Brooklyn Radiodingles

Far be it from me to see an attractive lady's picture on the internets and to not click on it. This very mentality has gotten me into plenty of virus trouble throughout the years. Somnambling my way through this old bitch of zeros and ones, peering through tiny portals at those intangible worlds of Amazonian or Ikean products gets tiring. A man must recreate.

Perusing through the racks of Brooklyn Radio I discovered that this very website, whose path of glory I helped weed and tend for a few words or two, is not simply a website filled with gossip and garbage about blip festivals. This website has a quiver filled to the brim with sharp and splendid radio shows (as the name implies, no doy). So! I clicked. I clicked on little miss DJ Robyn's (as seen above) webdio show (podcast I guess).

Whats this? A cute tiny little white girl playing mostly reggae? God that's sexy. Now, I don't claim to be a reggae connoisseur. I'm about as close to being a ball and cup connoisseur, and thats far far far. Don't worry though, I know good music when I hear it. The December 11th show is a mixture of Soul, Reggae, a sprinkling of hip-hop and a little little beard rock. Ms. Robyn is the talented creator of the "Thunder Chicken" mix tape as fanfared in Fader magazine.

I would suggest listening to this fine young lass' show because I've been listening for, ohh *checks watch* 45 minutes now and there seriously hasn't been a single dud. Download it! Share it with your friends!

Aside: get me her phone number too.

more show reviews to come!

The most recent

Recently I've been going on a binge of compact discs and groovy black discs both of which make me expend far too much of that tiny green paper with dead people and numbers. Let me tell you about that music first:

CD's



1.) Ex Models - Zoo Psychology
I saw these assholes about two CMJ's ago, a hazy drug infested memory those three fall days were. It was at North six, oh so familiar Williamsburg is to me now, then seemed as though I would be pulled aside and had my wallet inspected. They were painful to watch, insistent more upon making disgusting brown notes than perhaps performing their music. I left early. Now I have a much more open mind about squeals and whirring grinding sonics, though is still not as palatable to me as a lovely melody or a clever pop lyric (I've been known to call Excepter "dial-up internet" music). I thought I'd give em a try anyway and overall I'm pleased with my decision.
Its the kind of music you play with a pillow over your head, trying to annoy those assholes above you playing Reggaeton at 2 in the morning.

2.) The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society
Perhaps you have heard of The Kinks? well, so had I. They're one of those bands with such importance and such a damn huge discography that I just kept putting them towards the back of my mental rolodex (Zappa, fortunately, begins with a Z) I told myself that if I ever found this CD I'd start up on them. and what I mean by that is I saw this in the used bin and my hand snatched it up like a mom at a Talbots sale.
Writing about village green is the same as writing about any Shakespeare play, what do I say? Picture book may be the best pop song of the sixties after, perhaps, Wouldn't it be nice?

3.) Joni Mitchell - Blue
I sometimes can't handle Mitchell's soothing and warbly lady voice, it reminds me too much of driving around in the car with my mom; not necessarily a bad thing, not necessarily a good thing either. However! This was a Christmas present from my mommy (reason: I was fed up with receiving bad Fugazi albums when I asked for good Fugazi albums so I just told them to get me whatever they liked when they were my age [potentially dangerous since my mom was really into prog {not saying that all prog is bad, but ... you know}]). There may always be a hazy filmy substance around Joni Mitchell's music for me, but I'm excited to own it and give it a good adult once-over.

4.) Sigur Ros - two hot dogs (aka untitled)
oh my brother tried so hard, This is what I mean. My family's heart is in the right place, he even asked his youth group leader (who miraculously doesn't have a youth group leader goatee or talk about learning new chords all the time) who "listens to the same music as me" and told him to get me this (the most icicle laden as well as disparately good and bad of their albums) or to get me Sufjan Stevens. Yikes. Well, its ok Will, I accept and! appreciate your gumption.



LP's



1.) Foghat - Foghat
All I want to do is smoke some fucking weed and play air bass guitar along this album. I feel like Foghat gets the short end of the stick for being the 70's equivalent of 311, its the white guy funk/blues that yr average frat boy can like (and fuck to)! Who cares, its dude rock. I've earned it listening to all this pussy ass Joanna Newsom and chick rock like Joni Mitchell and Cat Power. I need some hairy smelly cock in my ears.

2.) Todd Rundgren - Something / Anything?
I like it, but coming down from calling Joanna Newsom "pussy" and saying I need more dude rock leaves me utterly confused; somewhat like a cat determining the many properties of a bottle cap on the floor. Half of this album is sweet guitars and choppy pianos and the other half is simpering love songs, then again I haven't listened to side 3 and 4 so I may be shitting out of my mouth right now.

3.) ambient 2 - Brian Eno and some other dude
I love Music for Airports so much that when Ambient 4 sounded utterly different I had an acidic reflux in my brain. Ambient 4 sounds like a great soundtrack for a zombie movie (Re: Resident Evil the game) but it doesn't sound like the beautiful and gorgeous, antiseptic and impersonal sounds in Ambient 1. Not saying I dislike ambient 4, I just have a harder time finding the right atmosphere to place ambient 4, maybe a seance; I've been meaning to channel the entire original cast of Porgy and Bess anyway.
I haven't really been able to snatch a listen yet, thats the painful truth of LP's. besides being awesome scene cred they're just not as transportable as the podtangles.

4.) Love - Da Capo
The Coup De Grace! This baby cost me a leg and a leg and an arm. Thats alright, I still have enough limb to put this on the record player and listen with all of my ears. I haven't given it a heart to heart quite yet though. Also, I didn't realize that the second side was all one song? 18 minutes? pretty good.

Overall, this month has been a great month for music (for me). However! I've basically been slashing my wallet's neck each time I've plunged into a record store. So that green dye is washing down the drain like psycho and I'm going to be eating Record sandwiches pretty soon. Regardless! I'm most likely going to continue my habits on account of my current job is being a hipster by profession (culture as commodity! culture as commodity!!) soon enough I gotta start makin' that cash and if it involves shakin' my ass then so be it, although it will more likely be selling my shit on ebay (maybe selling LP's???)

Oh yes.

Oh yes, this is a painting of exactly what you think it is. Dont worry I'm still around.

More for me than for Yours

Rolling Stone (when did people start calling it RS? OMG! roflcopter, so on so forth. [making fun of leetspeak is easier than making fun of Cold Stone employees]) has posted their top 25 bands on myspace.

I really don't care whether you read it or not, I'm gonna check it out and probably get pissed at RS's apparent lack of non-white people who listen to something other than rock (never said I'm not a hypocrite). Enjoy if you must:

THE LINK IS HERE!

