Black Lips - Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo

1) This is a live record, and it's good.
2) They pee on each other during their concerts.
3) They're playing at Logan Square Auditorium on March 31st.

I'd be a fool to not go then, right? I don't go to a lot of shows as often as say, Yancy. I saw Kevin Drumm perform with some bald Swedish guy at this place called ODUM in the West Town part of Chicago last Saturday, though! It was this really low-key, cinderblock building. I almost didn't notice it the first time I passed it, and when we drove back past it after it was over, I was like, "Where did it go? Was it all a magical dream?" You walk in and there's a table, and you pay this dude, who gives you a pin that was custom made for the performance of "experimental music" that you have attended, as well as a pretty kickass program of some sort. So then you go in this room that's not all that big, and there were what, 65 people there, about? I counted. It was something like that. So anyway, my bro and I didn't get a seat, so we stood. The crowd looked like a pretty cool "avant-garde music" type of crowd, but there were a few indie rock bearded sunglasses wearing dudes that came in late, but there was this camera lady who was just a TOTAL CUTE INDIE CHICK TYPE, she was rad. I went up to her and was like, "BITCH, RESPECT THE COCK!" Then the performance began! First, one of the dudes pressed a button or something and this weird industrial churning shit started coming out of the speakers. Then Leif Elggren (bald guy) read some pretentious shit poetry over it for 20 minutes while Kevin made some sort of sonic alteration once in a while. Then the dude stopped talking, and it was just pure knob twiddling awesomeness. All these different noises just kept building and building, it was great. Layers upon layers of awesomeness. There were parts where there would be these big changes, and they would actually feel physically relieving. And right when I thought, "Shit, are these guys just gonna go on for another hour," they brought it all back down. So awesome.

The Black Lips are a band of young men who piss in each other's mouths (I'm sorry if the band is sick of hearing people talk about the pissing thing, but it's awesome and hell, you can make a career out of that type of shit) and play drunken, sloppy good-time rock 'n roll music. This is a live album recorded in Tijuana by one JOHN REIS (of Hot Snakes/Drive Like Jehu fame AWESOME BANDS ALERT) and it's a blast and a half! I'd be tempted to describe this music as Stonesy, but these songs are just too basic to have been on Sticky Fingers or Exile On Main St. Somebody somewhere compared them to the Swinging Medallions, and shit, that's as apt of a description as any! This ain't your ordinary Hives/Strokes/White Stripes/Mooney Suzuki/Vines/Datsuns "2001 garage revival" hooha. There's a lot less of the rock star posing that went on in a lot of that music, and more of a "Hey, let's get smashed in my parents' garage, make a godawful, guitar bashin' racket, and call it 'rock 'n roll'" kind of thing goin' on. Once again, the tunes are pretty simple, but some of the hooks end up being totally awesome, like the one in "Dirty Hands." These guys don't give a fuck! They're having the time of their lives rocking out/pissing on each other. More music needs to sound this carelessly exuberant.

Rating: Get it if you like fun! Or guys! Because there sure are some on this CD!

Song: "Dirty Hands"... Here's some High Rise song, also!

Dungen - Tio Bitar(2007)

Let me just point out, that Tio means "uncle" in spanish, so this album translates to "Uncle Biter?" or "one who bites uncles." Ha! Dungeon has a good sense of humor.

Anyway, I digress, let me just point out that I am a very small boy. I am fourteen years old, I enjoy Grand Theft Auto, I am frustrated by my newly sprouted pubic hair, and I have gross acne growing all over my ass, dick, and scrotum.

