The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Line Out: Staying In

Wisdom Tooth Weekend: Songs For Percocet and Pain

Megan Seling — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:33:15 -0700

UUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH. On Wednesday I have to get my wisdom teeth pulled and I am NOT excited about it. I've never had a tooth pulled before. I hate going to the dentist. I'm terrified.

Thankfully I have a very radical husband who'll help take care of me by making sure the house is stocked with frozen yogurt and pain meds, and I suppose I could look at the bright side and be stoked about the fact that I can catch up on my Netflix queue (it's excusable, ney, preferable to watch shit like Bridalplasty when high on percocet, right?), but until it's time for naps and drugs, I'm filled with anxiety. What if my teeth don't come out? What if ALL my teeth come out?* What if my whole jaw comes off? What if I wake up during the surgery? WHAT IF I DON'T WAKE UP AT ALL!?

Along with the crippling anxiety, I have also had this song stuck in my head for the past week:

Are there any other wisdom tooth tips and/or songs I should know about? I'll make a playlist to listen to when I get tired of watching crappy TV!

*Seriously. I've had nightmares about this.

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"This Music Is Bananas," Says NPR

Anna Minard — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:01:44 -0800

But they mean LITERALLY. Ha-ha! Not hip with the kids, I hadn't heard of this magic machine that makes seemingly anything a keyboard until I was researching farm science on a public radio website. And what was recommended to me? This article, with this video:

I can't tell if this is (a) the most Brooklyn thing ever, i.e., a man with a very deliberate hair situation in a ratty old sweater covering a '90s song on a DIY musical instrument on the hardwood floor of his apartment; (b) pretty adorable—I mean, those GRAPES!—or (c) just the best pun-bait ever. "You give a whole new meaning to the word 'producer,'" reads a top comment. ZING!

However you feel, I personally have a much-preferred musical banana joke...

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Songs About Being Sick

Bree McKenna — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:26:48 -0800

I am finally done with this disgusting cough, with leaving snotty tissues all over my house. But since most of my friends are still hacking away, I felt inspired to make a sick mix. It turns out grunge has a lot of references to cough syrup and being sick without making the whole song about it, but the Ramones win the prize for most lovable straight-up illness songs. Being sick is really punk!

Here's what I came up with:

"You Sound Like You're Sick" - The Ramones
"Touch Me I'm Sick" - Mudhoney
"Hospital" - The Lemonheads
"Amoeba" - The Adolescents
"Fever to Tell" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Cough/Cool" - The Misfits
"Nausea" - X
"Fever" - The Cramps
"I Wanna Be Well" - The Ramones

I made the artistic decision to leave out "Down With The Sickeness," by the Disturbed. Any More?

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Stay In: Ozzy Osbourne: Speak of the Devil, Live from Irvine Meadows '82

Grant Brissey — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700

In Ozzy Osbourne: Speak of the Devil, Live from Irvine Meadows '82, we get full footage of the hour-and-fifteen-minute set. This is less than three months after guitar player Randy Rhoads famously died in a freak plane accident in Florida. He's replaced here by Night Ranger's Brad Gillis, who's no slouch himself, and he gives the requisite guitar solo to prove it. That's followed by Tommy Aldridge's impressive drum solo, for which Osbourne disappears. (He's probably just drinking some water backstage.) Throughout, Ozzy's looking somewhat middle-thick and at times a bit weary/lethargic—he and Rhoads had been good friends and collaborators—but his singing never falters from that powerful and slightly sinister bent.

The gothic stage embellishments and visual effects are gloriously early-'80s, and the A/V quality is ingloriously early-'80s. Unlike the Speak of the Devil record, in which Ozzy recorded an evening of Black Sabbath covers not long after Rhoads's death, here we get fresh Ozzy solo material (e.g. "Mr. Crowley," "Crazytrain," "Flying High Again," etc.), as well as some Sabbath staples. Overall, it's a medium-interesting snapshot of the band rallying from what could have been an insurmountable tragedy. Recommended equipment: Loud-ass entertainment system and a fully loaded bong.

