Acts of (Adorable) Aggression

The hypno-nervous post-punk energy of UK outfit Chapter 24 are enough to scratch the itch you've been missing since Gang of Four reformed and were promptly put to death for the crime of Playing Suck Music in Old Age (of which all reunited bands are guilty). Hooray for us, they're coming to US, though playing two hours north of me on a Wednesday night--an impossible excursion since I work for a living and would be forced to arrive at the office looking uglier than I already am after only 4 hours sleep. Thankfully, I have the band's (charmingly?) uncreative website to tide me over with various videos and Soundcloud audio until I get off my skinny ass and actually buy their awesome debut single. (You can also Stateside it at Aquarius Records.) Their blog also highlights another feature of the group: they look far too polite to be playing music this aggressive.

Live Blogging the 8,236,146th Viewing of Party Rock Anthem Kia Soul Hamster Commercial

I'll watch this dreck so you don't have to.

0:01  This landscape looks not unlike the Occupy Wall Street protest going on outside my office window right now.
0:03  Damn space aliens and their aggressive take-over-the-Earth rampages!
0:06  The two warring factions don't look all that dissimilar. Question: are the creators of this commercial imparting a deeper meaning?
0:11  Answer: The Kia has arrived so apparently not.
0:15  I saw some sneakers similar to this at Ross Dress for Less once but they only had them in size 12 so I had to pass.
0:19  Think of how much different our lives would be now if Run DMC had dressed in pastels and Iridescent Taffeta.  And also if they had been hamsters.
0:21  You can say whatever you want but those fucking rodents can dance!
0:28  Those killer robots work hard, but they party hard, too.
0:31  Look at that rave bro in the upper left corner!  He's all, like, "Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!".
0:40  A Rastafarian hamster playing bongos at a dance-off in a war-torn landscape??  Now I've seen everything!.
0:47  I'm not sure what's worse: a future devoid of trees where aggressive intergalactic robots will wreak destruction upon our very souls, or a a future devoid of trees where aggressive intergalactic robots will wreak destruction upon our very souls where the only available car is a Kia.

Live Blogging The 2011 Telluride Film Festival

I have an idea how Sony Pictures Classics can market their forthcoming Holocaust survival flick In Darkness: "It's Schindler's List...filmed in tunnel vision!"  Also, they should consider changing the title to the catchier Sewer Jews.

George Clooney is here in person, apparently. This caused several people to riot, burn down dozens of theaters and march through the streets with Ken Burns' head impaled on a pitchfork.

This year's Guest Director (and one of my musical heros) Caetano Veloso is signing autographs today, and I've brought several CD's for him to mark up. Here's how I hope it will go down:

Disco:Very: Good evening, Caetano. You are but a god.
Caetano Veloso: Thank you, Disco:Very. You are one of my idols.
Disco:Very: When you give me the signal, I will overthrow the U.S. Government and smash the capitalist pigs.
Caetano Veloso: The time to end America's reign of terror is upon us!
Disco:Very: Viva Los Gringos!

Here is how it will really go down:

Disco:Very: Good evening, Caetano. You are one of my favorite musicians and--
Caetano Veloso: [Quickly signs my CD with a rubber stamp bearing his signature.] Done. Next!!

With Only 39 Years Left to Live, It's Time I Finally Got Around to Digitizing My Cassette & Vinyl Collection [Part 10]

The Texas Instruments - The Texas Instruments LP (Rabid Cat Records, 1987)

It's almost quaint to listen to the debut self-titled album by Austin's The Texas Instruments and remember how, for some of us, this hybrid of souped-up post-hardcore and politicized country punk was going to somehow eradicate all the backwards governing during the years of The Gipper.  Now we have Michelle Bachman as a front runner for the 2012 election and the loonies are strategizing to run the asylum.  Oh well.  At least now I can upload this LP to my iPod and pretend it's making Zombie Reagan spin in his grave.

A-R-I-Z-O-N-A Is My State, Arizona Let Me Say I Think You're Great!

Now that Arizona has successfully banned Hispanics from rudely assuming they, too, can breathe the White Man's oxygen, I--a proud native Arizonan--now feel safer to enjoy patronizing our abundance of Mexican food restaurants without having to actually be around all those Mexicans. And on that same topic, a stern word of caution to underground lofi-funksters Javelin should they ignore the worldwide band boycott and choose to perform in The Grand Canyon State: I recommend only playing songs from your David Byrne-approved new album instead of certain tracks off your underground demos (since they contain what is almost certainly traces of what we Gringos call Spanish). As for the rest of you, stop stating our State government is at least as dumb as Georgia's. When it comes to The Championship of Passing Senseless Bills, everyone knows Arizona has them beat at this particular parlor game.

