Saturday, January 26, 2008
Random Thoughts
Dear Kimya Dawson,
I'd never thought I would say this. However, if I have to hear your damned cutesy-wutesy "Juno" song one more time, I might just shoot myself in the face.
Overheard in New York
Man on cell: Don't go near the elevator. There's a pile of doodoo there. I tried to clean it up the best I could, but there's still some there. Be careful. I don't want you to smear it.
New and noted
The Magnetic Fields
Distortion
The Skinny: Indie-pop misanthrope Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, deemed by Bob Gould as the "most depressing man in rock," studies his The Jesus and Mary Chain fixation with heaps of prickly distortion, er, as advertised in the album title.
Why You Should Buy It: Merritt exists in his own vacuum-sealed idiom. He told The New York Times, "I cannot name a record by anyone in 2007." As for his rapturous scrutiny of influential Scottish noise-pop band The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1985 debut album Psychocandy? "It's the last album that sounded shockingly new, to me anyway."
Song You'll Love or Hate: The gnashingly frontal lobe assault of album opener, "Three-Way," which basically consists of Mr. Merritt shouting the title over rippling riffs.
Kate Nash
Made of Bricks
The Skinny: Discovered on MySpace by Lily Allen, 20-something Englander Kate Nash makes an album about the struggles of upper-class strife. She sounds like a brainier version of The Spice Girls, for better or worse.
Why You Should Buy It: Nash's cockney Brit accent, flowing pen verses and sly pop cultural shout-outs - hell, she manages to namecheck CSI at one point - are 10 times better than the CHR-pop Hannah Montana dreck infiltrating American top-40. Plus, let's just say that it might be awhile before Amy Winehouse releases another Back to Black.
Song You'll Love or Hate: Produced by Bloc Party producer Paul Epworth, Nash finds lyrical inspiration in the mundane. Her song about mouthwash, titled "Mouthwash," of course, is an exercise in lyrical frugality. The hummable melody will stay in your head for days.
Distortion
The Skinny: Indie-pop misanthrope Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, deemed by Bob Gould as the "most depressing man in rock," studies his The Jesus and Mary Chain fixation with heaps of prickly distortion, er, as advertised in the album title.
Why You Should Buy It: Merritt exists in his own vacuum-sealed idiom. He told The New York Times, "I cannot name a record by anyone in 2007." As for his rapturous scrutiny of influential Scottish noise-pop band The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1985 debut album Psychocandy? "It's the last album that sounded shockingly new, to me anyway."
Song You'll Love or Hate: The gnashingly frontal lobe assault of album opener, "Three-Way," which basically consists of Mr. Merritt shouting the title over rippling riffs.
Kate Nash
Made of Bricks
The Skinny: Discovered on MySpace by Lily Allen, 20-something Englander Kate Nash makes an album about the struggles of upper-class strife. She sounds like a brainier version of The Spice Girls, for better or worse.
Why You Should Buy It: Nash's cockney Brit accent, flowing pen verses and sly pop cultural shout-outs - hell, she manages to namecheck CSI at one point - are 10 times better than the CHR-pop Hannah Montana dreck infiltrating American top-40. Plus, let's just say that it might be awhile before Amy Winehouse releases another Back to Black.
Song You'll Love or Hate: Produced by Bloc Party producer Paul Epworth, Nash finds lyrical inspiration in the mundane. Her song about mouthwash, titled "Mouthwash," of course, is an exercise in lyrical frugality. The hummable melody will stay in your head for days.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Bill Brantley claws the shit out of 'The Little Mermaid'
Ben Brantley's my idol. After much consternation, it goes something like Maureen Dowd, Jesus, Nellie McKay and Bill Brantley.
His recent review of Disney on Broadway's adaptation of The Little Mermaid was chockful of candy-coated zingers.
Best line? "The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly garishness that only a very young child — or possibly a tackiness-worshiping drag queen — might find pretty...In like manner, most of the performers approach their characters with the forced jocularity of actors marking time in a theme park until a better job comes along."
Zing!
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Overheard in New York: The Watersports Edition
Black man singing while peeing at urinal: Oh, Lord, when can I go to heaven? Oh, Lord, when can I go to heaven? [Finishes urinating abruptly.] Thank you, Lord Jesus. Hallelujah!
--Staten Island Ferry
Overheard by TVontheFritz (overheardinnewyork.com)
--Staten Island Ferry
Overheard by TVontheFritz (overheardinnewyork.com)
Monday, January 07, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Best YouTube Music Moments in 2007
YouTube killed the video star.
In 2007, while MTV plugged the umpteenth episode of "Parental Control" and the so-real-it's-fake tragicomedy,"The Hills," video sharing website YouTube raked in record numbers.
According to a Harris Interactive poll, 65 percent of American adults say they have watched a video on YouTube with 42 percent of the surveyed adults making regular treks to the site.
Major labels such as Warner Music inked a library-spanning content deal with YouTube this year, promising the site vids from the Warner vault. But the site's main selling point remained the guitar-strumming everyman and everywoman. These bleary-eyed rubes uploaded teary bedroom confessionals to an ever-growing legion of tubers.