This is okay though, because, being fourteen years old, I have discovered Led Zeppelin by this point, and I am getting my ass kicked by them, as they were one of the best(ah, fuck it, THEY WERE THE BEST) rock bands of all time.

and this is what it feels like when i listen to Dungen, I feel like I'm listening a new Led Zeppelin album or something, maybe it's the drums, but, really, they don't sound like Zeppelin very much, the guy doesn't wail and sound like he has a mountain lion in his asshole, he has this pleasurable swedish croon. The guitars are much, much more psychadelic, favoring LSD rather than heroin, and everything is a bit more tightly constructed than Zeppelin ever were. Rather, Dungen shows their allegiance towards 60s psychadelic rock bands like Kaleidoscope, The Zombies, Jefferson Airplane or hell, even Pink Floyd just as much as they channel 70s hard rock. At the same time, they somehow make their music trendy enough to get write-ups on indie kid blogs such as this one. Go figure. Dungen, buncha geniuses.

Or should I say, ONE genius? It turns out that almost all of the album is written and performed by one guy, and he just tours with his three bandmates. Amazing stuff.

Everything you liked about Ta Det Loogie is back, same bong-rattling drums, lazy, psychadelic guitars, and otherworldly, beautiful vocals are all back. This time around though, there's certainly a lot more strings, pianer, and all sorts of that shit, as if these songs needed to be anymore fucking beautiful than they already were. I feel like this review should've ended like, two paragraphs ago, all the rest of this is just fucking exposition, fuck it, I'm gonna try and go to bed after these allie sin videos are done downloading.

RATING: Oh, well it's fantastic, beautiful stuff, if you don't like it, well, then maybe you should've listened to more classic rock when you were a kid.

SONG: I think it's stupid to just up one song when this is such an "album" album, but here's a song anyway.

The Arcade Fire- Neon Bible

I couldn't believe my ears. The Arcade Fire were going to release a new acclaimed album? Their tour, which happened to be the most anticipated of all time, was about to happen? At this critical crossroads in musical lore, I knew that I had to throw my indie credibility into the winds of change and put my hitchhiking thumb up, unafraid to whether the journey into the musical cosmos that is Arcade Firedom. Neon Bible, an interesting name, something that seems completely unpretentious at first glance. Hmmm, I thought to myself. It seems that whatever symbol the Bible is taking here, perhaps, some sort of statement on orthodox beliefs being somehow glossy and cheap, had never been done before. I quickly realized that if this was going to prove to be some dire warning on the level of complexity TAF (As I learned to so appropriately call them, as saying their full name might somehow incur the wrath of Winn Butler while I wander the streets on a cold Montreal night.) would be throwing at me with Neon Bible, I had best prepare.

At first, it was all candelbra and pentagrams, but I surely felt that maybe fighting the Neon Bible with the Neon Necromonicon might not be such a prudent choice. Next, to prepare myself, I decided to filter out the awesome sound of Neon Bible by buying two large styrofoam cups and gluing them to my speakers. Not noticing any considerable change in sound, I quickly abandoned the pursuit for “greener pastures.” To be honest, you can't really judge anything critically on weed.

After ripping up the bedsheets and boiling the pillow cases, I still didn't feel prepared to listen to Neon Bible and accurately describe it. I began to wonder, what it would be, what sort of looming danger that was inspiring this apprehension in me. Although I am not used to sorting through music with something that adeptly moves hay, I definitely felt that a band that is surely as good as the Arcade Fire would deserve a listening on headphones, and on vinyl, and then finally only through my computer speakers. If the most hyped band of all time is going to release an album, then I had better listen to it critically.

Which is why to my relief and disappointment, that after listening to Neon Bible I was of course, pretty fucking unimpressed. Whether I'm being overly sarcastic or not, retarded hype over musical groups is always bad. Folks, bad journalism isn't necessarily the infotainment on the front page of cnn.com, nor is it the fair and balance of Fox News. Bad journalism is giving an album unrealistic expectations or overhyping a band so much that it's sense of context within a music scene is lost entirely. Bad journalism is taking cues from magazines such as Rolling Stone and other music rags in terms of releasing one's self from the boundries of journalistic enterprise and engaging in delivering almost pornographic praise. It's true, I don't like Neon Bible, in fact, it's a painfully unoriginal and mediocre album,

So painfully preaching discourse aside, here are some thoughts on the album. Some of the assumptions I had going into the album were these: It would probably be much better produced then Funeral, which was recorded in a living room. It would probably be somehow different then Funeral in terms of songwriting and structure (Only half of that is true, and not in a good way), and I was half-expecting to like it a lot more then Funeral, because half of Funeral's “charm,” (And half of the reason I hated it.) was its lofi production, its sound that at sometimes was gritty and raw, illustrating the painful MEATSPACE tragedies that had occurred in the band member's lives. I hope that my assumptions weren't too lofty, although, I certainly think that they severely damaged my ability to even play this album more then twice.

