Jason Pettigrew of Alternative Press

THE WAAHMBULANCE by JASON PETTIGREW

2009-07-30T17:59:00.008-04:00

JOHNNY DEPP, YOUR HARD DRIVE & ME

A few weeks ago, I went to see Public Enemies, the crime drama film starring Johnny Depp as the legendary John Dillinger, America's bank-robbing folk hero, public enemy No. 1 and poster boy for all things (allegedly) evil in 1930s America. There have been plenty of mixed reviews about the movie, but I enjoyed seeing Depp and Christian Bale as these vicious mortal combatants who have their own take on what they feel is morally just. But I'm not here to give you my incisive thoughts on a major motion picture. I didn't go to film school (like this dude) so I'm not going to front on my personal bold new visionin cinema. No, I'm going to tell you about my hate/love relationship with Johnny Depp.

Truth be told, I have never met, nor have ever been in the same restaurant, theater, shooting range, opium den, bake sale, craft show or church bazaar at the same time as Depp during my tenure on the planet. I do know that the first time I ever saw him professionally, I wanted to douse him in turpentine and roast marshmallows over his carcass. Yep, it was the late-'80s, and everyone I was working with at the dreaded mall record store was raving about the dreamy dude who played detective Tom Hanson on the FOX television series 21 Jump Street. I watched one episode to see what the panty-moistening fuss was about, and by the end of it, I cursed the gods for making me lose an hour of my life I would rather have spent cleaning litter boxes with my hair. If I had created a drinking game in which I would down a shot every time I wanted to slap that unctuous prick in the face with a piece of garden hose packed with sand, I would've broken John Bonham's record for vodka consumption.

When Jump Street got the axe, I couldn't have cared less. And when Depp made the jump to motion pictures, I cringed. But when Edward Scissorhands came out a few years later, I was impressed as hell. In the last 20 years, Depp has created characters in classic vehicles that have been joyful, insane and compelling. And yes, he's probably one of a handful of guys that sexually frustrated moms and their coming-of-age daughters can unhealthily bond over. "You dottering d-nozzle," I hear you sigh. "What's this got to do with anything in my world? Captain Jack Sparrow for the win, whatever."

Some of you are well aware of how the AP editors are always slamming each other's musical tastes (publicly exemplified by Scott and I on episodes of The AP Show podcast). So it was as if the planets aligned when we all agreed that Taking Back Sunday's New Again was one of the best records of the year, hands down. After we did the cover, we got a fair share of hate mail from assorted phucktards saying it wasn't as good as their first album and both TBS and AP have totally lost it blah, fugging blah. And all I could think of was what may have happened had Depp decided to stay on Jump Street solely to make bank and wring any sense of credibility out of his life just so frumpy housewives and their unattractive children could watch something on TV while eating shoebox-sized containers of Reese's Pieces. There would be no Jack Sparrow, Wade Walker, Roux or Willy Wonka. No stellar adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson or John Dillinger. Just that gay-prostitute-looking prick Tom Hanson.

I have heard the impending releases by Thrice and Brand New. Barring detailed reviews, I can tell you both albums are polarizing and pretty damned great. They are records that have been created solely by the virtue of what was going on in each band members' respective minds and their interpersonal connections with each other, and nothing to do with achieving huge SoundScan numbers, getting on good tours, securing numerous spins on radio stations, placing songs on episodes of Gossip Girl or reaffirming anybody's concept of what constitutes "the Scene." From what I've experienced by the TBS eye-rollers out there, both Beggars and Daisy are going to bodycheck some folks out of their comfort zones. I'll go as far as to say I'll probably never listen to The Illusion Of Safety, Tell All Your Friends or Deja Entendu again. It's a trend I can totally get behind. -- Jason Pettigrew

And now, an apology: On behalf of all the AP editors, I hereby apologize about all of us being incommunicado in the blogosphere. Between the 24th anniversary issue, the mini-mag project we worked on with RED Distribution, the Vans Warped Tour program, our 15th Anniversary of Warped issue and now the AP Fall Ball, we've been stressed 'n' strapped for time. I would like to personally give shout outs to Mike Usinger, Joe Milne, DX Ferris, Annie Zaleski and Twitter denizens Brad Perala and Brad Michelson for their words of interest, encouragement and threats to stick dynamite under my cellulite-laden carcass if I didn't start spewing again. Blame them. They're probably used to it.

Let's Get Physics-cal!

2009-04-30T10:43:00.003-04:00

I've been raving about Glasgow, Scotland's WE ARE THE PHYSICS to so many people, they either respond with "Okay, I get it, Jas," a quick kick to my crotch or both. The surname-deficient quartet of Michael, Michael, Michael and Chris have been plying their jittery, angular punk since 2005, releasing a handful of singles (starting with the frantic "Less Than Three") and culminating in We Are The Physics Are Okay At Music, their full-length for the British label This Is Fake DIY. WATP's aesthetic worships spiky guitars as much as it does analog-synthesizer abuse; factor in a grand sense of humor ("Drawing Anarchy Symbols On Your Pencil Case Is Redundant") and you have a band worthy of the contents of your wallet.

Things have been going well for the Physics-ians: They made heads swivel on their recent tour of Japan (the band share a mutual admiration society with the mighty Polysics), and have shared stages in Scotland with 30 Seconds To Mars and Shiny Toy Guns. I wrote about them in AP's 100 Bands You Need To Know In 2008 issue, but since they haven't made it to America, let alone have Radiohead and Green Day open for them, I figured I'd reintroduce them to all of you once again. Michael the singer (a.k.a. to me anyway as Michael BigGlassesBadHair) took some time from watching VHS tapes (blank ones, mostly) to answer some of my probing questions as to why his band are so fecking amazing.

When compared to a lot of the stuff emanating from the U.K., WATP are like tossing a boombox in the tub during bath time. Having established that, what's Glasgow like musically? Does everybody want to be the next Alex Kapranos, or is there an inspiring music scene happening right now?
Glasgow's a wee strange volcano of music. For a while, it'll be dormant and nothing much will happen, Then suddenly, there's billions of new bands all doing something new and interesting. The decent thing about the Glasgow music scene--as incestuous as it is--often all the bands are completely different. I didn't ever see a bunch of Franz Ferdinand or Glasvegas copycats; it doesn't seem to work like that here. The bands--the good bands at least--have a genuine sense of conviction and passion which, I think, is why Glasgow seems to have a thriving musical output. Not to mention that there's nothing else worth doing. Then again, I hardly go to any gigs anymore because it's like eating a sandwich when you work in a sandwich shop.

Who are the best five bands in the British Empire right now? I'll send an intern over to kick your ass if you say Razorlight.
Us, of course. There are no other bands. Except Victorian English Gentleman's Club, Untitled Musical Project, Art Brut, Gay Against You... There's a good few, it's not as dire as the press here likes to make out.

There are a lot of elements running through your music. Are there three bands that each band member agree are fabulous? Or do you take turns being fascists on the car stereo on the way to gigs?
We all like the obvious stuff: Polysics, the Skids, Ex Models... But generally we'll all listen to our own music on our personal music box machines that we take with us on tour. Sometimes we swap cassettes, but not often.

You have that great mix of jagged guitars, electronic flourishes, breakneck tempos and some decidedly hyper vocals. If you were going into the studio in three hours to create your next album, what direction would it go?
Three hours! That's quite a long time; I think we could fit in a couple of concept albums in that space. We might even have time for some overdubs. Wait, did you mean we're in the studio for three hours, or we're going into the studio IN three hours? I suppose we'd probably have some dinner before, then do some warm-up exercises before heading in.

How does a scrappy indie band from Scotland end up in Japan for a string of dates? Do they get it over there?
I have no idea. We got a lot of interest from Japanese labels from the get-go, we played with Polysics pretty early on and Hiroyuki Hayashi (Polysics founder) kindly wrote about us favourably in his blog, so I don't know if that had something to do with it. But we never wanted to put anything out over there unless we could go over to promote it and that's how we managed to swindle our way into Japan. They seemed to get it quicker than people in the U.K. did: Our album was only out in December and most of the venues were packed with voice-breaking, yelping, Japanese kids climbing the PA, wearing various wires and cabling as fashion accessories. Which is actually how we envision the future. I have no idea how they see us; we were lucky that our label was run by an amazing guy called Daichi, who also happened to be a huge part of the indie scene in Tokyo, so he dragged all his hipster buds to see us. For the first time in our lives, we had an iota of credibility. Hopefully we can achieve a same level of dishonest success in the USA.

WATP has opened for some American bands visiting your country. You also said that the bands you played with offered plenty of encouragement. Where there particular aspects of the show that the visiting Yanks were taken by?
We've opened for people like 30 Seconds To Mars, Gym Class Heroes, Shiny Toy Guns--a real bizarre assortment of bands that we don't sound anything like, but all of them have been really kind to us. Jared Leto told us we sounded like the Cars on speed. Is that a compliment? I have no idea what they enjoyed about us, but I've noticed a similar thing happening – when they watch us play, their faces will be confused and then halfway through the set, they'll be cheering and screaming with genuine fervor. I hope all Americans are similar, the only other crowd in the world like that is in Glasgow. When they like you, they will destroy the venue to prove it to you. The bassist from Shiny Toy Guns told us if we took the music to America, the kids would shit. Which is quite worrying, it sounds like we'd have some sort of laxative effect on the nation. Surely there has to be some sort of sponsorship involved in that.

You guys are serious about your music, but you don't take yourselves very seriously. What's the worst thing anyone has ever said about WATP? Conversely, what was the most nicest thing worthy of quoting?
The worst thing? That we were serious about our music, but didn't take ourselves very seriously! I imagine there's plenty of bad things people say about WATP, all of which are most likely justified; 90-percent we agree with. The nicest thing is probably that we'd make the kids shit if we went to America.

As a music fan, what do YOU expect from a new band in 2009?
There are no other bands, really. I know you think we're just joking, but our next album is going to be a self-replicating virus in mp3 form that will delete all other mp3s on your computer so that we're the only band left. Like digital cockroaches.

Where does America fit in the WATP universe? Between money, time and the fickle tastes of our INS department, it seems that coming over is a mammoth undertaking. Any plans to license your album to a sympathetic US label?
I think America would enjoy, nay, requires We Are The Physics. I think it's necessary for us to get there if only because it's so unlikely that we will. It's a risk putting out an album by a bunch of musically retarded unknown Scottish bams, but I know there are plenty of people in America with bigger wallets than business sense and we hope to appeal to them. Failing that, someone with a really good taste in music who is genuinely into our band. That combination is difficult to find, like Hall AND Oates.

What are the next plans for WATP? Have you written any new songs?
Aye, we've got hundreds of new songs! Are you accusing us of being lazy? I just wrote one while answering these questions. Our album isn't available in the U.S. We've had sobbing confessions from Americans who've downloaded the torrent though, those illegal swine. One even sent us $10 to make up for it. We didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't enough, but the thought was there and it touched us deeply. But you can get it on import from places like Amazon and our label would be more than happy to ship abroad (as they've had to do before, rubbing their hands together with postal fee glee), so you can buy it from their site. Still no word from American labels, although I've been trying to hunt a few out who might be daft enough to want to do something with us. I've also tried to get in touch with Star Crunch from Man Or Astroman to try and guilt him into releasing our record on his own label because he corrupted my youth.
Our video for "You Can Do Athletics, BTW" was nominated for a BAFTA, but it didn't win because it's basically four guys gassing each other in a big dark room. We've been doing secret gigs as clones of ourselves under the guise of a band called DVDs to try out new material. To hide our identities, we've been mummifying our faces with toilet paper. Given that most of the people at our gigs have no idea who We Are The Physics are anyway, some say it's a pointless activity.

(H)A(te) List Celebrity

2009-04-22T16:02:00.005-04:00

Reading face-in-sphincter posts by anonymous, dullard haters on the interweb is a waste of time. Now, if you're like me and you want some real entertainment, follow well-known folks who make their disdain for others public. Trent Reznor's Twitter-dis on Chris Cornell's latest disc inspired the best online April Fool's joke in a long time. Senses Fail's chief wiseguy Buddy Nielsen made his hatred of autism-crunk stuporstars (and tourmates) Brokencyde public to the applause of many. Recently, Underoath's fearless guitarist Tim McTague told a British rock mag that he thought Avenged Sevenfold were all kindsa lame. This is way more fun that reading missives from nouns with screen names like "Matsfan," "Matt Ramone" and "ArielleOfTheREL" who have the intellectual capacity of plankton. (Of course, we're talking rock music here, so the "intellectual capacity" concept I'm bringing up is dodgy to begin with.)

Granted, the hip hop community has made the concept of beef-keeping mandatory. Thing is, the disses are never as creative as the stuff you see on interviews before commercials during WWF matches. And reading the babble of anonymous posters is about as awe-inspiring as raking leaves. It's like the mailman running into me while I'm walking my dogs and telling me my coat is ugly: And his point is...?

