Couch - Glass Brothers 1993-1994

Hey, Blogger, can I just say, "What the fuck?" How is it that if you autosave my post every minute, and I suddenly have to force quit my browser because my computer freezes, when I come back to the "edit posts" list, the draft that you have saved is completely BLANK??? During my computer's menstrual outburst or whatever, did I seriously just up and press some crazy combination of keys that highlighted all of the text in my post and then erased it? Is it safe to assume that that's what happened?

I started writing the Twin Infinitives review on Monday. I spent several hours on it. I even took a break to listen to the album and write down notes about every song. Hell, I even wrote some of the review in bed on notebook paper! What the fuck?

I was hoping that I would have been able to finish it this morning and that Joe would have a bunch of rad comments about it, but no, Blogger had to go and ruin everything. Or something. Also, my Bluetooth mouse ran out of batteries right then. I fucking hate that shit. It's not like I use my computer while I'm cruisin' around my room on a swivel chair! Why can't I just have one of them things with the cord coming out of it? Such bullshit.

So fuck you, "convenient" technology. You fucking suck.

Despite this morning being completely shitty, I have decided to brighten my spirits with this compilation of material by a band called Couch. Like the ten other people who first heard the music contained on this thing at some point after the band actually existed, I was informed about Couch through various interviews with Aaron Dilloway and Andrew W.K., who as teens growing up in Ann Arbor, MI had their lives altered when they first encountered the noisy, wacked-out fucking WEIRDNESS ("my dick is turning into a tree," lol) of this fine, fine band.

This 32 minute CD compiles 3/4 of their first 7", 2/3 of some split thing, and a bunch of other shit! "Chinese Mechanic" and "Old Man" are wicked, shouty stompers! "Sexy River" is quieter than the other ones! "Jeff" is seven minutes of guitar noise! "Doctor Power" sounds like early Sonic Youth (think "The World Looks Red," but even more awesome)! "Blue Light In The Fog" almost has a melody! "In A Sealed Car" begins with a really high pitched screeching noise that terrified the shit out of me when I first heard it whilst on the 'ol green line!

Imagine a more fun-sounding version of no-wave or a more minimal Butthole Surfers or a more immediately listenable Caroliner. There's some other band called Couch, but they're some post-rock thing and they're not this Couch, so who cares. The liner notes to this are by Weasel Walter! I don't own a copy, though, so I can't read them. And Bulb apparently had them on their site, and there most definitely is a link to them on there, but the link doesn't work, so fuck, eat my ass, Bulb Records website!

COUCH = THE RESIDENTS OF PUNK FUCKING ROCK, HOW'S THAT FOR A FAIRLY APT COMPARISON????

Rating: Awesome.

Song: "Old Man"... not the Neil Young song! Although, it'd be awesome if it was, wouldn't it?

Royal Trux - Twin Infinitives

For the past three or so days, I had been writing a lengthy, informative review of this album.

Unfortunately, despite Blogger's supposedly efficient "autosave" function, the entire fuckin' thing (unfinished, but still a mouthful) was deleted when my computer froze and I had to force quit my browser.

How the fuck it managed to get erased, I have no clue. What gives, Blogger? Asshole.

Listen to Fugazi. Always.

Pissed Jeans - Hope For Men

Man, Shallow was just an instant fucking classic, wasn't it? In 2005, Pissed Jeans made a noise rock album, and goddamn, not only was it really, really noisy, it also somehow managed to be tons 'o fun! Pissed off, drunken Scratch Acid listeners certainly aren't a humorless bunch, but there's at least something mildly threatening about the abrasiveness of a band like Clockcleaner, what with their songs having choruses consisting of "FUCK! BITCH!" and songs about plotting to tie up your friend's girlfriend whom you've been screwing on the side and going to the abortion clinic with and what-have-you.

Pissed Jeans managed to come across as being quite a bit goofier than your stereotypical noise-rock band on their debut album. Over the overwhelmingly noisy guitars, the singer barked out lyrics like a deranged muppet, blasting out his lungs about being "ASHAMED OF MY CUM!!!! NEVER SATISFIED EVEN AFTER I'M DONE!!!!!" and how he "WANT[S] TO KIIIISSSS THOSE BORING GIRLS!!" Sort of like No Trend. You've never heard No Trend, have you. That's what I thought.

Anyways, 'twas a fantastic rock album; just over half an hour long, and with songs that were downright CLEVER and DISTINGUISHABLE FROM ONE ANOTHER DUE TO THE AWESOME RIFFS OR FUNNY VOCALIST THINGS.

Their new album Hope For Men isn't anywhere near as good as their last one. It's basically the same sound, but the album is 40 minutes instead of 32, and there are no shout-along anthems like "Boring Girls" or "Ashamed of My Cum." There are a couple tracks that are quiet and atmospheric (in a STOOPID way) like "The Jogger," which has a funny mention of Whole Foods. But yeah, they didn't really develop their sound at all, and Shallow was an in-the-moment kind of record... they could have done this thing in their sleep, it's just the same old shit without, I don't know, a lot of what made Shallow such a special album! It's not like bands like these are all that focused on churning out conventional "hooks," so when they do manage to come up with some great ones (as on Shallow), whether they're found in an accidentally anthemic chorus or a kickass guitar riff, it really shows off what bands like these are capable of. And I don't know about you, but I happen to like memorable music. As much as I'd like to be a red-blooded, unsubjective badass who "digs anything as long as it brings the RAWK," in reality, I'm not one of those guys. It's why I'll always prefer Goat to Liar. Great songs vs. totally unmericful shit-kicking? I'd love to have both, but if forced to choose, I generally take the former. I talked about this that time I reviewed Playing With Fire, remember? Those were good times, weren't they.

