So here I go, ordering the two disc set. I wait. The package comes today. I picked it up as Lizzy and I were leaving the house for work. It looked a little big for what I ordered, but maybe the case was just kind of thick, right?

After lots of Wendy’s drama, I drop Lizzy off and start heading home. Being the jerk I am, I find myself listening to an NPR story about something or another. But the station fades out about halfway home, so I’m all, “Oh, hey, I’ll open the package and listen to part of the CD on the way back!”

Here I am, driving 55 down the road, looking for a place to pull off so I can open the box. I find some abandoned school somewhere and swing off the road to open the package. Oh hell yeah! right?

I finally get the box open and the first thing I see — I am not making this up — is “George W. Bush go straight to fucking Hell.”

…what the fuuuuuck?…

Oh, sweet, this is the CD I orde — no, wait, it isn’t! So at this point I’m too confused to even laugh, because it’s like, hey, totally not what I ordered. But then I see the CD I did order, along with another one. So, okay, not the wrong order. Then I realize what had happened: I’d been given something that wasn’t even worth the price of free.

Man, see, here’s the thing. All those George Bush jokes and references from, like, six months ago are really passe now. It’s like no one even knows who he is anymore. Yeah, maybe in 20 years it’ll be amusing again (if it ever even was), but the first thought after my initial confusion was, “Wow, it’s June 2009 and I just got some ‘I hate George Bush’ material in the mail — which means a couple things. A) I’m going to jail. And B) there are a lot more homosexual obsessions with the former president than I might have thought. I mean, he’s okay looking for his age, but not that good looking.”

So to make a snide political comment here: I hope everyone now realizes how passe George Bush references are and how irrelevant it is to even talk about him anymore. Get off him, or get off him — I don’t care — but if you’re going to do the latter, please don’t send me free CDs about it.

But more on all Bush jive later.

After looking at the CD titles in the box, I noticed there were lots of little leaflets and fliers sticking out. “Well hey, what a clever way to promote your music, I guess. I like Car Vs. Driver. I like bands like Deerhoof, who have put some stuff out through Stickfigure. So maybe I’ll get some stuff I like out of this!”

The first thing I saw made me feel like “George W. Bush go fucking straight to Hell” was actually pretty normal. See, what I saw next made me feel like I was being bombarded with fliers by Juggalos and other ne’er do well jackballs.

Fast forward a little to after I got home. I looked “Zodiac Killer Records” up online and found out that they’re just a bunch of punk douches (thank God, the last thing I need is to be getting mail from people who are ok with putting promotional material from Juggalos in their recipient’s packages), probably skinhead fucktards, who put together stuff featuring bands like “The Unabombers” (okay, kind of clever) and “Copstabber” (uhm, what?) and “Sonic Negros,” the last of which I feel like I’ve heard about somewhere before. As Emily and I are perusing their site, we see “Drink.Fight.Fuck. Volume III” on the side of the page. Now if this sounds a little like your favorite porno (Backdoor Housewives Drinking, Fighting, and Fucking Vol. 12), it’s probably because it does sound like your favorite porno.

Rewinding back to my bemusement in the car, I next notice a pretty harmless leaflet and sticker from Koi Records. I went to their website just now, and I guess they look normal enough. They even have a cute little tag line that goes a little like, “our records sell out….but we don’t!”

As I’m sitting in the car looking over all these fliers, I notice one is glued to the Zandosis “I want to anally penetrate George W. Bush in Hell” CD (which I absolutely cannot wait to rip at 320kbps and listen to at loud volume with headphones, btw). “Oh, this should be a laugh riot,” I think to myself. And sure enough, it’s a hybrid ad for a band called Angel Spit and a clothing line / make-up design school. I’m not making that up, you gotta believe me! I felt like I had entered some Dir en Grey nightmare, surrounded by dolled up chicks in nurse get-ups. But maybe that’s because I was looking at just that sort of thing.

How… strangely erotic.

Oh, that’s sooooo keeee-ut! If you’re curious, and why wouldn’t you be, and want to check out their website, you can go to Miss-X.net. It currently asks you to go to Surgeon-X.com. (And if you’re looking for make-up tips, don’t hesitate to check out Destroy X, because you need all the sinister x things you can get!) I hate to say it, but I must: This looks even more fuck-the-mainstream-y than Fuck the Mainstream.

