SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE

existential dread, subjective media and news reviews and opinionated but not necessarily well-informed commentary.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

If you cant show some respect well then; go fuck a dead sea urchin.

(an appeal to music magazine editors, et al)


Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour: Never in the history of blogs, edgeless porno mags (Maxium, Blender, Ranger Rick), and revisionist music publication has one album been so vehemently smeared undeservedly.

Here’s a fucking news flash; despite not owning this album the ugly truth is this single album changed the way ALL albums were recorded that came after. A handful of stupid songs managed to change the structure of rock and roll in less than forty five minutes, therefore any asshole with an opinion about music should be able to wipe their ass with it. Can you name any other albums that did this before? No? And none after? Not bad for a 40 year old relic.

The only props I give for goofing on this album was the Sharpling and Wuster piece and you’ll have to google it or find it hidden somewhere in the bowels of SOTU (this blog).

I like how these writers waited until half the Beatles were either dead or septuagenarians before they launched their moaning diatribes. So here’s a thought:

R.E.M.: Forget “Shinny Happy Assholes”, at least the B-52’s are admittedly influenced by Capt. Beefheart so I give them props, but everything Stipe and Berry and the other two farts released after “Reckoning” is crap, sheer and utter crap, also and even more importantly:

U2
had one, I repeat ONE good album and that was “Boy”, The Edge has two licks on that guitar, and Bono's lyrics are more pompous than a collaboration between Sting and Terrance Trent D’arby. U2 is a bullshit rock band, they suck, they are sell outs, they music for people with limited musical knowledge who need to fit in. You will never see these two groups mentioned in a 40, 50 or 500 worst bands list, because critics actually think these bands are cool. Structurally they’ve been writing the same song for 20 years. Fuck them, they suck, realize it.

Dan Fogelberg: Yea, I hate him too, but when he gets included in these lists you know someone just ran out of ideas or were afraid to rant against anyone current. Little Wayne plays guitar so horrifyingly bad and no one says shit. Dan had that one torturous hit that made most everyone want to smash their AM radios with whatever road-kill they could find or drive over. No one wants to admit that Dan got more prime-tail playing this one song than all Def Leppard did for 25 years of touring, ain’t what that’s what rock and roll suppoda’ be about? I love it when these guys attack someone who managed to have one hit, jealously at it's finest.

Robert Johnson=Genius, anyone else playing blues (mostly white folks) = crap: Despite it's incontestable European origins Blues was invented in Africa, what the Greeks called it. The blues scale was "invented in Afrika", although a 1000 years before it was invented in what is now Japan and was called “The Pentatonic Scale”, and sometimes it still is, and by sometimes meaning unless you call it "The Blues Scale" (i.e THE PENTATONIC SCALE). It amazing any white guy playing blues is lambasted but when the Beastie Boys release an album it gets praised (Nothing good came after Ill Communication, not a fucking thing.), About the same time those tricky little yellow slants were steeling the blues scale from Afrika before Afrika had a change to invent it Germanic folk music: 1,4,5 progressions which would become the basis of Country music, which also predate the blues, was being created in Europe. but it's not like critics need to know where the music came from, they can make up their own fictional legends and stick by them so no one is offended. the blueprint for Blues is a culmination of Moorish, German and Japanise music dating back over 1000 years, Blues propper was created in the southern United States less than 100 years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Johnson and even the Blues, but as amazing and ground breaking this guy was most of those songs are the same songs with different lyrics. How come no one ever drops Bukkah White's name? Bukkah White is a musical genius! He just get ignored because of his “white” name. Shame on all you Honkies who have your special “give prop” club for music, you have no skills and…well, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that excludes the Moody Blues and Grahm Parsons all I can offer is a heart felt 'go fuck your mother'.

Rush, Yes, ELP: Target for “Worst Lyrics” lists perpetually rated worst bands? Why? Music critics could never in their lives understand this type of music because they are not musicians, they are music wanna’ be’s and it makes them pooh their pants when they realize nerds worse then them have bands that can sell out MSG for seven nights in a row and that rock bands don’t have to be overfluffed dicks who make everyone wait to hear three chords for some song that demands some girl take off her pants. You know sometimes your trying to talk to some hot girl in a club and she’s surrounded by her ugly friends who are far more interested in you than she is and you don’t want to hear Beyonce and T-Pain’s remix of Puff-Daddy's remix of D.J. Spin's remix of “Sexual Healing” while said water buffaloes are herding you out to the dance floor, just then, you want to hear “New World Man”, "The Oracle" or “Worm” or a 22 minute Moog extravaganza. Don’t front on prog rock and call it crap. The next critic to single out Geddy Lee, Chris Squire or Keith Emmerson will be smashed in the face with the skull of David Cross chained to the end of Neil’s Tama Limited Edition Glockenspiel Stand by yours truly. Yes, I’m a nerd, but I’m a violent nerd and I will activate your fucking life insurance if you keep writing your girl whining on three of the greatest rock bands in recorded history. Try me.