Rating: If you liked their last album and just want more balls-out, Flipper-ish guitar noise insanity, then hey, you might dig this. But it ain't as good as that one! This is Pissed Jeans by numbers, more or less. I'm listening to "Closet Marine" from the first record, and oh, man, what a riff on this thing. Hey, buy the album Shallow by Pissed Jeans, it's awesome. That's all.

Song: "Fantasy World"

Mammatus - The Coast Explodes

These guys got a lot tighter with this one.

Less jammy, it seems. Still pretty reefer smokin' and spaced out, though.

More instrumentally varied.

There's a flute on one song and then some chick on another one, it's cool.

I'm listening to Jay Reatard demos right now.

Rating: Fucking great psych rock record. Better than the first one, which was pretty great. Heavier this time. Crazier than Comets on Fire, and the songwriting is less monotonous than on that Sword record that came out last year. Less organ this time, though. These guys bring the solid jamz, R E C O M M E N D E D!

Song: "Pierce The Darkness"

Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated(2007)


Some of you may remember, but back in 2005 I was obsessed with this UK guitar band called Art Brut. It was one of those albums that really seemed to reflect my life at the time and everything about the album just sort of clicked. It was short, it lacked filler. Eddie Argos proved himself to be one of the most clever/hilarious lyricists of all time with only 30 minutes worth of material. I saw them live a bunch of times, and even got my picture taken with them. The years went by, and I sort of forgot about the band to be honest! The album didn't resonate with me as much as it used to, it was still fantastic, but, well, I had moved on to other things. I even passed up the opportunity to go see them live for the fifth time, (a decision I now woefully regret).

I was really looking forward to this album, and you know what? The Brut did it again. This album hits me like a ton of bricks from a balcony. This album hits me like a ten minute keyboard solo to a Yes fan. The album shits on everything , just about everything. It once again resonates with me to the point that I often feel Eddie Argos might be peering into my soul with his cold, dead eyes.


The guitarwork has come a long way, some really intricate stuff here, lots of ascending/descending riffs and even a few tones that gave me shivers. This one's a lot more mature. The songwriting and lyrics sacrifice their adorable playfulness in the debut to concentrate more on maturity, and I have to say, it's much sharper and in the long run, is going to prove advantageous. This band is no novelty, they're the real fuckin' deal, and that's exactly what they they tried to do and succeeded to do here.

Never again will I doubt this band, I have little doubt that history will repeat itself and Art Brut will once again soundtrack my summer.



Rating: The best album I've heard all year? I dunno, Boredoms and Dino Jr. sure make stiff competition.

Song: Here's the whole album, but please buy it when it comes out. I've read interviews where the band basically states they're shit broke and really need money. Support these musical geniuses.

Goon Moon - I Got A Brand New Egg Layin' Machine

The other day, we were driving around and this broad was in the car and we were listening to the Psychic Paramount (who are fucking great, obtain their music today) and this broad is like, "Hey, do you like Goon Moon?" I'm like, "I don't know what that is." So she's like, "Oh, do you like this?" And I'm like, "NO, THAT'S WHY I PUT IT ON TO LISTEN TO, DUHHHH LOL!!!!!!!!!" And she's like, "If you like this, you'll like Goon Moon! I'll burn you a copy!"

So she did, and I listened to it, fell asleep, and listened to it again later. And that's how we have arrived at where we are now, listening to Hot Chip and updating our precious blog. And farting.

This CD is about a quarter of an hour long and the tracks overlap and shit and they're kind of short. It starts out as a noisy psych metal kind of thing for a minute or two and then the style switches drastically and there are some hilarious "wacky" lyrics that make the whole thing seem like a phony, self-conscious attempt at "ZAPPA/RESIDENTS/AVANT GARDE MUZIK LOL"-style subversion.

And that's pretty much what the rest of this thing sounds like. Upon listening to it and deciding upon said opinion, I later discovered that this thing is actually a side-project by Twiggy Ramierez (Marilyn Manson/NIN guitarist? Bassist? Who knows? Who cares?) and some Queens of the Stone Age guy who isn't the bald dude or Josh Homme, which makes some amount of sense. This thing just sounds like a side-project. Like, "Hey, let's take a break from our hip million dollar modern rock careers and go play noisy cutting edge experimental rock music!"

But they ain't Mr. Bungle. They'd like to be, though. But they ain't. If you're wondering why some of the drumming on here rules so much, it's because that's Zach Hill from Hella. Stellar drum player. That's all I can really give this, though.

Rating: They're not Mr. Bungle, but they'd like to be. You'll probably never hear about this band again, and you'll probably never stumble across this EP, but you needn't worry about missing out on something this insignificant. So this review was more or less a waste of your time and mine. Let's redeem it.

With JIZZ!!!!!!!!!!

Never mind, I'll just post a Meat Loaf song.

Song: Meat Loaf - "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)"... killer song from a killer album, right here. Bat Out of Hell is my main jam, for serious.

Trans Am - Trans Am

Before buying this album (my introduction to the group's music), I had read a lot about how the so-called Trans Am apparently integrates 70s hard rock cliches into their sound in a super-ironic manner, while still being able to hold onto their arty, experimental "post-rock" cred.

Needless to say, I was misled! This isn't some all-irony, tight t-shirted, indie cock stroking fest, nor is it your late 90s easy-listening post-rock free jazz bullshit. No, on this, Trans Am's studio debut, our friends Philip, Nathan, and Sebastian turn in what is simply a half hour's worth of tightly (yet subtly) arranged instrumental rockers and brief studio experiments.

