We’ve all been there: bitching about how MTV no longer plays
music videos.
Hell, they don’t even claim the “Music Television” part of
their moniker any more!
But what’s really sad is how a channel like VH1 Classic, a
network that seems to be catered towards my demographic, has also be the kibosh
on music related material.
It used to be endless repeats of That Metal Show, concerts and programming related to the hardest
rock songs of all time. Now it’s Married…With
Children repeats and the strange introduction of The Larry Sanders Show to the nightly programming. I mean, I know
Tom Petty had a cameo once, but seriously, what the fuck does Gary Shandling
have to do with music?
But I digress. It’s now time for the younger generation to
feel old for a bit.
It's about the cutest thing I've seen all week, second only to the little kitty cobra video: a bunch of British kids are forced by their punk rock parents to listen to Black Flag's "TV Party." Not all of them are fans of the song, but you know how kids are. Leave a video camera rolling in front of them and they're bound to do something cute.
I don't know what is stranger, that I received this fairly unexcited press release or the fact that Loudness is still making music and set to release their 26th studio album. There is no word on if the chant "M Z A" has finally been translated so that English listeners can discover the significance of those three letters.
Hello
Media,
International metal
giants Loudness will release their new album EVE TO DAWN on August
14th via FrostByte Media. EVE TO DAWN marks the legendary Japanese
band's 26th studio album since their inception in 1981 (Loudness just
celebrated their 30th anniversary last year). EVE TO DAWN is a
spectacularly heavy opus from the "beast from the east" and is Loudness' first
North American release in years.
Known for their
blistering technical ability, Loudness was formed in Japan in 1981 by guitarist
Akira Takasaki and late drummer Munetaka Higuchi. With four very successful and
critically-acclaimed albums under their belt in their native Japan, Loudness
became the first Japanese heavy metal band to sign to a major label in the
United States. With an astonishing 26 studio albums, numerous EPs, live albums
and videos, Loudness show no signs of slowing down as the band continues to tour
the world extensively in support of EVE TO DAWN. To date, Loudness has sold
upwards of one million albums worldwide. Loudness is: Minoru Niihara (vocals),
Akira Takasaki (guitars), Masayoshi Yamashita (bass guitar) and Masayuki Suzuki
(drums).
Please consider EVE
TO DAWN for feature and album review coverage; I can give you immediate access
to the album. Loudness is available for interviews, please let me know if you
would like to set something up. For more information, please visit: www.myspace.com/loudnessisback.
True story: My Mom managed a womens clothing store for many years, which required her to work let a few nights a week. One of those nights was Tuesday, which meant my old man had to cook dinner for me and him. Both of my parents are now officially "foodies" and their cooking ability has improved dramatically over the years.
But back in the 70's and 80's, not so much.
My Father would ocassionally turn to the local A&W Restaurant for help on Tuesday with their "Coney Tuesday" promotion. Since A&W is a dying breed, let me explain to our younger readers and international customers that it was a drive-in restaurant where you literally drove up to a screen, pressed a button, and someone started talking through a little speaker, asking you what you wanted to eat.
This is before the days of the "drive thru," which is the same idea (get food without leaving your car) but in a much more efficient manner.
A&W served fast foot, but they're best known for their root beer, which is admittedly pretty awesome. They'd brew the shit right there at the restaurant.
Anywho, "Coney Tuesday" offered coney dogs-known as a chili dog if you're Cinderella-for the unbelievable price of 39 cents. Over the years, that price increased somewhat, but you get the idea: it was like "Taco Tuesday" at Taco John's, but with hot dogs.
How was it? About as good as a 39 cent coney dog could be. You're not eating it for how good it is, you're eating it because it's fucking cheap and you don't feel hungry afterwards.
You just feel like you have to take a massive shit.
I've been brutal on Insane Clown Posse for quite some time, but I have to admit that their informercial for this year's Gathering of the Juggalos is better entertainment than any Two And A Half Men episode, and second only to the endless amount of Juggalo video uploads you can watch on You Tube at any given moment.
I don't want to suggest that I'm growing soft on these clowns (Ha!), but I do feel a bit sorry for their dim witted fan base who buy in-literally-on the band's endless explotation of them under the pretense of "family," "independence," and general lack of responsibility.
While I.C.P. get wealthier, their fans either fall into two categories: Juggalos who simply aren't smart enough to become more self-reliant by educating themselves towards a better life or Juggalos who like to pretend that it's all in good fund and any naysayers (i.e. "haters") are too stuck-up to get the "joke."
Where is punk rock when you need it?
