“brent loses his keys 2″

“I’m sorry, but I can’t break a twenty.” The uninterested and underpaid girl behind the counter of the convenience store said to Brent in an annoyed, rolling my eyes as I say this manner.

“What the hell!?” Brent thought in disbelief. “It’s the lunch rush at the Quik N Go, and the store is packed to capacity and they can’t break a twenty dollar bill so I can buy a simple bottle of water? Well then, I guess they are just fucked!”

“Damn, I got bigger fish to fry at the moment than trying to buy a bottle of water from these rocket scientists at the Quik N Go so I can go hydrate myself. Because as we all know, hydration is very unnecessary for survival.”

Brent looked back at the long line waiting impatiently behind him and looked back at the blank faced cashier in front of him and slammed both of his hands down on the counter, palms down, as hard as he could and yelled “bullshit!” If Brent couldn’t get any satisfaction, at least he could give everybody in the store something interesting to talk about to their co workers when they came back from their lunch break. “Oh man, you should’ve been at the Quik N Go! This one dude went apeshit!” Yes, the legend of Brent is now firmly secured in the minds of complete strangers.

Brent walked out of the Quik N Go feeling quite pleased with himself. At least he had a legitimate excuse, this time, to not give the panhandlers out front any change: because he didn’t have any! “As if I’m going to give a panhandler a twenty dollar bill! Get real. Better yet, get a job. Ha ha! I’m on a roll now!” Brent thought smugly to himself.

Brent walked up to his car in the parking lot, reached into his pocket and then he realized: he had left his keys on the counter when he slammed his hands down on it. “Damn it!” Brent muttered to himself.

the stanley cup

It’s Stanley cup time again. Actually I really never cared for Hockey until my newest roommate moved in the house and forced me to watch a couple of games with him. I have to admit, I was quite foolish for ignoring this sport for so long. It’s like futbol, er, I mean soccer but instead of having thugs for fans, you have thugs for players. It’s a fucking brillant concept, I’m wondering why I hadn’t come up with it first.

There is one thing I still don’t like about Hockey and that is some of their team names are just too lame for my liking. ( I also like my sports to be also aesthetically pleasing, which is why I can’t get into them.) For instance: in the Stanley Cup this year it’s the Senators vs. the Ducks. I mean, come on, the Ducks? They could be the greatest team in the world, but I just can’t take them seriously as a team because they are called “the Ducks” because “the Ducks” isn’t a name to inspire fear into your enemies. “Watch out, we are playing the Ducks on Tuesday. Better say your prayers!” Why are they not called something like the “Vaginas With Teeth” instead? That name works on so many different levels of fear. “We are playing the Vagina’s With Teeth in a double header next week! Fuck this, I quit and I’m divorcing my wife too because I thnk she has teeth down there also!”

Please think about it, NHL officals. I will be a fan for life if you make this simple little cahnge.

jareddriskill

Dealer, Hot Fuzz, Dimmu Borgir

 

Dealer

3 song demo

Self-released

            Why torment me by releasing only three songs? These songs are so good, that I want to hear more! How frustrated I am about this, you ask? I’ll tell you. It’s like when you are working outside in the hot, sweltering sun and you reach for a bottle of cool, refreshing water only to discover that there is exactly three drops left in the bottle. Yes, you feel refreshed that you actually drank something, but it is just enough to get you all pissed off that there just wasn’t more to satisfy your thirst.

 

Hot Fuzz

Music from the Motion Picture

Interscope Records

            Normally, I don’t bother buying or listening to motion picture soundtracks only because nothing can hold a candle, in my opinion,  to the “Flash Gordon” soundtrack by Queen. But this collection is a dream mix tape come true for me. Where else can you find tracks from Adam Ant, XTC, The Kinks, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Supergrass on a single album?

 

Dimmu Borgir

In Sorte Diaboli

Nuclear Blast

         That’s the crazy thing about black metal, whenever I wonder when a band is going to release a new album, I always find the new album in the stores the next day. There I was, lying in bed one night, my mind wandering as I drifted off to sleep and I then randomly thought to my self: “Wouldn’t it kick ass if a tiger could fight a shark? A tiger would totally win… Hey! When is the new Dimmu Borgir album coming out?” The next day I went toCircuit City (because, you know, Circuit City is the place for all your metal needs.) and here we are.

            Dimmu Borgir are the only late 90’s era black metal group who hasn’t either broken up (Emperor) or gone straight to crap (Cradle of Filth.) How did they achieve this? By stealing the good members from other black metal bands, that’s how! ICS Vortex from Borknagar is on bass and operatic backing vocals, Glader from Old Man’s Child is on guitar duties and Nicholas Barker from Cradle of Filth used their drummer. I was sad to see him go, but his slot is now in the more than capable hands and feet of Hellhammer from Mayhem! Holy fuck! Hellhammer!?! Man, you just don’t know how stoked I am about this!