And while the "70s irony" is certainly brought out by the Rush-like rhythm fuckage and ballsy guitar lead of the album's opener "Ballbados" (all the songs are named after imaginary bands! Like this is supposed to be some sort of "battle of the bands" like on that Turtles album or last Friday when my band played poorly received noise-rock to a bunch of football jocks at an all-boys Catholic high school. We tore it up, though. Also, the band's choice of "name" for this particular "band" certainly reinforces the "cock rock irony" that people like to speak of when discussing Trans Am), the group clearly owes much to the post-hardcore side of 90s underground rock, as their compositions often recall Fugazi and various "math-rock" elements.

Of course, then there's the driving 70s classic rock riffing of "Orlando," which is fortunately catchy as crap, and hell, your ZZ Top loving dad might just dig the hell out of it, who knows! The shorter tracks are cool, too. Cute, catchy melodies! This shit gets stuck in your head and you can't remember where it's from and then you realize it's from this album and so you listen to it and you enjoy it because it's good, see.

Rating: Overall, this is a solid instrumental record that's too short to ever really grow boring. The rockers on here pwn hard, and the synthesizer touches are cool as shit (nowhere near as many as you might find on later TA records, though.) If you've never heard Trans Am, I would certainly suggest this as a starting point. Or Futureworld. You get a nice balance of synth jammin' and guitar rockin' here, though. Good album.

Song: "Ballbados"... the first song on this album! It's a good'n!

Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

Once upon a time, my dad was playing some 60s/70s FM rock compilation he'd gotten from Starbucks a long while back. It had some pretty rad shit... "Instant Karma," "Alone Again Or," "Maybe I'm Amazed," that song "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers, "I Saw The Light," and probably something by Rod Stewart or Traffic or some shit. Then there was a song on there called "Nature's Way" by Spirit. Hearing it all those years ago, it sounded pretty damn familiar, like something I had heard on a classic rock radio station at some point, somewhat of a less sissyish Moody Blues. Decent enough song, blah, blah, blah.

Some time after that, when I was in the eighth grade, I picked up a Mojo Magazine that had articles on Smile and the Mars Volta and all this shit about "The Greatest Lost Albums," and there was a "letter to the editor" in the beginning of the magazine complimenting an article that the publication ran on Spirit a few issues back. I was like, "Oh, shit, it's that 'Nature's Way' band, cool." Right then I sort of assumed that they were some 70s classic rock band that no one ever talked about for some reason, probably because they didn't kick as much ass as Steely Dan or the Floyd or something! I figured they just sounded like Traffic, anyway. Not that I have anything against Traffic. It was just an assumption.

Some time last year, I saw some dude on the internetz talking about the awesomeness/underratedness of this album, as well as a solo album from Randy California, the singer/guitarist in this band. I was like, "Hmm, classic rock psychedelic guitar rocking all-American good times? I'm gonna get on this shit!"

And that I did.

I've been listening to this album a lot this week. Spirit really does seem to be "the great lost classic rock band," very much a product of that magical period when classic rock was transitioning from psychedelia to all-out bombast; which is to say that between The Who Sell Out and Who's Next, there was Tommy. There was the Guess Who. There was the James Gang. The production on that stuff is much fuller and has a greater presence than a lot of 60s things, but we're not quite into the new decade just yet. Rock's balls we're still struggling to not drop down too low JUST YET.

And so we have Spirit. Randy California was 19 when this album was recorded and the drummer was his 47 year old stepdad! What the fuck??? Must have been awkward having groupie boning sessions and what-have-you. The remastering on the CD sounds really damn good. David Briggs produced this way back in the day! He recorded a bunch of Neil Young albums! That must be why this album rules.

And it does. Sure, it's pretty "psychedelic," and a lot of these songs sound like they should be in the opening credits of some movie about groovy young persons doing acid or riding around on motorcycles with Dennis Hopper or something. But these guys, these guys just had fucking boatloads of talent. They musicianship kicks axe, and some of this shit is funky, and some of it is jazzy, but they manage to a) make it not sound like pointless genre exercises or b) not use the diversity of influences as an excuse to stretch out and jam their dicks into each other. After all, two of the guys were related, and that's just gross! EEEEEEEHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

No, this here record is just well-crafted, ambitious pop music to "expand your mind" with (ultra-swell melodies popping up all over the place!), and the fact that a couple of the guys were really young (or was it just the one dude?) gives it this sort of fresh, youthful impressiveness. "Street Worm" has a cool guitar solo! The transition between the two sections of the first track is rad as hell! The synthesizer on "Space Child" isn't totally dopey! Excellent use of dual vocalists! A "lost classic" if I've ever heard one.

And I have. It's called Dark Side of the Moon. Has anyone else heard this album? It's pretty gay, thanks.

Rating: I like it a lot! It's a grower! Dick jokes!

Song: "Animal Zoo"... quality pop song, right here!

Lou Reed- Live: Take No Prisoners

Sorry that I've been gone for so long!!!!! With finals and school and all that fun stuff I have had no time do anything fun (This blog, for instance) and as a result, I've lapsed into a mania where I listen to the Jesus and Mary Chain for hours on end while pawing at my crotch. Also, I was coming up with funny jokes like this:

What do Michael Jackson and Robert Fripp have in common?

They both like to play with minors! (Hahahahaha)

Anyways, I will be much more free nowadays so hopefully I can consistently update this wonderful blog along with the other villanous cohorts who scrawl on this bronze tablet. Today I'm going to review Lou Reed's Live: Take No Prisoners!

If you're looking for an ORAL masterpiece (Like Angelina Jolie's pussy lips!) then this album is exactly what you need if you're on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid, and you have a roof to beat off underneath, your own semen to eat for sustenance, a homeless man to jerk you off when you're tired, and the wherewithall to know he's doing it because he loves you and not because you're responsible for his Jack Daniels I.V.

