Thursday, February 23, 2012

Let's Get Wet...



Followers of this blog are no doubt aware of my undying adoration for all that is Ween, so it was a nice surprise to discover the side projects of guitarist extraordinaire Dean Ween actually eclipsing what his namesake band was doing at the time. I speak, of course of the Moistboyz. Whilst the 'boyz have released four listenable albums over the last two decades, like Madden NFL, the even-numbered ones are the keepers. Moistboyz II was recorded during the 12 Golden Country Greats sessions and is almost a Ween album... if the boys were angry coke addicts with political agendas. Drum machine backbone with layers of guitar overdubs, vocalist Guy Heller spits his venom at whatever regime he's pissed at for the moment: anti-smokers, gays, liberals, conservatives, crackers, blacks, you. While the synth drums kinda cheapen things up at times (it would be nice to hear a real band tear some of these songs up) it is still is a great thirty minutes of pissed off hardcore. Flash forward to 2006 and Moistboyz IV which blows Ween's subpar La Cucaracha off the fucking planet. Pulling together a full band (Ween drummer Claude Coleman and bassosaurus Andrew Weiss (Rollins Band) joining the crew) the album is a fucking masterpiece. Heavy as fuck and angry as a bitch, who knows what could ever cheer these guys up but there's enough political, social and psychological angst in this one to make any nihilist cream in his braces. But ignore whatever the fuck I say about anything, soak in the definitive history of the Moistboyz here. Fuck off and enjoy the tunes you pussy fucking faggot. America's dead.
II                                                                               IV

 
Currently watching: Edge Of Darkness
Currently listening to: Ween Quebec

Monday, February 20, 2012

Played For A Fool...



Solid album from perennial NYHC mainstays Sick Of It All. Fast, paranoid and bitter as fuck, Call To Arms picks up exactly where their previous album Built To Last left off. "Falling Apart" and "(Just A) Patsy" are easily my favorites on this one. Amazingly the guys are still at it after almost 30 years together and have a new album slated for 2012. Perfect music for a miserably long drive to work stuck in snow and traffic. Enjoy.


Currently watching: The Constant Gardener
Currently listening to: Prophecy Don't Fuckin' Mess With Texas

Saturday, February 18, 2012

A little about me...



During the Superbowl there was actually a block of commercials long enough for me to stop my bitching and ranting about the inevitable Patriots downfall to discuss movies with a few of the other less football-oriented Sunday partiers. It all started with a discussion about various Coen Brothers films and mutated into a "best movies ever" challenge.

So here's my top ten films of all time. These are movies that I think reached true perfection - from cinematography to soundtrack to story, FX, whatever. Whether big- or low-budget, these exceptional pieces of celluloid either inspired me to create something myself or give up whatever project I was working on because they proved someone had already done it better then I ever would. I really think they are flawless works of art that can easily withstand most criticism and are (to me) more of an experience then just a "movie." Repeated viewings encouraged for sure.

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974 - ugh, do I even need to write that?)
2. Easy Rider
3. Alien
4. Pink Flamingos
5. The Shining
6. Combat Shock
7. The Big Lebowski
8. The Thing (1982)
9. Reservoir Dogs
10. Nekromantik

In addition, below are a couple guilty pleasures that could have made the cut if I had been a little more forgiving (or drunk) - even though it was extremely unlikely anyone at the party had ever heard of them (it took me almost twenty minutes to convince the unenlightened yokel that Nekromantik was a legitimate film). Either overly gruesome, twisted, low-rent or fucked up, these are flicks that I don't think are perfect by any means (although with some that only adds the charm) yet I've still managed to watch them a zillion times. Neither technically great nor watershed works of art, when I go through my DVDs for something to watch they always end up being regular grabs. Here they are in no particular order...
2. La Planète Sauvage
3. Cannibal Apocalypse
4. House By The Cemetery
5. Contamination
6. House On The Edge Of The Park
7. Last House On Dead End Street
8. Over The Edge
9. Black Devil Doll From Hell
10. The Angry Red Planet
11. Touch Of Death

These are all personal faves, fun movies for a 6-pack of tall boys and frozen pizza while the wife goes out for girl's night.

So what brought this up, do you ask? I was listening to Ennio Morricone's incredible soundtrack to Carpenter's The Thing today and figured I'd change it up and do the movie tip. If you've never heard the score, check it out. Now. Opening with funereal violins and piano, horns sweating ice-blue angst as strings stoke panic, "Humanity" and its tuba embodies menace without rationalization. "Contamination," a contagion of string-plucked hysteria that succumbs to eerie sawed violin feeds the overpowering "Bestiality." Employing the single-note piano ploy of Carpenter's score for Halloween, "Solitude" leads to "Eternity," which descends with a Phantom of the Opera cathedral organ. Crescendos of string stretch above a coagulating pool of bass on "Wait," prior to "Humanity (Part II)," which both opens and closes Carpenter's remake, its organic pulse of inevitability as taut as a German synthesizer, woodwind warning crowning sustained red organ agony. (thanks Austin Chronicle)

As far as movies this week goes, I've seen Dead & Buried (good but somewhat dated), Scum (excellent) and Shark Night (so fucking terrible it makes direct-to-DVD tripe like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus look positively Oscar-worthy. $25 million for a gigantic 3-D turd that is somehow even made more worse after the closing credits with an agonizing cast rap video. You've got to see it to believe how bad it is.) OK, time to go class. Let me know some of your faves anonymi out there in Internet land...

