I'm blogging to you today straight from the Mecca of beard-punk, Gainesville, Florida, as I'm preparing to attend what is the best annual festival in America (in my oh so humble opinion):
"Stoked" doesn't even begin to describe the mood I'm in right now. Of course, I'm not just down here to get all sweaty singing along to Bomb The Music Industry! and Polar Bear Club; I'm also here to shoot a whole bunch of video for AltPress.com, similar to what I did for Riot Fest. While I've already made a pretty ridiculous schedule already, I want you to tell me who you want to see live footage of. Take a gander at the schedule or the poster above, and leave a comment telling me who you want me to track down.
Gotta run -- even though the Fest doesn't officially start until tomorrow, there's a "pre-Fest" show about a block from my hotel starting in a few minutes, and it looks like it's going to totally destroy:
First off, thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on my previous blog. If you're wondering what happened to my previous blog (and why there's a picture of old Ben Kenobi in its place), the particulars aren't interesting; the short version is that what I wrote was taken massively out of context by a few other online outlets and instead of letting the bad vibes flow, I just figured I'd put a stop to it. But still, thank you all for commenting. Your feedback was invaluable, seriously.
In other news, today was a great day for America: It was Steal A Base, Steal A Taco day, the bizarre promotional brainchild of Taco Bell and the World Series (you know, that thing with the two teams no one really cares about playing in the rain for what feels like forever). I don't have the answer to the hows and the whys, but what I do know is this:
Need a close-up? To quote Michelle Tanner, you got it, dude:
So yes, I enjoyed my free taco. And I gotta tell you: It tasted a little bit like freedom. I think I saw a bald eagle flying overhead as I bit into its deliciousness.
Did anyone else take advantage of this absolutely pointless yet totally awesome promotion?
Today had a little bit of epic fail and a little bit of epic win in it.
First, the epic fail:
Looks awesome, right? I thought so, too! So I went to the Obama headquarters nearest me to claim my free tickets, and received the devastating news that the tickets -- all 20,000+ of them -- were claimed in under 90 minutes yesterday afternoon when they were first made available.
Fuck.
Then, to pour salt into the wound, I asked if I could get an Obama/Biden sign for my front yard, and they didn't even have any! Slightly frustrating to say the least.
However, moving into the "epic win" category, I woke up this morning to find that Brian Warren fron Weatherbox has posted up another live acoustic video of a new song, this one titled "They're Ready For Us To Come Home And Chill On The Couch." It is, as expected, totally awesome. Check it out:
The Cosmic Drama is easily my most anticipated album of 2009. Soooooo excited to hear what this dude comes up with.
But if that weren't enough win for one day, I also paid a visit to my local supermarket and was greeted with a gigantic display stocked with apple cider. I love apple cider, to say the least, so this almost made up for my missing out on free Jay-Z tickets. (Almost.) Had they also been selling applesauce donuts (also a huge seasonal favorite of mine), I might've forgotten what epic hangs there could've been between me and Hova.
PS - Today's blog title is a shoutout to my friend Josh who always tells me how much he loves my blog titles. Josh is also the world's biggest Huey Lewis And The News fan, so that headline's for him. (He's also the world's biggest Crime In Stereo fan, but that's neither here nor there.)
I'm working on the 10 Essential for our issue out in December, and like last year's, it is focused around 10 essential records by bands who broke up this year. One record I wanted to feature was by a very shortlived band who never even had their own website and was put out posthumously on vinyl only very recently. I think the record is quite good, and the band's pedigree was one that I felt like many of our readers would care about, so I chose to make the album one of the 10. I gave Ted, our art associate, the label's e-mail address so he could request album artwork of a high enough resolution for print, and this is what he received in return yesterday morning:
hi ted,
not sure if you're the right person to email about this, but here goes:
i guess you guys can do whatever you want, freedom of the press and all that, but i would really appreciate if you kept [band name withheld] and [record label name withheld] out of your magazine.
i dont feel comfortable being at all associated with whatever AP's version of "punk" is, and frankly your magazine makes me want to puke. you know, cell phone ads, christian businessmen on your covers, no politics - it's just gross and all very career oriented. how do you even have a copy for review? i sure as hell didn't send you one.
sorry,
-[name withheld]
Maybe it was the cold medicine taking effect (I've felt like various stages of ass all week long), but I absolutely lost it and replied with a near-1,000-word essay/dismantling of his paper-thin (and very petty) attacks. I haven't heard back from the guy yet, and I highly doubt I will, because punk-rock bullies are like every other strain of bullies in the world: Once you confront them and call them on their shit, they generally seep back into the swamp where their parents birthed them.