Anyways, this album is basically a comedy album. Lou Reed is a fucking huge asshole and he loves to take drugs, so basically any concert where those facets are primary and his music is somewhat secondary, then, yeah, fucking lock and load! Plus, there is a pretty fucking awesome version of Satellite of Love, and the song I Want to be Black is about renouncing your jewdom for a set of tirelips and a Nike spear.

Rating: Pou Peed

Download: No download!

Unwound - The Future of What

Remember when you heard Fugazi's In On The Killtaker and you were like, "Oh, shit, this is some abrasive post-hardcore noise rockin' Steve Albini shit, lol." Meet Unwound, you pussy!

Unwound was the 90s noise-rock band that you simply did not fuck with. Scarier than Drive Like Jehu (the singer's voice wasn't as high-pitched and phlegmy.) Artier/less balls-out-rawk than the Jesus Lizard. Not as groovyass-classic-rock as Fugazi. Sure, they were influenced by Sonic Youth, but Unwound actually managed to write good songs. Like Shellac, they were a power trio whose members all brought something distinct to the table. Sara Lund played drums more creatively than you ever will, Vern Rumsey's basslines were totally crushing, and Justin Trosper... he sounded bored like SM and Thurston Moore, but he didn't sound like a little bitch when he screamed. Dude fucking roared his head off. And the guitar playing... just brilliant. You can't tell what the fuck he's playing half the time! These aren't normal chords! One could say the same about Sonic Youth, but shit, I just don't give a fuck!

From all this, they forged one hell of a fucking inimitable sound. Five years and three albums into their career at this point, they released our friend The Future of What, and this album... this album. This album is that album. It's not as rough as their first two. It's tighter, but it's more brutal. The songs are shorter and more concise. And the whole thing sounds crystal clear. After this album, they started experimenting with more studio effects, which would eventually lead them to crafting one of the greatest albums of all-time. Until then, we have this... pure, raw, skull-crushing, noisy fucking. That's right, fucking. Sorry if you like music or something. There's none of that here.

Although they progressed with every album, The Future of What is the high-point of Unwound's abrasive shit-kicking years. Everything is perfect here. All the songs just rule ass. The last several minutes of the album's epic closer "Swan" where they're playing this one droning chord and then the song ends and there's just this wall of guitar noise for a few minutes... FUCK. So good. Stop the CD there, though, because the next four tracks are just this one keyboard loop that they added to the CD version as "extra boredom" because Unwound are scummy, dollar-grabbing pieces of shit and are members of the worst band in the world, aka the Beatles (they did that song about "the nookie" right?)

Rating: 9.6/10 sounds about right.

Les Rallizes Denudes - Le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa

Japanese people are fucking crazy. This is a two-disc live album recorded in 1977 or so, and every song consists of a rhythm section banging out some wildly STUPID groove while some guy with sunglasses and a leather jacket sings into a mic loaded with mounds of effects and once in a while he or the other guitarist melts your face off with great gobs of guitar noise. And the songs are all really long, like ten minutes or some shit.

Not only does the tape sound badly damaged, but it is constantly overpowered by the sheer volume of the instruments, especially the guitar noise, which is such an overbearing presence that it frequently cuts out the bass and drums.

This band gets labeled as "psychedelic rock," but this ain't the Grateful Dead, brah. It was made by a bunch of foreigners, so it's totally freaky and "wrong." Still, if you like drugs, you'll probably dig this shit.

I'm pretty sure the only version of this that's even remotely easy to find is a bootleg/import. Get it if you come across it, I urge you!

Rating: 8.4/10

Song: Brainbombs - Obey... great record.

Warhammer 48k - Uber Om

Wow, what an album. Warhammer 48k is one of the greatest bands ever pretty much, and no one has even heard of them before. This is some heavy shit though, I like to listen to it to make myself feel much more metal than I already am.

I'm going to go see them in about a month or so, I've also become myspace friends with the band, I heartily recommend giving this album a try if you can muster up the balls. Seriously, this album isn't for sissies, or "Belle & Sebastian" types, Warhammer 48k will break off your head and snap your neck or some such nonsense.

I should also point out that fans of guitars will like this album, and if you don't like guitars, then what the fuck is wrong with you???




This is Warhammer 48k killing fans of twee and indie baroque-orch-fey-jangly pop. Don't be one of them. Wilco rules.

Rating: 666/10.

Song: Here's the whole album!

Ronald Reagan- Alzheimer Blues

Ronald Reagan is dead and he was a fag. He won landslide elections because all of the faux-hippies turned yuppies voting for him, and later on these geniuses would coin such phrases as "shoot me an email," and "surfing on the web." It is possible that hipsters voted for Reagan under the notion that liking Ronald Reagan movies from the 1950s was the incredibly hip and ironic thing to do.

I have to write a 30 page paper on Neoconservatism by Thursday and I've barely started. Some of the great things that I've learned about Ronald Reagan are that he thought trees caused pollution, and that that the most rigorous analysis his economic policies went through was an incorrect calculation on a napkin during a cabinet meeting. If you don't believe me, look for a book by David Stockman about his years with Reagan, and then look at your or your parent's political beliefs with revulsion.

I don't want to go on a huge political rant and forever contaminate this little marketplace of musical criticisms, but the sheer volume and weight of facts that contradict the positives of neoconservatism for the last two decades makes me want to blow my brains out. I'm pretty sure that one day, during civil war in the United States, some great moment of irony will occur and one of my old hockey player friends who's in the Marines now will be the one responsible for killing me while I'm holding a huge sign that says, "Liberty or death."