Suffer the Little Children, and Forbid Them to Purchase The Joshua Tree, for It Blows Big Time and Is Crap

The Good News: Today, America swears in a new President and ushers in a spirited era of hope and national unity.
The Bad News: TV news stations force us to listen to (Pride) In the Name of Love over and over before each commercial break.

Music Hath Charms to Soothe a Savage Beast (Except When It's Crap Songs, After Which This Savage Beast Turns Into a Snarling Asshole)

Just because, like me, you're wholeheartedly throwing all your support behind Barack Obama, our future president (that is, if the Republicans don't once again steal the entire election out from under us because we're all too busy blogging to actually bother hanging Karl Rove by his hairless pasty white balls), it doesn't mean you have to set his candidacy to such fucking god-awful music. I'm very happy to know there are video reinforcements but must they be shot with the same emotional impact of a Gap ad? You'd never find me wearing a monochromatic outfit enabling me to be part of a living tribute to a logo, but even if you did, can't we all agree the performer of this half-assed faux-inspirational suck song should be nailed to the side of a barn and left to die? Please, people: let's just vote Obama into office and stop setting this election to music. Leave the ineffectual pop tone picks to the Gilmore Girls.

It Takes One To Know One

George W. Bush and I are a lot alike. For starters, we are both former dum-dum coke-inhaling frat boy alcoholics who only wrangled our way into Yale thanks to our father slipping some green towards the school. Second, we've both been wasting our time and energy: he on Iraq (anyone with half a brain could have told you North Korea is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein), me on latter day ELO (anyone with half a brain could have told you ELO 2 is more dangerous than Out Of The Blue.) I mean, jeez, just listen to Momma... and Born To Die. Don't they make you just...I don't know...want to clear that never-ending brush which seems to creep up on your Texas ranch every vacation time?

Putting the 'Total' Back Into 'Totalitarianism'

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. If state-sponsored censorship means an end to tepid classic rock and easy listening hits, fetch my passport, dawg, 'cuz I'm moving my cribs to Iran! Clearly, the head honcho of America's next refinery takeover is merely trying to ban his fellow citizens from listening to bad music. He isn't abolishing, say, He's Your Man by The Oblivions, so what's the harm? If anything, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is probably just pissed that lame-ass folkie Cat Stevens is fighting for his side. Purchase Popular Favorites at Mordam Records.

White Grlz On Dope

Yes, yes, it's all very special that Lesbians On Ecstasy are recontextualizing folkie feminist anthems by KD Lang, Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls, grafting them onto hi-NRG dance rhythms and liberating our Saphhic Sisters into an empowering Womyn's womb of movement and sound, bla bla bla. Who cares? I JUST WANT TO HEAR THOSE FUCKING GUITARS! Parachute Clubbing rocks my (it's-a-man's) world but they get extra points for covering the (possibly non-lesbian, to the best of my knowledge) Fat Truckers (retitling their hit Super Bike into the more appropriate, and more hilarious, Superdyke). Fight the hetero-centric patriarchy at Alien 8 Records.

The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing

George W. Bush is a complete and utter fuck-pig, a doddering nitwit who hasn't the sense to utter two words in proper succession let alone lead a nation into a trumped-up pointless war. The question on everyone's mind is: "How can we get rid of him?" My fellow Americans, as a sacrifice to this country, I volunteer to perform a wet slurpy blow job on President Bush while he's in the Oval Office in order that we can alert the press to his transgressions and begin proceedings to remove his tired ass from office. During the impeachment trial and the subsequent victory parties celebrating his departure from the White House, I will play Oh Mother, The Handsome Man Tortures Me, taken from Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds From Iraq, newly released by the fine folks at Sublime Frequencies. In these trying times, we all have to swallow our pride (or what have you) and step up to the plate to oust the axis of evil where it resides. I draw the line, however, at blowing Rove. Ick! I mean, c'mon, even my patriotism has limits.

