The Shit

Has It Been Ten Years Already? Andrew W.K. Returns To Metro for "I Get Wet" 10th Anniversary Show

2012-01-26T13:36:00.001-08:00

Man, it seems like just yesterday that a rock newcomer by the name of Andrew W.K. was poised to dominate the world with his debut magnum rock opus I Get Wet, which was chock-full of bombastic rock anthems that recalled such bands as Queen, Judas Priest, and Nirvana, among others.

Industry heavyweights and rock critics alike seemed so certain that Andrew would soon be the biggest act in the world that it almost felt like a foregone conclusion and that all the rest of us could do was obligingly go along with the pack. Of course, not everybody was quite so willing to go along with the supposed tastemakers. Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber, for example, wasted no time in taking the album to task in his review.

Alright, this is bullshit. I've had it. Is this what we've been reduced to? Michigan metalheads copping ESPN Jock Jams, capitalizing on the shameful worst of the 1980s and bellowing incessantly about the wondrous virtues of the all-nighter? Rock critics who dissed this entire genre in its heyday now glorifying its second coming as somehow superior? If this is what the future of music has in store for us, why no apocalypse on New Year's Eve '99? Doesn't God care? Shit, maybe Y2K really was Armageddon, launching us headfirst into a great black xFC-metal abyss, and maybe Andrew W.K. is just the first of four pending horsemen.

Surprisingly (or not, depending on whether you agreed with Schreiber's review), the album stalled at #84 on the US Album charts and Andrew slowly receded from the limelight after the lackluster chart performance of his second album, The Wolf.

While we were quite vocal in disagreeing with those who thought Andrew W.K. would soon be a platinum success, we were also quite fond of Andrew's penchant for bombast and felt that he at least deserved the cult success that he had attained. After all, the guy is hilariously over-the-top and seems to be sincere in all that he does, so what's not to like about that?

So it's with a certain glee that we look forward to Andrew's return to the Metro stage on March 25 to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of the release of I Get Wet.

By the way, tickets for this show go on sale THIS SATURDAY and are available online HERE.

What's Your Blues Name?

2012-01-25T14:37:00.001-08:00

(Thanks to our pal Switters for this one!)

Jeff "Critter" Newell 1966-2011

2012-01-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

We are just now getting the news that recording engineer Jeff "Critter" Newell passed away on December 31, 2011. For those who were familiar with Chicago's Wax Trax/industrial scene, Critter was a constant fixture and recognizable face on the scene, engineering albums by Ministry, Skinny Puppy and others.

15 years ago, he relocated to Los Angeles and was most recently noted for producing Blink 182's reunion album, Neighborhoods, after working extensively with Blink 182 frontman Tom DeLonge on his Angels & Airwaves project.

Newell was 45.

January Clearance Continues: Buy 1 Get 1 Free on Sets of Blue Steel Strings!

2012-01-23T09:17:00.001-08:00

Buy 1 set of Dean Markley's most popular line of strings, BLUE STEEL, and get the second set FREE! Sale is limited to stock on-hand and this special pricing will run through end-of-business Tuesday (that's tomorrow, for those keeping score at home) and are available at Superior St.'s Mississippi Delta music store (located in the main lounge area).

If you haven't already given BLUE STEEL a try, this is your chance. If you're already a fan of BLUE STEEL, this is your chance to STOCK UP!

L.A. Readers: Tickets Still Available to see Jeff Tweedy at Largo!

2012-01-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

That's right, Chicago's prodigal son Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco, which you knew, right?) is in L.A. tonight to appear at Largo at the Coronet Theatre. What makes this appearance special, however, is that it'll be an onstage interview with actor Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm). Tweedy may or may not perform, it depends on the vibe of the whole thing.

The best part is that proceeds go to benefit Direct Effect Charities, which was founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Michelle DiGiacomo and Paul Fitzgerald. Their dream was to start a charity that "directly effected" children in need. In short, to cut out the "middle men" and create programs where the donor could give directly to the recipient.

Interested? If so, grab tickets HERE. They're only $30, so buy two and bring a friend! :)

Guilty Pleasure: Jack White On "American Pickers"

2012-01-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

Lord, do I hate most of these "picking through other people's trash" reality shows (including the ones where people by abandoned storage spaces), but the other night, I was thoroughly geeked to catch Jack White on "American Pickers".

Granted, "American Pickers" is probably the most tolerable show of this ilk, but what I found so watchable was the exchange between Jack White and the pickers who had delivered an elephant's head to the rock guitarist's record label/recording studio warehouse in Nashville. Rather than simply drop it off, though, the pair soon found themselves bartering, with Jack White offering to throw in an old Woolworth's photo booth and a jukebox in lieu of cash.

For those of us who'd kill to have an old-school jukebox, much less Jack White's jukebox, this was MUST-SEE TV.

Enjoy!

Today In Music, January 18 - Plasmatics' Wendy O Gets Busted, King Of Pop Gets Divorced, And More!

2012-01-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

On this date in 1981, Wendy O. Williams of the punk band The Plasmatics is arrested mid-concert in Milwaukee for simulated sex with a sledgehammer. Williams would file (and eventually lose) a civil suit against the Milwaukee Police.

In 1984, Van Halen begins their "1984" North American tour with a sold-out concert at Jacksonville (Florida) Coliseum.

In 1996, Lisa Marie Presley divorces Michael Jackson citing "irreconcilable differences" after only two years of marriage.

BORN ON THIS DAY

Jonathan Davis, singer in the band Korn, 1971.

Crispian Mills, singer/guitarist in the band Kula Shaker, 1973

New Releases: Tuesday, January 17, 2012

2012-01-16T10:47:00.001-08:00

Buck Satan & The 666 Shooters - Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free

Ministry's Al Jourgenson properly releases this long-in-the-works country album that isn't as much of a novelty record as you'd think. Truth be told, the guy's got country chops out the wazoo and the songs are actually some of the best actual songs he's been a part of in a decade plus. If that weren't enough to investigate further, Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen's guitar work is all over this record.

The Byrds - Original Album Classics (re-issue)

It's a damn shame that most people are only familiar with the band's Dylan covers and have totally missed out on their gem-laden late-60s/early 70s output, which was essentially a template for the entire alt.country genre that remains such a vital part of the Chicago (and Austin) music scenes. This 5-disc re-issue (which is a total steal for the price of $26.99) compiles Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, Ballad Of Easy Rider, Byrdmaniax and Farther Along. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto Deluxe Edition

For those who didn't get enough of Coldplay with the initial release of their latest platter, this deulxe edition arrives just in time to suck some serious cash from your account. For the asking price of $85, diehard Coldplay fans get a 64-page, 12" X 12" hardback book, containing graffiti pop-up art designed by David A. Carter, 180-gram heavyweight graffiti picture disc LP (exclusive to this edition) as well as a CD version of the album, a selection of stickers and stencils, and a 36" X 12" color poster of the band's graffiti wall.

Guided By Voices - Let's Go Eat The Factory

Those craving a heavy dose of vintage 90's alt.pop need look no further than this album, which marks the return of GBV's classic line-up after a 15-year hiatus. The songs are the best that Pollard has written in almost that long, too. Cannot say enough good things about this record, which will surely end up on many Best of 2012 lists.

Jesse Baylin - Little Spark

Not to be confused with male rocker Jesse Malin, this female pop chanteuse has a striking voice and a musical style that beautifully recalls Laurel Canyon folk-pop, while bringing enough of a modern update to make it so much more than a simple homage to those greats that came before. This could be the next Sheryl Crow.

The Billy Corgan Wrestling League And Tea House?!

2012-01-14T12:57:00.001-08:00

Seems Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan is still broadening his horizons, career-wise. Corgan, 44, launched the indie wrestling league Resistance Pro back in November and last night, Harry Smith was crowned the league's champion after defeating The Sheik and Kevin Steen at ECW Arena.

Sadly, it may be the last wrestling event to be held at the venue, as new ownership plan to move in an entirely different direction, whatever that means.

Corgan, meanwhile, still has his hands full with the opening of his 1930's-era Chinese tea house in Highland Park, which is set for a March/April grand opening. Corgan is hoping to provide an alternative to Starbucks, which he calls "cookie-cutter culture".

We'll keep you abreast of further developments in Corgan's latest ventures, so stay tuned!

Five Days And Counting Until THE WEEZER CRUISE!

2012-01-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

That's right, ladies & gents, the Weezer Cruise is only five days away, so grab your cash ($499 per person/$799 per couple) and book your room for this 4-day cruise that includes performancesd by Weezer (no WAY!), Dinosaur Jr., Yuck (our faves), Sebadoh, and many, many others.

If that weren't enough, all packages include a photo of you and WEEZER! Don't let the recent news about that cruise ship that crashed in Italy thwart your chances of kickin' it on a cruise ship with Rivers Cuomo and the rest of the Weezer clan.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DEETS!

Trollgaze: The Latest Hip New Genre!

2012-01-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

Coined by Village Voice writer Maura Johnson in writing about the movement that is fly-by-night web sensations such as Rebecca Black and whatever else gets a million hits an hour despite either sucking or having no actual artistic integrity to speak of.

READ HER ARTICLE

The article in which Johnson coined the phrase was based upon the recent Lance Bass (of Backstreet Boys, or was that N'Sync?) boy-band project, Heart2Heart, which seems to have been created solely for the purpose of creating a brief web tsunami for being playfully lame.

Their song, "Facebook Official", is about relationships making the jump from nothingness to the sort of viability that leads a person to update their relationship status on Facebook. It almost makes Rebecca Black's "Friday" look positively deep and thought-provoking by comparison.

To further validate the "genre" known as "trollgaze", Pitchfork writer Tom Ewing waxes poetic about the genre's potential staying power, admitting that the music itself is completely disposable:

"It's not built to exist in a record shop, a TV channel, a collection, or even an mp3 playlist. Its natural habitat is the stream-- that ceaseless flow of information we access every time we use social media. Trollgaze is something you see sandwiched between other status updates, tweets, or posts, fighting for attention with every other picture, stray thought, polemic, or advert. Its button-pushing crassness and ambiguous motives make it an evolutionary nightmare: music perfectly adapted for life in the stream."

READ HIS ARTICLE (ON HER ARTICLE)

Gotta say, doesn't look good for the music industry if the music people wanna listen to (or watch while bored at work) doesn't translate to anything you'd actually wanna own.

Interesting from a detached, end of civilization as we know it POV. Kinda scary from the viewpoint of having to live here while these crazy ADD/ADHD kids make a mockery of everything.

WIlco Keeping Busy!

2012-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

(photo by Joey Lombardi)

With a U.S. tour that is set to begin in Denver on January 19th, but doesn't feature any Chicago dates (sniff), Wilco was recently in the studio working on some nehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifw tracks, which should see release this http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifspring/summer.

In other news, the band has made the December 12, 2011 Chicago Civic Opera House show available on their website. Of the band's recent spate of hometown shows, this is the one that people are still talking about the most, so check it out HERE.

In other Wilco news, the band has announced that they're , which was just starting to gather some steam, will not take place again until June 21-23, 2013. That's right, 2013. The band is still planning on playing a gig in North Adams, MA (the site of the festival) this summer.

Music News: Week Of January 9, 2012

2012-01-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

The Tomorrow Never Knows festival is just two short days away, promising five days of great music shows around town. This year, however, we'll be looking forward to some great comedy sets as well, including Todd Barry's show at The Hideout on 1/13 (yes, that's right, FRIDAY the 13th) and Wyatt Cenac (of The Daily Show) on 1/14 at The Hideout.

Musically speaking, we're keen on catching Moombahton Massacre on 1/13 at Metro and Grouplove at Lincoln Hall on 1/14. We just hope there's a way to be two places at once so we can get our fill of comedy AND music without missing any of the above mentioned shows.

One show we will be missing, but it won't be any fault of our own, will be Adam Ant's February show at The Cubby Bear. It seems a conflict with his record label (a rather fly-by-night record label, if we do say so ourselves) has led Adam to scrap his entire US tour and move all dates back to October 2012. A statement on Adam's Facebook page explains, "Due to circumstances beyond the control of Adam Ant, his band and his representation, the release of Adam's new album has been delayed resulting in the re-scheduling of his February USA tour dates. All advance purchased tickets will remain valid. Adam Ant and all those involved with the tour are disappointed with the delay and apologize to the many of you that have purchased tickets in advance, however he greatly looks forward to bringing an amazing show to you all on the revised dates."

Snow Patrol, however, will be hitting Chicago on April 21st, playing the Aragon Ballroom in support of their new album, Fallen Empires. The band is actually playing a special gig at David Letterman's "Late Show" studio today (Jan 9) at 8PM EST. The entire concert will be available for streaming online.

Under-Appreciated Album Of The Day: Devo's "Freedom Of Choice"

2012-01-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

For many, the quintessential '80s album is The Cars' self-titled debut effort, which features such timeless classics as "My Best Friend's Girl", "Just What I Needed", and "Good Times Roll". What most people don't realize, or have conveniently forgotten, is that this classic '80s album actually came out in 1978.

The one album that sums up all the best (and worst) aspects of the Me Decade, and was actually released in the '80s would have to be Devo's Freedom Of Choice, best known for containing the smash hit "Whip It". By mere association, both the band and the album from which the song came have been dismissed by many as novelty when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Freedom Of Choice is easily one of the best albums of the decade, systematically encapsulating all the musical hallmarks that the decade had to offer: catchy sing-along hooks, pulsating synthesizers, electronic percussion, all played by guys wearing bright red flower pots. Of course, anyone who bothered to pay attention knows full well that those are actually Aztec energy domes.

Truth be told, those first Devo two albums, Q: Are We Not Men, A: We Are Devo, and Duty Now For The Future, had been largely experimental efforts, On the former, the band hadn't so much covered the Stones' "Satisfaction (I Can't Get No)" as deconstructed it and rebuilt it from the ground up, turning it into an angular nerd-rock anthem. For Duty, they mixed traditional rock chord progressions with odd time signatures, sang of Pink Pussycats, and , then topped it all off with a no-nonsense cover of "Secret Agent Man" that arguably surpassed the original. It was an album that sent mixed signals and, as a result, failed to generate any heat on the charts. By this point, those who were aware of the band were either totally into their schtick, or dismissed the band as a short-lived musical oddity.

For their third effort, Freedom Of Choice, Devo seemed to have either buckled to record company pressure to be more accessible, or simply streamlined their look & sound into a concise, easily digestible package. While "Whip It" was the song that the entire world would come to know by heart, whether they wanted to or not, the rest of the album was anything but the work of some novelty act.

"Ton O' Luv", if played to a room full of unsuspecting strangers, will no doubt incite a rash of robot dancing because, despite the fact that many may be hearing it for the first time, the song itself symbolizes the most innocent and carefree aspects of the '80s. Just like its impossible to frown while riding a Jet Ski, it is impossible to not bust out your goofiest dance moves to this song. The title cut, by comparison, begins with pounding tom toms that soon give way to the guitar and synth interplay of Mark Mothersbaugh and Robert Casale, and is then brought home with one of the tastiest verse hooks known to the man:

"In ancient Rome/There was a poem
About a dog/Who found two bones
He picked at one/He licked the other
He went in circles/He dropped dead."

Slowly, surely, this song has begun to grow in popularity as the new go-to song for capturing that '80s energy and why not? For advertisers hoping to position their brand as new, exciting, the choice of discerning consumers everywhere, a song that urges you to "use your freedom of choice" is what those in the ad biz call a no-brainer. Listen closely, though because, at one point the band can be heard singing, "Freedom from choice is what you want".

"Gates Of Steel", with its chiming guitar intro and tribal beat, is perhaps the album's best song and one that, even today, sounds like it could be a hit. Granted, some might consider it too retro, as it contains actual singing and playing of instruments, yet, if a Lady Gaga vocal were to be laid atop the original musical backing, a nation of "little monsters" would call it the greatest thing since the new Sliced Bread app for the iPhone.

Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Rockin' New Year Clearance Sale at Superior St.!

2012-01-03T09:58:00.001-08:00

If one of your New Year's resolutions for 2012 is to add some much-needed pizazz to your current t-shirt rotation, have we got the deal for you! Mississippi Delta (Superior St.'s in-house store for strings 'n' things) is running a great deal for the month of January! Buy one Superior St. t-shirt and get a FREE drum towel.

Now, you don't have to be a drummer to find a million uses for a FREE drum towel, and we're sure you'll like downright sexy in one of our limited-edition Superior St. t-shirts so this is what we in da music biz call a "win-win situation" - unless you wait until, say, January 31 and miss out on most of the cool stuff.

We're also running a blow-out sale on all Knox Avenue t-shirts, which are now on-sale for $6! Supplies are limited so bust a move!

See you at Mississippi Delta, baby!

Random Shit: Petty On Twitter Today, Radiohead To Play Austin City Limits, Courtney Gets Evicted, and More!

2011-12-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

For anyone who may have thought last year's US tour may have been their final go-round, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers have announced an extensive North American and European tour schedule for 2012. As if that weren't cool enough, Petty himself will be answering questions from fans via his Twitter account for an hour TODAY (Thursday), beginning at 5:30 EST. Oddly enough, when asked by Rolling Stone if he'd be touring again anytime soon, Petty responded, "I kind of don't want to get on the same merry-go-round again," adding that he’s working on new album. "But I don't know. It's early."

Madonna, who was announced as the halftime entertainment for the Super Bowl, has just inked a new three-album deal with Interscope Records.

Looks like Courtney Love may be crashing on a couch near you. Seems the mercurial Widow Cobain is getting evicted from her Manhattan apartment after, ahem, setting it on fire and, oh yeah, forgetting to pay the $27,000-per-month rent. D'oh!

Looks like Trent Reznor is fast becoming the new Danny Elfman (which makes Danny Elfman the new, uh...whatever), raking in his second straight Golden Globe nomination. Last year, it was for his work on the score to "The Social Network". This year's nom is for his score for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" with Atticus Ross.

Radiohead will be taping a performance for the next season of Austin City Limits on March 7, 2012.

Steve & Johnnie End 26-Year Run At WGN Radio!

2011-12-05T09:02:00.001-08:00

So, there I was, half-asleep at around 2AM, with the radio on as always, when I thought I heard the words "Steve & Johnnie Farewell Tour" (or something to that effect) broadcast over the airwaves. I sat upright as if I'd heard a gunshot and listened for a few minutes, but all I heard was a song being played. Maybe I'd just imagined it, I thought to myself. After all, Steve & Johnnie were as much a part of my nights as anyone or anything. I'd been listening to them since the early '90s, stopping only when I loved to L.A., and resuming when the internet made listening to almost any radio station on the planet a possibility.

Of course, when I moved back to the Windy City a few years ago, I was able to catch Steve & Johnnie via my trusty, albeit dusty, clock radio. Sure, it was the same show I'd been listening to via my high-speed connection, but there was just something a little more special about listening to them on the radio.

When they weren't showcasing new artists, or catching up with musical friends like Jim Peterik, Tommy Emmanuel, and Cathy Richardson - to name but a few - they were helping out the technologically-challenged each Website Wednesday, or reviewing the latest digital cameras and compiling listener photos with Will Crockett, or raving about the latest episode of "Dancing With The Stars" with ABC7 meteorologist Tracy Butler.

What kept me glued to the radio, though, was the radio duo's commitment to promoting a metric shit-ton (pardon my French) of music, both locally and from around the world, as well as paying constant homage to Les Paul. In doing so, they seemed more cut out for a spot on the FM dial, but it was a refreshing change from the non-stop news chatter normally found on WGN.

It wasn't until I actually heard again, minutes later, that Steve & Johnnie were indeed leaving the station that I began trying to wrap my head around the idea. Nearly ten hours later, I'm no closer to doing so now than I was then. The simple truth is that Steve & Johnnie have made the nights bearable for thousands of kindred, sleepless souls who found something to hold onto in the wee hours when the rest of the world was fast asleep, completely oblivious to the radio duo (and real life couple) whose voices illuminated the hours leading to dawn.

Thanks to Steve & Johnnie, I've come to know and love artists like Robbie Fulks, Les Paul (whose guitar prowess and extensive discography I had been completely unaware of), Kate Miller-Heidke, and the Yellowhammers. I've also become quite fond of not only Tommy Emmanuel's magical talents as a guitarist, but also his humility and constant visits with Steve & Johnnie that have made him a recent addition, but no less loved, to my "radio family".

Sadly, like most real-life families, circumstances conspire to take certain members in new directions. At the moment, I am quite uncertain how I will fill those hours that Steve & Johnnie helped fill, but, most importantly, I seem forced to say goodbye to two friends I've come to love like my own flesh and blood, but have yet to meet in person.

Of course, when they finally walk off into the sunset in the wee hours of Friday, December 9th, Chicago radio will incur yet another serious blow to their musical identity, as gone will be two of the biggest musical cheerleaders this city has ever had.

Career In A Nutshell: The B-52's

2011-11-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

B-52's - B-52's

With the release of their self-titled album, the B-52's launched a musical missile. the affects of which the musical world would not immediately feel, but, by the time the band made their network television debut on Saturday Night Live, it was more delayed gratification than detonation. That's because, in those pre-MTV days, all most of us had to go on was the music. Sure, the album cover gave us some indication of a band's look and attitude, but it wasn't until our teenage eyes saw the B-52's in action that the full impact of this band would be felt.

We can only imagine what it must have been like to have caught the band playing the party circuit in Athens, GA or a dive bar in NYC, but it must have been a visual experience forever burned into one's retinas; the bee-hive hair-do's of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, the John Waters-ian carnival barker that is Fred Schneider, and the skin-tight rhythms of drummer Keith Strickland and guitarist Ricky Wilson. Even in a music scene that seemed so packed with bands that had their own look and sound, the B-52's must have surely stood out from the crowd.

Of course, we're still trying to work out how Island Records president Chris Blackwell came to produce their debut album, but not release it on his own label in the US. Instead, the album came out on the big brother of record labels, Warner Brothers, which, at the time was a bit of a conundrum. Sure, there were executives at the label who signed acts on the basis of their artistic vision, but there was always an underlying pressure to make hits and sell more records. Those who didn't tended to not stick around long. For every Tom Waits, whose albums garnered much more critical acclaim than actual sales, there were twenty acts who got dropped for turning in the same sales numbers. Would the B-52's be given a second chance, my young mind thought, or would they be a brief experiment quickly abandoned by a huge media conglomerate for not moving enough units.

Enough about the business-side of music, for now at least. What struck us about the band's first album was that it seemed so confident in its own greatness that it didn't even need to offer its best song first. Instead, the mostly-instrumental "Planet Claire" seemed to act as a sort of palette cleanser, allowing you to clear your ears of whatever you'd been listening to before. "52 Girls" followed, delivering its own blitzkrieg of jittery surf guitars and infectious girl-group harmonies. The entire song is one king-size hook headed straight for your subconscious. Whether you chose to dance or not, this song would still be doing the boogaloo in your brain hours, if not days, later.

What followed was the roundhouse one-two punch of "Dance This Mess Around" and "Rock Lobster", which raised the stakes considerably and proved that this band knew exactly how to throw a dance party and raise the level of anticipation and gratification with expert precision so as to achieve the desired affect. After all, you don't just go for the throat on the first song and then keep hammering at the audience. No, no, no, you create an ebb and flow that pushes and pulls at the senses, leaves them guessing, slyly enveloping them and enticing them to let you do with them what you will. This isn't a rock album, this is a seduction, baby.

B-52's - Wild Planet

Arriving less than a year after the release of their riveting debut effort, there were many who wondered if there was any way the B-52's could top themselves. After all, few bands arrive so fully formed on their first album, and even fewer are able to repeat the feat on their second album.

Where their first album began with the shy wave hello that was "Planet Claire", by comparison, Wild Planet jumps out from behind the curtains, yells, "Surprise!", and offers you a drink of unknown origin and alcohol content. "Party Out Of Bounds", indeed.

With producer Rhett Davies at the controls, the sound is just as no-frills as the debut, but the bottom end is just a little thicker, and the edges, while plentiful, aren't quite as jagged. With as little studio trickery as possible, what you heard was the band as they were meant to be heard. If any song seems to benefit from Davies’ production style, it would be "Dirty Back Road", which might have sounded like a throwaway track if produced as dryly as their first album. Here, with proper emphasis on the more atmospheric elements, the song packs a deceptively seductive punch.

The downside, however small, might be that songs like "Runnin' Around" and "Devil In My Car" don't pack the same primal punch under Davies’ command. It's songs like "Private Idaho" and "Give Me Back My Man" that show the band moving into Version 2.0 of their artistic progression. In fact, in many ways, the former seems to be an obvious updating of "Rock Lobster", while the latter integrates subtle instrumental elements, such as counter-harmonies, layered guitars, and electronic percussion, to heighten the song's impact.

While this is a different B-52's, for sure, it isn't so much a band being forced into change by an overbearing producer as a band simply progressing naturally and finding the right producer to help them reach the next plateau.

B-52’s – Party Mix!

While the idea of this EP was innovative for the time – three songs on each side, mixed so that each track segued into the other, hence the title Party Mix! – one couldn’t help feel that the label was trying to milk the fans rather than give us something new. After all, the material featured on this EP was taken from the band’s first two albums.

B-52’s – Mesopotamia

The appearance of yet another EP less than half a year after the release of Party Mix! left many B-52’s fans scratching their heads. Sure, it was produced by David Byrne and showed the band moving into a slightly darker, more experimental territory, but it was still only an EP. Considering that it had been eighteen months since they’d given the world a proper full-length album, the release of an EP seemed to signal either a serious bout of writer’s block on the band’s part, or a reluctance on the part of Warner Brothers to give fans a new LP. Considering the fact that Wild Planet had gone gold, it was incredibly odd to get the feeling that Warner hadn’t enough faith in the band to sign-off on a full-length. Only in recent years, did it become known that the tensions between Byrne and the band had led to the halt of recording sessions halfway through the album. Thus, the band released only those tracks that they’d managed to complete.

B-52's - Whammy!

For those used to the organic live-in-the-studio sound of their past work, hearing those trademark girl group harmonies soaring atop a bed of pre-programmed synthesizers and drum machines came as quite a shock. Granted, this was the Eighties and every band's drummer suddenly had a lot of time on their hands, it seemed.

For a band that had always gloriously oozed personality, it was hard to tell this album from the new Book Of Love record. While the musical decade that was "The '80s" is looked back upon with such fondness, the production sound that was so de rigueur by 1983 was perfect for some artists, but "the great homogenizer" to others. Bands like the B-52's, whose first two albums had bristled with such intensity, were rendered almost unrecognizable.

The main problem is that, for all of the bombastic bells and whistles, whether there's an actual song to be found beneath the metronomic iron-fist production is anyone's guess. As hooky as album-opener "Legal Tender" may be, one can't help but wonder if it would have passed the muster during sessions for their first two albums.

