deus ex machina

muse's black holes & revelations

 

SPACE, the final frontier...

alright, i'll admit it, that was a pretty cheesy opening, but gimme a break. that's the first thing that pops into my head when i listen to muse: the far reaches of outer space. and with good reason too. muse are the epitome of space rock. their music is soaked in synth-pop stylings and tie-dye psychedelia and it's chock-full of astrological references and sci-fi lore, but that's not all...

their music goes beyond the confines of space rock. it's like their style is stuck in some phenomenal time-warp, tangled in the wrinkled fabric of spacetime, somehow simultaneously in two places at once. a paradoxically contradicting oxymoronic riddle wrapped in a enigma. yup, that's muse in a nutshell. they're kinda like schrödinger's cat—god, don't you just hate obscure physics terms! on the one hand, the music's part enlightenment-age, on the other hand, part space-age. 18th century baroque meets 21st century prog-rock. and of course, there's that not-so-subtle oh-so-sultry spanish tinge that pops up from time to time. all in all, this protean quality makes black holes & revelations one ginormous clusterfuck of musical styles and, at the same time, one helluva great album.

____________________________________________________________________________

stardate 000000001: take a bow . . .

houston, we have lift-off...

a synthesizer cyclone of pentatonic flurries, right outa

pink floyd's dark side of the moon cascading

like a black-and-white tornado all over

the monochrome flatlands of Kansas

sucking you into its violent wake

spitting you back out into the

middle of a RAVE! with a

techno drum beat kicking

in with a trance-inducing

unce-unce-unce until

the song reaches its

climax, collapses

on itself with the

mighty roar of

feedback and

the hiss of

static

.

stardate 000000002: starlight . . .

it's comforting to know that some things never change, even throughout the ages. case-in-point: the torch song, a time-honored genre with a looong and colorful history, all the way back to when adam met eve. the 15th-century heartbreaker "greensleeves" set the standard, but the 21st century's "starlight" does the genre justice. the only substantial difference i can tell is in instrumentation; forgoing ye olde harp in place of some angry-sounding newfangled electromatic thingamajigs. it's still got all the sentimental heartrending lyrics, bitter-sweet harmonies, and tear-jerking melodies you've come to except from the torch song. star-crossed lovers, eat your ever-lovin' hearts out.

stardate 000000003: supermassive black hole. . .

CAUTION:               DANGER:

Hard Hat Area         High Voltage

cold and industrial, this gas-guzzling blues-rock engine runs on shitloads of rocket fuel. the distorted guitar torque propels its piston-driven heart and pumps out alto-vocal coolant by the gallon. the hydraulic pounding of the steam-hammer kick-drum, the sharp pop of the pneumatic boltgun snare, the sizzle of electricity, the grind of metal-on-metal...these are the sounds of the killing floor or, better yet, the cruel inner workings of some beautiful and unholy resurrection machine.

stardate 000000004: map of the problematique. . .

some people would describe muse's style as futuristic and they'd be half right. their style's futuristic to be certain, but what kind of future is it exactly? anwser: a retro-dystopian future. it sounds like orwell's 1984 or kubrick's 2001. what william s. gibson would call the Raygun Gothic. a dystopian soundscape of spaced-out guitar effects, horrorshow synthesizers, and, in the background, a cybernetic chorus chanting sacred hymns in lines of binary code.

set phasers to DEATOMIZE.

stardate 000000005: soldier's poem . . .

if this song was a person, it'd be the quiet type. a sleepy-headed 6/8 tempo, like a lullaby. spare instrumentation at first that then blossoms in a fiery-petaled bloom of fioritura vocal harmonies. here muse calls upon the crooning ghost of freddie mercury in a spectral musical séance and bring back to life the long-extinct barbershop quartet in order to genetically engineer this simple song into a sweet ambrosian rhapsody.

stardate 000000006: invincible . . .

not your typical power ballad,

this is a nuclear-power ballad.

this is the ballad of the future...today!

it's got an anthemic quality thanks to the textural guitar lines galore and the pipe-organ backdrop, not to mention these uplifting bubble-gum lyrics with a vocal delivery so over-the-top it almost makes me wanna puke. the anthem turns downright militant with the march-beat snare rolls. the sound, it's all very familiar. it's all very U2. and then comes the dark shift...

a brief interlude, like a solar eclipse,

the fuzzed bass guitar casting a long aeolian shadow

over the song's sunny demeanor until it...

