11.28.2007
Watch Andy Warhol Eat a Hamburger
What, do you have something better to do? Don't be an asshole. Watch it. You could learn something from this!
11.23.2007
Destroy the Nuge
Some people like to make Turducken for Thanksgiving, which is a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey. Other people prefer the Jimmy dean breakfast sausage on a stick surrounded by a chocolate chip pancake. One thing is clear: If you can put something made of food inside something else inside of food, it makes everything better.
Recently, a friend sent me this recipe:
Whole Stuffed Camel
In a cookbook called International Cuisine, presented by California Home Economics Teachers, 1983 (ISBN 0-89626-051-8), you will find:
Stuffed Camel
1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
60 eggs
12 kilos rice
2 kilos pine nuts
2 kilos almonds
1 kilo pistachio nuts
110 gallons water
5 pounds black pepper
Salt to taste
Skin, trim and clean camel (once you get over the hump), lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100. —Shararazod Eboli Home Economist, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
I guess what I mean to say, Ted Nugent has released a new album, and the truth is that he hasn't had a good song since "Journey to the Center of the Mind" when he was in the Amboy Dukes. Also, I hate Ted Nugent.
Recently, a friend sent me this recipe:
Whole Stuffed Camel
In a cookbook called International Cuisine, presented by California Home Economics Teachers, 1983 (ISBN 0-89626-051-8), you will find:
Stuffed Camel
1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
60 eggs
12 kilos rice
2 kilos pine nuts
2 kilos almonds
1 kilo pistachio nuts
110 gallons water
5 pounds black pepper
Salt to taste
Skin, trim and clean camel (once you get over the hump), lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100. —Shararazod Eboli Home Economist, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
I guess what I mean to say, Ted Nugent has released a new album, and the truth is that he hasn't had a good song since "Journey to the Center of the Mind" when he was in the Amboy Dukes. Also, I hate Ted Nugent.
11.07.2007
XXXL Guitar: Pig Champion
You know what? Guitarists . . . guitarists are important. It's important for a rock and roll band to have a guitarist, most of the time. A good guitarist can help a band out a whole lot, whereas a shitty guitarist can ruin a band. But we're not going to talk about guitarists, we're going to talk about fat guitarists.
Having a morbidly obese guitarist in a band is a calculated risk—they can save a band, or destroy a band. And believe you me, they will always do one or the other. Bands with fat guitarists—or fat guitarists in and of themselves—are either among the greatest guitarists in rock and roll, or the worst.
In the interest of arming you, the reader, with the proper information by which to determine which records featuring fat guitarist you're going to buy, the writing staff of Danger is My Beer will, in the upcoming weeks and months, gently summarize the talents of both the greatest and most despicable fat guitarists in rock and roll.
Let's start with the greatest. The greatest being, in this writer's humble opinion, the late Tom "Pig Champion" Roberts, of the band Poison Idea.
Here, Mr. Champion is covered in blood, as is Poison Idea singer Jerry A., as they destroy the audience with what is no doubt a bone-crushing song of destruction
At his heaviest, Pig Champion was clocking in at nearly 500 pounds. But despite (or because of) his hefty carriage, this Portland, Oregon behemoth was one of the most nimble-fingered, face-melting guitarists in punk rock history.
Out of all the bands that attempted hardcore/metal crossover, Poison Idea among the select few that pulled it off. Champion was good at editing down what would be excesses in lesser guitarists, and every Poison Idea song was a hyper-kinetic vortex of awesome, misanthropic, frightening, and most of all melodic rock and roll assault. He excelled at guitar solo ass kickery, as well as mega-fast right wrist rhythm workouts—see "Plastic Bomb" offa PI's seminal Feel the Darkness, which is knocking on the door of Black Flag's Damaged when it comes to best American HC LP.
Pig Champion was an avid record collector, spending tons of dough on vinyl every month. In fact, the story goes that he scheduled a Poison Idea tour to follow the footsteps of an 80s hardcore band whose records he was looking for—this being before the internets and the CD reissuing craze. Poison Idea played every town this band had played a decade before (The Freeze, maybe? I read this somewhere but forgot) so Champion could go to all the record stores and look for their records.
