What do you want me to blog?

A few months ago, I wrote a 10 Essential list for the magazine titled "10 Essential Alternate-Universe Hit Singles." While I'm super-confident in the songs I picked, I do feel a bit silly because the whole impetus for that list was accidentally left off of it.

I'm talking about one of my favorite songs of all time: "What Do You Want Me To Say?" by the Dismemberment Plan.

For those unfamiliar with the band, they were a post-punk quartet out of Washington, D.C., who, for a time, were the biggest thing in the indie underground (ca. 1999-2002 or so). They were signed to and dropped from Interscope Records without ever releasing a full-length; the record they made on Interscope's dime, Emergency & I, they were able to take from the label at no cost and release on indie label DeSoto Records. I only got to see the band once: It was around April 2002, I believe; the band had just finished their "Death And Dismemberment" co-headlining tour with Death Cab For Cutie, and played a one-off, free show at a coffee shop about a half-hour from where I went to college. I was actually only familiar with their latest (and final) album at the time, Change, but I'd always heard good things about their live show, so a bunch of us piled into my 1991 maroon Plymouth Sundance and headed to the gig.

The coffee shop in question had no stage, so the band -- who were accustomed to drawing 1000+ people on any given night of the tour they just finished -- set up their gear on the carpeted floor in front of a few tables and maybe 150 people, and tore into their set like there was no tomorrow. My friend Greg, who was a big D Plan fan already and knew Emergency & I like the back of his hand, would nudge me every time they played a song off of it, so I knew what I was missing. When they played "What Do You Want Me To Say?" I remember just being completely floored at the absolute power of this song, and yet it contained an ever-present pop hook throughout the whole thing. After the show ended (with singer/guitarist Travis Morrison dry-humping a particularly unenthused patron who had previously pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of the band), I immediately went out and tracked down this album, and was amazed at how well the song translated both live and recorded.

How Interscope didn't hear "What Do You Want Me To Say?" and immediately rush it out to radio is beyond me, because this song legitimately could have been huge. Maybe it's rap-metal's fault. Either way, click the "play" button below and discover your new favorite song by your new favorite band.

Pork & blogs.

I'm gonna write a more fleshed out blog later tonight, I think, but really quick -- how incredibly awesome is that new Weezer video, anyway? I love it! It might actually be my favorite video of theirs they've ever shot, and the scene at the very end where they pump their fists in the air triumphantly gives me chills in the nerdiest way possible. Goddamn, I love this band:

Also, as a follow-up to my last blog, lest you doubt I actually was a moron and wore shorts to a night baseball game in 50-degree weather:

Good lord, I feel like Gulliver surrounded by the Lilliputans.

Take me out to the bloggame.

Last year, we decided to have each department at AP -- art, editorial, advertising and circulation -- put together a party for the rest of the company every quarter. And although we were two months late with our execution (blame the AP Tour!), editorial finally threw ours tonight in the form of a picnic and baseball game between the Indians and Texas Rangers. We ended up losing 13-9 (and the game took, like, 15 hours to end -- Tim and I actually skated at the top of the ninth, our butts were numb from the bleachers), but it was awesome to have almost everyone from the office come out, munch on some hot dogs, drink a few brews (bottled water for me, thanks) and crack jokes for a few hours.

Of course, out of all 20 or so of us, I was the only moron to wear shorts in 50-degree weather. So I was a bit on the chilly side the whole night. (Thank goodness for delicious funnel cake to keep me warm!)

Towards the end of the game, a familiar song came over the PA: P.O.D.'s "Alive." In case you don't remember what it sounds like, check the video:



I was never one for rap-rock/nu metal/whatever you want to call it (the amount of Korn and Limp Bizkit CDs in my collection has steadily remained at zero my entire life), but I always had a soft spot for this song, especially its chorus. I told Tim this tonight while it was playing and he just sort of looked at me funny, but you know something? Whatever. Music is music. If it hits you in that certain way which makes you excited to be hearing it, then who cares what it sounds like? I'm certainly not going to rush out and buy Satellite tomorrow (besides, knowing Tim's CD collection, he already owns it and I could just rip it from him), but for a minute or so tonight, my mind jumped back seven years to when this song first came out, and it just made me smile a little.

Spooky side note: Did you know that P.O.D. album came out on September 11? Like, the September 11? Kinda weird when you think about the lyrics to the song.

Okay, I've definitely exceeded my annual amount of "giving credibility to nu-metal bands" word count, so don't expect much more of that on here (although maybe I could turn this blog into a "Remember that awesome '90s one-hit wonder?"-themed journal where I reminisce about Smash Mouth's first album, how awesome Harvey Danger was and still is, why Semisonic was totally underrated and the time I saw Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray get struck by lightning). My parents are coming into Cleveland tomorrow (well, technically today, I guess) to help me do some housework, and presumably buy me groceries and put gas in my car. Not much changes from college, really.

Misery blogness.

First off: Yes, I will be working the word "blog" into every song title I use for subjects on this lil' thing. We should end up with some cringeworthy ones eventually ("Wake Me Up When September Blogs" was my original idea for this entry but I quickly vetoed it), but that will be part of the roller coaster ride you and I will be taking over the next 50 or so years, dear reader. Yes, I said 50. If I'm not blogging on my deathbed, then you reserve the right to raid my CD collection for your own personal business. Not the vinyl, though. Leave the vinyl alone.