ERUPTS!

in an orgiastic flourish of pitch-shifted fret-tapping guitar,

like the sun reemerging from behind the moon,

splattering the sky with a flaming triple-sec colored dawn,

bathing everything in its DigiTechnicolored ionian magnificence. 

stardate 000000007: assassin . . .

this drop-d headbanger-kebab certainly lives up to its name. dark and angry, like a rampaging member of the bloodthirsty hashashin sprinting through the harsh desert, stiletto glinting in the cruel arabian sunlight. this song shows no mercy. it takes no prisoners.

stardate 000000008: exo-politics . . .

nothin fancy here, just a straight-forward full-speed-ahead hyperdrive-engaged balls-to-the-wall riff-driven badass-motherfucker of a rock n roll romp. 'nuff said.

stardate 000000009: city of delusion . . .

now, they're bringin out the big guns, amigos. first, the acoustic strummings of a renegade guitar, then comes the polyrhythmic plunking of a guerilla bass, crafting a dark and violent interstellar tango, as the string section howls underneath it all, like the souls of the damned at the hands of the conquistador trumpet. this song brings about pure miltonic Pandemonium. its intensity waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon, from the hushed synth-bass breakdowns to the blinding intensity of the havoc-wreaking choruses.

stardate 000000010: hoodoo . . .

flamenco music...IN SPACE!

one moment, the runaway gypsy guitar's propelling you upward, like zorro gallivanting on his trusty black steed, until you reach escape velocity and breach the earth's atmosphere. then, the next moment, it leaves you floating aimlessly through space on slow-plucked whammied chords. this is followed by a crescendo of bone-crushing arpeggiated piano-rolls, like tidal waves crashing on some distant alien shore. then back to the hushed zero-g interstellar gyspy-guitar coasting. yes, the 180-degree shifts will give you motion sickness.  

stardate 000000011: knights of cydonia . . .

first,

a build-up

of slapbacked

surf guitar twang

climbing the dorian scale

building a pyramid of sound

tremoloing down into an ominous

logarithmic sequence of modulations

all done amidst a watery guitar-line buzzing

electric like the flight of a bumblebee soaring

over the Giza Necropolis as apocalyptic prophesies

sound from the trumpets of ancient astronauts heralding

the simmering breakdown section: a bleating robotic choir,

their vocoded voices in quicksilver falsetto bursting into heavy

metal riffage that spirals out of control until the prophecy is fulfilled.

____________________________________________________________________________

yes, muse got what the good Dr. Gonzo would call "a rising sound" á la jefferson airplane's "white rabbit." they're all about the overall shape of their music, all about contour, the gentle crescendo, the build-up, the breakdown, the climax and, of course, these guys are all about balance, all about symmetry. you can hear this within the individual songs themselves and, in a wider scope, the album in its entirety. clearly these guys are big-picture thinkers. they don't so much play music as they do sculpt it from a monumental wall of sound into a flawlessly-proportioned vitruvian-man-lookin' work of art.

jolly good show, ya limey grandstanding trekkie bastards!

cold pastoral:

jeff buckley's grace

chances are this is not one of those albums that's gonna jump out at you right away as being downright genius (even though it is). this is a soft-spoken album by a soft-spoken artist, not one of those la-di-da in-your-face albums by pretentious bands whose names i won't mention. no, buckley's debut is much more low-key and covert when it comes to it's awe-inspiring musical might. it's kind of like a rip-tide: on the surface, calm and serene, but powerful and deadly down below. a slow-burn, as they say.

i'm sure you've all heard the boiled-frog hypothesis before: y'know, how if you were to toss some poor frog into a pot of boiling water, it'd jump right out in a panic, whereas if you were to put said froggy in a pot of lukewarm water that you slowly heated up (being the sadistic bastard that you are), it'd float there care-free and happy as a clam 'til—VOILA—scrumptious frog's legs stew. yeah, this album's kinda like that. you may dismiss it as mediocre on the first listen, but believe me, this album grows on you. it slowly digs its hooks deep into you until, before you know it, what once seemed a lackluster album has slow-simmered your mind into a seething skullfull of piping-hot brain stew. 

in order to better put this album into words, i've called on my trusty sidekick john keats to help fill in some of the gaps in my writing. now what, might you ask, does a grunge-era alt-rocker have in common with a 18th-century british poet? in short, a lot. i can't stop myself from drawing parallels between buckley's music and keats' poetry (whose excerpts have been italicized and cited). maybe i'm crazy, maybe not. see for yourself:

1) MOJO PIN:

the psychedelic fade-in to velvet-soft verses of plush sus-chords feels like the onset of some powerful narcotic...

        first, The Rush: arpeggio-waves of euphoria that leave you warm and fuzzy all over. leave you content to be stuck in this drug-addled stupor, as the chorus drags you further and further down until your balls-deep in karmic opioid-induced bliss—and then, before you finally nod-off into sweet full-blown oblivion, it hits you...