This obsessiveness is reflected in his guitar playing—he sounds like a guy who has absorbed at ton of music and knows exactly what he's doing, and exactly what tone he wants. You'll find no aimless wheedly-wheeing in the Poison Idea catalogue, friends. It's all destruction, all the time. Which is why Pig Champion rightfully assumes the mantle of Lord Imperator of heavy guitar players the world around. Mr. Champion, we salute you.
Having a morbidly obese guitarist in a band is a calculated risk—they can save a band, or destroy a band. And believe you me, they will always do one or the other. Bands with fat guitarists—or fat guitarists in and of themselves—are either among the greatest guitarists in rock and roll, or the worst.
In the interest of arming you, the reader, with the proper information by which to determine which records featuring fat guitarist you're going to buy, the writing staff of Danger is My Beer will, in the upcoming weeks and months, gently summarize the talents of both the greatest and most despicable fat guitarists in rock and roll.
Let's start with the greatest. The greatest being, in this writer's humble opinion, the late Tom "Pig Champion" Roberts, of the band Poison Idea.
Here, Mr. Champion is covered in blood, as is Poison Idea singer Jerry A., as they destroy the audience with what is no doubt a bone-crushing song of destructionAt his heaviest, Pig Champion was clocking in at nearly 500 pounds. But despite (or because of) his hefty carriage, this Portland, Oregon behemoth was one of the most nimble-fingered, face-melting guitarists in punk rock history.
Out of all the bands that attempted hardcore/metal crossover, Poison Idea among the select few that pulled it off. Champion was good at editing down what would be excesses in lesser guitarists, and every Poison Idea song was a hyper-kinetic vortex of awesome, misanthropic, frightening, and most of all melodic rock and roll assault. He excelled at guitar solo ass kickery, as well as mega-fast right wrist rhythm workouts—see "Plastic Bomb" offa PI's seminal Feel the Darkness, which is knocking on the door of Black Flag's Damaged when it comes to best American HC LP.
Pig Champion was an avid record collector, spending tons of dough on vinyl every month. In fact, the story goes that he scheduled a Poison Idea tour to follow the footsteps of an 80s hardcore band whose records he was looking for—this being before the internets and the CD reissuing craze. Poison Idea played every town this band had played a decade before (The Freeze, maybe? I read this somewhere but forgot) so Champion could go to all the record stores and look for their records.
This obsessiveness is reflected in his guitar playing—he sounds like a guy who has absorbed at ton of music and knows exactly what he's doing, and exactly what tone he wants. You'll find no aimless wheedly-wheeing in the Poison Idea catalogue, friends. It's all destruction, all the time. Which is why Pig Champion rightfully assumes the mantle of Lord Imperator of heavy guitar players the world around. Mr. Champion, we salute you.
11.03.2007
The Formation of a Tonal Titan: 20 Albums That Made My Musical Tastes Better Than Yours (Part 1)
Since the dawn of time, people have been asking the question, "Which albums does this loser who writes a blog that nobody reads think everybody needs to own, based solely on his own personal experiences?" Well, I'm here to answer that question once and for all! Prepare to step into the fairly uneventful life of me, your intrepid narrator!
This list is roughly chronological, so you can track my progression from weak-kneed high-school outcast to bleary-eyed drunk-punk to ultra-sophistocated resident of the Ivory Tower.
1. Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album
In my hometown of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, there is one record store that isn’t Wal-Mart. I used to frequent this little shop when I was a teenager, usually in search of some bargain-priced pop-punk, as was my wont in those days. One fine day I was scanning the used bin for the latest Lagwagon CD, or perhaps a latter-day Stranglers disc, when I came across this little gem.
I bought the Richard D. James album based entirely on the name “Aphex Twin.” I don’t know why, but something in that name roused the not-so-inner geek in me; I thought it sounded like a good name for a spaceship or maybe a Boba Fett-esque galactic bounty hunter. Since girls were not a part of my particular reality at this stage, I had lots of time, and thanks to my $5.25 an hour grocery store job, I had what I thought was lots of money. These two factors led to many impulsive purchases at the olde record shoppe, and subsequently left me with little to do but sit in my parent’s basement and listen to this flood of (mostly) retardo poseur punk and coma-inducing post-grunge.