In the spirit of giving, Manhattan Project has decided to dole out a few year-end awards to the best music moments on YouTube.
Best Deceptive Advertising By A Major Label
Hollywood Records' Marie Digby
Marie Digby's harmonically straightforward and cocksure cover of Rihanna's No. 1 hit, "Umbrella" raised a few eyebrows. It's raised almost 4 million eyebrows since its summer debut to be exact.
Framed in a lily-white bedroom, Digby plucks chords with a husker's ease. She's the girl next door, if your life resembled a Hollister advertisement. Call Digby "the Lonelygirl 15 of acoustic-pop."
In September, the Wall Street Journal suggested that Digby was a ploy in Hollywood Records' "astroturfing" campaign to deliver the singer to bigger masses through YouTube. In a blog entry, meanwhile, Digby wrote that the YouTube uploads were a response to a "desperate" lack of promotion from Hollywood Records.
Best Use Of Hand Flatulence
Gerry Phillips' cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody"
The manualism movement is worthy of a cover story in The Believer. Flanked by his hambones, internet "musician" Gerry Phillips was the unlikely YouTube celebrity of 2007 with his moist rendition of Queen classic, "Bohemian Rhapsody." In his fuzzy dark-blue sweat shirt and Hank Hill glasses, Phillips let it rip with a flawlessly spot-on take. In August, Jimmy Kimmel Live featured Phillips on the Internet Talent Showcase segment. Sadly, Hollywood Records wasn't behind this one.
Best Unintentionally Shameless Christmas Parody
The Kings College staff's Band Aid tribute
The Kings College staffers didn't intend to become YouTube sensations in 2007, per se. Their cynical take on the Bob Geldof's altruistic bombast anthem, "Do They Know It's Christmas" complete with mimicry of Bono's hubris, was like finding pixie sticks in our stockings come Christmas morning. It was completely unexpected and offered a satisfying jolt of energy.
Best Unintentionally Funny Performance
Fergie's appearance at Movie Rocks
Ya know ya did. If you've seen the Dutchess' nearly insufferable interpretation of Wings' "Live and Let Die" at Movie Rocks on YouTube, you're not alone. About 20,000 YouTubers watched the wretched four-minute clip, with Fergie's voice sounding like a cat suffering from a seizure. The song itself lurks from amped-up Slash guitar licks to drunken karaoke lounge singer ballads in the course of one measure. Fergie lags the background track, tossing off a thickly coated "Ya know ya did" a few seconds after the phrase is uttered by her backing vocalists. But all is forgiven in the name of the pyrotechnic gods who spray wisps of sparks to the irregular beat.
In 2007, while MTV plugged the umpteenth episode of "Parental Control" and the so-real-it's-fake tragicomedy,"The Hills," video sharing website YouTube raked in record numbers.
According to a Harris Interactive poll, 65 percent of American adults say they have watched a video on YouTube with 42 percent of the surveyed adults making regular treks to the site.
Major labels such as Warner Music inked a library-spanning content deal with YouTube this year, promising the site vids from the Warner vault. But the site's main selling point remained the guitar-strumming everyman and everywoman. These bleary-eyed rubes uploaded teary bedroom confessionals to an ever-growing legion of tubers.
In the spirit of giving, Manhattan Project has decided to dole out a few year-end awards to the best music moments on YouTube.
Best Deceptive Advertising By A Major Label
Hollywood Records' Marie Digby
Marie Digby's harmonically straightforward and cocksure cover of Rihanna's No. 1 hit, "Umbrella" raised a few eyebrows. It's raised almost 4 million eyebrows since its summer debut to be exact.
Framed in a lily-white bedroom, Digby plucks chords with a husker's ease. She's the girl next door, if your life resembled a Hollister advertisement. Call Digby "the Lonelygirl 15 of acoustic-pop."
In September, the Wall Street Journal suggested that Digby was a ploy in Hollywood Records' "astroturfing" campaign to deliver the singer to bigger masses through YouTube. In a blog entry, meanwhile, Digby wrote that the YouTube uploads were a response to a "desperate" lack of promotion from Hollywood Records.
Best Use Of Hand Flatulence
Gerry Phillips' cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody"
The manualism movement is worthy of a cover story in The Believer. Flanked by his hambones, internet "musician" Gerry Phillips was the unlikely YouTube celebrity of 2007 with his moist rendition of Queen classic, "Bohemian Rhapsody." In his fuzzy dark-blue sweat shirt and Hank Hill glasses, Phillips let it rip with a flawlessly spot-on take. In August, Jimmy Kimmel Live featured Phillips on the Internet Talent Showcase segment. Sadly, Hollywood Records wasn't behind this one.
Best Unintentionally Shameless Christmas Parody
The Kings College staff's Band Aid tribute
The Kings College staffers didn't intend to become YouTube sensations in 2007, per se. Their cynical take on the Bob Geldof's altruistic bombast anthem, "Do They Know It's Christmas" complete with mimicry of Bono's hubris, was like finding pixie sticks in our stockings come Christmas morning. It was completely unexpected and offered a satisfying jolt of energy.