Anyway, since I'm obviously not punk enough to write about that guy's band, this means I have a spot open in next month's 10 Essential; tell me what was the worst band breakup for you this year -- and which one of their albums was your favorite -- in the comments below. In case you forgot just who called it quits over the past 365, you can find pretty up-to-date lists here, here and here, or you can use our search engine to see what's in our news archives (I recommend searching for "break up" -- just a hint).
Bayside - Shudder Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs Family Force 5 - Dance Or Die The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound Gods Reflex - When It's Down To This Anthony Green - Avalon The Hold Steady - Stay Positive Jack's Mannequin - The Glass Passenger Jaguar Love - Take Me To The Sea Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'Til It Was Light Norma Jean - The Anti Mother Person L - Initial Polar Bear Club - Sometimes Things Just Disappear The Streets - Everything Is Borrowed Torche - Meanderthal Underoath - Lost In The Sound Of Separation Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend Weezer - Weezer
That's it, in terms of records I've actually honestly been enamored with this year. There's a few others on the cusp (the new records from the Loved Ones, Sigur Ros, Verse, Reggie And The Full Effect, Phantom Planet, My Morning Jacket, Foals and the Mars Volta), but for the most part, the above 18 records are what I've spent the majority of the year listening to.
Frankly, I can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed.
There were some definite surprises in there for me (had you asked me a year ago, I never would've thought I'd be putting new albums from Norma Jean, Bayside, Jack's Mannequin and Family Force 5, of all bands, on my top albums of '08 list). But overall, I feel let down at the size of my shortlist. I remember in 2005, I had over 100 albums competing for spots on my top 20; what happened between then and now? Did my tastes just refine themselves more, or am I not spending enough time with more difficult records? Did stuff just completely fly by my rader without me even giving it a chance? I dunno, honestly. And it worries me, since I'm the music editor -- shouldn't my job be to find all these unheard gems and expose them to people? Am I failing at my job because I only really dug into two dozen albums this year? I mean, that is roughly two a week for the whole year; that isn't that bad, is it?
While I wrestle with my place in this company and this world (oh, existentialism is so much fun), I want you to tell me the following:
1. What one record out of the above 18 do you wholly disagree with? 2. What album are you completely head over heels in love with that I've omitted from my list? 3. Do you think I could just say the Clash's Live At Shea Stadium that just came out last week is my No. 1 album of 2008 (since it's so fucking awesome), or is it a cop-out to make a live album recorded over 25 years ago my top dog?
Rather, my moral dilemma is this: I will be attending the Fest 7 in Gainesville, Florida, this year and coincidentally, its first day is Friday, Oct. 31 -- more commonly known as the night the Great Pumpkin appears. As such, my girlfriend and I have concocted what is probably the best costume I've ever been a part of (and that includes my Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker outfit from my junior year of college). We're going as the greatest pair of star-crossed lovers in the history of rock 'n' roll.
Chad and Hayley? (Oh snap, I went there.) But wrong again. We've decided to go as the following:
For those of you who don't habla Espanol, that's a picture of none other than Meat Loaf and Karla DeVito,aka the pair responsible for one of the greatest karaoke jams of, well, ever, "Paradise By The Dashboard Light." I mean just look at the chemistry between these two:
Plus, they're certainly not afraid to bring the rock, something the girlfriend and I strongly believe in:
So what's the dilemma, you ask? Well, as you may notice from the above photos, Mr. Loaf doesn't rock much in the way of facial hair. As you can see from this picture taken mere moments ago, I do. Here's where the dilemma gets really dilemma-riffic, though: The Fest is essentially the Mecca of beard-punks worldwide. If you're not rocking at least a little facial hair (ladies too), you're viewed as a spy from absolutepunk.net trying to ruin good music and treated as such. So here's the $1,000,000 question:
Do I shave my beard off to make my Halloween costume historically accurate at the risk of being ostracized by my friends and colleagues at the Fest??