Now when someone of reputable note decides he's going to drop science on a similarly public person, that shows some character. First, with the internet, the commentary will inevitably go viral, to the amassed cries of "No, he di'n't!" Second, it's obvious the blame-thrower is gearing up for a rebuttal. Third, the whole cycle is then reflected upon by the earth, after measuring the comments of the dueling parties. (As in, "Dude, that response was lame," "Pwned!" or "Meeeeeeeoooooowwwww!") But since it's all played out in public--by participants who know how to stir the fecal stew, so to speak--it's positively glorious.

Why? Well, for purposes of the Scene As We Know It®, such exchanges go far to incinerate any kind of delusions fans/listeners may have of a "punk utopia" where everyone loooooves each other and everything's cool. I've been in enough dressing rooms and backstage hangs to tell you how many bands compare everything from touring and press opportunities to the quality of their riders with their alleged bros. "How did THOSE DICKS get Leno? How did THEY get the cover of AP?" "Why is THAT guy schtupping my ex who told me she was entering the convent before I got back from Warped?" Hey, I love Every Time I Die, but nothing would make me smile for consecutive days (well, barring a weekend with Christina Hendricks at the Paramount Hotel) if, say, one of those myriad screamo bands with more than 2500 MySpace friends decided to publicly dis on ETID. Can you imagine the mother of all cauterizing retorts Keith Buckley would fire back? Damn, that's better than this season of House M.D.--and that's pretty fecking sublime.

So come on, bands! Turn this shit upside down! Wil Francis: Tell us whose merch guy needs a big old pentagram burned into his chest for being intolerant of non-Christians! Hey Gerard Way, who was that dickhead you got into a sold-out My Chem gig who later spent the night signing autographs for everyone backstage? Attention all bands far and wide: Tell us what you REALLY think of Jared Leto! The world is a much better place when guys with guitars duke it out, because it helps stem interest in the influx of useless opinions from faceless nobodies needing to be heard. Really. Come on, folks: Do you think anyone gives a molecule of spit about MY personal shitlist?

Black Circles (In And) Around My Eyes

2009-04-15T15:22:00.002-04:00

Let's say you came to my house in a limousine driven by Hugh Laurie that was stocked with a kegger of Monty Python And The Holy Grail Ale. You hand me a briefcase of unmarked bills, under the condition I have to spend all the money during one of three trips: A tour of L.A. sushi bars, a circuit of record stores or an excursion to Sam's Club to buy cases of lemon Pledge to polish the stripper poles in Rock Of Love cast-off Farrah Sinclair's apartment... Well, that's a no-brainer: Tell Dr. House to step on it, we're going to Amoeba!

Yes, I know it's the modern world and we live in an internet culture where you can stay at home, park your carcass in front of your lappity-toppity box and grab music from sites all over the internet. But I simply cannot imagine a world without record stores. Period. I would rather have a universe without FOOD, if it meant I had to obtain/discover/enjoy music solely online. (Besides, I'm a morbidly obese jamoke; I could stand to lose 122 pounds.) If I hadn't become so utterly obsessed with music (and thereby record stores), my life would've turned out much differently. When I was in high school, I wanted to move to New York City and get in on the ground floor of punk. But I spent all my money buying the records made by all the bands I wanted to experience in the first place. In college, I relied on the kindness of strangers to foot the bill for assorted vices because I was too busy seeking out import LP pressings of the British bands kicking my ass at the time. On those days when my buds and I would plan a road trip to see the bands that made us thank Christ we were alive, we always, without fail, factored in a two-hour stopover to hit the local record emporiums.

Before there was an internet, the local Mom & Pop record stores were the only way punks/new wavers/alt-rockers could find about excellent new bands that weren't getting massive column inches in Rolling Stone, afternoon play on MTV or spins on radio between the Eagles and Journey. Local bands found a marketplace for their own DIY productions and if you were into discovering more, there would always be a stack of fanzines, small-run mags or British papers to help slake your thirst for more new stuff. You simply weren't going to immerse yourself into this culture by hanging out at corporate chains. The people who ran the stores were always into music and ready to recommend things to you. When he was working in the 7-inch vinyl department of the late great Rockville, Maryland-based store Yesterday & Today, Ian MacKaye played an old Hoodoo Gurus b-side, "Be My Guru," which I bought immediately. Hearing that track in a big store--surrounded by tons of vinyl, unpacked boxes, fliers for upcoming shows, promo posters for upcoming releases--makes mouse-clicking seem positively anti-climactic. I've been to stores all over the U.S., based my first trip to London on a story I read in a record-collecting magazine and have stuck my head inside shops in Denmark and Sweden. (Never enough time in Paris, though. That one still sets me off, 16 years after the fact...) I long to take eight weeks off and drive all over our great nation, rummaging through store bins and then reporting, cataloging and listening (duh) to my finds.

Because of the advent of technology, many record stores have closed up shop. This upsets me more than the deaths of some of my relatives. Indie record stores aren't just about commerce to me: They are about LIFE. I have made friendships with people I had met in record stores simply because they bought the same things I did or wore a badge or a t-shirt of a band I loved. I have memories of bored girlfriends holding stacks of wax while I scoured for more tunes, spending too much money and having to take them out for fast food (again). I don't own as many records as many collectors, but I'm pretty sure you can pull a record from my custom-built shelves and I can tell you where I got it.

Which brings me to today, three days before Record Store Day, a celebration of indie record hangouts happening this Saturday, April 18. This weekend, participating stores will be selling releases specially issued for the day, be they limited-edition vinyl (like that Gaslight Anthem live 10-inch Heisel's been clamoring for) or specially designed t-shirts sanctioned by the likes of Underoath and Paramore. Visit the RSD site and see what stores in your area are participating--if there are any left. And if there aren't, get your buddies in the car and take a road trip. Who knows what you'll find? Maybe it'll be something as cool as these sweet Clash platters I found in the used section of the store that's close to my house. (Seriously, "The Magnificent Seven" U.K. 12-inch with the original sticker set intact? Official Epic Records promo interview album? FTW!) Maybe it'll be the love of your life. (I met my wife at a wedding, but she prefers to see me hanging in a record store than a bar.) But really, friends, in my world, EVERY day is Record Store Day.

The Realm Of The Proud Bedwetter

2009-04-08T11:33:00.008-04:00

Strap in friends, we're gettin' in the Wayback Machine. Back when I was working for a mall-based chain of record stores (Tim Karan knows what I'm talking about), I had the great misfortune of waiting on one of the most heinous forms of music consumer: the audiophile. In a universe of computer-based entertainment, I don't even know if these kind of people still exist (Wait: They do! Beware The Raiders of the FLAC File Ark). But the audiophile fancies himself as an enthusiast of "true sound," therefore he will buy all of the most expensive pieces of gear to achieve "perfect sound forever." I'm talkin' stupid shit like turntables with five-figure price tags or limited-run stereo receivers made by boutique electronics companies in Japan or Russia. But it's not enough for these d-bags to just OWN this stuff; they have to TELL somebody all about it. They brag about everything from "phase correction" to "crossover slopes" to people who don't have any clue what the hell they are going on about.

In my case, this particular customer was going on about how expensive and pristine his stereo was. After 10 minutes of brand-name-dropping and meaningless hertz-response figures, I asked him if he needed any help finding something. He nodded his head and told me he was good. "I heard this was really well-recorded so I'm going to check it out." He was holding a copy of the debut album from ill-fated, manufactured musical duo, Milli Vanilli. "So," I responded, barely able to control my temper, yet putting on a jokey game-face, "what you've been telling me is that you have a solid gold septic tank at home. I mean, sure, you own a lot of precious gold, but you're covering it in crap." This resulted in the guy dropping the disc and leaving the store immediately. The next day, I got a call from the home office, reprimanding me about my "inappropriate customer interaction." I told my boss the guy was a tool, and I'll gladly buy $60 worth of stuff to make up the $15.99 the company lost to that idiot.

Fast-forward to this century, and the same kind of boorish behavior is even more rampant, thanks to the internet. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with audiophile vermin anymore. But they've been replaced by other kinds of folks. I guess the catch-all term would be "trolling," but the kind of nimrods I'm thinking about aren't in it to stir the fecal stew and log out of the kitchen fast. Nope. They just lurk in places where they feel they have some kind of moral or aesthetic superiority, when the truth of the matter is that they're just as lame as the stuff they put down. Like an old punk dude who holds court on message boards bragging about how all of the ethnic-infused rock music he's collected is vastly superior to whatever emo/screamo/pop-punk fave the community is embracing. Dude's gonna be heard, though: He's made over 5000 posts discussing his superiority, despite the fact the stuff he champions is really bad. Like dentist-office, new-age, bumper-music-between-segments-on-NPR BAD. Yet he'll tell you that you suck because you dare to profess your liking of Fall Out Boy's "I Don't Care." (5000 posts? You think somebody who claims to be into music would spend that kind of time LISTENING to the stuff, than preaching about it.)

The thing that usually draws these people out is our yearly 100 Bands issue. Most detractors get on their ideological hobby-horse because (everybody all at once, join me), "all the bands you put in there sound the same." The operative word in that sentence is "all." It's readily apparent to me they haven't heard every band on that list, because there's some pretty crazy shit in that issue. What makes me laugh (and want to set fire to said posters' homes) is when they write something like, "Whenever people get sick of this nu-hair band era crap, this band is going to be ready to blow up," and the stuff that they recommend is tragically generic. Most of your AP-sucks posters on other message boards are prone to this. AP blows for, say, putting the Maine on the cover, yet the people doing the bitching are the ones whose last.fm lists are riddled with bands cut from the exact same kind of pop-punk cloth. Sometimes, we get our wrists slapped by some harpy with limited cognitive skills whose self-proclaimed "fave band" is gaining notoriety with a "novelty" cover version a la Attack Attack or I Set My Friends On Fire. (Note to Connie: Go eat a cheesesteak and wise up, but not in that order, mmmkay?)

I refer to this social condition as PBS or the Proud Bedwetter Syndrome: The person who has an incontinence problem thinks YOU are a loser because you DON'T have one. What can be done about it? Depends...

Killer Born Man: Jack Barnett

2009-04-01T11:07:00.003-04:00

Jack Barnett is the frontman for THESE NEW PURITANS, a post-everything quartet from the United Kingdom whose debut disc, Beat Pyramid, was my favorite album of 2007. TNP's alloy of regimented drumming, alluring electronics and samples, jagged guitar lines and obtuse lyrics made it hard for me to catch up on the waves of new discs that flow into the AP Skyscraper. I am looking forward to their new record the way my dog barks incessantly for his breakfast at five in the morning.

In my "Killer Born Man" blogs, I take this space to interview someone in an new band, a visual artist/designer type or someone who falls outside the realm of what AP covers. As much as I wanted to probe Barnett for every piece of information about his band's latest activities, this time I had an agenda. The members of TNP are making music that falls outside the realm of various British music-mag flavors-of-the-month, yet they're all in their early twenties. Contrast that scenario with a previous blog entry I made about bands who fall in line with whatever conveyor-belt punk they choose to follow. ("Smash The Market Place" 8/29/08) I wondered if Barnett and his band were just steadfastly determined to leave their personal sonic breadcrumb trail of creativity or if they were just as pressured to "conform" artistically, socially or whatever.

The U.K. music press is big on creating 'movements' that don't really exist as a unified whole. I know TNP and Foals were part of some newspaper feature extolling the virtues of 'new eccentrics' or some such nonsense. In your own experience, have you seen more new, young bands obsessed with finding their own voice, or are they merely trying to follow the next trend, like being the next Razorlight or some such horror?
Yeah. I don't think that newspaper was really serious about that story! In terms of young bands that I half-know, I think most of them are very keen on playing shows and getting involved in all the mechanics of being in a band--rehearsing, venues, riders--and not all that interested in their music. Which is fair enough, as it's a different world (the 'scene' world) with it's own sensibility. But I can't understand it, myself.

Have you felt pressure from anyone (including yourself) to conform to a trend that's allegedly resonant in order to achieve any kind of success?
I just don't really feel that I have it in me to do that; I think I'd go mad. That's not because I have anything against pop or success--actually, I think a lot of the progress is being made in pop--it's just that I don't have that much control over myself. I think if you do your own thing, then there's more chance that a niche of people will enjoy your music, rather than flattening every sharp edge trying to compete in a flooded market. I've sort of assumed that the odder your music, the greatest the chance of success. If your band is called Sodomized Foetus or something, then that guarantees a segment of human beings who will definitely enjoy your music.

Point blank: Do you think that the non-conformist sensibilities of bands like TNP stem from an open-minded European worldview? Or is it based upon youth? It's not like anybody in your band is 36, had previously been in four other bands and didn't see anything come from their work. Does limited life experience trump jaded career musicianship?
It's really hard for me to say. Maybe it's true that there's more open-mindedness, but I think in somewhere like Brooklyn there's too much open-mindedness and the music becomes too self-consciously experimental. Also, if you go to certain cities in Europe, all they want is whatever's on the cover of the NME and they're very closed-minded etc. There's too much difference in Europe for me to say there's any one worldview. I suppose there's more respect for tradition in America.But I don't know whether that's good or bad.