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Midnight Haiku

Sarah Galvin — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:57:06 -0700

When I smash everything in the kitchen with a bat, that’s when I really like you, not like when I get in a children’s bunk bed surrounded by crushed gummy worms with you and realize you’re bald. I most often feel something for you that I know could be expressed with a mixture of these actions, but there is no imaginable way to express what I felt when I realized such a mixture is impossible.

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Hawthorne Stereo's Used Room 10-20-30 Super Sale

Grant Brissey — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:30:10 -0700

Yours Truly
The Used Room is calling your name.

It's been taunting me for weeks now. Hawthorne Stereo, the audiophile's wet dream/nightmare,* on Roosevelt has got this sale going in which you get 10 percent off the first thing you buy in the used room, then 20 percent of the second, and—you guessed it!—30 percent off the third. If I didn't already have two perfectly good stereo systems (one of which I'm considering setting up in the basement with my drum kit because no one will join my new band called Buckaroo Highrise) I probably would have already have fallen victim to this because there is so much great stuff in there that it makes my nerd-brain want to explode into a million bits of data. I finally went in there yesterday for a bit of masochistic self-deprivation—sort of like watching a snowboard video in the middle of summer. TORTURE. The sale ends Labor Day, which everyone knows signals the slow march into the throes of Old Man Winter's seasonal-affective disorder marathon, for which you know you want a great stereo. Consider it an birthday present for someone else that you just took home and plugged in!

Secondly, I was pleased to confirm that Hawthorne carries needles/styluses and they will check yours out for you. This is great news for me, because the current turntable I'm using I found on the side of 10th Ave while jogging about six years ago. There was a note on it that said "Works—just needs new stylus!" But then the guy at J&S told me the stylus was fine.

Two more reasons you should patronize Hawthorne Stereo: 1) Their slogan is "A pretty nice place" and 2) They've been in business since 1946.

See some of the deals that made me want to cry and then work in a more lucrative field after the jump:

Not in the Used Room but still rad.

For a complete list that will make you cry or get in your car and drive there immediately, go here.

*Wet dream if you're in the market for an excellent stereo/nightmare if you're broke

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What is a Boof Boof???

Bree McKenna — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:43:57 -0700

I decided to take a Zumba class the other day, with no prior knowledge of what it was exactly. I discovered that it was mom friendly aerobic-dance fusion, and in the hour-long class of pumped-up music played, I only recognized one song: Beyonce's "Countdown" because one of my roommates has been playing it incessantly. The only line I ever catch in the lyrics is "Me and my boof, and my boof boot riding." Boof Boof? I asked my Beyonce-loving roomate what that meant, and she texted me "a Boof Boof is your Boof." Feeling dissatisfied with that answer and instead of actually listening to the song more, I conducted an informal text poll to determine what some of my friends and acquaintances thought it was:

"It's her pet chihuahua."
"Boof Boof is a modernized Foot Foot from the Shaggs!"
"I think it's a small gay lapdog."
"I have no clue."
"I think it's a boyfriend."
"A shelf butt. A Bouffant?"
"A dance involving the butt."
"A 100% natural loofah from PCC."

What the fuck is a Boof Boof? Someone please tell me.

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Hawkwind: The Documentary

Kelly O — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:42:46 -0700

I didn't know this BBC documentary existed about HK. And it's posted, in it's entirety, on the YT. Rain, be damned.

"It was like Star Trek... with drugs. And long hair." —Lemmy Kilmister

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How Was Gay Pride 2012?

Kelly O — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:06:06 -0700

Kelly O

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Midnight Haiku

Sarah Galvin — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:11:02 -0700

It’s a good thing the education system failed you, or you would have a profession that requires you to wear a tweed coat with leather elbow patches, rather than a shoebox of leather elbow patches under your sink. The accoutrements of even the best jobs lose their novelty before one can appreciate them enough to rub them all over one’s body while reading The Economist.

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John Peel For All

Dean Fawkes — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:33:13 -0700

We're not all John Peel, but we can now pretend.

The Independent writes:

It is a record collection that any vinyl enthusiast would covet. From obscure German techno to Appalachian folk music, to the latest sounds in the rock and pop world; the thousands of carefully catalogued albums owned by the late DJ John Peel literally have something for everyone.