            This album seems far too short at 47 minutes. I need more! I guess that’s the good thing about shelling out the extra 3 bucks, like I did, for the limited edition version of the album with a DVD with the music video for “The Serpentine Offering,” a feature about the making of the said music video and an “in the studio with” documentary feature. Where you can see the band eat pizza and play videos games in the recording studio. Because as you know all those activites are so METAL!        

week 6

No Wild Irish Rose this week, but I did try out the Orange Jubilee flavored MD 20/20. Man that stuff is repugnant! I could only finish 3/4 of the bottle before it caused massive retching on my behalf. Ugh!

Shortened epsiode this week for some reason tv 8’s airing of the Sheild went over and they cut into Soul trian in the last few bars of Glaoria Gaynor’s performance of “I Will Survive.” Goddamnit! Please go to http://www.wric.com and write a letter of complaint will ya?

This week’s musical guests included:

Gloria Gaynor. She wore the most ridioulus gold lame mumu. Nuff said! Her second song” Everybody Wants to Party” was not the big hit she predicted it would be. Mainly because I’ve never heard of it before until today.

Gino Vannelli. Late 70’s lite rock at it’s best: He wore a open chested black silk shirt with a simple gold chain, his poofed out perm was the exact same hairstyle that Gloria Gaynor had. Opps! He performed his big song, ” I Just Wanna Stop,” more like “I just wanna stop lip syncing half way through the song”. His second song “Wheels Of Life” was actually pretty good, but I think it didn’t catch on because it reminded people too much of the Buddhist theory of Samara. ( If you didn’t get that joke, do some research, corky!)

Soul Train line: It was a catchy early Michael Jackson sounding song called “All Night.” I suppose that it was called because “All Night” was sung repeatedly throughout the chorus.

Two Soul Train dancers, Cheryl and Randy, had a special spotlight dance routine for some odd reason

The Don Cornelius interview gaff of the week. To Gino Vannelli: “A lot of black people attend your concerts. So, why do black people listen to your songs?” Yes, Don, alot of people, including black people, have no taste whatsoever. I hate to knock you off your high horse.

Here’s hoping that next week we have a full episode to enjoy,

jareddriskill

memorial day

No, I haven’t disappeared, my faithful readers. I was just at my dad’s house so I could be treated like a fucking convicted felon by my stepmother. Anyways, have a happy memorial day. Please remember those who sacrificed their lives for you so you can have the freedom to bitch about the free market system of economics causes the rise in gas prices (it’s all about supply and demand people, not price gouging!) and grill dead animal flesh over hot coals. I don’t know about you, but if I was Marine at Iwo Jima and I knew how my sacrifice would make our society the way it is today, I would’ve refused to pick up my rifle and fight.
jareddriskill

“a father’s lament”

I nearly wrecked the family minivan earlier today. I saw one of Ellen’s old “lost dog” flyers on a telephone pole. I thought I had gotten rid of them all six months ago, but it seems like she had snuck out and posted a whole bunch of them without my permission. I’ll have to talk to her about that later.

You see, Roscoe was Ellen’s beloved 6 year old Jack Russell Terrier. She loved that dog because they practically grew up together. One day, Roscoe disappeared and Ellen was heart broken, a better word for her behaviour that day would be inconsolable. So we did all the usual things one does when their beloved pets goes missing, like walk around the neighborhood calling his name out until our neighbors were sick of us and our throats were sore. We called and visited all the animal shelters, but to no avail.
           A few days later Ellen made the most pitiful looking lost dog flyer after school that read: “Lost Dog. ‘Roscoe.’ Reward? Hugs and thanks from a sad little girl.” (Scrawled in magic marker in all capital letters. Except the “Rs,” which were lowercase and backwards.) The real kicker was the picture of Roscoe she had pasted on the flyer. It was a close up picture of her from her third birthday party eating a handful of cake with Roscoe in the background licking himself. Nice. I’m sure the average person on the street would recognize Roscoe instantly with a photo like that circulating around. I humored Ellen and made some photocopies of the flyer and helped her paste them all up around the neighborhood.

          Of course nothing ever came from those flyers, just as I knew it would. You see, that Ellen had never put any contact info on those flyers of hers. Never mind the fact that I just didn’t have the heart to tell my little girl that I accidentally backed the minivan over Roscoe one morning and had buried him in the woods without her being the wiser.

Jellyfish, Gene, Type O Negative

Jellyfish

Best!

Virgin Records

            I’m normally a secure man, but taking this album up to the cashier at my local hipster record shop had made me doubt my own sexuality. Jellyfish is the only band that I would buy an album from where the cover is a Barbie Doll hot pink.