Finally, something moves you.

2009-03-26T11:29:00.007-04:00

Apologies for being late. I promise I will be back up to speed by next Wednesday. Seriously. ("I don't FEEL tardy." --D.L. Roth, 1984) I would've gotten to this earlier, but I was too busy getting dinner, playing records and going to see Converge and Ceremony throw it down at the cool Cle haunt, the Grog Shop. I had a blast watching the amount of girder monkeys scurrying over the members' of Ceremony's heads as they were grinding it out. (See, there's an exposed girder that runs perpendicular to the stage so the more athletically fit stage invaders can extend their narcissism a little longer than the length of your typical stage-dive.)

After the set, I briefly spoke with Ryan from Ceremony who seemed positively sated with his band's performance. (The dudes work hard for their money, hell yeah!) But as I was chatting him up at the merch table, it seemed as though everyone wanting Ceremony swag just didn't want a shirt or a hoodie or a record. Of course, they did want to BUY something, but it seemed that more importantly, they wanted to give something to the band than some crumpled pit-sweat marinated dollars. Practically every person buying something greeted Ryan with a handshake, high-five or a vocal profession of how awesome his band were that evening. At points it seemed Ryan was getting a bit embarrassed by all the love, but always took time to show his appreciation. Whether it was some burly, neck-tatted fireplug, a green-haired girl (girls at hardcore shows are simply awesome, aren't they?) or some puny nerdy dude who's used to being slammed inside his school locker, everyone seemed righteously appreciative.

Then I got to wondering about the conversations I've experienced other people having on their way out of a gig. Like the white-trash tub of lard bitching about My Chemical Romance not playing an encore despite her paying $35 or whatever. When I asked her if the five-minute piano solo James DeWees was playing while the band rested was cooler than the band running back onstage like every other act in the history of rock-and-fuggin'-roll, she snapped. "That wasn't an encore. They owe me an encore for this ticket price!" She looked like a proud consumer; maybe MCR should've signed her up for Nutrisystem, as well. This past Sunday at the recent Les Claypool show, I heard a whining hippie who wanted to hear "at least one Primus tune, dude. Dubya tee eff?" Nevermind that Les and co.--along with members of Devotchka--pulled off a version c'est magnifique of Tom Waits' "Russian Dance" that the rest of the tour wasn't gonna see, since it was Devotchka's last night on the tour. I remembered a friend of mine telling me about the time he went to last year's AP tour and heard some guy pissing and moaning about the encore, when all the bands covered Blink-182's "Dammit." The dude's complaint? "Nobody was really into it." My buddy went up to the kid and told him he hoped his car flipped on the way home and an ambulance couldn't get to him for an hour.

What do people expect from their favorite bands in 2009? If the record is great and the shows are good, what more do you need? If the lead singer of the Dogcatchers isn't at the merch booth immediately after the set to sign the hoodie you made with your bedazzler, does his band suck? Why does anybody think they should get more than a great record and a decent show these days? Davey Havok doesn't have to leave a message on your sister's voicemail on his way to find a soy chai drink--she hasDecemberundergound. Leave him alone! I don't know if it's the manifestation of a sense of entitlement or part and parcel of how fans in this scene conduct themselves. Maybe the demands are greater simply because listeners have been marketed to death just to get them interested in things in the first place.

But now--without the aid of name-dropping--a little story from my back pages. The scene: A Western Pennsylvania skating rink-turned-venue in the late-'80s. A hardcore band drifting into metal acceptance has an opening slot for a popular metal act on the rise to bigger things. A punk-rock lifer approaches the punk band's merch booth:

PUNKER: How much are shirts?
MERCH DUDE: Ten bucks.
PUNKER: TEN BUCKS? Are you crazy? I saw you four years ago and your shirts were five! It cost me $10 to get in here! You guys are total fukkin' sell-outs! I used to be able to see you for a $4 cover, and your merch was cheap. I've supported you for years; I bought all of your records, drove up to 200 miles in any direction to see you and now... [trails off.] You know, screw you! In fact, you should GIVE me a shirt for all of the support I've given YOU in the past. You wanna come to my house and see all the fliers and set lists I've got from your gigs? You owe me this, you corporate, sell-out, capitalist-pig shysters...

And... SCENE!

Okay. Now, a couple minutes later, after proud punker leaves empty-handed and pissed off. The same show, same bands, same merch guy. Long-haired metal dude wearing a Slayer shirt walks up to the booth.

METALHEAD: How much are shirts?
MERCH DUDE: Ten bucks.
METALHEAD: Cool, what else do you got?

Less Rock, More Litigation

2009-03-19T11:43:00.005-04:00

Thank goodness we still have Papa Roach to kick around! Our fave rap-rock gibrones have cosmetically reinvented themselves as the leaders of a heavy-metal PTA meeting where moms push around IV trees connected to silicone shunts stabbed into their breasts, while the dads finally show up after unloading the beer trucks at the bars their bands play in for top pennies.

Not to kick a band on their way to the middle, but dammit, we almost lost them. Apparently, the band have settled their lawsuit with former drummer Dave Bruckner, who was ejected for a number reasons I could care less about. For the purpose of this blog, let's talk about Bruckner's lawsuit. He demanded not only a sizable chunk of the band's revenue (which is always expected), but he also wanted the band to break up permanently. Seriously. It's downright murderous in a if-I-can't-play-with-you-nobody-will kind of way, isn't it? If the band broke up, how would frontman Jacobi Shaddix pay his stylist from Jiffy-Lube? Could bassist Tobin Esperance justify attending personality-cultivation seminars? A world without P-Ro might trigger great anguish during midwest trailer-park meth-lab conventions.

Can you imagine what legal ramifications Bruckner v. Papa Roach could have triggered had the drummer won? Just like all of the dimbulbs who filed class action suits after being duped by performers, there could have been some full-on legal precedents for securing fans' rights. So if you're an ambitious attorney in need of having your next exotic vacation underwritten for dubious directives, below are some possible cash cows.

BRING ME THE HORIZON v. BRITISH FANS
Allegedly, Bring Me The Horizon cancelled some dates on the Kerrang Tour earlier this year because of frontman Oli Sykes' throat problems. We heard stories from our moles in the crowds that girls in attendance didn't care; they just wanted to see dreamboat Oli onstage. The dudes felt the same way--kinda. They wanted the band to come out and make a noise they could maim each other to and didn't give sweet FA whether Sykes was growling along.
POSSIBLE PLAINTIFF REWARD: Free access to BMTH gigs for the next two years or however long said fans' interest lasts.
POST-TRIAL RAMIFICATIONS: Drop Dead clothing CEO Sykes makes up shortfall by signing merch deals with buzzworthy bands opening free tour.

FOREVER THE SICKEST KIDS v. A BUNCH OF BANDS ON THE SOUNDWAVE BILL
A whole bunch of bands who appeared at this recent Australian festival wanted to put the beatdown on various members of the Dallas loop-pop contingent. A representative from the implied plaintiffs told AP that the boys were big on ego and waaaay short on talent. The representative spoke on condition of anonymity because everybody involved loathed them so much, they didn't want to help perpetuate FTSK's "legend in their own hive-mind."
POSSIBLE PLAINTIFF REWARD: FTSK surrenders revenue from Soundwave gig to a fund overseen by annoyed bands' representatives. Money accrued would be used to fund a school based in non-computer-based music education.
POST-TRIAL RAMIFICATIONS: Band develops a sense of humility while working on second record in an attempt to desperately appease inevitably fickle fans.

BROKENCYDE v. THE UNITED STATES
These lead-paint chip eaters are trying to make bank selling their hideous autism-crunk to the children of parents going to this year's Cruefest. Defendants insult music fans, as well as aquatic shellfish with greater intelligence capacity than band's fans.
POSSIBLE PLAINTIFF REWARD: Band forced to dissolve, thereby making it safe for fans to show up early at shows to see worthy opening acts.
POST-TRIAL RAMIFICATIONS: A good fecking start. Remember the Obama rallying cry: Yes, we can.

Scene And Not Heard

2009-03-12T13:22:00.005-04:00

Hi. I'm new to the group. My name is Jason. And I am addicted to Twitter.

By now, most of you are familiar with the micro-blogging site that acts as a forum for what you are doing/thinking/feeling right now. It's fast, efficient and a great way to catch up with your buds without having to contact them personally. In addition, the service allows other people to participate in your life from a distance without you having a portable neon sign reading STALKERS WELCOME hanging over your head. When strangers sign up to "follow" you on Twitter, it makes you feel more important than you actually are. One of the unsexiest things I do at AP is compile each issue's editorial budget. But Hassenpfeffer12 in Collapsed Colon, Montana, still thinks that's the most awesome thing on Earth. (Thanks, Hassy. But in this economy, ain't nuthin' sexy 'bout that.)

I've determined my attraction to Twitter comes from wanting to know about a recognized community where you have a personal affinity for the participants. For instance, I care more about Tim Karan's car problems than I do Joey Mihalczek's impending gig in the Circle K parking lot in Cankersore, Pennsylvania. But if I'm visiting the AP Moshpit--or any other message board-cum-information portal--I have to wade through every single inane comment everybody has to make, usually accompanied by some dumb band photo and a three-line sig-file daub of priceless poetry to come out of some Long Island goombah's tattered notebook. Clearly, 140 characters and all my peeps in line cannot be beaten. Not only do I avoid the bandwidth detritus I briefly touched on, I don't have to scroll through the drone static from chattering harpies who have this innate (and unwarranted) need to be heard, even though they have nothing to say.

If you're offended by that last comment, it means you're guilty. So let's break it down to extremes. On the one hand, you've got idiots who are bored, high or any combination of both, who demand to be heard. Like a dude complaining about Mindless Self Indulgence on a message board because MSI somehow inhibit his girl's ability to please him in bed. (Dude, it's because your girlie doesn't have a strong enough imagination to pretend she's Steve Righ's action gal and you're about as capable in bed as three garden slugs.) That's just tedious. On the hideous side, how about all of the comments from the shallow end of the gene pool, who, when learning about Hawthorne Heights' guitarist Casey Calvert's untimely death, just had to get in, "That band sucks, sorry 'bout the dude, tho'." They couldn't just show respect for a good person. Nope, they gotta prove how cool they are by demeaning Calvert's brothers in rock. Way to go, vermin. I bet you'd look real cool if you were, oh, burned alive. But I guess it's hard to move a mouse over to your favorite message board while coping with extremely charred muscle tissue.

So I decided I'm not gonna be part of the problem. If you wanna say my favorite band sucks, fine. I'm gonna look away, because life is too good to make me want to sacrifice prison to embed a splitting maul in the skull holding that gelatinous porridge you call "a brain." But me and my buds on Twitter are gonna have a field day dragging your carcass through a psychic cow pasture. No one's gotta see it or know about it. Suits us both fine, doesn't it?

A Revisionist History Of Suck

2009-03-04T10:15:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago, I reconnected with an old high-school friend who stopped by the AP Skyscraper on his way to Chicago. He was impressed by the basic decor, the amount of crap cresting over the back of my couch ("It's just like your bedroom back then: A fukkin' mess!") and the huge wall of mags you see when you enter the place. He complimented me (and AP) for 24 years of riding the tides of popular culture for so long. He also got some zingers in, asking me when was the last time I saw my shoes, who's been launching golf balls off the top of my head and where I found soda in bottles so I could wear such thick glasses. (This sounds like last weeks' blog entry, doesn't it? Think of it as, what Daryl Palumbo's idol might consider "conceptual continuity.")

What my buddy wasn't down with was AP's focus of the past few years. "All these crimes against music in the name of 'punk,'" he bristled. "Are the kids that dumb? This is all stupid pop music." Fortunately, the auxiliary speakers on my computer still worked, and I was able to cut him off at the pass with a selection of contemporary hardcore on the Bridge 9 and Deathwish Inc. labels, twisted crazy stuff Paste magazine wouldn't touch, as well as some inspired pop songs (Two Tongues and that recent (International) Noise Conspiracy disc). He started to squirm at "No, Seriously" by From Jupiter, but confessed it "wasn't that bad." He's a big fan of textural guitar rock, so while Mr. Explosions In The Sky was trying to play the superiority card, I had to school his bitch ass about MONO. "Okay, you win. But how do you keep track of this stuff? Music was never as bad as it is now."