1. Totally! It's just a beard, it'll grow back. 2. Shave the beard? That's sacrilege, dude! Meat Loaf will never know if you rock your costume with a little extra fur on the face. 3. Shave your beard off to make the costume look as accurate as possible, but to avoid mockery the rest of the weekend, purchase a fake beard to wear on Saturday and Sunday.
Please select one answer below and leave a comment with which one you picked. Vote or die, peeps! And while you're at it, why don't you tell me what you're gonna dress up as this Halloween?
Earlier tonight, I was driving back from Best Buy defeated, having not found a single thing to purchase (seriously, how can there not be a single CD or DVD that's reasonably priced that I want to own? Come on, Best Buy, I'm trying to do my part to help the economy and you're cockblocking me!) when I was lucky enough to experience one of my favorite things not once but twice.
(No, not cheap gas, although petrol is currently a mere $2.68 in Clevo -- quite the change from $4.12 in Chicago over the weekend. If you want me to buy you some and mail it [which I actually think may be a federal offense, but what the fuck, I'm a tru punx], please send money via Paypal to heisel@altpress.com.)
Anyone, one of my favorite things twice. I absolutely am enamored with my iPod when I am driving to a location and the song currently playing comes to its conclusion right as I pull into my parking space and turn the engine off. This, to me, is one of the most beautiful examples of how music can inadvertently score life. Every time it happens, I feel like I'm in a John Cusack movie or something, and tonight, it not only happened when I got to Best Buy (with Sea Wolf's "Black Dirt"), the phenomenon again occurred when I pulled into my driveway (with Sea Wolf's "I'm A Wolf"). Granted, it's not like I had my iPod on shuffle (that would've been truly weird and coincidental), but still, it was a pretty neat experience -- one of those small things in life you never really think about often enough.
The only way to up this experience, in my opinion, is to reach your destination at an album's conclusion. I feel like that is the ultimate in terms of wrapping a journey up. It can psych you up even further if you get to [insert sporting event of choice] here with Andrew W.K.'s I Get Wet closing track "Don't Stop Living In The Red" blasting out your windows, or it can throw a big ol' wet blanket on top of your breakup-induced depression if you're spinning Weezer's Pinkerton on the way home and the last thing you hear as your headlights turn off is Rivers Cuomo crooning, "I'm sorry / I'm sorry / I'm sooooooooorry" in "Butterfly." Moments like this probably happen more often than you think, so I encourage you to keep your ears open and let me know about the next time something lines up for you.
In other news, both the All-American Rejects and Fall Out Boy pushed their new albums back from their respective November release dates to Dec. 16. This could be a pop-punk battle for the ages -- who do you think will sell more records in their first week?
I love, love, love going to festivals. I love seeing a whole horde of bands I may never see live otherwise; I love people-watching; I love seeing how hard the fest organizers work behind the scenes to make sure everything works; and I especially love working the AP booth and meeting people -- not just those who already know what we do and are into it, but those who have no idea what AP is.
This love of festivals brings me to surprisingly sunny and warm Chicago this weekend for the fourth annual Riot Fest, a three-day, multiple-venue celebration of the best of punk, ska and hardcore's past (ALL, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones), present (the Lawrence Arms, Paint It Black) and future (Jay Reatard, Municipal Waste). While I'm excited to watch many of these bands, I'm even more stoked to check out the crowd mixture and see how old-skool punx react to Mr. Reatard, or if plaid-clad skankers will get Valient Thorr's Venutian rock schtick. (I get so giddy when large crowds get exposed to stuff they'd otherwise never check out.)
