“We pretty much stay out of it, but seeing so many people come out for Obama, I just felt like ‘What the hell, I might as well raise my hand for this side,” Perry said from his Duxbury home.

The Bay State rockers have done a few fund-raisers for the Kennedy family over the years, but Perry’s endorsement of McCain marks a first for the platinum-selling guitarist/songwriter. A lifelong Republican, he said he was inspired to come forward because of ringing McCain endorsements from Rudy Giuliani and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’ve been a hardcore Republican my whole life,” he told the Herald.

The McCain campaign is well pleased:

Of the rocker’s endorsement, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: “Joe Perry is an icon of rock-and-roll and a great American. John McCain absolutely appreciates his support.”

This is the first time I've thought of the word "Aerosmith" since I accidentally watched part of Armageddon about a year ago.

There's good news on the Joe the Musician front, too: Joe the Plumber is not pursuing the country-music record deal that was offered to him:

"Joe the Plumber" seems to be creating a bona fide brand for himself.

But as to rumors that he's being pursued for a country music record deal, Joe Wurzelbacher says he doesn't know if the American people are quite ready for his crooning.

"I love country music, and I mean it's pretty much what I listen to from sun-up to sundown," he told FOX News on Thursday. "But as far as me being a country music star, I don't know. I don't think people are that deaf-tone out there."

Time will tell.

As Paul Constant has pointed out here, "Womanizer" is a terrible word to hang a chorus on. It sounds so mechanical or procedural, like "fertilizer" or:

(For contrast consider the central noun of R. Kelly's "I'm a Flirt"—it's short and sweet, it has a little clipped chirp to it, and it rhymes with many more applicable words for a love/pop song: shirt, skirt, dirt, hurt, pert.)

Some other obvious choices for worst chorus: "I Kissed a Girl," "Low," "Lollipop." Of course, these are all mainstream acts, but no one ever said "worst indie rock choruses of the year," although I'm sure there's plenty more atrocious choruses from that camp. It's early, so help me out, what songs had even worse choruses this year?

^{*I like this chorus, but it's far from my favorite part of Skeletal Lamping. Right now, my favorite part of the record is on "Women's Studies Victims," when Kevin Barnes sings, "She draped me in a stole," another voice (Barnes again?) asks, "what kind," and Barnes replies, "I think Malaysian mink." It doesn't read so hot on paper, but when punctuated with distorted guitar and lysergic mariachi horns, it's awesome. Unfortunately, at the Of Montreal show I caught in NY someone's mic wasn't turned on, so there was no "what kind" for Barnes to answer; note to Showbox SoDo sound guys: please don't flub this part (or for that matter the similar conversation in "Triphallus, To Punctuate!"). That's all about this band for a while, I promise.}

Here are some other recent examples that come to mind.

Verve : "Love Is Noise"
I hate that, even though it's a likable and improbably successful comeback single that sounds nothing like anything they've done before, Richard Ashcroft nearly ruins it in the first few seconds with his vocal imitation of the odd, dehumanized, and quite interesting electro-choir sample lining the floor of the entire song. Like he's making fun of his own band. "Woo-woo woo-woo woo!" he sings, "Ahh-ahh ahh-ahh ahh!"
[Video]

TC : "Where's My Money [Caspa Remix]"
I hate the rambly bit of the sample, sandwiched between the phone-dial and the title quote, that sounds more The Muppets than menacing, and keeps one of the most exciting and threatening dubstep efforts of the year from being one-hundred percent immense.
[Video]

London Elektricity : "Attack Ships On Fire"
I don't like how the song, which isn't a cover of the Revolting Cocks track, is a fine enough circles-under-the-eyes slice of liquid-funk drum & bass peppered with army-ready temple stomps, but chucks in a sample of Rutger Hauer from 'Blade Runner' as if it's never been endlessly done before, like it's a first-year college student staying up all night with roommates linking sex with death.
[Video]

The Streets : "The Escapist"
I hate half of the whole song. Mike Skinner's verses are so off-puttingly off-hand, so anti-melodic, that you nearly don't realize how lovely and enduring the gushing chorus is, all bittersweet abandon, staying in the bloodstream long after it's gone.
[Video]

Annie : "What Do You Want (The Breakfast Song)"
I hate how, well, wait. It's brilliant.
[Video]

I hate that Kanye West says "Me likey" in "Stronger."