REALLY? While he doesn't need a glimpse of Tim Karan's iTunes library for a refresher course in the history of Suck (show me someone who likes the new Chris Cornell album and I'll show you someone who needs to enter a support group), he does need to have his brain cells rattled. Every generation will inevitably swan dive into a deep puddle of mung because they think it's valid. How many awful "college rock" acts sprouted up in the '80s simply because REM and U2 were the first ones to take it to the bank? Everybody from sociologists to music fans to rock critics cites Nirvana's Nevermind as a touchstone for cultural change, but there were still millions of dopes who ate up uninspired stuff in its wake. (And let's not forget the blatant cabaret acts, as well.) I also reminded my bro about the time I almost got my ass beaten by a gang of drunken hardcore music snobs from Britain 15 years ago for proclaiming my appreciation of the Boomtown Rats. My bud and I laughed at the memory of remembering how morally superior we felt in high school (compared to the dimbulbs rockin' the Eagles and Journey), only to realize how lame we would've been if we lived in the U.K., simply because the Rats had chart hits there--the very thing we railed against here.

So relax, Generation Warped. Your scene does not suck, despite what rock critics, most people over 30 and the dullard incontinent pygmies who post on message boards have to say. (Expect a blog entry on that little group in the near future.) Be advised: Seven years from now, I promise you will cringe at some of the stuff currently nestling in your hard drive. (You and I both know you'll have wiped that stuff off 17 times over or replaced your 'puter five times by then, anyway.) Or maybe you'll actually hang onto some of it. Who knows? Perhaps five years from now, you and I will sit down over some salted caramel hot chocolates and discuss who has more merit: Cute Is What We Aim For or.... Jane Child.

Not Necessarily The Opinion Of AP

2009-02-24T17:16:00.009-05:00

Back when Pitchfork media founder Ryan Schreiber was still trying to figure out how to scam free discs from indie labels, the be-all, end-all in sarcastic/ironic snark was Chunklet. The maga-/fan-zine, started in 1993 by cuddly misanthrope wiseguy Henry Owings, prides itself as a music magazine with no reviews, choosing instead to lampoon the music it loves. Over the years, Chunklet has given the world a number of number of hilarious features, such as The Top 100 Assholes In Rock (to which yours truly made it to the Number 30 position), the Bands We'll Pay To Break Up and one issue from way, way back that mercilessly stuck the knife into the whole music publicity industry. When Owings and his coterie of hipster potentates (some inspired, some only great via association) got to working on something, you could expect a pretty good read.

Their most recent issue has a piece called Music Mag Mix 'N' Match where 40-plus mags were demeaned in one paragraph and you had to guess what the mag was (or cheat by looking at the answers printed upside-down on the last page.) When I saw this feature, I knew there was no way I was going to escape Owings' crowings. And of course, there it was in the number six position...

Once a decent rag, now literally the most irrelevant Hot Topic-style, mall culture, emo Victoria's secret catalogue imaginable. Presently, it is a meaningless neo-emo/hardcore fish wrapper, but it once had Insane Clown Posse on the cover three times in one year. Jason Pettigrew has let a benign mid-'90s alt-monthly turn into probably the worst music magazine ever published.

Notice how we went from "decent' to "benign" in, what, two sentences? After reading it, I thanked Henry for the "shout-out," and he charmingly responded, "But of course, Jason. Nothin' but love, you know that."

I think at one point in their lives, everybody has a fast buddy they talk smack on right to their faces. They say the most heinous stuff imaginable--kind of like those Friars Club Roasts that Comedy Central puts on--and it's totally cool because a) you're talking among friends, b) the essence of the repartee is to celebrate said friendship and c) given the talents of the folks involved, the stuff is funnier that dogshit. Naturally, if some interloper attacks from the outside, it's inevitable he's going to get a beatdown, psychic or otherwise.

But does that kind of camaraderie work on the web? For instance, if I were to write that Multiple-Time AP Cover Star X can only get sexually aroused dressed up as the Green Lantern while listening to tapes of terrorist suspects being waterboarded, would he appreciate it? If I report that Scene Fixture B threw up hot wings and microbrews on some hooker in a toilet in some Chicago dive bar, would anyone care? ( I mean, it probably would if said character was signed to Tooth & Nail.) How much public goofing can one friendship handle?

I signed up for Twitter and I'm floored as to how many people are watching my pathetic ass. Sure, I've only "tweeted" once (I forgot my fecking password), but I wonder if whatever Jason "the Twit" says on his account is emblematic of AP as a whole. If I post "Saw Tim Karan @ Senses Fail gig with some girl. Must ask if he switched mail-order-bride catalogs," is Tim going to be a target for militant femmes in Sugar Hooker swag AND will AP (not JP) be tarred with a chauvinist brush? If I were to enter, "Lead singer of Clear Channel-endorsed rock band would be really sexy, if he only had steak knives violently thrust into his eye sockets," would that be considered a terroristic threat in today's technologically savvy, yet increasingly paranoid worldview?

Recently, a band that was featured in our AP&R section was talking smack on us on a message board. I am not married to the drummer's sister; the members of the band aren't drinking buddies with Tim; and I'm pretty sure said band doesn't go over to Scott Heisel's for weekend man retreats. (On every other Saturday night, they sit around a huge fire pit while wearing nothing but loincloths, eating meats prepared over the fire while listening to the "inclusion rock" sounds of the Hold Steady.) So then, should I dismiss said diaper-drinker as a child with computer access? Or should I go batshit crazy on Twitter? "I Nailed The Lead Singer Of The Dogcatchers' Mom In A Bus Station, But AP Still Sucks!"

Hang on: How many characters is that, exactly?

I Hate Your 80s

2009-02-18T07:21:00.003-05:00

While I was editing this year's 100 Bands You Need To Know issue, I noticed that the terms "Eighties-sounding" and "Eighties-influenced" came up more times than the reflux I felt the first time I heard Brokencyde. Why in the hell do we romanticize this decade, anyway? Closing the last episode of The Sopranos with a Journey song? Escape The Fate getting fashion tips from old issues of Circus magazine with Motley Crue pictorials? Dudes in cookie-cutter pop-punk bands jacking the price of analog synthesizers up on eBay for the sole purpose of trying to sound like Gary Numan but ending up like, I don't know, OXO? Neon-colored clothing? Blonde girls dying their ends black? You people really grip my shit.

Now that I've stuffed your parents' nostalgia into an InSinkerrator and hit the switch marked "liquefy," let me tell you: I loved the Eighties! I had hot girlfriends, a 32-inch waist and at least one asymetrical double-breasted suit that could've gotten me a gig in a Duran Duran tribute band. I still violently hated all the stuff Americans hold dear (hair-farmer metal, designer jeans, stadium rock, mood rings, Members Only jackets, slap bracelets, full-length denim coats). Sure, we were all concerned that President Reagan was going to press the nuclear defense switch on the former Soviet Union, but if you were rocking Black Flag, Fear, Circle Jerks, Flipper or TSOL back then, you didn't care if the planet was about to be immolated (especially if it meant that you didn't have to hear meatheads go on about how awesome a guitar player one of those hair-metal diaper-drinkers were or hear dimbulb girls talk about how cute Richard Marx was). (I hate THAT dude so much, I refuse to hyperlink his pasty mousse-abuse ass.)

You know what nostalgia I want to ride on? The less obvious. One of the greatest post-punk/alt-rock bands in the history of British rock, Magazine, reformed for a handful of shows over Valentine's Day weekend. Let's see someone try to match the twisted lyricism of frontman Howard Devoto, while making a similarly inspired racket. Speaking of real racket, how come no young whippersnapper with physical stamina and protective headphones has stepped up to throwdown like Einsturnzende Neubauten, the real industrial outfit who were trashing theaters long before Street Drum Corps' moms were getting busy with their future dads? People love the funk, but how come only an inspired crate-digger knows about Rip Rig And Panic, the wondrous punk/funk/free jazz/swing outfit that STILL sound 20 years ahead of everybody else?

Now unlike most people eligible for the 4 pm dinner specials at Bob Evans, there's no way I'm going to preach, "Sorry, kids. It was better before you were born." Because a) Each generation needs to make its own culture, b) that argument implies that the old-schoolers have given up looking for inspiring music in order to pursue their golf game and c) most of those old-timers weren't hip to a third of the stuff that was happening then in the first place. With the internet, several lifetimes of musical experiences are at people's fingertips. But you have to WANT to go there in the first place, and not just stay stuck looking for, I don't know, Dire Straits downloads (although"Badges, Posters, Stickers And T-Shirts" is still a pretty cool song eons after the fact.)

Inevitably, some nostalgia blunts today's so-called "cutting edge." (I still prefer Kill Em All to Death Magnetic). But everybody--musicians and fans--has an obligation to move things along. Which is why I love crazy bastards like the Locust more than I love the Sex Pistols. It was neck-in-neck for awhile, until I read that guitarist Steve Jones told a British rock mag that he loved Boston's "More Than A Feeling." Somehow, being labeled a "punk-rock faggot" back then seems so quaint. (Thanks for having my back, Steve.)Still, I can only imagine what's going to end up on VH1's inevitable I Love The 10's. Funny hair, neon clothes, Metro Station...

Wait: Isn't this where I came in?

Punk's Not De... INVITED

2009-02-11T10:10:00.003-05:00

What's worse than watching the Grammy awards? Watching them when you're in the middle of a 24-hour flu attack. Granted, I was able to time my trips to the bathroom at crucial junctures (Coldplay, Neil Diamond, the superstar "rap pack" summit meeting), although maybe if I actually saw some of said perfomances, I would've expelled the renegade microbes out of my carcass a lot faster. Sure, my wife and I high-fived when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss copped an award, and I really enjoyed the all-star tribute to Bo Diddley starring Keith Urban, John Mayer, B.B. King and Buddy Guy. But to me, the mainstream is just as inane as it ever was. You want to make the Gramms interesting? Suspend Chris Brown on a huge cable by his ankles and have Samuel L. Jackson pass ax handles out to the audience. Line forms on the right, please be orderly...

If you've been to Warped Tour more than twice or have posted incisive commentary on everything from the AP Moshpit to Punknews to Absolutepunk, this year's Grammys were a big freakin' deal. You had the double whammy of Blink-182 announcing their intentions to reform, record and tour. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Enema Of The State is over 10 years old and now you're listening to something far more sophisticated for your rarified tastes. But you don't need to drink frappachinos with Alex Gaskarth to realize that Blink were an enormous influence on the pop-punk legions that continue to land in AP's orbit. Maybe it was my stuffy head, but I don't remember tumultuous applause from the crowd when Mark Hoppus told the crowd he and his bro's were back together again. Meanwhile at the AP Skyscraper, every press release we got regarding the trio's appearance pretty much buried this fact in lieu of, oh, I don't know, Radiohead's first US TV appearance since they did SNL in 33 years or something. (Let the record show I'm not dissing the 'head. I did wonder where the other three-fifths of that band were during their performance with the First Presbyterian Bar & Grill Marching Band or whoever they were.) I probably don't need to tell you, dear reader, that Blink reuniting is a major friggin' deal in our subculture. But in a world that allows Duffy near a functioning microphone, the gesture seemed like a time-filler so the next hip-hop bore could saunter onstage.

Likewise, Green Day officially announced the title of the follow-up to American Idiot at the Grammys, and it seemed to be rather anti-climactic in the audience's eyes. I don't get it. We know the music industry responds well to dollar signs, so given the multi-platinum success of Idiot, you would think there would be a round of "yeaaaaaaah's" with the announcement of 21st Century Breakdown. More perfunctory applause, probably followed by discussion of what parties the folks in the choice seats were going to later that night.

I know I've touched on this topic before in this space, when I was dry-heaving over the American Music Awards ceremony. While lots of people like to bitch on message boards on how Moderately Successful Band A is a "sellout" or Unknown Band X Who Sing Through Their Adenoids Suck Because They Have No Facial Hair And Come From Someplace Other Than Gainesville, Florida, it needs to be said that the whole contemporary-punk scene is still very much in the underground to the much wider world of what your parents, little sisters and the elderly manager at your local Hallmark store thinks is "good." Grizzled punk dudes like to carp about what's "not punk." Seeing how Green Day and Blink were received by the Grammy audience, it seems like le punque moderne is still on the outskirts of what is "acceptable" to those walleyes. Sorry Cyndi Lauper: Money doesn't necessarily change everything.

Okay, sociology class is over. Please enjoy this artifact of a time from long ago in AP's history.

The Ceremonial Clutching Of The Straws

2009-02-03T15:56:00.009-05:00

So many bands! So many compact discs created in the proud spirit of DIY! Not enough landfills.

Not even the threat of ecological disaster will stop bands from doing anything they can to get you and me to listen to their lead singers duet with their adenoids at least once. Most of you have it a bit tougher. Tear-Stained Hanky will play the Goo Gone Stage at Warped for eight days, and their excitable bassist will spend his entire morning walking around the fest grounds trying to get you to buy his band's DIY five-song CD. Of course, dude won't take no for an answer unless you pull out a knife or kick him repeatedly in the nards until he stops moving. Multiply that experience by five bands, and by 4 in the afternoon, you're ready to toss infants into garbage trucks, strollers and all.