When we were teens, he would often call me a hippie (I don't think he knew what he was talking about) and would tell me about his conservative religious beliefs (I don't think he knew what he was talking about). Sometimes he posts pseudo-Jesuit allegories on his Facebook (TM) about why all hippies and liberals are stupid and how they just complain and do nothing, completely ignoring the fact that doing something, such as joining the marines and killing "ragheads" for Jesus Christ Our Lord Savior in Oil (That was an actual knock on hippies) and bringing the country into financial ruin by electing oafish twats is actually worse then doing nothing. I also feel like he's completely ignored the historical fact that real liberals haven't been in power since Kennedy/FDR (Although, the Clintons would have been close had they had their health care proposals gone through). It is ironic that I will probably die at this old friends' hands sometime in my life.

Anyways, Ronald Reagan, aside from being a professional idiot and corporate tool, was a pretty witty guy. After he got shot, he told his doctors that he hoped they were Republicans. One time he made everyone at the Republican National Convention stop for a few minutes and think about Jesus and shit. I think he was really just having a "Senior Moment," and that they should have fucking kicked him off the ticket immediately after and put on someone who's brain wasn't atrophying faster then Orson "fucking fat dumbass" Welles can eat a nine course meal.

Rating: Two thumbs down

Download: Ronald Reagan being hilarious

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

Jesu - Conqueror

This band is okay, I guess. People call it metal, but this is just about the fruitiest metal I've ever heard. Apparently, it's what the kids refer to as "shoegaze metal" or "shoedoom" or shit like that, and yeah, it kicks the shit out of pretty much all other metal that you could describe as being "slow and beautiful" like Isis or Pelican. But while those bands are just kind of boring in their attempts to craft epic-smart-people-soundscapes out of their heavyass guitars, Jesu ends up churning out some of the most disgustingly sugary melodies I have ever heard in my life!

Plus, the dude's vocals are way the fuck up in the mix. Steve Albini would not like this because he doesn't like people trying to be the Beatles by making their vocals louder than everything. And the dude isn't a metal screamin' scream machine. He sounds more like Adam Franklin of Swervedriver fame. 'Cept he's singing over a bunch of Swervedriver songs that have been slowed down. So if you thought Franky sounded bored before, wait 'til you hear him rock these glacial jams! Whoo!

To me, there is a fine line between "shoegaze" and "totally ass fuckingly gay." This album is both of those things! Get it if you like that stuff, and be like, "omg Justin is teh shit and for the last time it DOES NOT sound like Jawbreaker asshole." Just know that you're a fairy! Doot dit dooooooo!!!

Rating: Shit!

Song: Reagan Youth - A Collection of Pop Classics

Sally Shapiro - Disco Romance

Move over, sluts. I'm writing a review now. It's about a young man named Sally Shapiro, Sally enjoyed rock music and synthesizers. Look at the cleavage on the cover of this record and you'd agree with me that this is one hot ticket!

(cricket cricket)

That joke was so bad I oughta picket (in front of DC for regime change etc down with capitalism)!

But anyway, back to the music. Sally Shapiro is a duo or something, I'm not really all that clear on it. I like this album because it sounds like it was made like 20 years ago but it has some sick dance beats. I mean, these beats are nearly rude, they're the kind of beats that would eat your father and then raw dog your girlfriend.

I'd give this album a perfect score if it weren't for the fact that there are no guitars on it. Because there aren't any guitars, I have to give this album an incredibly low score. I hate electronica, I'm much more of a Jazz guy. You know, Dean Martin, Bikini Kill etc.

Special thanks to that one yellow guy i know on the internet for letting me download this.


SCore: You know what? This is probably the best album I've heard in at least an hour, until I put on Blink 182 - Enema of The State, in which case it will no longer hold that title. I watched Keeley Hazell give a blow job last night.

Song: I can't up a fucking song right now, I'm downloading this huge porn torrent and it's eating up all my bandwidth.

DJ Shadow- Endtroducing

So apparently I've now become the Dance/techno/electronic+instrumental reviewer on this little bit of musical Plymouth Rock we call Solid Little Rock Jams. Since musical snobs who are into RAP and other forms of electronic music probably already know of this seminal (Hahahah, consisting of semen, hahahahahahaha!) record, this review is probably more oriented towards FANS OF ROCK AND POP who don't understand the beauty of electronic beat oriented music. In case you don't know, DJ Shadow is this GUY who did a lot of collaborations and shit, especially some with fucking black people and the anti-black person Thom Yorke. Bearing the mark of Radiohead's frontman and seratonin-lacking singer, this album to ME, is one of the most biggest advances in progressive ELECTRO-SYNTHESIZED MUSIC of all time. Get bored listening to Underworld, Squarepusher and Orb? Get this album! He also did stuff with the MO' WAX label and if you're really curious just go to allmusic.com, seriously, what the fuck are you doing here!!! Oh wait, he did shit with Thom Yorke after Endtroducing, well, what I MEAN TO WRITE THEN is that you can easily tell, WITH THIS ALBUM, why the two would want to fucking work together! When I was working at Best Buy, some dude told me to purchase it, but instead of listening to him I put some Rush and Led Zeppelin on and rocked out. Oh, how foolish I was, because seriously, this album is amazing. Much more "progressive" then anything out there today, I would rank this along with OK COMPUTER as one of music's most influential albums of the NINETIES. If you tied nine ties together length-wise you'd also get the length of my goddamn dick!

