I Can Speak American

During the taping of the last AP podcast, Scott Heisel accused me of being elderly because I allegedly used "ancient references." He played this cultural arrogance card because I referred to Hayley Williams as "a teen Holly Hunter in a frightwig." Apparently he doesn't know who Holly Hunter is. Although I take partial blame because I totally blanked on the name of the show she stars in (Saving Grace returns mid-July on TNT), it didn't stop me from wanting to snap a microphone stand over his head. (What, nobody saw A Life Less Ordinary? Come on, people! That soundtrack has "Deadweight," my favorite Beck song.)

So while Scott was giving me crap about my seemingly arcane references, I started thinking about the cultural malady of tabula rasa. "Tabula rasa" is Latin for "clean slate," which essentially posits that all one knows about the world is what he/she experiences personally. If you were a little kid, you wouldn't know the dangers of putting your hand near a running mower blade unless an adult explained it to you. If you don't know about it, it doesn't exist.

Now I'm the first one to demand each generation must create and define their own culture. These days, it seems said culture is defined by the same five bands. Now before you think I'm merely a grumpy-assed jamoke, please realize I am not alone. In last year's podcast with Underoath, Tim McTague called me (and AP) out for not writing about bands he thought were exceptionally creative, specifically Sigur Ros. When I told him we did a multi-page feature on the Icelandic outfit in support of their Takk disc to virtually no response, all he could do was shake his head sadly. I recently hung out with an up-and-coming band who had no time for Panic At The Disco's Ryan Ross and his proclamations of maturing to the sounds of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. "You're supposed to listen to those bands when you're a kid, so you realize the possibilities of what you can do with music," said one of the members of the anonymous upstart band. "Not at 19. They're still better than Third Eye Blind, I guess." Ever wonder why certain members of bona fide ass-stompers Every Time I Die prefer Bjork and Massive Attack to some assembly-line screamo outfit?

Music listeners shouldn't just "settle" for what's given to them (that's the kind of thinking that made those assclowns in Nickelback millionaires). If you don't demand that the bar be raised, you are going to be forever saddled with crap so lame, it will drive you back toward your parents' Led Zeppelin discs. If you are in a band, you have a responsibility to not only avoid sucking, but the good sense to delve deeper into the history of your craft. Don't wait for a car commercial to show you what you've been missing: Go see what's out there!

I promise this will be the only time I blog while listening to Sky Eats Airplane.

All Gassed Up

Gas is $3.99 a gallon here. Not sure what it's like where you live, but I think we can agree scooping out the eyes of an oil executive with a rusty spoon might be a pretty cool summer pastime.

I've found that when I play these songs while actually going the posted speed limit, my brain thinks I'm moving faster than a bullet into [BAND MANAGER'S NAME WITHHELD] face:

Futureheads: "Think Tonight"

Jaguar Love: "Highways Of Gold"

The A.K.A's "In Case I Die Tonight"

Mindless Self Indulgence "Evening Wear"

Polysics: "I Ate The Machine"

I wanted to go a bit further into this but I'm about to listen to the new Gym Class heroes disc. More when I get back, I swear....

Too Much Love

I know it's been over a week since I've typed at you folks. (Believe me, I have been reminded by various characters here at the AP Skyscrapers. My derision of blogging has been immortalized on the gremlin of the latest issue.) I figure if you're going to read this thing, there should be something of some merit here. You know, like a plug for an unknown band or me venting on some haughty bastard who did AP wrong: The same stuff I chastise faceless chumps on the internet about, except, well, my name's on the damn thing. Sorry. I got nothin'.

I can tell you that my trip to Los Angeles to participate in the Guitar Center Sessions event was pretty damn wonderful. GC promotions majordomo Dustin Hinz put together a sweet program, making sure all of the participants were comfortable, especially the fat, balding jamoke from Cleveland. My hat goes off to Dustin, his "enforcer" James Yeo and all of the GC staff for coolness above and beyond the call of duty. I wish I had some filth for you, like stories of me doing lines of Ajax cleanser off the headstock of a Les Paul autographed by Jimmy Page, or sneaking away from the shop to audition working girls over at the Seventh Veil. All I've got is watching Max Bemis squirm in the green room because he desperately wanted to go to his favorite comic book store (located across the street), but he had to do press for the event. Remember in elementary school, how much you had to twitch around before the teacher finally let you go to the restroom? Max was just like that. (His manager let him sneak out for 20 minutes and Max came back with a big ol' bag of stuff.) Other than Max doing some caged-animal moves that would make Michael J. Fox say, "Dude, what's wrong with you," and seeing what I'm pretty sure was the original Flux Capacitor from the Back To The Future movies, I got nothing.

The panel itself was a pretty spirited event, with the new-skool types (Bemis and Story Of The Year guitarist Phil Sneed) exchanging anecdotes and attitudes with the old guard (Kevin Lyman, Brett Gurewitz, Joe Escalante and Tom Delonge). During the panel, I kept thanking Max for calling out all of the "cookie cutter music that's happening now," because if I say that stuff, I look like the prick, by virtue of what I do for a living. I did see Lyman start to lose his cool when some dudes in the crowd told him how some nefarious types were running "a Warped-sanctioned battle-of-the-bands contest" for a place on this year's tour. (Keep in mind, this false scam had nothing to do with Ernie Ball, who own that particular Warped-branded event.) Thanks to those dudes in the crowd, Lyman would have had no knowledge about it.