Best Unintentionally Funny Performance
Fergie's appearance at Movie Rocks
Ya know ya did. If you've seen the Dutchess' nearly insufferable interpretation of Wings' "Live and Let Die" at Movie Rocks on YouTube, you're not alone. About 20,000 YouTubers watched the wretched four-minute clip, with Fergie's voice sounding like a cat suffering from a seizure. The song itself lurks from amped-up Slash guitar licks to drunken karaoke lounge singer ballads in the course of one measure. Fergie lags the background track, tossing off a thickly coated "Ya know ya did" a few seconds after the phrase is uttered by her backing vocalists. But all is forgiven in the name of the pyrotechnic gods who spray wisps of sparks to the irregular beat.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Assland Chronicles
I always wanted to be good kid. But I liked terrorizing my babysitter much better.
My babysitter, Miss Ruth, was elderly woman with grey hair in a neat bun. She had an affinity for mannish pantsuits and she always smelled suspiciously of saltine crackers.
She really didn’t have anyone in her life. She talked mostly about her cats and found escapism in afternoon soaps such as Another World and Days of Our Lives.
But it was this afternoon that I had found myself in the time-out corner on my parents’ couch. Miss Ruth, fed up finally with my 6-year-old terrorism, had decided to call my father at work. She wanted him to spank me and teach me a lesson.
I couldn’t say in the past that I didn’t deserve it.
There was that time that Miss Ruth allowed me to watch Another World with her bridge team. And instead of sitting on the couch like a good little boy, I decided to mimic the sex scenes displayed onscreen in my Sesame Street playhouse.
I would strip down, completely naked in Sesame Street playhouse’s bright green plastic facade, and would then nestle up beside my Garfield pillow.
“I’ve always loved you,” I would tell my Garfield pillow, gently stroking the smirking cat face as I whispered sweet nothings in its ear. “And I’m never going to leave you, never ever!”
Miss Ruth stumbled upon my bare 6-year-old butt, humping the Garfield pillow.
“Joe, what in tarnation do you think you’re doing?” she asked. She was mortified and suffice to say, her bridge team was never invited back.
Now, you would think that I would be indebted to Ms. Ruth. She mentioned nary a peep about my sexual intercourse with the Garfield pillow to my father.
But again, it was today that I found myself on the couch, awaiting my father’s fists of justice. I had never really been spanked before. My ass was hankerin’ for a spankerin’.
“You’re going to sit there and wait for your father, too,” Ms. Ruth said, peering down from behind her Benjamin Franklin glasses as she glanced over the pages of The Nashville Banner. She wet her thumb and crooked her finger through pages of the Style section.
“No six-year-old child of mine is going to urinate in my Metamucil and expect to get away with it.”
The clock ticked in painstaking seconds. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, collapsing around my lungs. It was the moment of eminent doom, lurking around the corner.
And Ms. Ruth sat there for every sweet second, leafing through the Nashville Banner as she eyed the clock.
That elderly woman with grey hair in a neat bun and an affinity for mannish pantsuits, that always smelled suspiciously of saltine crackers. She still doesn’t have anyone in her life, a mere 18 years later.
Ms. Ruth now lives in a dingy retirement center. She lost her cat to the mange, so
she rarely has things to talk about. Another World was canned back in 1999 by NBC Daytime execs, in search of that ever elusive “younger” demographic.
But I go over to the retirement home on occasion. I remind Ms. Ruth of the times we shared over a brittle tin can of crackers—the Garfield pillow, Carolyn Crudell and yes, pissing in her Metamucil.
Because to paraphrase her beloved soap, I’ve come to realize a very important lesson in all of this: “No one should live in this world alone.”
My babysitter, Miss Ruth, was elderly woman with grey hair in a neat bun. She had an affinity for mannish pantsuits and she always smelled suspiciously of saltine crackers.
She really didn’t have anyone in her life. She talked mostly about her cats and found escapism in afternoon soaps such as Another World and Days of Our Lives.
But it was this afternoon that I had found myself in the time-out corner on my parents’ couch. Miss Ruth, fed up finally with my 6-year-old terrorism, had decided to call my father at work. She wanted him to spank me and teach me a lesson.
I couldn’t say in the past that I didn’t deserve it.
There was that time that Miss Ruth allowed me to watch Another World with her bridge team. And instead of sitting on the couch like a good little boy, I decided to mimic the sex scenes displayed onscreen in my Sesame Street playhouse.
I would strip down, completely naked in Sesame Street playhouse’s bright green plastic facade, and would then nestle up beside my Garfield pillow.
“I’ve always loved you,” I would tell my Garfield pillow, gently stroking the smirking cat face as I whispered sweet nothings in its ear. “And I’m never going to leave you, never ever!”
Miss Ruth stumbled upon my bare 6-year-old butt, humping the Garfield pillow.
“Joe, what in tarnation do you think you’re doing?” she asked. She was mortified and suffice to say, her bridge team was never invited back.
