The Music Elitist

Since this is my first posting on here I’ll give you all a quick introduction so you can better understand my views on this blog.

I hate mediocre music. What is mediocre music you ask? Let me give you a better idea of what I’m talking about here.

Tom Petty. I mean does that guy do anything interesting at all, has he ever? What an ass face.

Most Hardcore/Metal/Grindcore/Screamo/Spascore/Death Metal bull shit that you Ozzfest World of Warcraft monguloids love. They’re infesting every mall in america and what do they have to say for themselves other than “WE LIKE BLACK”.

Metallica, wow, there’s the clowns of the metal market right there. After “The Black Album” they SHOULD have called it quits. Only interesting was maybe the goofy looking Cherokee dreadlock sporting bass player who insisted he should have been in Korn.

I don’t even really like The Black Album. Kinda dug that one song, “Three Leaf Clover”, but that’s cause they had the NYC Philharmonic on that shit, and the NYC Philharmonic are classically trained rocket scientists, not a bunch of money grubbing wanna be metal heads.

Fall Out Boy. All things wrong with our day and age can single-handedly be blamed on this band and every Emo/Power Pop/Pop Punk/Jonas Brothers wanna be gazillionaires out there playing that Squier bass just cause that guy with the lame hair cut who likes to put pictures of his junk on the internet so he can be famous and marry Ashlee “my backing track messed up” Simpson. Douche.

So, now you know. I would go off on Contemporary Country and most Rap, but they do a good job of making themselves look like assholes.

So, now we’ll move on.

The world’s greatest super group unveiled their balls to the wall rock opus to the world today. Them Crooked Vultures made up of Dave “I love playing drums” Grohl, Josh “My old bass player was a coke head” Homme, and John Paul “Jesus” Jones. When I saw these guys at Roseland Ballroom a few weeks ago, I had a feeling I’d never felt rush over me.  I felt like I was being shot in the face with a shotgun full of Rock Salt n Roll and loving it. Listen to the album in it’s entirety on youtube.

My new favorite brooklyn hipster band is Bear In Heaven. Listen to them and bask in all it’s wheat grass electronics.

It’s the end of the world, zombies are eating that next door neighbor who never stops blasting the Gin Blossoms at 2am, and the nuclear holocaust wiped out you’re favorite sushi place, what you gonna do?

Listen to J Tillman, and take a nap of course.
With a brand new album of music you can fall asleep too, Tillman does exactly what he’s best at. Harmonies, Harmonies, Harmonies. With a lack of drumming from the Fleet Foxes drummer you’d think on a solo album he’d do more of it. But with him hitting anything he can that’s not a a drum, he gets a sequence of beats that boast his sparse musical arrangements into epic nothingness. I like it, and there’s a great video and vibe to “Though I Have Wronged You.” So watch it here. Best Video…Ever.

That’s all for today. Expect hell tomorrow.

So in the last week and a half a band that I used to be in and a band that I have been a fan of for a long while both had equipment and/or vehicles stolen from them.

Miami hardcore band Poison the Well woke up a couple days ago to head to Chicago for the second date of their current tour, only find to find that someone had stolen their van and trailer which contained all their equipment and pretty much everything they owned.

T13C was getting some rest in Orlando last week in between recording sessions for their new record when someone broke into their van and trailer and stole about $10,000 worth of gear.

Neither of these bands have tons of dispensable cash on hand to just buy new equipment and vehicles when something like this happens. When you steal from a band you’re not only taking their possessions, you’re taking their livelihood as well. Both of these bands are incredibly hardworking and while I can’t speak for Poison the Well (having never met them), the guys in T13C are some of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. No band deserves to be stolen from.

So this whole thing actually started about a week ago, and I wouldn’t have given it any attention had there not been any new developments. But this week, there was a new (and rather amusing I might add) development in this story.

The basic gist is that after Fall Out Boy finishes the tour they are currently on with blink-182, they are going on an extended hiatus as they have been recording and touring pretty much non-stop for the last 5 or 6 years. The only way the band will play a show in 2010 is if they are able to play the first concert ever in the Principality of Sealand, a micronation about 6 miles off the southeast coast of the UK. The nation was founded on an abandoned British sea fort in 1967 by radio broadcaster and British Army Major Paddy Roy Bates (who calls himself “Prince Roy of Sealand”).

In any case, Prince Regent Michael (the heir to the throne of Sealand) got wind of this whole thing and contacted James Montgomery at MTV with this letter:

“Hey James -
Thank you for the story. It makes me sound old to say I haven’t heard of Fall Out Boy, but my sons say they are AWESOME. So if you would like to put us in touch with them, ‘Lets rock’ (or whatever we say these days). I am on a sunny beach in Greece sipping a cold beer looking forward to hearing from them.

Best wishes
Michael of Sealand

Sent from Michael’s iPhone
‘Nill illigitimi carborundum’”

Montgomery passed on the email to Pete Wentz who instructed him to give Prince Michael’s contact info to Fall Out Boy’s managers. So this whole thing may actually be going down and I find it incredibly amusing.

Now, TECHNICALLY this is not a complete rip-off because the melody is the same for less than 8 bars. But holy hell are the choruses of these songs similar.

Here’s a video of Fall Out Boy covering “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie helps out on vocals. Not a bad cover once the girl videotaping it stops singing. Don’t quit your day job, darlin’.

I’M STILL ALIVE!!!! Sorry it’s been so long guys. This draft has literally been sitting here for 3 weeks waiting for me to finish it. I promise I am gonna try really hard to start posting more regularly.

Most songs on the radio suck. Even if those songs are being performed by great artists. The radio single typically has the stigma of being the worst song on the album. But, I find that it happens less often with the following bands.