As I opened the jewel case and placed the cd in the player, I was struck by the sinister looking fellow glaring back at me from the sleeve; Mr. Richard D. James, apparently, smiling that smile that would eventually be burned deep into my impressionable young mind. The opening track, titled simply “4,” was my proverbial key card that opened the metaphorical Motel 6 door to electronic music. 8-bit synth lines dodge in and out of snare rushes, creating the soundtrack for the greatest Nintendo game never invented. This hyperkinetic track kicked off my exploration into similar artists in the Warp Records stable, including Squarepusher and Mu-Ziq, and eventually further into the Ninja Tune catalog and beyond. The rest of the album mines similar up tempo electronica; impossibly fast synthetic drums, keyboard melodies that are by turns eerie and majestic, and some of the strangest vocal snippets I had ever heard: “I would like some milk from the milkman’s wife’s tits,” indeed.
2. Joy Division - Closer
As I embarked upon my college years, I was still ensconced within my sackcloth ignorance robes when it came to music. Sure, I had discovered some electronic music, and had moved back in time to discover some of the music that all those shitty Epitaph bands had ripped off. Still, my knowledge of the punk-and-post-punk canon was woefully lacking. Then “Closer,” the second album by a British band called Joy Division, moped along and smeared mascara all over my soul.
Depressing, haunting, and surrounded by the spectre of death, “Closer” soon represented every angst-ridden mote of my being. From the extended death march of opener “The Atrocity Exhibition” to the synth-heavy final statement, “Decades,” I was consistently riveted to every hollow-chested note that throbbed outward from Peter Hook’s bass, the wiry tendrils of distortion shooting forth from Bernard Sumner’s guitar strings, and Steve Morris’s rolling, pounding , syncopated drumming. On the bottom of this murky instrumental gorge twitched doomed schoolboy Ian Curtis, crooning cadaverously about his impending personal apocalypse (which was seen through to its logical end with his suicide in May, 1980). Before “Closer,” the nearest notion I had to heavy emotional music was Marilyn fucking Manson. A life changing experience, to be sure.
3. Public Image Limited - The Flowers Of Romance
My good friend Rick had the greatest record collection of anyone I’d ever known, back in our heady Bennington College days. It was assembled from various yard sales and contained most of WONY Oneonta’s discarded Lps; everything from a live Dead Boys album to the “Goldfinger” soundtrack, along with many others whose names have long since faded from the fabric of bargain-music history. We spent many hours listening to this anthology on his Dog Tax War-era turntable (it had a 16rpm setting for Christ’s sake!) and slurping Old Crow whiskey. This 150 square foot land of discovery expanded my musical mind exponentially, beginning with “Flowers of Romance” by Johnny Lydon’s PiL.
Only three years removed from the Sex Pistols, the former Mr. Rotten had spent some time in Jamaica with Richard Branson (no doubt consuming heroic amounts of drugs) picking up on the deep bass, heavy riddims, and no-fi tape manipulation techniques of reggae music. He took this newfound knowledge to heart, and these influences manifested themselves most completely with “The Flowers of Romance,” a groovy journey into downtown Weirdsville. The album opens with an undulating wail from the echoey depths, courtesy JR, followed by a rhythmically insistent drumbeat. And that’s it. And it’s fucking spooky as hell. Which leads us into the most frightening track this side of “Dog’s Blood Rising”; “Track 8” (which is actually track 2...what a bunch of jokers!) sounds like it’s emanating from a dying walkman on the bottom of Silver Lake; but, like Jason Voorhees, IT JUST WON’T DIE!!!!!
The lyrics are all surrealist-absurdist notions, including an elephant’s grave and a Butterball turkey, carried along a current of warped melody and stuttering drums. This record is a stifling glimpse into a nightmarish vision, and that is the primary reason that Flowers Of Romance stands atop the surprisingly sweet-smelling dung heap that is John Lydon’s oeuvre.