Here at AP, we get plenty of discs from bands looking for a teaspoon's worth of affirmation. Riding along in the package with their "bold musical concepts" is a short biography of the band. It has all the usual stuff: who are the members, where are they from, what they've accomplished thus far--stuff that makes sense within the context of what they are trying to achieve. It's just that some bands are so desperate to get you to pay attention to their disc that very moment, they will add the most ridiculous stuff in their bio. Every Time I Die referred to this phenomenon as "shinfo," short for "shitty information." Except ETID's casual shinfo is more interesting to me than a Bob Dylan bio-pic. (Sorry Rolling Stone readers. I do swear by Blonde On Blonde, though.)

So as a public service to all bands trying to get people to write about them, here's a short list of things that make me throw all the components of your press package into our recycling bin. Oh, and if some of you have hired publicists to work your project, you might want them to take notes as well, because I'm thinking most of these inanities have been perpetrated by them in order to make you think they know what they're doing. We'll use my favorite fictional band, the Dogcatchers, as an example.

MANUFACTURING AS TALKING POINT
Most recordings go through a process called mastering, which essentially means taking the audio recordings and transferring them onto physical acetates to produce copies, digital (CDs) or analog (vinyl), while keeping the quality of the recordings intact (removing unwanted distortion, minimizing surface noise, etc). A mastering engineer should have plenty of experience understanding various musical genres, as well as the technological expertise to render said genres in their most optimum form. Their work on your record is important; their resume on your bio, not so much. "The Dogcatchers' debut EP, Swooped Hair And Market Share, was mastered by Kasabo Milkshitz, who lent his considerable talents to records by Papa Roach, Cold and Foreigner's classic Head Games album." The band is a fifth-rate Motion City Soundtrack, but the crystal clarity of hearing the lead singer fall out of pitch is quite stunning.

THE STUDIO AS ANGLE
Recording studios have all kinds of clients, from hip-hop 'hood heroes "testin' dey mad skillz" to heartfelt singer-songwriters with "something to say" to dudes sworn to keep metal "real" to your inane metalcore band fronted by a pterodactyl in a Comeback Kid hoodie. So when the Dogcatchers entered Flaprag Studios, "a facility where classic albums by Lenny Kravitz, Barry Manilow and Hinder were recorded," all it means to me is that the band members' parents have hooked their kids up with sweet-ass trust funds so they could follow their dream as the New Emo Monkees. Fifteen years ago, I watched a bunch of fratboys throw $20 bills at a middle-aged "featured dancer" with stretchmarks and some stomach moles needing immediate medical examination. Who do you think got more value for their outlay; Rex and Chet from Gamma Phucka Ducka or the Dogcatchers' guitarist "channeling" the aura of Lenny on his track "Girls Pants Make Me Dance?"

THE PARTICIPATION OF SOME DUDE WHO'S, LIKE, "A VETERAN"
The Dogcatchers wanted someone who understood exactly where they were coming from when it came to record their stentorian pop masterpiece, "(Mom Will) Always Love Me." So they called in Limp Bizkit drummer John Otto to oversee the creation of the ballad. In fact, his credit on the back of the disc--right above the UPC code--reads "PRODUCED BY JOHN OTTO OF LIMP BIZKIT." Really? What, not even Fred Durst was available to chug a case of PBR, belch and fart repeatedly before passing out 80 minutes into the session?

THE PARTICIPATION OF A NOBODY (aka MILKING A BRUSH WITH GREATNESS)
"The Dogcatchers worked closely with Essai Ratskanga, who was a consultant on the last Fall Out Boy album." Translation: Ratskanga filled up the soda machine in the studio where FOB were recording at the exact time, so Pete Wentz had a cold crisp Diet Pepsi every hour. Which admittedly, is worth a mention on the "thank you" list, but not on your bio, you fecking simps.

A GLOWING ENDORSEMENT FROM A SOURCE NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF, NOR ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT
"The Dogcatchers' Swooped Hair And Market Share is the boldest chapter to be written in the continuing evolution of music and recorded sound." --Amanda B. Reckonwith, Lung Cyst Gazette, Montana

"Much cuter than Plain White Ts and Boys Like Girls, but not as emo as Kevin Seconds." --amberalertportraiture.org

I'm pretty sure I'm missing several hundred other acts of desperation, but you get the idea. "Go to hell, you d-bag," I hear the guy in the Dogcatchers hoodie say. "How's my band 'posta get noticed by asshats like you, anyway?" I defer to the words of former AP editor dude Aaron Burgess. "Go out and make some quality noise; if it's good enough, we will hear about you."

Killer Born Man: Wes Eisold

2009-01-26T13:57:00.005-05:00

Hardcore lifers recognize Wes Eisold from his tenure fronting Give Up The Ghost for several years and one crucial name change. After that band disintegrated, he became the frontman for Some Girls, a gloriously abrasive outfit featuring members of Unbroken, the Locust, the Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower and Year Future, that alienated hardcore types and art-damaged nimrods equally. After leaving that unit, Eisold began concentrating on a number of projects: XO Skeletons, a short-lived chattering metallic group that lasted for a few shows and vinyl releases; Heartworm Press, his publishing concern where he's created both prose and art tomes; Juanita And Juan's, a bookstore-cum-artspace; and Cold Cave, his latest musical outlet.

You're a busy guy. What are you up to now, in regards to writing music/prose/art?
Cold Cave is where most of my time is devoted to for music. I write and record it from home--from bed usually--and it's the first time I've written and made music by myself. I haven't been writing poems as much since I started Cold Cave, but I'm doing a few readings in the next couple months in New York and Washington, D.C. I'm trying to distribute the energy I have through music, writing and the other books I'm a part of through Heartworm. This is a lot for me, as I spent the greater part of my twenties staring at the walls of a van.

As frontman for Give Up The Ghost and Some Girls, you were doing the psychic excavation thing nightly. You resigned from Some Girls and formed XO Skeletons as a way to sate your post-punk noise desires. Did you get completely burned-out on the cycle of touring and recording? Does that lifestyle even hold anything for you these days? Did you feel a psychic and/or creative dead end?

After a while, I realized I often felt really unsatisfied with what I was spending so much time on--which burns you out, yeah. This sounds weird, but I had this thought that I didn't want to yell or scream any more. I didn't see a difference between a person yelling at the world from a stage and someone yelling at the world from a street corner. The root of it is the same and it just wasn't something I wanted to do or somewhere I wanted to be at in life any longer. I became less angry, but I found other releases to exorcise everything I needed to. I don't regret it: I love it, because it brought me here and I feel the opposite of a psychic end now. I did everything I ever dreamt of doing with those bands and then I stepped down and on.

Is there an underlying theme or construct that runs through all of the titles you've put out via Heartworm? Or is it just WIL-literature? (WIL = What I Like)
Heartworm Press is something I started a few years ago to release small runs of writings or music I made. Now I co-run it with Max Morton. We release things we like which have common themes of what we find to be enigmatic: people we admire for their lives and work. Some of the writers we've worked with include Eric Paul, Mark McCoy, Genesis P-Orridge, Jonathan Shaw, Boyd Rice, Dave Markey, Chris Leo and more. Individualism is the common theme.

What exactly is Juanita And Juan's?
Juanita And Juan's is a small bookstore that Max and I opened in Halloween of 2008 in Philadelphia's Chinatown. We have a selection of books, films and records we like, most of which are a bit difficult to find or lesser known. The store also serves as a gallery and performance space. We have an event every first Friday of the month: Kid Congo and Howie Pyro played the opening and last month Ian Svenonius performed the Radio Silence book show. We just invite artists and friends we like. Next month, Bryan Ray Turcotte is hanging pieces from his Black Flag collection and his Fucked Up And Photocopied book while Cage is playing. We want the worlds we love to collide before our very eyes; we just want to try everything once. The world is a candy shop. Who knows if we'll stay open after a year...

What can we expect from Wes Eisold in 2009?
I'm spending my time with Cold Cave, recording and releasing records and playing shows when it feels like the right thing to do. Heartworm has a full year lined up that will keep us busy. Time is going by so fast and so much has been wasted on twentysome tears (not necessarily physical ones) that I just want to stay busy, really. It keeps the head up; otherwise, I'm just staring at the ground, wandering around in the same circles over and over. That song doesn't need to be repeated.

Better Hate Than Never

2009-01-21T12:29:00.006-05:00

The poor bastard at the top of this blog is me, dealing with the city of Cleveland's ingenious way of clearing the streets of snow--by piling a ton of it in front of my driveway. Of course, they do it at night so the snow turns to clumps of ice which weigh more than Jesse Lacey's ego. This isn't the first time I've had to do this, and the very thought of it makes me hope the wives/girlfriends of the drivers are sneaking out behind their backs and doing things that would make Jenna Jameson recoil in horror.

Anyway, the whole experience made me so mad, I went back in the house and put together Misanthromix 2K9, a playlist that scooches me closer toward spontaneous combustion. My sonic equivalent of a lead pipe filled with cement and dipped in cobra venom includes:

BLOOD BROTHERS: "Fucking's Greatest Hits"

THE LOCUST: "Wet Dream War Machine"

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN: "Hollywood Squares"

COMBATWOUNDEDVETERAN: "My Spine! My Spine! My Spine!"

CONVERGE: "You Fail Me"

AMEN: "Piss Virus"

LEATHERMOUTH: "My Lovenote Has Gone Flat"

THE BRONX: "Shitty Future"

C.AARME: "Gasmask"

SIRHAN SIRHAN: "Blood"

CEREMONY: "It Rained Today Inside My Head"

MINISTRY: "Flashback"

SOME GIRLS: "Deathface"

Thirteen "lucky" songs, guaranteed to ruin your day, or at the very least, make you understand the concept of "going postal" without having to actually punch a clock at the good ol' USPS. It's interesting how we talk about music that gets us through hard times, reflects on loves lost or makes a long drive tolerable. Yet I've never partaken in any kind of discussion that posits what kind of psych-up soundtrack people would choose to, say, put the beatdown on that bitch/scumbag who's been stalking their significant others. The music of choice when you get double-billed by a credit-card company for the third time. The sound patterns of glory when the next micro-managing vermin comes into my office to get pissy with me... Oops! Sorry for the projection!

So let's hear it: Someone has kicked your dog, called your mom a slut and accused you of liking White Tie Affair. What are you going to put on just before you grab your aluminum ball bat to seek some batta-batta-swing therapy?

POSTSCRIPT: After I ate half a bottle of Motrin to deal with my post-shoveling aches, I went out and got Chinese food. This was the fortune in my cookie. I don't care: Snowplow truck drivers still suck.

Trouble Enough

2009-01-19T16:20:00.003-05:00

Apologies for not getting back to you. My life's pretty crazy right now, from the magical realm of the 100 Bands You Need To Know in 2009 to the planning of all sorts of stuff down the road. AP turns 24 this year and we've got some big ol' plans afoot that are capital-S SECRET. I could tell you what they are, but then Mike Shea would inevitably dump my body in an oil drum, weld it shut, slap some Blood Brothers stickers on it and ship it to Idaho in the hopes that Jann Wenner would split it into pieces on a downhill slalom while avoiding going into his office. I'm not ready to die yet: I still have to plan our 15-page special, The Evolution Of Mudvayne. Actually, I'm kidding you. We're going to slap Hyper Crush on the cover next month. Oh, wait; we're back to that over-my-dead-body thing again.

That's as good a segue as you're getting from me today. (If you don't like it, put some money in my PayPal account and see what comes out of me then.) We've gotten a good amount of mail regarding All Time Low's appearance on our Band Of The Year cover. There's been a lot of "hell yeah's" from a lot of people fond of those Wiseguy, Maryland, homeboys. But we've also gotten a bunch of letters from turbo-charged haters lambasting AP editors for the issue as if we were running puppy mills. We've already picked ATL for a cover (100 Bands 2008, AP Tour, remember?); we just counted votes for this one. Simple as that.

This makes me wonder about something else. If Scott Heisel is just short of getting a backpiece tat of Hold Steady singer Craig Finn (see that glowing review on our website?), does that mean that I, the sworn enemy of classic rock, is on the table next to him getting prepped for one, as well? Do people really think we've heard every single piece of music written about in one issue of AP? Do you haters think we all live together in harmony in a big treehouse with a fifty-foot neon AP logo nailed to the front? I bring this up because my cultural comrade Tim Karan was overheard at a bar saying how much he hated Needle Dik and the Bugfawkers, and now their manager is threatening to drive by my house and power-wash it with chicken excrement from an undisclosed factory farm. (Hey, I liked Need's first single, "That's Tight!" I have it on both digital download and thorax-green vinyl.)

On the other hand, screw everyone. ATL have never copped a 'tude with us the way those nu-metal skeeziks used to in their deluded sense of entitlement. If Scott wants to invent new categories to articulate his love for one of his fave acts (even if the term "inclusion rock" makes me want to lick my cats' litterboxes hospital-clean), I'm not stopping him. And Tim, go ahead and loathe ND&BF. If you've got the first round, I've got your back.

Oh, and don't go googling "Needle Dik and the Bugfawkers." Tim is so mellow, he doesn't hate anybody and I needed to get something in there, even if it was fictional and lifted from the very funny Peter Bagge. Be advised the first time an editor comes into work wearing Hyper Crush swag, I'm gonna paint a telephone on their face and dial 'em with an ice pick. As if I ain't got trouble enough...