If you're going to day three of Riot Fest -- that's the big one this Sunday at the Congress, with the Bosstones, ALL, Paint It Black, DOA, the Casualties, Mustard Plug, etc. etc. etc. -- I will be there in full force with our Chicago street team passing out free stickers and buttons, signing people up for free three-month subscriptions to the mag and even giving away a brand spankin' new electric guitar. Swing by our booth and say hi -- we might not have liberty spikes or leather jackets, but punks come in all shapes and sizes, right?
In other news, I'm currently hanging at my ladyfriend's pad waiting for the Lawrence Arms/Bouncing Souls show to start tonight and killing plenty of time by watching a Project Runway marathon. It's supremely entertaining reality TV like this that makes me wish I had cable TV at home. And talk about random: A commercial for the new season of Top Chef just aired, and it was set to Cobra Starship's "The City Is At War." I bet Gabe Saporta is stoked.
We're stuck at work late tonight due to it being the last night of production (this means the issue is due to our printers tomorrow, meaning this is our last chance to catch errors), so instead of transcribing my interviews for our Most Anticipated Albums of 2009 special (holy shit, you talked forever, Cove Reber! You too, Ryan Hunter!), I thought I'd turn to this here blog and post a few things that have nothing at all in common. (Or do they?) (They don't.)
(Or do they?)
(Nope.)
1. The Cross Of My Calling, the new album from the (International) Noise Conspiracy, doesn't just not suck -- it's actually pretty good for a '60s psych-rock throwback record. I'm so incredibly happy this thing sounds virtually nothing like their previous record, Armed Love, which was by all definitions a musical abortion. The Cross Of My Calling comes out Nov. 25 on Vagrant/American.
2. The new Bayside record, Shudder, has been my jam lately--morning, noon and night. I can't get enough of it, especially "The Ghost Of St. Valentine." Seriously, listen to this song and tell me it doesn't completely rule:
The really funny thing is, I was never really a huge Bayside fan until this record. I'd given all their previous albums at least a cursory listen but nothing ever really grabbed me. This one, however, is already in the top tier of my favorite albums of the year.
3. How weird (and rad) is this video?
It's kinda cringeworthy at times, but I do think it's cool to see guys who are probably as old as my dad not only still playing rock music but being up on the times enough to cover a contemporary punk band. I was in a handful of bands before I came to work at AP but none of which ever really took off; I've been craving the chance to play with people again, too, so this gives me hope that no matter how old I get, I should always be able to find a handful of people with the same interests as me that I can jam with.
4. Big ups to Millencolin for inspiring this post's subject line. Check out this live video of them playing "Random I Am" in Brazil (skip to the one-minute mark to get to the rock):
Tim's recent brush with his doppelganger (and then again) has me wondering: Just who out there do I share a name with? So I turned to good ol' Google to track other versions of myself down. I've known about this guy for a while:
Scott E. Heisel is the technical director of the American Malting Barley Association, Inc. (AMBA). Milwaukee, WI. He received B.S. degrees in biochemistry and in agronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. In 1986, he received his M.S. degree in agronomy. He worked for several years at the USDA/ARS Barley and Malt Laboratory and has published several papers on characterizing various enzymes of germinated barley and the use of biochemical techniques to identify barley varieties. Heisel joined AMBA in April of 1987. He is a member of the American Association of Cereal Chemists. As a member of ASBC, Heisel has served as the chairman of Local Section Four and has moderated technical sessions. He chaired the Subcommittee on Deoxynivalenol in Barley and Malt and currently serves as the liaison officer to the AACC.
Pretty fancy, dude. I didn't even know "agronomy" was a real word! When I first discovered that someone with my same exact name was living less than two hours from me when I was growing up, it kind of weirded me out. Then it made me laugh when I realized dude worked in the beer industry and I was straight edge. The ironing is delicious.
(Side note: I wish I was a cereal chemist. Then maybe I could make my Cinnamon Toast Crunch taste even more cinnamon-ish. Maybe the world's not ready for such a thing, though.)
