Ruckus Maximus

Spring is Here...

2007-02-23T01:53:00.000-06:00

Annually, on February 2nd, the undeniable meteorologist of the animal kingdom, Punksatony Phil, emerges from his hole in the ground and forecasts the coming of spring. That’s right, to millions of Americans, the fact that whether a fucking groundhog sees his shadow or not actually determines their meteorological future and alters their lifestyle choices. Seriously, I’ve heard of people not going on vacation because Big Phil saw his shadow. Good job guys, way to up the learning curve.

By the way, that whole process doesn’t even make sense… So legend says, “If Punksatony Phil sees his shadow, he gets scared back underground, and we have two more weeks of winter.” Or something, I dunno, don’t quote me on that. But, seriously… If he saw his shadow, wouldn’t that mean the sun was out, and thus Spring is on its way? The whole process is flawed, but that isn’t why I write to you today. Nay, I write to inform you of the true weatherman of the order rodentia; the squirrel.

That’s right, fuck Punksatony Phil; that pudgy bastard... If you want to know spring’s around the corner, turn to your bushy tailed, arboreal allies. Why, just today, I walked out my front door and saw two squirrels absolutely humping to the max on the tree in my front yard, and that, my friends, is how I know spring is here. Squirrels know what’s up… They definitely plan ahead. These guys spend months hording acorns so they can make it through the winter, there’s NO WAY they’re going to blow their proverbial load--well, okay, maybe not so proverbial--and have a litter of offspring when it’s still winter out. I’m not sure exactly how long a squirrel pregnancy cycle lasts, but I guarantee that spring comes whenever that is from today.

Yeah, that’s right, fuck Groundhog’s Day, fuck Punksatony Phil, and most of all, fuck Bill Murray. It’s not about a hypoglycemic rat seeing his shadow, it’s about squirrels getting their freak on. Pass the word, and let’s put an end to this ridiculous holiday… Although, I always did think that it was an awesome excuse to drink. But, then again, what isn’t?

Is his thumb in that rat's ass? I think it is! That guy is waaaay too close to that rodent!

Pass da Valentine from de Left Hand Side.

2007-02-14T03:11:00.000-06:00

Pass de Valentine from da Left Hand Side…

Like a diaper clad ninja, Cupid has once again snuck up on us and heralded in another Valentine’s Day. Not that ninjas generally herald in Valentine’s Days, or do any heralding at all really, I just meant that Valentine’s Day kind of came out of no where this year. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a girlfriend that’s reminded me every day since Christmas that, “Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!” Or maybe it’s just because this entire year is flying by in a weird haze of boozing and folding T-shirts. Either way, I feel like I should take a minute to talk to you all about Valentine’s Day and how utterly irritating it is. (As is the custom amongst bloggers.)

I hate Valentine’s Day for two separate, but equally annoying, reasons… Neither of which is what you assume I’m going to say. I could really care less about being single on the most romantic holiday of the year*. I also don’t care that Hallmark’s stock will go up eleven points based on tomorrow’s last minute shoppers alone. I DO, however, care about how annoying everyone else in America gets about these two facts.

Seriously, there is not a single Valentine’s Day that can come and go without some jackass telling me it’s a, “Hallmark Holiday,” and how they invented it just to sell greeting cards during the non-Christmas season. I mean, they don’t want you to know this, but Hallmark actually did invent a time machine, went back to the fourteenth century, and offered Geoffrey Chaucer a twelve thousand gold bullion endorsement deal to include the first ever Valentine’s Day reference in his pseudo-literate love poem, Parlement of Foules. Seriously, shut up… You don’t have to prove how fucking punk rock you are by quoting the same anti-corporate bullshit that we hear every year.

In fact, a Hallmark greeting-card might just be the only place that will ever publish that mediocre, coffeehouse, beat neck poetry that you carry around with you in that oh so indie black and white speckled notebook. So, you might not want to run them out of business with those neon-yellow, anti-corporation flyers that you ironically made at Kinko’s. They didn’t invent Valentine’s Day. End of story. They did, however, invent Leukemia in a dastardly ploy to bolster the sales of “Get Well Soon” cards, but that’s a different story all together.

Secondly, attention single girls and emo kids… Stop crying about being single on Valentine’s Day. You are not any more alone than you are every other day of the year. Sure, society flaunting its collective romantic success in your face might make that microwavable soup-for-one taste a little less sweet, but it’s not that big of a deal… Use the holiday to your advantage. Undoubtedly there will be other lonely people freaking out about being alone on Cupid’s birthday too, and I hear that there’s these places called bars that serve this stuff called alcohol. Go, drink, and take advantage.

Personally, I found a “Fuck Love” Valentine’s Day party… Which, although sounding inherently cheesey, is boasting $2 shots of Dewars and $1.50 PBR’s. So, hooray for lonely people marketing ploys! Anyone who wants to come get wasted, hit me up…

If not, be safe and remember, it’s not that big of a deal. Don’t contribute to Valentine’s Day’s epic battle with Christmas for holiday supremacy in the domain of suicide numbers.

* Arguably, Thanksgiving might be the most romantically skewed holiday, because, well… Let’s face it, fat guys and gravy equates to a venerable supernova of romance.

The 'Stache; Week 2.

2007-01-24T00:04:00.000-06:00

Welp, this past Sunday, in miraculous fashion, Rex Grossman crawled out of his hole and saw his shadow… Which, of course, means: Two more weeks of moustache! That’s right, with the Bears’ Superbowl hopes still alive, so too lives on the moustache. Personally, I’m pretty excited that the ‘stache got a two week reprieve; it’s been both an amazing and eye-opening experience sharing my time with it for the past week.

Fist of all, everyone that I know has either told me that my cultivation of the most awesome facial hair ever is either, “The greatest thing they’ve ever seen,” or, “Retarded.” So, I’m not going to claim to be winning over the masses with the hypnotic power of my ‘stache , but it’s definitely entertaining - at least to me.

Secondly, anyone worried about the hygienics behind owning a moustache of your very own, trust me, once it grows in, it automatically becomes the cleanest part of your body. Mine gets dipped into 100+ proof alcohols so often, doctors have performed open-heart surgery on top of it (or some other “ridiculously sterile” analogy.) And the smell? No problem… If you drink a wide enough array of liquors, it’s a venerable potpourri of freshness under your nostrils. Why, just this weekend, some Jager, tequila, whiskey, and PBR combined to create a sort of ivy-vine, wheat grass, pomegranate odor; pleasant to the max.

Finally, your moustache will instantly become the life of any party. Granted, people could give a fuck about you… But your ‘stahce - that guy’s alright. Seriously, if you grow one, all weekend long people will approach you and say, “Hey, Beastie Boys, alright! Sabotage! Yeeaaah!” And once you hit them with a “Cochese” reference, they will, I repeat, they will, freak the fuck out and buy you a drink. It’s great.

As for the accuracy involved in this Sabotage theory, it may actually be a case-to-case scenario, but I’ll let you be the judge.

I dunno… Either way, it’s going to be a ruckus couple of weeks.

In other news, this guy is fucking awesome.

Linguistics Homework.

2007-01-19T20:37:00.000-06:00

Linguistics is rad! Wait, Linguistics are rad! Wait, umm, shit!
Anyways, I thought I'd post my linguistics homework that I just finished, because it made me giggle... I'm sure you'll all enjoy it too. (Check out the amazing "Jerry" reference!!!)

-----------

“You are rad.”

Such a simple sentence, but it can mean so much. Let’s apply the five tiered definition of, “language,” and find out why.

Systematic
The sentence contains a subject, a verb, and a predicate, and they all fall in the proper and familiar order that allows us to recognize it at a complete and understandable English sentence.

Conventional
In the English language, words are expected to fall in a particular order, and thus there are systematic rules to keep us from just shouting random gibberish at one another. If the subject, verb, and predicate start getting mixed up and put in an unconventional order, such as, “Rad are you,” people will think you’re weird and trying to talk like Yoda or something. Even if a speaker uses seemingly unconventional words in their speech (such as rad), the other person can rely on verbal and non-verbal signs and cues to decode the intended meaning, so long as the sentence is formed in a conventional manner.

Vocal
Assuming that somebody orally utters the phrase, “You are rad,” at an audible level and that somebody else is standing around to aurally hear it, it qualifies as language.

Signs
“You are rad,” is a sentence that might mystify certain audiences, but relying on cultural signs associated with the English language, they should be able to decode its meaning. For example, even if somebody doesn’t know what the term, “Rad,” means, they should be able to figure out that being referred to as rad is a good thing by the speaker’s accompanying smile and thumbs-up gesture.

Human Beings
The predetermined fact that both the speaker and the audience are both human beings is probably the number one requirement of using audible sound to express meaning. You can tell your dog that it is rad all day long but its self esteem will not be bolstered. Any positive reaction is due to the speaker’s tone of voice, not their specific choice of language.

Mmm, Bears!

2007-01-17T19:18:00.000-06:00

I want to sit down and take a moment to share with you some wonderful news. Yes, that’s right, there has been a new addition to the Ruckus household, a bouncing baby boy! Weighing in at 3.5 ounces and comprised mostly of hair and beer foam is my brand new Chicago-style mustache. Mahzeltov.

Why? As if I need a reason for something so awesome… But, for those of you who require explaination and closure in your lives I present: a short essay.

When you hear the name, “Chicago,” your head is immediately filled with several images; Wrigley Field, the Sears Tower, blues guitar, and most predominately, mustaches. In fact, there is no other style of facial hair in the world more synonymous with a city than the mustache is to Chicago. Everybody in the world - nay, the universe - can picture exactly what I mean... No, I’m not talking about a handlebar mustache, or a fu-man-choo, which, although are both awesome, lack the ability to encompass the spirit and truly inspire togetherness in a community like the Chicagoland mustache.

In case you are uninformed and have never read the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Moustaches, the Chicagoland mustache, or Mustacheous Chicagus, is a straight, cropped, and often bushy growth of hair that thrives in the region located between a man’s upper lip and lower nostrils. The Chicagoland mustache is most noteworthy due to its unique ability to act as a breeding ground for various odors and life forms - a distinct manifestation of the excessive Polish sausage residue and over malted beer foam often found in the area.

While the top minds in mustacheology can not agree on this fact, many theorize that these astonishing creatures are capable of forming a symbiotic relationship with their host. In this relationship, the host provides a steady supply of sauerkraut and Old Style, both of which the Chicagoland mustache needs to survive, while the mustache helps filter the host's blood - enabling him to consume massive amounts of cholesterol without suffering fatal cardiac damage. In addition, experts hypothesize that Mustacheous Chicagus' amazing empathic ability actually links it to the host's brain, increasing his ability to coach defensive football to superhuman levels.

For the above reasons, and for no reason at all, I have started growing this amazing and spectacular facial apparatus. May it’s growth and glorious brilliance act as a beacon of unity for our great city, and bring us all together in our quest for the one thing we all yearn for, Superbowl victory. May my ‘stache grow with great vigor and virility until the one and only Chicago Bears win the Superbowl. Mmmmm, Bears!

The Dubba on 60 Minutes.

2007-01-14T21:30:00.000-06:00

George W. Bush was on Sixty Minutes tonight, and somehow he didn't come off looking stupid… Of course this arouses the obvious question, has CBS been bought out by Fox News? What's going on? I’m confused.

I don‘t know, maybe it’s not that conservative media has delved its rusted fishhooks of manipulation into the Sixty Minutes empire, maybe it’s just that the process in general is at fault. I mean, watching The W in a live interview is an amazing comedic experience. There’s just so much going on; clichéd phrases borrowed from Sergio Leone movies, facial expressions mirroring several different genus of lower primates, and my personal favorite, his heroic struggle with three syllable words. However, on Sixty Minutes, not so much.

The interview was filmed in advance, edited, and probably prescreened for approval by a White House press staff. And, while I’m sure it’s fun for some people to watch Scott Pelley lob softballs at the president, it just doesn’t create that certain mystique of political entertainment for me. Furthermore, I’m fairly certain that the interview questions are given to the president’s chief of staff beforehand, thoroughly eliminating any chance of the president getting caught off guard by anything. This is undeniably what led to The W looking intelligent, and you know what? I don't really even care if he looks good on national television. I mean, I sort of want the chief executer of our country to look competent - trust me, it's a good thing... What really pisses me off, though, is that it gave him a plethora of opportunities to give us all, “The Look.”

Those of you who know me already know what I’m talking about, but for those of you who don’t, here’s some exposition. Whenever The W says something that he deems particularly clever or feels like he really, really defeated the interviewer in verbal combat, he gets this little grin on his face. A ridiculously devilish grin that makes it seem like there's this big inside joke that I'm not in on or something. Like, after the interview, him and Dick Cheney, and probably Arnold Schwarzenegger, will all get together in a smoking lounge at the lower levels of some clandestine castle and laugh about how stupid they think I am. I can almost imagine exactly how it goes...

Dick:	Good job on Sixty Minutes tonight George, you didn't tell them anything about what's really going on.
Dubba:	Yeah, but I hinted at it reel good... the idiuts didnt even knotice.
Arnold:	Ja, they were too busy sitting on their couches, shoving potato fries into their mouths. Flabby idiots.
Condoleeza Rice:	I know! They didn’t even notice that you slipped a bill through Congress to legalize the conscription of minorities!
Dubba:	Hay, who let you in bitch!