Now, you would think that I would be indebted to Ms. Ruth. She mentioned nary a peep about my sexual intercourse with the Garfield pillow to my father.
But again, it was today that I found myself on the couch, awaiting my father’s fists of justice. I had never really been spanked before. My ass was hankerin’ for a spankerin’.
“You’re going to sit there and wait for your father, too,” Ms. Ruth said, peering down from behind her Benjamin Franklin glasses as she glanced over the pages of The Nashville Banner. She wet her thumb and crooked her finger through pages of the Style section.
“No six-year-old child of mine is going to urinate in my Metamucil and expect to get away with it.”
The clock ticked in painstaking seconds. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, collapsing around my lungs. It was the moment of eminent doom, lurking around the corner.
And Ms. Ruth sat there for every sweet second, leafing through the Nashville Banner as she eyed the clock.
That elderly woman with grey hair in a neat bun and an affinity for mannish pantsuits, that always smelled suspiciously of saltine crackers. She still doesn’t have anyone in her life, a mere 18 years later.
Ms. Ruth now lives in a dingy retirement center. She lost her cat to the mange, so
she rarely has things to talk about. Another World was canned back in 1999 by NBC Daytime execs, in search of that ever elusive “younger” demographic.
But I go over to the retirement home on occasion. I remind Ms. Ruth of the times we shared over a brittle tin can of crackers—the Garfield pillow, Carolyn Crudell and yes, pissing in her Metamucil.
Because to paraphrase her beloved soap, I’ve come to realize a very important lesson in all of this: “No one should live in this world alone.”
Friday, November 30, 2007
I feel a poke coming through...on you
Best line: "The way that you shake it on me/Makes me want you so bad sex-ually/Oh girl"
I can't fathom ever listening to this band as a pubescent.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Landlord
I had visions of Candace Bushell-whimsy for my first post-college apartment in New York City. It was to be sex with the modern homosexual as I sipped cosmopolitans and thumbed through the racks of haute culture.
But ambition led to an inevitable wake-up call.
Instead of Sex and the City brownstone, I found myself schlepping in a dismally gray, pockmarked railroader in working-class Queens, with light fixtures caked in dust and a homeless cat named Squints who suffered from the mange.
The stairwells reeked of dried dog feces, too. My landlord's 90-year-old mother, bless her heart, stockpiled metallic buckets of the stuff in her kitchen window, letting them bake in the summer sun.
The smell wafted, causing the building to drown in that dry, putrid odor, one that broke my Sex and the City dreams near in two.
After snorting through the muck for weeks, I decided The Health Department of New York City would provide my final comeuppance.
My roommate Kevin advised against it. "Our landlord will go ape-shit," he warned.
But I drudged up Sarah Jessica Parker, thinking that she wouldn't stand for it. I went through with the call.
The next day, Kevin and I woke to a pounding on our front door. It was a ferocious thudding that nearly rattled the cracked glass window out of the paper-thin door. We both knew it was our landlord, Jan Urie.
Kevin shot me a look of "what the hell are we supposed to do?' I shot him a look back of 'I don't know' unbridled terror. We finally decided to reluctantly open the door, finding Jan Urie and her Polish sexagenarian henchman huddled over our stoop.
Jan Urie had an electrical edge about her with a look as if she could spit nails.
"Who called the Health Department? Did you call the Health Department?" she screeched while jabbing her crooked finger in Kevin's gut.
I saddled up behind Jan Urie. It was time to come clean. "You know, I'm actually the one who called the Health Department."
"You?" Jan Urie pounced. "After everything I've done for you including giving you that couch."
Long silence. "First of all, that couch has pee stains on it," I casually reminded her, "secondly, anyone who lets her own mother live in filth is real bitch who
deserves to have the Health Department called on her."
Yes, this exactly wasn't the right thing to say at the moment. Jan Urie let out a howl like a wild banshee and began hurling obscenities my way. "She's calling the police department on you. They're going to arrest you for verbal assault," the henchman taunted.
I slumped over on the couch with pee stains on it. "Kevin, what are we going to do?" The words fell out of my mouth with a quiet exasperation.
Kevin didn't know the answers to that question, either. We did know that police wouldn't arrest me for verbal assault despite Jan Urie's belligerent reassurances that I was in a "Mexican street gang back in Nashville."
A few weeks later, the Health Department ordered Jan Urie to make a few changes around the building, which she grudgingly accepted.We weren't any closer to the Sarah Jessica Parker-ideal, but things were certainly getting better.
But ambition led to an inevitable wake-up call.
Instead of Sex and the City brownstone, I found myself schlepping in a dismally gray, pockmarked railroader in working-class Queens, with light fixtures caked in dust and a homeless cat named Squints who suffered from the mange.
The stairwells reeked of dried dog feces, too. My landlord's 90-year-old mother, bless her heart, stockpiled metallic buckets of the stuff in her kitchen window, letting them bake in the summer sun.
The smell wafted, causing the building to drown in that dry, putrid odor, one that broke my Sex and the City dreams near in two.
After snorting through the muck for weeks, I decided The Health Department of New York City would provide my final comeuppance.