Bono: knight, fucking chump

What an effing chump.

If you are unaware of my disdain for this effing chump all you need know is this: he is one of my unknowing arch-enemies for no other reason than that he is an effing chump and wears stupid sunglasses. And he writes shitty music with his shitty band.

Anyhow, for those of you who are into Mozart and can read music you should check out this and tell me what you think about it. Initially, I believed that this suspiciously international committee had put recordings of Mozart's music up. Alas, I was mistaken. Alas, it was merely Mozart's entire recorded sheet music. I was forlorn. I hung my head and listened to some comfort food.

However! This is an interesting turn of events for music. It is, once again, the democratizing power of the internet-muse emerging from betwixt the trees made of law, conservative fauns playing their conservative pan's flutes.

Dammit! If I want pornographic pictures of Wolfgang Puck I should be able to find it on the internets! Same goes to my until-now dormant desire to sololy perform The Magic Flute as Tom Sellick playing Bertold Brecht atop my Brooklyn apartment and entirely on slide guitar.

Anyway, I need more slide guitar in my life.

P.S. I'm going to be visiting the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir as soon as I get back to Brooklyn. If you're around and in for some awesome gospel music I'd love to have you with me.

The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness

So, I guess you've all heard how James Brown died on that formerly pagan holiday some of us know as Christmas?

Well, maybe you hadn't but maybe you should? Or maybe someone came up to you on the street, slapped you across the face, spit down the back of your shirt, and screamed something incoherent about the godfather of soul. Thats what happened to me. Or at least if felt that way when I was bombarded by a poorly written Memphis newspaper article about the man.

I mean, I didn't know him very well, but we all knew him, right? We'd all like to have drank with him, maybe a few illicit drugs, maybe he'd shoot us with a shotgun, but you know what they always say: Don't boil the goat until the turnip's been browned.

God, get me back to New York, home. Where I can smoke n' cuss n' drink n' wear my life like jean pants instead of pajamas.

On the upside: my brother has a Wii and I am currently playing the newest Zelda. It own. nay, pwns. Zounds!

yo! these japanese dudes caught a giant squid! 22 Feet long!

happy holidays- see you on the flipside or something.

Its that time

So! 50% because I'm lazy and 50% because and I have nothing else to write about and 50% because everyone and their ass-faces have released a top of 2006 type thing and 37.3% because I've been away all afternoon and 1% because you actually want to know. If I do my math right I'd say that comes out to about 100% "who gives a shit?"

So! since no one really gives a shit I'm going to write a list for 2006 that is UNPRECEDENTED!!! Mostly because it gives you a glimpse into how poor my music taste is but also because its merely an amalgam of my favorite noises that I've heard this year. That includes new albums, reissues, albums I should have heard but never got around to until recently, gossip, that sound people make when they realize that they're falling on the subway and knocking into you and then of course don't say sorry just kind of saunter off because they know they look like a douche, tea steam, parsnips.

So! without further ado its:


10! = Dreamies


Two 25 minute tracks that directly reference revolution number 9 with mr Bill Holt clipping soundbytes like sunday morning coupons beneath his vocals and what is that, a moog? It falls a bit in line with the early seventies folk but is gloriously weird for that time and definitely falls in line with the work that John Cage was doing around then. Knowing Holt quit his job in 1970 simply based on this idea that he had to continue the story The Beatles were telling with revolution number 9 is fascinating enough to hear this at least once. I mean, I its pretty nice to hear too.

9! = He Poos Clouds


Thought: The Arcade Fire can get in a tour van accident involving two guys precariously carrying chicken coops across a busy intersection and I wouldn't give a care. However! Piqued, my interest was, by this deluge of press that Owen Pallet was getting due to his string arrangements for Funeral. His first album, Has a Good Home, was admirable in its looped violin and pluckedness but it sounded rushed. His vocals and melodies were far too boring to hold my interest over the mediocre song structures.
I initially listened to Final Fantasy because I may or may not be a crazed, bemouthfoamed lunatic when it comes to the video game of the same name. So I stuck with him, even when his next album's name was "He Poos Clouds". Not interested.
but I listened anyway. I was rewarded with intricate indie-baroque, possibly supplied with extra bombast found in dumpsters behind major Broadway playhouses, impeccably placed crescendos and decrescendos, dischordance when appropriate. Its like listening to Bach if Bach wore girls jeans and didn't have that whole "God" thing between himself and being a raging homo. Oh, and also lived in Chicago.

8! = Cylinders


The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is the best thing thats happened to recorded music from the pre-disc recordings era. Aside from, you know, being recorded in the first place. UCSB is digitizing as many old cylinders as they can get their stubby little academic fingers on. It's a great resource for anyone remotely interested in pop music of the late nineteenth century and early 20th century. It's also the best thing that has happened to heat my boiling desire to hear minstrelsy music and thus fuel my raging bigotry and racism. Dig deep and you might hear a few pretty little diddies covered with an aesthetically pleasing gravy of static.

7! = Yoyoyoyoyoy


A common argument against Spank Rock's YOYOYOYOyoyoyoyo is... I'm actually not sure what the argument ever was? I mean, I've heard smatterings of an acidic taste from the ... sexism? I just don't hear it, Pitchfork.
Or, rather, I don't understand how one could take Spank Rock to task for sexism when Fishscales and Clipse (though absolutely phenomenal albums) get higher ratings and still have twice as much mysoginy. Is it less okay to speak with sexist language when a hip-hop album is DFA and hipster (re:college educated white Williamsburgite) approved?
All questioning aside, this is a direction that I'd like hip-hop to start moving in, a focus on inovative production is my remedy for the bachwashed Outkast Atlanta sludge that we're listening to these days. At least we still have The Neptunes and Timbaland to spice shit up a bit. Anyway this is the best booty shakin album I heard all year, and that includes this.

6! = Drum's not Dead


The concept for Liars new album, Drum's Not Dead, sounds like something out of a Maruice Sendak book. Drum, representing headstrong braveness, and Mt. Heart Attack, representing mountains and heart attacks and... not-Drum, constantly battle it out on this dangerous album. I say dangerous because holy shit it has so much potential to just be annoying. Anything this drum and beat heavy could get annoying Soooo very fast. Instead its a calvalcade of drums and cymbals and guitar fuzz and chase scenes through the unfocused woods in the middle of the night and resonating piano or bell chimes and room room room room room to walk around and explore. I love the Liars because they manage to make the most fucked up, ugly music sound like its supposed to be somewhere, sound like you're somewhere you're not supposed to be. Don't dive head first into this one.

