Music is My Radar

My friends know how much I hate all things “earnest.”  The overwrought emotions, lack of self-awareness, hamfisted life-lessons - makes me gag.  And then there’s this.

(Well, so much for embedding the video.  Apparently youtube has that turned off.  Jerks.  Anyway, here’s the link.)

First, I must say “Damn you fearlessvk” for posting this video in the first place.  I admit, I got teary-eyed watching it.  And while it technically doesn’t qualify as “earnest,” it would be bad enough, were it not so awesome.

Enjoy.

Before going further, please watch the video below.  The group is Mastodon, the song is “Divinations.”

Mastodon - Divinations

Now, here is why that is the most metal video of all time.

1. It contains the bare bones of a narrative involving climbing dangerous snowy mountains and discovering the remnants of an ancient blood-sacrifice culture.  And what is more metal than blood sacrifice?  Not much.
2. Once atop the mountain, the band discovers the frozen body of a caveman, who they reanimate using a Gibson Flying-V guitar.  Seriously.  Lightening bolts shooting from a guitar and bringing to life a 10,000-year-old caveman?  Very fucking metal.
3. And what is the first thing the unfrozen caveman does once he is awakened?  He launches into a fucking shredder guitar solo.  Seriously.  If I was frozen for 10,000 years, the first thing I would want to do upon awakening is kick some metal ass.
4. After shredding for a few, the now unfrozen caveman uses said guitar to slaughter, then CANNIBALIZE, the band members.  Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, is more metal than cannibalization.
5. Is that a banjo at the beginning of the song?  Who cares?!  Even more metal!
6. Three words: Abominable fucking snowman.  

I don’t know about you people, but I’m buying some Mastodon CDs the first chance I get.  And, using a Flying-V to vanquish whatever foes I might have.  Before I GNAW ON THEIR FEMURS!!!

Ahem.

Lately I’ve become a pretty big fan of the Onion AV Club, the satirical newspaper’s repository for books, movies, music, interviews, and the like.  If nothing else, it’s where I get my weekly dose of Dan Savage, the best advice columnist working today, for my money.  (Sorry Cary Tennis.)

Anyway, I especially like the Inventory section, wherein the AV Club writers come up with some pretty interesting lists, like this one, or this one, or this one.  And this week has an especially interesting list.

What I like about their list is how few of those albums I own or would have included on such a list of my own.  (In all fairness, I did think of this topic some time ago.)  Makes me want to buy some records.

This guy is awesome.

Billy Corgan can eat a dick.

Now that the only other remaining original member has quit the quasi-reunited Smashing Pumpkins, Master Corgan confirms what we knew all along: he = Smashing Pumpkins.  There is no difference, no separation, no boundaries between the two.  It’s kind of like Sauron and the One Ring - you destroy one, you destroy the other.

You might be wondering what brings on this sudden anti-Corgan sentiment.  Well, it’s been brewing for some time.  Despite the fact that I was/am something of a SP fan (sorry, boxmonster), there were certain aspects of the band that I never really liked.  Mostly, the “rat in a cage” lyrics and nasal vocals of the group’s singer and songwriter, ol’ Billy.  I was able to overlook them due largely to the wonderfully over-the-top guitars and thunderous drums of the newly-departed Jimmy Chamberlin.  That guy has my vote as one of the top rock drummers performing today.  Serious badass.

Anyway, after various member’s departures, break-ups, reunions under another name, and general dicking around, I lost interest in SP years ago.  Sure, I still crank “Geek USA” or “Jellybelly” on the iPod every now and then (I am right now, actually), but that’s really about it.  And until just recently, I was content to just ignore whatever else the group and its former members did.

Until this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

So yep.  Eat a dick, Billy Corgan.  You certainly seem to be working up an appetite of late.

My beloved Memphis was quite a pleasant place to be this Friday morning and early afternoon. The sun was shining, there was a nice breeze, even the temperature was playing along: a wonderfully out-of-season 60 degrees. I was driving to Home Depot to buy materials for my soon-to-be-started garden and listening to the Shins (Chutes Too Narrow, FYI), and you know, the moment did not entirely suck. In fact, it did not suck at all.

Then I started thinking about that moment in Garden State when Natalie Portman hands her over-sized headphones to Zach Braff and tells him to listen to the Shins, because “they will change your life.”  And I got to thinking that Zach Braff is a real big douchebag, because he wrote that film. OK sure, he was funny in Scrubs, but that’s all I can do for him.  Because every time I listen to the Shins, whom I like, I think of that movie, which I did not like.