"Whammy Kiss", by comparison, sounds like an outtake from Devo's Freedom Of Choice and sees the band finally yanking Fred Schneider out of storage. "Song For A Future Generation", while a fan favorite and worthy of inclusion on their greatest hits album despite not actually being "a hit", has always rubbed me the wrong way. The B-52's singing a song, however tongue-in-cheek, about two shallow freaks deciding to have a baby is a serious thematic misstep in the B-52's canon. Such themes are better left to ‘80s-era Peter, Paul & Mary comeback albums. "Butterbean", while being the second tune in a row on the album to see the band name-check their hometown of "Athens, GA", it is the most dreadful B-52's tune to ever come down the pike. It's like "Song For A Future Generation" had been trying to warn me of the impending musical doom that is "Butterbean".

B-52’s – Bouncing Off The Satellites

With a two-year gap between albums – something that was almost unheard of back in those days – the B-52’s returned with their fourth full-length album and tried to right the ship after the critical and commercial failure of Whammy! Working with Tony Mansfield (formerly of British synth-pop band New Musik), the band seemed intent on straddling the line between synth-pop and live performance. The end result was campy, no doubt, but it just didn’t feel like the band’s heart was in it. Before the album was released, guitarist Ricky Wilson died of complication from HIV/AIDS, throwing the band into a tailspin. The album was released in late 1986, but the band refused to tour to promote it. Thus, the album only barely dented the Top 100. At this point, one could hardly blame the press and fans for writing the band off. The B-52’s were, after all, a party band and Wilson’s death seemed to stop the band members in their tracks.

B-52’s – Cosmic Thing

Coming three years after their most disappointing record, and the death of founding member Ricky Wilson, Cosmic Thing makes quick work of introductions and gets right down to rocking. Never before has a once-great band so rejuvenated, bouncing from one energetic groove to the next over the course of the album’s ten jubilantly celebratory tracks. Not only were longtime fans of the band back in the fold, an entire new generation of fans were drawn into the band’s wicked web by the constant radio and MTV rotation of hits “Love Shack”, “Roam” and “Deadbeat Club”. The album reached a peak position of #4 in the US and would go on to outsell their entire back catalog.

B-52’s – Good Stuff

If this was a Genesis album it would be called And Then There Were Three. Hoping to continue their success by utilizing much the same formula employed on Cosmic Thing, the B-52’s were missing two very important ingredients; Cindy Wilson (who’d decided to leave the band and retire from the music business) and good songs. Thus, this follow-up effort fell far short of Cosmic Thing, both critically and commercially. It isn’t so much that the song are bad, per se, but that the band seems in such a serious mood, as if all the good times they’ve had over the years have finally caught up with them. If Cosmic Thing was a pitcher of margaritas, Good Stuff was the hangover and nobody wanted to buy a hangover. Sadly, the band slowed the pace considerably at this point, touring occasionally, but no longer releasing new material. Two different compilations, Songs For A Future Generation and Nude On The Moon were released in 1998 and 2002, respectively.

B-52’s – Funplex

Sixteen years after their last proper album, the four surviving members of the B-52’s reunited to record Funplex and, in doing so, proved that you’re never too old to have a good time. With members all in their 50’s by now, it’s refreshing to see the B-52’s still capable of raising the roof, albeit in Y2K fashion. What that means, of course, is that most of the instruments are programmed and the vocals are auto-tuned here and there. At times, it seems the band is fighting to inject their personality into the faceless, over-the-top electronic production, but, thankfully, the songs themselves are solid pulse-pounders. “Funplex” and “Juliet Of The Spirits” went on to be huge dance floor hits all over the world, giving us hope that this is not the last we hear from this band.

B-52’s – With The Wild Crowd: Live In Athens, GA

Anyone who thinks the idea of a B-52’s live album is absurd has never seen the band live. The truth is, as great as their first two albums may have been, the concert stage has always been where their material has truly jumped off the vinyl, grabbed you by the hand, and seduced you into dancing your ass off.

Once you hear the band’s brand-new live album, your first thought will be “Damn, these songs are TIGHT!” Your next will be, “Why did these guys wait so damn long to release a live album?!” The 18 songs that comprise this Flaming Volcano of a live album are spread quite evenly over the band’s career, but even if you’re a fan of the early stuff, or the “Love Shack” days, you’ll find a lot to like here. The band’s energy and buoyant attitude keeps the whole thing in high gear and the party just doesn’t let up until every last person’s heart joyfully explodes. That a band whose first album came out almost 34 years ago can still manage to blow the roof off the dump is a testament to “clean living”, wink, wink, and we can only hope that there is more to come from this legendary band. Are they in the Hall of Fame yet? Well, they should be!

The Shit List: Top 10 Best Old School Heavy Metal Albums [PART TWO]

2011-11-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

For those who enjoyed our first installment, we now bring you the rest of our selections in the latest Shit List: Top 10 Best Old School Heavy Metal Albums. Enjoy!

Iron Maiden / The Number Of The Beast

Sure, you’d be hard-pressed to include Iron Maiden in metal’s first wave, but their triumphant 1982 masterpiece is definitely an old school main-stay that belongs on any metal Top 10 list. While not exactly speed metal, Maiden was the first band to up-the-tempos while, at the same time, seeing how many guitarists they could fit onstage! HA! This album is remarkable for not only featuring new drummer Clive Burr, but a new singer by the name of Bruce Dickinson. Together, they set the band’s iconic line-up in concrete. Those who don’t think this album was essential never visited an amusement park during the summer of ’82. If they had, they’d have lost track of all the Maiden t-shirts. In the years since its release, the monstrous impact of this album remains fully intact. One listen to “Run To The Hills”, “Hallowed Be Thy Name, or the blistering title cut and you’ll be picking your jaw off the floor.

Metallica / Ride The Lightning

Sure, Metallica have completely lost touch with their inner metalheads – how else to explain the musical atrocity that is “Lulu”, the album they recorded with Lou Reed? – but back in 1984, these guys injected som,e serious venom into the metal mix, proving that this California-based underdog could rock with the best of them. Granted, it took a European tape-trading frenzy to bring them to the attention of metal fans in their own backyard, but it is this ambition that breathes serious life into this album, which remains the #1 most influential thrash metal album ever recorded. Anyone who can listen to the one-two throat punch of “Ride The Lightning” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and not be banging their head gloriously off the dashboard should be checked for a pulse. While many might call “…And Justice For All” the band’s best album, it is this effort that sees a young and hungry Metallica out to prove they can hang with the big boys. They would never sound this vibrant again.

Ozzy Osbourne / Blizzard Of Ozz

With the original line-up of Black Sabbath having run out of ideas and patience with one another, the state of heavy metal in general lied in peril. Truth be told, other once great bands like Deep Purple and UFO had fallen victim to internal squabbles as well. Additionally, punk and new wave had become the musical genres most closely associated with teenage rebellion. It wasn’t until Ozzy Osbourne teamed with former Quiet Riot guitarist Randy Rhoads to record his legendary debut solo album that heavy metal was literally reinvented. Almost instantly after its release, every disillusioned kid in suburbia knew the words to every song on this album and Ozzy Osbourne was enjoying the greatest commercial success of his career mere months after virtually every major label in the US and UK had turned him down. Like Eddie Van Halen had done a couple years earlier, Randy Rhoads masterful riffage on this album set in motion a tsunami of teenage wanna-be’s who began emulating his style. While his prowess is undeniable, it is the strength of the songs and the cohesive nature of the album that made Ozzy a household name a year after getting kicked out of Sabbath.

Starz / Violation

While some may dismiss this band simply because their lone hit, "Cherry Baby", was a little on the sugary side, anyone who has taken the time to listen to this entire album knows exactly why Metal Blade Records saw fit to release the band's entire catalog in the '90s...because this band literally defined the genre that would become pop metal, or hair metal, or whatever you wish to call it. One listen to the devilishly twisted lyrics of songs "Subway Terror" (sung from the POV of a serial rapist), "Violation" (railing against the confines of life in an institution) and the Stones-y "Cool One", with the hilarious line "She reached over and she squeezed on my rocks/I lost it all in the popcorn box". Despite the band's stunning ability to slay audiences with their twin-guitar attack and over-the-top showmanship, a legion of lesser acts (*cough*POISON*cough) stole their schtick and rode it to platinum success, proving that perhaps this band was merely a decade or so ahead of their time.

Thin Lizzy / Jailbreak

I still remember the very first time I heard the song "Jailbreak". I was maybe ten years old, riding around in an Econoline van with my teenage uncle and my younger brother. My uncle had control of the 8-track player, of course, and was pumping the jams. As the part in the song where a siren wails in the background, my little brother actually leaned out the window to see if the cops were chasing us. Unc and I laughed our asses off. Cherished childhood memories aside, Jailbreak remains one of the finest moments in heavy metal, with Phil Lynott and company brandishing the mighty metal sword that would see them play to hundreds of thousands of devoted fans and influence the likes of Metallica's James Hetfield. This loose concept album is a non-stop riff-laden tour de force that charges at you like a pissed-off bull in a china shop, beginning with the aforementioned title cut and continuing the barrage with monumental tracks like "The Boys Are Back In Town" and "Cowboy Song". By the time the final strains of "Emerald" fade out, the listener is left completely spent, both arms tired from endless air-guitar playing.

Al Jourgenson Suffers Relapse!

2011-11-18T05:26:00.000-08:00

When "Uncle Al" Jourgensen announced the end of Ministry in 2008, a lot of folks figured this supposed retirement would be a brief one. Considering the rumors of Al being on his death bed on more than one occasion over the past couple years, though, one couldn't help think that maybe Ministry (and Al) really was history.
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Then, on 11-11-11, the album that has been rumored to be near-completion for just as long (if not longer) than "Chinese Democracy", the Buck Satan & The 666 Shooters album finally saw proper release. Will miracles never cease?

Of course, all of this is icing on the cake compared to the not-so-long-awaited Ministry reunion that will culminate in the release of a new studio album in early 2012 (entitled "Relapse") and a brief tour that will see Ministry hold court for two nights (June 28 and 29, with talk of a third show to be added if ticket sales are strong enough) at the Vic Theatre.

Tickets for the Vic Theatre shows are already on sale. CLICK HERE to buy tickets.

The Shit List: Top 10 Best Old School Heavy Metal Albums [PART ONE]

2011-11-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

As the days grow shorter and darkness falls a little sooner each day, we at The Shit find that our musical tastes as of late have also gravitated towards the darker, heavier sounds. In other words, we've been listening to a lot of heavy metal lately. Thing is, the very term "heavy metal" has come to mean so many different things that we felt it was not only necessary to define "heavy metal" by putting together the definitive list of true metal albums, which we call, simply, The Top 10 Old School Heavy Metal Albums Of All Time!

As with all of our lists, our selections appear in no particular order.

Judas Priest / British Steel

If you call yourself a metal maniac and don't own this record, you may as well have a pile of Barbie dolls and Justin Beiber posters under your bed. Whatever heavy metal had been prior to this album's release, Rob Halford & Co. virtually reinvented the genre with this record, which has stood as a monolithic heavy metal template for 30+ years. For starters, this album is the first to feature the full classic line-up, which was rounded out by the introduction of drummer Dave Holland on this record. Holland's addition solidified the rhythm section, adding more pavement-chewing power to the twin-guitar attack of Glenn Tipton and KK Downing. Upon taking one listen to the iconic riffage of "Breaking The Law", the pulsating drive of "Living After Midnight", and the annihilating groove of "Grinder", metal fans knew they were witnessing the dawn of a new period in metal. Even 30 years later, this album still packs one helluva punch. Best to not stand too close to the speakers, for fear of catching a metal-spiked knuckle sandwich.

Deep Purple / Machine Head

Before we start raving about this one, we think it bears to mention that back in these halcyon days of metal, bands didn't just rocket to the top of the charts with their first album. Nope, back in those days, the road to fame and fortune was a long one, full of dead-end streets and tricky terrain. For Deep Purple, it took them six albums to finally reach the mass audience they now fully deserved. With the release of Machine Head in 1972 the band's transformation from prog-rock act to full-blown heavy metal trailblazer was complete and, with it, came their first taste of worldwide success. Sure, this is the album that has "Smoke On The Water" on it. That, in and of itself, qualifies this album for inclusion on just about any list of great metal albums, but anyone who has taken the time to listen to the rest of the album will find a virtual treasure trove of metal gold sprinkled liberally over the album's seven tracks. That's right, this album has only seven songs on it. Why only seven, you ask? Because these seven songs were so fucking heavy, man. Your standard slice of 12" vinyl could literally not hold any more. With the inclusion of jaw-dropping rockers like "Highway Star", "Lazy", and "Space Truckin'", this album is the definitive Deep Purple record and one of the heaviest records ever made.

Black Sabbath / Paranoid

While many consider the band's debut album, released less than six months prior to this one, to be the shot that started the musical movement that is "heavy metal", we at The Shit consider Paranoid to be first truly great heavy metal album ever made. Sure, that first record sounds like it dropped out of a fucking space ship, sounding completely unlike anything anyone had ever heard before, but the songwriting still left a little to be desired. On Paranoid, though, the band hit upon a truly potent powder keg of hooks and monster riffage that was highlighted by songs such as "War Pigs", "Iron Man", and the title cut. In hindsight, we truly believe that if Paranoid had been Black Sabbath's first album, it would have blown the heads off of all who heard it. By breaking in their audience with a debut album that was, in essence, a warning shot, the world was that much more ready to digest the metal that was to come. Amazingly, this album sounds just as subversive and evil as the day it came out. Even more amazingly, the original Black Sabbath line-up has recently reunited and will unveil a new album and world tour in 2012.

King Crimson / In The Court Of The Crimson King

Okay, many who've never heard it, dismiss this album as "prog wankery", but that's just their complete ignorance talking. In truth, this album is as heavy as any heavy metal album ever made and, based on that fact alone, it qualifies for this list. Truth be told, on paper, this group led by classically-trained guitarist Robert Fripp should never have been able to create an album this monstrously heavy. From the opening wail of "21st Century Schizoid Man", this album literally rockets out of the speakers with a sense of premeditated mayhem that is starkly mesmerizing. There is a dissonant urgency to the album that perfectly matches the album cover of an obviously horrified man captured mid-scream. While the album contains only five songs, the arrangements are so complex that there seems to be many smaller songs within each song, each playing a part in an overall conceptual presentation that is as visual as it is musical.

Motorhead / Ace Of Spades

The very fact that Motorhead lived long enough to make their first album is a testament to the strength of supreme underdog, Lemmy Kilmister. After all, their first album was initially recorded after they'd enlisted a recording engineer to record their final gig after failing to get a record deal. Said engineer then offered to take them into the studio to record a single, which turned into a mnarathon recording session that saw the band lay down thirteen basic tracks. As if that weren't enough, the band kept hammering away until they finally put all the pieces together on their fourth album, Ace of Spades, thereby creating an explosive heavy metal masterpiece that can still knock you on your ass. Lemmy, of course, attributes new producer Vic Maile with much of the credit for helping the band finally harness the raw power that they'd long displayed as a live act, and for pushing Lemmy to write some of his best songs ever. Lemmy, of course, did just that, turning in such gems as "Shoot You In The Back", "Jailbait", and the legendary title cut.

CATCH PART TWO NEXT TUESDAY!!

The Shit List: The Top 10 Best Debut Albums of ALL TIME!! [PART TWO]

2011-11-11T05:32:00.000-08:00

Boston (1976)

Considering how long it has repeatedly taken band leader/perfectionist Tom Scholz to record subsequent albums, it is amazing this album ever saw the light of day. Recorded mostly in his home studio and hand-delivered to CBS Records in much the same condition as the version we all know as "the first Boston album", this record literally jumped out of car speakers and grabbed millions of teenage rock fans by the throat, musically throttling them into submission. Scholz and company took simple ingredients (guitars, bass, drums, and vocals) and created a musical hybrid that sounds wholly unique and has yet to be effectively copied in the 35 years since this album came out. While Scholz' genius is well-documented and the quality of his songs inarguable, one would be hard pressed to find a better vocalist to realize the greatness of the material than one Bradley Delp. He literally made the songs soar like the guitar-shaped spaceship that would become the band's trademark.

Big Star / #1 Record (1972)

I've always thought that if this record came out today, it would still be ahead of its time. As with all pioneers, Big Star languished in obscurity, unknowingly paving the way for a multitude of other bands to rocket to fame and fortune years later. Upon its release, a Billboard magazine record review stated that "every cut could be a single" and they were absolutely right. Unfortunately, the band's label encountered distribution troubles and was unable to keep a steady supply of the album in record stores. The buzz surrounding the band eventually fizzled, leaving this album as one of the great unsung masterpieces of the early '70s.

Van Halen (1978)

Very few albums have landed with the seismic impact of the very first Van Halen record. Upon hearing "Running With The Devil" blasting out of their radios, thousands of teenage kids started emulating Eddie Van Halen's one-of-a-kind guitar pyrotechnics. Frontman David Lee Roth was half-swashbuckler/half carnival barker, but hadn't yet become the cartoon character he would be by '81. In hindsight, Van Halen may have paved the way for the entire hair metal/Sunset Strip aesthetic, but, without that, there'd have been no Weezer, no Nirvana, or no Pearl Jam.

The Police / Outlandos D'Amour (1978)

This UK band was such an unlikely success story: 37-year-old guitarist, former prog-drummer, and a singer/bassist formerly of forgettable faux-jazzers Last Exit. Yet these likeable chaps hit upon a truly winning formula when they integrated reggae into their heady mix of guitar-driven anglo-pop. Few bands are so fortunate as to hit upon a sound that is entirely their own, but that’s what The Police did. Of course, there are still a few remnants of their punk days – “Next To You”, “Can’t Stand Losing You”, and “So Lonely”, to name just a few – but it is the floating reggae riddim of “Roxanne” that puts this band on the proverbial map.

Led Zeppelin / Led Zeppelin 1 (1969)

We’re hard-pressed to think of a single band whose debut album could be released as a “greatest hits” album as-is…other than Led Zeppelin and their absolutely hit-filled debut effort. Seriously, catch a load of the track listing:

“Good Times Bad Times”
“Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”
“You Shook Me”
“Dazed And Confused”

And that’s just side one!

Needless to say, this album remains a flawless template for heavy metal that has stood for over 40 years.

Is The New Noel Gallagher Album Shit Or THE SHIT??

2011-11-09T12:11:00.000-08:00

With the release of his first full-length solo record, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher breaks a two-year silence and, in doing so, finally joins his brother Liam in the post-Oasis sweepstakes. Liam, of course, lobbed the first grenade with his band Beady Eye and, while that album was not without its charm, many (myself included) felt the band and the album wore their influences a tad too obviously.

Of course, Noel is no stranger to penning tunes that owe an obvious debt to "the classics" - the Beatles, for starters - so perhaps its a bit much to expect Noel to shun all imitation now.

Album opener "Everyone's On The Run" sounds like the sort of Oasis b-side that a sold-out Wembley Stadium crowd knows all the words to, its grandeur tastefully heightened by a sweeping string section. Heck, I can see the video in my mind's eye, Noel at the mic, singing to the back row as a fan unfurls a large banner that reads "Liam Who?!"

"Dream On" follows, sounding very much like the song Chris Martin has been trying to write all his life. Noel's love for Coldplay's "Yellow" notwithstanding, this track proves quite succinctly that Noel's talents far out-kick Martin & Co. when so inclined.

Let's face it, unless he's been quietly blowing through his cash since splitting Oasis, Noel's got enough money to never need to make another album. He's sold millions, played to millions, seen his name in lights, and those of us who've never experienced such things respectfully wonder what's really left to prove? Of course, that hasn't stopped many a rock legend from making a crap album anyway.

"If I Had A Gun" defies its own title in exploring Noel's wistful, sentimental side. It's the sort of song the hooligans would've hated, but the girls would have loved and, at the end of the day, it's the girls who really matter. After all, hooligans don't buy records, they steal 'em.

Thus far, stylistically speaking, the album hasn't strayed too far from the Oasis formula, which is just fine by me. One surmises that if Noel had gone out trying to sound like anything but Oasis, most of his fan base would have chucked the album out the window by now. Therein lies the rub for a guy like Noel. Maybe he really wants to make a country album. Or maybe his heart lies in the burgeoning Icelandic folk metal scene. Sadly, because he's known the world over as the guitarist/songwriter/sometimes-singer in Oasis, he's forever tethered to that soulful mid-tempo rock sound for which Oasis is known. Of course, nobody said he couldn't throw the occasional wrench into the spokes. "The Death Of You And Me" is that wrench - for this album at least - wherein Noel seems perfectly content to not be himself today. The result is a jaunty, folk-tinged ditty that soars on gossamer wings, highlighted by finger-picked guitars, horns, and tasty falsetto flourishes from Noel himself.

What's most admirable about Noel circa 2011 is that he knows damn well the world has changed, that only the remnants of a once-thriving music industry remain, and that now is without a doubt the worst time ever to be "starting from scratch". You couldn't blame the guy for choosing to now look back in anger, but, on "(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine" , he chooses to relive those heady days when the turntable was a universe unto itself.

"What A Life" begins with a propulsive drum/piano groove upon which Gallagher builds a slyly hypnotic vocal melody that you'll find yourself singing later, trust me. This is the sort of song lesser artists have built an entire career upon, whereas dear Noel's tossing off winners left and right. It wasn't until I heard this song that I realized that Noel's about halfway through the most ambitious record of his life.

While tracks like "Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks" and "(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach" rock convincingly, it's when Noel indulges his knack for elegiac mid-tempo ballads like "Stop The Clocks" that he's impossible to ignore.

"A Simple Game Of Genius" rocks a little harder, but is a grand gem nonetheless, even if Noel can't help himself by slipping "kaleidoscope eyes" into the chorus.

The album closes with "The Good Rebel", a rousing rocker recorded loosely and with an obvious devil-may-care swagger. Close your eyes and you can see the credits roll on a mind movie you can't wait to watch again. Just hit "REPEAT" and away you go.

VERDICT: The new Noel album is THE SHIT.

Awesome U2 Tribute In The Latest Issue Of Q Magazine!

2011-11-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already grabbed a copy of the latest issue of Q Magazine, you might wanna think about doing so ASAP.

Not only is the iconic UK music mag celebrating its 25th anniversary, it is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of U2's Achtung Baby by enlisting some of the world's leading artists to pay proper tribute to U2 by recording a new version of the album.

Admittedly, Achtung Baby is perhaps the last U2 album worth giving a hoot about and it's sorta sad to realize that U2 have been huffing along on fumes for that long, but getting to hear bands like Garbage, The Killers, and Nine Inch Nails have their way with these tunes is a total joy.

The album includes the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Patti Smith, Depeche Mode, The Killers and Jack White, each tackling a track from the classic record just for this release.

The full track listing for AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered is as follows:

Nine Inch Nails - Zoo Station
U2 (Jacques Lu Cont Mix) - Even Better Than The Real Thing
Damien Rice - One
Patti Smith - Until The End Of The World
Garbage - Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
Depeche Mode - So Cruel
Snow Patrol - Mysterious Ways
The Fray - Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World
Gavin Friday - The Fly
The Killers - Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Glasvegas - Acrobat
Jack White - Love Is Blindness

Our personal favorite track is Jack White's haunting/possessed rendition of "Love Is Blindness".

This issue of Q Magazine is on newsstands now, so go grab one already!

The Shit List: The Top 10 Best Debut Albums of ALL TIME!! [PART ONE]

2011-11-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

Pretenders (1980)

With quite a unique battle plan (move from Ohio to the UK, become a journalist for NME, start a band with three crazy Brits, voila!), Chrissie Hynde defied the odds on a number of fronts and took the rock world by storm in 1980 as frontwoman for the Pretenders. Their stunning self-titled debut album was just brash enough to appeal to the post-punks and just slick enough top garner Top 40 radio airplay in the US, where the album went Top 10 and sold over a million copies while "Brass In Pocket" stayed in heavy rotation on radio playlists. Hynde's songs were gems, of course, but they were made all the more potent thanks to the musical roundhouse punch administered by James Honeyman-Scott (guitar), Pete Farndon (bass) and Martin Chambers (drums). This album captures a brief moment in time when the Pretenders were firing on all cylinders and had the world by the proverbial tail. Sadly, recapturing lightning in a bottle would prove impossible and, by the mid-1980's, Farndon and Honeyman-Scott would both be dead of drug-related overdoses.

The Cars (1978)

Many consider this album to be a landmark musical event so fully connected to the '80s, but very few realize that the album actually came out in 1978. This is due, in part, to producer Roy Thomas Baker's sterling production, which still sounds fresh today. Otherwise, why would companies still be licensing tracks from this album in order to capture that hip and bubbly "modern" '80s sound?
Having said this, if you've heard any of the demos the band recorded prior to recording this album, you're fully aware that the songs and arrangements were already fully developed. Baker still deserves much of the credit, though, for being smart enough to stay out of the band's way, by and large.

Sex Pistols / Never Mind The Bollocks (1977)

Looking back, it's amazing how much of a David and Goliath story the Sex Pistols were and how they almost singlehandedly changed the entire musical landscape. Granted, the punk revolution wasn't televised in the US, but, oh, to have been a young kid in England as Msgrs. Rotten, Cook, Jones, and Matlock sneered their way from obscurity to the "Top of The Pops". Those that consider the Pistols a sort of punk-rock Monkees need only take one listen to this album at top volume to realize that this is the real deal. It may not be sophisticated, or some reinvention of the wheel, but it is real reight down to Steve Jones' multi-tracked "wall of sound" guitars. Listen close enough and you can hear the spittle flying from Johnny Rotten's mouth.

Weezer / The Blue Album (1994)

Weezer, like The Cars before them, had their songs down cold. All they needed was a producer who knew enough to stay out of the way while simply capturing the right performances. Enter Ric Ocasek, one-time singer/guitarist for The Cars (who obviously learned a thing or two during the recording of their first album). Rivers' heavy metal tendencies are presented as camp and, in doing so, kids who'd never be caught dead with a Quiet Riot album still get to air-guitar themselves into a lather to the songs on The Blue Album.

The Go-Go's / Beauty & The Beat (1981)

It's actually frightening to consider that this album is 30 years old because it forces me to also realize that my childhood crush, Jane Wiedlin, is just a few years shy of qualifying for her AARP card. Fuck, I think I might just start crying if I don't shake this one off soon. Sure, they'll always be known for "We Got The Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed", but the entire album is absolutely chock-full of great songwriting from start to finish. Truth be told, there's no filler to be found on this one, which, unfortunately cannot be said for the band's second album, Vacation. Those who think the Bangles were the better band are out of their freakin' minds.

PART TWO COMING FRIDAY!

Is The New Lou Reed/Metallica Shit Or THE SHIT?