5! = My Love


The new Justin Timberlake album is a festering pile of hipster bait, piled on a stump with several concentric rings going round round round a la Wile. E Coyote. What does that target signify? Well some would say the word "fag" but obviously those are the Bro's who look up Hoobastank tabulature when they're not working at Sam Goody. Rather, that target is to loop everyone (aside from certain Sam Goody employees) everyone into the hip VH1 celebrity Perez Hilton crowd and most people jump right in. I think, however, that the album stutter steps and trips right there. The Coldplay part at the end of Lovestoned, the crunky Chop Me Up, the "Hi my name is bob and I work at my Job" idiocy of Losing my Way. I was psyched about this album until I realized Timbaland blew his load on the song that I am truly putting at number 5: My Love.
No shit right? I mean, maybe I was lucky in that I naturally stay as far from a ny radios as an ant from a cucumber. My roommate Joanna is not so fortunate and had to hear this song emerge like constant, unending stockticker tape from her radio. I forgive those of you who had to deal with this, I understand. I, on the other hand, could listen to this song on repeat (and have) for hours on end. Timberlake might not choose the brainiest of lyrics, but he sure can fucking make me believe (almost) anything he says. And Tim, well he's Timbaland, pretty much can't go wrong there. The man has the heavyweight belt to prove that he is one of the most creative forces in pop music within the last fifteen years. I can't wait to hear his new album (without Magoo this time!).

4! = Gulag Orkestar


You know, I never really thought about how this album is so very important to 2006 for me until right now. It reminds me of a lot of different occurences about the year. Having heard about it through my friend Sarah I took a gander and gandered some of the best melodies overtop beautiful east-european kind of gyspsy feel. It may be musical colonialism (Zach Condon, Mr. Beirut himself has admitted to not having any ties nor having ever been to eastern Europe) and it makes me shudder a bit to say that I dont give a gall-durn. There is a strong backlash against this album because Condon might not live up to everyones expectations as a performer, but all I'm going off of are his beautiful songs and pretty damn decent lyrics.

3! = Silent Shout / So This Is Goodbye


Kitsch and I may have gotten in a whopping game of "who jerks off to music more" over Silent Shout the other day, but really in all seriousness I love Silent Shout. I prefer other albums a bit more but this one is still pretty fucking fantastic with the modulation of vocals. Nothing is more foreign, disconcerting, beautiful than hearing the soft pearly vocals of Karen Dreijer modulated to a genderless deep bass.

From the opening track to the final seconds of the last track Junior Boys prove that they know what they're doing. Double Shadow jumps out of a dark, bathroom-fucking groove, In the Morning has those quintuplet pinpricks that are thrown off kilter by the beat, So This Is Goodbye drunken bubbling around your head. Everything on this album has one if not two three four five perfectly crafted hooks. It may not have the sonic/dead space exploration of Last Exit, but its still a great album that I put at three along with Silent Shout.

2! = Yellow House


Grizzly Bear took all of my favorite things about music and made them into an album. Seriously, guys, way to go. Folk, gorgeous beach boy harmonies, laptop twists, non-formulaic structures, perfect hooks that they just toss aside (the stomp claps on Little Brother) I can't really write much more about this album than I've already said. It really is just about perfect.

1! = Ys


I mean, seriously? who didnt expect this. I didn't within the first five seconds of Emily. oh also, within the next 55 minutes and thirty one seconds. There is nothing more I can really say about this album than that it is wildly innovative while managing to retain the simple commonplacities of music. The songs structure themselves like poetry, weaving in and out and in and out of each other. Only Skin will drop you in the water with Newsom, then gust you up into the air, remind you that she still has the reigns, and slap you across the face all within several minutes. Each verse is its own tiny composition and each new verse is reminiscent of the last, but is curious enough to poke its nose down holes one never expects.
Her words are perfect. Poetry need not be filled with archaic diction (hell, my favorite poet is Billy Collins) but that she uses it makes her verse all the more fascinating, I find. That she is even able to balance these extraneous words in her lyrics is incredible even for a poet, but that she is able to pad them down neatly into the meter and constant shifts of her music is beyond all comprehension to me. So I sit back, and listen, and find new nooks each time I hear them.

Thats all folks!

Props to: Clipse, Girl Talk, Destroyer, Boy from School by hot chip, Isis, Josef K, Vince Guaraldi, Moondog, Lloyd I'm ready to be Heartbroken by Camera Obscura, Cat Power, Sam Cooke, and whoever the hell else I'm too lazy to think of right now.

Cap'n Guthrie Backpedals #2

Well, well, well, so you've decided to read me again have you? I appreciate it and, perhaps, so will you when you realized that I'm going to renege my opinion about a band comprised entirely of horses.

SOOOOOO...when I first heard band of horses I was all like "whatever dude, this sounds like My Morning Jacket" and then I said "My Morning Jacket sounds like cats on a scratching post made out of chalkboard." I've learned, since then, that both of those statements are only partially true. The former statement? well I'll get to that. The latter statement? Most of their songs are too boring to sound like a cat scratching a chalkboard.

So, what is this post for? Will I continue to toss out polarizing particles and then refuse to back them up? A negative magnet speaking about negative magnets, as it were? (If you don't like it then you'd do better to not click any of those links on the right hand side of this very page).

Who gives a shit about all these hyporhetoricals, all I know is that this band of horses album is great with its powerful twisty wind chime melodies, Built To Spilly shimmers, the best parts of My Morning Jacket (re: the singing, mahgeeta). I'm not going to lie, I'm a sucker for soaring, echoing vocals; my sweet-tooth falling frequently upon bands like Keane or The Appleseed Cast. Here, in the lush green world of sunbeams through treebranches that Band of Horses makes, I feel like I should go outside with sword and shield and save a damsel in distress and then immediately after that feel like I should probably take a nap.

They sometimes have the penchant for sounding like a country version of Bloc Party (Wicked Gil) but, hey, thats not all that bad right?

too bad the music video for one of the best songs sucks. Check it anyway tho:

Lets celebrate post #51 and try to get that damn Junior Boys video off the page!

Well, lets not waste our breathing on Stylus' top 100 because its just weird . They put Lets Get out of this Country above The Life Pursuit? They put Annuals above both of those? weird dudes, weird. I can't wait to see their zany list for the top ten.

So I've heard a bit about this silly Tune Glue thing. I mean, its a marketing tool for Capitol Records, sure, but does it work? Did Capitol Records do their research? Well when I typed in little known bands like Bob Dylan and, perhaps you've heard of him, Meat Loaf, well everything came up roses, and I don't mean Ethel Merman.

