The Music Elitist

GlassJAw performing a new song “All Good Junkies Go to Heaven”. Preeeeeeetty sweet.

Spoon just realeased a new single from their upcoming album “Transference” which will be coming out in January 2010 called “Written In Reverse”. The song is somewhat a return to form for the band as it’s saturated in familiar piano sounds, drum groove and grimy guitar riffs that feel just as random and haphazard as always. Brit Daniels’ undeniably cool voice has a charm to it in this song as he goes from singing assuredly to yelping unexpectedly. The song sounds as if the band is mixing the old reliables with an even more obvious swagger that hangs over the track like a hot and sexy party. This is a good song that has skyrocketed my expectations for this album.

I’ve been working on a spolight section about bands that are releasing albums in 2010, and so far BRMC and Spoon are part of it among a few others, but as everything seems to be coming so quick, I might break up the original post I was doing and scatter it as the information comes. You’ll find the link to listen to the single on NPR after the image:

Spoon – Written in Reverse on NPR

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.

A friend of mine made this statement today and I have to admit I kind of agree with him. His prediction being that 2 albums from now, they will have a huge hit (bigger than “Somebody Told Me”, “Mr. Brightside” and “Human”) and people will look back on songs like “A Dustland Fairytale” and pretend they were more popular at the time than they actually were, just like U2.

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’.

Someone sent this my way today. I was very impressed. Enjoy!

Thanks to Jeff Jocoy for this gem!