Twin Cadillac Valentine

2009-01-07T19:17:00.002-05:00

When visitors come to the AP Skyscraper, I'm usually asked the same three questions: "Where's the rest room?" "How come your wife hasn't murdered you in your sleep and fed you to wild pigs?" "Why do your blogs have weird titles?" The answers to the first two questions are "The door to the right just before the kitchen, and please don't steal our Sevendust gold records" and "But Dennis, your new record is actually GOOD!"

The answer to the third question is that 98-percent of my blog headers are all song titles by my favorite rock 'n' roll band in life, the SCREAMING BLUE MESSIAHS. Formed in London in the mid-80s following the demise of the British pub-rock band Motor Boys Motor, singer-guitarist Bill Carter and bassist Chris Thompson teamed up with drummer Kenny Harris and proceeded to fuck shit up in their country's indie scene. Compared to all of the rampant bullshit happening in America at the time (you know, the audio ipecac that's routinely romanticized by VH1 Classic and the final episode of The Sopranos), the Messiahs' brand of nitrous-burning psychosis hit my twenty-sumpin' brain like a 700 mph bitchslap. Taking their cues from the works of old blues masters, the jagged angularity of Captain Beefheart and the stamina of first-wave punk, the trio made heads swivel with their stripped-down aesthetic and a sublime ability to dish out some straight-up power. Over the course of three and a half slabs of wax (their debut mini-LP Good And Gone, Gun Shy, Bikini Red and Totally Religious) and a bunch of 12-inch EPs, the Messiahs were always in high rotation in my white-trash hamlet of Western Pennsylvania.

Back in the days when gas was cheap and I'd routinely spend too much money on vinyl records, I was fortunate enough to see the Messiahs during their handful of American tours. I loved their records to death, so driving five hours to Washington, D.C., to see them was a no-brainer. Let me tell you something, peeps: Those guys BROUGHT it. You had Carter, the scary guitar player (who looked like a cross between actor Yul Brynner and pro-wrestling legend George "the Animal" Steele), sweat dripping down his bald head and into his eyelashes, completely savaging his gear (and his hands; guitar picks are for wusses) while rambling obtuse non sequiturs; Harris, a plasma-ball force of a drummer who drove the whole thing through sheer determination and centrifugal force; and Thompson, the stoic bassist holding everything together like it was business as usual. The first time I saw them (at the old 930 Club in D.C.), the vibe was positively menacing. A third of the way into the set, an audience member had an epileptic seizure. Ten minutes later, the head of Thompson's bass amp caught fire, but everyone kept playing, totally locked in with what they were doing. The tour manager had to run onstage and chase them off, and the band looked like they were going to kill him, until they were informed of what was going down. (I'm pretty sure Fugazi's Guy Picciotto was in attendance that evening. Guy, if you're out there, confirm or deny but TESTIFY in the comments!)

As much as I loved their records, the Messiahs were built for live action. After the US release of Gun Shy, they went on tour with the Cramps and schooled that band's hipster crowds accordingly (a fact not lost on the Cramps crew, who made life particularly difficult for the band on more than one occasion). The trio went out on tour with the Beat Farmers and Beat Rodeo for the first-ever Spin College Tour. A show from College Park, Maryland, was filmed and broadcast on MTV and I don't think I've ever used the phrase "positively godhead" to describe anything I've seen since. The Messiahs brought their Bo Diddley-at-the-rim-of-Hell A-game: They ended the set with the punishing "Twin Cadillac Valentine," six minutes of charging drumming and guitar noise which ended with Carter throwing his battered Telecaster onto the floor and violently scraping the strings with the discus base of his microphone stand. Several college coeds were upfront, covering their ears and grimacing at the screech. After seeing that, I was completely ready to get a tattoo of their name. On my face. (BTW, if anybody knows where I can get a VHS reel of that broadcast, I will put you in my will. I bet the master was thrown into a dumpster on Broadway decades ago to make room for the complete history of TRL.) At other shows, I saw Carter whack a stage invader with a swimming-pool-green Telecaster, and slice his thumb on an A-string, bleeding all over the front of his guitar while plowing ahead as if nothing in the world was wrong. Fuggin' awesome!

I was a total screaming blue geek about these guys. I'd cut out any mention of the band I saw in a magazine. I remember yelling "Yeah!" while reading an interview with Celt-punks the Pogues, when they claimed they psyched themselves up backstage before gigs listening to nothing but the Messiahs--and Puccini. I'd talk about them to other performers I'd write about for AP. I finally interviewed Bill Carter for the mag and he answered my questions bemusedly, although I think he might've considered getting a restraining order against me, just in case. David Bowie was stoked on them enough that he had the trio open his Wembley Stadium shows on his Glass Spider Tour. See, unlike most people who like to keep their bands to themselves and maybe five other strangers, I WANTED the entire planet to see these guys tear a hole in the time/space continuum.

Here's a clip of the band doing "Let's Go Down To The Woods And Pray" on a 1985 episode of the British television show Old Grey Whistle Test. At the 2:45 mark, they go into my fave track, "Good And Gone," and Carter beats his guitar like it was an AIG employee.

This clip from the British show Night Network has the band hammering through "Jesus Chrysler Drives A Dodge." I have played this clip over a hundred times, and I still get chills when Carter abuses his guitar (around the 1:30 mark) and Harris just drives everything. Everything about this clip is full-on. I want to marry the horribly permed girl banging her head like a maniac and I want to break a chair over the head of the asshat down in front who's just standing there...

Like every other band with a cult following and a major-label deal, the Screaming Blue Messiahs were being nudged into smoothing things out a bit and the last album, Totally Religious, wasn't as bone-snapping as it could've been. Internal tensions grew, managers went out the door like the whores on Rock Of Love, and the band adjourned in the summer of 1990. To this day, I've never seen a group lay out that kind of power and menace. The Screaming Blue Messiahs pushed it so hard, it made so much stuff that came after them--a lot of punk, rockabilly, that "insurgent country" nonsense--seem hopelessly redundant. All of their records are out of print: CD versions of Gun Shy have gone for $45 (if you're lucky) to $125 on eBay. An occasional reminder of the band pops up in unusual places, like over a closing scene in the Dennis Leary series Rescue Me or maybe a nod to their "novelty track" "I Want To Be A Flintstone" on some '80s tribute show. (Hey Rhino Records! How about a box set reissue? I'll do all the liner notes for free. Call me up.)

These days, Kenny Harris (who has done everything from auditioning for AC/DC to writing a novel) currently oversees the official SBM website, originally created by classy rock photographer Dave "Chalkie" Dawson (Hell to the effin' yeah!). Chris Thompson plays guitar and lays out some badassed pub-rock with his band, the Killer B's. Bill Carter has been pursuing a career in art (check out some of his work here) and has started playing in a new band. (No new tracks on his MySpace page, though. Whassupwiddat?) The British label Hux is issuing a collection of Messiahs live recordings in the very near future and it can't get on my stereo fast enough. For even more insight into the legend of the last Blue Messiahs, check out the fabulous Blue Heaven website run by the very talented and most righteous Grant Louden.

Okay, so my sonic gods aren't as sexy as some other people's. As you traipse through 2009, dear friends, remember: If you've never heard it, it's new to you. And a 200-decibel shout-out to my boy Dave Corsi, who let me borrow his copy of Good And Gone all those years ago, thereby changing my whole world. Hopefully I'll be seeing him soon for a road trip--but that's a whole other blog entry...

Excavation Nation

2009-01-01T16:51:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year, denizens of the net. I hope all of you are playing with your Christmas presents, hanging with loved ones or strategically nursing hangovers. I just hope you are doing anything besides making lists of your favorite records of the past year.

Can I ask all of you a question? Thanks. Does anybody really care about this stuff? I know that list culture is such a popular construct with all sorts of mags and newspapers, and it's guaranteed to be used as either marketing fodder ("Best Of The Year as voted by the dude who runs mymomonlyreadsthis.edu") or lightning rod for smack-talking dullards. Don't get me wrong: I am totally flattered that the Village Voice still solicits me for my list of stereo-stuff, and I do get a kick out of hearing about the tuneage that makes my freelance writers and close buds curl their toes. But there's some crap you just know is going down. C'mon: Who didn't see Fleet Foxes getting the hosanna from Pitchfork from several thousand parsecs away?

So I was going to run down my list of 30 or so discs that put a smile on my face this year, from scene faves to Brit rockers to electronica to alt-rock to metal, but I couldn't see the point. So let me use this space to share my hopes for 2009.

I hope all my expectant friends have robust and healthy children--even the ones who set their phones to automatically delete my HNY's text messages last night.

I hope to say a prayer for President-Elect Obama every single night, because dude is gonna need all the power he can get to get shit done.

I hope that my boy Dave Segal gets both justice and restitution, and that the people who did him wrong get to see the things they love die horrible deaths.

I hope everyone reading this will find continued joy--or a change in fortune--this year. In fact, never mind what I said in my first paragraph: Go over to your buds' house with your 2K8 WUZ GREAT playlist and compare notes, play some air guitars and have a blast. And it'll be even better if your playlist features These New Puritans, Underoath, Ceremony, Panic At The Disco, I Hate Kate, Butch Walker, Future Of The Left, the Mars Volta, XX Teens, Amanda Palmer, Jaguar Love, Bauhaus, Frank Turner, the Airborne Toxic Event, Nine Inch Nails, Futureheads, Bloc Party, Paramount Styles, We Are The Physics, Mindless Self Indulgence, Past Lives, Son Of Dave, Alva Noto, Polysics, Firewater, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Anthony Green, Ben Folds, Does It Offend You Yeah, Johnny Foreigner, Jesu, DeSalvo, Mika Vanio, Tom Gabel and Toy Killers.

Dammit. Old habits die hard.

Holiday Head

2008-12-23T12:01:00.005-05:00

Christmas is the time of year when I'm willing to give a pass to the most annoying carbon-based lifeforms imaginable. Really. Elderly driver with out-of-state plates taking his half of the road out of the middle? Damn, look at the grandad go! Middle-aged, two-toothed, white-trash guy in a battery acid-spattered White Zombie shirt tryin' t' buy smokes with an expired money order in the express lane of my grocery store? "Gums" the word, dude! SUV driver with TWO McCain/Palin bumper stickers flipping me off and passing me on the highway because I choose to do 70 in a 60 mph zone and I'm simply not moving fast enough? You betcha! It's the most wonderful time of the year!

One of my fave TV shows is House, M.D. For those unfamiliar with the program, Hugh Laurie plays Dr. Gregory House, a self-centered, misanthropic doctor who is a genius diagnostician. That's all you really need to know. To me, the best parts of the show are those times when House has to do clinic duty and he helps regular Joes and Janes with their problems--right after he belittles and humiliates them. On the last episode I saw, he makes a young chastity-obsessed couple wait six hours in an exam room while he runs tests and produces x-rays that prove the girl has, in fact, developed a pregnancy via virgin birth. By the end of the show, he lets it drop to the hospital chief that it was all a ruse, the dude's "soulmate" is merely a dirty whore, but House let it slide because, hey, it's Christmas!

So in the spirit of Dr. House, here are some people who wrote some hate mail to AP who I'm not going to respond to personally. Nobody wants to get hate-flamed over the holidays--it just wouldn't be right. Which is why I'm responding to them here, for your entertainment.

I can usually count on AP to keep up with my favorite bands, but for the past few months I've been kinda disappointed. I understand that in the past few years they wouldn't get much publicity here in the states, but Tokio Hotel has gotten pretty huge in the past couple of months, if i do say so myself. I've seen not even a single review for the release of their Scream album in the states, much less an interview. I was really looking forward to the German band being featured in the Most Anticipated special, seeing as their new cd comes out next year. But, oh well, I guess reading teenie magazines is a sacrifice I'm going to have to make to see anything related to them in a glossy page of literature.--Joey from Pennsylvania

Joey: There's a guy who works in our building named Nick, but his buddies call him "Beppo." Beppo is grossly overweight, has a skin disorder that looks like impetigo and wears the same three t-shirts (Cleveland Browns, WMMS radio and a multi-stained plain white one). He says he hasn't experienced a woman's company for over 11 years. One day I saw him in the parking lot, and I read him your letter. He responded by laughing and saying, "Thanks, Jas. I feel pretty good about myself." Here's why.

I was beyond excited to see Say Anything and The Used in the Most Anticipated Albums of 2009 feature. What disappointed me, considering how much love and appreciation your magazine has showed the band in the past, was the omission of Motion City Soundtrack from the list. They're not the same gritty-sounding indie darlings I'm sure you were in love with when you featured them in 2007, but they've grown up and grown into their sound, and deserve to be recognized for that. Hopefully someday soon you'll open your obviously blinded eyes and realize that. --Jasmine from Colorado

Jasmine: Over the years, I've used plenty of terms to describe MCS (most of them positive), but "gritty sounding?" Maybe you're getting them confused with this band. Or maybe your parents are brother and sister. In that case, thanks for typing us with that arm protruding from your forehead.