So what does this album soundlike? Well, I could be like Pitchforkmedia (Incorporated) and shit a thesaurus onto your face but you'd still have no good idea of what to expect. The album begines with some VOICE (I have to be very careful using that word because apparently any instrument could be a voice, and not necessarily the vocal performer of a piece! I don't want to mix anyone up!) samples spinning and being manipulated and then Building Steam with a Grain of Salt comes in and you're treated to a pitter patter rainy minor piano OSTINATO that gets driven around by a sweet little ominous chorus thing, which then gets beaten around by a bunch of electronic drums and shit! The Number Song is an intense bass and drum driven NUMBER, culminating in a bunch of cool samples that sounds like a free-style psychedelic jam with samples bouncing back and forth against one another. What Does Your Soul Look Like has a bass line fatter then Orson goddamn Welles that slowly moves and caresses you, before leaving you for a sexy young, film noir. The texture on Midnight in a Perfect World is eerie, sounding like a slowed down Idioteque complete with sullen female vocals over an amazing drum and bass lament and that has a light keyboard motive dancing around it. Everything that's exciting about good texture music, be it experimental jazz or electronic music or rap samples is bandied around on this album, as DJ Shadow seamlessly combines lush (Like your fucking mom!) urban soundscapes over patterings of keyboards, guitars, samples and some synthesized instruments. I'd like to think of this as a more focused, less dancey Thievery Corporation album, with each song having a solid group of ideas that DJ Shadow manipulates and exploits to their full effect. This is a pretty technical review, as you can tell!

Anyways, get this fucking album, today, if you have to! Unlike marijuana, EXCELLENT MUSICAL ALBUMS are often a gateway to harder, more addictive music. One of these days I'll go back to writing joke reviews about famous albums that everyone has already heard of, but I can't rest until I know that everyone has heard of this beauty!

Rating: Giving an album a rating is like labeling a person or making some sort of stereotype, which is a completely stupid approach to music, even if it gives you the abiliy to compare and contrasts albums to one another and determine which of an artist's albums are the best. Therefore the rating for this album is a naked Lindsey Lohan.

Download: DJ Shadow- Stemlong Stem

The Misfits - Walk Among Us

You mustn't fear this musical group known as the Misfits! Just because punkers the world over drench themselves in spooky Misfits brand memorabilia bearing images of skulls and shit like that does not mean that this is "extreme" music whatsoever. And just because the songs have titles like "Angelfuck" and "Mommy Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight" doesn't mean that they're anything other than catchy, catchy, catchy. Hell, even "Last Caress," with its tale of baby killing and mommy raping, is sugarier than a lollipop butterscotch sunshine funsicle!

I mean, this shit is POP-PUNK, for crissakes. And there's one thing I'm curious about... how come the Misfits aren't frequently cited along with the Ramones, the Descendents, and the Buzzcocks as major innovators of the pop-punk that bands like Screeching Weasel and the Mr. T Experience have made a fortune off of by selling out to the majors and releasing pretentious rock operas? Sure, the 'Fits (as I call them) had turned all hardcore by the time of Earth A.D., but before then, with this album and the various songs scattered across Legacy of Brutality and Static Age, they combined 60s Beach Boys/"girl group" melodic shit with super mega gobs of fucking loud distortion in an equally skillful way as the Ramones did! Shit, the Descendents were practically Flux of Pink Indians' The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks compared to this shit!

They carried the torch of the Ramones better than any punk rockin' melody lovers of the time (along with GG Allin, I'd say... again, the lyrics are gross, but a lot of the songs are just fun pop-punkers), let me tell you that. This album is just a fucking swell testament to that! 24 minutes of kickass punk rock jams featuring lots of "WHOOOOOA-OHHHH-OHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"s. They play lots of generic, ultra-happy pop-punk chord progressions that are constantly recycled by bands with nowhere near the songwriting talent of these fellas. Normally, these progressions would just sound dumb and sissyish, but in the Misfits' hands, they sound fuckin' ace! And you can shout along to those "WHOOOOOA-OHHH-OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" choruses, too. So grab that crusty senior kid at your high school who wears that jacket covered with studs and A Global Threat patches and rock out to this album with him after holding a delightful vintage horror movie festival in your very household! Cool beans?

Rating: This is just a great fucking album. Listen to it while you're fucking! You and your partner can shout along to "I Turned Into A Martian" as you penetrate their moist land of delectable juicy jum jums with your fleshy rod of baby forming sperm loads to be blown all over the unsuspecting face of a stranger or family member! "I TURNED INTO A MARTIAN!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOAAAAAAA-OHHHHHHHH-OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Song: "Skulls"... I should have uploaded "I Turned Into A Martian," but you've probably heard it already if you've ever fucked before or are a woman because vaginas are known to emit this song from their murky depths about once a month. THIS IS A GOOD SONG, TOO, THOUGH.

Girl Talk- Night Ripper

Well, well, well, after a good month of rest and relaxation I'm back on the indie music beat ready to review either all your favorite prog albums by talking about dicks and pussies, or writing about how fat Orson "Lipitor Can't Save me Now" Welles is. What a whale. Anyways, if any of you have more irony then blood in your bodies, you'll realize how funny it is that right after I RAILED upon Dan on how BLATANTLY HE DISREGARDED THE BLOG, I decide to go on a month hiatus from your wonderful bleak and murky lives. Well, I had fucking finals, and shit. It was pretty terrible, but I am ALIVE AGAIN, ready to instill the fear of God in every single person who reads this blog. God is actually a black Tom Cruise look alike who votes Republican. Isn't that some scary stuff????????