But you know what’s most amazing about this j-whore scenefest? 21 dollar Butoh Kabuki brushes and $18 eyeshadow applicators!

But hey, what’s this? Something on the other side of the Angel Spit flier? No way, there is?!

You advise the parents… because you’re punk.

I think, for this, there is no need for words…

But on to something that actually doesn’t suck as much as I thought it would!

One of the fliers I got was for a band called Stiletto Boys. I thought this would be ridiculously bad, especially after finding out they were signed to Zodiac Killer. But listen for yourself, it’s really not all that ridiculous. I wouldn’t call it fantastic or anything, but when you’re being promoted alongside Copstabber (who I keep wanting to call Cocksucker, but that’s my fault), you start to shine a little, even if you’re some sort of Blink 182 / Paul McCartney fusion band.

That’s where the fun stops and the Swedish glorious song-along lyrics begin. Yes, another leaflet was for Autodafeh’s NEW CD Hunt for Glory, which is probably really great and amazing because they are “clearly influenced by bands like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb,” but since no one gives a fuck about them they probably really aren’t as great as I led you to believe.

Then I see that there’s an old fashion paper note that has 4 vinyls listed on it. The first one actually sounds kind of interesting, musically, “Tons of delay and insane guitar sounds create this huge wall of sound.” Hey, cool, I like walls of sound. So do people who kill C list actors no one cares about (oh man, just think if she’d thought to do Oxyclean ads! Then everyone would care about her!), but I do too.

But it goes down hill from there. “Brutal and beautiful. Stark and chaotic. June Paik offer up four of the most epic, most destructive, most apocalyptic lullabies ever committed to vinyl.”

My favorite, though, is the last one. “Split between two apocalyptic emo-violence bands from England. BOW play dark, Uranus influenced [no really] hardcore with huge melodies. Kaddish plays fast, Italian styled emo-violence.” I’m sure they’re nice guys and all, but did you really have to say “Uranus influenced”? I dunno brah. I dunno.

But I’ve saved the best for last! Zombie Cheney on the back of the Zandosis CD!

Do you wonder what Zandosis sounds like? Do you care? You should. Here’s them playing on a tree — yes, playing on a tree (that we later find out killed someone, and has now been “Zandosified”) — in Atlanta. Ah, noise jazz. Ah, noise jazz.

Moving on, would you care to take a look at the titles of the songs on the CD of which I have so generously been gifted? Of course you would! And here they are. (And don’t be afraid to click the “See all 29 tracks on this disc” link, because it’s so worth it.) Do you notice a theme? How could you! There clearly is none, as any theme that might have existed on this CD veers off course at the FUCKING MENTION OF JOHN FUCKING CAGE.

But better yet, the CD, with its one and a half star average, gets a review by a guy who clearly does not get it and just wants to jerk off about liberals.

“How much hate garbage can there be against President Bush? The liberals are truly organized in their hate/smear campaigns…and they scream the loudest and longest if they think someone has said something bad about them. I can’t believe Amazon would sell a piece of trash like this.”

Yes, a CD that has probably been heard by literally dozens of people is part of the organized hate/smear campaign out to ruin George Bush on — wait, what date did you publish this review? January 11th, 2009? So there’s a president elect lurking out there when you wrote this, and you’re still sucking George Bush’s cock? Man, this Bush guy gets a lot of ass. But I’m so not jealous.

See, the idea is that radio stations should be happy, under this bogus Performance Rights Act, to pay copyright owners and the occasional performer (if you’re lucky enough to retain your copyright) extra cash for giving their music promotion and rotation.

And since this blog often covers things of an independent and punk variety, it only makes sense to talk about how this impacts indie labels. As Mr. Walker points out:

Ah, you say, but what about the independent artists who don’t get big promotional pushes from the major music labels? Surely they’d benefit from a new revenue stream? Actually, they’ll be even worse off. The economic mission of most commercial radio stations is to deliver audiences to the sponsors whose spots are aired between tunes. So programmers have a built-in preference for music whose mass appeal has already been proven. If you increase the cost of playing a record, that just intensifies the incentive: The more you pay to play a song, the more conservative you’ll be about which songs you play. The marginal cost of playing each track is the same, but the commercial payoff is greater for established artists.