As far as its sound, Neon Bible sounds like its been brought back from what was Funeral's grave. Any song that isn't mired in a Spector-esque wall of sound is hideously bare, and still most of the instruments sound truly opaque through the mix. The only cool effects end shortly after Black Mirror, and Win Butler's overly reverbed voice gets old extremely quickly. Blah, blah blah, it's annoying to have to listen to an album you've already heard and make the same complains about it.

Which leads me to next point, the only thing the Arcade Fire can do, and even only do semi-well, is their huge “Wall of sound” indie-orchestra. But do they really expect me to wade through another five songs that sound extremely similar to ones from their past albums? Nothing on the new album has anything as interesting or energetic as “Wake Up,” or “Laika,” instead the emotion seems extremely forced and pretentious. If you are going record half of an orchestra, for the sake of sonic quality, record it correctly. I was half surprised to see that the cover wasn't a picture of the band holding up signs that said, “THE ARCADE FIRE IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.” What was genuine and sensitive on Funeral is arrogant and overwrought as fuck on Neon Bible, which critically appraises such never before heard of concepts such as organized religion and MTV. Raise your hand if it's 2007 and you're only recently finding yourself being the indie man being held back by the MTV dudes! I mean really, that kind of lyric MATTER has less weight right now and less importance than Video Killed the Radio Star. Color me “Pandered to.”

Unfortunately, because of the relative HOMOGENUOUS NATURE of the album, there isn't much more to critique. This album is boring and mediocre and sounds like it was made in 2004 in a living room, much like another album I've heard. The lyrics are especially vapid and the music is overwrought. Do we need to seriously bring back punk rawk so that pretentious art-rockers like Sufjan Stevens, Joanna Newsom, and the Arcade Fire can be brought back down to Earth? Half the criticisms of prog rock can be made when the melodies are so obfuscated that half of the time I find myself changing songs in hope of finding a section that isn't more formulaic wankery. I know a guy who played tuba on the album, and he agrees with me! So I must be right. Sorry Neon Bible, but you're ever bit as gaudy as your title suggests. If you think I'm just being a cynical fuck, well, perhaps you should wait to take your written vindication on me. Win Butler lives in the same city as me, and he can probably kick my ass. (Especially if he catches me jerking off on his dead grandmother's grave.)

Rating: Neon shit

Download: Sorry, I don't believe in music sharing.

Jay Reatard - Blood Visions

So, yeah, usually when there's some album that came out a few months ago that I think is awesome, even if all the songs rule and listening to it gives me a full-on robot chubby, I'm still hardly convinced that I'll be listening to it years or, hell, months from that particular time. I mean, shit, there's no benefit of history or anything. You're judging this shit as it's happening, it's not like you picked it up because someone was like, "This shit came out in 1988, and it STILL sounds like you're beating off in Western Civ. for the first time!"

Not that new music is crap or anything. I just can't help but have a different sort of perspective on it. I look at my list of the best albums of '06, and there's 50 albums on there. 50 albums from 2006 that I really enjoyed in 2006 enough to think a lot about how good they make me feel when I listen to them. But, shit, there must be a ton of total crap records from 20 years ago that no one has thought about since then, right? I mean, whose gonna give a shit about the Holy Smokes or Grizzly Bear in 2027? Not that it matters now, but I'm just sayin'. I'm not particularly head-over-heels in love with either of those bands, but even a lot of my favorite new shit at the moment... there are albums from my '05 top 20 that I haven't listened to once since making that list. There are records that I would have put higher on the list, and records that weren't on the list that I would put on if I made the list now, etc.