My roommate Kevin advised against it. "Our landlord will go ape-shit," he warned.
But I drudged up Sarah Jessica Parker, thinking that she wouldn't stand for it. I went through with the call.
The next day, Kevin and I woke to a pounding on our front door. It was a ferocious thudding that nearly rattled the cracked glass window out of the paper-thin door. We both knew it was our landlord, Jan Urie.
Kevin shot me a look of "what the hell are we supposed to do?' I shot him a look back of 'I don't know' unbridled terror. We finally decided to reluctantly open the door, finding Jan Urie and her Polish sexagenarian henchman huddled over our stoop.
Jan Urie had an electrical edge about her with a look as if she could spit nails.
"Who called the Health Department? Did you call the Health Department?" she screeched while jabbing her crooked finger in Kevin's gut.
I saddled up behind Jan Urie. It was time to come clean. "You know, I'm actually the one who called the Health Department."
"You?" Jan Urie pounced. "After everything I've done for you including giving you that couch."
Long silence. "First of all, that couch has pee stains on it," I casually reminded her, "secondly, anyone who lets her own mother live in filth is real bitch who
deserves to have the Health Department called on her."
Yes, this exactly wasn't the right thing to say at the moment. Jan Urie let out a howl like a wild banshee and began hurling obscenities my way. "She's calling the police department on you. They're going to arrest you for verbal assault," the henchman taunted.
I slumped over on the couch with pee stains on it. "Kevin, what are we going to do?" The words fell out of my mouth with a quiet exasperation.
Kevin didn't know the answers to that question, either. We did know that police wouldn't arrest me for verbal assault despite Jan Urie's belligerent reassurances that I was in a "Mexican street gang back in Nashville."
A few weeks later, the Health Department ordered Jan Urie to make a few changes around the building, which she grudgingly accepted.We weren't any closer to the Sarah Jessica Parker-ideal, but things were certainly getting better.
My Shameful Addiction
American Idol pol pot Simon Fuller, fresh off cementing Clay Aiken to late life career of panty-wetting Manliow-esque arena tours, has greased the wheels of fluff-pop further by unleashing Idol spin-off The Next Great American Band on unsuspecting FOX viewers in dire need of their Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? fix.
Instead of chirpy Mariah clones ransacking stanzas for superfluous melisma, The Next Great American Band forks over well coiffed Nickelback facsimiles and calls it even.
Band cribs an entire chapter from the American Idol playbook with an acid tongued old codger in the “Simon” role (Australian Idol’s Dicko Dickinson), a sympathetic sister-in-arms in the “Paula” role (Shelia E.) and Goo Goo Doll Johnny Rzeznik filling Randy Jackson’s nonsensical blather. Below, I've charted the show contenders.
Light of Doom
The Skinny: A butt-rockin’ fivepiece comprised of 12- and 13-year-olds with wispy golden locks and vapid Children of the Corn gapes, Light of Doom has been panned by online tropiocolotes as a “metal Hanson.” The parents of these sleaze glam guttersnipes have yet to tell them that Superunknown snuffed Whitesnake’s career.
Vegas Odds: 8:1. Dicko calls them, “creepy and gimmicky,” but the aw-shucks factor is hard to resist.
Dot Dot Dot
The Skinny: A synth-riddled mess, Dot Dot Dot’s fashion-challenged frontman liberally dabs eyeliner on his painfully emo peepers and hops around onstage like Crispin Glover on Ritalin. Their frenetic midtempo take on Elton John’s uber-ballad “Your Song” could be considered a form of torture under some bylaws of the Geneva Convention.
Vegas Odds: 15:1. We’ve already got a Brandon Flowers. We sure as hell don’t need another.
Denver and the Mile High Orchestra
The Skinny: The swing music revival crumbled with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s This Beautiful Life, but Belmont University music business alums Denver and the Mile High Orchestra have yet to receive the oxidized memo. Lead vocalist Denver Bierman lays on the schmaltz extra-thick with a cavalcade of brassy horn arrangements punctuating his every calculated over-emotion.
Vegas Odds: 10:1. Judge Shelia E has nearly pegged Denver and the Mile High Orchestra as the second coming of Chicago. But we can’t take Ms. E too seriously. She was the TV bandleader for The Magic Hour.
Sixwire
The Skinny: Warner Bros. Nashville evictees Sixwire smidges a tweak of twangy git’tar and then lobs almost criminal Appalachian a cappella harmonies down our willing Sing Out throats.
Vegas Odds: 2:1. For unleashing the banal countrypolitan vanilla better known as Carrie Underwood, it’s the least Mr. Fuller could do to let those Sixwire boys win.
Instead of chirpy Mariah clones ransacking stanzas for superfluous melisma, The Next Great American Band forks over well coiffed Nickelback facsimiles and calls it even.
Band cribs an entire chapter from the American Idol playbook with an acid tongued old codger in the “Simon” role (Australian Idol’s Dicko Dickinson), a sympathetic sister-in-arms in the “Paula” role (Shelia E.) and Goo Goo Doll Johnny Rzeznik filling Randy Jackson’s nonsensical blather. Below, I've charted the show contenders.