It's the complete ambivilence of violence that bugs me the most, but hey, if you want to live your life worshipping a pair of bozos who trade in your outsider plight for a bit of overpriced merch and a logo that will ultimately have you labeled as dumb patsy for permanent entry-level jobs, then be my guest.
At least you could grow your mohawk out when you figured out the real power of human spirit.
But enough of my Dad talkin'. I've got to hand it to these hustlas for putting together an outrageous thirty-minute video that holds your attention like no other and gets you to burst out laughing at regular intervals.
In other words, if I.C.P. is looking for voice-over work for future infomercials, then I am totally down with the clown!
Sometimes when I'm feeling nostalgic about my hometown, I bring up the following sports clip from a local sportscast that aired in the mid-90's.
Enjoy.
The frightening thing is that this guy now works in a major market and is a highly paid broadcaster. Yes, Matt Lorch found national attention in Miami, Florida as one of the first reporters to cover the "hanging chad" controversy during the 2000 elections.
From there, it was on to Boston, where he now sits as the early evening announcer for the NBC affiliate.
To be fair, small market television is filled with newbies who move up to larger markets, using stations like this CBS affiliate as springboards to better paying gigs. They cut their teeth with skeleton crews, shitty equipment, and poor training. There's a lot of errors on that ladder up, and thank god someone had the mindset to record this one.
It wasn't just concentrated with the CBS affiliate either. I remember the NBC station around this same time decided they would provide 24 hours of live news breaks on the hour. After midnight, they had one intern set up his own news breaks and I had the chance to watch the first live break of his professional career.
No video exists (as far as I know of, anyway) and it only lasted less than a minute, but the young man appeared to have a panic attack while on camera. It was so intense that I puposely stayed awake for most of the night just to see if he would eventually pass away on live television.
By the end of the week, he just blurted out his 30 seconds of news in such a rushed delivery that it was obvious his main goal was to just get out of the local break as quickly as possible.
As bad as that seems, it was better than the sweating, heavy breathing, deer in the headlight look of that first newscast.
For fucks sake, don't these people know that their attempt at "music" and "hometown pride" are having an adverse effect on how others perceive our state?
I don't expect people to make pilgramages to Iowa or to make our state ahead of, say, the Grand Canyon or Niagra Falls, but does our State Tourism board really need these videos to make their job tougher?
Jack Kerouac wrote in On The Road that "the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines." And then, last year some dipshit from a local radio station makes a video that is in complete contradiction to that.
It's like the person "producing" the song was on some kind of AutoTune Crack to the point where you begin to think that the perception that we don't have accents here in the state is wrong.
The world now thinks that our accents make us sound like robots.
They also think that our girls should put down the beer for a while and get on the Special K diet instead.
Fast forward to Iowa on the crest of spring. And as the sun warms up our state, we begin to plan for summer.
Lake Okoboji is one of the best places in the state you can be during the summer. But after this next video, you'll never want to visit the secret that is one of the few blue water lakes in the world.
Thanks to that piece of wonderful videography, all of the dudes in Iowa have jobs putting up drywall and obsess about the trampy ex-girlfriend that broke up with them.
While these videos may have done irrevocable damage to my state's image, I can personally attest to the fact that they in no way represent the true make up of our residents.
No sir, most of Iowa inhabitants are elderly white folks from Sweden or Norway who drive their white Buick Le Sabres on our extensive network of two-lane highways at the breakneck speed of 51 mph.
Thanks to Maarten-our man in Amsterdam-for pointing out this wonderfully bizarre interview with J. Mascis. The person who interviewed him was only labeled as "Maureen" and her lack of a proper introduction got me wondering: "Who the fuck is this lady?"
Watch the video and you'll see why I was curious. She clearly knows something about J. while not knowing much about his back catalog, one would surmise.
But how does she know him?
Where did they meet?
Did they get really high before this was shot?
"Pure chemistry." was how Marteen described it, and I can only agree.
Maureen turns out to be the Mother of Sub Pop Records' Megan Jasper, who went to school with J.
Megan recalled "The first time he came to our house, he got in a screaming match with my mom. The visit ended with J standing at the front door yelling, 'YOU'RE FUCKED!' to my mom and my mom then yelling to my dad, 'JIMMY!!! DID YOU HEAR THAT? HE SAID THAT WE'RE FUCKED!'"
Obviously, it took several years in the lab before Maureen and J. developed the chemistry that Maarten is speaking of.
I live in Cedar Rapids, so everyone in town is probably going to be at this movie.
You should come by and rob our homes when we're gone.
I've heard it's good. I've heard it's funny. I've heard that not a goddamn scene was filmed here.
I don't blame them. It stinks here. Literally. If you come into town from the south, you'll get a whiff of the corn syrup processing plant. Trust me, it smells worse than it sounds.