 
Currently watching: The Believer
Currently listening to: Aposepsy Aposepsy

Monday, February 13, 2012

I Used To Fuck My Teacher Every Night...



Yeah I know everyone already has this classic piece of public animal trash on vinyl, CD or hard drive but I finally got off my lazy ass to rip the annoying 43-minute track into eleven individual songs. Now you can pick and choose what tunes ya feel like scumfuckin' to. Enjoy.

 
Currently watching: The Jacket
Currently listening to: Fetish 69 Antibody

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Shooter McGavin



New Jersey's Burnt By The Sun dropped their sick-ass 2002 full-length Soundtrack To The Personal Revolution right as I was losing faith in the whole metalcore world. Everything was getting too melodic, too math-metal, and I was getting tired of the whole "remain steadfast / strength through solitude" positivity Hatebreed was pushing. Thankfully one of my fellow night shift workers dropped this CD in my lap and it was pretty much the only thing I listened to for 3 weeks straight. A great vocalist over wicked fast technical heavy grooves (and fucking hilarious song titles before it was annoyingly schtick), they've released some pretty solid stuff since Soundtrack but nowhere near as good. The band both broke up and reformed during the late 2000's but, alas, it looks like the outlook for new music is slim. Enjoy what we gots...

 
Currently watching: Howling IV: The Original Nightmare
Currently listening to: Christ Inversion Christ Inversion

Thursday, February 9, 2012

OK, OK, time for a change of pace...



Back in 1992, Princeton native Chris Harford and his band the First Rays Of The New Riding Sun (Hendrix influence anyone?) was about to hit it big. His debut album Be Headed was dropping on Elektra Records and with that comes all the riches and royalty a major-label musician expects to imbibe. Twenty years and eight indie albums later, most of the world outside of New Jersey still has yet to be introduced to the man who called his debut album a "major label record which vanished into the system like the black hole of the industry will do to so many a band. Someday there will be some great jams that will emerge from that black hole." Remember what the music world in 1992 was... without a supporting video, Be Headed was dead on arrival. Yet Harford forged ahead, convincing Elektra to sign Ween (the boys Boognish were only too happy to contribute voice and guitar to his debut record - other guest appearances include Richard Thompson, The Proclaimers, and Toshi Reagon) and emerging post-contract as a songwriter with more ideas then most major labels are comfortable with - an guitarist who can pick up fresh with other artists to create music spanning genres. For me, Be Headed is like a pistachio: hard open and close; soft inside. The opener "Raise The Roof" is a tight track of bluesy rock and the dénouement "Sing, Breathe And Be Merry" is a touching, harmonic revelry in optimism. Completely opposite of most of the shit I tend to listen to, the rest of the album works, albeit somewhat disjointedly but fuck it, I dig it. Check out what Chris is doing here. Enjoy.

 
Currently watching: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover
Currently listening to: ABACABB Survivalist

Monday, February 6, 2012

Miserable music for a miserable day...



Grand Rapids noise mongers Dredd are the perfect soundtrack to my thoughts today after last night's debacle. Sick blasts of blastbeat grind punctuated by a few sludgey grooves here and there, all tied together with some good old manic screaming. Actually one or two of their songs venture into hardcore territory for a nice change; all in all it's a solid ten minutes of anger, hatred, regret and misery. Just how I'm feeling. Check out their Bandcamp page for some more info, I am definitely looking forward to seeing where this band goes. Enjoy.

 
Currently watching: The Trap
Currently listening to: Abriosis Abriosis

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Fucking kill me please...



Why am I not dead? My soul is dead. My team is dead. My organs feel like I have a blender buried deep inside my colon that is having fun with the 12-pack of 16oz tall boys I have been subsisting on since 6:00. Enjoy it Mr. Cancer. When I finally get around to having a doctor shove a tail pipe up my ass in ten years under the guise of a colonoscopy only to find out you're all metastasizing and shit inside my alcohol-soaked nether regions I'll wonder who'll be laughing last. Tom Coughlin it fucking won't be. Chuh-CHICK! What a fucking miserable existence. Die everyone.

GO PATS!!!!!



I can barely sit still. I forced down a few slabs of Totino's to make up for the copious amounts of alcohol I am about to drink to make it through XLVI without having ventricular fibrillations. Go Pats. Beat the fucking Giants. I am out.


Currently watching: Howling 2: Your Sister Is A Werewolf
Currently listening to: Jimi Hendrix Band Of Gypsys