Light of Doom
The Skinny: A butt-rockin’ fivepiece comprised of 12- and 13-year-olds with wispy golden locks and vapid Children of the Corn gapes, Light of Doom has been panned by online tropiocolotes as a “metal Hanson.” The parents of these sleaze glam guttersnipes have yet to tell them that Superunknown snuffed Whitesnake’s career.
Vegas Odds: 8:1. Dicko calls them, “creepy and gimmicky,” but the aw-shucks factor is hard to resist.
Dot Dot Dot
The Skinny: A synth-riddled mess, Dot Dot Dot’s fashion-challenged frontman liberally dabs eyeliner on his painfully emo peepers and hops around onstage like Crispin Glover on Ritalin. Their frenetic midtempo take on Elton John’s uber-ballad “Your Song” could be considered a form of torture under some bylaws of the Geneva Convention.
Vegas Odds: 15:1. We’ve already got a Brandon Flowers. We sure as hell don’t need another.
Denver and the Mile High Orchestra
The Skinny: The swing music revival crumbled with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s This Beautiful Life, but Belmont University music business alums Denver and the Mile High Orchestra have yet to receive the oxidized memo. Lead vocalist Denver Bierman lays on the schmaltz extra-thick with a cavalcade of brassy horn arrangements punctuating his every calculated over-emotion.
Vegas Odds: 10:1. Judge Shelia E has nearly pegged Denver and the Mile High Orchestra as the second coming of Chicago. But we can’t take Ms. E too seriously. She was the TV bandleader for The Magic Hour.
Sixwire
The Skinny: Warner Bros. Nashville evictees Sixwire smidges a tweak of twangy git’tar and then lobs almost criminal Appalachian a cappella harmonies down our willing Sing Out throats.
Vegas Odds: 2:1. For unleashing the banal countrypolitan vanilla better known as Carrie Underwood, it’s the least Mr. Fuller could do to let those Sixwire boys win.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween
It just ain't Halloween unless the celebtard enter-taint-ment media (of which, I'm a disenchanted member) rates some Hollywood spandex wang.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Sugar in their coffin
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On Oct. 22,Lower East Side club Mo' Pitkins closed its neon blue spotlighted doors.
The popular celeb cabaret hangout, which sported the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Moby and Nina Hartley, had fallen on some hard times.
The New York Post reported last September that Walker & Malloy hocked the building and its contents for a cool $5.5 mil.
It's a shame, too. The forlorn waitstaff who shoot haggard looks as if you're asking to sneak slaves through an underground railroad in lieu of simple chocolate martini, notwithstanding, Mo' Pitkins was one of the last great cabaret spots in the city.
It's the place where you can see unkillable downtown drag king Murray Hill's ultra campy variety show as well as upstart female comics in 'Chicks and Giggles.'
On one of the last CMJ Music Marathon performances at Mo' Pitkins, yodeling cowpoke Curtis Eller bawled through a banjo-picking litany of Civil War tunes, subtly poking the dead comparison horse as he asked "where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" with a brainy NPR-resolve. It's punk rock meets the Blue Mountain Ridge.
Check out more of Mr. Eller's music here.
Forest for the trees
Colin Meloy is a self-professed musical theater heretic.
The bespectacled frontman of The Decemberists told National Public Radio’s Terry Gross that he dabbled in The Music Man with a geekboy fandom in high school and there’s even his unreleased musical floating about the nether-regions of Portland, Ore.
So it isn’t any wonder that the band’s 2006 Japanese folk opus The Crane’s Wife was transformed into a prog-rock-meets-Broadway masturbatory fantasy on the band's most recent tour.
The Carson Ellis-inspired theater curtain looked like an indie-drenched interpretation of Swan Lake with a fairy tale scene of frogs and sunkissed princes. Combined with the paper-thin Japanese lampshades that hung above the performer’s heads, the Decemberists stage layout was almost a baroque-rock summer formal.
“It’s the third show of twlight in the Fearful Forest tour 2007,” Meloy said in his trademark literary blowhard prose as he tossed bookish meat to the crowd.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
CMJ
Metromix: Care Bears on Fire, Holler, Wild Rose!, Hot IQs / Club Midway
Metromix: Ha Ha Tonka, Scotland Yard Gospel
Nashville Scene: New York Minutes
Photo above: Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Homeless Kitty of the Week
Back when my roomie and I had dirt poor issues, scrounging through garbage cans for discarded Hot Pockets and the like, we adopted kittens in hopes of providing them with a syringe-less bed to curl upon. We didn't divulge our urges to the goodness of a higher calling, oh no.
You see, we provided the sick kitties with a place to stay for cold, hard cash. (Next week, I'll talk about my hooker-dom.)
Jezebel (pictured, right) was the kitty who suffered an abortion. During mid-preggers, Jezebel had a complication which ended with the result of her babes being yanked from her uterus.
