Ancient History - The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever - 2007

The Cribs work well enough for me. Like a lot of people I can get bored of the guitar-bass-drum set up...I can feel like there is nothing left to do with that format, but the fact of the matter is there is still little better for converying certain emotions than that set up. And rather than another hushed acoustic balladeer or pysch-folk collective, it's almost a refreshing change of pace to find a "turn it up to 11" guitar band out there.

As for ancient history...certain recent situations in my life have caused me to think a lot about the Roman Empire...no scratch that, I ALWAYS think about the Roman Empire, but the recent situation has caused me to think about the conquest of the Greeks in particular. The Romans were crafty and strong...essientially they were the first people to break through Greek defence by figuring out the brilliant strategy of "when they throw their spears, we should get out of the way". But all in all the Greeks were the smarter (unless you go with the "if they were so smart they wouldn't have been conquered" theory). They understood more about math and engineering and art and culture...all of these things.

So I think about how it must have been for the Greeks, having overlords that they knew they were smarter and more refined than. Being asked to teach secrets and knowledge that would allow Rome to grow into the big white marble Empire we all know and love, and knowing all the while that it's your knowledge that they will be remembered for. Wonder why I was thinking about that...