Top 10 songs to work out to that contain mostly Metallica songs lists: No. I repeat No. If I’m at the gym and I hear the Jean Paul Gutierre inspired guitar solo wha-wanking of “Enter Sandman” coming from the ear buds of the guy next to me I am gone - fucking Jimmie has left the fucking building. Porque? Because I know that "Capt’n Fruity Flowers" is following me in to the locker room to tell me my delts and quads look great and carry the conversation into the shower to get a unhealthy look at my wee-wee. Truth be told, I have many gay friends and they respect edict "My mind is open, my ass is closed" policy, except for the Metallica ones, they just don't get it.

Gym+Metallica=Gay as waiter in SOHO (I worked as a waiter in Bowling Green and never went North of Washington Square, I had to put on a phony Moldavian accent, but the chicks dug it – Chicks, not female impersonators son!) and why does MS word know how to spell Metallica?

Here’s the truth about Metallica, other than they suck (and I make a crystal clear distinction between the band with the ear splitting bass riffs of Cliff Burton and “The Thing That Should Have No Longer Be’ed” that came after.) that thing is Kirk Hammet is not a guitarist, he sucks. Could I do better? Without question I could and I’m amateur at best. Max Calevera from Scepultura is a far better guitarist than Hammet, so is Dave Grohl.

That unforgivable asshole
Hammet once took a 15 minute guitar solo at Nassau Coliseum that consisted of him wiping has ass with a guitar. Social commentary was the first minute I guess and the rest was his actual attempt to play. If you cant respect the craft well then fuck you, where is my David Cross Skull Mace? Cross David Cross with Kirk Hammet, you get David Mammet, who writes great plays, just the dialog is so fucking contrived: "Is that what you said Frank, 'cus if that's what you said..." - "Yea, that's exactly what I fucking said Mike, I fucking said that, you've got a problem with what I said?"

You want to work out to a real band? High on Fire: You will be able to dead lift a city with what's left of your ear flaps dangling from the side of your head. Metallica? Fuck Metallica, Pabst Blue Ribbon!!! (Also the Melvins "Stoner Witch" album will blast you pecs and give you a chest like Kong on Angel Dust infused outlawed East German Steroids.)

Making fun of Rappers who’s carrier fizzled out: Here’s a thought, can you name one Public Enemy. song that does not contain the line “They out to get us Chuck!” or “Yeah boy!”? No, it’s an impossibility, like finding a Van Halen song without a pick slide or a Robert Johnson that does not begin on the diminished seventh of the one cord and resolves on the five after eight beats,(and end the same way!) it does not exist.
I like Jay-Z, but “Hard Knock Life” Come the fuck on! How many remakes can R&B cover in one day? It’s a factory at this point, it makes me sick to think how controlled and contrived the music industry has made this whole genre "Drink a Pepsi get a free R&B download from Amazon" - what a wonderful legacy.

I guess since Flav did not sell out and never will and would never do anything on VH1 as scripted as a WWF cage battle he is immune to musical criticisms. Sadly the same with Ozzy, but I'm sure once the critics realize he was not writing any lyrics for Black Sabbath then Sabbath will be excused from their good graces as well, old or what I like to call "real" heavy metal has been written off in favor of the galactically overated GreenDay and equally gay as a tree full of magazine publishers Nickleback.

Jim Morrison: At some point it became really cool to disrespect Jim, and why, I mean other than Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains and Nirvana who did The Doors ever influence? “Mother I want to fuck you!” – Glen Danzig still shits his pants when he thinks this line was written, and it was shouted at full volume before he was born. Jim Morrison was William Blake loosing his leather pants in a Jim Beam induced blackout.

Nirvana: I’m officially tired of hearing all the Nirvana’s miss-crediting. They did not invent anything; not punk (I actually had some kid say that to me, I wanted to kill them until some other kid said it was GreenDay who invented Punk.), not whiney rock (though Nirvana are responsible for countless whiney bands that followed that no one would stop and got more radio play than Dan Fogleberg giving Don Imus a hand job on the air) and defiantly not grunge - and for the most part Grohl, Novacelic and Cobain would not argue. They were a good band, differentr, but not groundbreaking with an excellent album (okay, two excellent albums: one done by Butch Vigg and the other Steve Albini) but I suspect now as bands like Alice in Chains are completely confused with “Godsmack” then we can look forward to Nirvana smearing in magazines and blogs. The only person I can think of who hated the Nirvana worship more than I did is Kurt Cobain, and he didn’t fuck around with it on blogs like the rest of us. BANG!!!

Guided by Voices: Rock critics, this is not a band, it is a way of life – and you prop this band while you diss the very band that had more influence on this band than the Replacements, the Pixies and the (allmighty) Who combined – the Beatles. No Beatles=No Under the Bushes…Under the Stars – it’s that fucking simple.

Slash leaves G&R: Why is this touted as one of Rocks "say it ain't so" moments? G&R is corporate rock at its most invested. I'm surprised this band did not have it's own action figures and Saturday AM cartoon.
Do you know why everyone left this band? Because they sucked! Truth be told if you take a mediocre product and throw shit load of money at it you can sell it to people without musical taste who think this was the American Led Zeppelin. The American Led Zeppelin was Areosmith, and emphasis on the word "was", they still get high, they pretend they don't but its obvious. However; unlike the 1970's when they were high and their albums rocked, now their albums suck more ass than Marv Alberts attending a Thai prostitute convention.

-J3K