I called her Jezebel because she was a whore, a dirty filthy kitty whose soul I prayed away to Jesus. I can't recall who adopted Jezebel, but suffice to say, her soul's been wiped clean.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Shakshuka
This dish was Jew-licious! I'll say one thing about Israel—those Jews can cook!
Pan with tight fitting lid
A few splashes of the best olive oil you can get
4-6 cloves garlic, roughly diced
One 28-ounce can tomatoes (lightly smashed and pressed in a fine strainer, save the juice for a Bloody Mary)
A few pinches of Israeli Spice Mix (to personal taste)
3-4 large eggs
1. Oil the pan liberally and lightly saute diced garlic. Add the tomatoes, Israeli Spice Mix and more olive oil if needed. Mix, bring to a low simmer and cook uncovered, over low heat until thick, stirring occasionally. (20 min or so)
2. Bring Shakshuka to a medium simmer. Make a "well" in the mixture using the back of a large spoon and gently break the eggs into "wells" of the tomato mixture. Cover and continue to cook for about 3 to 4 minutes, until the eggs are set. Bring the frying pan directly to the table.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The Sexually Repressed Christian
My first crush was gay for Jesus. I really wanted him to be just gay for me.
It’s a common refrain for Southern-bred liberals, a forlorn tune that echoes in the deepest hollers of the human heart: “My lover left me for Jesus after he discovered we’re going to Hell.”
“God, do you know how many almost relationships get fucked up by Jesus?” my friend Amanda once told me over a glass of ice tea, crushing her sugarcubes against the glass into an indiscernible white cokelike dust.
“You can’t win against Jesus, Joey,” she added. He always has more to offer. Trust me, going up against Jesus, you’re fucked every time.”
And yes, at the end of the day, I was the one left holding Satan’s bouquet.
The social exorcism of small-town doldrums had my sexually repressed Christian under its thumb. And for two people who could barely utter the words “gay” or “homosexual,” this presented, a shall we say, “unique challenge.”
I would have dreams of showering with the sexually repressed Christian.
His pubes are splendid. They're all bushy tailed and neatly plucked, emitting a Panteen Provene sheen. His adorable eyebrows arching upward as I soap my balls.
The downside is that the shower is emitting toxic chemicals and we're soon bespotted in chemical burns. Our skin gradually turns into a bloody landscape of gaping holes and pockmarked grayish pus. We looked like rejects from a Cesar Romero pic.
"See what happens when you have the homosex," my Repub aunt would say during the dream capstone, "your pecker nearly burns off for Jesus."
For my sexually repressed Church of Christ crush, this really was a spot-on analogy. I mean, since I was Methodist, to him, our denomination was a few steps behind Satanists, anyway. If we did have
My sexually repressed Christian worked at a Christian-themed after school program for inner city children. He would rattle off a few stanzas of “Jesus Saves” to disenchanted Kinder-a-care children, little eyeballs blinking back an insurmountable void. They figured that the “Jesus Saving” was the only thing negating the rapscallions from turning into a bad Michelle Pfeffier movie.
But at was that day in the elitist school parking lot that my relationship with the sexually repressed Christian screeched to a grinding halt.
“You’re breaking up with me?” I said. It wasn’t really a relationship per se, only if you called steamy text messages and late-night wank sessions “a relationship.” Since I was merely 16, and desperate for any kind of gay sex, I denoted it as such.
“I can’t see you anymore,” the sexually repressed Christian said. “Each time I see you, you’re sending me one step closer to Hell.”
I had never broken up with anyone before, but that just seemed a tad hyperbolic to me.
A railroad spike had punctured my heart repeatedly with its sheer brute force right to the chest.
I thought I could win the sexually repressed Christian with a few good Cap’n Crunches to the face and a proffer of mom’s subscription to Guidepost.” But at the end of the day, some things aren’t meant to be.
The sexually repressed Christian kept his distance. He had 401K plans, stock options and a Stepford Wife to keep him busy. I had pretty much blotted the sexually repressed Christian out of my life until one day when I stumbled upon a familiar looking face in the Gay.com chat room.
There was the sexually repressed Christian, plain as day. He looked good.
Since he fucked up my ideals of a teenage puppy dog romance, I decided to fuck with him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be straight?” I typed furiously.
There was a dead pause. You could feel the terror across the intertubes of the Internet.
“Do I know you?” the sexually repressed Christian asked. “Because y’know, I’m just curious about the whole gay thing.”
Frankly, the whole “Do I know you?” query frustrated the living shit out of me. “I jerked you off for two years,” I typed. “And do I know you?”
And then it dawned on him. He knew.
“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “I never meant to hurt you with the whole you’re going to Hell thing.”
And there it was. The apology that I thought I would have to move heaven and hell to procure.
The sexually repressed Christian decided to meet the next afternoon for snacks. It was to be a coming home party for homosexuality.
I primped my hair and Jeff Gannoned my appearance. I wanted to be the poster child for turning my fellow Christians into queers, so I wore a freshly ironed shirt and pleated khaki pants. I looked like I had promise for once.
That night, the sexually repressed Christian made love to me under the stars. I won’t go into much detail, but after repressing his sexuality for so long, it must’ve felt good to let that shit out for a change.