4. Einsturzende Neubauten - Kollaps
When I was eight years old, the goalie on my youth hockey team let me use his pads once and play goal for a practice. As this had been a lifelong dream of mine (my father always said that goalie equipment was “too damn expensive”), this kid quickly became my hero. It was amazing how this simple gesture of generosity by a third grader still resonates within me today; I felt like a terminal cancer patient in Disneyland, and this kid let me cut in line for Space Mountain! What a guy! Other than this, I knew nothing of the kid, just that he had something I desperately wanted.
Years later, I was angrier and raging with a rage that welled up from nowhere in particular. I wanted to do nothing, and I was going to break as many things as I could in the process. Halfway down this puzzling spiral of self-ruin, I witnessed a five foot tall black-clad asian-american kid streak through our communal living room while tearing his hair out in clumps and screaming like a young Linda Blair. Then a full-size dresser came crashing down a set of stairs. This was my first day of college, and already someone had lent me their PCP-charged goalie pads. I had a new hero.
I later learned that this kid’s name was also Matt, he always wore a black leather jacket, he played the drums with great force, and he drove a flat-black 1984 Mustang with the back seat ripped out. Despite being completely unapproachable, I somehow managed a tenuous friendship with the guy, and was soon introduced to the post-industrial wasteland of Einsturzende Neubauten. “Tanz Debil,” the first track off of Kollaps, was my absolute first exposure to the band whose logo would eventually be tattooed on my left shoulder.
Kollaps was Neubauten’s first album, and it sounded alternately like scaffolding tumbling to the ground and an East Berlin torture chamber. It was the most abrasive music I had heard to this point, and provided me the logical accompaniment for many violent acts of petty vandalism. The band was, after all, inspired by the eventual collapse of all things man-made, and I felt I should oblige their vision as best I could by trashing a small corner of southeastern Vermont. For the Fatherland!
...and that concludes part one of my p-or-re-tentious list. Next: "PART 2!!!!!!"
--(mk)
This list is roughly chronological, so you can track my progression from weak-kneed high-school outcast to bleary-eyed drunk-punk to ultra-sophistocated resident of the Ivory Tower.
1. Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album
In my hometown of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, there is one record store that isn’t Wal-Mart. I used to frequent this little shop when I was a teenager, usually in search of some bargain-priced pop-punk, as was my wont in those days. One fine day I was scanning the used bin for the latest Lagwagon CD, or perhaps a latter-day Stranglers disc, when I came across this little gem.
I bought the Richard D. James album based entirely on the name “Aphex Twin.” I don’t know why, but something in that name roused the not-so-inner geek in me; I thought it sounded like a good name for a spaceship or maybe a Boba Fett-esque galactic bounty hunter. Since girls were not a part of my particular reality at this stage, I had lots of time, and thanks to my $5.25 an hour grocery store job, I had what I thought was lots of money. These two factors led to many impulsive purchases at the olde record shoppe, and subsequently left me with little to do but sit in my parent’s basement and listen to this flood of (mostly) retardo poseur punk and coma-inducing post-grunge.
As I opened the jewel case and placed the cd in the player, I was struck by the sinister looking fellow glaring back at me from the sleeve; Mr. Richard D. James, apparently, smiling that smile that would eventually be burned deep into my impressionable young mind. The opening track, titled simply “4,” was my proverbial key card that opened the metaphorical Motel 6 door to electronic music. 8-bit synth lines dodge in and out of snare rushes, creating the soundtrack for the greatest Nintendo game never invented. This hyperkinetic track kicked off my exploration into similar artists in the Warp Records stable, including Squarepusher and Mu-Ziq, and eventually further into the Ninja Tune catalog and beyond. The rest of the album mines similar up tempo electronica; impossibly fast synthetic drums, keyboard melodies that are by turns eerie and majestic, and some of the strangest vocal snippets I had ever heard: “I would like some milk from the milkman’s wife’s tits,” indeed.
2. Joy Division - Closer
As I embarked upon my college years, I was still ensconced within my sackcloth ignorance robes when it came to music. Sure, I had discovered some electronic music, and had moved back in time to discover some of the music that all those shitty Epitaph bands had ripped off. Still, my knowledge of the punk-and-post-punk canon was woefully lacking. Then “Closer,” the second album by a British band called Joy Division, moped along and smeared mascara all over my soul.
