlfriend’s in the video, so he got his, and we never heard them on the radio again. Everybody wins. (Just kidding; Shifty kept busy.)

Do yourself a favor, and check out "Orange County"; they do the best job of explaining just how inescapable “Butterfly” is, and what kind of people actually listen to this music. Mike White always gets the best out of Jack Black.

I could write about Julian Casablancas, lead singer of the Strokes. I love the Strokes, think their first three albums are genius. But I got four more chances to write about the Strokes. Why use it up with Casablancas or Hammond? I’d rather write it for the birthday of that bass player with the Prince Valiant haircut.

No, it’s time to put somebody like Dean DeLeo in the spotlight. When you’re in a band with somebody like Scott Weiland, you don’t get a lot of time to shine. Lord knows he and his brother have tried for their time. When it became clear Scott was going to be gone for a while, he and the rest of the Pilots got a new singer and called themselves Talk Show. Then the brothers DeLeo teamed up with Richard Patrick to form the alt-rock supergroup Army of Anyone. After that went nowhere, he and his brother started producing albums, for bands like Alien Ant Farm. And in the end, they still have to reunite with the Barry Bonds of Rock, just to get some play. At least we get a new Stone Temple Pilots album out of the deal, at the end of 2009. Which will be worth it if we get at least one song as catch as “Big Bang Baby”

There’s quite a few guys you’ve heard of- even your parents have heard of – that were born today. Keith Moon, Rick Springfield, Gene Kelly…
But I have to save something for next year.

This column is really for guys like Jimi Jamison, the second lead vocalist for Survivor. Remember that song from Rocky III, “Eye of the Tiger”? He ain’t singing that. Dave Bickler blew out his vocal cords (and I can’t wait to tell you what he does now…) and Jamison replaced him on tour. If you’ve ever noticed Survivor since “Eye of the Tiger”, you’ve heard this guy. You’ve heard him singing “The Search is Over” and “Burning Heart”. You’ve seen him in the Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso commercial, singing in Glen’s ear on his morning commute. Heck, you might have seen Jimi Jameson touring around with a bunch of other guys calling themselves “Jimi Jamison’s Survivor.”

But Jimi Jameson deserves a Happy Birthday from you because he gave us, quite possibly, the last great TV theme song. Observe:

So, that’s how things are going to work around here, in a nutshell. Enjoy, reminisce, maybe send an e-card to the artist. I’ve started compiling my list, but I can always use a little help: if you know some birthdays I shouldn’t miss, send me an e-mail at TheLeroyGrey@gmail.com

Tomorrow, we talk about Anthrax, “Classical Gas”, and the guy who taught Michael Jackson to moonwalk. If you’ll excuse me, I have to run in slow motion now…