Poultrygeist

i hate festivals one and all be they film or music (unless it's called fun fun fun fest, then i am in unabashed hypocrite mode; like i could give a fuck.) anyway, my boy lloyd kaufman (toxic avenger) has shown up mr. de niro's own festival by picketing it in costume (blood and all) from his latest movie Poultrygeist (which, to be fair, i haven't seen yet but, based on the soundtrack alone for this possessed fast food chicken restaraunt horror movie cum musical, i still haven't decided what the best movie of 2007 is.) this shit is the bomb so read the rest of this very short article



hat tip: The Abattoir

Blown A Wish

all i know is

graham better get 'em to play fun fun fun fest


B

Dead Child - Attack

First off, just to get it out of the way, I don't believe in the idea of "hipster metal." not at all. and if you twisted my arm enough to make me give an example of it, i'd yell sunn not the sword. but that's neither here nor there. we're talking about aging indie rockers putting out a metal album. and here's the rub.
if this album was any good, i'd bring up how easy it was for the metal community to embrace the, at the time, very non-metal glen danzig. i'd talk about my growing realization the punk, hardcore, indie rock and all their brethren were just another form of metal. that it fucking rocks, if it makes you bang your head and forget your job, then it's fucking metal.
but it's not any good. the riffs truly are a lead balloon. the singing wants to be rob halford but instead settles for the tim owens version of jello biafra. it's just fucking boring. all this from a guy who wanted this to be good. who needed this to be good. i mean, jeebus, it's dave pajo. if anyone from the indie-rock world was gonna make a great metal album, it'd be the guitarist from slint
and it turns out i was half right.
dave pajo has made a great metal album.
it's called Spiderland.

"Goodbye Captain" by Slint (off of Spiderland):

The Majesty of Rock

June 7th, 1992. When the history books are written, chronicles are chronicled, and the tales are told and retold, embellished and emboldened, that is the day will be remembered and remarked upon. Within a week of watching this, I'd shaved off my long hair and within the year kicked metal to the curb. In other words, this is the earliest playlist i can find to my first 12o minutes on MTV:

June 7, 1992
Source for this playlist: Mike W.
Host: Dave Kendall
Guest: Andy Partridge and Steve Wynn

Jesus and Mary Chain - Far Gone and Out
Buffalo Tom – Tailights Fade
XTC – The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
New Order – Fine Time
Pale Saints – Throwing Back the Apples
Ride – Twisterella
Sarah McLachlan – The Path of Thorns
Faith No More – Midlife Crisis
Steve Wynn – Drag
Charlatans UK – Weirdo
Jane’s Addiction – Classic Girl
Steve Wynn – Caroline
The Spent Poets – Dogtown
Social Distortion – Cold Feelings
Tree People – Something Vicious For Tomorrow
Simple Minds – Waterfront

(last several minutes cut off)

I know it's not the first, but it's probably the only one with The Treepeople video in it and that I remember seeing-if only cause it caused me to cut off my long hair.



the funny the is how fucking lame that episode was. don't get me wrong, some of those songs are classics: buffalo tom, faith no more, the aforementioned Treepeople, and Social Distortion; but the rest are compost for the dustbin of history (mixed mtaphors and all.)

Now, for comparison's sake, let's look at the playlist for Headbanger's Ball from the saturday closest to the above 12o minutes:

Tora Tora/Saigon Kick/Suicidal Tendencies 6/13/92
Roxy Blue - Rob The Cradle
Lynch Mob - Tangled In The Web
Iron Maiden - Be Quick Or Be Dead
Guns N' Roses - Novemeber Rain
Metallica - Wherever I May Roam
Ozzy Osbourne - Road To Nowhere
Def Leppard - Make Love Like A Man
Vince Neil - You're Invited But Your Friend Can't Come
Pear Jam - Evenflow
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Suicidal Tendencies - You Can't Bring Me Down
Spinal Tap - The Majesty Of Rock
Tora Tora - Amnesia
Van Halen - Top Of The World
Monster Magnet - Medicine
Ministry - Jesus Built My Hotrod
GWAR - Gor-Gor
Warrant - Down Boys
Babylon A.D. - Bad Blood
Saigon Kick - Hostile Youth
Temple Of The Dog - Hunger Strike
Slayer - War Ensemble
Galactic Cowboys - I'm Not Amused