I hate the way Rocky Votolato rolls the R when singing "excuses r-r-r-r-ring out loud" on the Waxwing song "Everything's on Fire."

I hate the lyrics to "Days of Phoenix" by A.F.I. I love the way the song sounds, but I hate that Davey Havok sings "I remember when I was told a story of crushed velvet, candle wax, and dried up flowers." Such a dumb lyric.

Speaking of dumb lyrics, I also hate the lyric "Am I late to the kingdom of love?" in Jeremy Enigk's "City Tonight." But the song has a great eerie, new wave quality, so I still listen to it.

Sometimes even great songs have their flaws.

The Crystal Method?

Irritating, fruitless cash-ins to the '90s Big Beat success, these are the same people who milked the formula inside bog-standard rhythms and the most hollow theatrics in dance music without ever wondering why they couldn't get any of it right. And here they are missing the point again.

As election time nears, THE CRYSTAL METHOD—who are Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland—have remade the song utilizing a sample of Obama’s “Now is the time…” statement from his speech.

The Crystal Method, though, are the Alan Keyes to the Chemical Brothers' Barack Obama.

None of the charisma, none of the talent -- a bad cover version -- but thrown into the face of the public in the Senate race of 2004 by a political party that thought people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Analogies '08!

The Stranger’s excellent columnist Christopher DeLaurenti (The Score) moderates a panel consisting of yours truly, Dale Lloyd (and/OAR and the Phonographers Union), TJ Norris (Signal to Noise and MIT/Leonardo Magazine), Todd Burns (NA Editor for Resident Advisor), Robert Crouch (co-director and curator of Bleeding Edge Festival and Volume Projects) and Lusine (Ghostly International recording artist). It promises to be a very stimulating hour of prognosticating and pontificating.

Full press release after the jump.

Via Joystiq

A reader writes:

Stranger,

So, what fuck is even throwing 'New Faces' in with legit, working, GOOD rock (indie, whatever) bands in Seattle.

Sure, let's give the kids some cred. Let's support or youthfull songsters.... but in the grand scope of Seattle bands, or more importantly, GOOD seattle bands, let's just go ahead and get over this finicky, bullshit, scene crap. Everyone wants to be 17, 18, and live in some kind of indie-rock glory, but let's (the stranger) pull our shit together, actually live up to our grand reputation, and write about music that really matters.

-Anonymous
Seattle

Way to make a stand, uh... anonymous. Mr. Anonymous! Very... brave... anonymous person!

…by miles. Find it in the August issue of The Wire, the one with Tricky on the cover (I’m a bit behind in my reading; forgive me, I just moved).

On page 60 in the British magazine’s Avant Rock column (the review isn’t online), critic David Keenan rips No Age something fierce. “Deeply ordinary alternative rock murk and lightweight instrumental fluff” [can something be murky and fluffy?]; “There’s a fairly diverting use of loops here, an eruption of fuzz guitar there, but it all seems so diluted, so lite, that it plays more like a Wikipedia entry than a rock record.” Keenan then delivers the deathblow: “these guys… dress like punks from a Madonna video.” Meow.

I think Keenan is offbase with his No Age slags (and so did my Stranger colleague Eric Grandy), but what do you expect from a guy who played in the deadly dull Telstar Ponies and mistakenly puts an apostrophe in Trumans Water’s name?

But the absolute worst: any kind of Effect, Explosion, Fiasco, Experiment, Collective, or Situation.

Starts innocently enough with the official report by Dallas' Village Voice Media paper, hours before the show was to start:

According to [club co-owner Ben] Tapia, Reatard was far too inebriated to perform. "He stumbled out of [our club] with these two girls," Tapia says. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was passed out on their couches right now." Adds Tapia: "His band is pissed."

The guy who booked the gig had more to say on his own blog: Jay started the night off with a feud with an opening band from Texas. Then he threw a glass at that band in the green room, and then began pleading with club ownership to let in a girl he'd met "earlier that day on MySpace." When asked for ID, she responded she didn't have any, but to verify her age, she tried to insist that she worked at a local strip club. And then the pre-exit tantrum:

He is rich now and likes to remind people of that fact. My favorite quote by him: “You know how much money I have in the bank?” Actually, yes; $250,000 courtesy of Matador Records.

End with accusations of a 12-hour coke binge and a quest for $55 of LSD, stir, spill onto Internet, sip loudly. Good thing he kept his shit together at Block Party long enough to get on stage and, well, earn dat money.