After we finished, the sexually repressed Christian piped up yet again. “I have to go see The Passion of the Christ with my church group.”
And after casting the chains that bounded our sexuality, our very being into drone
I was free my chains and shackles, comfortable under the blanket of gay Christianity. He was not.
Even in the midst of gay sex, the fundamentalist version of Jesus was still screwing me.
“Okay. Have fun.”
Suffice to say, the sexually repressed Christian didn’t return my phone calls after the Passion of the Christ. But this time, I actually saw it coming for once.
It’s a common refrain for Southern-bred liberals, a forlorn tune that echoes in the deepest hollers of the human heart: “My lover left me for Jesus after he discovered we’re going to Hell.”
“God, do you know how many almost relationships get fucked up by Jesus?” my friend Amanda once told me over a glass of ice tea, crushing her sugarcubes against the glass into an indiscernible white cokelike dust.
“You can’t win against Jesus, Joey,” she added. He always has more to offer. Trust me, going up against Jesus, you’re fucked every time.”
And yes, at the end of the day, I was the one left holding Satan’s bouquet.
The social exorcism of small-town doldrums had my sexually repressed Christian under its thumb. And for two people who could barely utter the words “gay” or “homosexual,” this presented, a shall we say, “unique challenge.”
I would have dreams of showering with the sexually repressed Christian.
His pubes are splendid. They're all bushy tailed and neatly plucked, emitting a Panteen Provene sheen. His adorable eyebrows arching upward as I soap my balls.
The downside is that the shower is emitting toxic chemicals and we're soon bespotted in chemical burns. Our skin gradually turns into a bloody landscape of gaping holes and pockmarked grayish pus. We looked like rejects from a Cesar Romero pic.
"See what happens when you have the homosex," my Repub aunt would say during the dream capstone, "your pecker nearly burns off for Jesus."
For my sexually repressed Church of Christ crush, this really was a spot-on analogy. I mean, since I was Methodist, to him, our denomination was a few steps behind Satanists, anyway. If we did have
My sexually repressed Christian worked at a Christian-themed after school program for inner city children. He would rattle off a few stanzas of “Jesus Saves” to disenchanted Kinder-a-care children, little eyeballs blinking back an insurmountable void. They figured that the “Jesus Saving” was the only thing negating the rapscallions from turning into a bad Michelle Pfeffier movie.
But at was that day in the elitist school parking lot that my relationship with the sexually repressed Christian screeched to a grinding halt.
“You’re breaking up with me?” I said. It wasn’t really a relationship per se, only if you called steamy text messages and late-night wank sessions “a relationship.” Since I was merely 16, and desperate for any kind of gay sex, I denoted it as such.
“I can’t see you anymore,” the sexually repressed Christian said. “Each time I see you, you’re sending me one step closer to Hell.”
I had never broken up with anyone before, but that just seemed a tad hyperbolic to me.
A railroad spike had punctured my heart repeatedly with its sheer brute force right to the chest.
I thought I could win the sexually repressed Christian with a few good Cap’n Crunches to the face and a proffer of mom’s subscription to Guidepost.” But at the end of the day, some things aren’t meant to be.
The sexually repressed Christian kept his distance. He had 401K plans, stock options and a Stepford Wife to keep him busy. I had pretty much blotted the sexually repressed Christian out of my life until one day when I stumbled upon a familiar looking face in the Gay.com chat room.
There was the sexually repressed Christian, plain as day. He looked good.
Since he fucked up my ideals of a teenage puppy dog romance, I decided to fuck with him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be straight?” I typed furiously.
There was a dead pause. You could feel the terror across the intertubes of the Internet.
“Do I know you?” the sexually repressed Christian asked. “Because y’know, I’m just curious about the whole gay thing.”
Frankly, the whole “Do I know you?” query frustrated the living shit out of me. “I jerked you off for two years,” I typed. “And do I know you?”
And then it dawned on him. He knew.
“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “I never meant to hurt you with the whole you’re going to Hell thing.”
And there it was. The apology that I thought I would have to move heaven and hell to procure.
The sexually repressed Christian decided to meet the next afternoon for snacks. It was to be a coming home party for homosexuality.
I primped my hair and Jeff Gannoned my appearance. I wanted to be the poster child for turning my fellow Christians into queers, so I wore a freshly ironed shirt and pleated khaki pants. I looked like I had promise for once.
That night, the sexually repressed Christian made love to me under the stars. I won’t go into much detail, but after repressing his sexuality for so long, it must’ve felt good to let that shit out for a change.
After we finished, the sexually repressed Christian piped up yet again. “I have to go see The Passion of the Christ with my church group.”
And after casting the chains that bounded our sexuality, our very being into drone
I was free my chains and shackles, comfortable under the blanket of gay Christianity. He was not.
Even in the midst of gay sex, the fundamentalist version of Jesus was still screwing me.
“Okay. Have fun.”
Suffice to say, the sexually repressed Christian didn’t return my phone calls after the Passion of the Christ. But this time, I actually saw it coming for once.
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