Then the whole thing sort of just breaks down as Arnold starts grabbing and fondling in the general direction of sweet African American hooters and Dick Cheney probably has a heart attack or something because it’s only the second time in his life that he’s ever seen a black person. I don’t know, maybe Bill O’Reily shows up, drops a couple “N-Bombs,” and then later apologizes for it, claiming that he’s never heard that particular word before. I’m not totally sure, it’s all very secretive... All I know is that I want to know what the joke is. Not being “in” of the joke is definitely one of my personal pet peeves; I can not stand it when people don’t have the bravado, or at least the courtesy, to make fun of me to my face. But maybe that’s just me.

To those of you on the West Coast, you can still catch it, those who missed it, you can check out videos and transcripts and such on The Sixty Minute website. Bush fans, you can actually get to see a moment where The W looks prepared, informed, and educated… Although, I’m sure that none of you actually own a computer, or live in a trailer park that has internet access, so I doubt that any of you will even be reading this. For everyone else, here are some of my highlights:

Bush referring to himself at the “Educator in Chief.” Something that, at first, made me laugh, but then after remembering that it is an actual title and duty assigned to the presidency, made me cry a little.

The freaked out looks on the president’s face every time he got asked a question about Iran’s future involvement in Iraq.

When The W said that his friends showed him the Saddam Hussein hanging on the internet, but he couldn’t watch the actual hanging and shut it off before the trap door opened.

The only reason I put this as a highlight is because, I’m pretty sure that the whole viewing party included ten-gallon hats, kegs, and a barbeque. In fact, it was probably a lot like a Brokeback Mountain Oscar-party, except without all the anal. (Well, okay, maybe a little anal.)

Finally, and perhaps most entertaining, was watching Bush ‘wrassel with the urge to break the fifth plane. Classic entertainment for those of you film-major types.

The Malort Report.

2006-12-11T20:31:00.000-06:00

As this week heralded in temperatures of above eight degrees to the greater Chicago land area, the thick layer of frost that has kept the Ruckus Maximus production center frozen to the core has been melted, and bloggatry can once again commence for your viewing pleasure. In other words, I've ceased my recent lazy streak and have decided to assault the keyboard with a volatile barrage of alcohol, ruckus, and five syllable words. But, seriously... It's been so cold, that no good bands have came to Chicago, nor has anything interesting occurred outside of me hiding indoors with five jackets on, heating up whiskey in the microwave in a vain attempt to stay warm--certainly nothing that you want to read about! As hermitesque as that may sound, and as boring as it actually is, I do have one story for you all. Wait, let me scratch that... It's not so much a story as it is a preface to a ridiculous story that will spawn from this New Years. That's right my Las Vegian friends, this December 31st I will be introducing you all to my new alcoholic friend, Malort.

Malort is an alcohol whose corporate slogan boasts, "For Two Fisted Drinkers." I thought, "Yes... finally a liquor that understands me!" So, I decided to do some research and found out that Malort is an oppressive juggernaut that has been feared across all of Chicago for the past seven generations. I'd heard it described as, "Nail polish remover mixed with Robotussin, because nail polish remover isn't thick enough." Needless to say, I was intrigued... And once I found out that The Motel Bar, in downtown Chicago, offers shots of Malort for twenty-five cents, I decided that it was time to try out this sinister beverage for myself. By the way, Miller High Life bottles are two dollars at the Motel Bar, so, five dollars gets you two beers and four shots... Or, umm, one beer and twelve shots. Which one do I recommend? Both.

Sitting at the bar, a lone shot glass resting in front of me,I knew it was time for me to meet my destiny, and with that thought, I did my generic courage building ritual, said goodbye to my loved ones, and consumed the mythically evil shot. To be honest, when Malort first hit my tongue, I was both shocked and surprised. I mean, I went in expecting the worst; this shit is not only legendary, but only costs a quarter--not exactly a recipe for a quality beverage... But when all was said and done, I actually kind of liked it. The obvious question aroused by my findings is whether or not Malort is, in fact, "good" or if I just, in fact, have a "drinking problem."

We'll leave that answer up to you... But, as a testimonial towards how evil this breed of booze actually is, this is the only picture of it Google could find.

So, in colclusion, I look forward to this New Years' Eve, where you will all be introduced to my latest creation: The Malort and PBR Bomb. A hoppish concoction that could quite possibily leave you paralyzed with bitter-beer face for the next fifteen years of your life.

Salute!

Also, go buy the Swan Lake album, Beast Moans, and listen to nothing but it for an entire week. I did, and I feel I'm a better man because of it.

Also, also, I heart you all!

Ruckus Live: My Brightest Diamond

2006-11-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

Schuba's Tavern
November 11, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

By now, Shara Worden should require no introduction, but in case you've been living in a cave, "Blah, blah, blah, Sufjan Stevens, blah, blah, solo project, blah, blah, My Brightest Diamond, blah, blah, opera training." Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can go forward. When My Brighest Diamond played Schuba's Tavern, she decided to come to town on the same night as The Decemberists. Ouch. So, as you might have guessed, the typical crowd of indie-kids was nowhere to be seen (not nessecairily a bad thing), and instead, in their place, was the typically older, slightly dorkier, crowd of thirty-something indie rock fans. Seriously, I was the youngest and least dorky person there, and I spent the day writhing in my bed, hungover, watching the Star Wars marathon on Cinemax...

Anyways, with opening act, Pedestrian, as her backing band, Shara tore through an amazing set. I don't think I need to bother describing it, since most of the people reading this post have long sinced scrolled down to the pictures. It's like Playboy for indie kids, so stop kidding yourself, you're not reading the articles... So, yeah, here's the pictures; just make sure you clean up when you're done.

Conclusion

The Good:

Pleasantly surprised by opening, opening, act: Via Tania

The Bad:

Little to no ruckus in the crowd, as the average age created a sort of aura of pacifism.

The Ugly:

All the paralysed hipsters locked in a smitten daze by the seductive dance stylings of Shara Worden.

Amazing Hip Hop Collaboration

2006-11-16T12:17:00.000-06:00

As they say in the rap world, "New shit, new shit!" Here's a new track from LL Cool Jay featuring Snoop Dogg, DMX, and Jay-Z. Okay, well not really... but it's amazing. Also, it kind of reminds me of how like five years ago, when everyone still used Napster, unsigned MC's would upload their own songs and rename them, "Eminem ft. DMX, Jay-Z, and Dr. Dre," to get people to download/listen to it. So, who knows... maybe Aries Spears is just from the Napster school of hip hop.

Straight up gangsta... My Brightest Diamond pics tomorrow.

Ruckus Live: Annuals

2006-11-14T19:11:00.000-06:00

The Empty Bottle
November 10, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

I first heard of Annuals through Pitchfork's Infinite Mixtape, but, admittedly, my intrigue was peaked when Chris Walker Versus had me review their single, Brother, for his Four Track Fridays featurette. While writing the review and listening to the song on repeat, I officially decided that I needed to go see Annuals play a show... I was definitely craving some sort of crazy, spaced out, jam session; which seems like the logical live interpretation for Brother, if you ask me. Apparently, not so much. (Sorry, just needed to drop the "...Not So Much" at least once in my blog before it's totally dead.)

Nevertheless, while Annuals may not really "jam out" live, there's still plenty going on musically. The band members are seemingly all over the place as they play musical chairs--swapping instruments and percussion details around--enabling them to match Adam Baker's amazing song arraignments with perfect accuracy. And, as if the sonic pictures painted upon your ears weren't enough, everyone also drinks A LOT before the show; always a bonus. Previously, I compared them to Animal Collective, but after hearing more of their 2006 album, Be He Me, it's clear that their influences come from a place much further south than Brooklyn. So, to sum things up: Show, good. Album, good. You should probably go watch them play, drink a few whiskeys, and buy their CD... Sounds like a winning evening.

Conclusion

The Good:

Adam Baker's amazing "Kelso-Vest."

The Bad:

Disease ridden, graffiti infested, bathroom (with no handles on the doors), PBR in the bottle, and the first time the Camel Cigarette Girls found me in Chicago all adds up to a Double Downesque experience... Which actually made me a little bit homesick. *tear*

The Ugly:

Dancing with Death's cruel temptress. (AKA: Trying to resist the urge to piss on the light switch that's mockingly located a mere six inches above the urinal.) PS: Does anyone know if that'd actually electrocute you?

Justified Annoyance

2006-11-08T21:39:00.002-06:00

I just want to hit everyone with a disclaimer before you read this. This post is going to be about Justin Timberlake. Yeah, I know... but seriously, I need to talk about this for a second.

Through some miracle of deception, Timberlake's new album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, managed to snake its way into the number two spot on Urban Outfitter's October play list. And yeah, I do know it's November, but I still have to hear this shit all the damn time because the girls I work with will always go take out The Decemberists and Cold War Kids CDs and put it in. It sucks... Not only do I have to actually listen to the man who saved his receipt for sexy so that one day he could bring it back, but I have to constantly explain to people why his album is terrible; and trust me it is. If you think SexyBack is an awful song, go listen to Losing My Way. It's supposed to be some kind of anti-drug PSA or something, but it's so ridiculously bad that you find yourself sticking heroin needles into your eardrums just to numb the pain.

The only time Justin's fingers have ever smelled of fish...

Now, I know that JT received some critical acclaim for his first album, due mostly to the fact that everyone was so shocked and surprised that it showed artistic development and maturity from his boy band days. But, what surprises me, is what people have to say about FutureSex/LoveSounds... I mean, just read the Pitchfork review - WTF? This album blows. I'll say it again, I really can't say it enough, BLOWS. B-L-O-W-S. People say that it's great and shows maturity, but I dissent, I say it shows regression. Seriously, the whole thing sounds like Timberland just remixed an old *NSYNC CD.

When it comes down to it... I think people can really only "OMGZ Luv his music!!!" for three reasons:

You think his music is awesome. [AKA, you're deaf.]
You think his music is awesome to dance to. [AKA, you're a whore.]
You think his music is awesome due to a left over crush from when you were sixteen [AKA, you suck at life.]

I mean, I understand that it's wierd to like Michael Jackson due to the fact that he bought the Elephant Man's remains (and also thinks that Hailey Joel Osmand is "too mature" to fellate), but you don't have to turn to JT to get your old Michael Jackson fix. Seriously, stop comparing Justin Timberlake to Michael Jackson. If we, as a society, keep doing this, he's eventually going to be able to molest a boy and get away with it.

I think that when it comes down to it, the part that pisses me off the most about the whole situation is that you just KNOW he's going to win a Grammy or something for SexyBack--a song in which he doesn't play an instrument, doesn't sing, and didn't even produce the beat on a laptop. Seriously, if it wins one, I think Timberland (or at least Lou Pearlman) should get to go up and accept the award.

Anyways, yeah... ladies, get over it. It's not good. If you want to go to a club and "get yo dance on," there's hundreds of better songs to do it to.

* * *

In other news, I just got this via e-mail and thought it was pretty funny/interesting. So, if you live in Chicago and are bored, you should probably go.

Wednesday, November 8th | 8:30 p.m.
free Jack drinks for an hour

UR Chicago Presents: Chicago Sounds
Schuba's

Details:
3159 N. Southport Ave.
First, the bad news: Tonight's event'll cost ya 15 bones. (Sponsor URChicago must not see the advantageous PR in a free show.) However, Suffrajet, Detholz! and Skybox provide a range of delicious sounds, perfectly complimenting an event focused on the local music scene. And there will be prizes! Looks like someone's getting a URChicago key chain this Christmas. Make sure to RSVP at urchicago@purepromote.com.

Ho no, Schuba's Tavern, I beg to differ... the bad news will be you cleaning up the gallons and gallons of Jack Daniels scented puke. Seriously, the only situation I could think of that could result in more trouble for the management is if they gave away free Jack for two hours.

Ruckus Inquisitus: La Rocca

2006-11-06T17:20:00.000-06:00

I find myself sitting at the only occupied table in the smaller, secondary, dining room of Schuba's Tavern, located right in the heart of Lakeview. A graveyard of barren pint and wine glasses already lie scattered about the table as the waitress arrives with yet another tray of libations. The four dapperly dressed individuals across the table from me are none other than the Silverlake-via-Ireland rock band, La Rocca, and currently they are entrenched in a debate over whether or not to order Schuba's much recommended meatloaf. Apparently, meat and breadcrumbs, when molded into a comforting shape, is a dish that is pretty much indigenous to America, so they were all very excited to try out some of our obese country's local cuisine. Yet, at T-minus forty-five minutes until they hit the stage, something like meatloaf might not be the best dinner choice--you can see the dilemma.

The waitress scribbles everyone's alcohol preferences onto her notepad and I decide to switch up from Guiness to PBR; a metaphorical move, bridging the gap between the Irish and American Indie Rock scenes. As we continue to bullshit and drink the respective drinks of our people, time constraints force the actual interview portion of the evening to begin. Now, originally, I was scheduled to interview lead singer/guitarist, Bjorn Baillie, but after sharing some pints and some words with the entire band, we decided to do the interview as a collective group effort; creating a sort of La Rocca Entity. In case you're wondering what the hell that means, basically, I ask a question and they all answer, add in after thoughts, whatever... and then we combine all of the input into one coherent written answer. Amazing. I was especially excited about it since I'm the type of guy who brings a water bottle full of red wine to a concert rather than a tape recorder.

In afterthought, I actually kind of like the idea of a group entity. It promotes honesty and togetherness and negates personal liability for slanderous drunken remarks. Anyways, after the interview, La Rocca hit the stage and rocked names and took faces--good thing only Nick went for the meatloaf.

However, for exposition's sake, I should note that the original idea for the La Rocca Entity was that each band member takes turns providing one word of the answer, moving clockwise around the table until a complete answer is drafted.