Indie bands didn’t get helped by song-writer bonuses. They don’t even get airplay, realistically. Yeah, we can talk about Tegan and Sara bullshit, but actual indie bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat are not going to get much radio play. So this is yet another attempt at a giveaway to major labels and their minions. Hooray!

It’s not that I mean to make light of the situation, but there is something pretty ridiculous about a guy who prides himself on being a living freakshow actually tearing up a little over his lack of cocaine.

Also, I’d be honored to show up at an AA meeting and get asked for an autograph. But then maybe not…

“I’m going to destroy [Radiohead] the internet,” he told the Independent. “Every social network site, every blog. No-one’s happier now because of it. It’s really interesting that now we have complete communication, we have less good underground bands. How is that?”

I think the last time I heard this logic, it was supporting the well-known fact that aliens built the pyramids and that drinking some lemon tea jive will cure your cancer.

But, later in the article, the Horrors actually make me like them, when another one of their members says something along the lines of:

“I’m sick of reading about bands like The Killers,” he said. “I don’t believe in it for a second.”

What he doesn’t believe in, I’m not sure. God? Mr. Flowers? Lame ’00s alt-rock in general? But regardless, I fully support his statement because it sounds like the kind of nonsensical thing I might support stating.

Wait for it…

It’s not Katy Perry!

Apparently, the tacky individual in question is none other than Beth Ditto of Gossip, who had the sheer nerve to point out that Katy Perry’s song I Kissed a Girl may not be the greatest sapphic song of all time.

Whatever, I just side with whichever one has nudes.

Edit:
Susan Boyle has been lent a hand by Beth Ditto. In hopes they form a more holy union under God.

Art Brut - Art Brut Vs. Satan | Sample

Art Brut’s always been a pretty entertaining little band. They have that Monty Python-esque humor to them (I’ll forever remain a fan of Eddie Argos’s other band, The Art Goblins, and their song Fuck the Manic Street Preachers), which is a turn-on or turn-off depending on, you know, what you think of Monty Python. But British people are all alike, so it’d be hard for them not to have that Monty Python-esque quality.

Art Brut Vs. Satan is more good times, stories of hangovers, and songs about the poor taste of “the record buying public.” (The record buying public shouldn’t be voting, according to Art Brut, btw.) It was recorded by Frank Black, which is another plus. Like the Paper Chase’s new CD (more on that in a sec), Art Brut’s latest is really for Art Brut fans. If you didn’t really dig Art Brut befo’, prolly not going to change your mind with this CD. But for people who enjoy Art Brut, it’s a really fun CD with the same pop hooks and clever lyrics that brought you in in the first place.

Cracker - Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey | Sample

Cracker’s been around a really long time, with frontman David Lowery once having been the head of Camper Van Beethoven (for all yallz ’80s college rock fans). Cracker’s a twangy Southern rock band laced with irony and stoner humor. I don’t think they’ve even had an alternative hit in, like, a billion years, but Sunrise is a pretty solid CD overall. It’s not something I find myself being drawn back to over and over, but it’s well put together for what it is and the songs stick in your head for a couple days.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains | Sample

Cymbals Eat Guitars sound a lot like early Modest Mouse or Lync, maybe even a little on the Kinsella-era emo side. It’s a well-composed CD, but I haven’t felt a huge desire to take another listen to it after the first run. It’s not really my cup of tea that way, but it should be appreciated for what it is. On the other hand, if you either dig old Modest Mouse (which I do) or love everything Pitchfork does, then yeah, Cymbals is definitely something you’ll dig.

Future of the Left - Travels with Myself and Another | Sample (Come on, Rick!)

Fuck yeah! Future of the Left is like a Welsh noise rock super group, with folks coming from Jarcrew and mclusky (two hella tight bands) to form up in Future of the Left. They’re a hilarious group and really fun to see live (pishurs here) if you ever get the chance. Anyway, the songs are filled with the same [dark] sense of humor that’s in the first Future of the Left CD, Curses, and that’s found in mclusky. The band really knocks your socks off with this release, though — parts of You Need Satan More Than He Needs You bringing to mind, oddly, vocal stylings from tunes from the Melvins CD A Senile Animal. I think I’ve listened to this album about 6 or 7 times since buying it a couple days ago (you can purchase a pre-release from http://www.futureoftheleft.com that nets you the 320kbps files and a CD or LP, depending on your choice) and it’s been worth however long I’ve spent waiting for it since finding out FotL was releasing a CD this year. Definitely for fans of (obviously) noise rock and mclusky, along with the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., and Jesus Lizard.