From this week, music fans will get the opportunity to sift through the diverse collection, as a new online museum devoted to his revered collection is made available.

The project, co-funded by the Arts Council and the BBC, will see information on some of the 26,000 vinyl albums Peel amassed over his career put on a web-site. Each week, over the next 26 weeks, details of 100 albums will be released, alphabetically. Due to the sheer size of Peel's collection, it was decided to release 100 per week.

Sheila Ravenscroft, John Peel's widow, said: 'There'll be information about the record sleeve, front and back, all the information about the record itself, as well as whether John rated the album or not'. She added: 'Then out of those first 100, we've chosen one artist that we're honing in on, that we're going to do a special thing on each week'.

The John Peel Centre for Creative Arts and Eye Film and Television produced the site after being given access by John Peel's family to the collection, which includes 40,000 singles and — as yet uncounted — many thousands of CDs, as well as the LPs.

John Peel died of a heart attack aged 65 while on a working holiday with his wife in Peru, in 2004. He was the longest serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, having broadcast regularly from 1967 right up until his death.

The full collection, including the official announcement, can be found here.

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Try Very Hard To Picture This Shit

Larry Mizell, Jr. — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:55:05 -0700

So I'm out here in Minneapolis, and as the rain dumps and the lightning strikes outside like it never seems to in Seattle, I'm thinking of one of my favorite MLPS rap songs ever. Ali's description of a block with a funeral home on one side and a library on the other exactly reminds me of my old block, Rainier and Alaska, the beginning of Columbia City. One side of Alaska is the library where I checked out tapes (Pixies, Digable Planets, Blackhappy), stupid books (Dean R. Koontz thrillers, Klingon language books), and good books for school reports [Fetal Alcohol Syndrome! Sammy Davis Jr!]. On the other side is the Columbia Funeral Home, whose glowing sign I could see from the third-floor apartment I lived in with my mother. She always said good things about the guy who ran it, as he was a nice and conscientious neighbor. He certainly was a good dude to me when my mother's body made its penultimate stop there some 14 years ago. The last stop, of course, was Venice Beach, my childhood favorite, in whose waters I now feel her presence when I return each summer for my birthday. All this, I think of, just thinking about being here in Minneapolis for the first time.

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Talking Heads: Chronology: A Taught History of the Talking Heads Live

Grant Brissey — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:53:38 -0800

Last night I finally got to sit down with Talking Heads: Chronology, a succinct collection of live songs performed by the band, ranging from "With Our Love," "I'm Not in Love," and "Psycho Killer" at the CBGB in 1975 to "Life During Wartime" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2002. It's fun to see the group progress from those early days in little clubs with Chris Frantz's rudimentary drum beats, Tina Weymouth's quarter-note bass lines, and a less-than-confident David Byrne at the helm (and holy shit do they all look young).

Fast forward to NYC's storied venue The Kitchen a year later and the group is markedly polished in comparison. But it's with "Don't Worry About the Government" on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978 and "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel" the same year at Entermedia Theatre that they feel fully formed. These are the first songs on the collection with former Modern Lovers keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison in the mix, and they represent the beginning of the band's apex. Put it on your TV for parties and get 'em jerky on the dancefloor.

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Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together?

Anna Minard — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:12:57 -0800

Meet Bon Joviver, by Miracles of Modern Science:

(Thanks, Hot Tipper Todd!)

This calls for a poll:

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"Secretly a Music Site"

Anna Minard — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:45:56 -0800

Meet Emotional Bag Check. You go here, and you have two choices: "Check it" or "Carry it."

Check it:

Take a minute to unload whatever’s been bringing you down. Big or small, doesn’t matter. Sometimes it just helps to get it out there and know someone heard it.

Carry it:

Take a minute to read about someone else’s issues. Then choose a song to help get them through the pain. We'll send it along to them.

Here is the FAQ for the site. The creator, a freelance web developer named Robyn, calls it an art project.