I'm not even the only Scott Heisel in Ohio; apparently, there's one in Cincinnati who workss at a science camp (or at least he did in 2004). This most assuredly is not me, as I am a total moron when it comes to science. There's a great comedy bit by Patton Oswalt called "Physics For Poets" that pretty much sums science up for me:
Apparently I'm not the only Scott Heisel to have played Magic: The Gathering before, but at least I was never nerdy enough to enter a tournament like this guy did. (It's not for lack of wanting; they just never had tournaments by my house growing up.)
And after a good 26 pages of search results, that's just about everything I came up with. It's kind of strange knowing there's someone out there with your exact name, although I imagine it's much, much weirder if you share a name with a celebrity. (I went to high school with a kid named Michael Jackson, and I went to college with a kid named Nick Nolte. Bummer for both of them.)
The Rise Against/Alkaline Trio/Thrice/Gaslight Anthem uber-tour kicked off in Cleveland last night -- inexplicably, at an outdoor venue -- and I was there, clad in a not-nearly-thick-enough Draft hoodie and not-nearly-pants-enough khaki shorts, freezing my butt off for rock 'n' roll. Here's what went down.
The Gaslight Anthem took the stage right at 7 o'clock to a thousand or so early arrivals, who just sort of stared at the band throughout their 27-minute set (dudes, you get a half-hour on this tour -- add another song!). Whether it was the cold keep the crowd's energy back or the lack of a confined space (the venue the tour was at, the Tower City Amphitheatre, doesn't really have walls, so the crowd just sorts of dissolves on the sides instead of being packed in by default because of walls, like any good rock club), the band got very little in terms of crowd response during their set, but when they ended (with a killer version of "The Backseat"), the applause from the growing crowd was pretty thunderous. It might take a week or two before Rise Against fans start buzzing on message boards about "Who was that opening band?" but I guarantee it'll happen. Heck, this was only the first night of the tour but already all three other bands on the bill were taking notice: I personally saw Eddie and Dustin from Thrice, Zach and Joe from Rise Against and Matt Skiba all watching parts of the band's well-played set.
THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM SETLIST: Great Expectations The '59 Sound Wooderson Old White Lincoln Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis? High Lonesome Say I Won't (Recognize) The Backseat
Thrice were up next, and were allotted 40 minutes of stage time. They made the most of it, doing very little (if any) stage banter and delivering note-for-note perfect renditions of songs old and new, popular and obscure -- I've seen this band easily close to two dozen times before, and I'd never seen them play "All That's Left," "Blood Clots And Black Holes" or "The Melting Point Of Wax." Plus, this show was the first time they ever played "The Sky Is Falling" off the latest batch of Alchemy Index EPs, and it was pulled off very well. But the true highlight of their set was their absolutely devastating cover of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter." Take a look:
Seriously, you gotta have some big ol' brass ones to take on John, Paul, George and Ringo, and I think Dustin, Teppei, Eddie and Riley did a magnificent job. The crowd responded in kind, giving the band a "ONE MORE SONG! ONE MORE SONG!" chant when they left the stage after the monstrous "The Earth Will Shake." Consider the show officially stolen.
THRICE SETLIST: The Messenger The Melting Point Of Wax Blood Clots And Black Holes Firebreather Broken Lungs Helter Skelter (Beatles cover) Betrayal Is A Symptom Of Dust And Nations The Sky Is Falling (first time played live, according to Dustin) All That's Left The Earth Will Shake
One of my all-time faves, Alkaline Trio, were also given 40 minutes to deliver a diverse set to an ever-growing crowd. The Trio always does well in Cleveland, and this show was no exception, with some massive sing-alongs on "Cringe," "This Could Be Love" and "Radio." But the real highlight was Matt Skiba's shoes. Seriously, did any of you fellow attendees see those things?