But seriously it had everything from The Silver Apples, to Ethel Merman, to Apocalyptica, to the slavic band Eva Braun (not to mention connected with several other slavic bands).

Its a pretty awesome little tool, but not always accurate. I put in Animal Collective and it linked me to The Books and Broken Social Scene. I'm not sure how those bands match up... maybe because Animal Collective uses computers and...guitaaaarrrs?? Thats like saying Public Enemy sounds like Wu-Tang Clan because they're hip-hop in the same era...which tune glue,um, does say. And I'm sure they kind of stretch the rules when it comes to pitching their own bands which light up with annoying house-down-the-block christmas colors.

So its not altogether the most accurate thing on the web, but hey, isn't the beauty of the internet that anyone can claim anything and be 50% accurate? Its not? well what the fuck am I writing a blog for?

In response

Alright, I said I wasn't going to do this but my response to Kitsch's comment on my last post was so long that I decided to just post it to see what other people say (although he's the only one that responds anymore, you douche bags.)

Cookie Mountain and YS are tough albums and Silent Shout isn't quite everyones cup o' tea. Liars being in the top 10 at all is bizarre, that album is great but more difficult than the rest of the top ten put together. I like that 2006 was a year of great, complicated albums and I like that Pitchfork is not really compromising too much when it comes to reader accessibility vs. straight up good albums.

I don't know what to think about silent shout being number one, though. a lot of people did like it, but in my opinion the second half is a bit lackluster, and the lyrics aren't really anything special (I'm dancing for dollars/for a fancy man).

Not that I expect them to wow me with their English considering they're, what, sweeeeeedish? Its just that I feel calling something a great ALBUM and ranking it against other ALBUMS presumes that an album is a cohesive collection of songs that all speak in the same direction. The Knife has got itself a good cohesive sound going, sure, but nothing in the album really feels like they had a mission in mind. It feels more like they've got a good sound and ... what ... what else?
More to come??? I don't know. I dont have opinions anymore. I'm a barrel of opinions with the bottom cork pulled.

Pitchfork's Top Ten

Well, regardless of who you are in independant rock, that is, regardless of whether you heed or screed Pitchfork, you must know that their top fifty albums are the most important list to come out for our little (big) crowd of people pretending we know more about music than others. Just ask Sufjan or Travis Morrison. The former is on the verge of being played alongside Dave as the between set music at every college open mic night in the country. The latter? probably scrubbing toilets with a potato peeler at the same coffee shop that Sufjan is being played, the poor guy. (actually I have it from a good source that his next album sounds kinda good? One can only hope).

So I won't bitch and bemoan the top fifty. I'll link it and you'll be happy, even though you've probably already read it and started bitching and bemoaning it to your buddies. I will say this: number one and two, for me, was kinda wtf? not in the wuhtuhfuh-are-you-thinking? way.
more in the wuhtuhfuh
thats-not-what-I-expected-because-those-two-albums-aren't-that-great, um, way.

Here's the top ten:

10: Scott Walker - The Drift
09: Boris - Pink
08: Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
07: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
06: Liars - Drum's Not Dead
05: The Hold Steady- Boys and Girls in America
04: Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
03: Joanna Newsom - Ys
02: TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
01: The Knife - Silent Shout

Pitchfork's top fitty

Tell me what it look like

Far be it from Cap'n Guthrie to not follow some sort of crowd. I mean, if theres a crowd one would naturally saunter along the edge, hopping your eyes above heads and ducking between knees to view the spectacle. Right? Unless its a crowd of angry Spandau Ballet fans. In that case, walk the other way: a fupa-clad crowd of Midwestern Mannheim Steamroller fans are probably right around the corner. Ever seen a tai chi battle comprised entirely of moms? Problematic.

No, the crowd I speak of is that intrepid group of reporters, the bloggers. They are crowded around a little song: little club track called Lindsay Lohan's Revenge by Pase Rock. Funny, because they're crowded more around Spank Rock; merely a guest on this song.

The song is...hilarious? I can't tell. Its unfortunate that Lohan decided to show her hoo-hoo in public: yes, put cha panties on. and yes, I agree that she should be a little more careful with her lack of underpants when she's a superstar but then waaaaait a minute. In the middle of the song Spank and Pase begin to tell her to take them panties ... off? even more than that: her hoo-hoo looks like a "baby rat"? Furthermore, Spank starts to say he'd "nibble that cheese?"

Santogold then comes in with his verse and you realize that this song has gone from being a cute little dance floor commentary on celebritism to being an all out Farrelly Brothers poo-poo fest. I can imagine the guys all sitting in adjacent bathroom stalls, note pads betwixt their knees, fingers mounted upon pens; giggling; shouting to each other; words like "fart" and "doody" being flung about like baboon's poo at crowds of midwestern tourists.

Lindsay Lohan's Revenge

Video not-unrelated:

Chinese people want their democracy, Axl Rose willing to give it to them

After long long times of ten years the Guns and the Roses have released a tentative realease date for their release of "Chinese Democracy" they've also released several dates to be released from their touring schedule.

January 10: Sacramento
January 11: Bakersfield
January 13: Reno
January 16: San Diego


God I just annoyed myself too.

anyhow you get the gist of that, now get the gist of this: Axl Rose's apology letter where he actually apologizes a whole shitton for failing fans of GNR.

I don't know about you, but I personally need more songs with three guitar solos and guys in top-hats (even though guys in top hats have gone on to play shitty music) however the new album, according to Mr. Sebastian Bach of Skid Row (a totally credible and intelligent source on good music) in a Rolling Stone (a totally credible and intelligent source on good music) interview is this: “It’s a very cool album – it’s badass with killer screams, killer guitar riffs, but it’s got a totally modern sound. The word for it is ‘grand.’ It’s fucking epic. He’s reinvented himself yet again.”

Having not realized that Rose has ever reinvented himself, aside from intentionally making himself a hideous ogre with those corn-rows, I misunderstand Bach's statement. Why can't Axl be normal like other has-beens and start reading the Kaballah and getting pregnant and showing off his vagina during his birthday party when he has a come-back. Well, perhaps he hasn't actually reinvented himself? Perhaps Chinese Democracy is going to be the biggest most overwrought and expensive piece of trash since Michael Jackson's video for "Scream" ?



you gasp, that would be really fucking hard to do, but Axl might not be the most stable of people, Youtubers proves it.

or he could be like Van Halen and get the guys back together for one more round with the kids.

contourtionism

Bless those Bears of the Grizzly variety. I didn't get a chance to see them play with TV on the Radio because, well because I'm lazy and didn't check the schedules. God I want to see that TV but no problem, both bands are from Brooklyn so no problems there.

