oh, i am such a lonely lonely blog

*drinks some rum*

so i went to see the dandy’s last night at ed’s in edmonton. (a) the show was awesome. they played for like almost two hours.. including genius(!) and tons of stuff off thirteen tales. also they played I LOVE YOU!!!! totally sounded so ridiculously awesome. everything off odditorium was way rad. (b) after the show we went backstage and hung out with them until they had to leave. brent was a huge stud. i love that dude. zia was super super super nice, <3. i didn’t really talk to peter at all. and courtney and this groupie-i-agree-with-everything-courtney-says i-know-everything-about-their-history super annoying girl were trying to tell me that basquiat rode warhol to famedom. i was like efff that basquiat was way famous before he ever even met warhol. but they would not believe me!!! tiny bit of respect lost :( also brent’s girlfriend sara(h?) was super cool and nice too. i showed brent the updates i just had done to my tattoo yesterday and he called me the craziest mofo he has ever seen. lol! i will post pics when my roommate gets back with his camera. i luvs you dandy’s!!!!!

omg it’s been like a totally long time duderZ. this post is dedicated to ema who left me a comment and reminded me that 2 or 3 of you read this thing! omg!

ok so let’s begin.

crap i forgot the ascii code for a bullet point.

• ok i found it.

• ok. first order of business: the national’s new album, boxer is effing brilliant. i dug alligator kindof but i didn’t really listen to it that much. this is way better. like way better. it’s really really good.

• i’ve been totally listening to silver jews a lot lately. especially american water; you know, that one with stephen malkmus

• the new modest mouse keeps growing on me more and more and i keep loving it more and more every time i listen to it. i am definitely a fan of johnny marr being in the band.

• i got a dui on sunday morning about 5 minutes after i had woken up :( apparently i blew over from the beers i had the night before. had to spend the morning in jail and i didnt have my phone and didn’t know anyone’s number so i had to walk 15 miles home in flip flops :( it was a bummer of a day.

• i’m really pissed that ohio state made the finals. i hate greg oden so much. they should have lost to xavier

• curb your enthusiasm is pretty much the greatest show ever.

• the prestige is one of the best movies i’ve seen in a long long time. i totally thought it was going to be retarded when i saw previews for it but people told me i had to watch it so i did. and BAM, it was good. also i love christian bale <3

• the new black rebel motorcycle club has leaked.. although i haven’t seen a version that isn’t a transcode. it’s totally good though. a little harder than the last one, a little bit back to the neo-jesus-and-mary-chain-style they used to be.

• there’s a new chevelle. it’s kinda boring. they’ll probably never top wonder what’s next

• i heard this wicked cover of tv on the radio’s staring at the sun by the subways. check it out.

• oh and some bad news. the dude i get free hosting from said i’m using too much bandwidth.. so i had to take down the mp3s :’( i’m sorries

til next time!!
<3

The incredible Canadian band The Organ (if you don’t know of them, think The Smiths with no Y chromozome) has officially announced on their

The Organ will be missed by many :’(website that they are breaking up.

This is horrible, horrible news. The Organ was one of my favorite bands for the past few years and I’m pretty sad knowing that they only released an EP (Sinking Hearts), and a full-length (Grab That Gun)—both of which are some of the best records I’ve ever heard.

• I downloaded Civilization IV the other day. I love sim games and back in the day I was all about the Warcraft and Age of Empires. Anyway I had read a lot of good things about the Civilization series and I was pretty excited to play it and build my empire. Well, this game BLOWS!@!!!@@ WTF there’s like “turns” ?? You actually have to hit [return] like every 3 seconds to tell the game your turn is over. Ugh I wanted to kill myself after playing just the tutorial for all of 5 minutes. Not to mention there were all kinds of horrible animated scenes with ugly cgi characters getting all up in my grizzle about diplomatic relations. I don’t think anything will ever come close to the original Warcraft or Age of Empires. I downloaded Age of Empires III as well and will give that a try tonight. Otherwise I suppose I’ll play some Sim City 4, which isn’t nearly as great as I’d hoped it would be. Why do games always have to ruin themselves?

• Orange Fanta is really good until you drink more than 8oz., at which point it makes your intentines shrivel up and you will feel like gutwrenching death.

• I was bummed to hear about the James Kim saga ending in death. After actively following the story on Digg for a week, I felt so invested in the story. And the fact that it could have happened to anybody just made it so relatable and tragic :’(

• After a month of playing the horribly slowpaced, text-only online strategy game Inselkampf, I have finally amassed 80 points. I will soon be destroying all the weaklings surrounding my island.