Ruckus Maximus:	So, you guys have played Chicago before, right?
Bjorn:	Yes!
Ruckus Maximus:	So, what'd you guys think? I've noticed that the scene here is definitely a lot more supportive than other places...
Nick:	It's
Alan:	absolutely
Bjorn:	great;
Simon:	so
Nick:	far
Alan:	so
Bjorn:	good.

Everybody laughing

Ruckus Maximus:	That was awesome... So, do you think you guys are going to be able to keep this up for the whole interview?
La Rocca Entity:	That depends... How many questions do you think we can answer with, "So far, so good?"
Ruckus Maximus:	Technically, all of them... but I think that's the only one that would make sense.

And so ends the round-robin portion of the interview, and thus begins the La Rocca Entity portion...

Ruckus Maximus:	I've heard some pretty crazy stories of debauchery involving Birdmonster. What's it like being on tour with them?
La Rocca Entity:	They're lunatics... in a good way though. But, they can't drink as much as us. At all.
Ruckus Maximus:	Speaking of that, as I'm sure you're all aware, there's a long standing history and tradtion of rock bands from Europe causing some outrageous ruckus in the States... Have you guys been contributing to this fine pissing on the Alamo tradition?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, we've absolutely drank every band we've played with over here under the table. Except Silversun Pickups--those guys can drink. Actually, we have a pending drinking and golfing contest in the works with them.
Ruckus Maximus:	A drinking and golf contest, how does that work?
La Rocca Entity:	We're going to basically get really drunk while playing golf. Maybe the goal should be to drink one beer every hole--that's eighteen beers by the time we're finished.
Ruckus Maximus:	That's awesome. Maybe you guys should make it miniature golf... you could knock out those eighteen beers in, like, an hour. So, when is this feat of alcoholic rivalry going to go down?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, once we both have a day off, we can settle it... It's pretty rare that we get a day off in a good city. We were off last night, but, before that, the last night we had was when our van broke down in Mesquite.
Ruckus Maximus:	That's terrible... Ironically, I'm from Las Vegas, so I know exactly what you mean when you say Mesquite... That sucks man, I'm sorry... So you guys just get really hammered off of nickel slots and free drinks?
La Rocca Entity:	Actually, we ripped the hell out of the Mesquite Public Library's CD collection.

Right about here was a, "You're from Vegas," related burn about The Killers... Awesome.

Ruckus Maximus:	So, you guys go anywhere cool last night?
La Rocca Entity:	We went to Club Foot. They have Vodka/Oranges for $2.50... it's cheaper than the beer!
Ruckus Maximus:	Damn, I'm going to have to check that place out... So, back on track... You guys are obviously from Ireland, but you've made a name for yourselves and exploded out of the Silverlake scene. What exactly is it about Silverlake that produces so many amazing bands?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, there's a lot of cheap rehearsal rooms and great venues there; there's a lot of musicians living in the area, too... I guess, basically, it's just inductive to the area, you know?
Ruckus Maximus:	I saw that Tony Hoffer produced your LP, The Truth. What was it like to work with such a legendary and well respected producer?
La Rocca Entity:	Tony was cool... he definitely brought a lot to the record. We were very lucky to have gotten to work with him, I mean, we try to work with only really short people, so we were definitely lucky in getting him to produce our record. Seriously though, he's great. He's the reason we signed with Dangerbird; just a great vibe.
Ruckus Maximus:	Now, I didn't see him listed among your influences, but when I listen to the self-titled track off of The Truth, I get a serious Billy Joel vibe. Was that what you were going for? Because, I definitely think it's the best drunken, bar room singalong that I've heard since Piano Man.
La Rocca Entity:	(laughing) It worked then! We actually went shopping with Tony for the piano we used to make the record. We literally looked at hundreds of pianos until we found this perfect one that made the record sound really great. Actually, we got it from the piano tuner from The Band, which was great because we're massive fans of theirs.
Ruckus Maximus:	So, what have you guys been listening to lately?
La Rocca Entity:	The new Jet and Killers!!!!

Everybody laughs for a really, really, ridiculously long time.

La Rocca Entity:	But, no, seriously... a lot of Silversun Pickups and Birdmonster. My mom actually just went to go see Elvis Presley live... Apparently it's just his backing band performing, with like vocal tracks and his image on a big screen. She said it was great, though.
Ruckus Maximus:	As everybody likes to point out, you guys are named after your favorite bar back home... but what makes that bar so name-borrowingly awesome?
La Rocca Entity:	It's a total dive... really down and dirty with their drinking. Plus, they have a shiny new green sign.
La Rocca Entity:	Wait, we have to go watch this band. (Los Abandoned, the opening act, started playing a few minutes ago.)
Ruckus Maximus:	Oh yeah, totally. Let's just do one more fast conclusatory [not a word] question, and we'll all go watch them. Any final shout outs, shameless sponsorship plugs, or unknown bands we should be watching out for?
La Rocca Entity:	Dappled Cities, another Dangerbird Records band that is great... Them and Turn; a cool band from Dublin.

Sweet. Big ups to the guys from La Rocca for taking the time to hang out... They played a great show, pictures are up at: Ruckus Live: Birdmonster & La Rocca. If you don't own The Truth, go buy it...

Ruckus Live: Margot and the Nuclear So & So's

2006-11-02T16:32:00.000-06:00

The Abbey Pub
October 29, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Chicago, Halloween weekend, The Elected, Margot and the Nuclear So & So's, Whispertown 2000--a seemingly perfect formula for maximum ruckus, or, at the very least, an awesome edition of Ruckus Live. I was pretty excited for the drunken potential of this show, as The Abbey is just a short walk from my house. Further adding to the show's alcoholic intake was the fact that almost everyone in the joint was wearing their Halloween costumes. I mean, even Satan showed up in his costume ready to party (pictured above.) Satan's scary jack-o-lantern costume actually gave me a great idea for a new drink. A new and spectacular drink; as troublesome as it is festive.

So, ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu, I present to you:

The Jack-O-Latern:

One half pint Pumpkin Ale (on special at almost any bar for the next month.)

One shot Jack Daniels.

Slam shot into pint glass, chug, you get the picture.

Hardly innovative, but damn is it delicious!

I digress, back to the music. The first band was Whispertown 2000. I don't know if I missed the line on this one, or what, but I'd never heard of Whispertown 2000 until I said, "Hey, awesome show... what's your guys' names? No, no, I mean your band's name..." Anyways, they play some pretty cool tunes, so, if you too have missed the line, check them out on Myspace. It's the type of music that will leave you standing there wondering to yourself, "Did she really just say, 'So stick your tongue in there and wiggle it around?'"

History seems to have a way of repeating itself, and as is usually the case when Jack Daniels shows up to a function, disaster struck. Early in Margot and the Nuclear So & So's amazing set, my camera's battery died because I forgot to charge it after the Birdmonster /La Rocca show on Thursday (Go me.) So, needless to say, there will be no pictures of The Elected. However, I will provide you with a picture of The Elected that I stole from Flickr.com and subsequently fixed by photoshopping Jenny Lewis into. Now before you get all uppity and start argueing that The Elected DOESN'T sound exactly like Rilo Kiley sans the Jenny Lewis charisma, I want you to answer me this... Why then, does The Elected sell Rilo Kiley CD's at their merch booth? Okay, thank you. If they're content with themselves living off of Rilo Kiley hype, you should be too.

Due to the fact that I didn't get the chance to take very many quality pictures before my camera went flaccid, I'm just going to haphazardly post the best ones with some random Margot highlights.

"Hey, my dad drove all the way from Indianapolis to see the show tonight, everyone should give him a dollar!" - Richard Edwards

Oh Where, Oh Where, Has my Dog Gone?

The band's perpetual bumming of cigarettes from the crowd.

Emily Watkins rocking the lead riff of Skeleton Key on the Melodica

All the girls in the crowd "spring break style" screaming, "Whoooo!" every time Richard Edwards took a drink of PBR.

Margot returning with Dirty on Purpose in a month and giving me a chance to take some better pictures.

Conclusion

The Good:

Despite the fact that they didn't play Jen is Bringin' the Drugs, there were enough people who did, in fact, bring drugs that one of them was bound be named Jen.

The Bad:

My awesome digital camera battery charging skills.

The Ugly:

It's hard to tell what's actually ugly when everything's in its Halloween costume...

Ruckus Live: Birdmonster & La Rocca

2006-11-01T01:07:00.000-06:00

Schuba's Tavern
October 26, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Take two bands that love to play good ole' fashioned rock and roll, pour them into a small venue, add seventeen liters of booze, stir, and what you get is a Birdmonster and La Rocca show. Good times were to be had last Thursday at Schuba's, it's just too bad everyone in the joint got too soused up to remember them. Fortunately for the liquor saturated Chicago crowd, I brought my camera.

Props and shout outs to the Walk from Chris Walker Versus for having his buddy, Torr, over at Filter Magazine, guest list me to this show. Word.

Los Abandoned, from Vapor Records (Neil Young's label), opened the show with their breed of indie, post-punk, Latin new wave; yeah, you heard me. They put on a pretty good set, as front woman, Lady P, is all over the place on stage. It definitely brought a different, but appreciated, sound to the evening's show--despite concern from the boys of La Rocca that the combined power of their names would draw an audience comprised of one hundred percent mariachi fans. Los Abandoned are going to be be the musical guest on Conan O'Brien this Thursday, Novemeber 2nd, so you should probably check that out.

Next up was La Rocca, whose uber-polished, Tony Hoffer produced, album transforms well into an amazing soundscape of gritty, barroom, piano rock when performed live. The Truth, the title track off of their 2006 Dangerbird Records album, is probably the best drunken sing-a-long that I've heard since Billy Joel's Piano Man. Even the most pretentious of the hipsters in attendance couldn't help but join in chorus with their PBR's hoisted high in the air. So, drop what you're doing and go buy The Truth right now, see La Rocca if they ever come to your town, and for fuck's sake, buy them a shot... they'll appreciate it, and so will you.

Closing up the show was San Fransisco's Birdmonster. I just want to say that nobody, and I mean nobody, rocks out harder on stage than Birdmonster. By the end of their set, they're so covered with alcohol flavored sweat, that even a seasoned drinker like Mel Gibson would would get hammered from just a mere sniff of their T-Shirts. If you don't believe me, check out the pictures. Or, better yet, check them out live... it seems like they're perpetually on tour with somebody.

Conclusion

The Good:

Libations liberate rock and roll.

The Bad:

On weekdays, last call is at 1:30 in the AM.

The Ugly:

Watching a homeless guy lick the stage after Birdmonster's set trying to get drunk.

Ruckus Live: Figurines

2006-10-25T01:11:00.000-05:00

Schuba's Tavern
October 23, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

When Figurines' first American release, Skeleton, pillaged its way into the States like a Viking warlord last March, it immediately became one of my new favorite albums. I played the crap out of it... Had it been the year, 1973, and it was on vinyl, I would have had to buy three copies due to excessive scratching. It just never got old. Even after all of these months, Skeleton still remains one of my favorite releases of 2006.

Ever since that day, deep down inside, I just knew that Figurines would be an amazing live band. It's just one of those things that really shines through on their studio album. I mean, for months, I would sit at home and constantly check various websites while praying to the Indie Rock Gods that Figurines would play a US tour, and, finally, one day my prayers were answered. PitchforkMedia.com announced a Figurines US tour, and in an even further act of appretiation from the Indie Music Gods, they would be playing Chicago just a few weeks after I had moved there; just in time to see them blow out Schuba's Tavern.

I'm going to start off by saying that this was the best live set that I have ever seen from a band. I'm not going to call it the best concert ever, due to a lack of supporting cast, but still, it was definitely the best single performance from a band that I have ever bore witness to. All of the elements were present; the stars aligned, if you will. A small, intimate, venue - a band that I love - a great crowd - a well thought out and orchestrated set list - live twists on several songs - seriously, what more can you ask for?

The show began with lead singer/guitarist, Christian Hjelm, on stage alone as he performed an acoustic guitared out version of the album's opener - a piano ballad entitled, Race You. (Which, on a side note, will always make me giggle a little bit due to Chris Walker Vs. The Amazing Race.) Then, the rest of the band joined him on stage to play Silver Ponds, at the end of which, Hjelm traded in his acoustic guitar for an electric, announced that, "This concludes the acoustic portion of the set," and then proceeded to rock everyone's face off for the next fifty minutes.

Highlight of the show, for me, definitely had to be the extended-live-jammed out version of Rivalry which blended right into one of my favorite tracks, Wrong Way All the Way. That, and crazy Figurines-Fifth-Man simultaneously playing the guitar, tambourine, keyboard, and laptop.

I really, really, ridiculously hope that Schubas releases this show on eMusic.com soon, so I can share some of the vast awesomeness with you on an audible level.

Amazing band.

Seriously.

Conclusion

The Good:

This was THE MOST that a group of Norsemen has dominated an American crowd since Leif Erikson landed here in the year, 1000, and proceeded to give the enitre native population syphillis with his beard.

The Bad:

The aura of Old Spice and Stetson that emitted from openers, The Jet Age.

The Ugly:

Work at 7:00 in the AM the next morning... Weak.

Figurines, I Told You So, & White Girl Rap.

2006-10-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

So, tonight is the show that I have been giddy with delight over for the past month. That's right, Figurines are going to be rocking the face off of Schuba's Tavern. Of course, this means some Ruckus Live action for you... and if the show is as nipple hardeningly good as I expect it to be, I may even post some live mp-thrizzles; yeah, buddy. So, check for that on Wednesday.

* * *

Thanks for making us look like douchebags, Victory!!! Oh, wait, this was taken before we signed with you?