Grizzly Bear has announced new tour dates in 2007 and I stole the list below directly off of Tiny Mix Tapes much to their chagrin (actually they don't give a damn)

Several dates are with Akron/Family (aka Animal Collective wannabes), Dirty Projectors (folk? Computer? Prince? Gospel?), and The Papercuts (the most palateable the three bands) .

02.01.07 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s *
02.02.07 - Boston, MA - Museum of Fine Arts *
02.03.07 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse *
02.04.07 - Montreal, QUE - Main Hall *
02.05.07 - Ottawa, ON - Barrymore’s *
02.06.07 - Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace *
02.08.07 - Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig * ^
02.09.07 - Chicago, IL - Subterranean *
02.10.07 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry *
02.11.07 - Iowa City, IA - The Picador *
02.13.07 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
02.14.07 - Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
02.16.07 - Seattle, WA - Neumo’s $
02.17.07 - Vancouver, BC - Plaza Club $
02.18.07 - Portland, OR - Mission Theatre $
02.20.07 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall $
02.21.07 - Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour $
02.23.07 - Tucson, AZ - Plush $
02.24.07 - Marfa, TX - Ballroom Marfa $
02.26.07 - Norman, OK - Opolis $
02.27.07 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada $
02.28.07 - Austin, TX - Emo’s Jr $
03.01.07 - Baton Rouge, LA - Chelsea’s $
03.02.07 - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn $
03.03.07 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 $
03.04.07 - Washington, DC - Black Cat $
03.06.07 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom $

* with Dirty Projectors
^ with Akron/Family
$ with Papercuts

Cap'n Guthrie, back and refreshed

Okay. So I ran away from home, red and white checkered bindle, a heavy thirst for alcohol, a pocket full of cigarettes, and an unhealthy smattering of cares ground down into dust to be scattered in the wind (only to subsequently blow back into my eyes and infect them worse than rubbing my face all over a McDonalds ballpit)

Several college buddies visited over the weekend and quickly fled the BKNYC. I, bad judgement me, turned my hands into giant hooks like T-1000 and latched them onto the back of the car. They tried their best to swerve and shake me off but I soon sat in the back of a Yaris passing EZly down the interstate.

I ended up in Fredericksburg and eventually hopped a bus to Charlottesville where I saw Dave Matthews slink into a coffee shop where I was reading Faulkner and charging my phone, swipe his eyes along the myriad UVA females in the room, and return to his two toe-headed little girls and feed them, what, coffee? I dont know. I needed a smoke break and a record or two to clean my pallate of bad coffee, Birkenstocks (as ubiquitous as white guy dreadlocks in Charlottesville), and lead singers whose Birkenstock, bad coffee drinking, UVA going fans inexplicably know on a first name basis.

The used bin held several good finds: Pavement's Brighten The Corners (why is everyone used-binning all over Pavement these days?), the Re-issue of A Charlie Brown Christmas (which is actually a lot sexier than you remember. Is that weird?), Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, and a rare(???) Live LP by John Cage/David Tudor called Variations IV.

As you may know, the music news is in short supply to those, like me, who have been astride the beautiful blue skies and poor transportation in the Sort-Of-South VA. I've taken my jacket off several days in a row now; Am I a true New-Englander now? or have we humans simply turned the atmosphere into the baby-fingerprint-smeared windows of a hot car in a Wal-Mart Parking lot?

I'll never know, but I will get back to you on this John Cage LP once I get a proper listen on my Beogram (initial reaction: sounds like it may hurt my face) . Thanks for being patient, I hope I didnt lose any of you, considering your attention spans are as thin as pages in the compact OED, assholes.

Stephen and the Colbert's

You may remember my post of a few days ago being about those Decemberists and Stephen Colbert's wordbattle. Well here I am, drinking coffee out of Donald Duck's ass (literally. the mug is shaped like his ass) inVirginia and watching Colbert rebutt once again to The Decemberist's shreddin' challenge. I was Agog. Now I am even more agog, and delighted.

This man. This man Colbert. Genius:

Junior Boys at Studio B

So I'll be up front about this: I did not stay for Morgan Geist. I'm sorry. I know you were all dying to hear about the DJ stylins of Geist, but I had to leave. Really for two reasons:

1.) Studio B, a club that manages an amalgamation of a roller rink and a Gwen Stefani video (not to mention above average costs for drinks), attracts the most beautiful Hipsters this side of Manhattan. For most people this would be A+, for me its a nerve racking, cornering C minus minus minus.

2.) That article that I so recently wrote for Brooklynradio.com was due at 12:00 last night and The Junior Boys didn't go on until 11. Pain in the ass. but the good pain, you know? Like anal sex.

Thats out of the way. Now onto the show.

Honestly it was a bit of a let down. When I walked into Studio B I felt the humming of thousands of libidos rather than the buzzing of thousands of music fans. Granted, libidos should go hand in hand with those sexy boys. Don't get me wrong, plenty of ladies were cooing along to the sultrier songs, but less ladies, hell people in general, than I was expecting. What I mean is this: the audience seemed less interested in the music and more interested in the booze and the disco lights. I had a difficult time determining who was there for the band and who was there because Studio B is just their scene.

I've never been to a show where looking obnoxiously hot is more important than enjoying the band. Granted there is always that element, we're all guilty of too cool for schooling it, but I should at least be able to play "who's the fan? who's the friend?" without thinking too hard. (dancing in the fan is inversely proportional to the amount of song-is-over dancing in the friend)

I had heard that they played with a drum kit, but I didn't really believe it until I saw them get up on stage. Jeremy Greenspan (drink of choice Vodka Tonic) and Matt Didemus (Budweiser) who were standing next to me during the entire opening DJ (all I could muster were furtive glances and maybe a kissy face or two when they turned their backs) played bass and laptop/keyboards respectively. Then some other dude, who must have had six arms that I didn't see, played the drums. Not that impressive until you see him playing Birthday: his patience and punctuality must be extraordinary to play that song.

They opened with "The Equalizer" which was nice enough, but around the second song, "Like A Child", the qwerty calisthenics going up and down kept cutting out. I don't think Studio B cared much because it took them a while to realize that the song didn't just suck but had a-whole-nother part that was lost in some wire somewhere along the way. They only played three tracks from the old album, "Birthday", "Teach Me How to Fight", and ... "Under the Sun" as an encore? Thats the most repetetive, boring track on the album. I was a little perturbed.

Obvious omissions were "High come Down","Last Exit" and "Double Shadow". I'll give them the first two because the drummer would have had a seizure, but Double Shadow seems like a gimme for a dance floor. They did, however, play So This Is Goodbye, which pleased Guthrie.