As the title implies, “Best!” is best of album that carries a lot of material for fans who already own and worn out several copies of their two studio albums, but weren’t able to obtain copies of the criminally limited edition boxed set. Yes, there are plenty of tracks from the two studio albums but there is a whole load of non-album b-sides, demos and live tracks to make this import purchase worth my while.

 

Gene

The Collection

Specturm Music/Universal

            I tolerated Gene only because they had the nerve to sound exactly like The Smiths but acted like that they didn’t. I get the feeling that “The Collection” is a hastily assembled “best of” package that was put out on the market to secure some songwriting copyright renewals. It happens all the time in the industry.

Some poor, tacky soul included their version of REM’s “Nightswimming” on this album. Why plaster a lousy cover song on this album when Gene had a whole lot more superior material (when I say superior, I mean superior to anything recorded by REM) that was left off? Tisk, tisk.

 

Type O Negative

Dead Again

SPV Records

            Yes, I know. I can’t believe I bought a Type O Negative album either. If it’s any consolation, I did it for “journalistic purposes” only. I had a bunch of insults and put downs all prepared for this album, but when I put it on, it sure surprised the hell out of me!

“Dead Again” sounds like early era Samhain with slow, sludgy, doom metal parts ala Eyehategod. Pete Steele should also keep on using that vocal processor that makes his vocals sound deeper and more hollow sounding than they actually are. Right on!

“the bank heist”

We were going to be the next Bonnie and Clyde. However, in our case we were just Bonnie and Clod. I was both the brains and brawn, but Terry, god bless his ignoramus soul, was along for the ride because I needed someone who looked both handsome and dashing holding a gun while I did all the hard work. I doubt Terry would know what to do with the gun if he were ever pressed to use the damn thing. Hell, he barely knew how to use the gun that god had placed between his legs.

In fact, it was all Terry’s idea that I had ever thought about trying to pull this heist off in the first place. It was one of those muggy, late summer nights, you know, the ones where the only thing that you could do to get your mind off the heat is to take a walk outside and talk about whatever you needed to talk about to get your mind off the heat, but the topic of conversation would inevitably go back to how hot it is outside.

Terry had spent the day watching old gangster movies on television while I was out working. (Terry is just too handsome and way too stupid to hold down a real job, the bastards out there would eat the poor thing alive.) He was ranting and raving and carrying on about this one particular movie he had watched where a bunch of crooks had pulled off a daring day time bank heist. Terry thought this was the coolest thing ever and then said something to the effect of “that wouldn’t it be cool” if someone pulled off a daring bank heist in this day in age.

It may have been the heat affecting my brain, but I thought this was the second ever great idea that Terry has ever had in his entire life. (The first one being: going out with me, of course.) I was sick and tired of slaving away at that cocktail bar next to the airport where it was my job to sweet talk lecherous, fat, old business travelers with bottomless expense accounts into buying expensive watered down drinks. I also wanted the good life of staying home and watching bad movies on basic cable.

To be honest, planning a bank heist is hell of a whole lot easier and simpler than they make out to be in the movies. I suppose if the movies showed how easy it actually is, then I suppose everyone would make an living robbing banks and who would haul away my garbage on Tuesdays, then? All you really need is some guns and the determination to pull the job off. It’s so simple I think Terry could plan one all by himself if he wanted to.

So, finally, the big day came. Terry and I burst into the bank and…nothing. There was practically nobody in there. We first thought that we had entered the wrong place. We stepped back outside to make sure we were at the right place, when we were confident that that were indeed, at the bank, I told Terry to stand in the back of the lobby and to try to hold his gun in the most menacing manner possible while I did business with the teller.

I grabbed the teller by her paisley collar and told her that she had “better fill the bag up, honey.” She just laughed in my face while I was pressing the barrel of my pistol to her nose and then said to me: “Darling, don’t you know? Nobody uses cash anymore! Everything is done on the internet these days!”

Idlewild/The Catalyst/Slayer

Idlewild

Make Another World

Sanctuary Records Group.

            Idlewild suffer from what I call the “Swervedriver” syndrome. Meaning that I think they are the greatest band in the world, but for some reason, I won’t listen to any of their albums for long periods of time. It’s the damnest thing!  Idlewild is also is one of the few bands around today that records new albums that are always better than their previous ones. “Make Another World” is no exception.

            However, I remember reading an interview a year or two ago where I had wrongly thought the band was going to throw the towel in and quit. My prediction just might come true though: switching from Parlophone records to useless Sanctuary records could just prove to be career killing for the band.

 

Mass Movement of the Moth + The Catalyst

Two Thousand and Six Six Six (split cd)

The Perpetual Motion Machine Records

            I suppose the Catalyst did all the even numbered tracks on this album (Note to record labels: credit who does what track on all your albums!) heavy, two drummer hardcore punk rock/head trippy music that just kicks ass. Keep an eye out for them in the future. The Mass Movement of the Moth: sorta the same, but more New Wavy sounding, but I mean that in a bad way. Avoid them at all costs.