All that said, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jay Reatard's Blood Visions will go down in history as one of the greatest albums of all-time. Here is a pop-punk album that has been brilliantly assembled by one dude playing all the instruments who has some absolutely insane talent for pulling catchy-as-shit punk rock anthems out of his ass that express both a knowledge of and love for the music at hand.

I mean, shit, THESE SONGS ARE AWESOME! I am a horrible writer by most people's standards, I will admit that. All I do is make hyperbolic statements about how awesome I think everything is. That's not what writing is, is it? It's supposed to be a bunch of intellectual boring shit, supposedly. Sorry, I'm here to spread the word of Jay Reatard's brilliance, not to convince you of my intelligence. "My Shadow" would have been one of the best songs on Singles Going Steady. "Greed, Money, Useless Children" is just the best Crass/Flux of Pink Indians/peace-punk tribute/parody that I've ever heard. This album is way better than Pink Flag.

Remember when Andrew W.K. came out with I Get Wet, and he was on the cover and he was covered in blood like Jay Reatard on the cover of this album, and people didn't know if he was serious or not, and he got written off as a novelty by some? People failed to realize is that W.K.'s music wasn't just pure smirking irony, nor was he a genuine and oblivious "IT'S TIME TO PARTY" cock rocker. No, like the similarly written off Ween, W.K.'s Sparks/Journey/Meat Loaf/Jock Jams hybrid stemmed from both his good humour and his love for the music that he was paying tribute to. Of course, the reason why I can identify with Andrew's music better than Journey's is not because I can only listen to big dumb arena rock when it's done in some all-irony hipster manner, but because I share W.K.'s perspective of being an observer of said music. Despite producing some truly amazing songs, bands like Journey and Boston probably didn't see the humour in their music, album covers, or in the way that they presented themselves. I can't even begin to think of what was going on in their heads, but I'm fascinated by the motivations behind their music, which I enjoy.

I just listened to Anthem For A New Tomorrow by Screeching Weasel. It's not my favorite Screeching Weasel record. A lot the songs are just Screeching Weasel by numbers, with nowhere near the amount of melodic brilliance as the best songs on My Brain Hurts or even the poppier moments on Boogadaboogadaboogada!. I'm guessing that a lot of Screeching Weasel fans at the time loved the album because they like fast, sugary, goofy pop-punk. The things that I demand from the music are different from theirs. They're not gonna give a shit that I'm complaining about the melodies not standing out. The perspective of Jay's music is something that I can more easily relate to. He's smart and he likes punk rock, and Blood Visions is his tribute to the history of said genre. I hear a song like "Greed, Money, Useless Children" and go, "Ah, yes, this sounds like Crass... hee, hee! Jay Reatard does these little things in his songs that make me smile because I understand the things that he's referencing." I'm a punk rock fan, Jay is a punk rock fan... but we're not crusty dudes with Germs burns. We love the stuff, but we also see the humour in it. Who knows if this album will appeal to the smelly guy with Discharge and A Global Threat patches all over his jacket? Maybe the diversity of the songs will throw him off, but it's something that I can appreciate. And I'm glad for that.

Rating: 11/10

Song: "Not A Substitute"... shit. So fucking good.

Boris - Akuma No Uta

What the fuck is up with girls and Japanese shit, seriously? Like, every broad I know is into this crazy Sailor Moon shit. I don't get it. I've never beaten my meat to hentai before, and I don't plan to do so any time in the near future.

Remember when I was at that Boris concert and I was yelling, "Fuck yeah, Boredoms rule!" They played "Ibitsu" from this album. Peter Drumm opened and he almost made Logan Square Auditorium fucking collapse, it was so awesome. He played his smashing new Drumm's Not Dead LP in its entirety, and covered the Jayhawks. Good show.