In other news, Hawthorne Heights is apparently suing Victory Records [Full Story]. Although this highly qualifies as "Who-Cares" news in my world (which explains me hearing about it two months later), I feel it's worth mentioning for one sole reason. Apparently, Hawthorne Heights is claiming that, due to Victory Records' excessive tampering with their image, much of their fan base has been alienated. And although I'm sure that their terrible music probably has much more to do with their "lack of fans," I think this whole Victory Records image tampering thing sounds a bit too familiar. Dare I even say, reminiscent, of an editorial I wrote about selling your soul to rock in roll in this days' age. So, go forth, give it a read, and watch me bask in all of my "I called that shit" glory.

Ruckus Maximus: The Devil's Rejects.

* * *

And finally, since white-girl rappers are the vogue thing these days, here's an old SNL video I found of my favorite female rapper.

Take that, Lady Sovereign!

Ruckus (Barely A)live: Maritime

2006-10-20T22:31:00.000-05:00

Last night, Maritime played what can only be speculated upon as an amazing set at Chicago's number one hip-hop club, the Subterranean. In addition to people's faces getting melted off with sheer, bottled, indie pop beauty, last night marked a very interesting and shocking historical occasion. No, I'm not talking about the first time that more than fifteen white kids were inside of the Subterranean at the same time (although, it was.) Oh no my friends, last night marked the last time that I will EVER pre-drink for a wine tasting with a bottle of whiskey and then use said wine tasting as a pre-drinking venue for a concert. It's just never going to happen again. If I wasn't the chief editor, sole writer, and only employee of Ruckus Maximus, I probably would have fired myself today. In fact, I think I still may.

Sitting inside of the multi-floored Subterranean, I ordered a beer, drank three sips, and realized I was way too drunk for public, so I decided to go outside for some air. Anyways, one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, I was semi-lost in a weird area of Southside Chicago. I say "semi-lost" only because I was too drunk to care/panic about it, and I say "weird area" only because I don't know the appropriate racist term. As I wandered around, my hood donned to mask my caucasianess, I started to sober up a little bit and came to the conclusion that I might be in somewhat of a bad situation.

Now, I'm not going to waste my time writing this big, suspenseful, post about my adventures in Ghettoland, because obviously you all know I made it out in one piece, or else I wouldn't have been able to type this up for you--durr. But, in case I've peaked your curiosity, basically, here's what happened. I befriended some black homeless dude, heard his life story, and walked the four miles back to civilization. I bought him a tall can of PBR in some shitty bar, we smoked a pack of Camels, and we pistol-whipped some frat-boys at pool. I then started thinking, "What the hell am I doing?" Maritime is still probably playing down the street! So, I smoke-bombed it the F out of there, walked back to the Sub-T, and discovered that they do not allow re-entry. Son of a bitch...

The only reason I really wrote all this is just to take a second to apologize to everyone who was eagerly awaiting some hot indie pictures today. Luckily, Maritime will be back in Chicago on November 10th, so I'm going to have to take a mulligan on this one.

In the mean time, here's some related readings to tide you over.

The Trip Wire's review of Maritime playing SXSW this year.
Chris Walker Versus' Four Track Friday. I wrote it last night, after my disappointing adventure in Maritimeland. It's kind of a fun read, because I had soused myself into retardation.

So, in conclusion, I'm sorry, but not really...
Figurines on Monday--awesome.
And yes, I am, in fact, aware that I may have a drinking problem... but thanks for the concern.

Pet Politics: The Spring EP

2006-10-18T17:31:00.000-05:00

My mailbox was magically transformed into a tiny gold Pandora's box of awesomeness today as I opened it to find that Pet Politics' new EP finally arrived from Catbird Records.

Pet Politics is the pseudonym of Swedish one-man-band, Magnus Larsson, and it rocks. Although the enitre disc is only just under fourteen minutes long, it manages to take you on a nostalgic, reverb-heavy, trip down memory lane to a place that you've never been and a time that you can't remember. Amazing. Buy it, it's only three and a half dollars--and damnit, tip the artist the extra buck. That's it.

Pet Polits website.

Pet Politics on MySpace.
(songs for free download)

Order The Spring EP.

Karaoke with The Like

2006-10-16T01:39:00.000-05:00

From the same people who brought you the eloquent and simple haiku comes a brand new phenomena; that's right kids, it's KARAOKE! It takes everything that you love about your favorite songs, strips it naked, and punches it in the testicles. Fun for the entire family! Anyways, here's some video of The Like performing some good, down-home, quality, drunken karaoke--well, at least I hope it was drunken.

Highlights Include:

Shots of the disgusted "super-serious-and-into-karaoke" crowd

The first time an Ashley Simpson song has ever been performed live without the use of a lip synched vocal track.

and... "No dog's body!!!!!!!!"

Ruckus Live: Art Brut, We Are Scientists, & Spinto Band

2006-10-13T23:53:00.000-05:00

The Metro
October 12, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

If I had to use only one word to collectively describe all three of the bands that blew out the Metro on Thursday night, it would be alcohol. But since alcohol isn't exactly an adjective or even really a very descriptive word, we'll go with: "Energy." Art Brut and We Are Scientists are two bands that have pretty much based their entire musical careers around their live performances. I mean, when you see their names printed across the top of your ticket, you just know that you're in for a treat... but it's not merely the catchy post-punk sing-a-longs and witty onstage banter that you have to look forward to, oh no my friends, they bring much, much more to the stage--like costumes.

But, before the two headliners would have the chance to get their rock on, the Chicago crowd would first be greeted by Spinto Band--a powerpop group from Delaware that ranges from six to seven members, depending upon which night you see them. Their music kind of reminds me of the type of catchy tunes that emo kids would get down to now that emo's not that popular anymore... Not really my thing, but they do bring a lot of energy and presence to the stage. So, if you're into like, Hellogoodbye, or The Academy Is..., or whatever, you should probably check them out. They scored points for playing kazoos on stage, but lost points for not making a single, "Hi, we're from Delaware..." joke.

Pod-Cast: Chris Cain drunk-dialing/interviewing/snarking intellectual with Spinto Band. Just copy (http://wearescientists.com/podcast.xml), into your iTunes, or whatever you use.

Next up was, We Are Scientists. Rather than going into a lengthy dissertation on how much I like this band and how awesome bassist, Chris Cain's, mustache is, I'm just going to say that if We Are Scientists come to your town, go fucking see them... seriously. See how I drop an unasterisked "F-Bomb" just so you can see how serious I am? Yeah... do it.

The theme of their set tonight was, "Band mash-ups." They invited the Spinto Band dancers on stage with them to perform a We Are Scientists'ed out version of Bang Bang Rock & Roll, and, for their final song, they were joined on stage by Art Brut lead guitarist, Ian Catskilkin, who leant his best Eddie Van Halen impression to Keith Murray's guitar. Aside from that, they played all the favorites from With Love and Squalor with CD-quality precision, and kept the atmosphere light with Keith Murray and Chris Cain's humorous, self-deprecating, verbal sparring.

Download: Inaction

Okay, hold on. I realize that I should probably throw a little bit of exposition about Chris Cain's ensemble here. In case you were wondering, yes, that is a pink jumpsuit with a lightning bolt on the chest. And yes, the button does say, "Moustache Rides: Ladies - $1.00, Boys - $1.50, Keith - Free." He claims that there is some elaborate bet going on where he has to wear it for two weeks straight. Now, I use the word, "claims," because after he explained all of this, lead singer/guitarist, Keith Murray, looked surprised and said, "Oh, so it's a bet now? Well then, what do you get if you win?" To which Cain could only reply, "Oh ya? Well, why don't you tell everybody what's up with the fruity little handkerchief around your neck." Okay, anyways, back to the pictures...

I really only have six words and one semi-colon to say about the final act of the night; "Art Brut; Top of the Pops." It seems like all over the internet, various music magazines, and even your little sister's diary, you constantly read about how awesome the live Art Brut experience is. I mean, it's received so much praise, that it's almost impossible to goto an Art Brut show without momumental expectations, and let me tell you... Thursday's show did not let me down one bit.

Charismatic frontman, Eddie Argos, holds command of the stage with a certain, "As Long as I have this microphone, you will listen to every damn word I have to say," swagger, and when you combine that with Art Brut's catchy punk riffs, sing-a-long choruses, and more pop-culture references than an episode of Best Week Ever, you're left with an amazing live experience. I know I seem to be saying this about every band that I've seen lately, but, if you have the chance: GO SEE THIS BAND!

That's all.

Download: Good Weekend

Conclusion

The Good:

Smartbar after party, free admission, $2 PBR's, 'nuff said.

The Bad:

Confused Emo kids shouting, "Play Blitzkrieg Bop!!!"

The Ugly:

A suspicious odor wafting forth from the direction of a certain unwashed, pink jumpsuit."

Monsieur Argos had just bought me a shot of Jagermeister... I was apparently just a little bit psyched about it.

Ruckus Live: TV on the Radio & Grizzly Bear

2006-10-10T15:10:00.000-05:00

The Metro
October 09, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

If ever there was a scene that encompassed the word, "ruckus," to the letter, this was it. Wrigleyville was overflowing with a patchworked crowd of people as hordes of hipsters, punk rockers, twee kids, breakdancers, the bohemian, and the genuinely homeless, alike, all came out in full force to see TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear play a sold out show at the Metro. Chaos ensued...

There were people flowing into and out of the surrounding bars like herds of cattle at a slaughtering house. Dozens of disappointed kids lined the sidewalks in a desperate attempt to hunt for an extra ticket. I think somebody even got murdered... seriously. As I came walking up, paramedics were loading somebody into an ambulance and police were loading somebody else into a paddywagon; I did the math. Now, I wasn't planning on boozing at last night's show, due to an interview I had early this morning, but I think that, in a sober state, I definitely wouldn't have been able to enjoy the show and deal with the circus of people at the same time... so I took one for the team, pounded a few PBR's and shots at my favorite Wrigleyville bar, the Gingerman, and went in.

Grizzly Bear took the stage first and played most of their new record, Yellow House. I was a tad disappointed that they didn't play songs from Horn of Plenty, but I suppose it does make more sense for them to play their newer songs. After all, their new material was written by and meant for the new full Grizzly Bear band, while their earlier work was just two guys with a ton of instruments and looping equipment. Either way, Grizzly Bear tore through an amazing live set. There is so much musical talent floating around in that band, it's scary... if you ever have the chance to see them, do it.

Download: Don't Ask (Final Fantasy Remix)

Unfortunately, during the break in between sets, I realized that alcohol, plus metabolism, does in fact equal urination, and apparently, while I was in the bathroom, a bajillion more people came in from outside. So, needless to say, it was near impossible to fandangle myself a spot to even see the stage, let alone take quality pictures of the headliners, TV on the Radio. So, basically, I played around with my camera's filters and zoom settings, snapped a few shitty shots, and then went upstairs and proceeded to get exceptionally soused for the rest of the show.

The balcony turned out to actually be pretty cool though; the sound carried well up there, the bar was less crowded, and I got to exchange a few words/cocktails with Ed Droste--cool guy. As for TV on the Radio, I don't know if it's something about the way they sound live, or the way they sound when you're really hammered, but you really connect with their music when you hear it in person. The rhythmic aspect of it--especially on songs from Return to Cookie Mountain--translates into a soulful, almost shamanistic, experience that isn't felt when you listen to it at home (and/or really sober.) So, if you're one of those people that, "Doesn't get," TV on the Radio, check out their live show--you might be surprised.

Download: Wolf Like Me

Conclusion

The Good:

Watching a lone, jewfro'ed intern/roadie stock the stage with water, Redbull, and booze in between sets while the theatrical score of Star Wars blared out of the Metro's fifteen foot speakers.

The Bad:

Driving to the Metro, only to find out that the closest parking spot was the one in front of my house.

The Ugly:

Troves of NYC hipsters saying, "Brooklyn represent!"

Awesome show... way too drunk for public.

Ruckus Live: Sunset Rubdown

2006-10-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Logan Square Auditorium
October 06, 2006
(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

As I walked into the Logan Square Auditorium, my head has heavy with questions... Would local Chicago band, Office, live up to the serious buzz about them? Will Spencer Krug's live show be as spot on and charismatic without the rest of Wolfparade on stage? Who the hell is Beaver? There was certainly a lot left in the air about this show, but soon all the answers would be revealed--except where the f*** I parked my car.

Office took the stage first in front of a fairly decent sized crowd, considering they were the early band. Apparently, their appearance at Lollapalooza this year had really given them some Chicagoland street cred. On a nationwide level, you may also have heard of Office on iTunes in The Indie Spotlight.

Whichever the case, there was a definite hype to their set... and when they hit the stage, they didn't disappoint. Their particular breed of dancy indie poprock, which is much more guitar driven live than it is on the recordings, had the kids dancing and the hipsters standing arms crossed, heads bobbing in approval. They're certainly worth checking out, so go fire up iTunes and give their new LP, Q&A, a listen.

Download: Bar Yellow

Next up was Beaver, which turns out, is not a band's name, but rather a guy's name. Let me just say that everybody's group of friends has someone named Beaver in it, and that guy is pretty much always a big, crazy, beer-drinkin' sonuvabitch. Spencer Krug is no exception. And this is how Beaver landed a spot as the opening act on the Sunset Rubdown tour, despite the lack of any media, recordings, publicity, or merch in support of the Beaver phenomena. Although I do suspect that several cases of Molsen Ice were involved.