 

Slayer

Christ Illusion

American Records

            My Slayer boycott is now over! Dave Lombardo is back in his rightful place as Slayer’s drummer. Hell yeah! Christ Illusion is old school Slayer but more up to date with better recording quality and more blast beats. Yes! Yes! Yes!

            However, the lyrics are just terrible. From reading the lyric sheet: I found out that War is bad. Religion is bad. Religious war is bad. Soilders who come back from war get treated badly. Satan, as always, is good. Slayer sure does have some unique and astute views of the world, do they not? If Rap is the black man’s CNN, then Slayer has to be the metal heads version of Fox News.

Deadly radio silence

Coliseum, Young Widows, Cloak/Dagger, Prideswallower

Camel Club, Richmond Virginia, May 20th, 2007

It’s odd feeling going to a show where you don’t know who any of the bands are. You can be either pleasantly surprised or feel totally ripped off. When this occurs I just pretend that I am anthropologist who is studying hardcore punk rock. Especially now that I’m huddled in the corner taking notes throughout the show.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Camel had gotten their noise problems resolved with the radio station located above them (see review of the Todd/Tigershark/ Hexmachine show in the concert review archives.) I have to say, now that I have been there, I really like the Camel Club. It’s within a reasonable walking distance from my house and this is the first time I have been to a club where the air conditioning system isn’t a sick, cruel, distant memory. There’s also seems to be a no smoking policy, which I sort of enjoy, so it’s no more coming home from shows smelling like a cigarette factory and other’s people’s B.O. for me!

If there is one problem I can forsee with The Camel is that it also functions as an art gallery. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, mind you, but one day you just know that someone is going to “accidentally” damage an expensive piece of art and that might put an hamper on future shows. It’s hard enough for bands to find places to play these days, especially when a venue closes over something really stupid.

 As always, I arrived way early for a show that started an hour or so late. I didn’t feel too sociable tonight so I brought a book along with me to pass the time away while enjoying the air conditioning system. I did find out that 3 of the 4 bands playing tonight were from Louisville, Kentucky so I was kind to them if I ran into any of the members.

Prideswallower were the first band up. Imagine Hammerhead with the guitar feedback and dynamics of the Melvins. I’m sure glad that there are a very large number of bands today that are heavily influenced by Hammerhead and The Melvins. (Man, you just don’t know.) You’d think there would be a Law of Diminishing Returns thing going on, but it hasn’t happened yet. I suppose I haven’t reached my saturation point for bands influenced by Hammerhead and The Melvins yet. I hope that it doesn’t happen  anytime soon.

Richmond’s own, Cloak/Dagger were next. Before they played, I wondered if they gotten their band name from the two obscure Marvel comics characters or from that really bad 1980’s Dabney Coleman film. Inquiring minds ( i.e. me) really wanted to know, but I was too lazy to talk to them about it.  Cloak/Dagger plays early 80’s style hardcore punk rock. Well, this was a treat! 

I know you heard of bands that wear their hearts on their sleeves, well, Cloak/Dagger wear their band influences on their t-shirts! The singer dude wore a Black Flag t-shirt. Bass player wore a Rocket From The Crypt t-shirt.  Drummer guy wore a old school Corrosion of Comformity t-shirt. (Hell yes!) But, the guitar player wore just a plain white t-shirt, leaving the audience members to mentally fill in the last band influence. So I chose… Poison! (Ha ha, just kidding.) My mental image was that of a bootleg “Group Sex” era Circle Jerk t-shirt. Fuck yeah!

Young Widows played chaotic hardcore punk rock in the vein of Dillinger Escape Plan and Spread The Disease. But with tribal sounding drum rolls and without the raspy death metal vocals (which, to me, is an improvement.)  The drummer dude looked a hell of a lot like me, the poor fella, at least he can claim he’s in a kick ass band whereas I only have this website…

Coliseum, like all the other out of town bands tonight, were a 3 piece combo. I suppose there is a law in Losuiville, Kentucky that says all kick ass bands from that city can’t have more than 3 members in it. (Hey, you never know!) They were loud, fast and thrashy, kinda like what Eyehategod would’ve sounded like if they were strung out on speed instead of heroin. (That, my friend, is what I consider a compliment.) The drummer had his drum kit set up close to the ground while he played. Hey, if it helps him to rock out harder, all the power to him.

I was more than glad when the show ended at 10pm. Not because I thought the bands were terrible. (They weren’t.) But because it was Sunday and I could go to bed at my regular time so I could go to work, bright and early, on Monday morning. That’s what George Orwell would call “Double Plus Good.”

jareddriskill