I dunno. I kind of feel like when the "what music should I listen to for my x and y type of emotional pain" feeling hits, you just ask your friends. That's what they're for! And also the Top 25 song list is not very encouraging. But on the other hand, hot damn. This could get seriously addictive, right? Trying to perfectly assuage a complete stranger's pain with music? Has anyone tried it?

Thanks, Hot Tipper Kitri (and The Hairpin)!

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What Are You Listening to While It Snows Outside?

Megan Seling — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:14:57 -0800

Right now I'm jamming some Dismemberment Plan (Emergency & I) because it reminds me of going to New York this time last year to see their reunion show at Webster Hall despite the East Coast snowstorm. Snow was everywhere. Several feet of it lined the sidewalks, pushed from the streets with plows. Central Park was 98% white—only a few paths were beaten down by snow boots and sleds and tourists kept falling down on the icy bridges. New Yorkers were getting really sick of the weather, complaining about the snow and the cold as they got their coffee. But I loved it and, despite only having tennis shoes, I still walked everywhere I went instead of taking the subways only because I didn't want to miss a second of the prettiness.

What are you listening to while the snow falls outside?

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Midnight Haiku

Grant Brissey — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

There are loud semi-trucks
I am not drunk but wide awake
No pizza in house

UPDATE: I concede! Our esteemed Christopher Frizzelle has proven me wrong. I'm firing myself as poetry editor.

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Six Days Until Halloween: The Changeling (1980)

Derek Erdman — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:02:07 -0700

I somehow stumbled on this creepy horror film on UHF TV when I was 12 or so, I think in the middle of the night after an evening of skateboarding and huffing glue in suburban Ohio. I watched the entire thing in the kitchen of a house we'd recently moved into, I remember because everything about that night turned super creepy. The Changeling (1980) remains my favorite horror movie today, though it didn't age very well. Somebody made another Changeling in 2008, but I've never seen it. Apparently all of the titles for movies have been used, or something.

The setting for most of the film is supposed to be in Seattle, but just a few shots of ol' Drizzleville were used. Though you can spot SeaTac airport, University of Washington's Red Square, the Rainier Tower, and the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge. A majority of the film was shot in Canada, mainly in Victoria and Vancouver, and passed off as Seattle.

George C. Scott (one year after he appeared in gnarly classic Hardcore) stars as Dr. John Russell, a musician who moves from NYC after his family is killed in an auto accident. He's trying to get over the horrible death, so he moves into a gigantic underpriced mansion, which is obviously totally haunted. The creeps start creeping right away and one would assume that it's Russell's family doing the ghosting, but it turns out to be a boy who was the rightful heir to a political family who was murdered in the gigantic underpriced mansion because he was born crippled. Oh, I just told you the entire plot.

But really, if you haven't seen this movie, now's a good time to do it. Make some popcorn with olive or sunflower oil. I like to add pepper and nutritional yeast along with paprika, lemon salt and soy sauce out of a spray bottle. Get yourself a blanket! Cuddle up with a loved one! It's getting cold out there!

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Caperin': Scans of Copies

Derek Erdman — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:45:25 -0700

As Drizzleville once again turns back into Drizzleville, I've been going through boxes that I've just moved across town. A lot of the boxes I've kept since I was 12, mostly mail and receipts and paper scraps that I've put in my pockets. Here are scans of some of those things.

I reckon this is from 2003 or so. I don't remember exactly what it is, but I have an inkling that it's something really gross. I'm pretty sure it was made in a frying pan.

OH WOW, here's a doozy! I found this on the ground of the University of Chicago campus, probably in 2005 or so. The neighborhood in which that school is located is teeming with diversity, so I'd guess that maybe this piece of paper has something to do with that, etc.

These were all over the Midwest in the late 1990s. I remember seeing them in a lot of different cities, usually taped to phone booths.

I had a party in October of 2004. In the middle of the party somebody noticed a girl putting a lot of my things into her bra, mostly chocolate bars. When we confronted her, she started removing a lot of things from her bra, mostly chocolate bars. She was really drunk so we walked her home, but we always called her Snicker Tits from then on.

This is Lisa Carver's mail. Lisa Carver is Lisa Suckdog. Lisa Suckdog was married to Boyd Rice and dated G.G. Allin.