ALKALINE TRIO SETLIST: Private Eye Calling All Skeletons I Lied My Face Off Cringe I Found Away In Vein Warbrain Goodbye Forever Love Love Kiss Kiss Help Me This Could Be Love Radio
At this point in the night, my joints were achy, my feet were damn near numb and my nose was running faster than Usain Bolt. As much as I was enjoying myself, my body was telling my brain, "Hey asshole, can we please go somewhere that's not cold and rainy and that also serves potato skins as an appetizer?" Because of this, I only made it through a small portion of Rise Against's 85-minute(!) set. The songs I heard sounded awesome (even the new single, "Re-Education (Through Labor)," which I think is pretty darn mediocre recorded), and their light show was insane -- they made use of every last inch of Tower City's gigantic stage, and had their own lighting rig in the scaffolding, too. (It's no surprise they're once again traveling with a semi truck to haul their stage gear.) I don't know how they're gonna cram this show into some of the smaller, indoor venues on this tour, but I bet it'll be impressive no matter where it is.
RISE AGAINST SETLIST (partial): Drones Give It All State Of The Union Ready To Fall Injection Re-Education (Through Labor) Chamber The Cartridge
1. My current favorite song is "Heaven For The Weather" off the Streets' new album everything is borrowed (yes, it's purposely lowercase. No, I don't know why). I've never been big into Mike Skinner's slacker white-boy Brit-rap (except for "The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living," off the album of the same name), but this song's beat is the dictionary definition of "infectious." Check it out:
Gotta love that chorus hook, too. everything is borrowed comes out next Tuesday, Oct. 7 on Vice. Go buy it.
2. Zach Tipton, formerly of Moros Eros, just sent me a link to his new band, Young Coyotes, and I gotta say these songs are really good. They remind me of Portugal. The Man, Wolf Parade and even a little bit of the Shins or a stripped-down Arcade Fire. I particularly recommend "Hell Is" and "Momentary Drowning." They're currently unsigned, but I doubt they'll stay that way for long. Tim, if you're reading this, put 'em in AP&R pronto!
3. One of my all-time favorite TV shows (if not my absolute favorite) was this:
I mean, c'mon, just look at that cast! Felicity Huffman pre-Desperate Housewives, Peter Krause pre-Six Feet Under, Josh Malina pre-The West Wing, Sabrina Lloyd pre-Ed, Josh Charles (of Dead Poets Society fame) and Robert Guillaume (aka Rafiki from The Lion King) -- had this show been made today, I doubt producers could afford all of 'em. But this blog isn't meant to convince all of you to watch what is one of the most brilliant television comedies in the history of the genre (seriously, watch this show, it's only two seasons so you can plow through the whole thing in a weekend); I'm instead writing about this show as I got all sorts of weirded out while watching tonight's episode of Law & Order: SVU.
See, tonight's episode featured Josh Charles as a guest star, as well as Teri Polo, best known as Pam from Meet The Parents and its sequel, Meet The Fockers. In my mind, though, I know Teri Polo as Rebecca Wells, Dan Rydell's love interest in the second season of Sports Night. (I know Josh Charles only as Dan Rydell -- I like to pretend S.W.A.T never happened.) And not only were Josh Charles and Teri Polo both guest starring on the same episode of SVU, they were a married couple, Sean and Dana Kelly! "Okay," I told myself, "Danny retired from sportscasting, popped the question to Rebecca and they changed their name to avoid the paparazzi, also having two kids in the process."
Of course, the happy-family bubble I concocted was quickly popped when the storyline of the episode had the couple's older son accused of raping his 5-year-old stepbrother. Then, in retaliation, his father (aka Josh Charles, aka good ol' Danny Rydell) sodomized his son with a homemade baseball bat -- but not before you learn, in an incredibly awkward scene, that good ol' Danny's been using his 5-year-old's T-shirt as a cloth to clean up his semen in the bathroom, as he and his wife are estranged; thus, the police start investigating him for potential molestation.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Thank you for completely and utterly ruining my perception of two of my favorite TV show's favorite characters, NBC! I mean, at least you didn't have either of them kill their pedophile son (that was left up to another pedophile who was mad at him), but otherwise, tonight's episode was a complete and utter mindfuck on so many levels. Has anyone else ever had this problem, where they grow so attached to a character in a TV show that when the actor or actress winds up on another show, you just can't compute it?