Anyways, in case you haven't been around the music scene wrap-up of 2006, the album Night Ripper by Girl Talk has been thrown around a lot. I first heard of this compact disc around August, and it pretty much caused the irony pressure to increase by tenfold when I heard it. Girl Talk is a techno/glitch-rap/dance ARTIST who's actual name is Gregg Gillis (Kind of like Greg Ginn). With Night Ripper, he seemlessly blends and warps every genre of music from gangster rap to indie rock to rock and roll and back to crunk in a dazzling array (We are the cliche police) of loops, samples, mash-ups and tunes. The album is the perfect embodiment of our ADD generation; 25-40 seconds of focus on one particular mash-up that quickly mutates into another mash-up building off of either the previous one or becoming a whole new monster. Each song runs about 2-3 minutes of this genre-bending beat-splicing, with the occaisionally drummachine segue between them. The sheer amount of samples on the album is ludicrous to even begin to count; however, if there's any ironic hipster asshole in you, it'll explode out of your eyelids when you hear the multitude of ways that Girl Talk's blending of various genres explodes into ironic danceable bliss. Just when you think that you've heard some of the greatest song collaborations that could never happen, Girl Talk's next song is cut with another great mash-up, sometimes to hilarious effect.

I won't give away the names of the artists or some of the more intresting juxtapositions because half the fun of the album is listening to them happen without any prior knowledge. Some of the music can seem a bit gimmicky, especially towards the end where I was mostly unfamiliar with the samples being used and it just sort of became the denouement of an ecstasy fueled dance rave for me. This album embodies the some of the reasons why rap is so great, that is interesting, flowing beats that really create a sense of dynamics and accentuate whatever else is going on. Unlike most rap music, since the mash-ups are usually short I don't find myself getting tired of any sort of particular beat or feeling like its worn out its welcome.

Translation: Become the hero of the next hipster party you go to and play this album.

Rating: 9.1

Download: Girl Talk- Once Again

Neil Young - Trans

So lots of people hate this album! Neil Young was an all-American Canadian country folk grunge pioneer guy. 70s singer/songwriter acoustic guitar dude! When he plugged in, he really brought the gobs of heavy sludge distorto that people worldwide enjoyed all the live long day. Even when he decided to be a 'lil bit uncommercial, ditching the poppy radio jams for drunken piano death dirges, his music was still pretty damn normal (besides all the missed notes and voice cracking and such.)

Following that 70s period, he put out a really shittily produced album of really, really mind-numbingly dumb "RAWK 'N' ROLL" called Re-Ac-Tor. I'm sure that his fanbase bought it and was all like, "Huh... okay. This isn't as good as that other stuff, but whatever." But THIS... whole other story. This shit sounds like Kraftwerk, but at some points even weirder than Kraftwerk! And I doubt that many of Neil's fans had even heard of Kraftwerk, let alone listen to them regularly and claim to be FANS of said band's music!

That's the main reason that this album is so derided, I gather. I'm sure that Neil had a good chunk of fans who were way into stuff like James Taylor, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, who fucking knows. More Jann Wenner than Lester Bangs, see? We are readers and writers of this blog, and we are open to new ideas in music (not that this album was particularly "innovative".) We have a higher tolerance for artists' desires to surprise and experiment and all that shit. This new wave vocoder shit freaked the fuck out of his fans, and they had every right to be freaked out by it, frankly. I actually really like this album, but I also like Futureworld by Trans Am. That thing has vocoder vocals all over it. When I listen to it, I don't constantly find myself thinking, "WHY DON'T THEY JUST USE NORMAL VOCALS, GODDAMNIT???" which represents the thought process of many rock fans who would much prefer a good 'ol Bob Dylan album instead.

It's like Metal Machine Music in a way, really. Can you imagine being a Lou Reed fan in the 1970s who got on board with Transformer and "Walk On The Wild Side," and then suddenly buying the new Lou Reed album, and finding out that it's just a bunch of NOISE? Like, it's REALLY just a bunch of noise??? Mainstream rock fans in the 70s weren't exactly buying up Merzbow albums by the sack (a magical sack that has been transported through time by Doc Brown's Delorean, of course.) They weren't into krautrock, and they had probably never heard of AMM or Les Rallizes DeNudes or whatever. Hell, they probably didn't even know that Lou had been partly responsible for something called "Sister Ray"! We all surely enjoy an occasional Whitehouse or Kevin Drumm album, and if Keven Federline or somebody released a ridiculously innovative noise record, we would most definitely hail its greatness. But Kevin Federline's fans would be like, "WTF???"

I'm just fascinated that an album like Metal Machine Music that is almost unanimously despised by a certain contingent of rock critics can simultaneously be something that a whole other type of music fan can find great appreciation in. Sure, it's not a very good classic rock album, but a fairly kickass noise record? Why not! And then we have Trans. If you're a hardcore fan of "Heart of Gold," you're probably not going to give half a shit about this new wavey robot shit because new wavey robot shit scares the crap out of you. Well, this is pretty good new wavey robot shit! So there.

Rating: I guess I didn't really talk about the album that much. It's fun as shit! The songs are really good! Some of them don't have robot vocals. The 80s production really doesn't sound horribly dated. "Computer Age" is so fucking awesome. If you like synth pop, or electronica, or whatever, you might very well dig this. If you're my mom, stay away. That's right, mom. YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS ALBUM. WHY ARE YOU READING THIS. PLEASE CLOSE THE WINDOW IMMEDIATELY.

Song: "We R In Control"... so awesome. This is like "Buttsex: The Song." Okay, it's not really like that. Still pretty smelly, though.

Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire

I like this band a whole lot. Sometimes they played like a dreamy drug trip of marijuana leaves, and and sometimes they crushed you with blocks of distortion. On The Perfect Prescription, there were many slow, druggy moments with awesome sissy guitar tone and amateurish blues scale climbing ("Ode To Street Hassle," "Call The Doctor," you know what I'm saying), in addition to ballsy rockers ("Things Will Never Be The Same," "Take Me To The Other Side," "Dope Nose.") They took you on a magical journey through the highs and lows of a psychedelic drug trip party fiesta.