2011-11-02T13:31:00.001-07:00

Why is it that most legendary artists who've completely run out of ideas can't just bring themselves to walk away, if for no other reason than to preserve what's left of their legacy?

That's a rhetorical question, of course, as it seems the idea of making an ill-conceived concept album together didn't set off any red flags in either the Lou Reed or Metallica camps.

While one is hard pressed to deny the greatness of such songs as "Walk On The Wild Side" and "Perfect Day", I've always been of the mindset that few have gotten farther on so little actual talent as Lou Reed. Let's face it, over the course of his 40+ year music career, I've yet to hear the guy carry a tune. Having said that, there's something to be said for being lucky and/or in the right place at the right time, as Reed was when he first stumbled into Warhol's circle of star fuckers and hangers on.

Warhol could have taken one look at Reed and his band, Velvet Underground, and banished them with the wave of a pale hand, but instead, he embraced them for reasons known only to him and thereby gave Lou Reed enough hipster cred to last him, well, 'til now.

When I first heard that Reed was cutting an album with Metallica, I, like you, thought it was a joke. When I found out that it was, in fact, for real, I became truly convinced that both Reed and Metallica were out of their mother-loving heads. Of course, both have reached the twilight of their careers and are now forced to rely upon schtick to garner interest from the media and music fans alike. Whereas Santana employs a revolving door of special guests and Rod Stewart continually digs up oldies for yet another installment in his geriatric "American Songbook" series, it is easy to see why Reed and Metallica chose to join forces. Both have nothing to lose and, well, the results can't be any worse than "St. Anger".

Or so we thought.

"Brandenburg Gate" begins with an amateurish acoustic guitar flourish that has "Lou" written all over it, fleshed out with some pretentious spoken wordisms before Metallica's ham-fisted thump totally crashes Lou's poetry slam. At that point, what we hear is more the work of the shitty garage band down the street that practices for years in their garage and never gets any better, not the work of two legendary rock acts.

Yet, like the car crash we can't tear our eyes away from, we find ourselves unable to hit the "OFF" switch, for fear of missing something truly monumental. Not "monumental good", mind you. This is some truly gruesome stuff.

For starters, somebody please give Lars Ulrich a fucking metronome. The guy's kick drum work is all over the place. The thing is, everything else is based off of that, so when the band cranks up the amps and tries to lay waste to our ear holes on "The View", they just sound tipsy and unbalanced. And, tell me I'm wrong, but Lou is starting to sound annoyed.

"Pumping Blood" begins with an orchestral swirl meant to indicate the presence, of class, high art. But all I can see is row upon row of used copies of "Lulu" plugging up the bins at the few remaining record stores left in existence. This isn't high art, it's music to price used copies of "Lulu" to, some hipper-than-thou music store clerk chuckling as they drop the price a little more each time.

By the time we reach "Mistress Dread", the boys are already starting to repeat themselves: orchestral interlude, tension adequately built, and enter Metallica with guns a-blazing. Lou isn't so much straining to be heard as straining to stay awake, mumbling in a manner completely detached from the racket Metallica are creating in the background. Heed my warning, if you listen to the entire song, that is six minutes and forty one seconds that you will never get back. Suddenly, flossing the cat doesn't seem like a bad way to kill an hour.

"Iced Honey" begins with Lou Reed counting to four and Metallica actually sounding like a decent rock band for all of ten seconds. By the one-minute mark, it suddenly dawns on you that Lou Reed's lyrics are really, really fucking awful and that what passes for a chorus is something even the shitty garage band down the street would roll their eyes at.

But damn if we can stop listening. After all, this isn't just a trainwreck, this is a hell-bound convoy of dump trucks careening through a nitroglycerin factory and each song is a mangled Rubik's cube of twisted metal and skin.

Of course, like the director of any good snuff flick, Reed and Metallica save the best for last, fully aware of the fact that delaying gratification as long as possible is the best way to - oh, I don't know - fuck with your audience's head? "Cheat On Me" is literally 11:26 of Lou Reed daring you to chuck this album out the fucking window.

Last we saw of Lou and Metallica, they had ricocheted off the Pucker St. sign about two miles back and were coasting on what's left of their supposed legend.

VERDICT: Shit.

Today In Music, November 1

2011-11-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

On November 1, 1980, Bruce Springsteen scores his first #1 album, The River, which features the Top 5 single, "Hungry Heart". Oddly, 1978's Darkness On The Edge Of Town, which was released to much fanfare after the success of Born To Run, managed to peak at #5. That The River, which was a double-album no less, could manage to do what no previous Springsteen album had been able to do spoke to the singer's growing popularity while actively shunning commerciality at every turn. Says Springsteen, "(The River) was a record that was sort of the gateway to a lot of my future writing. It was a record we made after Darkness on the Edge of Town. It was a record made during a recession - hard times in the States. Its title song is a song I wrote for my brother-in-law and sister. My brother-in-law was in the construction industry, lost his job and had to struggle very hard back in the late 70s, like so many people are doing today. It was a record where I first started to tackle men and women and families and marriage. There were certain songs on it that lead to complete records later on: "The River" sorta went to the writing on Nebraska, "Stolen Car" went to the writing on Tunnel of Love. Originally it was a single record. I handed it in with just one record and I took it back because I didn't feel it was big enough."

On this day in music, 2000, UK boy-band-singer-turned-solo-star Robbie Williams offered to donate bone marrow in an attempt to save the life of a dying fan, Johanna MacVicar, who was suffering from leukemia. Williams not only pledged to donate marrow but urged his fans, and any healthy male donors across the UK, to do the same. Sadly, MacVicar passed away from the disease in 2005.

BORN ON THIS DAY:

The King of Schlock Pop, David Foster, born 1949. He has produced hit albums and singles for the likes of Chicago, The Tubes, Michael Bublé, Clay Aiken, Céline Dion, Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Faith Hill, The Corrs, George Harrison, Earth, Wind & Fire, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Brandy, Richard Marx, Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, Olivia Newton-John, and many more.

Country singer Lyle Lovett, born 1957.

The Alarm bassist Eddie MacDonald, born 1959.

Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, born 1962.

NEW SHIT From THE BLACK KEYS!!

2011-10-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

Last week saw the release of a new digital single from our beloved Black Keys. The new songs are "Lonely Boy" (check out the AWESOME video for this tune below) and "Run Right Back", both of which are set to appear on the duo's new album, El Camino, due December 6.

Of course, the single is also set to be released on 7" vinyl on November 25 as part of Record Store Day's Black Friday series. Those wondering about the importance of the bulldozer need only know that it sits atop the location of the recording studio where the Black Keys recorded Rubber Factory in 2004. Sniff.

Death Cab For Cutie Appearing on KCRW Tomorrow (NOV 1st)

2011-10-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, we know, they're from Seattle, but we at The Shit are HUGE Death Cab fans and figured it might be worth passing this information along.

Seems DCfC are appearing on KCRW tomorrow, November 1, at 1:15PM (Chicago time). They'll be doing an interview as well as an extensive in-studio performance that was taped at Berkeley St. Studios in front of an intimate live audience.

Of course, there's little chance of pulling in KCRW's signal from this far away, but if you tune into their website, you can stream the show as it airs.

As if that weren't cool enough, on November 22, the band will also be releasing a remix EP featuring tweaked versions of songs from their latest LP, Keys and Codes. Here's the video for "Home Is A Fire (Ulrich Schnauss Remix)".

KCRW WEBSITE

CMJ SHIT: King Krule

2011-10-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Half the fun of going to CMJ is seeing shit you can't imagine ever willingly going to see otherwise and digging the hell out it. This year's CMJ was no different in that we ended up being dragged to see not one but two different shows by 17-year-old wunderkind King Krule...previously known as Zoo Kid to the British.

Seems he's got a new album coming on November 8, so keep an eye out and dig the deep voice on this kid. :)

www.truepanther.com
www.kingkrule.com

Our Thoughts On The New Coldplay Album...

2011-10-21T13:33:00.001-07:00

When Coldplay first blasted onto the UK music scene, I must admit that they hit a real sweet spot for me. Upon hearing their story (young kids making their own record, which then took the UK by storm) and then digging those first few magical listens to their smash hit single, "Yellow", I was a huge fan.

A few months later, the buzz on this band hit the US, where they were now getting airplay not only on alt-radio, but the local Top 40 station as well. That was cool by me, as I was more than happy to see a band I could actually stand rock the US charts.

Then one night, I sat in a local North Hollywood pub frequented by, of all people, Garry Marshall (he of "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley" fame, among others) and watched as a bottle-blonde soccer mom proceeded to play "Yellow" ten times in a row on the jukebox. Each time the song would begin, she would literally shriek with joy and smile wildly at her friends, as if to say, "I played this. Aren't I fucking hip?"

It was at that moment that I stopped being a Coldplay fan.

Admittedly, I'd played that first album to death and had moved on, so to speak, but seeing Coldplay connect with a crowd I wanted no part of was something that I should have seen coming. Still, I consider myself a U2 fan to this day, despite their audience's unseemly douche quotient. Why did I drop Coldplay like a dirty shirt?

When the band released their next album, A Rush Of Blood To The Head, that young band I fell in love with had been replaced by an overly safe band heck-bent on being a less-edgy U2.

Nothing they've done since has changed my belief that their first record was simply an amazing aberration. That was, until the band debuted music from their new album on last night's episode of The Colbert Report.

Never mind the fact that their new album's title (Mylo Xyloto) is complete gibberish, and would normally lead me to continue to make them the butt of many jokes, but the song they played, "Paradise", actually made me believe that they might just be worthy of the tag "the next U2".

Granted, they'll never be U2 circa Joshua Tree, but they very well could be U2 circa How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which might seem like a backhanded compliment to some, but there's nothing I can do about that.

I hate to admit it, but Chris Martin is actually a likeable, charismatic guy. He also seems genuinely appreciative of the fame he and his band have attained and, despite being married to a Hollywood A-lister, hasn't allowed much of it to go to his head.

Still, I can't for the life of me name another member of the band. In that sense, Coldplay are very much like Collective Soul, Matchbox 20, and Maroon 5 in that most of us can only name the singer. That's fine by them, I suspect, and something else to admire about these Brits whose new album is being played at top volume in my apartment right now. The difference between playing this album at top volume and, say, the first Black Sabbath album, is that the neighbors would be pounding on the walls by now.

As it stands, Coldplay at top-volume doesn't annoy as much as soothe the animal spirit. I say this because both of my dogs were wide awake right before I hit "play", but are now both sound asleep. Indeed, this new Coldplay record is a downright pleasant, unoffensive listen and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as one knows going in that that's what you're going to get when you play a Coldplay album.

Top 5 Halloween Songs By Chicago Bands

2011-10-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

"Every Day Is Halloween" by Ministry

It's really too bad Al Jourgenson woke up one day and decided he had to be a death metal bad-ass because his true forte was cranking out delightfully decadent dancefloor fodder like "Halloween", which remains just as much the guilty pleasure today that it was when it came out 25+ years ago. Back then, of course, Halloween wasn't the month-long retail cash-in that it is today, so Jourgenson could not have possibly foreseen a future where his song ends up on numerous Halloween-themed compilations, but, hey, there are worse things in this world, I guess. Truth be told, this song is always a good time, whether it be October, July or February and therein lies its true genius.

"Ghost On The Beach" by Insiders

These heartland rockers stuck around long enough to make one album for CBS Records in '87 before falling victim to label politics, which has killed many a great band. The title cut from that album, "Ghost On The Beach", remains an XRT fixture despite the band having called it a day long ago. Guitarist/producer Jay O'Rourke has gone on to work with everyone from Material Issue to Robbie Fulks and Anna Fermin. Still, this song remains his biggest accomplishment and a perfect addition to anyone's Halloween mixtape.

"Jordan, Minnesota" by Big Black

There are few songs as hauntingly fucked-up as this one and could only come from the twisted mind of Chicago's very own Steve Albini. Sure, he's best known as a producer and owner of Electrical Audio, but in the early 80's, he was singer and guitarist for one of the most subversive punk bands to ever walk the earth, Big Black. Play this song at your next haunted house or Halloween gathering and you will not only scare the shit out of your guests, but also any cows within a five-mile radius.

"This Could Be Love" by Alkaline Trio

I’ve always thought AK3 was a cool band, but what really set them apart from the very beginning was their ghoulish symbolism and dark look. Of course, on their Good Mourning album, they came closest to Emily The Strange caricature, but, hey, it worked. No song more brilliantly captures the band’s love of the macabre than “This Could Be Love”. Every time I listen to this song, I’m struck by Matt Skiba’s lyrics that describe in hilariously chilling detail pyromania, mutilation, and ultimately, murder. We at The Shit call that the Halloween Trifecta. Additionally, Skiba gets major bonus points for his ability to paint wicked pictures in the mind’s eye. Anybody who can come up with a line like “I shat the bed and laid there in it thinking of you wide awake for days”, much less sing it with a straight face earns my utmost respect. This song, off of their landmark album, Good Mourning, is ripe for Halloween airplay.

"We Only Come Out At Night" by Smashing Pumpkins

Let’s face it, since he shaved his head, Billy Corgan has resembled an alt-rock Uncle Fester and, for that reason alone, he deserves a place on this list. Of course, his band’s name alone should qualify them, too. Thankfully, he also has a few great songs that are worthy of consideration. In this case, we went with the oddly buoyant “We Only Come Out At Night” because we always see some really cute/sinister Tim Burton movie in our head whenever we listen to this track.

Reminder To Bands, Winter Is Coming!

2011-10-13T17:45:00.001-07:00

As the winter months quickly approach, the days of practicing on the back porch, or in the garage (you know, the unheated one) are bound to come to a sudden, brutal end. With that in mind, we at Superior St. and our sister facility Knox Avenue urge such bands to be proactive in lining up some new digs for the winter.

Being the client-driven mofos that we is, we offer not one, but TWO locations to best serve Chicago's musical brethren. First, we've got Superior St., located west of the loop, just south of Chicago Avenue, near Ukrainian Village. This facility offers you a wide array of room configurations, several hourly rooms to choose from, and gritty ambiance out the wazoo. Got a label or high-powered manager coming into town to check you out? If so, we've got a world-famous showcase room that gives you the professional edge in creating the proper vibe with which to blow their doors off. If you've always imagined rehearsing in the same place where so many of Chicago's greatest artists have honed their craft, Superior St. is the place.

Superior St. is located at 2477 W. Superior St., Chicago, IL
Phone: 773.227.5550
E-mail: info@superiorst.com

Knox Avenue opened its doors in 2010 and, in doing so, became the premier rehearsal facility on the NorthWest side. Just south of the Kennedy/Eden split, Knox Avenue is a brand-new facility, built from the ground up with Chicago's musicians in mind. For starters, all rooms are brand-spankin' new AND located on the ground floor for easy load-in/load-out. Acoustic sound-proofing throughout means the only band you hear when you jam will be yours. Since Knox Avenue is the sister facility to Superior St., the fine folks at Superior St. were able to customize Knox Avenue based on the experiences they've had in running Superior St. over the years, and from listening to the feedback and suggestions of clients. The result is a top-flight facility capable of providing you with the space to grow as an artist.

Knox Avenue is located at 4265 Knox Avenue Chicago, IL
Phone: 773-685 KNOX (5669)

This Just In: WILCO To Play Metro On December 16!

2011-10-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

In the wake of already-announced December gigs at Riviera, Civic Opera House, and The Vic, Chicago's favorite sons ahev announced yet a fourth gig, and their most intimate local gig in some time, at the Metro on December 16.

Tickets go on sale at 10AM (Chicago time) THIS SATURDAY (Oct 15) via eTix.com.

Those who haven't already popped for tickets to those earlier shows may wanna hop on this one...or hold out that Wilco will announce a fifth show at, oh I dunno, Quenchers Saloon. :)

Is The New Jayhawks CD Shit Or THE SHIT?!

2011-10-11T21:18:00.001-07:00

When frontman Mark Olsen left the Jayhawks suddenly in 1995, it was akin to Tom Petty leaving the Heartbreakers, thus when they chose to carry on without him, fans were left wondering if there was any way the band could create anything that wouldn't be a sort of sacrilege.

Quite surprisingly, the band's output wasn't so much a trampling of their own legacy, but, rather, the work of an altogether different band. While post-Olsen releases such as 2000's Smile and 2003's Rainy Day Music garnered their fair share of critical acclaim, neither could hold a match to the band's masterful opus, Hollywood Town Hall (1995).

Was it that album's high watermark that led Olsen to leave at the top of his game, or was it really so that he could spend more time with then-wife, Victoria Williams? One could not blame him, in either case. Life on the road can be hell on even the healthiest of marriages. Thus, when the marriage went belly-up in 2006, count this reviewer among the many who knew it would be just a matter of time before Olsen and the Jayhawks would renew their vows.

With the September release of their first studio album in eight years (and the first in over fifteen years to feature Olsen) Mockingbird Time, the Jayhawks have not only returned, they've returned to form, blowing away 15+ years of cobwebs in the process. Anyone wondering what might have been if Olsen hadn't left the band after Hollywood Town Hall need only dig in to this musical bounty to find their answer.

The great thing about music this timeless is that fifteen years has made the entire band that much more seasoned as players, able to take the songs of Olsen and Gary Louris to new heights.

Over the course of the album, the band integrates early 70's California soft rock with 60's folk and the obligatory Americana stylings for which they are known to create an album that is by far their most ambitious and consistent to date. In doing so, they've raised the bar for all others to match at a time when the Americana/Alt. Country scene is in dire need of a swift kick in the pants.

What's most exciting, though, is that the band didn't just deliver a singer/songwriter record, which they could have easily done and still drawn rave reviews. No, what they did is create a band record that actually recalls The Band at their best, a unit finely tuned and capable of lifting the songs of its members to the heavens and taking the audience right along with them.

Oddly enough, it is the title cut that strikes the most poignant note, not with anthemic bravado and urgency, but with delightful, understated joy. A year from now, I fully expect to have seen this song tapped for a heartwarming commercial, a la The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize?"

Joyous as many of the songs on Mockingbird Time may be, this is a band reuniting not only with one another, but also with their love of music and, for once, the fans are invited on a musical journey that is not so much driven by nostalgia, but what the future may hold.

FINAL PROGNOSIS: Mockingbird Time is THE SHIT.

Superior St. and Knox Avenue NOW Accept PayPal!

2011-10-09T21:36:00.001-07:00

We at THE SHIT are pleased as punch to announce that Superior St. and Knox Avenue now accept Paypal! What that means for you and yours is that bands can now pay their monthly rent via PayPal. It also means you can pay for purchases at the Mississippi Delta store at both Superior St. and Knox Avenue via your trusty PayPal account. So if you need some strings, sticks, or one of our custom, limited-edition t-shirts, but you left your cash and plastic at home, never fear...PayPal is here!

Like so many of the services we offer, our decision to accept Paypal payments came as a result of suggestions from YOU, our valued clients. So if that proverbial light bulb above your head should ever go on regarding any other service you think would be beneficial to our clients, our door is always open and we welcome you to give us your input!

After all, we're not just pals, we're PayPals!

Our Final Words On REM's Break-Up And The Fact That They Have A New Album Coming Out!

2011-09-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

Since it was announced last week, I resisted the idea to post something immediately about REM's decision to call it a day after 30 years and 15 studio albums. For those of us there from the beginning (or pretty darn close to it), saying goodbye to a beloved band that overstayed their welcome by about 14 years is bittersweet.

While Michael Stipe claimed in their final press release that the art of going to a party was knowing when to leave, the simple truth is that REM apparently never got that memo. See, back when Bill Berry was still in the band, they always promised that if one of them left, they'd call it day. They also said that they'd made a pact to break-up in the year 2000, no matter what.

Needless to say, when Bill Berry left and they didn't immediately disband, this REM fan felt a tad betrayed. And when the year 2000 came and they continued right on making music as if it hadn't, I became fully convinced that the REM I once knew and loved was gone.

In its place was a trio of guys unwilling to keep their word, to give up their place on the musical landscape for someone else with the youthful vigor and disregard for the old guard that they'd once had.

It's sad to see a band once so young and vibrant become "the old guard", but it inevitably happens to everyone, even REM. There is no stopping the passing of time. REM, of course, were well aware of this, going so far as to name their most successful album "Out Of Time", as if to confirm thay even they could feel the clock winding down. Of course, another way of taking such a title was that, regardless of whatever may have been hip at the time, REM were never a part of it.

True, there music was (and is) out of time in a way that the music of all great bands should always be. When you listen to a Beatles song, for example, you are not taken back to 1964, as that is a time that pre-dates many of us. Thus, when listening to REM, one is able to make their own chronological associations. Their songs float in the hemisphere, waiting to be pulled down by anxious ears, like apples from a tree.

Most of my memories of REM are pleasant ones: seeing them for the first time in a pizza restaurant with maybe 75 other people, giddy fans helping the staff pull the tables aside; seeing them two years later in a sold-out arena, no longer the best-kept secret in rock & roll. Once they made "Monster", an album that seemed to want so badly to fit in with the rest of the alt. rock gold rush ushered in by Nirvana's seismic rearranging of the deck chairs on the mainstream music scene. REM had never felt the need to do such a thing before and seeing them do it now was like watching your own sister turn her first trick.

Some have suggested that the band should have called it quits the moment you could understand what Stipe was singing. In hindsight, it's hard to argue with such reasoning, but I still contend that REM should have called it a day after "Monster" revealed them to be more follower than leader.

Instead, they made six more albums, all of them pleasantly listenable, none of them the least bit essential. The party ended in 1996, but REM refused to go home for another fifteen years.

Did we mention there's a new REM album coming out? Well, a new compilation, that is (can anyone say "money grab?" I knew you could). The new collection is called "PART LIES, PART HEART, PART TRUTH, PART GARBAGE, 1982 - 2011" and is due out on Warner Brothers on November 15th. The album contains three new tracks.

The track-listing is as follows:

Disc 1:
Gardening At Night
Radio Free Europe
Talk About The Passion
Sitting Still
So. Central Rain
(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
Driver 8
Life And How To Live It
Begin The Begin
Fall On Me
Finest Worksong
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The One I Love
Stand
Pop Song 89
Get Up
Orange Crush
Losing My Religion
Country Feedback
Shiny Happy People

Disc 2:
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
Everybody Hurts
Man On The Moon
Nightswimming
What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
New Test Leper
Electrolite
At My Most Beautiful
The Great Beyond
Imitation Of Life
Bad Day
Leaving New York
Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Supernatural Superserious
ÜBerlin
Oh My Heart
Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
A Month of Saturdays
We All Go Back To Where We Belong
Hallelujah

CD Review: SuperHeavy Is Way Too Much Marley, Not Enough Jagger and Stone

2011-09-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

From the moment I first heard that Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, and Mick Jagger had formed a supergroup called SuperHeavy, a part of me has been dreading the prospect of listening to the group's first album.

It isn't because I harbor any ill-will or dislike for any of this group's members, but because, on paper, their disparate styles are a recipe for disaster. Or worse, boredom.

Since the first announcement of this band's formation, Damian Marley and "Slumdog Millionaire" music composer A.R. Rahman have been selected to round out the line-up as if it were a Benetton advertisement.

Sadly, it is the influence of Marley that seems to hang over this album like a dirty shirt. Of course, we're talking Bob Marley. One need only listen to the album's reggae-drenched title cut to realize that this bunch should never again come within 50 feet of a reggae groove.

Considering that it's only the album's third track and we've heard only the occasional vocal vamp from Jagger and Stone, but much too much of Damian Marley's tirelessly by-the-book reggae vocal stylings, you can actually hear the listeners of the world turning off their iPods.

This is what happens when you put the horse before the cart, or, in this case, the supergroup before the songs. The group admits to hitting the studio without hardly any material at all. When such things happen, it is the person who comes in most prepared who ends up guiding the direction of the sessions. That person would obviously be Damian Marley.

Thing is, nobody but a few dedicated followers of reggae royalty want to hear a Damian Marley album. Sorry to say it, but it's true. Why go to the trouble of hyping a supergroup featuring Mick Jagger and Joss Stone if they are but bit players in this musical tour de farce? All things considered, there shouldn't be this much Damian Marley on a Damian Marley album!

On the rare moments when Jagger or Stone are given a chance to shine, the material is so laughable as to render any performance completely inconsequential. If that weren't bad enough, up pops Damian motherfucking Marley's reggae warblings. Seriously dude, feel free to sit out a track or ten.

It isn't until the album's seventh cut, "Never Gonna Change", that we get any sense of an original identity worth keeping. That it's a mostly acoustic ballad accentuated with orchestral flourishes, sounding not unlike a cut from Goat's Milk Soup or Let It Bleed should have sent a very clear message to producer Dave Stewart. And that message would have been, "Play to your strengths, Dave. If you have a band with Mick Jagger in it, let HIM fucking sing."

"Beautiful People" follows and immediately returns us to the trainwreck, trying to make the varied styles of Jagger, Stone and Marley co-exist seamlessly within the same song. Strike one. Next follows "Rock me Gently", which does nothing more than add some unimaginative metal guitar to the mix. Strike two. "I Can't Take It No More" seems to be listening to the same album we are and decides now is the time to wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat. While Jagger steps to the fore, turning in an defiantly bluesy vocal, the song itself is sooo lame as to almost be embarassing. One can almost hear Keioth Richards having a chuckle at that one. Strike Three.

Hey, where do you think you're going? There's still seven songs to go.

That's right. Ten songs in and we haven't heard Joss Stone do anything but yowl in the background. Thankfully, "I Don't Mind" seems to be intent on changing that. Jagger's singing on the vocals is sad, lonely, a la Ray Davies on "Art Lover". Joss sweeps in and steals the show on the chorus, which is how it should be. Guess who drops by around the 3:18 mark to spoil the whole damn party? Hint: His last name rhymes with "gnarly".

"World Keeps Turning" is built atop a wonderful chorus; one you can probably imagine being sung at the opening ceremony for the next Olympics. Thing is, that's all it is.

At this point, I'm going to be perfectly honest and tell you I put this promo CD in the box of CD's I sell to the used music store near my house. I just hope they'll take it.

It's That Time Of Year Again: Superior St. BBQ Coming Soon!

2011-09-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeed, with the inevitable dog days of summer giving way to the autumnal winds of change, we at Superior St. are pleased as punch to announce that our annual Superior St. BBQ will soon be upon us, so whet your appetites and circle your calendars, ladies and gentlemen.

This year's festivities will take place at the Superior St. facility (2734 Superior St., to be exact) on Thursday, September 29th, with doors opening at 5:30PM. Admission is FREE and we will be offering a wide array of BBQ, beer, and live music from Skinny Jim and The Number 9 Blacktops.

Admission is open to clients of Superior St. AND Knox Avenue facilities only. If you're band doesn't yet rehearse at Superior St. or Knox Avenue, you've got until 9/29 to correct that grievous error and gain entry to this most splendid hootenanny.