This letter arrived at a record store that I worked at in the mid-2000s. I guess it's only mildly interesting, but I decided to put it here in case you happen to be reading this and also have live Foreigner recordings from 1977 (live broadcast, etc).

Oh, and then there is this. I found this at a house where I was asked to buy a woman's record collection. Most of her records were in a basement underwater or covered in mold, but the woman asked me to sit and talk to her after I told her that I didn't want any of her records. I noticed this letter in her garbage and I took it because I'm rather nosy.

This note isn't old at all, it's fairly recent. Although it's not mine, it sure is a good one!

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Reportedly, You Can Watch Tonight's Nirvana Nevermind Cover Show at EMP Over the Internet Tubes

Grant Brissey — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:25:03 -0700

Get it here and you can pretend like you're actually out tonight instead of being a loser like me. Regardless of how you feel about Nirvana covers at this point, the proceeds go to a very nice lady who is in need.

UPDATE: Maybe this embed will work. (I've never tried Livestream before.)

h/t: Eric Randall!

UPDATE II: I can't prove it, but the viewer counter (bottom left corner) on this widget is total bullshit.

UPDATE III: STFU old lady!!!

UPDATE IV: Ravenna Woods set the bar a lot higher than those first bands.

UPDATE V: TacocaT had commenters on the Livestream rather divided. Most people liked it. No one even called them hot chicks! Bree will be stoked.

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Writing Music

David Schmader — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:09:41 -0700

Okay, Line Out smarties, I once again need your help.

I listen to music when I write. This music must be close to word-free, and maintain a steady-ish sound/vibe.

Previous champions of the writing music genre that I have subsequently played into the ground and back: Gas' Pop, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, The Essential Fripp & Eno, assorted Boards of Canada, assorted Steve Reich, J. Dilla's Donuts, Four Tet's Rounds.

(Records that you think might fit the bill but don't: Burial (too jumpy and attention-grabbing in its jumpiness), various beloved African records (just because the words aren't in English doesn't mean they're not distracting), Tom Ze (both previous reasons apply).)

But really: Pop, Loveless, and Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians are the pinnacles of the genre as I know it so far, and I NEED MORE.

Thank you for your help.

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On Frank Zappa's 200 Motels

Grant Brissey — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:29:39 -0700

As part of my Intentionally Dull Weekend™, in which I smoked pot, unpacked stuff in my new home, and worked on Capitol Hill Block Party blurbs, Sunday night I sat down with Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, which is apparently a film about how dropping truckloads of acid can make you go crazy. Perhaps because I was not on a truckload of acid, I made it about 20 minutes in, right around the time they tear the head off the stuffed version of Zappa. I can't imagine what state of mind it would require to make me finish the whole thing.

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Caperin': Nickelback - Fact or Fiction?

Derek Erdman — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:11:24 -0700

FACT OR FICTION? Last Saturday my better half took some mushrooms baked into tasty chocolate ("Mushroom chocolates are not baked rather, the chocolate is melted over them." - person in question) I took some too, but only a little bit because those things tend to make me lose my brains. At the end of the night we decided to watch TV and scrolled through the streaming Netflix choices. Eventually we decided to watch Nickelback: Live at Sturgis 2006 to see if we could force our brains to understand Nickelback. We were aghast and delighted by Nickelback! At one point the singer announced to the crowd of 999,999,999 dudes and topless ladies, "I HAVE A QUESTION AND I NEED FOR YOU TO ANSWER AS HONESTLY AS YOU CAN...ARE WE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD FUCKING TIME TONIGHT?" Oh, man. The crowd of 999,999,999 dudes and topless ladies went wild, because they were indeed going to have a good time that night.

A lot of people don't like Nickelback, but they're not exactly sure why. Here's a list of facts and non-facts to help you determine whether or not you like Nickelback. Like John Lennon sang in 1969, Give peas a chance!

Nickelback: BOING.

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback has a song that contains the lyrics: "I like your pants around your feet / I like the dirt that's on your knees / I like the way you still say please / While you're looking up at me / You're like my favorite damn disease."