Then you'll run past some really weird chemical smell that will have you saying "Gross!"
Then you'll drive past the Quaker Oats plant, which again, sounds deceiving. You're thinking "Oats. What could smell bad with that?" but you're not understanding that it's nowhere near the delicious goodness of your apple and cinnamon oatmeal. This is like wet, milled oats soaking in some yeasty compound. It's gross. Trust me.
They call it 'The City of Five Seasons' while we call it 'The City of Five Smells.' We haven't quite recovered completely from the 2008 flood, which is a shame cause it had some character at one time.
I'd like to think we're getting back, but I'd be lying if I said we're close to a full recovery and that things are looking better. The reality is that it's frustrating, and I'd in no uncertain terms tell you to come visit.
Save your ticket for a few more years. Go see this movie instead.
Here's an awesome clip of a Playmobil stop-motion Joy Division doing "Transmission" on John Peel's show back in '79. I love the attention to detail: Hooky's beard, Ian's spastic shuffle and the full-on whirlwind arms of Stephen Morris behind the kit.
2010 was a great year for my Alma-Mater, the University of Northern Iowa. First, it was a victory against Kansas in the NCAA tournament, next it was a visit from the Dalai Lama, and finally it was the creation of The Interlude Dance.
It seems like every other year some coming of age female artist gets in trouble for tarting up her image while making the big jump over to a more "mature" persona, nobody seems to remember how the Olsen Twins released a very seductive video when they were still pre-teens.
I have no idea where this Glam-Racket tradition started and I have no idea how to stop it. But Happy Holidays with our annual revisiting of R. Kelly’s Trapped In The Closet saga. Merry Christmas to all. And to all, a midget.
I don’t know if the Big Joe Polka Show is on in your area, but I do know if you have access to it, you must give it a sample.
The Big Joe Polka Show is a polka show-think of the Lawrence Welk Show with nothing but polka music-hosted by a large elderly man with white hair by the name of Joe Siedlik.
Here’s where it gets weird: there is some kind of contractual dispute between Big Joe and the station that carries his show-RFDTV, which is some kind of rural only channel from Omaha that specializes in poorly produced polka shows and shows about horses.
Evidently, the producers of the show and the station that broadcasts them are embattled in a bitter dispute to this day with allegations of “slander and defamation.”
If you’ve ever seen an episode, you’ll understand how hilarious this all is. The Big Joe Polka Show is Joe sitting on a chair, introducing polka bands and their next songs. Joe is very jovial about his introductions, sometimes telling jokes and declaring how some of the guests were invited back by popular demand.
The cameras keep a close eye on the audience-which usually contain a few dozen couples dancing to the music on a plywood floor. Some come in matching outfits-the louder the better-and some have a natural attraction to the camera-hamming it up whenever the cameraman is near.
The median age of the crowd is 70.
Al Grebnich recently came out of retirement to perform a few classics from his catalog on Nebraska records (I’m not making any of this up), which include “You Are My Sunshine.” I know this because Big Joe mentioned that Al is “still in the record and cassette business” and even admitted that he has a few 8 tracks still available.
Again, I’m not making this up and again, this was from an episode that was recorded in 2010.
Al looked to be napping while performing and he sported the same loud grey plaid suit that he bought forty years ago
But let’s not single out Al for his attire: the entire crowd looked to raid an old clothes trunk from decades past, or at least live in some kind of secret Polka society that is immune from any outside contact with the world circa 2010.
Peter and Paul Wendinger sported some newer clothes with a blue shirt that had a floral emblem. They also wore hiking shorts and cute little Czech hats. They performed their hit “Minnesota Polka” (every state seems to have their own Polka) which contains the verse:
“Fishin’ Minnesota Fishin' Minnesota You’re sure to hit your quota When you fish in Minnesota”
The song ends with an offer to “have a beer in Minnesota” and even the fish themselves serve up an offer to come visit and kill them for consumption.
For some of you, this may sound like an alternate universe, but here in the Midwest, there are still Polka dances taking place and some radio stations broadcast a weekly Polka show. I’ve heard there’s even a younger contingency of Polka supporters in the Decorah, Iowa area-but there’s a lot of Norwegian up in that area, so it may just the genetic make-up.
Also of note: do you know the Grammy's no longer have a Polka category? They said that with one of the last polka awards feature at the Grammy's, there was only one nationally released effort that qualified.
Hell, I should have been looking for a gig in the Polka genre. I'd get to be on a nationally syndicated television show for exposure and have a good shot at a Grammy in a few years!
And here's another example of why SCTV may have been the funniest comedy show ever.