Overall I'd give the show a B+ for effort (even though the Junior Boys looked as bored with the audience as the audience was pretending to look with them) and a D to Studio B.

Six bucks for a stella? Fechh.

Junior Boys myspace

P.S. Junior Boys are sponsoring a make our music video contest at here dot com. Here's a cool one below:

Perhaps

You've heard about my multitude of talents, but did you know I could write as well?

Yeah, neither did I until I got this piece at Brooklyn Radio covering the Blip Festival and the general frenzy surrounding game boy music and shit.

Here it is:
Passion of the Gameboy: The 8 Bit Fest

Yikes.

Cap'n Gutrhie Halfasses the Grammys

I may be a bit late on this but, honestly, spending much time on the Grammys is like washing your lawn. So here is a quick recap of my reaction to this (and every) years grammy awards: wutufuh?

Somewhere along the line the Grammy committee was replaced by a group of white southern college girls and Zach Braff because thats really the only explanation that I can give for why James Blunt is at the top of the list. So, album of the year? Well you can choose between this smorgasboard of dump:

St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley: Weird R&B does not equate to good R&B. Pitchforkmedia really flexed their taste making muscle here. "Crazy" would have come and gone, pounding its bassline through my roof in a steady arc in its progression, but then the album got stuck on a windowhook and I had to listen to it all summer long. bastards.

Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers: What is it about bands named after food? Bread, Korn, Cake. Most of them suck. Truth be told I'm a fan of about a third of RHCP's catalogue, when they do their funky non-fratboy music me and Keidis are alllright.

Futuresex/Lovesounds - Justin Timberlake: I'm actually not too hot on this album anymore. at first I jumped out of my pants listening to it but the only song that really stuck with me was My Love. and what a damn doosie that song was. I'd slarve Timbaland's Doad any day.

Honestly I haven't listened to the John Mayer album nor have I heard the Dixie Chicks album. I feel no need to and I feel no shame in commenting on how I will probably think that they're just ok or worse. However, I've changed my tune on Mary J. Blige after hearing the supernal We Ride(I see the future). Alex you're a fucking prick.

Good luck looking through that list without blinking, or falling asleep its long as a fucking freight train. I can give you a summary right now: Spiro Gyra, James Blunt, Bette Midler, Buckcherry?, Matisyahu (on reggae no less), Weird Al.

Good to go.

Cap’n Guthrie’s interview with Kurt of The Depreciation Guild

I'm currently in the midst of writing an article about Blip Festival and the Chip revolution happening here in New York Citahhh. I got a chance to sit down with Kurt Feldman of The Depreciation Guild, who played on the third day of Blip Festival, and just go through the ins and outs of the growing scene and to talk about some hot babes.

CG: Gimme your name, band name, etc.

K: uh, Kurt Feldman I’m the Guitarist for The Depreciation Guild, and uh songwriter, programmer, main entitity.

CG: alright pretty good. What do you use, what are your major instruments in the group?

K: Well, The Depreciation Guild consists of two guitars, vocals, and our 8 bit setup which is basically played through our computer. We compose all of our songs on a tracker, which was kind of a project that started, I guess around like the late ninties, and was actually abandoned by 1999. So, the software that we actually use is an interface called a tracker and it outputs Nintendo code, like, authentic Nintendo code which can actually play through a Nintendo.

CG: How did you find out about this [style of music], did you find it out through friends? Or people…

K: no actually, I mean, I’ve always been kinda just drawn to Nintendo music and just, like, the nostolgaic sound that is kind of associated with Nintendo music. And I’ve just sort of been drawn to the simplistic rawness of the way it sounds. Like the pulse waves and you know all the sounds that are produced by such a simple machine and I kind of wanted to see, you know, how much you could push the machine. I had found out about micromusic.net probably around 2002, I started listening to some gameboy artists

CG: like gameboy, like people had already started re-using game boy sounds?

K: yeah, ones who were at the forefront of that scene were, you know, nullsleep,
Bit-Shifter people who were submitting, you know, kind of just random tracks to this website called micromusic.net and I was drawn to that I was really fascinated by it. I started downloading music and I remember I heard this track by this guy named halley and it totally blew my mind because he was doing things that sounded like electric guitars and sounded like really crunchy distortion but it was all being produced, supposedly, by a Nintendo and I kind of found it hard to believe.
After hearing that I was like, wow I want to do this and I want to figure out how and I really didn’t know any way so I just kind of did some web searches, typing random things into google, and I got this result for this program called Nerdtracker ii and that was this program that I just mentioned before. It outputs the code which you can actually play on a Nintendo at 100%, and you’re actually playing your songs on the hardware itself.

CG: do most of the other artists who do this, like through the game boys… I mean I saw someone using a gameboy advance the other day [at blip festival], they use this program?

K: actually for gameboy its different. There was a guy named Johan Kutlinsky who invented this program called LSDJ and you can actually purchase it through his website. It’s a totally comprehsensive synthesizer for your gameboy and basically what you have to do is you have to purchase not only that program but a writable cartridge in which you can burn that game on to a cartridge and then from there you can kind of save your data on to your gameboy itself and compose, you know, on the train or wherever you are. You actually program in the notes themselves and it reads it like a sequencer would read it.

CG: yeah I saw a bunch of the guys [at Blip Festival] blowing out their gameboy cartridges [to clean them].

K: yeah

CG: to what extent do you think the music, like this [chip music], has spread or is spreading? I mean obviously with Blip Festival there was a pretty good turn out which I suppose is indicative of a lot of interest in this type of art.

K: yeah, well [The Depreciation Guild] joined up with 8-bit peoples bout a year ago and I had been to a bunch of Nullsleep’s shows, he runs 8 bit peoples… well that show [Blip Festival] was set up by nullsleep and bit-shifter and actually Nullsleep’s girlfriend I think also helped organize it and Mike Rosenthal who runs The Tank [ the club where blip festival was held] um they all kind of like pooled their resources on that, but Jeremiah Johnson, who is the owner of 8 bit peoples, which is a website net label … hes the one that set that up, and since we joined 8 bit peoples a year ago I’ve watched the website grow exponentially.

CG: like message boards and stuff?

K: no not so much message boards but with like myspace and all the artists starting to join up on myspace. The knowledge of 8bit music is really spreading. And also the fact that all the music is available for free on 8 bit peoples so there is really no cost barrier preventing people from accessing this music. And its interesting because its kind of this archaic medium that nobody has really dared to touch for a while and theres a few guys who are getting really into it right now.

CG: what led you to bring guitars into the mix? And also kind of a shoegazy MBV sound?