Thing was, see, that shit like "Walkin' With Jesus" and "Come Down Easy" were the poppiest flippin' things the Spacemen Threes ever pulled out of their (FUCKING GODLY) asses! Even the nine minute Red Krayola cover is catchier than Gilbert Gottfried's guest appearance on Muppets Tonight.

Playing With Fire, on the other hand, is a completely different story. See, Prescription presented the perfect balance between Jason Pierce's dreams of holy negro gospel, and Sonic Boom's dreams for a noisy, psychedelicious future. Here, that balance is being disturbed greatly! The noisy moments ("Revolution," "Suicide") are REALLY NOISY and REALLY LONG (well, "Revolution" is only five or six minutes, but that's fairly epic in today's world of Short Music For Short People featuring NOFX, Less Than Jake, Mad Caddies, Lagwagon, and 97 more of your favorite punk rock revolutionaries), and Jason's lordy Jesus jams ("Come Down Softly To My Soul," "Lord Can You Hear Me?," "So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears") are nowhere near as catchy as "Walkin' With Jesus." And that's to say nothing of Sonic Boom's not-very-noisy-but-still-really-minimal-and-droney quiet numbers.

The dudes were really starting to separate at this point, so you get all of your favorite aspects of Spacemen 3 taken to their absolute extremes. You might think that this is the most balanced Spacemen 3 album because of that, but you're obviously wrong. Here, you can clearly see where each guy is coming from musically, whereas on the one before this one, they're really working together to bring the psychedelic good times. So that one was more song-based, whereas this one is a more minimal, dronier affair. I guess. It's still pretty good, but at heart, I'm a song guy. As much as I enjoy "How Does It Feel?" and "I Believe It," they really don't do it for me the way "Transparent Radiation" and "Walkin' With Jesus" do. It's like why I prefer Goat to Liar; the latter may be the best representation of what the Jesus Lizard was all about, but the former is simply the best set of songs they ever managed to put together. Same goes for The Perfect Prescription and Playing With The Arcade Fire. In that order, too.

Rating: Do like noise, doom metal, microhouse, and krautrock? If you answered "yes" to the question, then you've probably already heard this album! So suck me off. Do you like indie rock and post-punk and 60s summer of love psychedelic boner jams? Then get Perfect Prescription immediately. Maybe hold off on this one. If you're into the dronier side of music, then you need Playing With Fire in your collection. If you're not quite there yet, then get the other one. Great band!

Song: "Revolution"... it's a shit!

Flipper - Generic

Let me tell you about this band Flipper. They were around in the 80s along with Hanoi Rocks and "Teen Wolf." They had a big 'ol bass-o distorto! They also had awesome, loud drums. Then the guitarist just kind of made noise. Also, there was a singer sometimes, and he yelled shit. The result was outstanding.

Along with Fall Out Boy's Hex Enduction Hour, this is definitely the greatest "on the verge of completely falling apart at any second" album ever. This is some cacophonous shit! Let me tell you, though, this is just the most life affirming shit ever. The lyrics on this album... this shit just tears me up. "I TOO HAVE SUNG DEATH'S PRAISES. BUT I'M NOT GONNA SING THAT SONG ANYMORE BECAUSE I HAVE FOUND OUT WHAT LIVING IS ALL ABOUT, IT'S LIFE! LIFE! LIFE IS THE ONLY THING WORTH LIVING FOR!" These fellas showed the world how they felt by being as noisy as possible, and it's just so fucking beautiful. Seriously, it might sound like a bunch of god-awful, chaotic instrument assaulting poop, but it's just so much more than that! This is some fucking powerful stuff. Wow.

"SHED NO TEARS FOR THE COP BLEEDING! HE ONCE HELD THE GUN! HE ONCE HELD THE KEY! NOW HIS PRISONERS WILL SING AND DANCE AND PLAY! NO TEARS WASTED, NO SORROW, NO PITY! NO! NO CRYING NO LOSS!"

Fuck. The singer really isn't singing in rhythm with the music at all, and he's barely singing in the way that one might define the act of "singing." But he's doing it because he cares. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fun House and the Jesus Lizard fucking rule my dicks off, but they are just kickassingly abrasive in every way imaginable. This is a whole other sort of beast. Flipper was so real. The kids don't appreciate music like this. If they had been there, they would have understood.

Rating: Ridiculously high.

Song: "Life"

XTC - Skylarking


XTC, which is pronounced the same way as the popular drug, heroin. Were a bunch of drugged out british guys who wanted to record a very good album! and they succeeded! hurray! Everyone climb on top of my penis and gorge yourself on it!

You will have to excuse myself for my absence in the web reviewing scene, I have been busy fucking Jennifer Aniston.

Anyway, this album is full of uh, Orch pop I guess? The guy who sings it sounds like your gay art teacher from middle school but after eating four white castle sliders, and trying to poop them out at gunpoint. I like the vocals very much.

Most of the songs on this album are talking about eating members of The Smiths, I just took some pills and am having dificulty concentrating on the music. The second track is about smoking grass, I don't know what else to say about this album. The guitars are visceral! Actually, there are barely any guitars on this album. It's basically Sufjan Stevens if he was in a prog rock band. This album has more in common with Rush or King Crimson than it does The Beatles. The rest of the songs on here talk about killing Tony Danza.



I fucking hate Tony Danza.


Rating: 10/10, recommended for the entire family, or at least the gay ones, basically no straight person could like this album which is why i had to cut my penis off in order to review it. One of the gayest albums of the 21st century.

Song: XTC - Grass