I was very disappointed to see Green Day on the cover of January's issue. While Green Day used to be a great band, they have outlived their fame and people just need to move on. Green Day just isn't Green Day anymore. --Rick from Utah

Rick: I know it's rough when a band you've grown up listening to gains traction in the mainstream. You feel like you've lost something precious, that special entrance to a secret society that only you and handful of similar misfits know about. I bet seeing GD at Gilman Street was totally awesome. (I'm jealous, I never did.) I bet having them crash in your apartment when they were touring behind Kerplunk was a pivotal moment in your personal development in the understanding of underground art and culture. I know how empty you feel when you think something special has been lost. Hang on: It says here you're SEVENTEEN. You haven't experienced LIFE, let alone the multi-faceted career arc of one of the country's (hell, the WORLD's) most-respected bands. Do the right thing and fill out an organ donor card this very second. Now drive yourself to a teaching hospital, lie on a gurney, push yourself into a transplant demonstration and yell "I'm bored. Do you need any of these parts for anything?" at the top of your lungs.

I was excited to see a full page advertisement for the new I Set My Friends On Fire CD. With that said, I was completely shocked to read Phil Freeman's review saying the album should be "reduced to ashes." My main problem is the fact that the magazine as a company accepted the large amount of money it takes to get a full page advertisement and printed it in the same magazine they ripped the band a new one in. I know the magazine wants to make money, but don't promote bands in your magazine and accept their money, then turn around and do the complete opposite of what the advertisement was for and tell your readers the album was crap. This is hypocricy [sic] at its finest and it makes many readers like myself lose respect for your magazine. --Jared from Arizona

Jared, it's readers like you who make me want to pray that President-Elect Obama would reinstate mandatory military service for people your age. According to your twisted, mad-cow-disease-addled, liquified brain, any label or band or pierced-and-inked diaper-drinker with a trust fund (and an enormous sense of self-entitlement) should be able to BUY great reviews for their ill-conceived, puerile sonic dogshit. Did you intern at a Clear Channel-owned radio station? Is your father one of those CEOs who ran successful companies into the ground and got rewarded for it? Are you one of those dudes who demands his dates put out after you've paid for dinner and a movie? Actually, I bet you are none of those. You're probably just some unloved dude with soda-bottle thick glasses who's grown accustomed to being used as a urinal in your hometown. I know in my heart, Santa's gonna bring you a box of Wet Naps this year.

God bless us one and all. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Bikini Red

2008-12-18T18:26:00.001-05:00

One time during my tenure at AP (I think it was 1947, but I could be wrong), a publicist told me that I had to do a story on one of his clients, a singer-songwriter hippie chick. The pitch he gave me was, "Dude, she's incredibly hot. She'll look sweet in the mag." Never mind that her music sounded like the tired old mewling you can hear at any coffeehouse on open-mic night. When I purposely asked if she could come to my office and help me launch a new piece of office furniture as a "casting couch," he got all offended and began spitting out a series of politically correct diatribes about my implied chauvinism. When I reminded him that his rationale for getting his proud arteest in the pages of AP was because said gal was "hot," he suddenly got off his morally superior hobby-horse and poured himself a tall cold glass of Shuthafackup. (Sidebar note to singer-songwriters: I don't like you. I don't care what rest room you use, you people work my nerves. If you feel compelled to send me your music, make sure it is as good as or better than this dude or this gal.)

This past summer, I was invited to Guitar Center in L.A. to chair a summit meeting with some well-respected members of the punk community. A young woman in the crowd raised her hand and told the panel how the band she was singing in fired her because apparently female singers, according to the chief band dude, "weren't happening right now." Hayley Williams was unavailable for comment, so I said, "Well, men are douchebags. There, I said it." I don't think the guys on the panel really appreciated it, but I'm pretty sure they weren't offended, either.

Now people who have been subjected to my record collection/personal taste know I tend to be slightly more unhinged than most of the stuff I see being worshipped in the blogosphere. So my question is: Where did all the girls go? A defined aesthetic that's considered left-of-center isn't something exclusive to penis owners, is it? One of my favorite players in life was Larissa Strickland, the bad-ass guitarist in late-'80s Michigan attitude-rockers Laughing Hyenas. She was capable of insane dynamics, corrosive textures and was a tempered foil to singer John Brannon's lupine growl. Sadly, Larissa is no longer with us, but she was a world-class firebrand. Your band would be 56% cooler if she merely walked into your practice space.

Which makes me wonder why there aren't more girls fucking shit up. Where is the estrogen-ical version of Dillinger Escape Plan? Is there an all-girl analog to the Locust operating under my radar? Is there a sinister collective of women who make Converge sound like Tony Toni Tone?

I was talking to an acquaintance the other day who explained to me that such extreme aesthetic attitudes come off looking like The Three Stooges in the eyes of the sisterhood. "It's just too brusque and obtuse," he posited. "For the most part, women are masters of subtlety, hence the indie world's puppy-dog devotion to stuff like Joanna Newsom, Neko Case and Cat Power."

Realizing that asking a dude about the female headspace is as enlightening as asking Sarah Palin complex questions on marine biology, I spoke with some women whose opinions I trust. "Women have strong personalities," offers Jessicka Addams, frontperson from atmospheric rockers Scarling. "You can't have four alpha-female types in one band; they will inevitably slash each other to ribbons. If you have a powerful woman in a band with guys, you have a hierarchy where most of the time you know who's on top. The entertainment industry works that shit to no end. Look at the popularity of shows like Rock Of Love or Bad Girls Club or Redemption Song. There are a lot of stupid women on those shows, but they all inhibit a drive to mow over anything that will stand in their way. I think for awhile now, women have equated aggression with stupidity. They might be taking a more subtle route in their art to show they are more intellectual and able to get their message across clearer. I think that comes from being inundated with date-rape nu-metal bands and pop-punk. I'm looking toward the future, because it can't get any worse."

Maria Catamero, proprietor of the firm Blueghost Publicity (whose client list is populated with all kinds of sonic daredevils), agrees--kind of. "I agree with [that point of view], but only to a certain extent. The girls that have the confidence to get out and do a band like that in the first place are going to be alpha-females anyway-- and yes, those bitches suck to work with. But while perfect-bodied girls like Katy [Perry] and Hayley [Williams] and the chick from Lacuna Coil are the types of girls the press is going to continue to over-cover, then "normal" girls aren't going to have the confidence and be inspired to actually do anything. Millions of girls play instruments, but until there are strong women that get really over-exposed to the extent that a little junior high school girl in middle America is going to pick up AP and see and become inspired, then girls are just going to continue rocking out in their bedrooms. There are lots of girls at death-metal shows and hardcore shows and a lot of them probably play an instrument. But they need to feel like they are part of the scene and that they would be accepted. They go to all these shows, read magazines and drop serious cash at the merch table, but they don't see anyone like them in the spotlight. They need to see. They need to have the idea, the challenge presented to them for it to click in their mind. A 14-year-old girl who loves hard music is not going to feel confident enough if she isnt getting bombarded by role models. We need a real-life Emily The Strange. We need to find a Locust-y Bikini Kill that AP puts on the cover and in every issue. Guaranteed, you will start seeing talented girls in bands that actually have talent and not just looking cute and playing keytar."

I guess I'll take craziness where I can get it. Like in the smokin' hot frettery of Marnie Stern (pictured above), who seemingly pulled off more obtuse finger-tappery in a 50-minute set than the entire duration of the last Van Halen reunion tour. Or Amanda Palmer's idiosyncratic worldview that's musically engaging and gloriously twisted. There's some real scary types like Akiko Matsura from British angular-rockers Pre (whose voice cuts through everything like the biggest handle-free knife you've ever held) and Chloe "Special Deluxe" Lum from AIDS Wolf, who can throw down a nightmare as good as Dick Cheney. I still wish for a day when the planets align and Aixa Vilar, Josie Outlaw, Claire Ingram and Tracy Bellaries all share a table at Starbucks with a thirst for white chocolate mochas and bold ideas. I can dream can't I?

Come on, girls. I'm beggin' you: Now more than ever, America needs you to school America's assembly line of pop-punk bitches.

Killer Born Man: Art Black

2008-12-11T12:38:00.011-05:00

"This record is like a nap in the woods. Which is better than being gang-raped in a leper colony I suppose, but I can think of things I'd rather do." "A straight-razor shave from a giggling little man who won't stop talking about his old job slaughtering cattle." "Imagine forming a band with the hopes that someone will call you one of the better R.E.M. imitators. Here, catch."

I have never used the above sentences in a record review. (These days, I might, without conscience, steal the last one and switch out Messrs. Buck, Mills, Rieflin & Stipe for the phrase "Fall Out Boy") They came out of the clackety word processor of Art Black. During the mid-to-late-'80s halcyon years of the planet's indie underground music scene, Black was documenting as much stuff as his tireless digits would let him. As publisher of the fanzine Away From The Pulsebeat, Black (and then-wife/ace photog Monica Dee) fearlessly ran his enthusiasm up the flagpole. The underground saluted in return, allowing him to offer free 7-inch singles with issues, as well as a primo compilation (Mondostereo), which featured some of the brightest-burning units in the scene. Sure the wax was good (I found out about the Celibate Rifles Christmas song way before the compilers of this disc), but it's Black's writing that still captivates me 20-plus years after the fact.

"It's Kismet that you've come calling at my virtual door these past months, since I've only recently pried the nails out of the sides of my head,"says Black. "You know, the ones that I pounded into my brain to hold the plywood earflaps in place so I wouldn't have to listen to the thick, sebaceous crud masquerading as music for lo, these past 20 years or so."

Home was New Jersey, right? What things made you spend time, money and tears in creating Pulsebeat? What excited you the most?
Home during the AFTP era was indeed Le Jerse Nouveau, although I believe the idea of the mag first festered while I was living in a box I built out of wooden planks in the center of a (not) friend's living room in Brooklyn. That was back when Park Slope was a polite euphemism for "bolt from the subway to your apartment clutching your wallet for dear life." Nowadays, my plank box would probably sell for seven figures.

The whole concept of the mag was born of long conversations about music with a like-minded co-worker at a shi-TAY job we both despised. I know, it's hard to even imagine such a scenario. Working a job you hate? How unrealistic. Nonetheless, it happened, and me and my pal Dean kept ourselves sane by debating earth-shattering topics such as the nascent geopolitical subtexts of the most recent Stranglers 45 (e.g., "Did you see the gazongas on that chickadoodle who squirmed out of her top onstage at the Ritz last night?"). When a coworker politely suggested we shut the fuggup and write down our stupid goddamn opinions, it was truly a tiffany. I mean, an epiphany. (Damn typewriter keys. Who keeps moving them?) I should pause here to point out that this all took place in the era of the cut 'n' paste underground, when typewriters, Xerox machines, and Elmer's glue did a fanzine make. Dean and I had a slight advantage. Our shi-tay job consisted of working for a typesetting firm. Weren't no laptops at the time. No desktops. No home computers at all. We worked on computers literally the size of washing machines with removable hard discs holding an astonishing 80mb of data. A dozen or so typesetters tip-tapped on workstations that shared those 80 megs. How fucking quaint.

Anyway, we held a contest, Dean and I, for a name. He won with Away From The Pulsebeat, a moniker I dug immediately. Speaking of moniker, no music mag is complete without a photographer, and for mine I had only to wrassle to the ground my then-galfriend Monica Dee and rub salt-water in her eyes until she agreed to take pics for the nonexistent magazine. Good to go! That is, until Dino got cold feet--or more the point, blue balls. He and his galfriend had a falling out. He wound up moving back to his hometown Chicago, where poosay apparently grows on trees and can be had for the price of a potato. Leaving me with a fanzine title, a photographer, and 80 hungry megabytes of space.

How many issues did you end up doing? You had a good run of artifacts (Mondostereo, 7-inchers et al)
When we had all our goods together to start fanzining, we were feeling a little like John Holmes in a Turkish bath fulla midgets, so it didn't make a lotta sense to just timidly introduce ourselves. "Hi, we're AFTP: Another Flat & Turgid Publication." Instead, we rolled out our first inaugural with a bold-faced lie: Issue No. 1 of AFTP was advertised as our "comeback" issue. The conceit was that this was our second lifetime. Surely you own those killer issues we put out years ago, right, Mojito? Prized by collectors and selling for tall bucks. Don't tell me you don't remember, loser. Call it the not-so-great rock 'n' roll swindle. Bottom line: It worked. With no history or pedigree, in a matter of minutes we had distributors lining up to handle version 2.0 of our "classic" fanzine. Of course, it helped that the damn thing was ho-hum mildly entertaining, and Monica could snap a shutter like nobody's business.