K: um well, that’s just the music that we love. The guitars and Nintendo mix actually pre-dates this band [The Depreciation Guild] we’ve got a couple songs on our computer which, Adrian and I used to play in this other band which was just kind of a straight up “Indie-band” and at the very end of our career as a band, we were together for about 4 and a half years (so Adrian and I have worked together for a while.) But there were other members you know there was a live drummer and a bass player too, we had composed a couple of songs that were originally intended for use by that band and it was just that idea came to mind.
I started writing chip tunes and I said hey lets combine the two. I think it would be cool to add a synthesizer element to our music, and it didn’t really work because our drummer wasn’t very good. [In order] to play along with a synth you kind of have to have a metronomic sense of rhythm. And in the wake of that band I said hey lets do this to Adrian, let get rid of the drummer and the bass player its all in this code right here, all we need is us. Lets just do this together.

CG: Cool, So do you, like, to go to other peoples shows around here? Like nullsleep shows?

K: yeah Nullsleep does shows and Bit-Shifter does shows around here, actually there is kind of a like a burgeoning chip-tunes scene here in New York. The two places where its really thriving right now is like New York and Japan, and also parts of Europe like Sweden.

CG: Covox.

K: Covox is from Sweden, Random is from Sweden.

CG: but whenever they all come over, like for Blip Festival, do you manage to catch them?

K: yeah well, actually its been a very rare occurrence for that. The only other instance for that was Aonami [from japan] who played last year and he played a set with us so that was actually really awesome. But since then, the Blip festival has really been like the first opportunity to gather all these amazing chiptune artists from around the world and put them under one roof and celebrate that which was totally mind blowing for everybody.

CG: how did Blip Festival come about, did 8 bit peoples just toss it out there?

K: I guess it was a crazy idea that just like ended up working really well.

CG: There was a lot of art as well

K: yeah, there was a lot of art involved, some of those guys who did the visuals… actually do shows at Pulse Wave, which is The Tank’s normal location in China Town…And they do that once a month. Some of those guys are New York based artists.

CG: yeah, what kind of systems do they work with. A lot of the art looked like when you get dust in your cartridge but, obviously, more complex.

K: yeah more intentional. You actually kind of have to fool around with the wiring … Chip Bending, which is intentionally messing up hardware and synthesizers and stuff. It’s the same principle for those guys like NoTendo who do screwed up visuals with old Nintendo cartridges.

CG: and they do a lot of shows around the city as well?

K: they do a lot of stuff at The Tank. Actually there’s installations there, which is one of the reasons why The Tank is so cool is that it’s like a performance art space in general so its got like shows there, installations with related media, not necessarily messed up video game stuff. Sometimes it is but it could be other things with different mediums.

CG: Overall, I thought there was a pretty mixed audience at Blip Fest.

K: Yeah, some pretty hot babes there too.

CG: Seriously hot babes. Who do you think the audience is for a lot of this stuff? Where do you think they come from?

K: well some of our fans are our friends, and other ones are people who will find us through 8 bit peoples and locate us through myspace. And it kind of touches a nerve in not only like the video game nostalgia part but how that’s incorporated into familiar music like Shoegaze.

CG: how you suggest to anyone interested in creating this chip-art, how would you suggest they go about doing that?

K: theres a ton of free resources online that you can latch onto. 2A03.org is another website that Nullsleep runs and its dedicated to composing on the 2A03 chip, the rycode chip inside the Nintendo, hence the name 2A03.org. and that has a bunch of free resources for composing Nintendo stuff. But be aware that you’re gonna have to devote a lot of time. Its not really a casual hobby. You’ve got to really sit down with it and learn the software, learn the hardware. To really learn all that it takes a long time. It took me several months to get really proficient with the program. But if you’re computer savvy and you have the drive to do it then, you know, its possible.

CG: when is The Depreciation Guild’s next show?

K: December 14^th at "Lit" 2 Avenue between 5 and 6 street.

CG: and you [Kurt] do a DJ set at reboot restaurant every other Friday?

K: Yeah 37 street Avenue A, yeah we do shoegaze, ethereal dream-pop sets my friend Christoph and I both DJ.

CG: awesome, well I guess that’s it, thanks a lot for letting me interview you.

K: No problem.

Check out The Depreciation Guild's Myspace for a couple of MyTunes and drop by the 8bitpeoples website if you want to read more about this chip-movement.

Cap'n Guthrie Backpedals #1

In light of my last post I will be starting a new segment that you will see every other Wednesday from this point on called: "Cap'n Guthrie Backpedals" Its where I actually step down from the deck to rabble on with the crew and take a look at my musical mistakes, of which there are few (hence doing it every other week).

and first on the list is Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast.

I was pretty psyched about Matmos and their banging on things and recording it. They record things like cow guts, snailshells, jerking off onto a microphone. no kidding to all of that. Sounds pretty fun right?

Well I didnt think so when I first heard it. To my ears it sounded like a musical version of Wheres Waldo. Wheres the cow guts? Which of those sounds are the roses? Where is Bjork? These thoughts clouded my ears. Forced overthinking's cottony substance into them. Instead of hearing music I heard a sequence of splats and squishes made of the "what sound was that" game.

That isn't to say I didn't want to hear music. I wanted so hard to be able to piece the beats and swirls and farts into my ears and brains. Alas, my thoughts would not let me. It was like reading a great book printed on several hundred cinderblocks. All I wanted to do was lift each sound up and take it somewhere to study its crevices rather than see the completed edifice.

However! After the hair-dye and tight pantaloon fueled dust died down around Matmos I waved my hand through and through the grimy air. Coughing, wincing in eyepain, and listening. and liking.

I enjoy the swishing almost watery sound of Germs Burn for Darby Crash. I enjoy the psychotic Rag for William S. Burroughs. I enjoy the deep brass and brashness of Snails and Lasers for Patricia Highsmith. Each song tells the story of the particular gay or lesbian artist it mentions in its title and each song, amazingly, is listenable in each their own manic way.

I therefore renege on my earlier selve's cold shoulder. The album is like listening to a more fluid, warmer in a way, version of The Books. No distant clipping of samples or bouncy computerized flips and gadgetry.

Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein

Matador Records

Lance Bass and boyfriend split? Guthrie's all over that shit.

I thought I'd take a moment, a breather, from furiously bending my fingers in unnatural ways in order to bring you musical zeros and ones. I have been writing in this blog for several weeks now, the stickysweet lingerings of champagne still clinging to the front of her hull, and trying to write in it every day. I have succeeding with fairly few misspellings(sp?) but what of it? Where will I go? What will I do?