e Cris

really, it's no contest sure there's a lot of hair metal, some good (lynch mob, saigon kick, galactic cowboys), some bad (warrant (even if it's my favorite warrant cut), tora tora, roxy blue), but look at the others: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Faith No More (see the overlap), Suicidal Tendencies, Monster Magnet, Gwar, and Slayer. sixteen years later, i'm far more likely to want to watch this:



or even this (if i need to be easily amused about bands i used to like):



than to watch something like this:



okay, maybe not that one, it's a bad choice. it's got a groove that i like. so how about i'd rather watch those bad metal songs than watch this bad alterna song:



actually, i forgot that i kinda liked that song too.

man, maybe they're all good. maybe metal is just easier to laugh at. maybe stupid brit-pop/shoedaze bands wish they had half the personality that a good proggy hair metal band had. maybe, as always i'm just a confused sixteen year old kid looking at music television for some kind of identity and validation.
whatever, at least i can go on record for hating this song for nigh on 16 years and looks as if no amount of rose tinted nostalgia is gonna change it:

and of course, XTC's fucking awful Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead is nowhere to be found. fuck them. i can't even find they're video to fucking laugh at.
i'm pathetic.






mad love to:
altmusictv for their 120 Minutes playlists
The Headbanger's Ball Fan Site for the Headbanger's Ball playlists

Always The Quiet One

britpop killed one of my favorite bands. everyone had to rip off some english band from the sixties so as to project this air of "cool britania." it's cool, i guess. outside of blur's cheekily "song #2", no one wanted to admit an influence from the former colonies. the wedding present broke up. david gedge got married and formed cinerama, a vastly boring band. but david was happy.
i guess.
then he got divorced. i quote (inaccurately of course) "the difference between breaking up with someone then and breaking up with someone now is that, now, i have to sell a house."
the wedding present reformed and recorded the album Take Fountain. i didn't care for it all that much at first. i even missed seeing them at emo's (and i'll always have megan to till me how much i fucked up on that one). now i can't stop listening to it. and all you jawbreaker fans, this album is the closest you're gonna come to follow up to "Dear You."
anyway, these are the reasons why you should own The Wedding Present's "Take Fountain."







and, i'm afraid a recurring favorite, the true jam off the album





i'm not lying. buy this album.

A Pretty Girl Never Lights Her Own Cigarette

i remember painting the room yellow. hanging the christmas lights along the top of the walls. where they connected with the ceilings. drinking shiner and the occasional tequila shot. taking the occasional hit from the bong. of all the colors in the house, i have to take credit for the yellow. i was at the time caught up in oscar wilde, robert w. chambers, and all the other late victorian/early edwardian writers. an empire at its prime yet anticipating its fall. the color yellow represented for them decadence. and decadence was an idea, a theme, that, privately, i attempted to invoke. or did i? i'm not sure anymore. sometimes i feel as if i am projecting backwards my reminisces. sometimes i mistake yesterday for tomorrow thus letting my tenses fling forth out of apathy. or maybe antipathy. caught up in the throes of obsession. desire thwarted yet never mitigated. a continual open sore that it seemed only powders could attempt to salve. a scab continually peeled back so as to feel the healing begin again and again. i wonder sometimes where everyone else has gone. we were all the best of friends yet never speak anymore. as if seeing or speaking to each other again will conjure up all of our collective misdeeds; that the wrong word spoken at the wrong time will make everything that happened then true; that we'll all be locked in a past that has become our future. if we can collectively ignore everything we did, everything we said, everything we thought we could still hope to have a future.
who am i kidding. there is no future here. this perpetual present is wearing me down. there truly is no tomorrow just as there truly is no yesterday. i feel it in my bones just as much as i feel it in my soul. each new pleasure is tainted by the taste of what could have been; of what was. i painted that room yellow. i painted it with all my dreams, hopes, desires, and everything that defined me. i long to believe that it's still there, underneath the whitewash we used to paint over it.

once there was a way to get back home...

as always i'm looking for something to say; something to write about. and, as always, like a prophet in the old testament, i'm left wanting; and i'm never gonna drive like jehu.
i've officially grown old. new people have appeared at my house and i'd rather they left than get drunk with them.
bastards.
i'm making this up as i go along.
my retrospective ass.