Depressing, haunting, and surrounded by the spectre of death, “Closer” soon represented every angst-ridden mote of my being. From the extended death march of opener “The Atrocity Exhibition” to the synth-heavy final statement, “Decades,” I was consistently riveted to every hollow-chested note that throbbed outward from Peter Hook’s bass, the wiry tendrils of distortion shooting forth from Bernard Sumner’s guitar strings, and Steve Morris’s rolling, pounding , syncopated drumming. On the bottom of this murky instrumental gorge twitched doomed schoolboy Ian Curtis, crooning cadaverously about his impending personal apocalypse (which was seen through to its logical end with his suicide in May, 1980). Before “Closer,” the nearest notion I had to heavy emotional music was Marilyn fucking Manson. A life changing experience, to be sure.
3. Public Image Limited - The Flowers Of Romance
My good friend Rick had the greatest record collection of anyone I’d ever known, back in our heady Bennington College days. It was assembled from various yard sales and contained most of WONY Oneonta’s discarded Lps; everything from a live Dead Boys album to the “Goldfinger” soundtrack, along with many others whose names have long since faded from the fabric of bargain-music history. We spent many hours listening to this anthology on his Dog Tax War-era turntable (it had a 16rpm setting for Christ’s sake!) and slurping Old Crow whiskey. This 150 square foot land of discovery expanded my musical mind exponentially, beginning with “Flowers of Romance” by Johnny Lydon’s PiL.
Only three years removed from the Sex Pistols, the former Mr. Rotten had spent some time in Jamaica with Richard Branson (no doubt consuming heroic amounts of drugs) picking up on the deep bass, heavy riddims, and no-fi tape manipulation techniques of reggae music. He took this newfound knowledge to heart, and these influences manifested themselves most completely with “The Flowers of Romance,” a groovy journey into downtown Weirdsville. The album opens with an undulating wail from the echoey depths, courtesy JR, followed by a rhythmically insistent drumbeat. And that’s it. And it’s fucking spooky as hell. Which leads us into the most frightening track this side of “Dog’s Blood Rising”; “Track 8” (which is actually track 2...what a bunch of jokers!) sounds like it’s emanating from a dying walkman on the bottom of Silver Lake; but, like Jason Voorhees, IT JUST WON’T DIE!!!!!
The lyrics are all surrealist-absurdist notions, including an elephant’s grave and a Butterball turkey, carried along a current of warped melody and stuttering drums. This record is a stifling glimpse into a nightmarish vision, and that is the primary reason that Flowers Of Romance stands atop the surprisingly sweet-smelling dung heap that is John Lydon’s oeuvre.
4. Einsturzende Neubauten - Kollaps
When I was eight years old, the goalie on my youth hockey team let me use his pads once and play goal for a practice. As this had been a lifelong dream of mine (my father always said that goalie equipment was “too damn expensive”), this kid quickly became my hero. It was amazing how this simple gesture of generosity by a third grader still resonates within me today; I felt like a terminal cancer patient in Disneyland, and this kid let me cut in line for Space Mountain! What a guy! Other than this, I knew nothing of the kid, just that he had something I desperately wanted.
Years later, I was angrier and raging with a rage that welled up from nowhere in particular. I wanted to do nothing, and I was going to break as many things as I could in the process. Halfway down this puzzling spiral of self-ruin, I witnessed a five foot tall black-clad asian-american kid streak through our communal living room while tearing his hair out in clumps and screaming like a young Linda Blair. Then a full-size dresser came crashing down a set of stairs. This was my first day of college, and already someone had lent me their PCP-charged goalie pads. I had a new hero.
I later learned that this kid’s name was also Matt, he always wore a black leather jacket, he played the drums with great force, and he drove a flat-black 1984 Mustang with the back seat ripped out. Despite being completely unapproachable, I somehow managed a tenuous friendship with the guy, and was soon introduced to the post-industrial wasteland of Einsturzende Neubauten. “Tanz Debil,” the first track off of Kollaps, was my absolute first exposure to the band whose logo would eventually be tattooed on my left shoulder.