Douche.

Hi.  Apparently I have a lot to confess these days as this is my second Guilty Pleasures post in a row.  What can I say?  When you have around 23,000 mp3s, plus hundreds of CDs, a few hundred LPs, and handful of 7″s, and even a few cassettes, you’re bound to have a few unpleasant secrets.

This Guilty Pleasure came to me as I was telling my wife about my most recent Guilty Pleasure entry, on “Cuts Like a Knife” by Bryan Adams.  I don’t know what exactly made me think of it … perhaps it’s because I’ve heard that this song is among the least popular within the extensive catalog of the band which first recorded it.  Perhaps it’s the hokey video I remember from way back in the day.  Mostly it’s the unrelenting positivity of the song.  I mean, any chorus that features the lyrics “I will get by” and “I will survive” is trouble.  I can just picture some poor fragged-out hippie kid, riding out a really bad acid trip, repeating the chorus over and over while huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth in the fetal position.

Or not.

Anyway, I’m not doing a good job of being coy about what song I’m writing about, so here it is.  Be gentle.

Pretty bad, huh?  Yes.  Yes it is.  But we here at MiMR are not here to point fingers and laugh or scorn and deride; we want to understand what makes bad bad.  So, let’s be perfectly clear about what makes this song so bloody awful.

1. It is so fucking upbeat it makes me want to eat Morrissey.  Not just listen to him, or hang posters of him all my home, or cut my hair like him, or be sexually ambiguous.  Not enough.  I want Morrissey to physically move in to me.  Occupy my body.  Take up residence and keep the happy thoughts away.
2. It features hippies.  Now, I don’t want to be a hater here (I just can’t help it!), but hippies do kind of annoy me.  Sure, I’m all about peace, love, and understanding (nothing funny about that), I’ve been a committed vegetarian for over 15 years now, I try to maintain a live-and-let-live attitude, blah blah blah.  But something about … something … gahhh, I don’t know.  They just annoy me.
3. Again with the chorus.  Seriously.
4. Profoundly obvious video.

There may be more reasons why the song is awful, but that’s a good start.  Now, here’s what I like about it.

1. It’s catchy as hell.  Have you noticed that with nearly all of my past Guilty Pleasures, this is reason #1 as to why I like the song?  I admit, I’m a sucker for a hook.
2. It’s kind of rare for a band like the Dead to have a Top 40 single, given that their comparative advantages were clearly touring, endless guitar noodling, and synthesizing various traditions in American music into something that smells like patchouli.  Sure, other songs like “Truckin’” and “Casey Jones” couch-surfed their way into the standard AOR radio playlist, but by the 1980s, the Dead had long since stopped making contributions to that genre.  Good for them, reaching out to a new crowd.
3. While I never really bought into the Deadhead lifestyle, I do actually admire the Dead for their longevity, originality, and musicianship.  They really were original and were also profoundly influential on now two generations of other bands.  And I actually regret that I never got to see them in concert before Jerry Garcia died.

You know, I feel better having let that out.  Thanks for listening, reader(s), and stick around for another Guilty Pleasure in the near future.  I guarantee you, it will be a doozy.

I was cleaning the house last weekend when I recalled an evening many years ago, back in my days as a graduate student and barrista.  Most of the details of that evening, as well as many evenings which came before and followed, are lost to the ages, but one memory lingers, and it is that which leads me to write another chapter in my Guilty Pleasures series.

It was a spring night, probably six or seven years ago, a year or two before I met my wife, and I spent the evening hanging out with friends, eating, drinking, and generally making merry.  Those were the halcyon days of my single years, when money was short, dates were easy to come by, and my life was rather carefree.  Or at least that’s how I remember it, being carefree, when in all likelihood I was plagued with near-daily anxiety over my as-yet-unfinished dissertation and the chance that my days in graduate school would be for naught.  No matter though … now is not the time for self-recrimination.  I ultimately finished the PhD, got married, found a job, moved to new city, bought a house, made some really awesome new friends, and am now as happy as my Virgo nature will allow me to be.

Anyway, two of my dear friends were once a couple for a number of years, in college and for a time afterward, and their rented house in Decatur was the location of many dinners, parties, movie nights, and many other activities.  The house was perfect for socializing: large living room/dining room/kitchen area, two bathrooms, large basement, and generous front porch.  If I had a dollar for every brain cell I killed at that house I could retire in a manner of months.