This is about the point of the show where most of the kids went outside to smoke. I however, decided to stick around for a couple of songs. By the way, Beaver rocks out some pretty decent acoustic folk rock, if you care. Unfortunately, I was only able to hear about half of his set, as I had to go to the wine bar next door to refuel for the headliner.

Once the roadies got done toweling up all of the Beaver sweat--I'm just kidding! (They didn't clean it up) It was time for Sunset Rubdown to take the stage, and let me just start off by saying that, not only do these guys rubdown some serious sunsets, they also rock some serious faces.

No joke, the Sunset Rubdown live experience is both captivating and haunting; I highly recommend going if it ever comes to your town. The only low point of the night was when the venue's equipment shorted out right at the beginning of Sunset Rubdown's set, but the band managed to keep the crowd entertained by pretending to start songs, only to realize that they were all playing the wrong instruments, accidently singing into a beer bottle instead of a microphone, and other such drunken shenanigans. That, and giving a five minute dissertation on how awesome Spencer Krug's new moustache is, yes, shows definitely need more speeches about moustachary. Once the technical difficulties were taken care of, Spencer strapped on his trusty headband and led his troupe through an amazing set.

Download: They Took a Vote and Said No

Conclusion

The Good:

The exceedingly hot Office keyboardist.

The Bad:

The Logan Square Auditorium's bar being "out of whiskey."

The Ugly:

Puddles of excessive Beaver sweat shorting out the stage's electrical system.

Here's to you, Mr. Stevenson...

2006-06-17T15:58:00.002-05:00

Prologue

I know I promised everyone a rich and lavish story about one of our own dear friends turning to destitute. And yes, I know that the story is three weeks overdue. And yes, I do in fact know that I am a gigantic alcoholic of a procrastinator. I am aware of these three facts, they plague my thoughts--not to mention my comments’ section--so you don’t have to constantly remind me of them. However, this time, there’s actually a decent reason why this posting has been so delayed... and besides, I don’t get paid to write this shit, so fuckoff. (Not to mention, I gave you some Photographis Blogicus loving to tide you over.)

[Author’s Note: It’s amazing, “fuckoff,” is a real word, at least according to my word processor. Sure, I thought it’d give me, “fuck,” and, “off,” but the two of them together? With no spacing in between? Kudo’s to you Wordperfect.]

[Post-Author’s Note: Even more amazingly, “Wordperfect,” is NOT a word... despite the program displaying it at the top of the screen. Yeah, way to give your own program name the red underline... fuck face. Kudo’s to you Wordperfect.]

Anyways, back to the point. Before I wrote this blog, I had to ask myself a series of questions... First off, is the alleged story hilarious? Yes. Is it blog-worthy? Sure. Will it live up to a thirty-some-odd day hype? I don’t know. And there we have the origin of the delay. Is this story still worth telling? Was it even worth telling in the first place? I thought long and hard about these questions; reaching Socratic levels of concentration and ponder. And one day I came to the conclusion that yes, yes it is. And as I stumbled to a keyboard last Tuesday night, ready to record this tale into the annuls of Ruckus Maximus history, I came to a stark conclusion.

This story is comedy. The protagonist truly exerts great effort and endures much suffering, but for those of us who know the aforementioned protagonist, we know that it was hardly a Herculean Labor by his standards. This man--nay, this legend--has done some one-hundred percent, bonafide, over the top, ri-fuckin-diculous shit. And rather than shining the light of Ruckus Maximus on an incident that, by comparison, is barely noteworthy, I found it much more fitting to highlight the career of a man whose extraordinary levels of self-destruction will never cease to amaze me.

So, without further winding of an introduction, I present to you, my friend... Steve.

Who is Steve Stevenson?

“He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell--his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.”
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Robert Lewis Stevenson (No Relation.)

Many people have asked me over the years, “Just who the hell is that Steve Stevenson guy?” And ironically, the above passage is a pretty accurate summarization as to exactly how I came to know Mr. Stevenson. Steve Stevenson is not so much a person, or a human being, as he is a... I don’t know; part-time person? More precisely, he is a compound manifestation of Karim Rashid’s personality. Allow me to explain.

When Karim Rashid, a seemingly mild mannered tank driver, clocks out, parks the tank, and heads home for the night, he is met by a temptation. A potent temptation; a voice that screams from within his very being, “Let me out! Let me out you son of a bitch!” Like any temptation, it only needs the slightest of coercion to come boring out at full speed, and, in this case, that coercive element is alcohol. Once the proper mixture of alcohol, menthol cigarettes, and ridiculousness is achieved, Steve Stevenson peels off his restrictive Karim-husk and comes barreling out into the real world, primed and ready to partake in some mischief.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of making Steve’s acquaintance, consider it a blessing... a blessing, and also a terrible void in your life. For, although Mr. Steve Stevenson is an alcoholic force capable of more destruction that the most Katerinaesque of hurricanes, he is also a vessel of fun. I think--no, I’m certain--that the most I have ever laughed out loud (or “LOL’ed” for you internet hommes) was in his presence. And to be honest, I feel bad for anyone that was not present for his antics... so bad, in fact, that I am hereby going to dedicate the next few Ruckus Maximus postings to counting down my personal, favorite, top-ten Steve Stevenson moments.

On that note, I bid you welcome to the first of a ten part series: Here’s to you, Mr. Stevenson

The Chronicles of Stevenson, Episode Ten: Racism and Sleeping in the Gutter.

I know this story should probably be ranked a little higher than number ten on the Steve-Stevenson-Scale of drunkeness, but I feel I owe it the honor of being the first story told. After all, it is the story I promised you all so many weeks ago... and if I made you wait even longer for it, I would be classified as a true bastard. So, fuck it, it got bumped down on the list.

Anyways, the story started off innocently enough. Our friend, Ex to the Tina, had just graduated college, and what does any good, red-blooded, American college graduate do? She gets drunk to the max... in a hotel room... on The Strip. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Bible; Thou shalt get soused until thy head shrinks and thou’t does’th unforgivable things. It’s like Corinthians 17:26 or something... I’m not sure. The point is, Karim and I showed up, and we were escorted by our old friend, 1.75 Liter SoCo. Now, I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s always a great time whenever that guy shows up. And also, it’s always a terrible time whenever that guy shows up.

In fact, George W. Bush should just come out and say it. Mr. 1.75 Liter SoCo is a weapon of mass destruction. It’s true. I know for a fact, that, in the hands of an expert, he is way more destructive than anything that the U.N. Weapons Inspectors found lurking in the basement of an Iraqi coffee house. I know this fact because I am that expert. In the past, armed with only a bottle of SoCo and a lack of better judgement, I have laid waste like the fifth horseman of the apocalypse to a vast array of parties and social functions. But, like I said, we were going to keep it low-key tonight, and I thought that Karim and I could more than handle a few swigs from the teat of the southern devil. I would be wrong.

An hour later, we were lurking downstairs in front of Fat Tuesday, each armed with our group’s signature Fat Tuesday beverage; a yard of 190 Octane/Hurricane Mix, with two extra shots of Ever Clear. Yeah, sure, it may sound pretty alcoholic to a layman, but keep in mind, we are highly trained professionals. It is with this confidence that I turned to say something meaningless to Karim and saw the transformation.

If you’ve never seen the metamorphosis before, it is truly a thing of terror. His eyes start to burn an intensely heated stare, a stare that grows hotter and hotter until his very pupils start to boil. Sweat billows out of his every pore like a sponge being squeezed by a championship bodybuilder. Then, in an almost sudden release, his skin begins to melt until there is nothing left of Karim but a puddle on the floor. And, there, standing in his place, knee-deep in the mess of our deconstructed friend, is Steve Stevenson; relieved to be finally liberated of his Rashidish prison. As is usual, this is when our night started to go downhill.

Once Steve’s eyes adjusted to the harsh, halogen lighting of the real world, it was time for him to satisfy his dark and sinister agenda. The first thing Steve always does after he emerges into our world is politely excuse himself, go to the bathroom, and vomit like a world class super model. I don’t think he does this because he is partied out though. No, quite the contrary... In fact, Steve seems to spew all over the nearest piece of porcelain as a way of purging any final shred of common sense or decency that might still be floating around inside of his body. With that task done, he walked out of the bathroom, wiped a chunk of semi-digested nacho cheese off of his lip, threw his keys at me, and demanded, “Come on, we’re going to the Double Down.” Because, if there’s one place Steve Stevenson always has to visit while he’s in town, it’s the Double Down.

I would like to break story for a moment to explain that the art of describing a Steve Stevenson infused trip to the Double Down using only the English language is near impossible. It simply can’t be done. The only language that can even come close to describing it is a weird hybrid of Demon, Pig Latin, Slur, and for some reason, Dutch, known as, Stevenson, which unfortunately, I can not speak. Sure, on some long nights of drinking with Steve, you might see us having a conversation, so you might assume that I can speak Stevenson, but you would be wrong... it’s a Han Solo and Chewbacca sort of thing; don't ask.

Anyways, given the above linguistic dilemma, I’m not going to go into what exactly happened at the Double Down, but I will post this little blur of a filmstrip as an attempt at paraphrasing what went down. In fact, if you kind of cross your eyes and stare at it, you’re left with pretty much all I can remember about it anyways...

After the Double Down, we always get this weird urge to goto the Hard Rock, and that, my friends (A.K.A: those of you still reading), is where the true Steve Stevenson antics begin.

We saunter into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and it is about four-thirty in the morning, so what do we do? We immediately seek out our cocktail slinging friend, Booty McLeatherpants, to supply us with beverages of an alcoholic nature. It’s interesting to note that while we were talking to her, she kept telling me how drunk and fucked up I looked, yet she said nothing to Steve, despite the fact that he kept wandering off to tell people that I was, “Tyler from The Killers,” bringing them over to meet me, and then trying to slap them in the face for talking to me. Apparently, she’s met Steve before, and everything seemed to be in order.

After about ten minutes of those antics, Leather McBootypants, or Booty McLeatherpants, or whatever, kind of took us over and sat us down in the sidebar to feed us drinks, because we were way too drunk to be participating in the regular areas of the casino. So, as I’m sipping on my Jack & Diet and chugging the crap out of bottle of water, I somehow lost Steve. Losing Steve is not really that uncommon of an event; as he tends to wander off from time to time, but if you order him a fresh beer, he usually can sniff it out and find his way back. But, after about fifteen minutes had passed, I became a little bit concerned and went to go look for him. I checked out all his favorite hangouts; teasing hookers at the Circle Bar, teasing off-duty hookers at Mr. Luckies, getting rolled by hookers in the alley, you know, the usual.

After searching high and low, Steve was still nowhere to be found. That left two last places to check before chalking it up as a loss and heading home; the drunk tank and the morgue. But, before taking the trek downtown, I decided that I needed to hit the bathroom real fast, and as I walked into the bathroom, I somehow stumbled into a fucking scene.

Standing in the bathroom was a well composed black man. See-through, clubbing sunglasses rested on his nose, neatly tied corn-rolls graced his skull, and a three piece Italian suit hung from his body. But all of these lavish physical adornments were immediately trumped by the elegant, diamond studded, three-foot cane in his right hand. This man was calmly lounging in the bathroom, by the sinks, and standing next to him, screaming into his face was one, Mr. Steve Stevenson.

I walked in just in time to hear the man say, “Look, pal, I’m not a pimp,” and I knew we were in trouble. Now, I’m not going to type out a transcript of their argument for several reasons, the first of which being the fact that I was hammered, which would defeat the very invention and merit of the quotation mark. The second, and more important, reason is that certain words and phrases that occurred would undoubtedly deliver to Ruckus Maximus and myself the complete and unbridled fury of the NAACP. I can, however, tell you that Steve kept saying things like, “Naw, naw, come on playa... Look at those cornrolls; you a pimp. Come ON playa!” And the black guy, who, at one time, may or may not have been a body guard for Murder Inc. kept repeating, with an increasing level of anger, “I’m not a pimp!”

This went on for, no exaggeration, like ten minutes, until it was finally interrupted by a large sausage-fingered hand falling on Steve’s shoulder. I looked over and saw the biggest goomba of a Las Vegas security guard I have ever seen. Imagine if the five biggest goons in Goodfellas, The Godfather: II and The Soprano’s all showed up and Mighty Morphin Power Ranger style combined into one giant, neck-breaking, Italian enforcer. Now imagine two of him standing next to each other, that’s about how huge this guy was. To his credit however, he didn’t whip out a piano wire and instantly teleport us to the bottom of Lake Meade, he merely informed Steve that, “It was time to leave.” Steve, who was still arguing with the black dude, despite the fact that the black guy took the fuck off as soon as security showed up (warrants), just kept saying, “Naw playa, it’s all good playa, we’re cool, playa.” To which Security Guard, Mafia McSausagehands, replied, “I’m not a playa, I’m security,” and “escorted” Steve outside. I use italics to emphasize those words because he used mispronunciation to emphasize them in his own scary, uneducated sort of way.

As he took Steve out the side door, I feared the worst and followed them outside; not that I could really do anything to prevent him from beating Steve to death with his own arms, I just kind of wanted to watch. Besides, it was on the way to the car. Luckily for us, and by us, I of course mean Karim, the security guard didn’t violently sodomize Steve in front of the valet parking line, he didn’t even eighty-six him. He just sent us on our merry way, free to drive home and endanger the lives of several hundreds of Sunday morning, church going commuters.