In fact, a much-coveted first-floor rehearsal space has become available at Superior St. (the first availability in eleven years!!). Knox Avenue, being the proverbial new kid on the block, has many rooms to choose from and boasts a mega-convenient NW side location to boot.

For more information on rehearsal space at Superior St., call 773-227-5550.

Knox Avenue rehearsal space info can be gained by dialing 773-685 KNOX (5669).

See you at the BBQ!!

You Didn't Ask For It, You Got It, Guns 'n' Roses Coming To Allstate Arena on November 15th!

2011-09-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Considering the millions of copies of Chinese Democracy that Best Buy can't freakin' give away, thereby taking up valuable real estate in the big-box retailer's mammoth warehouse, one would think Axl Rose would be afraid to show his face in public. After all, it was he who had proclaimed the album a modern-day masterpiece, then spent another ten years and $10 million dollars re-working the same ten songs until his label finally threatened legal action if he didn't turn in a completed master.

If not for that, you can bet your sweet ass Axl would still be trying to tweak those songs into something that might stand a chance of coming within a country mile of the real Guns 'n' Roses' magnificent debut album, Appetite For Destruction. The thing is, no fucking way is he ever gonna top that album. No. Fucking. Way.

Yet every producer and hired gun in the San Fernando Valley came, got paid, and went during the making of that album and not one of them had the solid gold clackers to tell Axl his shit was whack.

Must be nice, huh? Dude's so up his own ass that nobody can tell him what they really think of his songs, his singing, or, for that matter, his attitude since he started canning original members one-by-one more than twenty years ago.

And just like all those crazy Michael Jackson fans that defended the crazy bastard to his death, there is a legion of GNR fans who not only stick by their beloved Axl through thick and thin, they actually believe that the current version of GNR surpasses the original line-up. Never mind that only Axl is the only one who truly knows the band's current line-up, the fan boys are 100% convinced that whoever happens to be playing guitar on this tour is better than Slash, or Izzy. Can you believe that?

The question, though, is whether or not there are enough of those crazy GNR fanatics to fill the Allstate Arena to see a band whose last album was a monumental flop and whose singer has a nasty habit of not showing up until he damn well feels like it, if at all.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twenty times, shame on you, Axl.

Truth be told, Axl Rose & His Rag-Tag Team Of Hired Guns are not going to come anywhere near filling the Allstate Arena. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they couldn't even fill Park West at this stage of the game.

Of course, I feel it my duty to inform those who might be interested that tickets for the band's November 15th show go on-sale this Friday, September 16th, at 5PM. I'm tempted to show up at the Allstate Arena box office just to see what sort of person actually shows up the minute tickets for a Guns 'n' Roses show go on-sale because something tells me these people should have their voting, driving, and reproductive privileges revoked. That's right, I said sterilize these ass-hats, pronto because anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together knows damn well that they'll be giving away tickets to this show during the days leading up to November 15th so that Axl Rose doesn't have to come face-to-face with the reality that he's an ill-tempered has-been who hasn't done anything but pillage the rotting corpse of a once-great band that he was merely 1/5 a part of; nothing more, nothing less.

Shit Shorts: September 9, 2011

2011-09-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

Butch Walker returns with a new single. That's not nearly as newsworthy as the video for said single, which features one of our favorite character actors, Seymour Cassel (best known for his roles in The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou).

Jane's Addiction are rolling into town on September 24 and 25 for two shows at METRO. Tickets are ONLY available online and will go on-sale Saturday (that's tomorrow) at NOON (Chicago time) via eTix.com. No word as to who the band finally got to play bass for them.

By now, we're sure you've all heard the store of Matthew Leone from Madina Lake. Good news is that he's back with the band and they have a new album, called World War III, coming out on Razor & Tie Records this coming Tuesday, September 13th. They'll also be headlining at METRO on Saturday, September 17th. Tix are still available.

If you haven't already caught the reformed Material Issue (now operating under the moniker "Material Re-Issue" so as to distinguish themselves from the version led by the late Jim Ellison) you need to do yourself a solid and get on over to Lincoln Hall on the 17th. This is rumored to be one of the band's last local shows of the year.

Blondie's new album, Panic Of Girls, has been out for awhile now overseas, but is now getting a US release via an exclusive arrangement with Amazon music. Sure wish Amazon would have tried talking them into nixing the overly abstract cover art designed by Dutch cult artist Chris Berens, whom guitarist Chris Stein sought out and commissioned to create the work. Chris, just put Debby Harry on the cover. Sure, she's as old as my mom, but she still looks great. Album is out September 13.

What New Album Features Contributions from Paul Westerberg, Billy Corgan and Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen?

2011-09-06T09:46:00.001-07:00

If you'd have told me one day that there would be a new Glen Campbell album that features a brand new Paul Westerberg song, not to mention the guitar work of Billy Corgan and Rick Nielsen, I'd have probably looked at you like you were crazy.

Despite the mix of rockers making a variety of contributions to what is being billed as Glen Campbell's final album, Ghost On The Canvas turns out to be one of the more focused and cohesive albums of Campbell's long and storied career.

Westerberg, of course, contributed the song "Ghost On The Canvas", with The Wallflowers' Jakob Dylan and Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard each contributing a song as well.

Of course, the album's "Chicago connection" is the stunning ballad, "There's No Me...Without You", which features both Billy Corgan and Rick Nielsen on guitar.

The list of special guests goes on, with the Dandy Warhols providing musical support on "Strong" and Chris Isaak, Dick Dale, and Brian Setzer driving the album's most upbeat track, "In My Arms".

Props go out to producer Julian Raymond for making such disparate pieces work so well together. What could have been a glorious trainwreck ends up being an album that never sounds like anything more than a Glen Campbell album even the most tried-and-true Campbell fan will embrace because, ultimately, it is Campbell who shines the brightest.

Thursday MixTape: Summer Takes Her Shit & Splits

2011-08-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

I can think of no sadder fate for a generation than to have no fucking idea what a mix tape is and how, even in digital form, they just don't compare to their cassette brethren. Oh, the fucking care one would take when they undertook the task of creating a mix tape. It was literally like standing in front of 30 minutes (per side) of blank canvas. Sometimes the empty space felt too daunting, to pure, that each song just had to be fucking perfect.

And if you made one wrong choice, you didn't just rewind and start over. Nope, when one song mixes seamlessly into the other, a mistake almost always means starting from scratch. Of course, doing so completely destroys the spontaneity, the raw emotion, the monumental "this is where my heart was" perfection of creating something capable of speaking straight to a lover's heart, or moving an entire room to sway in time to the beating of your heart, albeit in musical form.

Ah, what the fuck am I going on about? Cassettes?! "Tell us about cassette players, Gramps". Ah, fuggoff!

Maybe, just maybe we can make do here on this day before the weekend. I wanted to call this "Friday MixTape", but figured most of you were probably blowing off work on Friday so I moved it up a day.

This week's theme is "Summer Takes Her Things And Goes", which, of course, is a not-so-thinly veiled ode to the end of yet another summer. Come back, we hardly knew ye.

We'll start the MixTape rolling with something not so much "summery" as late "summery"; the jovial, buoyant, and downright playful sing-along "Roll With The Punches" by Lenka.

"Pigs In Zen" has always sounded to us like a city burning to the ground in the midst of a hedonistic city-wide celebration. Damn hippies, can't take them everywhere. They ruin everything. I'm now imagining that crowd at the Dave Matthews Caravan Festival...a sea of upscale tie-dye and painfully new Birkenstocks...when Jane's Addiction circa 1989 hits the fucking stage and rips their goddamn heads off. Oh, hell yes.

Okay, now that we've scared off all the lightweights in the crowd, we can get down to some funky shit, holmes. You with me? What does summer mean to you? To me, it means love, pushing past your boundaries, living above your means, knowing that you can always hunker down come winter. The memories you make in the summer are what you'll replay in your mind in freakin' January or February to keep you warm.

So, what have you done so far this summer to take with you into the cold, dark nights that lurk around the corners of this fair city? Anything?

What I love about this Jane's clip is that it's TEN FUCKING MINUTES LONG, man, but it feels like so much less because you just watch the whole thing and can feel the danger that that fucking band had back then. Plus, Perry looks freaky as shit. I actually saw Jane's for the first time that same fucking week and Perry's look tore my head off. I already thought L.A. was full of freaks and addicts, but these guys embodied it, embraced it, fed off of it, and regurgitated into the mouths of middle America so that we could taste the fucking danger.

Yeah, yeah, this song ain't exactly hip with the hipster set, but, damn if this song doesn't go down nice and easy when you're stuck in some beer tent at one of the last street festivals of the summer, drinking warm Bud out of a plastic cup and trying to remember how you ended up here. Then she walks by. Holy shit, did you see that body? Suddenly, you're no longer questioning the poor life choices that brought you to be at this exact location when the most beautiful girl you've ever seen just walked by. Suddenly, you believe in a higher power. It all makes sense.

Man, if that last tune didn't move you, then we's gonna have to pull out the heavy artillery. Fact: nobody doesn't like Greg Kihn's awesome summer jam, "The Break-Up Song". The minute you hear that familiar refrain, you're suddenly taken back to a time when summers were so fucking carefree, back before we had a care in the world and way before things got so damned heavy, man.

This one's a favorite of ours...a rocking revamp of Dusty Springfield's iconic hit "I Only Want To Be With You". We've always wondered what this would have sounded like if a girl-group like the Supremes had gotten hold of it, but this SORELY underrated British band gave us the best of both world with girl-group vocals set against blistering guitars. If the gal singer looks familiar, she went on to front another UK band by the name of Eurythmics.

It literally kills me that Jets To Brazil are no longer a going concern. Back when they were still around, the world seemed so much cooler. Whenever I hear a new Wilco song that fails to move me, I just think of Jets To Brazil and the fact that they totally fucking nailed the vibe that Jeff Tweedy is just trying way too hard to capture with his well-paid, overly-esoteric indie-rock super-group. There, you try ending a sentence with four fucking brilliant examples of hyphenation!

Word of the day: interrobang.

Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Or like the name of a fictional band with its own TV show on [Adult Swim], or something. It actually means a cross between a question mark and an exclamation point, indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. Bet you don't expect to learn anything read this, did you?

Okay, now back to the MixTape, bitches!

Jets To Brazil, yeah, "In The Summer Is When You Really Know" is such a great song, so wistful, yet oddly hopeful, even as the end becomes unavoidable. In doing so, it totally captures that moment when you have to kiss summer goodbye.

I always like to end my MixTape with a real "WTF" track, just to keep you on your feet. Admit it, seeing The Bangles performing Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love" is pretty hilarious. What does this have to do with summer? I dunno...maybe the fact that for one summer, I had the major hots for Susannah Hoffs. Of course, that was only to make Jane Wiedlin jealous...

Anyhoo, until next summer...

Today In Music, August 23 - 11,000 Unsold Beatles Tickets

2011-08-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

On this date in 1966, on what was to be their final US tour, The Beatles performed at New York's Shea Stadium. Unlike the previous year's appearance (on August 15, 1965), which had been completely sold out and saw 55,000 Beatlemaniacs screaming their lungs out, there were 11,000 unsold tickets for this performance.

Even so, due to their higher guaranteed appearance fee, the Beatles made more money this year than last.

The decline in ticket sales came as a result of the backlash against the band for comments John Lennon had made about Christianity, wherein he claimed that Christianity would fade and that the Beatles "were more popular than Jesus now."

The comments, which originally appeared in the London Evening Standard, drew little notice in the UK, but when they were re-printed in US teen magazine Datebook, the comments drew immense ire, resulting in death threats against the band and the burning of their records.

Army Navy - "The Last Place" You'd Expect To Hear Vintage Power Pop!!

2011-08-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

For a brief, shining moment back in 1979, Power Pop (the genre) completely dominated the music scene, swept into mainstream relevance by the breakout success of The Knack's "My Sharona", "Good Girls Don't" and their Platinum-selling debut album, Get The Knack. The impact of those first two singles was so overwhelming that every major label dropped whatever they'd been doing and immediately began signing any power pop band they could get their hands on. Then, just as quickly as they'd become become the biggest band since the Fab Four, The Knack stopped all interviews, leading the press to surmise that the band's massive stardom had gone to their heads. The backlash against The Knack was fierce, culminating in critics and former fans sporting "Knuke The Knack" t-shirts around town. It didn't just stop there, though, as the press surrepticiously ignored the many power pop albums being released by bands signed in the wake of The Knack's success, leaving bands such as 20/20, Great Buildings and others dead in the water.

Since then, Power Pop bands have been almost universally ignored by the major labels and those that have managed to get signed - bands like Jellyfish, the Posies, and Wanderlust - have languished in obscurity.

So when we hear a record as blatantly Power Pop in spirit as Army Navy's stunning new album, The Last Place, we can't help but feel that the band is just setting themselves up for heartbreak and misery, destined to see their music marginalized and pigeonholed by an industry that turns its nose up at anything that even smacks of Power Pop.

Maybe, just maybe, this band has what it takes to overcome such narrow-minded thinking on the part of an industry whose inability to learn from their own mistakes has resulted in its own downsizing, if not complete downfall. Former Elvis Costello & The Attractions drummer, Pete Thomas apparently thinks so, as he volunteered his services to the band after their original drummer left the band to become a screenwriter just prior to the start of sessions for this album.

Add to that fact that the album is a thinly veiled paean to a female celebrity, who also happens to be married, with whom singer Justin Kennedy had brief, but tormenting fling. He remains mum about the identity of said actress, but we can give you a hint by saying that she was once married to one of her backing dancers.

While name-dropping and gossip of this sort is usually enough to buy you a little attention in L.A. circles, unless the music is a step above, you're just setting yourself up to be yesterday's news. Thankfully, Army Navy's music is, indeed, a step above.

Album opener "Last Legs" recalls early, pre-Budokan Cheap Trick, which is always a very good thing. From that point, it seems each tune builds perfectrly upon that foundation, working new colors into the equation and proving this band to be much more thana one-trick pony.

"Ex-Electric" and "A Circus" quickly follow, proving to be the best songs the Shoes (never heard of them? Check them out on Spotify) never wrote, with Kennedy's vocals eerily recalling Shoes singer Jeff Murphy's lilting voice at times.

Taking into consideration how well produced and how strong the songs are, it's literally mind-boggling, even in the age of Pro Tools and auto-tune, that an album of such elegance and majesty was recorded for a mere $5,000.

Here's hoping the few remaining major labels still around these days are taking notes. And here's hoping that Army Navy are slow to sign to a major label when they seem to be doing just fine without one.

After all, this is the sort of album that gives you hope that artistry and commerciality are not mutually exclusive of one another - that they can co-exist without needing to "dumb it down" for the cheap seats with break beats, cheesy synths, or vocoders set on stun. This is real music, performed by people who visibly (and audibly) have a love for their craft, and also know a thing or ten about classic pop song-craft.

OUR RATING: 8/10

Foo Fighters Releasing A Live Album With Ties To Chicago??

2011-08-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a helluva year for the Foo Fighters. After nabbing their first #1 album ever with their seventh studio effort, Wasting Light, and headlining this year's Lollapalooza Festival, word has it that the Foo Fighters next move will the release of a live album, part of which will be culled from the band's recent performance at Chicago's legendary Metro just days before the band's appearance at Lolla.

Noted mixer-producer Andy Wallace has already been tapped to begin assembling and mixing tracks. If that name sounds familiar, he is the man who mixed Nirvana's breakout album, Nevermind.

A tentative November release is planned. Stay tuned to this station for more details!

In Memory Of Curtis Canino

2011-08-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

People assume that because Chicago is a big city, it's tough to make friends and that danger lurks around every corner. For years, as a regular face on the city's metal scene, 29-year-old Curtis Canino disproved the first part of that myth, making friends easily and always being quick with a smile. It was not uncommon to see him gracing the halls of Superior St. with any number of friends and band mates, having a good time on his way to, or from, rehearsals.

Sadly, in the early morning hours of Thursday, August 4, the dangerous side of the city reared its head and claimed yet another victim as Canino was shot dead by a unknown gunman who remains at-large.

For those that know him, it comes as a jarring reminder of how fragile life is and how finding yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time can make it even more so. That does not erase the fact that such acts of violence (and, let's face it, cowardice) are incredibly senseless, as they leave friends and families to grieve over the sudden loss of a friend and loved one.

Curtis may not have risen to the heights of other musical luminaries on the Chicago music scene, but that does not lessen his impact on those who knew him. We are saddened by his loss and our deepest condolences go out to his family, his friends, and, most importantly, to him.

Damn You Dave, Cut It Out: Grohl Just Got Cooler!!

2011-08-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has followed my rants here on The Shit knows that I have time and time again had to give it up to my man Dave Grohl for continuing to impress me, despite my semi-dislike for the band he currently front.

I mean, I dug the first Foo Fighters album because it was a lo-fi blast from start to finish. Grohl was fresh off Nirvana's untimely demise and had a whole lot riding on his next move. He could have joined Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, which was an offer they extended to him after the unofficial audition that was his appearance with them on SNL, but he chose instead to make a "solo" record. Sure, it was called Foo Fighters, but, make no mistake, it was ALL HIM on that record. I guess that's why I liked it so much. Stripped of the pretense and over-production, Grohl is impossible to hate. So, naturally, that record spoke to me quite loudly. By comparison, the new album where he actually screams like a banshee, doesn't speak to me nearly as loudly.

Maybe it's because it isn't just Dave anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. Much like Nirvana's transition from unknown band slugging it out in rock dives to international superstars, Foo Fighters path to mega-stardom is the result of a huge music industry machine aligning itself behind a commodity that it deems worthy of the muscle. So whenever I see or hear Foo Fighters these days, I can't really hear Dave over all the other folks that comprise the machine. I don't hear Dave, I just hear product. I don't hear a human element, I just hear a number of different performances digitially edited (yeah, yeah, I know, the new album was recorded to analog tape, whoopty doo) so that every note is in its rightful place. It sounds great from a sonic sense, but it's just too perfect. Where's the danger?

Still, the guy's pretty goddamn cool.

And every time he does something cool, I usually mention it here, along with something like "There's no way he can possibly top this", and then he does.

Like Sunday night at Lollapalooza, when he had this to say just before his band launched into their final song of the evening, thereby bringing this year's Lollapalooza Festival to a close:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I just have to say one thing: Tonight's a very special occasion for a couple reasons. First and foremost, it was in this city, in 1982, that I saw my first rock band at the fuckin' Cubby Bear, at that place across from Wrigley Field. I was 13 years old, and my cousin Tracy took me to that place to see this punk rock band called Naked Raygun, right? And that show changed my life, and made me wanna become a musician. So, thank you, Chicago. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't fuckin' be here."

That's an awesome thing, innit? One of the biggest rock gods on the planet right now just name-checked fucking Naked Raygun in front of a gigantic worldwide audience. He didn't have to do that, but he did. He could have just said "I saw my first show ever in Chicago and now here I am playing for all you Chicago motherfuckers" and left it at that, but he didn't. He mentioned Naked Raygun, one of the most under-appreciated bands in the history of American punk rock.

Damn you, Dave. You just got cooler in my book. Again.

The Genius Of Billy Joel Is Apparently Only Worth 479 Views On Youtube

2011-08-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

A buddy of mine clued me in to this clip on Youtube. It's from an MTV show called Night School that aired in 1982. This particular episode features Billy Joel, who had just released his album Nylon Curtain and was totally at the top of his game.

Despite being on top of the music world, there he is taking questions from an audience in a high school auditorium. Sure, the questions are, for the most part, easy lobs that Billy smacks right out of the park, but the candor and wit with which he tackles even the easy questions is amazingly refreshing.

In doing so, you get a very real sense of the man who, at the time, was one of the most popular music artists in the world. To look at him, he could very well be an anonymous music teacher who may at one time have had aspirations of pop stardom. And that's what makes this interview so absolutely essential. Billy Joel succeeded despite the fact that he lacked the looks of an Elvis Presley, or the voice of a Paul Simon. Where other people allowed the voices to play with their heads, telling them they weren't good enough, Billy Joel had the perseverance to say "Fuck off".

He's the proverbial guy mistaken for a utility infielder who goes on to hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs.

The sad thing is this, though...someone uploaded this video to Youtube on May 30, 2011 and it has since received only 479 views. Rebecca Black, meanwhile, uploads her latest single to Youtube two weeks ago and it gets 21 million views and I seem to be the only one who sees anything wrong with that.

Could you imagine what an episode of Night School might be if Lady Gaga were the guest? She'd be sitting there in a meat dress with a hog's head covering up half her head blathering on about what a genius she is and, sadly, everyone there would believe her. Meanwhile, Billy Joel hit that stage thirty years ago, told it like it was, and gave you an inside glimpse of actual artistry, humor, and charm.

479 views, my fucking ass.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today...MTV Kills The Radio Star

2011-08-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's incredibly hard to believe that thirty years ago TODAY, MTV was born. With the airing of a video by a little-known UK band called Buggles, this new channel on the cable box would single-handedly change forever the face of music as we know it.

Initially, of course, this was a good thing as the rock dinosaurs were quickly swept aside in favor of fresh new acts. I think its reasonably safe to say that acts such as Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna owe their careers to the video medium and MTV, for their appeal was just as much visual as musical.

That was fine, of course, when it was a 50/50 split between "the look" and "the music", but, as with most things, corporate greed on behalf of the record labels led to fiascos such as Milli Vanilli, where the music took a quite obvious back seat to the visual presentation.

Sadly, we have yet to really learn from this lesson. Today's music stars are even more visual, and less musical, than Milli Vanilli had been and, well, Milli Vanilli had their Grammy award stripped away for being a fraud. What does it say about us, or the music industry, that such an endeavor these days is widely accepted behavior - more the norm than the exception?

Seriously, take away Kanye West's auto-tune and vocoder and you have a mealy-mouthed nimrod unable to carry a tune. So it should only stand to reason that he is the face of his generation.

And MTV...wow, could anyone have imagined the depths this network would plunge all in the name of ratings? What began as a single reality show called "The Real World" has turned into an entire network of dumbed-down and socio-pathetic (our own word, pretty cool huh?) reality programming hell-bent on outdoing itself every time the network successfully lowers the bar as to what can be shown on a "reputable" TV channel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the very idea of a show called "16 & Pregnant" would have been met with widespread outrage thirty years ago. Now, unfortunately, it warrants barely a mention. We've all seen worse. Still, one can't help feel that anyone responsible for such programming must be a real psychological work of art.

So today, we are just a little bit wistful at what once was a vibrant and refreshingly positive change in music and pop culture. We are also sad that the very same network responsible for that could also be responsible for complete trash that seeks to profit from showcasing humanity at its worst.

Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon Implodes Onstage?!

2011-08-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

Seems Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill had quite the onstage meltdown last night in Dallas. At one point, he began telling the crowd that he had no voice whatsoever (at which point people in the crowd actually CHEERED in true sheep fashion).

Later, though, he told the crowd that he was going to leave the stage to vomit, drink some beer, and come back to sing three more songs.

While Caleb did leave the stage, exactly as he said he would, he kinda forgot the part about coming back to finish the show.

Of course, his bandmates came back out to apologize profusely to the crowd and to basically throw Caleb under the bus, saying, "It's really not our fault, it's Caleb. He can't play the rest of the show." Way to cover for your own flesh and blood, guys!

Jared Followill later tweeted, ""Dallas, I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. There are internal sicknesses & problems that have needed to be addressed. No words," he wrote, later adding, "I love our fans so much. I know you guys aren't stupid. I can't lie. There are problems in our band bigger than not drinking enough Gatorade."

Ruh roh, Raggy!

Awesome Shit: Foo Fighters Tour Rider/Coloring Book

2011-07-27T09:06:00.001-07:00

Just more proof that being one of the biggest rock bands on the planet doesn't necessarily mean you lose your sense of humor. Grohl & Co. have proven their coolness time and time again, but only these guys could turn the typical tour rider (specifically, their catering demands) into an "activity and coloring book" for otherwise clueless caterers. Thanks to our good pal Beatnik Daddio for hipping us to this.

Shit List: Ten Biggest Musical Travesties Of ALL-TIME!

2011-07-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, the world is full of travesties - Katy Perry marrying, much less touching Russell Brand, No Doubt cutie Gwen Stefani getting hitched to, much less having kids with "bi-curious" Bush singer Gavin Rossdale - but this list will try and focus only on those pertaining to "the music".

10. The New Cars
It had been almost twenty years since singer/guitarist Ric Ocasek had broken up the band following the release of the poor-selling 1987 album, Door To Door, but surviving members Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes decided it was perfect time to join forces with Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton and Prairie Prince in a band called, incredulously, The New Cars. The band chose to commit further sacrilege by releasing the live "greatest hits" album It's Alive! in 2006. This album featured their versions of many classic Cars hits, as well as three new originals, going on to sell a paltry 16,000 copies.

9. Creedence Clearwater Revisited
It's disheartening to see Elliot Easton show up twice on this list, but, prior to participating in the New Cars debacle, he decided to dip his toes in the water of sacrilege by joining this coyly-named CCR tribute band that just so happened to feature a couple original members and a dead ringer John Fogerty sound-alike on lead vocals. Sure, one could have forgiven the band's desire to make a buck on the nostalgia circuit, but then the band took to re-recording CCR classics and releasing a very misleading The Best Of Creedence Clearwater Revisited Millennium Collection on MCA in 2006. Unforgivable.

8. Not since Alien Ant Farm unintentionally hilarious remake of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" had a nu-metal band so blatantly committed audio assault upon a funk classic. Of course, Korn walking all over Cameo's funk jam "Word Up!" was funnier than anything Weird Al could have come up with at his most inspired. One hates to think that the guys in Korn had previously prided themselves on their funky side because there is no evidence that anyone in that band even has a funky side. Cringe city.

7. Korn, Period.
Unfortunately, we know all too well that the same guy (Jeff Kwatinetz) who managed local legends Material Issue went on to discover and manage Korn. It is said that upon hearing the band's first demo, Kwatinetz actually saw dollar signs. The rest, as they say, is history. Did you just throw up in your mouth a little, too?

6. Kelly Clarkson
Imagine going from small-town girl with no options to America's singing sweetheart like Kelly Clarkson did after winning the first season of "American Idol". She hit #2 in 2005 with the Max Martin-penned "Since U Been Gone", taking ona more rock-oriented image in the process. One of the story lines touted by her PR people was that Clarkson had a hand in "co-writing" six of the album's cuts. This, of course, led Clarkson to believe she was actually participating in the writing of hit songs. This led her to take a "more active role" in writing her next album, My December. Of course, it's just a tad odd that an album she claimed to have virtually written all by herself would include ELEVEN co-writers, but who are we to judge? Of course, when label head Clive Davis threatened to can the album unless it was re-worked, Clarkson (obviously still high on her own fumes) defiantly refused in full view of the media. Behind the scenes, her team began hastily reworking the album. Released in June of 2007, the album was a huge limp noodle that saw Clarkson confusing herself for Amy Lee from Evanescence. With poor sales and horrible reviews, Clarkson cancelled her tour and fired manager Jeff Kwatinetz (nice!), who had actually been the one guy to go to bat for Kelly, telling the label that he thought the album was brilliant from beginning to end. You can now find copies of My December for $3.99 or less at most used CD stores. Anybody who pays more than that is out of their bloody mind.