• Am I completely retarded or is it impossible to post comments on Gawker-Media blogs such as Gawker and Deadspin?? I wanted to post a comment on Deadspin the other night to tell everyone how to stick it to the NFL Network by streaming the games on their PCs, but apparently it’s just simply not possible to register and post a comment?? WTF? Am I missing something?

• Every time I see a Scion xB business vehicle (about every 3-5 minutes if I’m driving somewhere), a shiver of rage traverses down my spine.

• Apparently The Decemberists accepted Stephen Colbert’s counter-counter challenge and will… compete in some sort of instrument challenge? I have no idea. The whole thing’s weird. And the Decemberists suck. Yeah they used to be good but they went too far with their Renaissance revival shtick and now every time I hear them I feel like I’m supposed to be dressed up as a Midieval peasant driving my friends to the Renaissance fair after our weekly Dungeons & Dragons game.

• Bob Dylan’s The Hurricane is still one of the greatest songs ever.

• Just say NO to the new NBA basketball. I vote for bringing back the cowhide. No one likes synthetic crap.

I got this horrible dose of reality emailed me today from the crank people at Kranky records:

Well WTF!??@? This is horrible news, as Benoît’s debut is definitely an album worth owning on vinyl. So please send out a collective FU to Kranky records.

I’m watching the USC and UCLA game right now, and I think it’s time for college football fans to rise up and say what everyone’s been thinking all year:

USC does not deserve to play in the national championship.

Michigan does. Do I need to remind you that their only loss this year came by three points, AT Ohio State???

Michigan deserves to play in the national championship, but no one likes a rematch so they’re most likely headed to the Rose Bowl.There are three teams right now that are garnering talk of playing in the BCS title game: USC, Michigan and Florida.

USC LOST to Oregon State, only won by six to Washington State, six to Washington, seven to Arizona State and very well might lose to UCLA.

Florida lost to a good, ranked Auburn team; barely beat a ranked Tennessee; and barely beat Georgia, Vanderbilt and South Carolina. They also played in one of the toughest conferences in the country (the SEC) and appear to be on their way to winning the championship.

Then there’s Michigan. Though the Big 10 isn’t the toughest of conferences, they’ve still managed quality wins over then #2 Notre Dame and Wisconsin. And, to pound you over the head with this some more: their ONLY loss was by just three points AT Ohio State.

When you have multiple teams with one loss all vying for a spot in the championship game, you go with the team with the toughest loss. That team is Michigan. The only reason people don’t want to see them is because for some reason no one likes a rematch. Michigan actually went down a spot in the BCS WITHOUT even playing.

Well I’m here to tell you: I like rematches. I like them a lot. They’re like the good kind of movie sequels (like Back to the Future). If Michigan were Back the the Future and USC were Cruel Intentions and Florida were American Pie, I don’t think we’d be disputing this. Michigan would be safely in the championship—ready and willing to defend Marty McFly’s honor.

Here I am on a Thursday night. I don’t have to work and the Bengals and the Ravens are going to be playing an awesome football game. I love the Bengals, not to mention I have T.J. Houshmandzadeh (yes, I can spell his name without difficulty), Shayne Graham and Mark Clayton on one of my fantasy teams.

I WANT TO WATCH THIS GAME

But I can’t. Because it’s on the NFL Network. And the NFL Network is a complete screwjob. They want over $150 million

T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the Bengals are playing at this very moment, but you won’t be able watch because it’s on the NFL Networkfor cable companies to carry their network, which will result in huge hikes for regular cable tv subscribers (most of whom probably don’t even watch football). So now we’re all stuck with not being able to watch the games because they’re selfish bastards. I guess I’ll just sit here and watch my Yahoo! stattracker :/

Anyway, for those of you fortunate enough (usually I would say unfortunate, but in this case you are the lucky ones with the only alternative options) to have PCs I give you the following links, if you’d like to stick it to the NFL Network and watch streaming, bittorrent style NFL games (I haven’t been able find any with Mac compatible software).

• a list of streamed NFL games
• SOPcast (live online streams)
• TVants (live oneline streams)
• TVUplayer (live oneline streams)

My Chemical Romance
The Black Parade
[2006; Reprise]
Here I go listening to the new My Chemical Romance album The Black Parade. My hopes are high, I liked their previous album, and no matter what any indie snob says, “Helena” is a hell of a good song. music doesn’t have to be unknown to be good.

track 1- “the end”

dear holy mother of all things this is awful. sweet mary it’s like the new killers mixed with garth brooks or some shit

:’(

many kittens are being tortured

track 2 - “dead”

omg it’s guns ‘n roses! when did axl start playing with this band.

omg the vocals are disgusting. wtf is this

track 3 - “this is how i disappear”

the intro is pretty good. i am definitely digging these guitars.

the guitars still going, i am digging.