I don’t remember much about this particular night - who was in attendance, what we ate, what music we listened to, what board games we played with drunken fervor.  But I do remember that when it came time for me to leave, I piled in my car, cranked the engine, and settled into the ten-minute-drive home.  (For the kids - don’t drive drunk.)  After turning onto the main road that would take me back to my apartment, a song came on the radio.  Normally, hearing this song would motivate to quickly change the station, if not stab my ears with icepicks, but for some reason I decided to let the song play out.

Perhaps it was the beer, or the other intoxicants, or the feeling of camaraderie from spending time with my people, but something about that night and that song made me feel profoundly nostalgic.  It certainly wasn’t for my younger days, when I first heard the song on the then-fledgling network MTV.  Perhaps it was some earlier time in my life, when life was as simple as the lyrics in a three-minute pop song.  Whatever the case, by the end of the song, the big sing-along chorus that no doubt brings karaoke crowds to their feet, I was singing along too.

So what is this mystery song?  Well, if you can’t tell from the title of this post, here’s the video.

Yep.  Pretty bloody awful, isn’t it?  So in fine Guilty Pleasures form, here is why I am utterly ashamed to like (read: love) that song.

1. It’s a Bryan Adams song.
2. At 0:25 in the video, look at the bass player.  To him I say this: dude, this song does not rock nearly so hard as to justify such posturing.  You = douche.
3. Bryan Adams co-wrote the song.
4. What does ol’ Bry have against apples?  Seriously.  Just peel ‘em and toss ‘em, you apples man.  No wonder that chick dives into an empty pool.  What a douche.
5. Bryan Adams performed the song.
6. The last scene of the video?  When Bryan Adams comes to the door of the changing room and gives his inexplicably-not-dead ex-girlfriend the lady-eyes?  Really, it looks like he should be asking her if she needs that sweater in a different size, then thanking her for visiting The Gap.  Douche.

OK, fine.  I know what you’re saying.  If this song chokes so much dick, then why do you like it?  Simple.

1. It’s catchy as all-fucking get out.  And however catchy that is, it must be really fucking catchy.
2. The big sing-along chorus at the end is unbeatable.  Seriously.  It’s three notes that anyone could hit.  Has Bryan Adams been a musical guest on American Idol yet?  Why the hell not?
3. Admittedly, there is some degree of fond memories of the first songs I heard on MTV, even if I hated them then.

So there you go.  Yet another shameful confession from yours truly.  I hope you enjoy this chapter in the ongoing saga of … Guilty Pleasures.

What could be more exciting than my return to blogging?  Nearly anything?  Yeah, pretty much.  But this is definitely something to celebrate.

I’ve long wished for a new music venue to arrive in Memphis.  It just seems criminal that our fair city, arguably the birthplace of rock music, the home of blues and soul and gospel and R&B, not to mention rockabilly, should be so overtly ignored by touring bands of all genres.  I am most peeved by the absence of some, hell, any, of my favorite indie rock/pop/electronic bands who visit the Bluff City, but the cool kids are not alone in passing us by.  This is why I am so excited about a new, 1500-seat, music venue arriving in Midtown.

Admittedly, I’m not really excited about the shows they have booked so far, but I will take what I can get.  Now of course, the issue is whether I will actually patronize this venue.  What do you think?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah.

I’ve always found reunion concerts to be dubious.  The bands rarely have the energy they did in younger days (although they could hardly be blamed for that - aging happens) and the music is much less vital and relevant than it was when first released.  Case in point: I saw the Pixies on their reunion tour 2-3 years ago and it was rather boring.  The songs sounded great and the band played well together (no fights or faxes), but almost two decades after their first album and EP, we all know the Pixies.  They’ve been incorporated into our musical consciousness thoroughly - I’ve even heard the adjective “pixie-ish” used to describe bands that sound like them.  (You know - loud, soft, loud?)  Then again, that could’ve been because I was stuck behind a row of complete douchebags who sang and danced loudly and drunkenly to every song like they were watching a Village People show.  Jerks.

And don’t even get me started on the Urge Overkill reunion show I saw a few years ago.  Fucking embarassing.

That said, maybe Pavement will have better luck.  I likely won’t be there to find out first hand, given my intense dislike for crowds and people.  Thank God I have an interwebs so I can keep up with the world outside my house.