5. Madonna Playing Guitar. In Public.
There are no words to express the utter ridiculousness of Madonna playing guitar. I mean, at the time, she was still semi-hot and known solely for dance music that had been largely co-written and performed by session musicians and producers such as Nile Rodgers, Jellybean Benitez and Patrick Leonard. Of course, the performance was not without its unintentional highlights, such as when Madonna exclaimed, "That damn battery pack falling out of my pants." Sigh.

4. Britney Spears Covering, Not To Mention Naming Her Greatest Hits Album After, A Bobby Brown Song.
For a pop idol who was on top of the music world, having amassed her own canon of playful pop hits, it was perhaps the first sign that "Brit" may have been a little out of her tree when she chose to name her greatest hits album after Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative". Admittedly, the album also included her version of said song, but why go so far as to title her first hits package after someone else's hit. That would have been like No Doubt calling their greatest hits album, It's My Life: The Best Of No Doubt. Luckily her erratic personal behavior, including getting her hair chopped off and then her kids taken away from her, would overshadow this musical travesty.

3. The Cult Covering "Born To Be Wild"
The year was 1987 and The Cult were coming off one of the hottest alt.rock success stories of '86 after they'd scored huge Modern Rock hits with the songs "Rain" and "She Sells Sanctuary". While decidedly a rock band, the production of their album Love had been slick enough to garner heavy play on the dance floor. This must have rubbed the band the wrong way, as their next album was an unabashed ode to 70's metal, featuring a no-frills production from Rick Rubin, who should have tried a little harder to talk the band out of covering Steppenwolf's classic "Born To Be Wild". Instead, he hit "record" and simply allowed the band to dig their own grave in a performance that seemingly revealed their every weakness; from singer Ian Astbury's pitchy performance to to guitarist Billy Duffy's rinky-dink guitar leads. Thankfully, the rest of the Electric album is amazingly enjoyable. Just make sure to skip over Track #9.

2. Sixpence None The Richer's Version of "There She Goes".
The La's were a short-lived 80's pop band who gave the world one shining musical moment in the form of the hit single "There She Goes". While a couple other tracks may have gotten some airplay from their self-titled album, none would have quite the impact as this near-perfect pop gem. Deservedly, the song would go on to receive multi-format radio airplay for years after its release. Then, in 1999, the band's own cover of the song, which had been added to their very end of their self-titled 1997 album, began getting radio airplay. The song eventually made it into the Top 40, but has since nearly completely replaced the original version of the song on most radio formats. Sure, La's singer/songwriter Lee Mavers sees money everytime it does, but that's not the point. The point is that an inferior, chick-sung version of a great rock song that was originally sung from the MALE POINT OF VIEW has been turned into background music for episodes of "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill".

1. Kanye West and Jay-Z's New Tune, "Otis".
In the annals (or perhaps "anals" is more apropos) of music history, few songs are more blatantly and belligerently sacrilegious than this hot-off-the-presses joint by hip hop "legends" Kanye West and Jay-Z. While I have already enjoyed a good chuckle at the sight of a Jay-Z album being the subject for an installment of the otherwise consistently on-the-monewy "Classic Albums" series, hearing the ramshackle rapping of Beyonce-banger Jay-Z as his verbally bullish boasts treat this Otis Redding track like a china shop ripe for destruction. Kanye, of course, is flat-out one of the most delusional souls on the planet, but, looky there, it is because millions keep hanging on his every musical note, even if said note is a dialtone over which he spouts profanities. It's one thing to sample a riff or a beat, but to simply let a classic Otis track play in the background as Kanye and Jay-Z whip out the Jergens and go to town on each other is a new low, which is really saying something.

Our Thoughts On Amy Winehouse

2011-07-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

Whether you dug her retro style or not, it was impossible to deny the absolute talent and charisma of one Amy Winehouse when she hit the UK scene in 2003 with her first album, Frank. Her jazz leanings and smokey, soulful voice made her stand out like the proverbial sore thumb on a music scene that was trying way too hard to be cutting edge and modern.

The first time I saw Amy Winehouse sing, I was quite smitten by her. It was so refreshing to see a gal who wasn't just another a bottle-blonde, spray-tanned pixie stick who - GASP! - could actually sing! Sure, she may have been a little chunky (perfectly so), but had a face and a carefree sense of humor about her that radiated cool confidence.

By the time her second album, Back To Black, hit the streets in 2006, I was somewhat taken aback by the change in direction and the brooding darkness and defiance that had crept into songs such as the international smash hit, "Rehab". I was puzzled by this development, to put it mildly.

Then when I saw Amy perform for the first time in a almost three years, what I saw shook me to my core. The Amy Winehouse that seemed to barely be singing at all, so disconnected from the groove and the world around her was a rail-thin, gaunt and ghost-like figure. Gone was the playfulness and confidence that she had exuded so easily just three years prior.

At the 2008 Grammy awards, she was awarded five trophies, but could not even attend because of difficulties obtaining a visa due to her drug use (a video of her smoking crack and admitting to having done ecstasy and other drugs had surfaced, eventually making it to the police, who brought her in for questioning).

Even by then, it was clear that Winehouse had given herself completely to her demons and that there would be no third album. Numerous "comeback" attempts were made - often in places like Belgrad and the Arab Emirates, far from the eyes of the western media, but, sadly, not far enough from the camera phones of disgruntled audience members who filmed a slurring and stammering Winehouse forgetting words to her own songs.

By then, she had become so entrenched as a media sensation for all the wrong reasons. You couldn't help feel that most people who attended one of her recent shows did so hoping to see a meltdown. Her rocky (to say the least) marriage to a fellow junkie was an almost daily soap opera played out in the UK tabloids.

Sadly, it seemed dying was the only news left to make.

I don't know what scum bag introduced her to crack - whether it was that scum bag she married or not - but it seems that within that dirty rush, she found something she'd never had and she let it have its way with her, at the ultimate expense.

While I was never a fan of her music, it always seemed so obvious to me that we were watching the slow-speed car crash of a little girl who just wanted to be loved. It's heartbreaking to imagine that moment when a happy, care-free kid's world runs butt-up against a father's hand or wakes up to find half her family gone and in their place a lifetime of loose ends and unanswered questions to play with your head.

I could say something along the lines of "at least she's at peace now", but the truth is death is not peaceful. It's death. Peace can only be found in life and, sadly, sometimes the psychic damage done to us at our most innocent and vulnerable makes it so that the only thing that gives us momentary peace also charges the highest price.

I think Amy knew the price and paid it willingly.

Oh Shit, We F@#$ing LOVE The Vaccines!!

2011-07-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

Once you hit a certain age, unless you've managed to walk around for decades with your thumbs in your ears yelling "LA LA LA LA I AM NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA!!", the average music-loving person (of which we presume you are one) has amassed such a collection of beloved songs and bands that there just isn't enough room on the ol' mental hard drive to keep adding new shit to the list.

Sure, every young person thinks, "Oh it will never happen to me, I will always keep an eye and ear out for all the latest cool bands", but, at some point, we all get to that stage of the game where our head says "enough already". It's unavoidable. Deal with it, already.

I am 100% guilty of this. I was constantly adding new bands and songs to my list right up until about 1992 and then BAM, I hit the wall. I didn't realize it right away, though. At first, I just thought music started sucking a little more than it had in the past - which may, in fact, be more than just my imagination - but then a friend of mine took a look at my music collection a few days ago and remarked, "You don't have anything on your iPod newer than 1993!"

He was totally wrong, of course. It was actually 1998. I kid, I kid. Actually, I had a ton of current stuff on there: Death Cab, M83, Fever Ray, Amusment Parks On Fire, that last Cake record, etc., but the rest of it was, indeed, largely pre-1993. While my friend continued to diss my music collection ("How can you have Queen 'Hot Space' on here, but no fucking 'A Night At The Opera', dude?"), I began wondering if 1993 hadn't just been the year that my mental hard drive just got too full and, like the proverbial shitty PC you've had since Bill Gates was in college, started getting reeeeally sluggish.

But, just as I had come to terms with the idea that I might never be wowed by a new band ever again, I had the good fortune of having another friend play the new album by The Vaccines. Of course, he prefaced the first song by saying, "These guys have only been together a year or so and are already the hottest thing in the UK." Based on such a description, I was prepared to hate with a red=hot passion whatever I was about to hear. After all, isn't the UK that country that considers Robbie Williams edgy, worships boy bands beyond all reason, and sends every fookin' Atomic Kittens single straight to the top of the charts?

The name "The Vaccines" does nothing for me, though. It's obvious that every last cool band name has been taken if "The Vaccines" is the best a band can do. Having said that, as the first song on their new album, "What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?", blasted out of the car's speakers, I couldn't help think that there was a certain "it" factor to what I was hearing. I didn't like the track - still don't, really - but my interest was at least piqued.

The next cut, "If You Wanna", sounded like a completely different band. In fact, if I closed my eyes (which I could do as my friend was driving), I felt myself drift back to the late 80's, when that last wave of truly magnificent UK bands - Oasis, The La's, Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, Manic Street Preachers, etc. - were spray-painting the musical landscape with their jagged riffs and effortless melodies.

It wasn't until track 3, "A Lack Of Understanding", that I was sold. This was a motherfucker of a band and I was no longer afraid to admit it. This song, which was even more of a throwback than the previous cut had been, is without question one of the greatest songs to be written in the last 20 years. How could such a song of substance come from a band that is the current flavor of the week in England? It's not fluff. It's actually saying something, and not just existing for the purpose of blowing up the charts before eventually dissipating like a burrito fart. Additionally, how is a song this good - in all of its Joy Division-y grandeur - able to come from a band this young?

Bands exist for ages, working their way through album and album of also-ran's in order to stumble on that one hard-earned gem of a song to forever hang their hats upon
and here come The Vaccines tossing off the first of what would become an entire album of stone-cold monolithic jams.

"Blow It Up" - a total throwaway of a tune to this band (it was the B-side of their first single, "Wrecking Bar"), but a damn fine one at that. Most bands would consider this an A-side and they'd be fookin' right to do so.

"Wetsuit" - If you haven't already said to yourself "This guy sure sounds a lot like that guy from Coldplay", you will by the time this song ends. Thing is, if Chris Martin was writing stuff like this these days, I wouldn't consider Coldplay to be Britain's Maroon 5 even though they came first.

"Norgaard" - Sounds exactly like a dozen different songs I used to hear on "120 Minutes", with videos that used a lot of hand-held, fast-motion montages, hip kid giving his girlfriend a ride home from working her shift at the retro thrift store on his vintage motorcycle, etc.

"Post Break-Up Sex" - Seriously, the chorus melody to this song is lifted directly from Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know". Not that I'm complaining, really.

"Under Your Thumb" - Again, some really sweet late 80's UK indie rock influences coming from the band on this one - Housemartins, Echo & The Bunnymen, et al. Love this one!

"All In White" - An atmospheric, majestic rocker that Muse wishes they could write, as it soars without the need to sing it at the top of your range and ping all the studio meters with the EQ. Bombastic, yes, but this band does so with restraint and hits a home run.

"Wolf Pack" - If The Primitives had had a dude singing for them, they'd probably still be around (OK, my producer tells me the just recently reunited, whatever), and rocking tunes like this rightful jam. It's impossible to not smile while riding a Jet Ski...or listening to this song!

"Family Friend" - Another really familiar melody, what the heck song are they ripping off? I mean, it's a cool tune, but, wow, my head hurts from trying to figure this one out. It's like the verse is swiping from one song and the chorus is doing it from another. Argh! Nice enough song, but doesn't really add anything to the mix.

"Somebody Else's Child - Very few bands dare attempt, much less pull off a stunner of a piano-and-vocal ballad to end their album. Remind me again, why are the Brits so fucking ga-ga for a band with substance oozing from their every pore? Has the whole world lost its head?

I will keep my fingers crossed that this isn't just some cruel joke a very large group of people I don't even know are playing on me to make me think that there is still some hope for humanity and that we as a species haven't gone over the cliff do-do style!

Katy Perry Takes It Off!

2011-07-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

Seriously, is anybody else as tired as I am at seeing Katy Perry thrust her tits at the world?

I mean, seriously, take it off already so we can once and for all write off your entire career as a total non-event. The thing is her tits ain't really all that, and that constant "I-just-farted-in-my-wetsuit-aren't-I-coy?" look she has on her face most of the time is stolen straight from Jenny McCarthy.

Pretty sad for a gal who started out as a Christian singer, but then realized there was so much more money to be made as a playful pop tart.

How does that happen? At what point did she say "You know, I'd really much rather be showing off my tits right now?" I mean, bonus points for honesty, I guess, but talk about selling your soul.

Sigh.

Blast From The Past: Porno For Pyros "Pets"

2011-07-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm gonna admit something. "Pets" is the only Porno For Pyros song I've ever heard. Considering the fact that I really kinda dug the song, I'm amazed that I never actually checked out their other stuff, but, for some reason, I never did.

Of course, I was one of the first folks outside L.A. to jump on the Jane's Addiction bandwagon upon the release of their first album on Triple X Records. I mean, you had to respect a band whose first record is a live album!

Of course, by the time they inked with Warner Brothers and released their first studio album, they were no longer my secret. I must admit, having to share them with jocks and frat guys kinda ruined the experience, so shoot me.

I get the feeling it kinda ruined the experience for Jane's singer Perry Farrell too, as his post-Jane's band seemed to go out of their way to NOT be this muscular rock & roll juggernaut that might appeal to such an audience. Instead, they seemed much more intent on being a little more esoteric and "arty".

Of course, as with anything that Perry is involved in, there is bound to be some vibrant social commentary.

Who can resist a song that basically criticizes humanity and openly hopes that the Martians will come, at which point, maybe...just maybe...we humans will make great pets.

See, the song itself is so cool, so evocative of the early 90's - before the decade was obliterated once and for all by that whole Hootie/Counting Crows/Pearl Jam vibe that was so ugh-tastic in its "hippie-go-lucky"-ness.

As with most cool songs, there is always the possibility of buying the album and quickly realizing that there is nothing else on said album that comes close to the greatness of that one song. Oh, how we've all been burned by that at one point or another. Fool me twice, shame on me!

And so I never did get around to checking out Porno For Pyros' other tunes. Maybe I've really missed out on some great music. Nah, I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Stage Collapses During Cheap Trick Show!

2011-07-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

Superior St. clients and all-around great guys Cheap Trick had an exciting weekend it seems. During their performance at the Ottawa Bluesfest in Ottawa, Canada, a huge storm rolled in, causing hevay gusts of wind that basically blew the stage down right in the middle of the band's set.

The damage was pretty immense and the entire experience very intense for those who witnessed it, but we are happy to say that the band made it out without injury. Their equipment, however, was not so lucky.

Our best wishes go out to Cheap Trick, who continue to be one of the hardest working bands in show business.

Shit List: Top 10 Post-Punk Bands Of All-Time!

2011-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has ever wondered who the ten best post-punk bands of all-time might be, we at The Shit are more than happy to deliver to your doorstep our thoughts on the subject, in no particular order of course!

The Stranglers
For a band that began in '74 (pre-dating punk by a good year or two), their angular songs may have shared some sonic similarities to the punk bands of the day, but it was the punk community that shunned the band. Once post-punk came along, it was easier to accept the band's heavy use of psychedelic keyboards and their many lyrical absurdities. They remain one of the most underrated post-punk bands of all time and all but shunned by the US market,

Lords Of The New Church
The first alt-rock supergroup, if you will, the Lords of the New Church were headed by former Dead Boy Stiv Bator and ex-Damned guitarist Brian James. What may have looked good on paper was even better on tape, as the band's raw energy and ability to court controversy at every turn made them a post-punk favorite.

Public Image Ltd.
Anyone who thought (or, for that matter, hoped) that Johnny Rotten would disappear after the crash & burn of the Sex Pistols was no doubt disappointed when Rotten returned with this groundbreaking musical troupe. They were even more disappointed to find Rotten capable of reaching new musical heights and continually breaking new musical ground.

Sisters Of Mercy
From the murky depths of Leeds, England's punk scene came Andrew Eldritch's dark & twisted "band", of which he and a drum machine named Doktor Avalanche remain the sole constant. Of course, for their first album, they had a great secret weapon in guitarist Wayne Hussey, who was fresh off a stint with Dead Or Alive. Most lump them in with the goth crowd, but, from a sonic standpoint, this band is 100% post-punk.

The Chameleons
Mark Burgess' husky vocals crashed perfectly against the ethereal chorus-driven guitars of Reg Smithies and Davie Fielding to create a sound that is alternately introspective and arresting. After getting canned by CBS upon completion of their unreleased first album, the band quickly disowned their past, found their identity, and recorded the monumental "Script Of The Bridge" in 1983.

Wire
The very essence of angular, dissonant art rock, Wire was the template upon which a thousand bands have been built. By employing an almost militant musical precision and obtuse lyrics that seemingly hint at vague social themes, the band created a sound that, up until that point, was uniquely their own. To this day, "Pink Flag" and "Chairs Missing" are considered essential post-punk foundation blocks.

Joy Division
We all know the story of how Ian Curtis' untimely suicde led to the eventual formation of New Order, but one can never understate how fully formed Joy Division were when they first appeared on the UK scene. Even to this day, their music is intensely original and direct.

Gang of Four
Some may call them a "poor man's Wire", but that a poor man should be so lucky. What set Gang Of Four apart from the rest of the post-punk scene was their completely stripped-down approach, and dabbling in funk and dub. Their sound is intense and propulsive, but always seemed on the verge of flying apart at the seams.

Killing Joke
Very few bands are able to harness the musical muscularity that Killing Joke unleashed on their stunnind debut album, much less maintain that same momentum over the course of thirty years. 2011 should see the release of a documentary on the band called "The Death & Resurrection Show".

Siouxsie & The Banshees
For a band that had once included Sid Vicious and Marco Pirroni (Adam & The Ants), by the time they had released "The Scream", singer Siouxsie Sioux had put together a quite capable band of accomplices with which to create songs that bristled with intrigue and imagery in a way no other band had done.

Why Dave Grohl Should Run For President!

2011-07-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm not a HUGE fan of the guy's music and I really, really wouldn't mind having a real reason to not like the guy, but dammit if Dave Grohl isn't just about the coolest mofo on the planet.

During the band's recent performance at the iTunes Festival, Grohl stopped the show to lambast an unruly fan who was then immediately kicked out of the show.

Now, that's easy enough to do when you're in a dive bar playing to 50 people, but the Foo Fighters play to literally tens of thousands of people each night and yet Grohl has the presence of mind and dedication to his fans' concert-going experience to expel a fan who just happens to be acting like a royal shit-bag.

Other than to stop the show in order to run into a burning building and save a basket full of kittens, what could Diamond Dave possibly do to top this? We will no doubt find out together, my friends. Stay tuned.

Read My Lips: No New Rock Songs!

2011-07-13T15:04:00.001-07:00

Just a thought...

When's the last time you heard a new song that made you coo "Well hello my darling, where have you been all my life?" without immediately following it with "Hmm, that sounds just like the riff from (insert name of other, much cooler song here)." It's probably been awhile, hasn't it? Admit it.

The simple truth of the matter is that, with only so many notes, and so many words to be sung, we've finally reached a point where everything has already been done, and done better than whatever "new" music is currently being peddled.

Lady Gaga, the most influential and groundbreaking artist of our time? Pfft, she's just peddling a dressed-up redux of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with a little Madonna thrown in for good measure.

Kanye West? Remove all the vocoders and you're left with nothing more than a shivering, neurotic mama's boy with a bloated sense of self-importance. Take away his toys and the emporer has no clothes, or auto-tune, and you suddenly find yourself missing real music - like "Oh Sheila" by Ready For The World.

And don't get us started about whatever new album may soon come from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, or Bob Dylan. While it may be an okay album, it will never be able to hold a candle to the music that put these cats on the map. So why bother? Seriously. A guy like Springsteen has enough great tunes. Why not just play those songs for the audiences paying $300 for good seats?

What I'm saying is that all the good songs have already been written. Whatever new songs anybody could possibly write now would just be retracing someobody else's footsteps and chances are that they did it better.

That doesn't mean artists can't still make new music...just pick songs that have already been written.

You're no doubt thinking that I am crazy to even suggest such a thing, but, deep down inside, you know I'm right. More importantly, your heart knows I'm right, too. Earlier this month, when I ventured out to see U2 perform in Chicago, I literally saw an entire stadium of people who agreed with me. Every time U2 busted out a new song from their last album, No Line On The Horizon, you either saw people start conversations with total strangers, or head for the nearest restroom and/or concession stand. If people would rather buy a $7.50 cup of flat Coca-Cola than watch you trot out one of your new songs, get the fucking message, Bono.

Of course, if U2 stuck to their old songs, they wouldn't sell as much overpriced junk food, so I guess new songs do indeed serve a purpose. I don't think the members of U2 make new albums so that concessions vendors can sell more corn dogs, though.

Okay, so, we cool? No more new songs?

Awesome!

Seriously, think about it. No more having to feign interest in some singer-songwriter's latest ramblings about the Applebee's waitress that broke their heart last week.

No more having to roll your eyes every time Avril Lavigne starts to blab on and on about what a great songwriter she is. You didn't write jack shit, sister.

Most importantly, overly derivative bands like the Killers, Coldplay, Interpol, and their ilk can just cover the songs they've been ripping off all these years.

That's what we in the bid'ness call a win/win, holmes.

Music News: Week of July 11, 2011

2011-07-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

Tuesday sees the release of Yours Truly, the debut album by the band Sublime With Rome, which is the rhythm section of the band Sublime joined by 21-year-old singer/guitarist Rome. All sacrilegious name-checking aside, the album is produced by mega-talented Butthole Surfers bassist Paul Leary.

Tuesday also sees the 25th Anniversary re-release of Megadeth's Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? and REM's Life's Rich Pageant. Peace Sells features a bonus 13-track live CD while Pageant features a bonus 19-track CD comprised of demos the band recorded in Athens, GA.

George Thorogood & The Destroyers release their 15th album on Tuesday. Entitled 2120 South Michigan Ave., the album is an ode to Chess Records and features guest appearances by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter and other Chess greats.

While details are scarce, it seems that former Smiths singer Morrissey was biten by a dog and required medical treatment in Sweden, though the incident happened in England. Morrissey is in the midst of a European tour.

Michael "Würzel" Burston, guitarist for Motorhead between 1984 and 1996, died on Sunday of congestive heart failure. He is best known for the blazing guitar work that he contributed to the albums Orgasmatron, 1916 and March ör Die.

Rebecca Black, best known for the internet sensation "Friday", will release her second single "My Moment" on Monday, July 18th via her YouTube channel. The song was co-written by Justin Bieber collaborator Brandon "Blue" Hamilton.

Red Hot Chili Peppers are set to release their new album, I'm With You, on August 8th through Warner Brothers Records. The album was produced by Rick Rubin and will be the first RHCP album to feature new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer.

The Flaming Lips and Weezer will quite literally share the concert stage together for two New York-area shows, the first being July 28 at Holmdel, New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center, and the following night at Wantagh, New York's Jones Beach Theater. The general premise is that each band will take turns performing 2 or 3 songs.

Today In Music, July 1

2011-07-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

On this date in 1967, The Beatles began a 15-week run at #1 with the album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In 1981, Steppenwolf bassist, and co-writer of their hit "Magic Carpet Ride", Rushton Moreve died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Santa Barbara, CA. He was 32.

On this date in 1983, after being together less than a year, Bon Jovi signs to Mercury Records.

In 1989, Prince scores his second #1 album, the soundtrack for the movie "Batman".

In 1995, legendary rock DJ Wolfman Jack dies from a heart attack at the age of 57.

BORN ON THIS DAY

Debbie Harry of Blondie, 1945

John Farnham of Little River Band, 1949

Fred Schenider of the B-52's, 1951

Dan Aykroyd of the Blues Brothers and SNL fame, 1951

Sad News: Clarence Clemons Passes

2011-06-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

After suffering a stroke earlier this week, friends and fans of the legendary E Street sax man were hopeful as Clemons' condition seemed to improve a few days later, but, sadly, reliable sourced have now confirmed that Clarence Clemons has passed away.

Our heart goes out to his family and close friends and, while it would be easy to post a clip of him in better times, gigging with the E Street Band, we felt his solo hit from 1985 was a slice of a time long past when life was much more carefree and whatever troubles we may have had back then seem almost frivolous to the ones we wrestle with these days.

For all it's over-the-top upbeat goodness, there is something so joyously guilt-free about the song, and the smile that is so prominently etched upon Clemons' face.

Note To Self: McCartney @ Wrigley Tickets Go On Sale Monday!

2011-06-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Not to be boastful or anything, but we at The Shit were the FIRST to report (on June 11th, two full days before the mainstream media got wind of it) that McCartney wohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifuld be appearing at Wrigley Field. Thus, we felt it only right to remind you that tickets for McCartney's two shows at Wrigley Field on July 31 and August 1 will go on sale this Monday, June 20 at 10AM.

Tickets are available through Tickets.com or by calling 1-800-THE-CUBS.

Today In Music, June 17

2011-06-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1973, Dolly Parton recorded "I Will Always Love You" at RCA Studio "B" in Nashville with producer Bob Ferguson. The song had been inspired by Parton's professional split with partner Porter Wagoner. The song would not be released until February 1974 on Parton's Jolene album. It was released as the album's second single in April and became a #1 Country hit. It would later be mangled by Whitney Houston and sell a gazillion copies.

In 2005, Pete Doherty again made news having absolutely nothing to do with music when he and model Kate Moss were tossed off a yacht during a party thrown by English socialite Davinia Taylor after Pete was caught smoking crack cocaine.

On this date in 2007, the Traveling Wilburys went to #1 on the UK albums chart with the release of The Traveling Wilburys Collection, a box set featuring their two albums, which had been long out-of-print.

BORN ON THIS DAY

Barry Manilow, 1946 (Age 65)

Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, 1958 (Age 53)

Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks, 1962 (Age 49)

The Flaming Lips Present...The Gummy Skull!!