Taking Back Sunday
Say what you want about these guys, but this will be the “emo band” that’s still alive and kicking in 10 years. They are probably one of the most consistent bands out there as far as releasing good music goes. They don’t usually get a ton of radio airplay past their first single, but that single is usually really catchy. Their latest single “Sink Into Me” was actually my inspiration for writing this post because I couldn’t get it out of my head for about 3 days after the first time I heard it. Their first single from Louder Now, “MakeDamn Sure” had a similar effect.

Foo Fighters
I don’t think I have ever heard someone actually say “I hate the Foo Fighters“. And there’s good reason for that. The most popular songs by these guys (i.e. the ones that have been on the radio) are all legitimately good songs: “Big Me”, “Everlong” “Learn to Fly”, “Times Like These”, “Best of You”, “The Pretender”…the list goes on and on.

Incubus
When this band first became popular, they were lumped into the nu metal movement with bands like KoRn and Limp Bizkit. If you listened to their last album Light Grenades, you would have no idea how that could have been possible. But no matter what their sound, they have always managed to write great songs and their radio singles were no exception (though I want to put a bullet in my head every time I hear “Drive”…overplayed).

The Killers
“Human” is definitely starting to wear on me, but otherwise I am usually delighted to hear a Killers radio single. Most of the indie dance nights I went to back in ‘04 managed to wear out the songs from Hot Fuss before they were even popular on the radio. But that album is still my favorite by them, so that says something.

Muse
So happy these guys are finally seeing a lot of mainstream success and I look forward to their next record. But I really honestly can’t think of a bad radio single from these guys. “Hysteria,” “Time is Running Out,” “Starlight”…all great songs.

Red Hot Chili Peppers
This one I feel I should clarify. I’m talking Red Hot Chili Peppers AFTER 1991. Mother’s Milk has a few good songs, but that’s about as far back as I go with RHCP. But the radio singles from Blood Sugar Sex Magik through Stadium Arcadium have all been pretty decent (though horribly overplayed).

Rise Against
Though I felt their breakout single (“Swing Life Away”) was not a very good representation of the band’s true sound, I still think it and every radio single they have released since are all pretty good songs. They are one of the few tolerable radio bands out there right now and I have actually had quite a few of their songs get stuck in my head.

Death Cab for Cutie
Obviously these guys are just a great band, but as I have said before, even great bands can release terrible radio singles. Not these guys though. I know there are probably some hardcore Death Cab fans out there that probably don’t care for “Soul Meets Body” and “Crooked Teeth,” but I like those songs a lot.

Jimmy Eat World
I can’t include these guys without a little disclaimer. Let me start by saying that when Bleed American came out in August 2001, I didn’t really have a huge problem with “The Middle.” It wasn’t by any means my favorite song on the record, but I had no issues with it. Fast forward to spring of 2002, it was quite a different story. That song turned out to be the song that introduced Jimmy Eat World…to the world. I personally feel, that was the worst possible song on that record to be their breakout single. “Sweetness” did pretty well on the radio which made me happy because that was by far my favorite song on that record and still is to this day. My point is every other radio single by this band has been better than “The Middle” (including the ones before it that were not successful: “Lucky Denver Mint” and “Bleed American”). Ok, I’m done.

AFI
There were a lot of hardcore AFI fans that were probably pretty pissed off around 2003 when Sing the Sorrow was released. But for some reason I have a feeling it was a very small group of them. I had a roommate my freshman year of college who was a HUGE AFI fan. I can’t tell you how many times I heard The Art of Drowning and Black Sails in the Sunset regularly being played from his room in our dorm. When Sing the Sorrow first came out I remember him being a tad skeptical before its release and even saying he wasn’t thrilled with it at first. But then he ended up liking it after a few listens. And then a couple years ago when Decemberunderground was released his Facebook status said something like “Trying to hate the new AFI, but it’s actually pretty good.” He’d still say to this day (and with good reason) that his favorite AFI stuff is pre-2003. But even their old fans can appreciate the music they have made since breaking into the  mainstream. That being said I’ve approved of pretty much every radio single they’ve released.

If you follow music news you’re probably aware of the unusual amount of band reunions that have happened in the last 6 months or so. No Doubt, blink-182, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Get Up Kids and many more have all announced reunions of some kind whether it be a tour, a new record or both.

My theory on this recent boom in band reunions is that the economic downturn this country (and the world in general) has experienced is forcing artists to go back to what people are familiar with and what made them popular in the first place because it is more secure. Being an entertainer is probably one of the most volatile careers because you can be at the top of the world one day and then back at the bottom the very next.  If you don’t keep people interested, you’re gonna lose them. And in a time when people are picking and choosing what they want to spend their money on, things like music and movies may be the first thing people cut out.

When it comes down to it, most people would rather listen to blink-182 than +44 or Angels & Airwaves. More people would probably rather listen to No Doubt than Gwen Stefani’s solo material (I know I sure as hell would).

This is definitely not me trying to fault these artists in any way. In times like these you gotta do what you gotta do. And on the contrary, with the exceptions of Creed and Limp Bizkit, I am pretty happy and excited about most of these reunions. At least this recession has brought us something positive.

Just wanted to send out a big congrats to Anberlin whose single “Feel Good Drag” finally hit #1 this week on national Modern Rock charts (the single’s been out since September). I’ve been a fan of these guys for quite some time and I’m happy they’re finally getting the recognition they deserve.

New Found Glory was recently name-dropped in an issue of Spider-Man. If I were in NFG, I would find it hard continuing my music career knowing that no matter what I do now, nothing will ever top having my band’s name mentioned in a Marvel comic book.

Alkaline Trio has launched a remix contest on Indabamusic.com for their song “I Found Away”. Just go to the site and download the individual instrument and vocal tracks.