My thoughts, like an unruly van full of preteens. My head, a chuck-e-cheese's.

Of course, I will continue to write. I am compelled by my music, it goads me, eggs me. It lives in the tips of my fingers and tells them to touch these plastic keys. and if I forget? I turn flagellate; my back becomes bloodied and stripped raw from several guitar strings taped to a set of keys.

Since Monday I have had no job aside from the writing work that www.theladders.com was gracious enough to give me, alms for the poor. In other words, this is my living now, I am a...a... freelancer. I shake my metal cup, huddled beneath a blanket, and accost those who are daring enough to walk to the outside corners of the internet.

But the future looks bright. Soon enough this blog, the ceiling leaking from the blog above, the floorboards creaking and flimsy enough to see the blog below, will be redone. The boxes are still lying everywhere, but it will only take a month or two to clear them out, put them on the curb. and a buddy of mine is getting rid of a couch, so you guys can at least have a seat.

In other words, keep reading and I'll keep you posted on the best news like this and this and this.

Pazz'n'jop'n'Hinder

Back in my senior year of high school we all though it would be pretty awesome if we were not dancing to Green Day's "Time of Your Life" and by we I mean my friends and I. Instead we wished to be spinning and kicking and grabbing our crotches to the sinister synths of Thriller. Alas, a much worse fate awaited us at the end of that Prommish tunnel: "Heres to the Night" by Eve 6. That jagged and rusty toenail clipper of a band jabbed itself into my ears again and again, not to mention the voices countless brownroot blondes and swooshfront haired chumps singing in not-so-unison to it. Plus, my date wouldn't dance to the few songs that did appeal to my friends and I.

It was the worst prom ever.

This tangent has a point, and it is this: voting for something that clearly, clearly will not win because everyone else has a sense of obligation is sometimes foolhardy. But if there is anything that saturday morning cartoons have taught me (everything) you have to fight for what you believe in.

I believe that Hinder, yes the band I once described as sounding like a Nickleback burrito that Bon Jovi crapped out, should win The Village Voice's Pazz'n'jop end of the year top ten albums list. Why? Precisely because the blogger "Anthony is Right" is campaigning for every voter to vote for Hinder's perfectly titled 2006 album EXTREME BEHAVIOR.

Why is he campaigning for this? Precisely because The Village Voice is no longer run independantly but is owned by The New Times Media, kind of like clearchannel for beloved art scene go-to mags. Furthermore the beloved Pazz'n'jop mogul, Robert Christgau (if you don't already know all this), was canned/sacked by The New Times Media. Why? It certainly left a lot of people scratching their chins and heads.

Anyway, I think its an hilarious idea to vote Hinder as the top album of the year simply because Hinder's fans are all those brownrooted blonde girls who now wear curlsided cowboy hats and swooshfront haired boys who now all have chlamydia. If I were a respected music journalist (and I am) and voting on this (and I'm not) I'd jump on the Hinderwagon like Hinder jumped on the Nicklewagon. Done.

I've found an even more painful version than the music video of "Lips of an Angel." I mean seriously I'll give you ten high fives or bucks if you sit through the whole thing.

Grizzly Bear's "Knife" music video

According to Stereogum.com Grizzly Bear has been in the production stages of a video for their near-perfect song Knife for about three months now. You know, that song with the moaning doo-wop and the tiny guitar sparks on the offbeat? Yeah that one.

God knows that they were going to come up with something effing awesome but who knew they were going to end up in the middle of the badlands with rockpeople and crazy contraptions that look like a gold prospector's mining apparatus? I don't know how their lush, leafy pop is going to work in the desert, but I don't put it past them to make. it. work.

The production company behind it is called "Ghost Robot" the same guys who did Hell House in 2001. They look pretty legit and also kinda pissed that Stereogum "spilled the beans".

Pretty psyched about this video considering how sweet it looks, I can't wait.

Blender's 50 worst artists of all time

I love lists. I love 'em. I can't get enough of em. They're like crack to me. Crack laced with orgasms and breasts. I know people think lists are the death of the music critic, that no one needs to write anymore all they need to do are create lists, blah blah blah. I find that to be as ridiculous as the bouncing cards at the win of a solitare game.

The reason people don't like to read about music anymore is because there are too many assholes like me trying to stuff their face with assholish words. "HEY! Hey jerk! Listen to Kraftwerk if you like that band. No fuck you! You'll like it or I will cut you with a broken, jagged Love LP." But lists can be great! Its a simple way to let people in on a dialogue that is so closely protected by the be-hooded inner cult of critics without making them jump through hoops or draw pentagrams in catsblood on their palms and feet. My top ten picks of the year are X, Y, Z, A, and B, you should hear them. Simple. Clean. not necessarily pretentious (though it could swing that way). No sacrificial celebrity babies involved.

What I hate are when certain assholes out there claim to have recieved some sort of authenticity excalibur handed to them from the deep and vomitous waters of the Frat house keg bucket. You know, a lot of lists can really just be ignored because they're so inane or clearly have absolutely no idea what they're talking about (TIME). Rather, my biggest pet peeve is the opposite end of the spectrum, the worst (whatever) (song/album/yada) of (whenever) kind of lists. Vh1 is a constant offender. But today's whipping (frat) boy is Blender magazine.

If you look at top ten lists as tastemaking then you're an idiot who obviously can't discern for him/herself whether or not you disagree with the author of that list. Its simple: "Oh, hey Steve, I keep hearing that this Joanna Newsom CD is great, can I listen to it?" (much time passes) "Damn Steve, I just can't agree that that Newsom CD is great. Thanks for letting me borrow it, though. Lets go get some tacos, brojangles."

On the other hand there are the "worst of" lists like the one that Blender has pooped onto our plate. "Oh, hey Steve, I heard this album sucks. I don't want to listen to that. Lets go get some burritos, brosef"

My point is this: "worst of" lists do no good to the world. You can say ICP sucks all you want, but you're not opening a critical dialogue about their mysoginy, racism, or violence (the bigger issues than just sucking). As many kids as I'd rather have not listening to ICP I'd rather them listen to it and decide for themselves that they dislike it than listen to someone else's opinion.

Ultimately my personal perturbance stems from this: There are too many people in the world who are more willing to talk when it comes to what is deemed as 'good' because 'good' is easy, but no one ever wants to start a dialogue about what is deemed 'bad' because calling something bad has the potential for harsher disagreement. "worst of" lists give them an exit key without ever having to critically determine what they dislike about ICP's music or Iron Butterfly's music or Starship's music.

But I guess Blender's main audience is comprised of guys who don't know that you can jerk off to fully declothed women anytime you want on the internet.