2011-06-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

(Photo by Angela De Marco)

You wouldn't think that a band like The Flaming Lips would have come from Oklahoma back in the 80's, much less carved out a three-decade career at the major label level. The fact that they are still a vital, ongoing concern is proof that not all who choose to color outside of the lines get crushed by the gravity of mainstream normalcy. Near as we can tell, their tenure with mighty giant Warner Brothers Records saw the band make nary a concession to conventional wisdom. Instead, we were treated to one strange musical trip after another - from the 4-CD set Zaireeka (all four CD's meant to be played simultaneously on four different players to achieve maximum effect) to the groundbreaking musical statement that was The Soft Bulletin.

For any who think the band may have slowed the pace, or lost a step as they venture into their fourth decade of operation, the Lips (and their cult of mega-devoted fans) will kindly beg to differ. First off this year, the band re-recorded Pink Floyd's brilliant career-defining opus Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety. If that weren't enough, the band will also be performing the album in its entirety at Dave Matthews' Caravan Festival in July.

Not weird enough for ya?

Okay, then you may just want to feast your eyes on the packaging for the band's new collection of music. Nicknamed The Gummy Skull, the band's new EP, if you will, comes on a USB drive housed within a custom-made full-size gummy bear skull. To get to the music, you've got to eat your way through the skull.

Me thinks a fair amount of cannabis was smoked in hatching that idea. Of course, the main difference between the Lips and lesser chemically-enhanced bands is that they actually wake up the next day and not only remember the crazy shit they came up with the night beforel, but then they take steps to make it a reality. Can you imagine trying to find a company to manufacture gummy bear skulls? Where would one look in the Yellow Pages for that?

Thankfully, the band happened upon such a manufacturer right in their own backyard. As if that weren't enough, it turns out the man behind the company capable of creating the edible skulls is a fan of the band. An arrangment was soon reached and, earlier this year, the band began selling The Gummy Skull via their website.

The downside, of course, is that the skull costs $150 and the USB drive it houses contains a mere four songs. Also, the band has promised to make very limited quantities of the skulls available on a weekly basis, but, as of late, they seem to have fallen a little behind on that promise. Maybe being out on tour might have something to do with this. Still, it would be nice to get our hands on one before we spend the money on Ju Ju Fruits and Pop Rocks - neither of which will come with any cool music at all.

Why only four songs on the USB drive, though? One would think this to be the move of a more conventional band. Obviously, the Lips wish to make the music exclusive to those who buy the skull. If they made the songs available on their own, they might not sell as many skulls. So, the conventional thinking would be to include just enough music to make the whole package seem workable to fans eager to eat their way to the new music. The unconventional thinking (for which the Lips are known and loved) would have been to include at least a full album's worth of material.

Give the diehard fans something to really sink their teeth into, pun intended.

While none are currently available, as the LINK to acquire them currently reads "ACCESS DENIED. You are not authorized to access this page.", we are hopeful that this will change in the near future.

Gummy Song Skull track listing:

1. Drug Chart
2. In Our Bodies, Out Of Our Heads
3. Walk With Me
4. Hillary's Time Machine Machine?

The Absolute Best Ten Minutes Of Bonnaroo 2011

2011-06-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

If any one music festival has established itself as the hippest kid on the block, presenting a heady mix of current big-name acts, hipster-approved up-and-comers, and just enough DJ's to make you relish the sight of someone actually playing an instrument, it is the Bonnaroo Festival.

Kids across the nation gathered in Manchester, TN last weekend to witness ten day's worth of bands jammed into four days. Based on this year's line-up, the emphasis seemed to be on proving to the world that today's musical landscape is just as vibrant, if not more so, than any other that came before. With a music line-up that covered just about every genre imaginable and featured such current heavy hitters as Eminem, Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Ray Lamontagne, and the Decemberists, along with newer acts Sleigh Bells, School of Seven Bells, Deer Tick, and Matt & Kim, to name just a few, we at The Shit find it oh so fitting that, for all of the "the future is now" proclamations, it was a band that had basically broken up before Woodstock that stole the show.

Thus, by the time Buffalo Springfield took the stage around 9:30PM on Saturday night, those in attendance had already been subjected to three whole days of sun, music, more sun, and even more music. The sight of a bunch of guys old enough to be their grandfathers taking the stage may have sent more than a few festival-goers over to the Solar Stage to catch the the Fresh Trix breakdancing troupe, but those who stayed got a crash course in music history and were eventually treated to the best ten minutes the entire weekend had to offer when the band busted into Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World".

It was at that moment that the unwashed and tired masses found new energy and united as one to celebrate all the good things about life in these great United States. Even the most jaded soul had to feel a little swept up in the moment, the crowd swaying in time, singing along to every word. As good as Mumford & Sons may have been, they never came close to holding the crowd in the palm of their hand like those tattered and road-weary old farts up on stage were now doing.

Every member of every band that had played, or was set to play the festival, should have been standing stage left taking notes.

For all the hype we are fed each and every day about some hip, new band offering some new spin on rock & roll, or a mega-talented DJ trying to make playing records look difficult, much less entertaining, it is refreshing to be reminded on occasion that everything has been done and, let's face it, much better by those bands that came before.

The fact that Buffalo Springfield could blow the dust off a song that has been trotted out by Neil, and Pearl Jam, and a thousand forgotten bar bands across this great land over the past twenty years, and completely revitalize an exhausted human sea is a testament to the ultimate power of music made before many in attendance were even able to wipe their own asses.

I mean, seriously, you would think that there might be one band over the course of four days, and multiple stages, that would be able to top a near-ten-minute version of "Rockin' In The Free World".

Oh, but you'd be wrong.

Superior St. Presents Electric City Rockfest This Friday & Saturday

2011-06-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

As if providing the coolest environment in which to rock wasn't already enough, Superior St. Rehearsal Facility proves just how bad-ass and artist-friendly we are by sponsoring the mega-cool 5th Annual Electric City Rockfest, which takes place this Friday (June 10th) and Saturday (June 11th) at the Double Door.

Friday night's festivities will feature a headlining performance by New Bomb Turks, a band that has been blazing a righteous gunk punk path since their formation in 1990. During that time, they've released nine albums of high-octane, low-frills garage punk and solidified a reputation for stunning live shows.

While the band may have slowed the momentum of their early days - their last studio album was 2003's vitriolic masterpiece, Switchblade Tongues & Butterknife Brains, they haven't lost a step at all when it comes to onstage intensity.

Black Actress, Cool Devices, and The Mediums are opening. Tickets are $15 and showtime is 9PM.

On Saturday, night #2 of Rockfest, things get considerably darker and riffier as legendary UK outfit Orange Goblin bring their thundering metal assault to the Double Door in what is to be their final US show of the year.

While the band's last studio album came in 2007, their entire catalog was recently re-issued by Rise Above Records and they remain one of the most consistently amazing metal bands on the planet.

Opening bands Nachtmystium, Bible Of The Devil, Buried At Sea, and Zuul will provide ample riffage prior to OG hitting the stage and blowing the roof off.

Tickets are $20 at the door and showtime is 9PM.

This Just In: Paul McCartney Coming To Wrigley Field July 31-August 1!

2011-06-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

Looks like former Beatle Paul McCartney will be making a two-night stand at Wrigley Field on July 31 and August 1. The dates have yet to be officially announced, but details will be made public very soon so keep your eyes peeled here for more information as it becomes available!

McCartney is currently hitting the tour path to coincide with the re-release of his solo albums McCartney and McCartney II - both of which hit streets on June 14th in remastered form with tons of bonus material.

Click HERE to get the full low-down on track listings and bonus features for these releases.

Song Of The Day: Human League's "Don't You Want Me"

2011-06-06T09:18:00.001-07:00

With the announcement today of the passing of producer Martin Rushent, we at The Shit felt it only fitting to feature perhaps his greatest hit as our song of the day. As a fan of Rushent's work with Human League, Pete Shelley, XTC, and The Go-Go's (to name just a few), we always perked up a bit when we saw his name on the back of a new album. We'll miss you, Martin!

We can still remember the first time we heard Human League's "Don't You Want Me". Despite the fact that synth-pop was not an entirely new genre, no one song had come along yet to single-handedly define the genre until the Martin Rushent-produced "Don't You Want Me" catapulted the Human League from struggling UK synth band to worldwide chart-toppers.

I doubt that I've ever played a single more than I did that one. In addition to the song itself being a stone-cold classic, Rushent's production was free of all unnecessary frills. The sparseness allowed the song to breathe, placing the vocals of Philip Oakey and Susan Ann Sulley front-and-center, where they belonged. Hilariously, Rushent's mix was not to Oakey's liking, so much so that Oakey was vehemently critical of Rushent's final mix and relegated the song to the very end of the album.

I do believe Rushent had the last laugh as the song became Human League's biggest-selling (not to mention career-defining) single ever.

Boo ya!

Hot Tip For Bands: How To Beef Up Your Mailing List

2011-06-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of great bands that scoff at the idea of putting together a mailing list. They've convinced themselves that all they have to do is put up a Facebook page, get a Twitter account, and fans will come to them by the thousands. A year later, they're still playing to 35 people on a Wednesday night while another band, with a proactive approach to adding names to their mailing list, is headlining packed clubs every weekend.

Q: How did they do it?

A: When they realized that the bigger a mailing list was, the better it was, they got creative. At some of their early shows, they had set out a notebook at their merch table asking fans to jot down their name and email address. A few people obliged, but the whole process lacked a degree of enthusiasm. Their first solution was to ask their merch seller to actively ask people to sign up for the band's mailing list. The merch seller was happy to oblige, but was sometimes too busy handling sales transactions to do the "hard sell" of getting fans to join the mailing list.

That's when the band came up a great idea. They got a medium-sized cardboard box, cut a slit in the top, and wrote "Enter your name and email address for a chance to win a FREE T-shirt after the show!" They then placed a stack of 3 x 5 cards and a box of those little pencils you see at putt-putt golf courses.

About halfway through their show, they reminded fans about the contest and that they'd be announcing a winner at the merch table after the show. Being a somewhat humorous band to begin with, they then announced they were going to play a slow song, which would give their fans time to wander over to the merch table, fill out the card, and toss it in the box. Then they would commence rocking.

There was a palpable buzz in the room as people realized that they actually had a chance to win something and immediately took action.

Most recently, the band played a multi-band show at Reggies Rock Club and saw that 140 cards had been filled out by night's end. By employing this new method, they'd added more names to their mailing list in one night than they'd accumulated at all of their previous gigs combined, and all for the cost of a t-shirt.

Of course, what a band chooses to give away is entirely up to them (CD's would work well, too) and this is a method just about any band can use to great success.

Will New Kaiser Chiefs CD Revitalize The Music Business??

2011-06-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

For anyone who might have thought the record industry was all out of fresh ideas, you're absolutely right. Near as we can tell, the last original idea they had was in 1984 when they changed formats and made us all re-buy our album collections on shiny silver discs. Ever since then, most of us have cackled with glee as the record industry has made one massive blunder after another, finally coming to resemble the bitter, decrepit old hag that it is now.

Thankfully, at least one band out there has a fresh idea of their own.

The Kaiser Chiefs (you know, the band that blasted onto the scene in 2005 with "I Predict A Riot", which, of course, was three albums ago) have just released their fourth album, The Future Is Medieval. Nothing new about that, right? Well, it seems the Chiefs have added a new wrinkle to the process of releasing a new album by posting 20 tracks on their website and allowing fans to create their own artwork and ten-song track listing. Pretty cool, huh? It gets better. If other fans purchase your version of the album, which will be made available on your very own web link, the band will give you a royalty rate of €1.10 ($1.61 to we Americans) for each copy sold.

We at The Shit think this is an absolutely brilliant idea. The band isn't just releasing an album to fans, they're recruiting each and every fan as a combination A&R/marketing director. With a little creativity, a few fans will be able to make some nice pocket change, one would think.

If done correctly, this could start a whole new wave of interaction between bands and fans, all the while breathing new life into the album format. Even better, it does so without the need for a record company. At all.

Fucking fantastic.

So, Mr. or Ms. A&R Director, click HERE to review the Kaiser Cheifs' new material and see if you can come up with a track listing other fans just cannot live without.

1989 Version 22.0: Are We There Yet?

2011-05-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it, I'm a child of the 80's. I grew up on the sights and sounds of what is arguably the last decade with an original bone (heh heh, I said "bone") in its body. Even back then, though, we kids knew we were surrounded by shit. Taco? Tiffany? Milli Vanilli? Stuff like that made you wonder if someone in charge hadn't fallen asleep at the wheel, but there was so much good stuff still out there that we didn't lose much sleep about it.

And, in our minds, the future was only gonna get better. We could hear the footsteps of technology gaining on us and knew that such advances held unlimited potential for human gains. Oh, what great heights we would soon be reaching. I think at some point, we were led to believe that by 2011, we'd have flying cars. The only flying cars I see are the ones driven by Billy Joel late at night in the Hamptons, where mail boxes quiver with fear at the sight of his newly-repaired Bentley, but I digress.

In all the years that have passed since the 80's exhaled its last breath, you'd have thought we'd have progressed by now. I mean, those from the 40's were able to look at the 50's and 60's and see a progression. They might not have liked it, but they'd have been hard-pressed to deny that progress had been made on many fronts.

Yet, here we are in the year 2011 and we haven't progressed a fucking day past 1989. Musically speaking, it's like "Groundhog Day" (the movie) gone horribly wrong. In that movie, Bill Murray is sent to report on the Groundhog Day celebration and ends up re-living the same day over and over until he finally gets it right. In reality, we've been living the same day over and over for twenty-plus years.

As a kid blissing out to the sounds of 1989, if you'd have told me that absolutely no musical advances would have taken place between then and now, I'd have laughed in your face. Back then, the music of Kanye West, for example, would have been seen as the unintentionally hilarious farce that it is. In 2011, he is heralded as a genius. In 1989, we had NWA, Public Enemy and De La Soul doing absolutely amazing things in the field of rap and hip-hop music. I remember wondering with great anticipation how far rap would go. Turns out we've advanced so far that Eminem and Chris Brown are held up as icons, while Ice T plays a cop on TV and Ice Cube seems to have built a career on asking repeatedly, "Are We There Yet?"

No, Ice Cube, we are not there yet. Enough already.

On the pop front, we are led by two musical visionaries, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, or, as I like to call them Katy Gaga. Every time I see them, or accidentally hear one of their songs, I am reminded of the blaring fact that Madonna did it so much better, yet Lady Gaga rips off Madonna and is repeatedly hailed a genius. Meanwhile, Katy Perry promotes her new album by appearing in zit cream commercials and demanding that her limo drivers not look at her or attempt to engage her in conversation. Poor thing, undeserved fame can be such a bitch.

How, I ask you, does such a thing happen? Is it really possible to have spent three decades trying to create the most dumbed-down version of 1989 we can imagine? Well, I must say, it worked. Whoever decided that this was to be our universal goal, you win. Rich suburban kids walk around with tattoos and their pants hanging off their ass like an extra in the movie "Colors". Guitar Center actually sells a video game that allows you to be a "guitar hero" without ever needing to learn the instrument - and apparently turntables are now a musical instrument because they have a whole section devoted to them.

If you'd have told me in 1989 that DJ's would be the new rock stars, I'd have thought that you were a comedic genius. Today, though, that shit ain't funny.

Back in 1989, we had this musical phenomenon called the "one-hit wonder". Sure, they'd been around since the dawn of time, but, in the 80's, they were everywhere. An artist would come out of nowhere, score one gigantic monster of a hit, fail to repeat that success on their next attempt or two, and then disappear.

Nowadays, we're still surrounded by one-hit wonders, but they're the same one-hit wonders from ten years ago because, for some odd reason, they obviously didn't get the memo instructing them to LEAVE! While the rest of N'SYNC got the message, Justin Timberlake didn't and is still here, shitting out faceless pop music and proclaiming himself an "artist". Here's the funny part: a lot of people believe him.

You know the funniest part about this version of 1989? Bon Jovi is the highest-grossing concert act. Can you believe that? The powers-that-be gave us twenty years to shape the world into something new and amazing and this is what we come up with...Bon Jovi.

It's like we packed up the station wagon for this huge, grand adventure, a whole world of possibilities in front of us, and we never left the fucking drive-way.

"Are we there yet?"

The Shit List: Top 5 Reasons NOT To Be A Musician

2011-05-26T04:23:00.000-07:00

Chances are that if you are a regular reader of The Shit, or you are a client at Knox Avenue or Superior St., then you are already more than likely a musician. My hunch is that when you first decided to be a musician, you had no idea how tough a gig it would be - or how rewarding it could be at times. Being a musician myself, and having shared experiences with literally hundreds of other musicians of all stripes, I never cease to be amazed by those who've actually attained some noteworthy level of success who freely admit that if they had it to do all over again, they might chose a different path. But, more times than not, comes that glimmer in their eye that says otherwise. Being a musician is not for the faint of heart, my friend. It is a life sentence.

While I would never think of trying to talk anyone out of being a musician who has a genuine love for their instrument and a tireless drive to create their own joyful noise, if I can merely shed a little light on a handful of motivating factors, maybe I can help those who find themselves at the crossroads to make the right choice. This is your life, after all. You only get to ride once.

So, without further adieu, I now present you with the Top 5 Worst Reasons To Become A Musician

1. Fame & Fortune

When you think about the literally tens of thousands of supremely talented musicians in this world, and then the hilariously small number of those who actually managed to find fame & fortune, then you should start to see that there is no singular path to fame and fortune. Nor is there any rhyme or reason to why some "make it" and some don't. Thing is, to get into this for the sole purpose of getting rich and famous is to set yourself up for a huge letdown. How many of us have seen a favorite, albeit not-so-famous artist, decide to make an obvious bid for commercial success only to have said effort fail to accomplish such goals. In most cases, not only did it not become the multi-platinum success that would make them a household name, it also disappointed their current fan base, leaving them worse off in the long run.

Of course, how many times have we seen a band enjoy an absolute fluke success - like when Urge Overkill's cover of Neil Diamond's "Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon" was hand-picked by Quentin Tarantino to be used in his film "Pulp Fiction" and ended up becoming a huge hit for the band? It ended up being an even bigger hit than anything off their major label debut, Saturation, which had been released just prior to the film's release. In the end, a song they'd recorded when they were just starting out ended up eclipsing their current material. That's something the band could have never planned.

Moral of this story: The more you try to make something happen, the less it will happen. On the other hand, just go about your own business making music that gets you off and you never know what'll happen.

2. Girls

Okay, so the girls never paid you any attention to you in school, but the minute you picked up a guitar they suddenly started lining up, right? Trust me, as a geeky kid who wasn't good at sports, and had crappy grades, I can tell you that that sort of attention is hard to resist. When my band played a Tom Petty song at a talent show in 8th grade and I went from being invisible to dating the cutest girl in the whole school, the proverbial light bulb above my head flickered on and my fate was forever cast.

Here's the thing, though...most beautiful women who date musicians are total psychos. Maybe they didn't start out that way, but, after dating a few musicians, believe me, they get there. See, we musicians are trouble. We don't rob banks or kill people just to watch 'em die, but we do seem to think the world revolves around us and that a new girlfriend is pretty much just another VISA card to max out at the local Guitar Center. Seriously, ever see a musician walk into a Guitar Center with his girlfriend? Guess which one ended up paying for his new gear?

So, as you can imagine, a beautiful woman (who might not be the smartest tool in a very foxy shed) who has been left high-and-dry by three or four prior musician boyfriends and who still sees nothing wrong with getting mixed up with yet another rocker might just be a time bomb waiting to go off. So when she tosses all your shit into the street because you "flirted with her landlady" or "forgot to thank her in the liner notes to your band's new CD', which, admittedly, she did pay for", just remind yourself that the reason you became a musician in the first place was to be able to date women like her.

3. See The World/Travel To Exotic Locales

Ah yes, if you wanna see the world, just be a musician. After all, musicians get to tour the globe, traveling from one exotic location to another, postcard views everywhere they turn. And if you believer that, I have a bungalow in Bangladesh I want to sell you. See, my first exposure to the rock & roll life came via The Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!". In the first movie, they go from gig to gig, and city to city, chased by hundreds of beautiful gals. They get to travel by plane, by train, and by automobile, all the while engaging in witty banter and unleashing a flurry of quotable quips. How awesome is that? In the second film, they literally hop, skip and jump from one exotic locale to another - this time in color - all the while engaging in witty banter and unleashing a flurry of quotable quips. So, as you can expect, I got into music thinking that I too would be jet-setting with the big boys. Needless to say, being stuck in Germany in the dead of winter with no luggage, no money, and no honey on the coldest day they'd seen in ages was not what The Beatles sold me. Neither were the months spent sleeping in a stinky band van, or getting to know the "friendly staff" at every fleabag motel and dive bar across this great land of ours. Of course, I have been fortunate enough to travel to Japan, Britain, and Australia, but the only parts of those countries that I saw were between the airports, train stations and the venues I was playing.

4. Artistic Fulfillment

When I formed my first professional band just out of high school, we decided that it was important to begin writing our own material from the outset if we were going to get anywhere in this business. Before long, we were headlining clubs and getting the attention of managers, booking agents, and record companies. The one thing we heard again and again from all of these "industry insiders" was that the best thing about us was the quality of our original material. Needless to say, that filled us with a huge sense of pride, as the one thing we'd always set out to do was write cool songs. So, when we signed our first recording contract after being told time and time again how great our songs were, the first thing the label decided to do was try to pair us up with one of those song doctors. All of a sudden, the original material that had been strong enough to get us signed to a major label was no longer good enough in their eyes. Now we had to take meetings with guys who'd written big hits for people like Bon Jovi, No Doubt and Aerosmith. Being naive, we went along with the suggestions of our label and ended up making an album that was full of songs co-written by big-time professional songwriters so that we stood the best possible chance of hitting the big time ourselves. Instead, our album ended up looking and sounding like the cookie-cutter, assembly-line monstrosity that it was. In sacrificing our artistic fulfillment for the sake of success, we lost our direction, our identity, and our self-respect.
Here's the thing, no matter how much you try to stick to your guns, if you spend enough time in the trenches, at some point someone will come along and dangle a carrot in front of your nose that can be yours for the small price of sacrificing your artistic fulfillment in the pursuit of fame and fortune. Trust me now, believe me later on this one, brothers and sisters.

5. Beats A Real Job

If you wanna be a musician so that you don't ever have to have a "real job", that's all fine and good, but I don't know that it's very realistic. I mean, if you're looking for shortcuts through life, I can tell you right now that there are none and that those looking for them tend to be, well, lazy.
Considering the number of musicians I know who are constantly, tirelessly working on their craft and holding down full-time jobs, you might wanna re-think that plan. More times than not, life as a musician is one of always wondering where the next dollar is coming from. Even when times are good - like when your band has a whole summer of well-paying street festivals lined up - it will not last forever. See, here in Chicago, for example, they have these things called "winters" that tend to stop those well-paying street festival gigs dead in their tracks.
Additionally, bands break up and, often times, the best-laid plans end up never getting laid. And neither do you. So if you're one of those people who thinks being a musician is a sure-fire way to avoid the cubicle jungle, I wish you all the best, but you might want to give that one some more thought.

If none of what I said above managed to scare you into selling all your gear on Craigslist, you're either sufficiently consumed by blind denial (a prerequisite for life in the rock & roll trenches) or one of those schmucks who thinks none of the bad stuff will ever happen to you. Whichever one you are, I wish you all the best in rock & roll.

Why We ♥ NPR: New Albums From My Morning Jacket, Death Cab For Cutie, and Cults Now Streaming

2011-05-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

It used to be we had to trudge over to Tower Records and put those germ-riddled and mostly non-fuctiohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnal headphones on in order to check out new albums by our fave artists. Thankfully, while we do miss going to the record store, we no longer have to wonder how many people had worn those phones before us, NPR has picked up the slack with a steady diet of streaming upcoming new releases via their website.

Our first impression of the new My Morning Jacket record, Circuital, is that the band seems to have really found a laid-back groove that they decided to explore over the course of an entire record. While we've heard some minor grumbling from some of the diehard fans about this, we must remember that these were the same fans who didn't like Evil Urges because it was all over the place. There's just no making some people happy. We personally dug the last one the most of any MMJ record, but we also think this new one is gonna sound amazing live!

As for the new Death Cab record, Codes And Keys, we liken their past couple records to the progression R.E.M. undertook upon signing to Warner Brothers. In other words, we greet each new Death Cab record with a small measure of dread, hoping this isn't the album where they give us their "Shiny Happy People" and kiss all cred goodbye. Thankfully, no need to worry yet as the band continues to embrace slyly catchy hooks while also increasing the subtle dynamics and esoteric production flourishes. At times, the songs sound as if they're coated in gossamer, but the edges (both lyrical and musical) slowly reveal themselves with repeated listens. Deceptively genius.

In the case of Cults, I can't help but wonder if these Brooklynites had ever heard of a little band called The Cult. I mean, come on. "Let's just add an 's' then," must have been uttered in unanimous fashion and the rest, as they say is history. On their self-titled new album, slated for May 31 release, the duo shows just how adept they've become at effortlessly unleashing such summery sing-along melodies while, at the same time, embracing a sly dark side that is quite addictive. I was going to say "enchanting", but "addictive" felt darker. Give this one a listen and you'll see what I mean.

Random Shit On A Friday: Courtney Love As A Stripper, Bon Scott In A Hotel Room, Plan B Not Into Sucking Cock, and MORE!

2011-05-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

Seems the esteemed blog Dangerous Minds has unearthed actual photos of Courtney Love doing her pole dancing thing at Jumbo's Clown Room back before she became famous. While many disregarded it as a vicious rumor, we always felt it had the stink of truth to it. Anybody else suddenly feel the need to take a long, hot shower? Damn, we love the interweb!

Seems the new My Morning Jacket album has leaked and those who've heard it say it's a whole lot mellower than their past efforts and, to quote one of our good friends who is a HUGE MMJ fanatic, "kinda meh".

Pete Doherty was recently sentenced to six months in jail for cocaine possession. Sheesh, about fucking time. We were starting to think maybe Britain's laws about such things were kinda lax. Oh, that's right, they are. I mean, this guy was probably holding in the court room, for fuck's sake. Would not be the first time.

UK phenom Plan B has recently re-recorded his hit "Hard Times" to feature guest vocals by Elton John and Paloma Faith (who?!), with proceeds from the single going to aid those in need in Japan. So, how about paying for this one, eh? :) Plan B recently spoke of his chances of breaking big in the US: ""It just seems to be a lot of cock sucking that has to go on in order to get your music to get played to the masses and I'm just not prepared to suck cock really." (SOURCE)

Oh, there's THIS for anyone who doesn't already think Glenn Beck and My Chemical Romance and, for that matter, the creators of the TV show "Glee" are all a bunch of humorless turds.

And, fuck, can you dig this crazy photo of Bon Scott hanging out with the Sunset Strip Chapter of the Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club circa 1978? Damn, we really love the interweb! (thanks to our pal beatnikdaddio for that one)

There's a rumor that The Jam might be getting back together. Fuck, if Pink Floyd can reunite not once, but twice in the past few years, we saw it's possible!