chilled vocals, reminding me a little of avenged sevenfold or something.

this song isn’t bad at all. it seems to be excellent drinking music.

track 4 - “sharpest lives”

these beginning vocals are gross.. and what’s with the whispered secondary vocals. is this marilyn manson? what’s the deal with the new queen vibe, i feel like i’m listening to the wayne’s world soundtrack.

track 5 - “welcome to the black parade”

the piano intro is so sad.

this song reminds me of november rain or bohemian rhapsody or something.

the vocals are totally shitty. wtf @ the my chemical romance meets axl rose sound of this album

track 6 - “i don’t love you”

i am definitely down with the intro.

the intro stopped to make room for crappy vocals and weird start/stop action.

this song is moderately boring but not awful

track 7 - “house of wolves”

wtf@ the nofx meets pennywise intro

i think our lady peace is singing now.

track 8 - “cancer”

uhhh. this is pretty weird. more piano wannabe bohemian rhapsody style balladry.

track 9 - “mama”

wtf is the beginning of this song. it’s like if the decemberists were having a bonfire with satan and sacrificing babies wearing black lipstick instead of jousting the midieval black knight at the renaissance fair.

and what the holy hell @ the creepy david lynch midget character talking during the middle????

what an awful song.

track 10 - “sleep”

a weird warped tape recorderish intro that has no purpose being there at all.. leading into some boring our lady peace meets guns ‘n roses style vocals and marilyn mansony guitars.

boring

track 11 - “teenagers”

holy omfg this intro is gross. it’s like buckcherry if buckcherry really really really really sucked.

wow, the chorus is even worse than the verse.

this might be one of the worst songs i’ve heard this year.

track 12 - “disenchanted”

a strange nick drakian intro with the vocals of newish filter. not bad.

eww the chorus just kicked in.

the middle is not so horrible. it reminds me of lots of decent radio rock. not bad, but not good either.

probably one of the better songs on the album, though

track 13 - “famous last words”

what in the shit is up with his disgusting accentuation of words on this album???? the vocals on this song are totally gross.

i dig the chorus, reminds me of avenged sevenfold.

now we’re back into some sweet def leppardish action

not bad in a drunk at a bar sort of way

track 14 - “hidden track”

sweet it’s like early pink floyd back when syd barrett was still with them.

except barrett pretty much already made this song like 40 years ago.

this song definitely should have remained hidden

In closing: holy shitballs, this is almost as bad as the new paris hilton or killers’ albums.

totally disgusting. i seriously did not expect it to be anywhere near this bad.

this is seriously gross and i think i am going to throw up in my mouth a little

Sometimes musicians can do no wrong. Thousand of critics and fans alike cite the likes of Thom Yorke, Robert Pollard, Sufjan Stevens and others as demigods of their craft.

But there are those who can do wrong. It turns out Omar Rodriguez and Cedrix Bixler fall into this category.

It pains me to say it, and it probably makes you mad too, but The Mars Volta sucks. This is masturbatory guitarist narcissicm to the fullest extent — the Yngwie of indie rock.

The Mars Volta, in typical hipster attire. The band’s brand of masturbatory, self-indulgent prog rock brings Yngwie Malmsteen to mind.I suppose there might be someone who likes this. Like that guy we all know who’s always doped up and never misses a chance to drop six hits of acid. You know — that guy who thinks he’s an orange now.

We all loved At The Drive-In. And how couldn’t we, with those studly afros, crackhead performance antics (which were so much more hypnotically suave than Thom Yorke’s drug-addled tremors, I might add), and an effortless fusion of melodic and hardcore influence. This band was beautiful. Like watching a colossal tornado destroy a small midwestern town in super slow motion. Breathtaking, you know?

And then they split. Into two species of the opposite spectrum. The very two species who initially bred to form this magnificent creature of sound in the first place. While most of the band took their radio-friendly hooks and vocals to form Sparta, Cedric and Omar couldn’t manage to let go of their giant egos and instead started playing… prog rock?? WTF? There is nothing more annoying than prog rock (until someone starts playing prog country, in which case we are all doomed to an eternity of hell on earth). The term prog by definition should mean horrible. Or megalomania at least.

While the initial Mars Volta releases were tolerable (and in some rare cases actually good), they have since evolved into some kind of terrifying egomaniacal space mutant destroying otherwise good songs by stretching them to infinity and leaving them to fester in their own urine and feces and boring guitardom. To be fair, Bixler’s vocals are still pretty good — it’s mostly Rodriguez who stagnates these promising beginnings into the stale, drudging, ear-piercing wreckage they become.

After listening to Sparta and The Mars Volta separately, it becomes pretty easy to hear the reason for their prior successes and their neoteric failures.

It’s that simple — like a yin yang.