Metric - Fantasies | Sample

I read an unfavorable review of this on either Indie Rock Sucks or Punk News dot Org (maybe both! and fuck, I originally said Absolute Punk — ew, what an embarrassment) saying that Metric was blatantly ripping off Paramore and deserved to die in some sort of terrible fire. That aside (since, y’know, I’m pretty sure Metric’s been around a lot longer than Paramore), this is actually a pretty fun CD. The first track, Help! I’m Alive is actually one of the better first songs I’ve heard off a new CD in awhile. The only real downside to the CD, assuming you sort of dig this kind of dance-y indie pop to begin with, is that it sort of feels like it gets lost somewhere in the middle and forgets the hooks and catchiness that were at the beginning. I know a lot of people agree with me on this, too, but, like Art Brut vs. Satan, I’m kind of tired of hearing the Beatles and the ‘Stones namedropped in songs. Really, it’s gotta stop. But okay, okay, all that aside, this is a really fun CD and so worth blasting at loud volumes on a warm summer night.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t | Sample

Do you like catchy noise pop that is more than a little bit derived from the Jesus and Mary Chain / MBV EPs and has a massive Pitchfork nerd following? That’s the question you need to ask yourself going in. If you don’t mind having heard this band in lots of other places first (and you have, even outside of JaMC and My Bloody Valentine EPs) and if you can get by liking the same things that every Pitchfork jerk-off mouth-breather likes (ie, food, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart), then The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s self-titled debut is pretty chill. If that whole lack-of-a-new-take-on-things… thing bugs you, then yeah, you’re probably better off, well, not listening to Pitchfork bands. But I actually did really enjoy this CD for some reason. It’s got a lot of cute hooks to it and I have the damnedest time saying no to guitar fuzz. It’s my weakness.

The Paper Chase - Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 1 | Sample (First song)

The Paper Chase is a really weird band. To this day, I haven’t heard anything like them. Their inventive use of sampling, effects, noise, and plain creepiness really can’t be understated (seriously, the sound of pigs being slaughtered on Someday This… and this review ought to explain). They’re a total love ‘em or hate ‘em kind of band, but they’re so worth buying a CD from just to hear how John Congleton arranges sound (I’d start with God Bless Your Black Heart).

Their newest album is a bit of a concept album. A two part concept album, with the second volume coming later this year or next. In typical Paper Chase style, it’s about natural disasters (Someday This Could All Be Yours covering fields like mass extinctions, hysteria, blizzards, the common cold, and, of course, ‘the human condition’). There are a couple of parts on the CD I just cannot stop listening to (it came out yesterday) — the first being the third song, The Common Cold (The Epidemic) and the second being This Is Only a Test (The Tornado). I really dig the overall sound of The Common Cold, but there is a genius sampling at the end of This is Only a Test that is just Vito Acconci reading from a Timothy Furstnau book, “You will be no more / It probably won’t be pretty like in the movies or in fairy tales / Maybe something extraordinary will happen, but probably not / Sometimes people have enough energy to say or do something meaningful right before they die / And that’s nice / But that is uncommon / Usually, people just die, and you’re going to die too.” (A long version here, if you want to be rly depressed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=MOY-jJeOeBk). Dark, huh? That’s the Paper Chase.

It’s sometimes hard to take a band like the Paper Chase seriously, given all the melodrama and hysteria that you can find in their songs, but then, that’s just how they are. In the better songs on the CD, there are examples given as to how actual natural disasters impact us. In I’m Going to Heaven With or Without You (The Forest Fire), the band sings of using superstitious means such as horseshoes and garlic to ward off the impending doom, showcasing how we cling to unknown phenomena to try to keep from being burned. Whereas in The Common Cold, John Congleton explains how some natural disasters harm other people through our own existence, because “every time I continue to breathe, you wipe your nose on my sleeve / every time I don’t drive off a cliff, every time I don’t chop off my lips” the epidemic continues to spread.