And because doing something well is the best reason to not do it again, we always tried to take it to another level with subsequent issues. Which led to better print quality; free 7-inch records; the Mondostereo compilation album, and live benefit shows at the best club in the history of history, Maxwell's in Hoboken. One little-recognized fact is that all of this took place over a mere four issues. The entire history of AFTP can be summed up on the fingers of a bad Yakuza. If there's a secret to our success, it's that we were the right people in the right place at the right time. Indie/alternative/underground/whatdafuck music in the mid-to-late 1980s was as strong, serious, aggressive, antagonistic, impressionistic, artistic, anti-artistic and playful as anything from the heydays of blues, R&R, garage, psychedelia or punk.

And then, sadly, there was Nirvana.

Ahhhh, sensei! I see where this is going. When did you stop?
I can tell you the exact moment AFTP ended. My buddy Greg was visiting from Tokyo or Hong Kong or wherever he was working at the time, and as usual, we rendezvoused in a titty bar in Newark. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the post-disco and hair-metal anthems split like the Red Sea before Moses, and outta nowhere, the platinum blondies began bumping their poles to the beat of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Life hasn't been the same since.

Every once in a while I pull out the cassette tape I made of Nirvana's early gig at Maxwell's and try to like it, and every time I fail. Nobody was more surprised than me to hear their commercial breakthrough, and Thor knows, nobody was more surprised than me to discover that I actually liked their major-label spew.

The problem wasn't Nirvana. The problem was everything else. My Bronx chum Roland tells me that Nirvana changed the world for the better on his turf, where the 1980s meant tough guidos in mascara and hairspray. Once Nirvana broke, suddenly flannel was in and poseurs were passe. Me, I couldn't have hated the 1990s more. Everything I used to like about music and culture--everything that used to be isolated to people who were into these things because they were genuinely into these things--all of it became a new fashion, a way to sell magazines and move units. The heart disappeared and in its place we had Green Day. And Tool. And Helmet. And, and, and. And that's when I pulled a Rumplestilstkin. Thank you, no. I'm goin' to sleep. Wake me for Armageddon. (Editors note: I think he means Rip Van Winkle, or his son, Robbie Van Winkle.) I folded the mag and breathed a sigh of relief that I no longer had to deal with the Satan spawn that are magazine distributors. Perhaps the only saving grace in the demise of literacy is that most of those yellow-stained ball-sucking leeches have been driven outta business.

You stopped doing AFTP, but you were contributing to various fanzines. What have you been doing all these years since?
Scott Crawford [former publisher of Harp, now CEO of the online mag Blurt]in Maryland was the first to seek me out, and I wrote and ultimately served as contributing editor for his mags Noiseworks and Bent. Billy Childish sent me an illustration that became the header for one of my columns. It was in Scott's mags that I started playing around with non-music writing. Back in AFTP I had a catch-all closing column called Shock! Horror! Boobs! Blood! where I scribbled about books, movies, comics and whatnot, but for Scott I went totally off-topic and spooted stories like the one about the poosay industry in Asia (title: Babes in Thailand).

Mike Weldon was the next fella to ring me up and ask if I was interested in laying down words for his mag. I'd known Mike since he used to hand-write the Xeroxed fanzine Psychotronic, at that time a weekly guide to obscure and oddball flicks showing on NY broadcast TV (pre-cable, y'see). We used to bump into each other in basement clubs on St. Marks Place or screenings in Queens where Ted Mikels or H.G. Lewis flicks were showing. Remember, back then, those were the only places to catch dusty cult flicks. No videotape. It was a different universe, Tonto.
Starting with issue two of Psychotronic Video Magazine, I had a regular column devoted to record reviews. Yes, I said "record," not "CD." I was one of the last holdouts for vinyl, kinda like those Japanese soldiers in Borneo who hid in the jungle for 40 years and refused to acknowledge that WWII was over. Eventually, of course, all those soldiers packed it in and became CEOs at Honda and Sony, and now I have a Sony CD player in my Honda and that's that. The world moves on. Daniel Clowes drew me a pic that became the header of my column. And I continued to listen to music I despised and write increasingly cranky reviews about it. Ultimately, Mike, who knew my interests well, grabbed me by the lapel and shook me till my diamond cufflinks rattled. "You hate this stuff," said he. "It's your column. Why don't you write about what you're passionate about?"

It was, needless to say, a "duh" moment. So I did. Gotta hit the rewind here to explain what it was that had snagged my passion after the Nirvanification of the underground. The answer: Asia. Back in the 1980s, Hong Kong cinema owned my eyeballs. Starting with John Woo and Jackie Chan, of course, but spreading from there like Ebola on steroids. American cinema was in a period as fallow as American music, but overseas there was an electricity so strong, it reinvented the entire language of film. Sadly, we all know where that led: to the co-opting of everything unique and interesting; the absorption of Asian action into Hollywood film; the cannibalization of the Hong Kong film industry; the slick commercialization of a wild guerrilla style and the death of yet another individualistic regional identity for the greater good.

But back in the day, when HK cinema was in its prime, I went hog-wild writing about it for Psychotronic, and ultimately a boatload of other places like Asian Cult Cinema, Hong Kong Superstars, Thunder and Kung Fu magazines, TV Guide's website and their annual Motion Picture Guide, and various other books. I also began working with international film festivals as a programmer and wrote for their festival guides.

Be honest: Do you have the slightest inclination to check out any new music?

Music? What's that? Art before the whores.

The Dogs Don't Like The Smell Of Your Children.

2008-12-05T10:33:00.006-05:00

Meet Audrey. She is my eldest child, an ebony-tickedOriental Shorthair cat. It's funny how when I'm on the computer at home, she will howl at me until I spin toward her so she can jump on my lap to "check her email." She's the kind of cat who likes to take swings at the television screen when she sees something on Animal Planet that pisses her off. Because she can't get her slap-happy paws on whatever's on the screen, she will actually walk behind the set and see if the object of her curiosity is hiding back there. She's like, eight pounds and fearless. Forget Beyonce: Audrey is Sascha Fierce.

But what's really interesting is that Audrey rocks hard. When I go downstairs to shovel out the listening room that's under construction, she insists on coming with me. When the stereo is on, she hangs with her dad, jumping on top of the speakers (I have free-standing, old-skool Bose speakers and not some 5.1 Whaddafack nonsense). What's great about the kitty girl, is that she's down with anything her old man plays. I have seen her smile and whip her tail simultaneously to disparate titles as Saturday Night Wrist and The Black Parade. She once stared at the speaker cabs warily while Mindless Self Indulgence was in rotation, convinced the band were actually rolling around in there. But what really gets me is how she responds to music in the extreme metal/hardcore/grind/noise quadrangle: She rubs her face on the speaker and naps. Or, if I'm going through boxes of books, bills and magazines, she'll curl up between dad's kneecaps and snooze. But when the sonic onslaught ends, she wakes up, either suddenly or gradually with a HECS. (That's Highly Effective Cat Stretch in the Pettigrewdian nomenclature.) This week, she was inexplicably content around the recent discs from '90s nihilist attitude rockers Harry Pussy (please hold your groaning; I realize puns are the lowest form of humor) and The Order Of The False Eye, the latest from Florida tech-metal maelstrom Gigan. I have absolutely no theories on why this is. Could it be that the frequencies of some of these recordings are horrific to some (aka Mrs. Pettigrew), but positively blissful to other species? I personally know people who can't sleep unless they have a white-noise source running in their bedroom (a small table fan, the hum of a small refrigerator, an air conditioner set on fan operation); do animals respond that way to music?

Meet Bowie, my eldest Shetland sheepdog. He's not a guard dog as much as he's an "alarm" dog. (If somebody five blocks up the street slams a car door, he's barking like a maniac.) I have seen him get in front of my wife and his sister (our other Sheltie, Louise) to stand down a free-roaming, aggressive pit bull until I came by to chase the bastard off. He's loyal to his fam and I love him more than some members of my extended family. He is positively TERRIFIED by the stereo. He can be downstairs hanging with me, but as soon as I put something on--even the most austere tracks imaginable--he is back up the stairs like he just remembered there was a 30-ounce ribeye waiting in his dog bowl. That one I can't explain. Is his hearing more sensitive and acute, therefore any spectrum of significantly amplified sound works his nerves?

Maybe he prefers Nickelback. Hey, kids always rebel against their parents, right?

Jerry's Electric Church

2008-12-03T10:37:00.004-05:00

Today Scott Heisel will come into my office and say, "Why haven't you blogged in close to a week? What's your problem? Blog, dammit." Tim Karan solicits his readership for topics of scintillating interest while wearing a primitive cardboard sign with the phrase WILL BLOG FOR LOVE scrawled on it. I keep telling him the readers can't see it unless he jpegs that shit up, but some people are simply too proud. Now me, I have honest-to-God topics. What do I have on deck? Well, there's my fave band in life; chat about the new influx of British bands; girls (and who doesn't like girls?); favorite Christmas songs (although you'll probably demand plenty of soundfiles for that installment, I bet); two Killer Born Man installments; all my fave discs of the year; where I get my obtuse blog titles from... that's a week's worth of cyber-babble there, right?

But while I've got drafts of all of those things compiled and near completion, they aren't done. You could make the same parallel to musicians who give some close friends some demos and then said tracks end up online. Or maybe you want to see that new Will Smith movie, but it's too cold to go out to the theater. So you find a digitized copy of it on the 'net, where you are treated to guys getting up to go to the concession stand and the outlaw cameraman filming the thing falling asleep. It doesn't matter that the sound is bad, the lighting is terrible and the whole experience is nowhere near studio-grade. You got to see it for free!

Computer technology brings the world to your fingertips. At times, it renders said world in a less-than-optimum experience, whether it's compressed mp3 files or grainy 'n' glitchy film bootlegging. But because having the experience didn't require anything on your part (read: It didn't come out of your PayPal account), you settle for sub-par work. But let's take this out of the realm of art and put it into a journalism perspective. Because the net is so immediate, there's no way a magazine or newspaper can "break" stories anymore. At this point, all those organs can offer is analysis of what's happened. We used to fight about this stuff all the time in AP staff meetings: Do we want to have the FIRST story or do we want the BEST story? Does any of that matter to a culture obsessed with being online?

I will do my best to be more diligent in filling up this space in the future. But first I gotta check facts, scan images, chat with people who specialize in certain fields and maybe get an imeem account to offer you some more evidence for whatever kind of psychobabble I'm espousing. If you're taking your time to check up on my sorry ass, then I should step up my game with a little more than a list of what I'm listening to, who's pissed me off that week or significant return-key abuse to illustrate some kind of implied afterthought.

Which reminds me: I'm late getting Tim my copy for next week's List feature. So enjoy this ironic photo and I'll see you in a few.

The Pilgrims' Revenge

2008-11-26T14:32:00.002-05:00

Excuse me while I get into my Wayback Machine: I wasted most of my twenties working for a crappy record store chain. The experience left me with a) a breadth of information about other music than the stuff I obsess about, b) a working knowledge of how NOT to run a business, and finally c) a well-developed sense of misanthropy that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. The situation also left me with a complete phobia of shopping malls from Thanksgiving to December 31. Seriously, if you see me in a mall in the next few weeks, it's because I lost a bet with my wife.

The thing about shopping malls that really grips my shit is the consistently early arrival of Christmas decorations/sales/brainwashing (Jack-O-Lanterns riding in sleighs, turkeys building toys in Santa's workshop etc.) every year. It's like Thanksgiving means absolutely nothing to people, barring those parades with the big balloons that Macy's always bankrolls. I've always felt the pilgrims got a raw deal, watching the hard work and sacrifices they made for a better life for their families to be relegated as The Day Before The Busiest Shopping Day Of The Year. Longtime readers of AP may remember a small feature we used to do in the front of the book called "The Pilgrim's Revenge." That was my doing: I made all the editors make a list of what they were thankful for that year and why. Yeah, there was eye-rolling, fidgeting and some smartassed "Why are we doing this again" comments. I think I demanded three installments before I grew weary of the "uuuuuhhhhh, do we gotta do this AGAIN" moaning.

I still think Thanksgiving needs more respect. Most of us stuff ourselves, lapse into a food coma, wake up and repeat the process again two more times before the EnormoMart opens at 4 am Friday. We should be thankful for so much. Like the friends and family who put up with your bullshit 365 days of year simply because the state where you live doesn't have those "safe haven" laws like they do in Nebraska. Give thanks for the computer technology that hosts the message boards where you can anonymously post how much you hate [insert band who could care less about your mewling here] without retribution! Give thanks for the oh-so-very-important stuff that keeps you from worrying about real problems.

So until pilgrim chic becomes the next steampunk trend ("Dude, check it out: Hot Topic is selling musket replicas!") and a wave of underground bands start teaming up for Thanksgiving compilation albums, I'm just going to sit back and be thankful in silence. Don't worry: I promise I will go back to becoming a total and complete bastard after this Thursday. But for the next 24 hours, I'm going to savor every laugh, smile, fork of food and pleading look from Shelties wanting turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Even you, Kevin Seconds.