Nevertheless, we somehow managed to pull up to my house, unscathed, and even better; with enough time for me to catch an hour and a half of sleep before I had to leave for work. I turned and tried to wake up Steve, who passed out in the passenger seat before I could even put the key into the ignition, but failed miserably. Going back to the old Chinese proverb, “Let sleeping dog’s lie,” I decided it was best to just let him sleep in his car, rather than to have him dominate the interior of my house with gallons of vomit, shit, and toothpaste (tune in to a later update of this series for the 4-11 on that.) Anyways, little did I know that just one short hour later, I would wake up for work, and have my mind fucking blown by a belligerent site...

It’s weird, when you drink all night, it doesn’t matter what your drink of choice was, you always end up smelling like vodka the next morning. I think it has something to do with the way your body processes, and then sweats out, alcohol... I don’t know, it’s just a mystery of life. And here’s where I found myself brushing my teeth for the third time and rubbing a stick of deodorant over my entire body in an effort to make myself smell less like a bottle of vodka--and not even a good one, we’re talking some hardcore, charcoal-filtered bullshit. Because, as we all know, going to work drunk is a classy maneuver, so long as you don’t smell like a hooker.

Once I Febreezed myself to a respectable level of skeevy, I put on my sunglasses and walked outside, bracing myself for another long day at work. As I was walking to my car, I bore witness to a strange and unusual sight. There was this congregation of old people standing in the middle of the street two houses down. Now, seeing old people out this early in the morning is not a strange thing amongst itself. I mean, by nine o’clock in the morning they’re already getting ready for lunch, but you never see them just standing around--they don’t have that sort of time on their hands. They’re usually doing something; walking their dogs, watering their sidewalk, walking around with a leash with nothing attached to it, something. But this particular gaggle of geezers was just standing there, staring at the ground like MTV’s Pimp My Ride came by and put TV’s all up in the sidewalks or something. Curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to see what they were looking at. I mean, there could have been a hundred dollar bill on the ground that they all lacked the dexterity to pick up, but much to my disappointment there was no one-hundred dollar bill, nope... just Karim passed the fuck out in the gutter, drooling all over himself.

Realizing that, in the spirit of geriatric crime stopper, Benjamin Matlock, these people probably already called the police, I needed to get Karim out of there, fast. I ran over and started shaking him, slapping him in the face, and shouting his name; nothing. Finally, after about five minutes of me shaking him like an unwanted baby, his eyes popped open and he punched me... right in the balls.

To this day, he claims he doesn’t remember anything that happened in the gutter that morning, but I have witnesses, witnesses that are bound to be claimed any day now by the Grim Reaper of Time, but witnesses nonetheless. And I swear to you, Stephen Tiberious Stevenson, one day, when you least expect it, I’m going to hit you square in the balls... with a miniature Chicago Cubs souvenir baseball bat. Actually, scratch that, I’m going to let T-Money hit you in the balls to make up for the time K-Mill hit him in the balls because I lifted up her skirt and slapped her in the ass. But I wouldn’t really worry about that too much, there’s no way he kept reading my blog this long to find out that he owes you a crack in the sack.

And that concludes my tenth favorite Steve Stevenson story... make sure to tune in next time for,The Chronicles of Stevenson, Episode Nine: Camping Out and the Amazing Nacho Squeegee .

Good Job, Bro...

2006-05-17T03:54:00.000-05:00

Recently, I have gotten more than a couple of complaints from my friends about my blogs. It seems that my writing is “too smart” or “uses too many big words” or “takes too many cheap shots.” Well, I’m not going to stop ripping on people, no matter how out of line it may seem, but the other two complaints really got to me. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that quoting Paradise Lost was a little much, but come on... am I really using a certain vocabulary or lingo that we can’t all get down with? We’re all college educated people here (for the most part), come on!

I just want you to know; I actually thought about dumbing down Ruckus Maximus so that more of my friends might give it a once over. [See, I even just resisted the urge to say, “Peruse” right there.] But, after much meditation–-and by meditation, I of course mean inebriation–-I realized, “Fuck dumb people...” I’m not going to lower myself to their level, where’s the fun in that? However, what I am going to do is try out a new vocabulary lesson plan for you guys.

Over the course of the following passage, I have selected certain “big words” to be the proverbial words of the week. All of the underlined words are actually hyperlinks to dictionary dot com. If that particular word boggles your precious little mind, feel free to click on it, and you will be provided with a complete and thorough definition. I hope that this, coupled with the fact that I have massively shortened this blog, will spark both reader interest and intellect.

So, without further adieu, I present a tale of my trip to Zia Record Exchange and the first of two blogs about homelessness.

* * *

Today was Tuesday, and for those of you who don’t know, Tuesday is a very magical day for me. It’s one of my semi-regular days off, and thus I have developed a certain sort of ritual revolving around it. I like to wake up, take a shower to wash off the previous night’s drinking binge, nerd it up on The Space, play the guitar for a couple of hours, and then head off to Zia to pick up some new records. Now, here are two facts that most of my friends know, but some of you out there may not:

1) New CD’s are released on Tuesdays, which is what sparked this tradition.
and
2) Zia Record Exchange is the single greatest place of musical commerce since the dawn of time.

Seriously, you may remember a couple of years ago when I praised Big-B’s Records up and down, proclaiming how spectacular of a place it was. Well, I have seen the light, my brothers... and the light is Zia Record Exchange. If you live in Vegas, do yourself a favor and shop there, I cannot possibly recommend it any more; enough said. If Jesus had to shop for records, instead of just snapping his fingers, and having any song he wants instantly download into his heavenly-white I-Pod, he would shop at Zia.

Anyways, this Tuesday in particular, I was extra-specially excited to be heading down to my local record store. The Racontuers’ new album was released today, and as you may or may not know, I am a big fan of everyone involved in this project... So, you might imagine how giddy I was to have one of the last three copies in my grubby little hands.

For the record, let me state that it’s actually a good album, and totally met up to its expectations and hype–at least in my eyes. I also picked up the new Figurines’ CD today, which is pretty sexy too. I’d recommend them both to a friend. Anyways, this site is far from a record review blog, so let me move it along...

I walked up to the checkout counter, and seeing as how I come in here at about the same time every week, me and the Tuesday afternoon cashier have somewhat of a casual report going on. She’s a tiny gothic girl with a tattoo on her arm that says, “Bad Girl, Turned Worse.” She wears tons of pins around her Zia lanyard, but I think they may make her wear them, because they sport bands like The Rolling Stones and Wolfmother, and*I* would assume, at least based on appearance, that she’s really, really into Joy Division and The Cure, but who knows? If she didn’t wring me up every week, and get a hands-on look at the music I purchase, she’d probably think I was really, really into like, Hawthorne Heights or something.

Anyways, as she’s scanning my goods she says, in somewhat of a whisper, “See those guys? Those are the Bum Fights guys.” I look over at them, confirming her statement, and say, “Yeah, that’s cool, “ but then after I think about it for a couple of seconds I decide to add, “But not really.” She laughed and added, “Yeah, I hate them, because they were all rich kids in highschool, and now they have even more money from making fun of poor people.” At about this moment the Indecline (Bum Fights) crew decide to exit Zia, without making a purchase I must add... What happened guys--they all out of Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet? Or did Pennywise just not release The Bro Hymn as a single yet?

Back to the point, as they walk past us, I point at them and say, “Hey, Bum Fights, right? Good Job... bros.” They didn’t get it, because they just said thanks and left, but me and the cashier had a laugh over it. On a side note, I’d just like to say that she rocks for knowing what “bros” are, and also for giving me the “May Moustache” discount just because I forgot to shave today.

So, after laughing about the Indecline Bro-Co, I walk outside, giddy to pop the new Rancontuers’ CD into my car and give it a good listen, when what do I see? I see those bum-fighting-douchebags piling into their car. And do you know what they drive? After having rich parents, and then amplifying their wealth by picking on downtrodden derelicts, they got into a... ready for it? Nineteen Eighty-Seven Mercury Cougar, and drove off. Now, I’m not really into flaunting money, or driving a “pimped-out ride,” but seriously guys? Is that what you’re driving around Vegas? I would think it was a loner, naught for the twenty-four inch Volcom sticker on the back window.

I hope they’re not just being frugal with their money. I heard a crazy rumor that they got sued by the city, and had to pay a fairly hefty sum to the local homeless relief fund as restitution, maybe that’s actually true? I at least hope so... Wouldn’t that be an ironic punishment; making a million dollars off of Bum Fights and then having to pay two million dollars in restitution; thus being forced into driving a car that is actually less cool than the type of car certain homeless people live in. Yeah, “Good job, Bros...”

In conclusion, on the drive home, I saw a homeless dude on the corner of Tropicana and Eastern with a sign that said, “Homeless and Hungry, Please Help...” I was actually going to give him a dollar or something, but then I thought that maybe the Indecline guys needed it more.

Burn.

* * *

On a final appendixal note, I realize that I just spent a little bit of time ripping on bro’s there, without offering any exposition of what a bro is. A lot of people may already be familiar with bros, as they have ruined all of our favorite places, but for my readers who are still bro-blind, here’s a diagram I made of a typical bro:

PS: Speaking of Homeless People, and Bum Fights, and stuff... my next blog entry is going to be a hilarious tale of one of our own friends and colleagues turning homeless... make sure to check it out.

Pretending to be in a Professional Rock & Roll Band.

2006-04-27T16:15:00.000-05:00

I would like to start off this blog by saying that, it is generally not my forte to dedicate my blogging to our drunken adventures. I like leave the art of inebriated story-telling to Walker, who is far better at it than myself. It’s not that I don’t believe in physically writing down our adventures, so that one day, maybe even the next day, we can actually remember them. It’s just that it’s not my thing, I think maybe that’s where Photographis Blogicus gets its inspiration from. I’m much better at seeing pictures I don’t remember having taken, and then piecing together the night of ricockulousness from the clues. Maybe it’s all the criminal investigation classes I’ve taken in school–-I don’t know.

Regardless, the string of events that occurred last Friday definitely warrants writing down. The whiskey imbibed journey I embarked upon included its fair share of characters, as usual. However tonight’s experiences all lead up to a moral, which is what inspired me to write this down... That and the massive hangover I suffered the next day. We all call booze the poison, but the next day I felt as if I had actually drank poison. I don’t know if it was from a spider, or a scorpion, or a white snake; but poison nonetheless. Actually, I just wrote that last sentence so I could say I once wrote a paragraph that included five buttrock band names, but had nothing to do with music–-kind of like buttrock itself.

Anyways, I give you: “The Night I Wish I had my Camera,” aka, “Pretending to be in a Professional Rock & Roll Band.”

* * *

It always seems that the more I have it on my mind to not go out and get trashed, the more trashed I get. It’s like some parabola of nature, a Murphy’s Law if you will, a motherfuckin ball of irony... call it what you will, but it is one factor that dominates my life. And on this particular Friday, I wanted to keep it low-key. I wanted a night where nothing major happened, a night where I could wake up the next morning and goto work with a smile on my face. So I, of course, ended up getting completely fucking obliterated.

The night started off innocently enough. I had just gotten off of work, and in a gesture of good faith, I headed off to Casa del Kuz to help my dear friend Chelsey download and convert some files from her digital video camera. No sooner had I taken a seat at the kitchen table and started ripping files then D-Kuz said, “Hey, I have a surprise for you!” Now, it’s a good rule of thumb to note that when D-Kuz plays the, “Surprise Card,” it’s probably going to involve something ridiculous--and we’ll touch on this more later in the story--but as for now, this particular surprise involved him slamming an unopened bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey on the table in front of me. And this is how my night started...

One-half a bottle of Jameson later, we’re flying down the I-215 at ninety-seven miles an hour to the Red Stone, a seemingly innocent drinking locale that would somehow contain one of the most belligerently uneducated people I have ever met. The plan was to meet up Matt Bitchell, have a few on-the-house cocktails, and peace the fuck out. Now, I know that this might make it seem like Matt Bitchell, himself, is belligerently uneducated, but that could not be farther from the truth--he has a UNLV college degree; but for some reason, ridiculous fucking people somehow surround Mr. Matt Bitchell. And this brings us to the first confrontational moment that makes me wish I had brought my camera.

For those of you that don’t know our friend Matt, he likes to laugh--especially at jackassary--and especially at his friends doing jackassary towards mentally challenged people. Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but I’ll go ahead and lay out the scenario for you and you can decide for yourself.

Within, no exaggeration, eleven seconds of me walking into the Red Stone, Matt Bitchell was like, “Wah-ha-ha-ha, check out that old black lady across the bar, she’s so out of control drunk, you should go hit on her. Wah-ha-ha-ha, No, dude, do it... Seriously. I think she may be a crackhead. It'll be hilarious.” Now, I like to entertain my friends, especially when we’re not partying on my side of town, but man... it was just entirely too fucking early for that particular brand of hi-jinx, so I passed. Or so I thought...

We’re all laughing, “Yeah man, it’d be so funny to go and talk to that girl.” “Man, she’s totally gone, ha ha ha.” “Yeah dude, and by gone, you of course mean, old?” “Ha ha ha ha ha,” and so on, just laughing it up to ourselves, but then things escalated. The bartender walks over to us with a triple shot of Jack Daniels, and slams it on the bar in front of me. “That lady over there wanted me to send this over to you,” she snickered as she pointed at our Harriet Tubmanesque figure of jest. Now, despite the fact that I had nearly completed shaking hands with Mr. Jameson at this point, I was still coherent enough to know that she was fucking with me. She does bartend at the same restaurant as Matt Bitchell after all. But, on that same note, I was also hammered enough to have this thought, “You know what dude? If my friends want to buy me this booze, I’ll throw them some entertainment.” With that thought taunting my frontal lobe, I march over to talk to Rosa Parks--and by Rosa Parks, I, of course mean; Rosa Parks, if instead of refusing to ride in the back of the bus, she smoked a fifteen pound rock of crack-cocaine, crashed the bus into a daycare center, and then proceeded to take a dump in the back of the bus.