The Power of the Music Power

Most of you who don't harbor an aversion to all things David Byrne (you know who you are) may remember Japanese pop star Shoukichi Kina from the Luaka Bop compilation Asia Classics 2: Peppermint Tea House released in 1994. Or you might already know the song Haisai Ojisan from the one-off strange bedfellows collaboration of the French/Frith/Kaiser/Thompson CD Live, Love, Laff & Loaf which came out in 1996 (whoever borrowed my copy and never returned it, please give it back, no questions asked). Either way, you need to hear more of this music. Musicians in Okinawa spawned a unique rock/folk hybrid as a reaction to the US occupation of their islands during the Vietnam war, creating a raw, forceful fusing which sounded like nothing else before or since. Recorded live in 1977 (save for an extra studio track at the end), the performances on The Music Power From Okinawa range from measured urgency to full-out frantic freak-out, Japanese style (proof: Tokyo Sanbika). I'm no musical ethnologist, so I'm not sure if the sanshin being played is electric or fitted with pickups, but the sound overall is great. I bought my copy of this CD used at Amazon, so you should, too.

High Expectations Is The New Black

Did you ever love a band so much you were blindly convinced they were going to commandeer the pop charts in a violent bloody takeover? And when those high expectations didn't pan out, did it make you lose all sense of purpose in life and want to murder everyone around you in a frenzy of bullets and gore? Brother (or sister), I am right there with you. There was a short while when I was absolutely certain the Cupid Car Club was going to run for President of the United States, lose the election to a Supreme Court-appointed puppet regime, which would be overthrown by the entire band in an orgy of killing and stabbing and shooting after which they'd take power and declare hunting season on mediocre music. C to The Third Power (as I liked to call them when nobody was around) was James Canty, Steve Gamboa, Ian Svenonius and Kim Thompson, all of whom went on to form either The Make-Up or The Delta 72 or Weird War or...good gawd, I could be typing this list out all night--let the Band To Band website spell it out for you. They released one single (left) on Kill Rock Stars and then promptly split up. Join me, won't you, as we raise a glass to their memory and collectively bang our heads to Vapor Rub Out.

Random thoughts: Glasgow, Scotland has some of the best hairdos I've ever witnessed, most of them mullets worn without irony. Everyone is very nice to visiting Americans, even though it would be completely understandable if they wanted to string us up for having the biggest dickhead president ever invented. No good record shops found yet but the music nut bartender in the hotel bar has recommended three local shops he swears by, which I plan on checking out soon. I saw political filmmaker Michael Moore walking to his gate in the Chicago airport. I spoke with him briefly and made him laugh (without once bringing up the dickhead president). I wonder if Glasgow residents have as much trouble understanding my accent as I have understanding theirs? Still experiencing massive jet lag--will try jogging 4 miles tonight in an effort to tire myself out before attempting sleep.

1,702 American Invitees Dead So Far

Ah, Memorial Day. Another pointless exercise in honoring those fighting in a trumped-up war we never should have started in the first place, unless, like White House spokesman Scott McClellan, you believe the US was invited (which also means victims of rape were asking for it). Is the purpose of this war to defend the freedoms of misguided, religion-baiting assholes like this? Because the amount of patriotism I feel today could fit in a thimble, I have decided to offer a track whose lyrics make inadvertent ironic commentary on the current state of the twisted American mind: Jesus Is The First Line Of Defence by The Pilgrim Travellers. You can find this track on Like An Atom Bomb: Apocalyptic Songs From The Cold War Era, released by Buzzola Records in 2004. Their other excellent collections include Reefer Madness (vintage drug songs), Sugar In My Bowl (sex songs circa 1923 - 1952), and You Done Me Wrong (old-time country cheating songs). You can find them all at Amazon.

Hell Is For Soon-To-Be-41-Year-Old Children

I die of a massive coronary, and in a dreadfully ironic twist, it turns out for this hardcore atheist there actually is a hell. While it's true the temperatures are extemely hot, I was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ so I'm pretty good at dealing with the heat. Of course, being Hades, there is not much to do except writhe in agony and suffer in all eternity for my sins (oh, so many sins) committed while alive here on Earth. The good news is that Satan has found it in his dirty black little heart to provide his minions with entertainment. The bad news is that there are only two choices: 1) non-stop, back-to-back 24-hour performances of Movin' Out, and 2) an endless loop of this music video (if I ever decide to direct a biopic of the band Journey, I'm casting this guy as Steve Perry). I hope those of you reading this will heed my words and turn your lives around now, while you still have the chance. I wouldn't wish this fate on even my worst enemies (well, perhaps just on Billy Joel).