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback was formed in 1995 by brothers Chad Kroeger & Mike Kroeger who are the Canadian great-great-grandchildren of Bernard Kroger who started Kroger grocery stores in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1883. When asked about eventually inheriting the Kroger fortune, Chad Kroeger commented that he "could care less" about groceries.

"Now the story's played out like this / Just like a paperback novel / Let's rewrite an ending that fits / Instead of a Hollywood horror."

FACT OR FICTION? "Sometimes at my job I have to listen to recordings of other people's conversations that the prosecutor hands over to us. Let's just say it can be uncomfortable. Anyway, one time this couple was talking on a jail phone; he was at the federal detention center and she was at home. They were missing each other and started crying and singing Nickelback lyrics back and forth. I had to transcribe them. I almost started crying, too. Oh boy!" - Suzie Strait 06/13/2011

FACT OR FICTION? Pregnancy rates in America and Canada rose dramatically nine months after the release of Nickelback's All the Right Reasons LP due to unprotected sex that was had during the song "If Everyone Cared," which contains the lyrics: "If they could love like you and me / Imagine what the world could be."

"Chad's Sad" by Thomas Smutle.

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback has sold more than 21,000,000 album copies in the United States.

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback's name originates from the nickel in change that band member Mike Kroeger gave customers at his job at Starbucks; he would frequently say, "Here's your nickel back."

FACT OR FICTION? Following their 2008 album, Dark Horse, ChartAttack credited the band's success to knowing their target audience: "Chad Kroeger is a genius because he knows exactly what people want and precisely how far he can go. He turned out an extremely racy album that's loaded with songs about gettin' drunk and doin' it all without breaking any taboos, and with enough love and moral authority to grease its passage into the mainstream. Rejoice, North America. This is your world."

"The Day Nobody Died" - Desiree Price

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger is actually also the singer for Creed named Scott Stapp.

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback drummer Daniel Patrick Adair has been married or engaged to porn stars Audrey Bitoni, Nikki Benz, Aletta Ocean, Jayden Jaymes, Tori Black, Kagney Linn Karter, Sienna West, Alexis Texas & Mason Moore. Oh, and also Kayden Kross & Memphis Monroe.

FACT OR FICTION? Nickelback fans are rabid for this wildly popular band. Internet comments left by fans regarding the song "Rockstar" include, "I LOVE THAT LINE I WANT A NEW TOUR BUS FULL OF OLD GUITARS I HATE NEW MUSIC BUT THIS IS GOOD THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THE MEANINGS ARE PRETTY BASIC I LIKE PINK FLOYD AND BOB DYLAN TYPE LYRICS BUT THIS THE BEST NEW MUSIC IVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME AND THE MEANING HE WANTS TO BE ROCKSTAR SO HE CAN HAVE A GLAMOURUS LIFESTYLE." (I left it in caps because that's how I found it.)

FACT OR FICTION? ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons sings on and appeared in the video for the song "Rockstar."

FACT OR FICTION? After getting hit with rocks and bottles onstage in Portugal back in 2007, Nickelback lead guitar player Ryan Peake noted, "I fucking hate the Portuguese. They're so dumb."

See, Nickelback isn't so bad! With the right frame of mind, you can like everything!

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Caperin': Put a Duck in a Microwave and See if it's Bill Withers

Derek Erdman — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:20:36 -0700

Last Thursday at the Pony I was punched in the face by an actual punker with a red mohawk. It was late into the evening at Lacey Swain's birthday when a pack of Legend Of Billie Jean look-alikes tumbled into the bar from what must have been an Exploited concert. Because it was a birthday party there were a number of balloons about, and as I made my way to the bathroom, a punker was punching one of the balloons near the same level of my head. Soon my head was right next to the balloon and as she drew her fist back we locked eyes and I nodded in approval. She punched me in the lower right jaw hard enough for it to be sore today. Later, Dre Gordon and I slow danced to "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac and when I informed her of my extreme fear of dancing, to which she just said "Shut up."

Don't party with me, punker.