We Review Lady Gaga's New CD "Born This Way"

2011-05-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

We at The Shit deliver a song-by-song review of the new Gaga joint:

MARRY THE NIGHT

If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if Marilyn Martin had been a 70's disco diva, all you need do is listen to this track. After the tasty intro, the song shifts into full-on Giorgio Moroder mode, which is fine and good, but when the song ends, you realize that there was nothing really there to hang your hat on. The musical equivalent of cotton candy. Sadly, this song makes me wonder more what Marilyn Martin is up to than what crazy-ass outfit Lady Gaga might be wearing tonight.

BORN THIS WAY

Taken at face value, such lyrics as "Just put your paws up/Cuz you were born this way" make me wonder if Gaga didn't just equate gays to dogs or cats. As a whole, this is one of the stupidest sets of lyrics I've ever heard in my life - makes Rebecca Black's "Friday" seem like "The Long And Winding Road" by comparison. From the spoken word intro to, well, the rest of the song, it is a stone-cold miracle that Madonna didn't send a cease & desist. Ugh.

GOVERNMENT HOOKER

There's nothing less edgy than some chick who used to open for New Kids On The Block trying to be edgy on purpose. Thus, hearing Gaga coo "As long as I'm your hooker" smacks so blatantly of "Button Pushing 101" that it achieves the opposite effect. The song itself, hidden deep within a metric ton of all-too-familiar synthesizer bleeps and blips, is a third-rate rip-off of Dead Or Alive's "Brand New Lover". Honey, the original - going on thirty years old - sounds fresher than this day-old doughnut.

JUDAS

I am actually saddened at the thought of a generation of kids who will grow up to be adults who will have no other choice than to look back upon this as the music of their youth. This song, for all of it's polished pop sheen, is a Hollywood facade meant to pass for the real thing at a distance. Upon close inspection, you see it for the cheap styrofoam facsimile of C & C Music Factory that it is.

AMERICANO

May as well have called this "I Kissed A (Mexican) Girl". Meh. Opposite of edgy.

HAIR

Okay, I actually like this song. For once, Gaga dispenses with the painted-on BS and edgy posturing and seems to just sing from the heart. And you now what? In doing so, she is both likeable and at home in her musical surroundings. Me likey, mucho!

SHEIBE

Uh, not feeling this Nazi rally dance track. Next.

BLOODY MARY

Dammit, Gaga strikes again, delivering a song that is pretty down-to-earth and free of too much over-the-top nonsense. Sure, it sounds like Madonna circa Sean Penn, but I'm okay with that.

BLACK JESUS - AMEN FASHION

Okay, wow, if you wanna hear a song where Gaga doesn't even try to tone down the Madonna-isms, this is the song. Admittedly, it's a great song, but, if you were to play it for Madge, I think even she'd think it was her. Having said that, this is a song that makes you wanna walk through Times Square circa 1985, soaking up all the visual elements - from the seediest to the most serene - like flowers on a wooded path.

BAD KIDS

Gaga at her most clumsy and blatantly sloganeering..."Born This Way", broken home version.

FASHION OF HIS LOVE

Wait, didn't she already rip-off "Express Yourself"? On this one, though, I was able to sing Madonna's version all the way through to this one. Does she at least get a co-write? Didn't think so.

HIGHWAY UNICORN

This track seems to be an excercise in how many different ways you can cut-and-paste a single vocal line over the top of a dance track that features every synthy bell and whistle found on the new Venom analog synth from Avid.

HEAVY METAL LOVER

Play this song and I guarantee you that, wherever you are, the lights will turn to strobes bouncing off a mirror ball while some sweaty stranger dry humps you at 140BPM. As mindless as this track may be, it certainly knows its demographic - the clubzzz - and knows better to aim any higher.

ELECTRIC CHAPEL

Oddly, it's this song (and not "Heavy Metal Lover") that opens with a tasty metal rhythm guitar lick lifted from Motley Crue's "Looks That Kill" (which came out in 1983, mind you). Apart from that, this song was better when it was called "Total Control" and sung by Laura Branigan.

THE QUEEN

Somebody's mama listened to Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam while Gaga was in the womb. Just sayin'. Having said that, the song itself smacks of early Celine Dion. If combining Cult Jam and Celine before she married that creepy old guy is somehow genius, then Gaga's producers and co-writers are Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

YOU AND I

Oddly, it's this song that lifts with foot stomps and hand claps from "We Will Rock You" (and not "The Queen")...see a pattern developing here? Truth be told, the obvious attempt to provide something familiar for the fair-weather fans is completely unnecessary, as the song itself, while a little too similar to Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2AM), doesn't need such studio trickery. It certainly doesn't benefit from it, that's for sure.

THE EDGE OF GLORY

Something tells me that when Lady Gaga was a little girl, she dreamt of growing up and getting this song placed on the Top Gun 2 movie soundtrack. Hollywood being what it is, it could still come true (with Shia Lebouf playing the role of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell), and this would be the song. Here's the thing, for all I've read of how revolutionary Lady Gaga is, this song - if not the whole album - is 100% "set in the 80's". Most of her fans, of course, are too young (or lazy, or both) to realize this, so her supposed genius is accepted as fact.

This ain't genius, folks, this is plagiarism.

Coolest New Album Cover EVER!

2011-05-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

As someone who grew up totally admiring all those great Hipgnosis album covers of the 60's, 70's, and 80's...you know, album like Dark Side Of The Moon, Deceptive Bends, UFO's Force It, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Scoprions Lovedrive and so on, we are totally blown out of the water by the new Ladytron album cover for their upcoming release, White Elephants.

Designed by Neil Krug, the cover totally recalls the grandeur, majesty, and mystery that so many of those Hipgnosis and Storm Thorgurson covers had. Most importantly, it doesn't scream "Hey, we knocked this out in ten minutes with our drummer's pirated copy of Photoshop" and, for that, we thank Ladytron!

By the way, the new Ladytron album comes out September 13.

Smashing Pumpkins Autographed Guitar! Pfft.

2011-05-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, a friend of mine who is one of the biggest Smashing Pumpkins fans on the planet texted me to say that he'd found an autographed James Iha guitar in a local music shop and and that he bought it for "only" $400.

Proud to have talked the clerk down from $600, I didn't have the heart to tell him that the clerk was probably laughing all the way to the bank. I asked him what brand of guitar it was and when he said "uh...", I immediately took that as a bad sign.

He then texted me a photo of the guitar and I was immediately able to determine that it was a cheap-ass POS Fender copy with an autographed James Iha pick guard. In other words, the guitar itself wasn't even autographed and my friend had basically paid $400 for an autographed pick guard attached to a $99 guitar.

Naturally, there are tons of scum bags out there willing to prey upon enthusiastic rock fans with more money than brains (sorry, it has to be said), selling autographed merchandise made to look a whole lot more legit and valuable than it really is. I once saw a documentary on Ronnie James Dio signing literally hundreds of pick guards for "fans" after a show. The thing is Dio didn't actually play guitar, but that didn't stop these leeches from taking those pick guards, attaching them to cheap guitars, and selling them for hundreds of dollars. Heck, they even went so far as to print up official-looking certificates of authenticity that weren't worth the paper they were printed on, but worked in convincing trusting fans that what they were buying was a valuable, one-of-a-kind rock & roll souvenir.

As if on-cue, a few days ago, Billy Corgan responded to a fan inquiry on his Twitter account by saying, "sorry buddy, but that's a fake...none of those signatures are real.", and then followed that with, "one good clue on SP autographed stuff is we rarely ever signed drum heads or guitars."

Needless to say, my friend was crushed, but, hey, better it happens now and makes him a little less willing to believe that some two-bit guitar shop is selling valuable rock & roll artifacts. I'm tempted to name the guitar shop, but will hold off for now.

Our Thoughts On That New Steven Tyler Single

2011-05-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

When a Hollywood publicist emailed me an advance link to the new Steven Tyler solo single, she included a short note that said, "Sigh...It is what it is." Of course, she and I go back a few years and, thus, she knows what I like, what I don't like, and what I love to hate, perhaps even more than I do.

Having said that, I still have no idea what she meant. At best, I believe it to be the verbal equivalent of throwing up your arms in quiet resignation. Still, coming from a publicist, I have to laugh. Can you imagine if more publicists took such an approach to hyping their client's latest single?

I can only imagine the following note accompanying Lady Gaga's next single that reads only, "I know, right?"

Of course, Steven Tyler's addition to the American Idol judge's table was a head-scratcher from the start. In the light of his falling out with Aerosmith (again), it reeked of a "career move", a heated call to his agent to "get me work", and, in the weeks since this season of AI began, has done little to dissuade me from that initial opinion.

Judging by the tiresome "Just be you, babe!" schtick that he has doled out quite liberally on "American Idol" this season, Tyler is obviously phoning this one in and, while some may consider that a deviation from the norm for the Aerosmith singer, if you take the time to review the band's output since the original line-up reformed in the 80's, it becomes glaringly obvious that this band has been coasting on their 70's "cool factor" for four decades.

The same band that defined 70's hard rock with hits like "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion", to name just a few, spent the late 80's churning out schlock meant to sound like a reasonable, albeit updated, facsimile of their 70's grandeur. The thing was they couldn't do it without a heaping helping of outside assistance from song doctors like Desmond Child (who has done much the same thing for Bon Jovi, Kiss, and others).

See, when the band reunited in '85, they wrote the material for their first new album, Done With Mirrors, without any outside assistance. The album, of course, debuted in the Top 40, as any new album by a reunited band of their status would be expected to do, but then it fell like a stone after that and was considered a commercial dud by the powers-that-be at Geffen Records, their new label.

For the next record, 1987's Permanent Vacation, the band enlisted Child as well as Holly Knight (writer of such hits as Animotion's "Obsession", Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield" and Rod Stewart's "Love Touch"), and Jim Vallance (co-writer of many of Bryan Adams biggest hits) to co-write most of the material. The result was an album that went multi-platinum, spawned the Top 20 hits "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)", "Rag Doll" and "Angel", and made Aerosmith a headline attraction to an entirely new generation of rock fans.

By 1993's Get A Grip, all but two songs of the album's 14 compositions were co-written by outside writers such as Child, Vallance, Mark Hudson, Lenny Kravitz, Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades, among others. By now, Aerosmith was more brand than band and the pressure to continue churning out hits was immense.

Tyler was now the band's focal point more than ever, as MTV had made him the proverbial clown prince of rock & roll. Critics hated the records, discerning rock fans rolled their eyes, but somebody was buying the music and the concert tickets because Aerosmith remained one of music's top acts.

In 1997, Aerosmith first joined forced with song doctors Marti Frederiksen and Glen Ballard, who together co-wrote five songs on "Nine Lives". While it was Ballard who co-wrote the album's two Top 40 hits, "Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)" and "Pink", it was Frederiksen with whom the band has since forged the longest co-writing relationship.

In fact, it is Frederiksen who wrote, produced and performed much of Tyler's new single. Our hunch is that Tyler "co-wrote" the song in much the same way Avril Lavigne "co-wrote" Complicated" with The Matrix (she is rumored to have simply sat in the room reading a magazine while The Matrix wrote the song).

As if that weren't bad enough, whoever decided Steven Tyler needed to release a solo single to coincide with his work on "American Idol", they also deemed it necessary to have Pussycat Dolls "singer" Nicole Scherzinger sing backing vocals on the track. Call me crazy, but every time I see her pop up on a project, I can't help but feel she's sleeping with one of the execs responsible for the project.

One listen to the song itself and you instantly start trying to figure out which country artist Frederiksen originally wrote the song for, or how Tyler sounds like an outsider in his own song...not to mention the video. In a way, it reminds me a lot of that Glen Ballard song that Vince Neil recorded to capitalize on his appearance in a VH1 reality show that, itself, sounded like a song that Aerosmith had probably passed on years earlier.

Thing is, this new song sounds like Steven Tyler has gotten in bed right next to her. To quote an Aerosmith song, falling in love may be hard on the knees, but so must trying to remain relevant in what passes for the music biz these days.

"Sigh...it is what it is."

A 3/4 Pink Floyd Reunion In London...Is There Anybody Out There?

2011-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

(Photo by Simon Wimpenny)

WATCH VIDEO HERE

I'm not a huge Pink Floyd fan. I enjoy their music when I am occasionally exposed to it, whether it be at the supermarket or when I happen to be listening to FM radio (which isn't often at all). Yet even I was emotionally touched when the band put their differences aside to reunite at Live 8.

Their performance, while a little rough around the edges, was heartfelt and I couldn't help but feel that I was witnessing history - that is, until MTV cut away from their set to talk about god-knows-what. MTV may as well have just said, "Just in ca you forgot that we don't actually give a shit about music, we thought we'd remind you of that fact."

So it was with sleepy eyes that I awoke this morning to news that David Gilmour and Nick Mason had joined Roger Waters onstage last night. Gilmour surprised the sold-out crowd at London's O2 Arena by appearing atop the infamous wall to sing his vocal parts in "Comfortably Numb" before ripping into the infamous guitar solo.

As one might expect, the crowd went ape-shit. After all, this was rock history taking place right before their eyes.

As one might expect, news of this event had spread like wild fire, from message boards and Twitter tweets to the front page of Rolling Stone's website.

Yet, this high-quality video clip of Waters and Gilmour performing "Comfortable Numb" has garnered only 2,519 views.

Granted, this is Pink Floyd and not Rebecca Black. I guess unless millions of mindless teenage sheep care enough to click, nobody else will.

Sigh.

Is this what the world has come to, the lowest common denominator reveling in cultural dog shit while actual groundbreaking and legendary art plays to an audience of a discerning few?

Maybe Rebecca Black can record a version of "Comfortably Numb". Oddly, and sadly, fitting.

CD REVIEW: The Cars "Move Like This"

2011-05-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Chances are, if you're here reading this review, you're just as big a fan of The Cars as I am. I mean, I don't go around reading reviews of the new Yes or Strokes album because I just don't care. There's nothing about either band that has ever held my attention.

Not that either band is awful, they're just not my thing.

And, thus, where The Cars are concerned, despite the fact that their music is pleasant enough, I find them quite polarizing. You either really, really dig them or they're not even on your radar.

Of course, having said this, it is possible to be a huge fan of their early work (that masterful debut album, for example) and completely loathe their synthy mid-80's output, and vice-versa (I imagine).

Then there are the few, the proud, the middle-era Cars fans - those for whom the word Panorama holds a special place in the heart and Shake It Up is regarded as a listenable final act, the beginning of the end, if you will.

As well-crafted as Heartbeat City may have been, it was no more the creative blood, sweat and tears of a unified band as the latest Britney Spears joint. Truth be told, if Ric Ocasek could have recorded that album without the other members, he would have. While that's admirable and speaks to his skills as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, when he'd rather program cheesy drum patterns than let a great drummer like David Robinson do his thing, or all but erase Elliot Easton's tasty guitar work from the final mix, I can't help think Ocasek was being a dick for the sake of being a dick.

Of course, that brings us to Door To Door, which is, for all intents and puproses, a Ric Ocasek solo album. Maybe I'd feel better about it if it had been.

Add 23 years to the odometer and we now witness the welcome, albeit unlikely, return of The Cars, minus singer/bassist Benjamin Orr, who died from cancer some years back. On one hand, my remaining fondness for their first, third and fourth albums produces a sort of giddiness as I begin the process of taking in the new album, Move Like This.

I haven't yet placed any expectations upon it, for when we last heard from our faithful rock & roll heroes, they were but a shadow of their former selves, reduced to Ric Ocasek backing band.

My humble hopes are that the new album doesn't pick up where they left off, but, instead, picks up where they should have gone instead of where they went. Part of me thinks Ocasek must have some of the same regrets and that this was his main impetus for undertaking such a reunion.

From the opening blips and chugging guitars of "Blue Tip", things look promising. Now, if only he'd written a chorus for the song, then we'd be onto something. As it stands, it's a good approximation of Shake It Up-era Cars.

"Too Late" follows, sounding like a Heartbeat City outtake in its current state and then it hits you - what the tune is missing, what keeps it from truly taking off into the stratosphere, is Benjamin Orr's backing vocals. It was inevitable that, at some point, his absence would be felt and here we are not even two songs in and wishing he was here.

"Keep On Knocking" is a grungy rocker, all sludgy guitars, bells and whistles, and you wanna like it, really you do, but if you were to compare it to something, anything off that first record, you'd see it for the by-the-numbers song that it is. Whether it be The Who, Tom Petty or The Cars, I'm sorry, you better be prepared to have your new work compared to that which put you on the map, much less a higher tax bracket. Based on that criteria, this is a B-side at best. Also, not to beat a dead horse, but how about letting Easton cut loose on a track like this? As it stands, this track suffers from an all-too-familiar Ocasek-ian restraint.

"Soon" is a synthy, atmospheric ballad that, for many of the same reasons as "Keep On Knocking", fails to achieve lift-off. All the ingredients are there, you find yourself urging him on, knowing he can do it, and then...pfffft, all the air escapes and you're left with a song that coulda been a contender. Again, why reunite the band to cut a tune where nary a one of them is even playing?

"Sad Song" begins with a guitar lick that hints at "My Best Friend's Girl", then transforms quickly into a jittery rocker that could very well have been written for Door To Door. Again, a song with all the proper ingredients to kick you in the pants, but one that ultimately caves in on itself. And my money is on that being a drum machine and not actually Robinson playing. Why?

"Free" helps regain some of the lost momentum. Almost sounds like live drums. Requisite hand claps, check. Tasty vintage synth licks, right on. Decent chorus, but the backing vocals fail to soar. We miss you, Ben.

Oh, the balls it takes to write a song called "Drag On Forever", as, unless the song is absolutely the cat's pajamas, you invite criticism along the lines of "this song seems to 'drag on forever'." 'Nuff said.

"Take Another Look" seems straight out of Heartbeat City, utilizing all the same synth patches that Hawkes employed way back when. There are also so many stylistic and melodic similarities that it's odd how close the band comes to sounding as if time has stood still. Ocasek's vocals, however, leave a lot to be desired and you just know that if this was, in fact, 1984, Orr would be singing this song. That realization prevents this song from ever sounding like anything more than a half-realized demo. Not a bad one, mind you, just one that'll never be properly finished, as Orr isn't around to add the necessary "magic".

By the time "It's Only" kicks in, if I were Elliot Easton, I'd be wondering if my amp is even plugged in. Poor Elliott must have been asking, pleading, "Ric, do I really need to be here?"

When album closer "Hits Me" floods the room with those trademark chugging guitars and playful synth lines, it suddenly "hits me"...hey, was that an Elliot Easton lead guitar lick? Then the song freakin' ends and this listener is left wanting more, more, more.

While it was too much to ask the band to return to the supreme rock greatness of that first album, was I wrong to hope for an album that would at least show some proof of life compared to the clinical detachment of Door To Door?

CD REVIEW: Christina Perri "lovestrong."

2011-05-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

For all the adoration Alanis Morrisette gained from the then-current generation of women when she first sang of going down on Dave Coulier (Uncle Joey from TV's "Full House") in a theater back in the late '90's, the truth of the matter is that she set female-driven rock back a good decade.

Once Morrisette lowered the bar, she made the pop world safe for little rocker girls to diss men in general with classless put-downs and such, cute as they may have been on the surface.

Upon listening to Christina Perri's elegiac "Jar Of Hearts" a few months ago, I realized that this was a song that could have, should have happened years ago, for it is a sophisticated, heart-wrenching, and lyrically clever ballad that throws no punches, even if the man to whom it is directed may have thrown more than his fair share.

"You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are?"

Those simple words elicit just as much, if not more, venom than Morrisette ever could.

The thing is, for all of its lofty aspirations and promise, the rest of the album seems to wish to exist in a world of female artists whose only reason for existing is to provide music for Target and Visa commercials. Pleasant, yes, but forgotten the minute the sound waves dissipate.

"Mine" appears at the album's halfway point to rescue the album from it's own overly-earnest, piano-driven redundancy. Are those amplified guitars we hear? Blessed Jesus, yes!

And as pleasant as songs "Miles", "The Lonely" and "Sad Song" (not to be confused with the song of the same name by The Cars, reviewed above) may be, they are each cut from much the same fabric that we can't help but wonder if they could not have been put to better use, combined somehow into one mother of a song that stops your heart each time you hear it.

Album closer "Tragedy" recalls any number of songs off Brandi Carlisle's "The Story" with its solemn, driven and determined mourning of something that never was (i.e, true love). While not the slam dunk we were hoping for, this album gives us enough to hang our hat on to keep an eye on this one.

US Air Guitar Regionals At Double Door This Thursday

2011-05-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Just further proof that you no longer need to know how to play guitar to be a rock star these days, the esteemed rock club Double Door will be home to the US Air Guitar Regionals this Thursday.

The event will pit the best Air Guitarists in all of Chicago against one another for a chance to represent the Windy City at the USAG National Finals, to be held in Chicago at the Metro on July 23.

The winner of that event, in addition to being crowned the official 2011 US Air Guitar Champion, will go on to represent the US at the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland.

Tickets for this Thursday's USAG Regionals event are $16. I wonder if they'll have change for an "air twenty" at the door.

Two Hours & Counting Until The Release of Gaga's "Edge Of Glory" Single on iTunes!

2011-05-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

In an odd tweet posted to her Twitter page late last night, Lady Gaga said, "Out tomorrow 1pm PDT (That's 3PM to we Chicagoans, Ed.). Another shot before we kiss the other side. I'm on the edge of something final we call life."

Translation: Lady Gaga's new single, "Edge Of Glory" will be available via iTunes at 3PM today.

Having heard the tune, we liken it not to Madonna, but to Janet Jackson, which simply shows Gaga continuing to plunder the sounds of yet another 80's songstress she no doubt grew up idolizing.

Of importance to Bruce fans, the song features a sax solo by Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

Today In Music, May 6

2011-05-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1965, Keith Richards procures a Gibson fuzzbox guitar effect in Clearwater, Florida. In his hotel room later that evening, Richards and Mick Jagger come up with the guitar lick to "Satisfaction".

In 1973, Paul Simon plays the first date of his first large-scale tour without Art Garfunkel, covering the US and Europe. Many of the dates from this tour would be recorded for what would eventually become the "Live Rhymin'" album.

On this date in 1984, Spinal Tap play CBGB's to a standing-room-only crowd.

In 2002, Otis Blackwell, writer of such classics as "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up", "Fever", and "Great Balls Of Fire" (to name just a few) dies of a heart attack. In an interview on "Late Night With David Letterman" years earlier, Blackwell admitted that he'd never met Elvis Presley, with whom he shares writing credit on "Don't Be Cruel".

On this date in 2006, Go-Betweens singer Grant McLennan dies in his sleep of a heart attack. He'd been preparing for a party to celebrate his recent engagement, but complained of not feeling well and retired to take a nap. He was found dead a few hours later. His funeral was attended by over 1,000 people, including many Australian rock luminaries.

BORN ON THIS DAY

Bob Seger, 1945

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, 1960

Chris Shiflett, guitarist for Foo Fighters, 1971

Buy Jeff Tweedy's Son Spencer's Photography Book, Square Eye

2011-05-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

Preview photos from the book HERE

Aside from sharing an obvious resemblance to dad Jeff Tweedy, it seems son Spencer is quite the artist, playing in at least two bands that we know of (The Blisters and Hungry Pilgrims), AND revcently releasing a book of square photos. That's right, the photos are square. Semi-interesting concept, but what's most notable is that Tweedy has quite an accomplished photographic eye.

This is what Spencer has to say about the book:

Once upon a time, I was reading an interview by one of my favorite photographers, Justin Ouellette, in which he referenced “the camera that will be with him for the long run” – a Hasselblad 500CM. Trust me when I say the obsession followed quickly. I didn’t have one, of course, but instead spent hours sometimes “researching” them and their brothers on eBay. This was not just a discovery of the Hasselblad breed, but my first encounter with medium format photography and the alternative perspective it offers.

For the next couple of months, I experimented in “faux-medium” by cropping my digital photographs into squares in an attempt to be reminiscent of the relatively defunct film genre. Eventually, a small portfolio of these pictures emerged, which I’ve now made into this here book-thing.

Check it out and, if so inclined, buy a copy of the book while they're still available.

Chicago's Own: Ken Kurson of The Lilacs and Green

2011-05-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

For many Chicago rock fans, Ken Kurson will always best be known as the bass player for 80's alt. rock pioneers Green, whose legendary second album Elaine Mackenzie remains an indie classic, and for fronting his own band, The Lilacs through the early 90's. If you've found yourself wondering what he's been up to since, then read on!

Q: You first came to my attention as bass player in the Chicago band Green, whose excellent second album Elaine MacKenzie is an absolute, stone-cold classic. What do you remember most fondly from your days in Green?

KURSON: Thank you for your kind words about Green and for holding affectionate memories of what I continue to believe was one of America's great rock 'n roll bands.

As for what I remember most fondly, my time in Green is hard to distill into one particular memory. I'm blessed to have had an amazingly exciting first half of my life so far, filled with adventures that are sui generis, unbuyable at any price. My four years in Green are sealed in amber.

I was a very lost and confused kid during high school. My parents' marriage had broken up and I lived alone with my dad and we struggled to make ends meet. We had to sell all of our furniture and there were rooms in my house that were literally empty. I worked 20 - 25 hours a week during high school; I remember adding a year to my age when I applied to work at Baskin-Robbins in Sanders Court so that I could work more hours than a 14-year-old would have been allowed. And I gave much of my pay to my dad because we needed it for food and clothes. I've written a lot about this in magazines, and it shaped my worldview about money. But this period also contributed to my lifelong intense love affair with music and its transformative power. I'm a gigantic lover of every kind of music (with the exception of Opera, despite Rudy's best attempts to proselytize). In discovering music, first with my brother as a kid when he played piano and I sang (mostly Elton John and the Who) but later by myself, was a great way to form my own opinions. I didn't realize that you weren't allowed to like the Cars and the Clash and AC/DC and Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks and Barry Manilow and the Bee Gees all at the same time. I loved it all and I still do.

During my junior year, when things were at their worst in my home life I began working at Marshall's, the discount clothing store, because I could get time and a half on Sundays. There was a guy working there named Luke Garrott who I kind of knew about because he was a superstar soccer player at my high school and a year older than me. Luke also was (and is) movie-star good-looking and super popular so I was surprised when he rather aggressively befriended me. But he did and remains a close friend to this day. It was Luke who turned me on to the Dead Kennedys and Husker Du and The Reverbs and The Replacements. Then he played a four-song 7-inch for me that he'd bought at Record City because he liked the cover.