Kollaps was Neubauten’s first album, and it sounded alternately like scaffolding tumbling to the ground and an East Berlin torture chamber. It was the most abrasive music I had heard to this point, and provided me the logical accompaniment for many violent acts of petty vandalism. The band was, after all, inspired by the eventual collapse of all things man-made, and I felt I should oblige their vision as best I could by trashing a small corner of southeastern Vermont. For the Fatherland!
...and that concludes part one of my p-or-re-tentious list. Next: "PART 2!!!!!!"
--(mk)
11.01.2007
It's...HAIKU REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flower Travellin' Band - Satori
Black Sabbath riffs crush
Multicolored lotus plants
In the rainbow fields
Hisato Higuchi - Butterfly Horse Street
Calmly strummed guitars
Distort and drone, hypnotic
Sorrow stains my soul
Fushitsusha - Pathetique
Monolithic rock,
Extended acid freakout,
Apocalypse nigh!
Marc Wilkinson - Blood on Satan's Claw (OST)
Spooky sounds abound!
The darkness is creeping in,
Give in to Ol' Scratch!
Harumi - Harumi
Japanese mystic,
Swirling strings, chemical haze
Smoke lots of weed now
Oren Ambarchi - Grapes Form The Estate
Idyllic, tonal,
Guitars manipulated:
A cool summer's night.
The Stumps - The Black Wood
Moody soundscapes? Yes!
Lo-fi instrumentals, too!
Lonesome headphone songs.
Jesu - Lifeline
Glaciers of sound move
Slowly through Arctic seas, then
Collide with great force
Now with great sorrow,
I bid you farewell, my friends
Until the next time.
--(mk)
Black Sabbath riffs crush
Multicolored lotus plants
In the rainbow fields
Hisato Higuchi - Butterfly Horse Street
Calmly strummed guitars
Distort and drone, hypnotic
Sorrow stains my soul
Fushitsusha - Pathetique
Monolithic rock,
Extended acid freakout,
Apocalypse nigh!
Marc Wilkinson - Blood on Satan's Claw (OST)
Spooky sounds abound!
The darkness is creeping in,
Give in to Ol' Scratch!
Harumi - Harumi
Japanese mystic,
Swirling strings, chemical haze
Smoke lots of weed now
Oren Ambarchi - Grapes Form The Estate
Idyllic, tonal,
Guitars manipulated:
A cool summer's night.
The Stumps - The Black Wood
Moody soundscapes? Yes!
Lo-fi instrumentals, too!
Lonesome headphone songs.
Jesu - Lifeline
Glaciers of sound move
Slowly through Arctic seas, then
Collide with great force
Now with great sorrow,
I bid you farewell, my friends
Until the next time.
--(mk)
10.31.2007
10.28.2007
On The Spectacle of Television and Other Observations
Before game 3 of the World Series last night, FOX featured a small segment, something about there being seven steps to a world series championship. For each game, they illustrated an example of heroism, or some such related item (i.e. Kirk Gibson's gimpy home run in the 1988 series, Babe Ruth calling his shot in 1932). For one of the great moments of game 3, it transports us back to the 2001 series, which took place under the spectre of THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11TH! It begins on a soundstage made to look vaguely like a NYC firehouse, replete with sullen looking firefighters, watching the Arizona Diamondbacks take the field against their beloved New York Yankees. Then, guess what? "HEY! It's the President! And he's wearing OUR uniform!" Oh, and then the actors are astonished as Mr. Bush throws "a strike!" God Fucking Bless Fucking America! Fuck!
There's a line spoken by the narrator at one point: "These stories take us back in time to the place where we witnessed greatness." Now, I can see the greatness of a man fighting through a career-ending knee injury to hit a game-winning home run in his only at bat of the series, or the never-been-repeated called shot, but Bush throwing out the first pitch of a game? Give me a fucking break. The fact that President Douchebag managed to wash the turds out of his drawers and make a five-minute appearance at a baseball game hardly seems heroic. Leave it to FOX to take a perfectly apolitical event and turn it into a fair and balanced handjob for President 30% Approval Rating. Watch the video for yourself:
In all the hubbub, I almost forgot that the Red Sox won the game, and took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series. At least something good came out of Fox's broadcast.