As I came sauntering up, I hoisted my shot glass far into the air and shouted, “Hey, thanks for the drink, you son of a bitch!” Of course, she had no idea what I was talking about, but, being a belligerent alcoholic, she readily clanged glasses with me and sipped down her Patrone Silver. After draining our respective beverages, we exchanged a few drunken words, my friends exchanged a few drunken laughs, and I returned to my seat across the bar. But this was not that last we’d see of Drunkey McTubman.

Something like thirteen minutes later, long after we’d forgotten about her, she came storming over to us demanding that she not pay for our drinks. However she’d gotten it into her afro’d skull that she was our alcoholic benefactor, I’ll never know, but she was definitely less than happy about it. After about five minutes of verbal sparring about bar tabs and the like, we came to an agreement (we’d each pay for our own booze) and our lives moved on... However, her life did not move on. In fact, she made the horrible mistake of staying and trying to talk to me, which could only result in me insulting her without the knowledge of her being mocked. And at this point, I shall break narrative to give you an exact--to my best recollection--transcript of our conversation.

Her: I know you don wanna fuck wit me, I’m from the WATTS PROJECTS!
Me: The Watts Projects? Scary.
Her: Yeah, son, the WATTS PROJECTS, we crazy, you know what we’re about?
Me: I dunno, I kind of make it a point not to trust any city named after a unit of electrical measurement. Like Voltage, Detriot, that place is fuuuuucked up!
Her: Naw, WATTS nigga, that’s where the riots were at! You kno, the 96 riots, ya, word.
Me: Yeah? Well Voltage Detriot is HARDCORE... that’s where 8 Mile is... you know, you’ve heard of Eminem, that’s where he’s from. Yep, 8-Mile, yo; Voltage, Detriot.
Her: Word?
Me: Word!
Her: Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn
[At this point she sniffs the air several times]
Her: Damn, that shit smells good, what you eatin boy?
D-Kuz: Ummm, it’s, uh, Lobster Ceviche.
Her: Mmmm, Ceviche? What the fuck is that?
Me: Ceviche? You don’t know what Ceviche is? And you think you’re hardcore? Ceviche is Italian, haven’t you seen Scarface?
Her: Yeah I’ve seen Scarface, I know what Slabitchy is bitch!
Me: Oh yeah, what?
Her: You tell me!
Me: Yeah, Ceviche is Italian for, “Fish Salsa.”
Her: Nigga actin like I don’t know what Ceviche means, like I don’t klnow Italian, pffft! OF COURSE I know Ceviche means fish salsa.

For the record, yes I know that Scarface was Cuban, not Italian... but it's still a mafia movie. And also, I think I forgot to mention that she, at one point, called me a, "Sean Penn looking motherfucker." And to be honest, I was pretty surprised she even knows who Sean Penn is... maybe she's only seen Carlito's Way, who knows?

Anyways, I digress, at about this point we all started laughing our asses off, for I have no idea what Ceviche means, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t fucking mean, “Fish Salsa.” As we laughed for about the next fifteen minutes, her interest sort of trailed off, and she wandered away to her next adventure. Now, I only tell you this story to tell you this: This lady would not be the most ridiculous person I encountered on this particular night...

* * *

I’m going to fast forward this blog about five hours, because: A) I’m trying to keep my blogs a bit shorter, B) I’m trying to keep my readers a littler bit more interested, and C) I can’t really remember what the fuck happened during those five hours. But, never-mind-that-fact, Karim and I come stumbling out of the Drop Bar at about six in the AM, fully expecting to limp to our cars and go home; a pair of defeated human beings. Yet, as we stumble out of the bar, we see a lost soul in more dire condition than ourselves. That’s right, there’s D-Kuz, at six-eh-emme, at the craps’ table, with an undeterminable amount of chips in front of him. To a layman, it would appear that Kuz was kicking the Green Valley Ranch’s ass; a mountain of chips in front of him. However, to Karim and myself, who know better, it is clear that the Kuz is actually down a hundred and fifty dollars. He was apparently playing his, “Surprise Card,” but only on himself, because the rest of us know that it’s no surprise that he’s going to lose his ass.

However, I deter from the story, Karim and I decide to go stop Kuz from being silly, so we stumble up to the craps’ table in a vain attempt to sever Gamblor’s asphyxiating grasp from our Canadian friend’s throat, when there, I meet the most ridiculous girl--ever--and also the inspiration for this story.

My friends would probably call her "scene" or an "emo-chick," but she wasn't, not really at least... She was dressed more like how a stripper dresses when she's trying to be "rock and roll," and she probably listens to like Disturbed or System of a Down, you know, that kind of bullshit. Anyways, she was there with her friend who was trying to be all "alternative" by piercing her lip and wearing art-school glasses. And at first, we thought they were hookers, because they were just like hanging out, being all ridiculous, at six in the morning. But, they weren't hookers. At least, not very good ones, because there were about seven old, dirty, and very soused men at the craps table, with plenty of casino chips to blow on a couple of GVR floozies. So, we ruled out hookers, maybe strippers who called it an early Friday night on the pole? Nope, strippers who just got off work wouldn't be dressed in club clothes, they don't care enough. So I guess that just leaves plain old drunk annoyingly loud whores--awesome!

The scientific method held true, as she soon prooved our hypothesis by turning to me from two spots down at the craps table and yelling, “Hey, you’re in a band!” Now, in all honestly, this is not that random of a mistake, I have a shagadoo, it happens... but instead of playing my free-drink-VIP-card (see Photographis Blogicus, Issue #3: Coachella Run-Off Week), I, being too hammered to keep up the in-a-band-charade just answered with an ambiguous, “Haha, I am?”

To which she replies, “Yeah! What band are you in?”
So, I, once again, not really wanting to lie--for some fucking reason--answer, “What band am I in? What band are you in?”

And here, my friends, is where the story gets ridiculous...

“Valentine,” she replies. And after I inquire as to what role in the band she plays, she answers, “Lead Singer.” Now, I’m trying so hard not to just laugh in her face, or say something really jackass, as the true comedy is in letting it play out, so I manage to get out, “Reeeeeally? So, you’re Emily Ellis?” Moments later she reassures me that she indeed is Emily Ellis.

Now, let me take this moment to explain that I know Emily Ellis, I’ve seen a Valentine show, I’ve drank some booze with her band while she argued on the phone with her boyfriend (angry that he wasn’t in attendance), I mean, my best friend even made their music video, but that’s besides the point. This girl was no Emily Ellis. However, I normally don’t care enough-–despite what my friends might say--to be so fucking scene that I have to ruin this girl’s fantasy. If she wants to be a lead singer of a Professional Rock and Rock Band, who am I to burst her bubble? I’ll tell you who: I’m a drunk motherfucker of an asshole.

At this point, I decide to rain all over her rock and roll parade and exclaim, “No you aren’t!” And then start pointing and laughing... After what seems about, like, seven hours of me laughing in her face, she finally musters up the will to say, with a certain bit of pride and braggart I must add, “Yeah, well I know some of the people in the band, and *I* had sex with Snake.” Wow, that’s a fucking amazing... I don’t know whether to jump onto this craps' table and start applauding you for being such a whore or to give you the gold medal for the one-hundred-meter-who-gives-a-shit. But, she seemed to be very proud of herself, at least she did at the moment. I guess to a ridiculous drunk whore, letting some guy in a local band blow you out is kind of an achievement... her mother probably has a dusty, leather bound scrapbook in a closet somewhere chronicling all of her crowning blow-out moments.

So, in lieu of making a spectacle, I decide to give this girl the biggest “What the Fuck” look in the history of the world. A “What the Fuck” look that was truly for ages; but one that would be shortly lived.... For, in about seven seconds, I would give her a look of previously unrecorded levels of “What the Fuck.” A truly .40 caliber, “What the Fuck is Wrong with You.” Because, I think, sensing the umcomfort in my stare, she quickly blurted out, “Yeah, he has a really small penis.” And there it is, I think if you take the combined power of the “What the Fuck” look on all of your faces right now, and multiply it by seven, you’ll get somewhere in the ball park of the look I gave her right there.

Like, seriously, this girl doesn’t make sense. Because, although it took me two paragraphs and three-hundred and six words to relay those two statements to you. In real-time, they happened over the span of about five seconds. Her emotions seriously just ranged from pride and accomplishment, to disgust and mockery, in about the time it took me to sip my Jack and Diet. This is a good sign that this girl is a little crazy... and by a little crazy, I mean in-fucking-sane. And for the record, if you are a musician craving, dirty-ass trick, it’s usually not a good idea to tell someone in a band that you had sex with another scenester and then insult his genitalia. It’s sort of an eerie and slanderous glance into what our own immediate future holds if we continue talking to you.

Now, I know that many of you reading this are going to call me “gay” for not saying I was in some obscure band, and then “blowing that chick out.” But, I feel I made the right decision... Flash forward; four days later... I’m at the Rainbow Bar and Grill, for some reason, (insert Rainbow themed gay-joke here) and her “alternative” friend was there, who let me on a healthy little tidbit of knowledge. As it turns out, her crazy whore of an Emily-Ellis-impersonating friend had herpes of genital nature!!! Yeah buddy, dodged a viral bullet on that one.

So, let’s recap what we’ve learned today:

Darren Kuzyk is a crazy fucking Canuck.

Matt Bitchell will somehow find the most ridiculously retarded person in the zip code, and mock them.

To drunk black chicks, all white people look like Sean Penn.

Slandering other dude’s penis size, is actually not a sure fire way to get a guy to take you home.

If a chick is crazy, and also a whore, chances are she has a venereal disease.

Pretending to be in a Professional Rock & Roll Band is an effective pick-up line, unless the target has actually heard of the band you’re pretending to be in.

And finally...

Always remember to bring your digital camera, because you never know when ridiculousity will rear its ugly head.

Welp, that's it kids... I hope we all learned something. I know I did.

Oh, and on a final note to that Snake dude, it really sucks that that drunk chick is out there slandering your name, but if I can offer you any consolation, it’s that I made up the part about the herpes... I’m sorry, I just wanted to make my story sound more intense and interesting--I deserve to have ice cream smashed into my face.

Image by Dong Wang

I Scream, You Scream...

2006-04-18T04:38:00.000-05:00

Camp town lady, sing that song; Doo-da–doo-da.
Camp town lady, sing that song; all of the live long day.

Or at least until your head explodes. Fucking-A Christ, are you SERIOUS?!?!?! You can only sit inside, impotently fencing with the brink of insanity for so long, and then you must take action. You must make a stand. You must fight for what you believe is right in this world. Now, I say, “you,” in the ubiquitous second person, but what I really mean is, “me.” And as I stand here, leering through the Venetian blinds at my current adversary, I now know it is time to escalate our feud to the next level.

But I’m getting ahead of myself... this calls for some exposition.
Rewind–one week ago.

* * *

This must be what it feels like to be a zombie... I know that I can move my arm, I just don’t want to. I know that the television’s on, I just don’t know what’s on. Without focus, I stare; like a zombie. Wait, scratch that... I bet zombies don’t get headaches. Yeah, in fact I’m certain they don’t. I’ve seen way too many zombies catch a chainsaw, shotgun blast, or random sporting-goods-related-object to the dome for them to have the ability to feel pain in their headular region. And I must admit, “Fuck! My head hurts.” Damn it, I must be hung over again... and it is fucking hot in here. It must be Spring.

Ahhh Spring, springtime always brings up a slew of heartfelt memories: the beach, baseball at Wrigley Field, the smell of freshly cut grass, the ice cream man, spring break in–wait, the ice cream man? What the fuck? Like a message from the Emergency Broadcast System interrupting the last twenty minutes of Fight Club, the Ice Cream Man and his delightful little jingle hijacked their way into my hang-over-induced daydream.

It seems like every ice cream truck spins a different tune out of their PA system. Today’s choice was the classic racetrack ditty, Camp Town Lady. An annoying song on it’s own right, once it is cut down to an eight note loop, it heralds the unique ability to cure deafness, and then compel the now-no-longer-hearing-impaired person to ram a q-tip into their eardrum until they are once again deaf. I groaned and decided it was time to take about seven more IB Profins, catch a quick shower, and head to work.

When I got out of the shower, what did I hear? The sweet release of silence? A phone call telling me I didn’t have to come to work today? No! Wrong! I heard, Camp Town Fuckin’ Lady. Surely I must be imagining this, it had been fifteen minutes, there’s NO WAY the ice cream truck is still in front of my house. I would be wrong, but I still didn’t believe it yet.

Standing outside, I was flabbergasted--my mind blown. Sure enough, there’s the ice cream truck, right in front of my house, a line of kids eager to blow their lunch monies on frozen treats, and, of course, Camp Town Fuckin’ Lady. Apparently the Ice Cream Man in my neighborhood never went to Ice Cream College, or at least failed his Ice Cream Ethics class, because he was breaking the cardinal rule of ice cream men. YOU SHUT OFF YOUR FUCKING SONG WHEN YOU PARK TO SELL ICE CREAM!!! Playing Camp Town Fucking Lady at eighty decibels isn’t going to whip the kids up into some sort of ice cream feeding frenzy. They’re already at your truck indulging themselves with ice cream baseball mitts (with the bubble gum baseballs), and the only thing that’s going to stop them from eating ice cream until they have a diabetic seizure is the fact that they only have a dollar and twelve cents. It’s not like Camp Town Fuckin Lady is going to persuade them to ride their huffies down to the ATM machine and go buck wild on your frozen goods; they’re kids jackass.