This album is better than other Boris albums. It's a mere 42 minutes long (which is still too long for an enjoyable album... pass me that Agoraphobic Nosebleed album over 'hurr), but it's diverse as fuck, mang. Boris doing everything they do well, and doing it really, really well. You got your Earth-style doomers, your Motörhead speedy ravers, your Hendrix/Blue Cheer psychedelic marijuana smokers, and your crushing Melvins sludgers.

There are Boris albums out there like Heavy Rocks and Pink that feature lots of fast thrashy asskickers all in a row. They can pull those out of their small Japanese asses, though. I mean, that shit rules and all, but it starts to sound a little bit samey after a while. Whereas here, "Ibitsu" and "Furi" come off as totally memorable and get stuck in your head all the damn day. And wow, they just sound so "on" during this whole little album, you know. I mean, what the hell, "Naki Kyoku" and "Ano Onna No Onryou" are just the best "psych revival" things in recent years. Yeah, better than Dungen. Hell, better than Comets On Fire, even.

Something about this album is just really perfect. The energy, of course, but also the balance of styles, the playing, everything. Not to say that other Boris albums suck my ass... they don't, this band rules all and you know it. They release 50,000,000 albums a year and they all just slay you up and down, round and round. But I don't really listen to their other albums. I listen to this one, and I never get tired of it. Also, you know how Wetton-era King Crimson rules, and all of the albums they did during that time are pretty awesome, but Red is the one where you go, "Wow, shit, this is just the best shit ever." And it only has five songs, but every moment just captures them just destroying you with their greatness. That's the one you play over and over. It is, isn't it. Or are you just an asshole.

Rating: Heavier than heaven! Louder than love! Temple of the Dog!

Song: "Ibitsu"... fucking amazing shit right here.

Dinosaur Jr - Beyond(2007)

Sorry J Mascis, I know you don't want people listening to this album or anything yet. But I want to openly say to you, in case you're reading this on your imac or were browsing the SOMB and got linked to this blog (because you are obviously post under the alias "simakos" there) that this is going to be my favorite album of the year.

No, really. I mean, I don't see how anything can top this one for me. Thanks for letting Lou Barlow and Murph back into your band, by the way. Maybe this is all you needed again to write some truly classic songs. Thanks for combining those pop sensibilities you figured out in the 1990s but weren't able to fully express with your dyno-mite hard rocking 80s style. With age and time, I guess you finally figured out how to get it all to gel.

This album has some people dissing the production. Wow, shut the fuck up. What do you want, Green Mind? That album sounds like it was recorded in the laundromat down the street from where I live. You want acoustic guitars or something? I don't really know what to tell you. This is one of the better produced albums I've heard in years. (WATCH WHEN THE RETAIL VERSION LEAKS AND IT SOUNDS LIKE A POLISHED BRITNEY SPEARS RECORD, OR PINK FLOYD OR SOMETHING, I mean, "Crumble is basically Pink Floyd if Roger Waters found a guitar and was all like "hey, smoke my cock David Gilmour! And then David Gilmour dropped on all fours and began licking his taint while happily wagging his tail. Then Roger Waters could feel his cum erupting from hi

The guitar solos in this album are some of the noisiest, vile, abominations you can find in modern pop music, but not one of them seems to be out of place. Each of them layered upon each other beautifully like those birthday cakes that you see in bakery shop windows and you marvel "wow, look at the craftmanship on that cake." Same thing, really. Delicious, colorful, bright layers of guitars that make me feel like I'm on top of this planet.

A long time ago, my brother started to get me into some "indie" music. The first band he recommended to me was Dinosaur Jr. What can I say? The band changed my life. Before them I didn't know music could be so accessible, yet so earth-shatteringly noisy and rebellious. I got into all those 80s guitar bands like Steve Albini's stuff, The Replacements, hell, I wouldn't have ever listened to The Pixies probably either if it wasn't for Mascis and company.