On an entirely unrelated note, here's a music review:
Suishou No Fune - The Shining Star Live
There has been much made of the pshchedelic music revival in recent years, and I keep hearing from the kids about this place called "Japan," a mythical land filled with paper houses and giant moths...somehow over the past few years, these two abstract concepts have merged to form a giant psychedelic moth made out of paper. On the back of this benevolent winged insect ride bands such as Boris, Ghost, and Suishou No Fune, guitars in hand, trying to finish what they started with THE HORIFFIC ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR!
The four tracks that make up "Shining Star" range from really long to even longer, each song more of a semi-improvised suite that flow in and out of coherent song structure; the twin guitars of Kageo and Pirako ring and slash through relatively spare drumming and ad-libbed lyrics (sung in some strange, otherworldly language that the band calls "Japanese") until the listener's ears are stuffed full of that thing called love. One of Japan's greatest exports, aside from sushi and a strong work ethic, is something called "atmosphere." It's amazing how far a little bit of this stuff can go: untitled track 4 starts off as a crushing vacuum cleaner of drone effects before falling almost silent for three minutes, then smashing back through a few walls of feedback and respite for the remaining 700 minutes, finally coming to a rest in a twenty-guitar pileup on route 666! Fuckin A!
In an era that is so littered with abhorrent popular music, it stands to reason that there will be as many bands out there that push the outer limits of the "pop" music spectrum into works as engrossing as this limited edition live album. Unfortunately, Suishuo No Fune will probably never get a whole lot of recognition outside my apartment. And that's a damn shame. 10/10
--(mk)
There's a line spoken by the narrator at one point: "These stories take us back in time to the place where we witnessed greatness." Now, I can see the greatness of a man fighting through a career-ending knee injury to hit a game-winning home run in his only at bat of the series, or the never-been-repeated called shot, but Bush throwing out the first pitch of a game? Give me a fucking break. The fact that President Douchebag managed to wash the turds out of his drawers and make a five-minute appearance at a baseball game hardly seems heroic. Leave it to FOX to take a perfectly apolitical event and turn it into a fair and balanced handjob for President 30% Approval Rating. Watch the video for yourself:
In all the hubbub, I almost forgot that the Red Sox won the game, and took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series. At least something good came out of Fox's broadcast.
On an entirely unrelated note, here's a music review:
Suishou No Fune - The Shining Star Live
There has been much made of the pshchedelic music revival in recent years, and I keep hearing from the kids about this place called "Japan," a mythical land filled with paper houses and giant moths...somehow over the past few years, these two abstract concepts have merged to form a giant psychedelic moth made out of paper. On the back of this benevolent winged insect ride bands such as Boris, Ghost, and Suishou No Fune, guitars in hand, trying to finish what they started with THE HORIFFIC ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR!
The four tracks that make up "Shining Star" range from really long to even longer, each song more of a semi-improvised suite that flow in and out of coherent song structure; the twin guitars of Kageo and Pirako ring and slash through relatively spare drumming and ad-libbed lyrics (sung in some strange, otherworldly language that the band calls "Japanese") until the listener's ears are stuffed full of that thing called love. One of Japan's greatest exports, aside from sushi and a strong work ethic, is something called "atmosphere." It's amazing how far a little bit of this stuff can go: untitled track 4 starts off as a crushing vacuum cleaner of drone effects before falling almost silent for three minutes, then smashing back through a few walls of feedback and respite for the remaining 700 minutes, finally coming to a rest in a twenty-guitar pileup on route 666! Fuckin A!
In an era that is so littered with abhorrent popular music, it stands to reason that there will be as many bands out there that push the outer limits of the "pop" music spectrum into works as engrossing as this limited edition live album. Unfortunately, Suishuo No Fune will probably never get a whole lot of recognition outside my apartment. And that's a damn shame. 10/10
--(mk)
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