Now, I’m not really what you call a confrontational person. I would be hard pressed to think of a situation I could get into where the only resolution lies with fisticuffs. Given this fact, you might think that this is the end of the story–you, sir, would be wrong. It is now the next day, and my head is fucking pounding. Damn it, I must be hung over again... and it is fucking hot in here. It must still be Spring.

I sigh and pop a couple of IB Profins; no shower today, woke up too late, gotta leave for work in twenty minutes. I throw on some fresh deodorant, wash my face, and start getting dressed when it hits me. Hard too, like a zombie slaying croquette mallet to the face: Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady. Okay, it’s kind of early, maybe it won’t be so bad... I would be wrong. I decided to time the Ice Cream Man today, really put his ass on the clock, and after ten minutes and thirty-five seconds of non-interrupted, unadulterated Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady, I decided it was time to go and meet the Ice Cream Man.

Business was light today, only two kids eating their popsicles with no regard for manners or preservation of the experience. And yet, despite the light crowd, still the ice cream truck was parked and spinning Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady. As I approached the truck, I realized–in respect for the kindergarten audience–I should probably keep things PG-13.

The Ice Cream Man was a sweaty sort. Hispanic in origin, his hair was greased back and tucked under his filthy ice cream hat, which has long since turned a shade of yellowish grey. In a vain attempt to compensate for his dirty uniform, he wore a freshly polished platinum Mexican flag around his neck... which only made his appearance more ridiculous. As I approached, he flashed me, from beneath his unevenly trimmed mustache, the type of crooked smile that would make any orthodontist lease a new Porsche and book a family vacation to the Caribbean. “How’s it goin’ today, dude?” I inquired as I leaned against his window. He just sort of nodded and smiled the nod and smile of a somebody entrusted to take your order without necessarily understanding a word of what you say.

“Yeah, I’ll have a baseball mitt (with the bubble gum baseball),” I ordered.
To which he replied, “No, only,” and proceeded to point at the outside of his truck where the menu is.
“Uhhh, okay... I’ll have a Ninja Turtle then.”
“No, only,” and then that point again. Clearly, the ice cream industry has really declined since we were all kids... but that’s another rant entirely. So, I take a step back, examine the menu, and have made my selection.
“Okay, how about a, TURN OFF THE FUCKING MUSIC!!!!”

He looked at me with some shock, but also some confusion, and answered, “Que?” DAMNIT! Defeated. A perfectly good random outburst, with enough out-of-place jackassary to totally ruin a minimum wager’s day, wasted on somebody who didn’t understand it. Well, I guess it wasn’t totally unnoticed; the two kindergartners in attendance were staring at me slack jawed, their frozen treats dripping all over their hands. Embarrassed at myself, I muttered an apology, and fled inside and out of sight where I would plot a better way to get my point across to Señior Tastyfreeze, as he will now be known for forever and all time.

Sitting on the couch, I wait. It is now Day 3, my hangover is gone, and I’m prepared. I vowed that today, today would be the day that Señior Tastyfreeze and the Camp Town Lady Orchestra would learn their lesson. You just don’t submit people to that sort of Camp Town Torture--it isn’t humane--and soon he would know this. Finally, off in the distance, like a fife leading a revolutionary army, I heard a faint rendition of Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady and knew it was time.

On cue, Señior Tastyfreeze parked his rig right in front of my house and started selling his goods, all the while blaring Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady with reckless abandon. After about five minutes, I decided I’d had enough of his gibberish and sauntered outside. Walking up to his truck I smiled and greeted him a hearty, “Hola, mi amigo,” pronounced, of course, in the perfect white boy vernacular of, “ Hoe-La, Me, Ameego.” I then proceeded to order an “All American Popsicle,” (which, at the time, was really more of a statement than a dessert) and paid with a dollar bill stapled to a note.

On this note, written in black ink, was inscribed:
“Excúseme sir.
Dé vuelta por favor apagado a su música.
Está conduciendo la vecindad loca.
Seriamente.
Tipo débil.”

Loosely translated, by babblefish as I don’t speak spanish, this reads:
“Excuse me sir.
Please turn off your music.
It is driving the neighborhood crazy.
Seriously.
Weak dude.”

For the past two days, I have not seen hide nor hair of Señior Tastyfreeze, nor have a heard staff one nor two of Camp Town FUCKIN’ Lady. As I sit here writing this blog, I feel a swell of pride and historical significance. I do believe this is the first blog ever written which describes a successful endeavor by the author. Usually a blog is a work of complaining and bitching and defeat. Well, not today, not for...

Oh... my... God... What’s this I hear? Yeah, it’s definitely CAMP TOWN FUCKIN’ LADY. AHHRRRGG!!!!! That bastard’s parked in front of my house, up to his old Camp Town Antics again. Well played Señior Tastyfreeze, well played indeed...

Well, I have the feeling as soon as I hit “Publish,” the police are going to be receiving an anonymous tip about the local Ice Cream Man molesting children in the back of his ice cream truck. The ball’s in your court Señior Tastyfreeze...

Image by Dong Wang

The Devil's Rejects

2006-01-31T04:14:00.000-06:00

“...what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire...”
- Paradise Lost

And so God cast Satan out of heaven; never again would the Morning Star gaze upon the kingdom so perfect and serene. However, Satan would not be content at wallowing in Hell as a paraplegic, no, his foul rebellion would echo millennia into the future and troughs of faithful would willingly follow him. What would we come to know these fiends as? This horde of afficionados, devoted to the fallen one so sinister... Would one consider them to be Demons? Yokai? Succubus? No, they would forever be referred to as, “Rock Stars.”

It is the 1970's, and rock and roll music dominates the day to day affairs of a lost generation. These rock stars–-nay, icons, with godlike guitar skills and larger than life political agendas--would dangle the proverbial pied pipe in front of the youthful masses; who in turn would gladly dance to any tune thread into their eager eardrums. This is the era of rock, this is the era of Satan, this is when selling your soul to the devil was fashionable. It was a time when any kid with a guitar and an idea could stamp his name in blood and find himself on stage, peaching to thousands of kids, getting his ideas and music heard.

Is it not ironic how the devil works, twisting the hopes and integrity of our deepest desires?

These rock stars had but one goal in their lives... to change the world with their music. They knew the world sucked, the government was a joke, and organizing the masses could orchestrate a change. They dreamed so hard of a better world that they would do anything to get their message out; even offer up their internal soul as a martyr. However, the very popularity they demanded to accomplish their goal would be their eventual downfall. Drugs, alcohol, and depression would claim all of the generation’s greatest icons, and thus the cold allure of the devil would prevail.

Flash forward to present times. Rock and roll is finally back a top the pedestal of popular music, and thus a familiar window has once again opened for Satan to snake his way back into the soul market. There is one basic, fundamental difference between the rock stars of present times and those of the past, however. In the seventies, Satan would offer kids the world: immense popularity and a chance to express their ideals to anyone willing to listen. These days, Satan’s contracts read a little bit differently. In this post-hardcore era, drugs, alcohol, and questionable women are not mere side-effects, manifested to bring about the rock star’s eventual demise. No sir, in fact, they are not side-effects at all, they are the prize... they are what the devil offers up upon a silver platter in exchange for your soul. This arouses the obvious question, what then is the catch?

The catch my friends, is a total lack of musical integrity. It seems that the prince of darkness’ deal has flipped a complete one-eighty. Instead of achieving musical greatness only to be destroyed by money, girls, and fame, you achieve money, girls, and fame only to have your musical greatness destroyed.

Is it not ironic how the devil works, twisting the hopes and integrity of our deepest desires?

Now Satan has been known to take many different forms throughout biblical history. But these days, he no longer masquerades as a great serpent, no... he takes the form of an entirely different breed of reptile: a major label record producer.

Every day, thousands of kids try to strike up a deal with record companies... and the ones that “make it” are the ones who are prepared to sacrifice their musical integrity, their very souls, at the mere chance of making it big. Clearly, Satan’s black market stranglehold over our youths’ souls has not dwindled over the past couple decades. As the old proverb says, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

I realize this claim, as heavily rooted in theology as it is, may seem unfounded by “fact.” However, that could not be further from the truth. A friend of mine who works at Victory Records leaked me a copy of a document they send to all bands that sign an intent with them. A document I will now share with your all.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Introduction

Congratulations on your decision to join the Victory Records family! We here at Victory Records believe that doing business need not be a negative experience. We are here to guide you through your transition from local garage band into a finely polished professional act. By working together and following our guidance and the contents of this packet, your music can be gracing the airwaves in no time! The information in the packet is broken into segments of descending importance, and once all aspects of our program are addressed, you will be well on your way towards a professional career in music!

II. Image-N-It

The first thing we need to go over is your image. Every successful band since the dawn of produced music has had a successful look to match. First off, you should know that you already show promise. If the head shots you sent in to our office were not ripe with potential, we would not have written back requesting a demo, and you would not even be reading this packet right now, so the hardest part is over!

The first thing we should address is your hair style. Remember, you have to look the part... how can your audience relate to your music if they can’t relate to you? We recommend keeping your bangs long, definitely covering your eyes. As for the back of your hair, either spiking it or growing it out work for us... just remember to use AT LEAST two different colors of hair dye. We suggest a combination of blue black and either blonde or red, but feel free to be creative and try the new purple black instead of blue black. If you are a drummer or lead singer it is also acceptable to style your hair as a “faux-hawk,” but if you’re holding a guitar, let’s stick with the bangs.

Now that your hair is up to Victory Records standards it’s time to go over your style. Feel free to contact Denise in our wardrobe department if you have any questions on acceptable stage attire, although we feel the contents of this guide should provide sufficient directions to aid you in determining what we consider acceptable dress. The first rule is, NO COLOR. Keep your t-shirt black, and make sure you buy some of that Cheer Color Guard Black Detergent, as you will have to wash your t-shirts at least seventeen times until they are shrunk to an acceptable size. Speaking of acceptable sizes, please ensure that your jeans have a leg opening no bigger than eleven inches, remember: the tighter the better. As for accessories, black sweat bands are optional, but clip on key-chains attached to your belt loop are now mandatory. The second rule of style is that it is important to be unique, so feel free to choose either a studded belt or a white belt.

As for tattoos, it’s crucial that you get your sleeves done as soon as possible. If you’re having trouble figuring out what to have on your sleeves, just tell the tattoo artist to put whatever he wants in there. Once your tattoos are done, our staff can think of acceptable reasons for what each part of your sleeve represents. This way your tattoo will have meaning and your credibility will be increased. If you KNOW a tattoo artist, that’s even better, as having your sleeve done by “an old buddy of yours” even furthers your street cred.

Now that we’ve covered your image, strap on your Chuck Taylor’s and report to the studio to record your demo.

III. Recording

Now it’s time to record your demo. You do have at least six songs written already, right? If not, it’s cool, we have a couple songs on loan from other artists that your can cover for your demo... actually, this isn’t that important, just go on to the next section.

IV. Live Shows

By now, we’ve booked you a couple of opening spots on the Midwest leg of a Silverstein tour. If you follow these next steps, you will undoubtedly build a fan base and we will book you to an opening spot on the next Atreyu tour for their third CD, “Vampires, Eyeliner, and the Best of Bon Jovi.”

The number one thing to remember is ENERGY. The kids these days really respond to your stage energy, it's not what your say, but how you say it. We will now take the time to outline several stage moves you can do to win over the crowd. These moves should all be fairly easy to complete, you are tuned down to drop-D, right?

- The Power Squat: This move is performed while playing the guitar or bass. What you do is stand with your legs in as much of a split as you can manage in your tight jeans. This creates the image that you’re really focused and into your music.

-The Breakdown Swing: During breakdowns, what your should do is hit your guitar extra hard and swing it around in opposite directions as your body. This makes you look like you are really, really rocking out, and also makes the kids think you are hardcore dancing with them. This move is a must for bass players.

-The Roundhouse: This is where you jump in the air are do a roundhouse kick, a la Chuck Norris, while playing your guitar... it is especially devastating during breakdowns.

-Synchronized Guitars: During especially guitar heavy parts of the song, both guitar players and the bassist need to all stand next to eachother and move their guitars around in sync with one another. If you need pointers just watch a Warrant concert.

-Dancing: This is where you, the lead singer, need to be dancing in your own particular style to show that your are enjoying the music at least five times as much as the crowd. It is especially impactful if you wrap your microphone chord around your forearm and slap your microphone rhythmically while you sing into it. If you can't dance, don't worry about it... we'll just toss a guitar on you to make it look like you're doing something.

You may have noticed that we did not cover anything for the drummer to do during the live show. That is because you sit in the back of the band and are barely visible behind your drums. Aside from taking off your shirt, there’s really nothing more for you to do. In fact, if you have to goto the bathroom or something during the set, feel free to just turn on a drum machine and go relieve yourself in whichever bathroom is most convenient.

V. LP, Headlining, and Beyond

If you follow the steps of this guidebook to the letter, in no time we will be bringing you back into the Victory Studio to record a full-length release and to start booking a headlining tour. Just remember, keep your image up, check your Myspace account, and land at least eleven roundhouse kicks during every live performance. Once again, welcome to Victory Records, and we look forward to making awesome music with you!

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I don’t know about you all, but knowing that documents like this exist really pisses me off. Fuck bands that adhere to record company standards, fuck their shitty music, and fuck you for buying their CD’s.

I mean, damn it, kids these days can’t even sell their souls to the devil right...

Image by Dong Wang