And, of course, I was sold the minute I heard the last song, We Have Ways to Make You Talk (The Human Condition), where Congleton paraphrases Albert Camus in the Fall by saying, “You don’t have to wait for the judgment day, judgment will happen every day.”

Anyway, it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, quite understandably. But for folks who are into noise rock or creative little ideas, this band is really worth checking out.

Screaming Females - Power Move | Sample (Soz about the vocal quality)

I read about this band in Maximumrocknroll a few months back and I finally got around to listening to them in… April, I think. Power Move is definitely worthy of bopping your head to, and it’s really up your ally if you’re into bands like Lemuria or garage rock. Screaming Females also opened a night for Dinosaur Jr., too, and you can hear their noise pop tilt a little as well. All in all, a really cool band and I hope they release more stuff in the future.

Silversun Pickups - Swoon | Sample

Aren’t these guys like super famous with the totes entry-level wannabe hipster crowd now? I kid (but only kinda), because this is actually a really cool CD. The guitars sound really lush and sweeping. The first time I heard it, I was listening to headphones and the guitars were really dizzying. I like that! I know they sound a ton like the Smashing Pumpkins, but the Pumpkins blow. (Hur hur, maybe I’m kidding, maybe I’m not, maybe I just like watching Pumpkins fans nerd rage.) Anyhow, I’m sure they’ll be the next big band it’s cool to hate, if they weren’t already, but Swoon is a really slick CD and worth a spin — especially if you dig guitar effects and the Smashing Pumpkins without the ego.

Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years | Sample

Man, so SFA blows that Oasis / Arctic Monkeys / “Look at me, I like music from the UK!” shit out of the water. SFA is aces. The first song, Crazy Naked Girls, starts out with this vaguely typical indie pop setup, gradually turning into this crazy King Crimson / prog rock / Hendrix-laced riff-fest with the constant refrain of, “Crazaaaaaay, crazaaaay nakeddddd girllllls!” If that doesn’t sell you, I give the fuck up. Also: if you manage to listen to this CD in a bad mood and don’t cheer up by the time it’s over, I again give the fuck up.

But in all seriousness, it’s a really good CD. It’s one of my favorites from 2009, for sure. And seriously, go burn copies of it for all your Oasis-loving friends and show them what they’re missing out on. One more time of hearing about this fabled champagne supernova in the sky and I think I might just have to kill.

Now, he’d been unable to get pre-sale tickets as they’d sold out too fast. So I agreed to get on Ticketmaster’s website at noon today and order the general sale tickets as soon as they were available. Well, predictably, they all sold out within ten minutes.

So, what the fuck is up with this? For instance, you could buy REM’s tickets well after they were released to general sale. Snow Patrol and such too. Granted, they don’t have the cult following of Phish, but in looking around, what’s going on is that people are buying these tickets well in advance with no intention of using them themselves. In fact, they’re buying them and then reselling them on Ebay for, literally, $1000.

I don’t understand it, really. As much as I hate hippies, for some reason I thought they’d have their act together when selling tickets and making sure that people who were actually wanting to attend got tickets. This blog that I’ve never heard of that covers local Denver news makes a good point. Nine Inch Nails makes a pretty decent effort to protect their fans from getting deprived of tickets because of some douchebag who got lucky in the Ticketmaster queue. Every time something weird comes up in the music industry, I see Trent Reznor and NIN doing something revolutionary. And as much as I can’t stand their music, at least they’re cracking down on people who are just buying tickets to resell and scam other people.

Anyway, like I said, I always had some respect for hippies because for some reason I associated them a bit with punk rock’s DIY ethic. But what I’ve suddenly hit upon is that hippies are sort of like AIG-style capitalists, whereas a lot of punk is more like DIY capitalism, with its ability to sell hundreds of thousands of cassettes and CDs without signing to a major label or selling merchandise. You get the feeling that it suddenly makes sense why Ann Coulter is a Dead Head.

Yeah, yeah, sweeping generalizations suck. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like Phish are sort of like “sellouts” for some reason, despite my hatred of the word. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but this whole ridiculous ticket situation with Phish is just such a joke.