Otherwise I continue to stay in the South Park basement working on mounds of paintings. I've been listening mostly to the song "Cygnet Committee" by David Bowie on repeat. It's from the 1969 LP Space Oddity, a record that I never really spent much time on in the past. Somehow though, I've come to view this song as the first great David Bowie track, one that seemed to make the leap from "The Laughing Gnome" to everything that came after. Written about Bowie's time at a place called Arts Lab, the 9-plus minute track is a wonderful rejection of hippie ideals, but also has a type of soul selling creepiness. Here's a version of a acetate demo the song originally comes from, called "Lover To The Dawn":

New Seattle-based business alert: Have you ever wondered what you may look like caked up in Juggalo-type face paint? Perhaps you don't want to clog up your pores with Walgreen's brand face goo to find out? FRET NO MORE. Derek Erdman's $19 Portrait Juggalizer takes any old photo and transforms it into a "down with the clown" style look that will have all of the employees of any Ohio Citgo GREEN with envy.

Travis Ritter: JUGGALIZED

During a visit with my friend from Chicago last week, she informed me that my breath smelled "absolutely atrocious" for most of the day, at the end of the day. A tip to friends: if I have the awful breath, please inform me ASAMFP. I haven't been to the dentist in 10 years, my mouth is like Vietnam in 1971.

Local artist Carlos Ruiz in admitted drug use shocker!

WONDERFUL EMPLOYEE ALERT: On Saturday night at 7:34pm at the Taco Bell at 2201 4th Ave., I encountered the most friendly Taco Bell employee in my lifetime. Unfortunately my receipt does not have his name, only: DT-CASHIER#6. If said location manager is reading, PLEEZE PROMOTE THIS PERSON ASAP.

This Thursday, Hardly Art's Sarah Moody & Detective Agency's Ulrika Larsson and I will be DJing at Hazelwood at 8pm. You should come! It will be fun!

The Monticello Hotel in Longview, WA is full of S-N-O-B-S!

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

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Kvelertak Most Likely Not Playing Funhouse Tonight

James Burns — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:03:11 -0800

Aw, man. I was really looking forward to seeing them too. Zoroaster and Weedeater are most likely still playing, though.

ht: MetalSucks

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Is Punk Rock (In Movies) Dead?

Travis Ritter — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:52:27 -0800

It occurred to me last night, while watching Penelope Spheeris' awesome 1983 flick, Suburbia, that the only good movies about punk rock were made in the 1980s (see also: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains). While Suburbia is rife with bad acting (provided by the cast of LA street punks who had little or no prior acting experience), it's one of the few films that covered the many facets of punk life: the squatting, the vandalizing, the drug-using, the harassment, and suburban garage-raiding that delinquent, disaffected youth runaways did to survive (and die for). While the drama features three LA punk bands at the time (D.I., T.S.O.L., and The Vandals), aside from the concert scenes, the movie barely has much of a soundtrack. Perhaps because it really doesn't need one: the real soundtrack to LA punk rock was already documented in Spheeris' documentary about LA's punk scene, The Decline of the Western Civilization, that showed how those natty punk rockers we now call legend lived and worked back then. (Darby's wasted! X give themselves tattoos! Black Flag live in a church!)

Aside from those films that incorporated "punk rock" main characters, like Valley Girl (key line: "I like tacos and my favorite color is magenta"), no one has made a movie quite like Suburbia, where punk rockers made the choice to abandon all of life's luxuries and live happily in squalor. What about SLC Punk, the movie preaching anarchy, giving the middle finger to society, and not selling out, that in the end, ends up selling out? That movie wasn't punk rock. It was a movie about a privileged kid, living in a spacious apartment with Black Flag lyrics tagged on the wall, who partied and dictated what anarchy was, thinking he was some God-send existentialist that felt punished for living in Salt Lake City 1985 instead of London 1977. Yeah, that movie was terrible (as if casting Matthew Lillard as said punker wasn't evident enough.)

Have there been any other films about the true punk rock lifestyle, and I don't mean the glorified bio-pics of Darby Crash, or Sid and Nancy, or on any one particular punk band? Or are punks just left to characterize themselves on the city streets?

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Lifetime Movie or Megadeth Song?