It's times like that when it's apparent that punk rock is all about community. Yeah, the internet allows a forum for bitchiness to sweep across the planet, but the people who actually make things happen for themselves (and other people) are the ones who replenish the scene. It's a point several panelists brought up: Bands need to team up as psychic foxhole buddies in a business that's pretty fecking rudderless right now. (Sadly, I didn't get a chance to drop a reference to the grind-polka scene coming out of Sylmar, California.) At the end of the Q&A session, I had a good feeling everyone in the crowd were going to do good things, even if it meant some of those attendees would sell their gear on eBay and do something else with their lives.

I guess I got something after all.

PS. Heard the new Underoath album while in L.A. The operative word: Relentless.

Here Comes Lucky

This blog was going to be dedicated to pedantic know-it-alls and people who don't know enough. But I've run out of time. I've gotta go duck that portly, middle-aged dude in the parking lot (the one wearing a three-sizes-too-small Good Charlotte t-shirt that accentuates his sweat-matted navel hair) who is waiting to "give me a talking to." Once I get past him, it's off to the airport to Los Angeles where I'll be at Guitar Center this Thursday moderating a panel chat with v. cool Warped Tour guru Kevin Lyman and a few of his buds. Click the image for a full view and stop in and say hi. And yes, I promise to listen to your demo on the way back.

Wall Of Shame

This past weekend was killer. I took the private AP jet to London and spent Saturday hanging out at the new Rough Trade record store in London's East End and racked up a couple grand on my black Visa card. (What, you only have a platinum one? How is the world of valet parking these days?) After I had 88 pounds (sorry, kilograms) of vinyl air-freighted to the AP Skyscraper, I flew to Tokyo and ended up buying tons of obscure Japanese no-wave records. Later, I had some boss sushi, signed a few autographs for people who thought I was Bill Murray and ended up in a neon-walled hotel room doing komodo dragon venom shots with my spiritual advisor Leyla Milani (your dad knows her as "#13"). I woke up alone to the sound of the neon transformer arcing sparks at me.

As editor of AP, I really do have a charmed life. Especially when I am fast asleep.

All fiction aside, this installment is about apologies. Recent events in the past few weeks have forced me to re-evaluate my positions on several topics of great importance and public grace. I would like to take this moment to come clean.

To PANIC AT THE DISCO: After living with Pretty. Odd. for a while longer, I found many of my criticisms about your record have evaporated. "Mad As Rabbits" has turned into my second favorite song on the disc, and I found the songs have hidden sonic treasures in them that I missed while wrestling with your label's unpredictable secured-streaming migraine machine. So make those three-and-a-half stars an even four-star review, and I'll see you at the end of the year on my Best O' 2K8 list. Sure, I still got my ass handed to me by irate readers who said you were guilty of everything from musically sucking to ignoring your fans and didn't deserve anything good to happen to you. But I get more enjoyment from "She's A Handsome Woman" than I do a run of hate mail from people expecting One More Fever You Can't Sweat Out.

To BEAT UNION: I'm sorry you got a less-than-stellar review of Disconnected from Annie Zaleski in the pages of AP. But frankly, she was right. The record significantly dulls the sharp mod-punk edges you guys wielded so deftly at the AP party during SXSW in Austin. Mr. Warsop, you are a dynamic frontman that exudes both energy and grace, and you have the good sense to know when to turn those characteristics on and off. And hats off to drummer Luke Johnson, who has come a long way from slamming the tubs in Amen to play with a great sense of both groove and power. If you aren't in the band and are reading this, you need to see the Union workers when they play Warped this summer and buy every stick of merch they have.

To THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS: Man, I am so sorry you guys suck. Really. I mean, you make more money in a day than I'll see in a lifetime, and there's nothing (nice cars, model girlfriends, plasma televisions, six-packs of kemodo dragon venom) in your lives that you'll ever want. But that's not why you suck. No. See, I was driving around town last week listening to your second album, Freaky Styley, and having a Class A blast. The rush I got from revisiting "Catholic Schoolgirls Rule," "Battle Ship" (I know it's called "BJ Park," because it was on your set list when you played Morgantown, West Virginia all those years ago) and the title track? Simply amazing. It made me want to forget "Under The Bridge" and all of the millions of fratboys and bubblehead girlies who have affirmed your work of the past decade as something allegedly constituting rock music. I feel bad you guys don't bust out an ass-stomping triumph like "Police Helicopter" anymore. I'm sorry because it's not like you can't do that anymore. It's just that you won't.

To Brett Lyman, formerly of dark funk outfit Measles Mumps Rubella, and current CEO of the band Bad Thoughts: Dude, I can't find any of your singles and I apologize for not being as hip to indie retail as I used to be. Please email me at editorial@altpress.com and tell me how much a copy of "Non Violence" is gonna set me back.

I feel so much better now. Special thanks to my long-suffering wife who spent $100 in cab and train fare in an hour to buy me records in Europe this week. I swear the kitchen will be clean when you get back, hon...