Today's subject line has a bit of a double meaning. In the literal sense, today Paramore announced the dates for their headlining tour this August with Jack's Mannequin and Phantom Planet, and I, for one, was excited to see Cleveland on the routing. I'm still not in love with Riot! like seemingly the rest of the world, but I do quite enjoy seeing Hayley & Co. do their thing live -- as a fellow drummer, I always find myself locked on Zac Farro, with a ton of respect and admiration for someone that young coming this far already with their instrument (and yes, a tinge of jealousy, too -- the coolest music-related thing I had done by age 17 was have my old pop-punk band open for a very, very young Alkaline Trio, which I still brag about to this day, but it's not nearly as cool as having a freakin' gold record with your name on it).

Many of you have been complaining that Jack's Mannequin aren't playing your date of the Paramore tour. Well, I'm going to pull the curtains back on a little music-industry secret. (Would you look at this -- it's only my second blog and already I'm bringing The Man down from the inside.) When a band is currently on one tour but has another tour after that booked and both tours will be playing in or around the same city, they aren't allowed to announce the second show until the first one's done. A perfect example is last year when Brand New announced their fall tour with Thrice and mewithoutYou, but strangely, San Diego and Chicago shows were left out of the routing, even though there were open dates in the routing where those cities would normally fall. Upon further investigation, it turned out the band already had festival gigs booked in both cities before the fall tour was to even begin, and wouldn't you know it, the day after each one of those festivals ended, a Brand New headlining show was "magically" confirmed and announced. The reason bands do this is because if they had two confirmed shows in the same city within a month or so of each other, it could hurt the attendence of one (or maybe even both) of the shows.

So what does this have to do with Jack's Mannequin? Bear with me.

JM are doing a stint on Warped Tour this summer, including playing Montreal, Toronto and Cleveland -- three cities where Paramore just announced tour dates without Jack's Mannequin on the bill. How much do you want to bet that the day after each one of those Warped dates, Jack's are magically added to the Paramore bill? See, if they were already announced now, you might just skip buying a Warped ticket because you'll know you'll see them with Paramore, or vice versa, and no one wants that. (Seriously, if you don't buy a ticket to Warped Tour this summer, I don't think I can let you read my blog anymore. Have you seen this year's lineup? Talk about stacked!)

Keep in mind I have no physical evidence to prove this will happen, but I have a gut feeling it will, and my gut is rarely wrong. I mean, it's a pretty big gut, so if you figure the bigger your brain is, the smarter you are, than my gut's like Albert Einstein. Or something.

And now that I look at Paramore's tour routing some more, I notice they have some pretty random off-days, too -- for example, they don't have a show on August 3 or 4, yet they're in Arizona on the 2nd and Little Rock on the 5th. You have to drive through Texas for that. How much do you wanna bet once Paramore finishes their five-show stint on Warped this July -- which, surprise surprise, includes all three Texas stops -- they'll confirm a show in the Lone Star State?

See, this is what you get when you peruse my blog, dear readers. You get exclusive insight no one else can give. Or maybe I'm completely talking out of my ass and this is just one musical conspiracy theory I'm inventing. I guess time will tell.

Oh, and as for the second part of the two-sidedness of today's headline: My stomach's been hurting all week long, which has put me into a bit of (you guessed it) misery. I think it's from that big bag of Sour Patch Kids Tim gave me on Monday which I promptly ate in about a half-hour. Oy.

I will possess your blog.

Greeting and salutations, altpress.com readers. Scott's the name, music editing's the game.

Music editing's the game... the name's Scott.

(Five points to anyone who got that obscure reference taken from a short-lived animated series now in reruns on Adult Swim.)

Now that the scoreboard's officially underway, I thought I'd say hello to all of you people who apparently have run out of all other pages on the internet to peruse. You may remember me from such blogs as the AP Tour blog, as well as... Well, that's kind of it. I used to have a LiveJournal but it's long dormant, ever since I realized a grown-ass man should not be writing in a freaking LiveJournal. (That's what my Xanga is for! Amirite amirite amirite?)

In an effort to make us editors more "personable" (read as: less scary and/or apt to wet ourselves in public), we've all started blogs to keep you up to date on just what it is we do every month while putting together our magazine.

To be honest, I'm still not sure what I do on a day-to-day basis, outside of play online RISK, nerd out about vinyl and listen to the Hold Steady's new album a shit ton. I guess at some point I plan out, assign, edit and write the music reviews section, but it's also possible I've been paying off the cleaning crew that comes in every other weekend to do that for me. Don't tell my bosses.

So what can you expect from this blog, dear reader? Well, I'm not quite sure yet. I do know that I don't have much of a social life outside of listening to/writing about/watching live music, which leaves me with plenty of free time to update you about just what it is I'm rocking and just what I really think about it. Think of this blog as the "Too hot for TV!" version of the magazine. Like, with a spaghetti wrestling match and everything. We're checking IDs at the door, and don't even think about slipping me a fake -- if you do, I'll make you listen to All Time Low's "Umbrella" 100 times in a row. Sure, it might sound good the first 67 or so times, but as our director of new media, Rob Ortenzi, can tell you, it will eventually drive a person mad.

I'm sure there will be plenty of other entertainment-related ramblings in here, too (like how great The Office is, how I love Lost even though I don't really get it and why Sports Night was simultaneously the best and most underrated television show of all time); and of course, no matter what I write, I want to hear your counterpoint. If you agree with me, say so; if you disagree with me, say so, too (and leave your address, so I can come play "Umbrella" for you a few times...).

Goddamn, seriously, the new Hold Steady record is the jam times 10. Are you ready for it? They just posted a new song, "Sequestered In Memphis," on their myspace. You know what to do!