Travis Ritter — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:22:17 -0800

Information buffs are already privy to the goofy quizzes that the brainy magazine, mental_floss does every month in their magazine (they take the history of life's ordinary things and make them interesting). But I had no idea just how many existed on their website until this evening, when I came across the one I knew would be a miserable personal failure: Lifetime Movie or Megadeth Song? Surprisingly, considering my knowledge of both Lifetime movies and Megadeth songs to be sub-par at best, I still made out with 6 out of 10 correct. You'll be shocked at some of the correct answers. We're dealing with movies dealing with ex-nuns turned rape counselors, and songs about heroes and shit.

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Remember How A Bunch Of You Sent Me Demos?

James Burns — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:33:07 -0800

I got over two dozen of them! Here are some demos I plucked from my inbox this week:

Steradian - A steradian is a measure of angular area, which would be a pretty clever band name if I weren't in favor of calling for a ban on the a-word in all music writing for the forseeable future. I digress. The four songs Steradian sent me fall somewhere between the Vehicle Birth and Polvo's more sinister moments. Frontman Josiah Feinberg reminds me of a !/Is Terrified-era Travis Morrison. I also heard traces of Unwound's rumbling rhythm section and Slint's chord shapes. Steradian have this neat trick where they play a pretty arpeggio, and quickly throw more and more ugly notes in the mix until your good time is ruined. I held my nose long enough to look up their MySpace (ugh) to see if they have any upcoming shows. They don't. Bummer. These dudes just might be one of my Seattle bands to watch for 2011. Put 'em on your radar.

Red Liquid - When Lee Cizek isn't talking trash in the comment section of this blog, he plays in something like 759348379 different bands in Seattle. (Same-Sex Dictator, Emeralds, Black Leather Noose, etc.) It's kind of impressive that he has time to talk trash at all. Anyway, his newest band is called Red Liquid—they've replaced the sludgy low-end of his other bands with lots of reverb and a slightly gothy post-punk vibe. Out of the four Red Liquid songs I received, only half really hit me like I was hoping: "I Wanna Be Yr Victim" is a fuck-you powerblast soaked in so much delay it makes Derek Erdman's basement seem dry by comparison. "Strange Days" is oddly danceable with an unstoppable bassline and a squealing guitar lead run though an entire Guitar Center's worth of effects pedals. And a slow fade. I love slow fades. Red Liquid are sharing a bill with Sioux City Pete & the Beggars at the Josephine on January 14th, if'n you want to check them out. I'm thinking there might be something in the tracks that I don't get that might reveal itself when played live.

Oh Dear! - Just maybe, this Tacoma band might come close to filling the Meneguar-sized hole in my heart. Oh Dear! aren't as manic as that Brooklyn quartet, but the melodies and hooks are there in spades. It's kind of wussy, but I dig it anyway. According to their Facebook page, they don't have any shows coming up, but are finishing up a full-length album.

Into The Storm - I know Into The Storm plays shows with Smooth Sailing a lot, another band that I've been meaning to check out for a minute. These dudes split the difference between post-Mastodon beard metal and raw 90's hardcore. The simple, garagey production thankfully keeps the metal-to-punk ratio in check. The musicianship is solid, but unshowy. In an era where even the pop-punk bands are trying to out-Yngwie each other, it's pretty nice to listen to a heavy record that doesn't make me feel like I'm at a Joe Stump guitar clinic. Sonically, this band is pretty rad, but I am wanting for more choruses that made me pump my fist in the air and want to break stuff. I'm interested in seeing how this band develops over the next couple years. Their entire nine-song debut album is available for free download at their website.

Overall, I'd say the first week of the demo experiment was a success. I got to check out a bunch of bands that were unknown quantities and a few bands that I've been meaning to check out for a while. I haven't gotten to everything yet (I'm saving some for next week), but so far I haven't heard anything that was actually terrible.

If you've got something you want me to hear, this is how it works: send an email to yourbandscrappydemo@gmail.com with a Sendspace/Medafire/Whatever link to 3-5 mp3's in a zip file. I'll do my best to check it out. If I like it or find it interesting, I'll write about it here.

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