Dinosaur Jr. never realized their potential, after Bug they became a normal guitar pop band. I still love Green Mind and Where You Been, but they don't even sounds like the same band! D'oh! Because they weren't. It's almost as if the three of these guys just ran into Doc Brown and road his DeLorean back to '89 and said "okay, let's just rock some shit" Mascis, Barlow, and Murph have all seemingly aged quite a bit, (especially mascis, what the hell, he looks like a perverted shop teacher!) but Dinosaur Jr, as a brand, entity, well, it's always been there. The sounds back, they're back. I really couldn't be happier.



Rating: 10/10

Song: Dinosaur Jr - This Is All I Came To Do


EDIT: and on a personal note, this week has been absolute SHIT. But you know what? I've been listening to this album nonstop, and I feel like a million bucks. Funny what legends can do to you.

Thanks J.

The Rolling Stones- Some Girls

I realize that a lot of my REVIEWS are horrendously written pieces of shit. It's because I write a lot of reviews while I am drunk or hungover (That's when I seem to care about getting my thoughts on e-paper; when I am afraid that I will lose my ability to think them!) Yes, I am an alcoholic, but you shouldn't worry, because once I start hitting my stride, all of my reviews will be ten page long ramblings about electro-shock therapy and how gay Orson Welles (A fucking huge piece of shit) is. Ending a sentence with "is," is like talking to your mom and then ending the conversation with "I'm going to go fingerbang my fifteen year old girlfriend who is into The Clash." If you guessed that the relation between those two thoughts is "bad fucking idea," then congratulations, you gradute to the next paragraph!

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I just realized that there may be several legal implications to this review. Funny, because Mick Jagger can get away with singing:

White girls are pretty funny

Sometimes they just drive me mad

Black girls just want to get fucked all night

I just don't have that much jam.

and no one has arrested Mick Jagger for not aborting his children, whose brains were probably riddled with cocaine, which probably he force-fed his wife. Anyways, I think that last line is about Mick Jagger being sad that he lost his jungle fever, so he goes to New York to see if he can find Paul Weller to help him double team some black chicks. Anyways, today's review is Some Girls by The Rolling Stones. I realize no one has reviewed anything in a while, but in all honesty, I've been preparing my soul for the travesty that is "Neon Bible" by the Arcade Fire, so please bear with me. Imagine if you dressed up like a bear and then came to hang out with me! And then I could bring out a movie slate with garbled and incoherent German all over it and then say "Action!" and you could eat Win Butler. The joke here is that Werner Herzog is probably an insane pedophile.

God, this album is really fucking good, and is probably one of the Rolling Stones best albums. "Miss You" is just this fucking awesome disco song that shouldn't be confused with TRS (Shorthand, shortdick) song called "DOO DOO DOO DOO DEE DOO DOO." Then "When the Whip Comes Down" is this fucking balls out pop rocker and you just know Keith Richards is slapping his dick against his guitar in some moment of heroin induced irony. This album has "Beast of Burden," which was a Magic Card about the SILVER GOLEM KARN, and had something to do with its power and toughness equalling the amount of artifacts in play. Somehow knowing that fact hasn't prevented me from getting a lot of sex, but not with Werner Herzog you fucking sicko fucks! I also think that Beast of Burden (the song) is very popular with lesbians, but I couldn't tell you why. The Rolling Stones end the album with another one of their fucking greatest hits of all time, motherfucking "Shattered." If you can't WRAP your head around such shamefully eunuch-centric lyrics like, "Laughter / Joy/ and lonelines / and sex and sex and SEX AND SEX," while the rest of the band (Uh, a bunch of spinning rocks) goes all "bwop a dop a dwop dop'" then you're probably one of those queers who only likes late sixties Rolling Stones, and you're gay.

If you're a nerd like me who can't relate to some of the left-ventricle raping melodies of the Beatles but also doesen't like the fake, artsy-fartsy bravado of shit like "Sympathy for the Devil," then you'll love this stuff. Also, God is gay.

Rating: I rate this album, I rate it good.

Download: The Rolling Stones- Miss You