That record changed my life. What a cliché, I know, but I mean literally that the direction my life took was very different because I heard Green's first EP. At the time I was playing in an ordinary high school band called Rox with terrible original songs and covering everything from Zebra to the Cars to Zeppelin. Over the summer between junior and senior year I grew close to Luke and his older gang of friends, who introduced me to tons of new music that blew my mind. All these bands could barely play their instruments. How could they be writing and recording songs that moved me so stirringly? All those years I spent practicing in bands to sound tight and sing on key and to play solos like they were on the record–all of a sudden I realized that wasn't what it was about.

Now this particular group of friends – all of whom are still my friends today and one of whom, Dave Levinsky, I later founded the Lilacs with – were typical Indie music jerk-offs. The day they discovered REM was the day they dropped all previous music allegiance. For me, Circle Jerks were the same as The Who. Richard Howell was the same as Bob Dylan. The Three O'Clock were the same as The Cars. I think it is some critical element of my personality that I never grow out of things; I always just add new influences to what's always there. I watch the Brady Bunch with my kids now and I realize I still love the shows I loved when I was a little kid even as I've added grown-up, sophisticated influences in my life.

Anyway, from the moment Luke put the needle down on "Gotta Getta Record Out", I basically decided that the robotic march from leafy suburb to leafy college campus wasn't for me. I sucked at school anyway, so losing me wasn't some giant disappointment to the Ivy League–I was something like 550 in my class at 660 at Glenbrook North. However, in a suburb where more than 99% of high school graduates go on to some sort of college, my decision to rock out was maybe the first original thought I ever had. I had been seeing Green every possible chance I got -- at the West End or Metro, and even if they told me they were playing at a friend's wedding I'd ask if I could go. I got to know Jeff, Johnny and John a little bit and would even hang out at Jeff and Johnny's house in Oak Park sometimes. It was like hanging out with Paul Weller or Ray Davies–to me it was clear as day that Jeff was a genius along that order.

Meanwhile, on December 6, 1985, when I had just turned 17 years old and a senior at Glenbrook North, I met a Northwestern freshman, Heidi Stillman, at a Slugs concert at Mertz Hall at Loyola. I fell instantly in love. Heidi's encouragement and support of my plan not to go to college and to try to find some way to keep rocking out was instrumental in giving me the courage to pursue that path. Heidi was the rarest thing in the world -- a genuine nonconformist. She might be the only one I've ever known. I've done a bunch of things that don't conform and so have many people I admire. But the difference is I'm always aware that what I'm doing is somehow taking a chance and I have to get my head around that risk in order to work up the nerve to do it. A genuine nonconformist like Heidi just does what she does and it doesn't matter how unconventional that pursuit may be -- it just seems like the most normal thing in the world to her. Her attitude gave me a lot of courage -- it still does -- thinking about the way she approached life and probably still does. We're no longer in touch but I bet she's still like that today.

Anyway, in July of 1986 I heard through the grapevine that John and Johnny had quit Green only several weeks before their planned massive East Coast tour in support of their first album. That first album is a masterpiece. Every single one of its 14 songs could have been a monster hit. I wrote Jeff a long letter -- how quaint, writing a letter! -- in which I detailed all of the reasons he ought to overlook the fact that I was only 17 and a shitty bassist and give me a chance to join Green. My theory was that my unparalleled love for his music and my energy and determination would turn me into the true musical partner he never had. Plus, I can sing (see earlier -- all that training from my brother). I didn't hear back from Jeff for a few weeks and kind of forgot about it. I was up at Heidi's cabin in Elko, Wisconsin. To give you some perspective on Elko, the nearest "big city” was Rhinelander. Heidi's grandparents had never met a Jew before–they were actual Norwegians and ate lutefisk and everything. So her grandmother greeted me with a bag of Lenders bagels when I got there and said, "We wanted to make sure you'd have something to eat." Then a tragedy happened in Heidi's family and her parents and grandparents had to leave the cabin to deal with it. A couple days later, all alone in the woods with my girlfriend and her little brother, I was out by the lake reading–Heidi was horrified by how few books I read and was constantly forcing Dostoevsky or Camus on me. She came running out of the cabin to tell me "Jeff Lescher is on the phone!!!" Somehow, Jeff had tracked me down and asked if I could try out for Green later that week.

Heidi and I immediately jumped in my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass -- bought from my dad for $500 -- to drive back to my house, where I practiced Green's songs on bass (and harmonies) for approximately 35 of the 48 hours until my tryout. (I should add here that I am deeply ashamed that we abandoned Heidi's little brother Toby, who was maybe 15 at the time, in the scary cabin in the woods.) I made it. I was in. So to answer your question, that began my four years in Green. ALL of which I remember fondly. Living with Jeff on Winthrop when it was a slum, the first time he played "I Know, I Know" for me, playing to 25 people at Phyllis' Musical Inn, playing to 10,000 people at a festival in Belgium or Holland or Austria or Germany, being the hottest band in Chicago, recording the demo for "She's Heaven," being a band that Joe Shanahan would rely on to build crowds for national acts at the Metro, getting a royalty check for my one minor hit, "My Sister Jane," being the band no one cared about in St Louis or Los Angeles or Baltimore -- it was all good. I learned more about life than every single one of my friends who spent those same four years getting wasted at frat parties.

[With Green, Kurson far right]
Q: What’s your favorite Green tune?

Better Way, I Want What You Want, Bittersweet, I Know, I Know, For You, She's Heaven, My Tears Are Dry, a hundred others.

Q:. Who are your biggest musical influences?

I love any kind of music that's got a memorable tune and stirs my soul. I mention above that I really don't draw distinctions between types of music. My ipod will constantly play NWA's Fuck Tha Police followed by Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in F minor; REO's "Time for Me to Fly" will follow Serengeti's "Dennehy." The Kinks, The Thermals, Curtis Mayfield, Jay-Z. My dad was an influence, too -- he was a terrific singer and would always sing these great Louis Armstrong and glee club type ditties. On long trips, sometimes we'd harmonize.

Q: What led you to leave Green?

I felt that Green had progressed as far as it was ever going to get career wise. By the time I left, in January 1990, Green had achieved much of what I'd hoped for -- created great art, allowed me to visit 9 or 10 countries, paid the bills (badly, but still...), and most importantly, given me life experience. And by that point, I had seen Jeff inexplicably say no to several major opportunities that were offering only 98% of what we wanted. Green was like Yasser Arafat at the Camp David talks -- no deal was good enough. And creatively, we were going in a direction that wasn't as satisfying to me. Jeff had grown infatuated with "Blizzard of Oz" (an album I'd owned and loved since it came out ten years earlier) and was obsessed with the idea of combining his uncanny ability to screech with Randy Rhoads/Ozzy style pop metal. It didn't work. I tried to explain to Jeff that what made Crazy Train or Mr Crowley awesome was that they were actually very SLOW and controlled pop songs. He didn't agree -- we'd cover Crazy Train at 100 mph and it sounded like shit. It was time for me to leave.

Q: You then went on to form the Lilacs, who recorded two EP’s and an album, Rise Above The Filth (another stone-cold stunner, BTW). Most notably, while you shared singing and songwriting duties with David Levinsky, you took a more active role as front man than you had in Green and, as a result, ultimately gave Green (which merely replaced you, as if such a thing is possible) a real run for their money. Did you consciously set out to prove your new band could match Green song-for-song or were you just content to go about your business making music?

I guess everyone who leaves one band and forms another is trying to correct or undo the elements of the previous experience he didn't like. With the Lilacs, my goal was never to "outdo" Green -- I could never be the singer or songwriter Jeff is. But yes, my dissatisfaction with Green's horrendous live performance was one of the stated goals of the Lilacs -- I wanted us to be tight and wear outfits and stuff. And it worked. And you know what? Green was probably a better live band after I left. Clay (Tomasek -- KK replacement) is only a passable songwriter, but he's a better bass player than I was and he seemed to up Jeff's game in a way I never could. I think I basically looked up to Jeff with such worship and unconditional love that I could never convincingly get him to raise his game. Clay had been in Slammin' Watusis, which was a mediocre band, but they did have a real record contract and were professional musicians (including Jeff's former bandmate from Next Big Thing, the scorching guitarist Mark Durante), so I think that kind of made Jeff approach his craft more professionally, at least live.

Q: What single Lilacs tune is the one that came closest to fully capturing the band’s true essence?

I would say our signature song was "Hop In the Stanza," which combined a ton of what the Lilacs was about -- raw emotion, laying it all out there, catchy chorus, some interesting songwriting components wrapped into the tightly unforgiving parameters of a pop song, cool little guitar riffs. So that'd be the one that most "captures" the Lilacs. But my personal favorite Lilacs song is Dave's gem, "Pointless." I find it really hard to listen to any of my songs now. I have an "all-Dave" Lilacs playlist on my ipod.

Q: Speaking of the business of music: All things considered, was music a profitable experience for you or merely one where the ROI wasn’t much, but the “life lessons” were plentiful?

ROI? Oh, brother. My dad used to bust my balls by pointing out how little Green earned. I'd be psyched to report to him, "Dad, guess what? A frat at Notre Dame just hired us for a thousand bucks!" And he'd bust my bubble by saying, "A thousand each?" But yes, tons of life lessons.

[With The Lilacs, Kurson far left]

Q: What led to the dissolution of the Lilacs?

Tons of stuff, as usual. OK, the main thing is also the answer to number 10 -- my girlfriend (later wife) had basically grown disgusted by my rock life. I was a 25-year-old college sophomore and my behavior was regrettable. She moved to New York City and I was like "fine, be that way." Six weeks later, I dropped out of college and drove my brother's girlfriend's (now his wife) crappy little stick-shift Honda to Chelsea and begged forgiveness. Thank G-d that Becky (eventually) forgave me.

But there were secondary reasons, too. For one thing, Dave and I could not keep a decent rhythm section together. All these musicians were dying to be in the Lilacs and when we'd put ads in the Reader, we'd have amazing responses and these really good players would show up at our practice space already knowing our songs. But Dave and I are not easy to get along with, and no one kept lasting. After Tom Whalen and Art Kim left, we hired the drummer who'd been in Green, John "Freight Train" Valley, aka the best drummer in Chicago. Then we got this guy Stu Roseman on bass. Stu was a fantastic bass player -- like a session player. Great harmony singer, too. But his approach really bugged me. He would wear like wool suit jackets to shows. And he didn't play with a pick, which I hated. And he was bald. Which is a funny complaint, given the state of my hairdo these days. But still, he just didn't rock. So we fired him. Then we got this guy Bob Michaelson. He was a great kid and loved the band, but he was also very immature and wanted to contribute his own songs. It was hard enough to get a word in edgewise with Levinsky and me hogging all the oxygen, but add to that Bob's songs were mostly about peeing and farting. So we fired him. Then the deal with the devil that brought us Valley started to sour. His home life was never all that stable to begin with and it was collapsing at that time. He got into some sort of epic fight with like all the cops in Wooddale (who lives in Wooddale!?!?!?) and they kind of maced him and still couldn't control him -- he was a total stud. And then he stole our van! So that was the end of the Freight Train. We then hit upon the idea that a good group should really be a band of brothers -- friends first.

We recruited John Packel to rejoin (he was the Lilacs original drummer and my high school classmate and still my best pal) and also our other close friend, Luke Garrott, whom you'll recall from the Marshalls story. Luke and his girlfriend moved all the way from Florida for this great "opportunity" and because I love the guy, I was really really touched by that gesture. He even moved in a couple doors down from me. The problem is ... he sucked at bass. It's a weird thing cuz he has this very musical neshama and even was a decent songwriter. I always felt like a monkey could be a decent rock bassist, but for some reason, Luke just could not nail these very simple Lilacs songs. I mean, this is like a genius guy -- a phd who went to Stanford. And a guy I truly love and look up to. But I remember a gig on Coney Island. I looked back at Luke during the second verse of "Pointless," where there's this marginally complex little time shift/stop and Luke had this pained look on his face, like he knew he was gonna blow it. And he did. It wasn't fun for him and it wasn't fair for us to ask him to do something he couldn't do. I just had basically had it -- the strain of teaching yet another guy the chorus to "I'm in love with a girl in the red dress" was just too much to bear.

And then there's this, too. At that point, Dave had begun a really fascinating religious journey. He was hanging out with all these Hasidic guys and he was clearly torn between the two very charismatic worlds that were tugging on his arms. At that time, I was not a very observant Jew. But I was always a passionate and proud Jew, and I started to feel like I didn't want to be the guy standing in Dave's way as he explored this calling.

At the time I left the Lilacs, we were probably at the peak of our popularity. And we had some really great songs that we never recorded, including the best song I ever wrote, "Monica," (later recorded by Chicago pop group The Returnables) and a little gem called "Henry." The very week I left, we had headlining shows at the Limelight and others booked. But I felt like I couldn't play another time, no matter what.

Q: What led you to found Green magazine (and, additionally, how much time took place between your initial idea to start the publication and you officially launching the magazine)?

OK, I believe that I've had one totally original thought in my entire life and that thought was Green Magazine. Here's how it happened.

When I decided to become a writer, I quickly realized that no one gave a shit about what I had to say because everything I tried to pitch was already covered by tons of writers who were already established. I was working at Harper's magazine as an intern and pitching all these story ideas to Playboy and the Village Voice and whatever. But my story ideas were like "how about I review the Husker Du show" and they were like, "we already have a bunch of people who do that, dumbass." My mentor was Michael Pollan. He used to get all these weirdo seed catalogs and I'd babysit for his kid all the time and he had like zero edible foods -- this was years before anyone knew about "shopping local" or even "organic" but Pollan was way into that stuff. I asked him about it, and he told me he was going to write about it for two reasons: 1) he was interested in it and thus could write with passion and authority, and 2) no one else was writing about it so he figured it was a good career move. To all these treehuggers who worship him now, Michael seems like some sort of modern-day hippie, untouched by crass commercial concerns. But if you know Michael's father (Stephen, who also mentored me a lot and is also a great guy), you'd know that Michael was a guy who very adroitly parlayed his brilliant writing and oddball subject matter into a stunning career. I admired that.
Michael also got me my first paying job, as a fact-checker at Rolling Stone, via his friend Eric Ethridge. So one day at Rolling Stone, I made a list of all the subjects I was interested in enough to write about and then I circled the things on the list that were not regularly covered by the magazines for which I aspired to write. The only one that really made sense was comics. No one was writing about serious comics for serious publications. I pitched a review of Peter Kuper's Kafka book to the New York Times and Eric Asimov called me the next day and said, "great idea, do it." Then a flood of comic reviews and articles in all kinds of places, like a cover story for Seattle Weekly about Dan Clowes and a recurring column about comics in Spin. But the problem with writing about comics is that the opportunities are limited. I wanted to make a ton of money.

Meanwhile, I was working as an editor at a company called United Feature Syndicate, editing stuff like their bridge columns (one of my guys was Philip Alder, who now writes about bridge for the NYTimes) and Bruce Williams. UFS had just hired Vanguard investments to run its scary new 401k program, which would invest our money in exotic things called "mutual funds." It was very low-level finance but all these writers and editors and salesmen I worked with treated it like they were being asked to analyze the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on the price of credit default swaps. I was writing everyone these long emails explaining what a mutual fund is and how compound interest works and all my coworkers were saying, "Wow, you are the first person who ever explained this to me in a way that makes sense."

I realized that I didn't necessarily need a subject that no one was writing about. What I really had hit upon was a WAY to write that was different and necessary. Basically, I combined my lifelong love of fanzines and the “punk rock” ethos and language with that most un-“punk rock” of topics -- personal finance. I wrote and designed The Kenny Quarterly. It was a huge hit, immediately. So much so that my pal John Packel (see last question) came aboard -- he would publish and I would edit the newly rechristened Green, named in tribute to our favorite band (and also cuz it's a perfect name for a magazine about money aimed at young people). The press attention that Green garnered was overwhelming and immediate. For five years, I was on CNNfn every single week as a paid contributor. I was on tons of other TV and radio programs and every major newspaper in the country wrote about us. We sold Green to Bankrate and then with their help built it into a real magazine and daily website.

Q: When did you split Chicago for New Jersey?

I left Chicago in Oct 1993, but I moved to New York City -- lived in Chelsea for three years before moving to NJ.

Q: What was Green magazine’s highest paid circulation?

Around 20,000

Q: In 1998, you published your first book, The Green Magazine Guide to Personal Finance...give me three reasons why anyone should grab that book, instead of (or in addition to) the gazillions of other books on personal finance.

KURSON: I don't think anyone should buy that book today, although it sold very well when it came out. I actually re-read it fairly recently and it holds up rather nicely. But the financial world has changed a ton since the late 90s and I'm not sure it's sound to rely on such a dated resource. That book includes the line: "With the advent of better security, banking over the Internet has recently become less Jetsonian." So it's not exactly current. On the other hand, I began the book by saying, " This book isn’t about the senseless accumulation of assets. It’s about attaining the freedom to do what you want to do" That's exactly how I feel today.

Q: What’s one thing that the average person who actually gives a crap about their finances and is trying to take proper steps to prepare for their retirement should know?

Starting early is the most important thing. Not just for retirement, but for freedom throughout your adulthood. Start the discipline of investing with your very first paycheck.

Q: What led you to sell Green Magazine to Bankrate (NYSE: RATE) in 1999?

They gave me a million bucks. http://www.allbusiness.com/banking-finance/personal-finance/6703150-1.html

Q: What did you do between then and late 2002, when you returned to the publishing world as co-author of “Leadership” with Rudy Giuliani?

There was no "between then" -- I was hired by Rudy in 2000 and began working on the book immediately.

Q: How long did it take to write the book and what was the experience of doing so like?

It was about 80% finished by Sept 11, 2001, and obviously that changed the content and our approach to writing it quite a bit. It took about two years. It was the most thrilling but also the most awful experience of my life. On Sept 14, 2001, for example, I went with Rudy to the office of Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, New York City's Medical Examiner. We saw cuts all over Dr. Hirsch's face and noticed crazy stitching on the back of his hand. Rudy asked him what had happened and Hirsch said that he got hit covering his head as pieces of the building rained down on him. To avoid diverting doctors who were needed elsewhere, Dr. Hirsch stitched his own hand with a cross-hatch of dark black thread. As we talked, a big rolling laundry cart rolled by -- the kind a maid would use for the bedding at a fancy hotel. Inside were dozens of random body parts, including an arm that was severed but perfectly intact. On its wrist was a watch that was still ticking. I very nearly vomited but was trying my best to act composed among all these unbelievable heroes. Becky was pregnant with our first son. It had been very hard for us to conceive and hold a baby so by the time she was 7 moths pregnant with Steve, we were ecstatic about our lives. And then, on one horrible Tuesday, we realized like everybody else how dangerous and out of control this world really is. September 11 was only part of the experience, of course. Writing that book with Rudy changed my life in just about every way. There's a column in the New York Times called "Public Lives" that profiled a new person every weekday. In July, 2001, they profiled me after I'd been writing the book for a few months. I've been profiled in the Times on three different occasions -- once for Green Magazine, once for running for office and this "Public Lives" and I always felt like that one was the only one that "got" me. I know how tremendously jerky that is to say -- as though there's all that much to "get" about my epically complex soul.

The thing is, the woman who wrote it, Robin Finn, is just a great writer and she noticed a lot of my personality quirks, even as I was thinking that I was doing a great job hiding them, media-savvy fellow journalist that I was and all. Something else interesting about it was that I was displaying three traits in that article that probably seemed kind of corny to a lot of NYTimes readers in July 2001 but became very much in vogue a few months later: 1) Giuliani fandom, 2) I discussed how little use I had for irony as a literary/personality device -- I explained to Robin that I knew it was passé (and maybe even evidence of dumbness) to say what one means but that I didn't care, 3) Patriotism (In the photo of me on my Vespa that appeared in the story, I was wearing an American flag helmet.)

Q: In addition to your duties as COO, you were instrumental in writing Giuliani’s speeches. Were those mostly collaborative efforts and, in such cases, what was that process like?

They were totally collaborative. I write a good number of speeches just to keep my chops sharp and earn a few bucks (I wrote a commencement speech for a major university this year). I've never worked with anyone who's as good a writer and editor as Rudy. You are free to consider me a bootlicker, and it's true I worship the guy and just plain really like him. But the fact is, Rudy was the most feared trial attorney in the country for a good while. What a lawyer does -- craft persuasive, powerful arguments -- is pretty much what a speechwriter tries to do. I spent so much time with Rudy during 2000-2008 that the two main speeches you're referring to -- the nationally televised RNC speeches of 04 and 08 -- were really easy, comfortable collaborations. We'd mostly just sit at the Havana Room, smoke cigars, and talk deeply about what he was trying to communicate. I will add that in 08, there was an additional member of our team -- Fipp Avlon, who's a great guy and great writer.

Q: You’re currently Executive VP of Jamestown Associates. What does JA do?

We win elections.

Q: You are strongly tied to numerous Republican candidates. Would you or JA ever consider backing a candidate from a different party if their platform and political goals were in alliance with your own ideology?

That's not really done in this business. Republican consultants work with Republican candidates and Democrat consultants work with Democratic candidates. It is something of a shame. In my corporate work, I toil alongside tons of Democrats. Some company will hire me to direct a video and the pollster and strategist and comms director will all be Democrats. And I get a chance to see how they think and the techniques they're using and often they're doing stuff in some really interesting way no Republican competitor of mine has employed. But when it comes to candidates, you gotta choose a side. In the old days, great consultants like David Garth would work for both sides. Dick Morris got away with that a bit, too, though it's difficult now to imagine him working for a Democrat. But these days, it's just not done.

Q: As an American voter, and as someone involved in the political process, what are the three most important qualities that you look for when choosing a political candidate to support?

Integrity, backbone and for me a commitment to the two things I care about most -- cutting the size/scope of government at all levels, and defending our nation and our values from attack.

Q: Having been involved in Giuliani’s bid for the White House, as well as a number of Congressional and Gubernatorial races, when will you, yourself, run for office? Heck, we’d register in New Jersey to vote for you!

I ran for State Assembly in 2003 in the 34th District of NJ. Did well in an impossible district. But I deeply disliked the experience. I wrote about it for This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/267/propriety) so I won't go into too much detail here, but it comes down to this: I've been unpopular my whole life and that's how I like it. At the end of the day, politics is about being popular. It's just not something I want to be.

Q: Bringing this back to music, what new music do you listen to these days or are you just amazed at the crap that passes for tunes these days?

I don't share that "everything sucks now" viewpoint at all. I love a ton of new music. Being in the business of directing tv commercials, I'm around young hipsters a lot and they turn me on to tons of new groups. Blind Pilot, Delta Spirit, The Gutter Press, The Genders, Against Me, Telekinesis -- all kinds of stuff that blows my mind. Artists I've loved for a while continue to put out great music -- The Thermals, Hold Steady, Eminem. And then I discover great stuff from the old days that I missed -- it's not new but it's new to me. This 25 year old shooter in my office had Nilsson Schmilsson on in his car and I couldn't believe I hadn't given it a better chance back when he was kind of contemporary -- great record. And I come to reconnect with groups I always loved in different ways.

I read Rick Springfield's autobiography and found myself singing the chorus to "Kristina" over and over.

I went to Chicago to see Material Issue's reunion show and was reacquainted with what a great band they were. I always knew that (I wrote the liner notes to their fourth CD) but you know what I mean -- that thrill you get when you reconnect with an old love affair.

Friday Night Fights: Slow Runner Vs. Candy Golde

2011-04-29T09:44:00.001-07:00

Remember back in the golden age of television (pre-DVR and VCR) when you could only watch one show at a time and, as a result, found yourself having to make some tough choices? Such a dilemma faces discerning music fans in the Windy City tonight as South Carolina's Slow Runner storms into town to blow the roof off of The Old Town School Of Folk Music while local super-group Candy Golde (featuring Nick Tremulis, Bun E. Carlos, John Stirratt and Rick Rizzo) prepares to tear the Double Door's doors right off their hinges.

Here's the thing: You can do both shows, as Slow Runner is opening for some dude you don't really need to see (so we won't even mention William Fitzsimmons by name - D'oh, we just did!) and will hit the stage at 8:30PM. Candy Golde, meanwhile, are headlining and won't hit the stage until 11PM, we presume. That gives you enough time to catch Slow Runner, go home and try on your new Slow Runner t-shirt, and then grab a bite to eat before sauntering over to the DD to rock out with your cock out in your new SR tee.

The details:

Slow Runner (with William Fitzsimmons)
Old Town School of Folk Music
4544 N. Lincoln
Showtime: 8:30PM

Candy Golde (with Jon Langford and Skull Orchard)
Double Door
1572 N. Milwaukee
Showtime: 9:00PM (although CG will hate the stage closer to 11)

Superior St. Featured In New York Times...Sorta.

2011-04-28T16:25:00.001-07:00

In today's New York Times, t-shirt honcho Darren Robbins is shown wearing a Superior St. t-shirt, which just proves that he's cool as shit. Of course, Darren and his company, Big D Custom will be rocking some brand-new Superior St. and Knox Avenue t-shirts in the very near future. Keep your eyes peeled because a few designs are going to be extremely limited edition and will go fast.

READ ARTICLE (AND SEE FULL PIC) HERE

New Beastie Boys Video: Count The Cameos

2011-04-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, seriously, the new Beastie Boys video for "Fight For Your Right Revisited" is off-the-hook hilarious. Plus, the clip is loaded with kick-ass celebrity cameos. We lost count, but intend to have a drinking party soon where a bunch of our friends will drink a shot for every cameo in this bodacious two-minute clip.

We will say this, though...if only Will Farrell would stick to cameos, where his talents are put to best use.

The Return of Matthew Leone and Madina Lake, April 23 at Metro

2011-04-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

On an unassuming evening last June, Matthew Leone came to the aid of what he thought was a woman in need of protection from a man who turned out to be her husband, Justin Pivec. His kindness was rewarded not with thanks, but with a severe beating by Pivec before the couple walked back into their house, leaving Leone seriously injured in the street.

The extent of Leone's injuries were such that there was great concern that he might never recover from his injuries, but, while he may never fully recover, Leone has made a miraculous comeback and is set to take the stage for the first time since the incident, with his band Madina Lake on April 23 at the Metro.

This comes as glorious news to those of us whose heart went out to Matthew upon hearing the news of the attack. Those who know Matthew have been quick to say that coming to the aid of a total stranger is typical Matthew. We at The Shit send our best wishes to Matthew as he returns to the stage.

We also send our worst wishes to scum bag Justin Pivec who remains a free man, but who will return to court on April 27 when, one would hope, the judge will throw the book at him. Literally.

Show Details:
Madina Lake
with special guests Super Happy Fun Club, Munroe, and Stay Golden
ALL AGES, doors open at 6PM, Showtime 6:30PM
Tickets $11 in advance, $13 at the door
Metro, 3730 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60613