                  The Bridge:

a shot of pure guitar-adrenaline straight to the heart,

flamenco flurries of minor-key chords, loud and mean, screaming ascension,

snare-drum heartbeat racing, jolting you out of the velvet fog

into a brief moment of fortissimo clarity,

but not for long...

        then, The Relapse: as you're hurled back into the soothing amniotic oceans of the verse. the high now much stronger than before. the drumkit a bit more frantic, a bit more syncopated, vocals nearly desperate. this shit's starting to really kick into high-gear until...

                  The Overdose: as you drown in the warm distortion of the climactic third chorus and finally, after one final adrenaline shot, you're right back where you started; the fade-in (now fading-out), leaving you watery-eyed and semi-conscious, blood itching as you ache for another hit.

2) GRACE:

brisk 6/8 cross-picking guitar...

T               M
          U               B            I
                                   L            N
                                                         G

f          u          r          t          h          e          r

          D

               O

                    W

                         N

                                        the

                                   RABBIT

                                       hole.

3) LAST GOODBYE:

a pretty little love-song in disguise. a sheep in wolves' clothing. don't let the bottleneck-blues-guitar intro fool ya. those jingle-jangling chandelier-chords and sultry lovelorn vocals of the verses scream POP-SONG. and don't let that heavy syncopated bassline fool you either, as dark and ominous as it may sound. listen closer and you'll hear the violin beneath it all, singing sad but sweet, like a spurned lover. so sentimental it's on the brink of melodrama.

4) LILAC WINE:

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

                                                              (Ode on Melancholy)

here is buckley doing what buckley does best: making me feel feelings. smooth and robust, this one goes down easy, like a fine wine should. it's simple: just mix two parts love-ballad, one part drinking-song, pour over ice-cold vocals, add a slice of jazz-guitar harmonies then serve.

(shaken not shtirred)

5) SO REAL:

the languid blues-guitar dozes off into a deep lydian sleep

the drums shape-shift time in slow circadian rhythms,

beats falling like grains of sand in an hourglass

and amidst a slowly sleepwalking bassline,

sings a soprano voice thru downy verses

and then comes The Nightmare:

an ugly de-tuned guitar

shrieks, the notes

slowly melting

in midair

slowly pulling

you under 'til you wake

in a cold sweat, head spinning

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

                                                        (Ode to a Nightingale)

6) HALLELUJAH:

being the godless heathen that i am, this song is as close as i'll ever come to having a full-on spiritual awakening and i'm ok with that. to simply call it a cover would be a gross understatement of this song's divine majesty. this ain't no cover, this is a total reimagining of an old leonard cohen classic. a reawakening, if you will. this is a tune that has left behind its wicked sinful ways. a tune that's been born-again in a holy blaze of baptismal-fire. ascetic like a motherfucker with none of the decadent '80s-music trappings of the original: no choir, no cheesy synth-keyboards, no rigid drumbeats. none of that. just a man and his guitar. pure and simple.

it starts with a good god-fearing guitar tone that's bright and clean and pure as the driven snow. the nickel-wound strings strike slow solemn chord-chimes, like church bells resounding across the vaulted ceilings of some great medieval chapel. the lyrics both sacred and sexually-charged. they harken back to the pagan days when such a distinction between the two didn't exist. not to mention his hallowed voice, like the holy ghost. it verges on the supernatural. so much so you can almost see...

...his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death

                                                                          (The Eve of St. Agnes)

7) LOVER, YOU SHOULD'VE COME OVER

the nasally bellows of the harmonium, like the labored pumping of a lovesick heart. so bitter-sweet it hurts. this is what it means to be sadder but wiser. his voice, desperate, pining for a long-lost lover. hopeful, yes, but on the verge of utter hopelessness. this is a man so deep in denial he's caked head-to-toe in egyptian mud.

tragically humorous or humorously tragic, i can't decide. sacred or profane, hopeful or hopeless. it's so paradoxical it's downright ZEN. if a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it actually makes a sound, this is the sound it'd make. this song is the sound of one-handed clapping. sounds like being on the verge of some great epiphany. i can't do it justice in words, so i'll leave it to keats:

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,

Flushing his brow, and in his pained heard

Made purple riot

                                                                              (The Eve of St. Agnes)

8) CORPUS CHRISTI CAROL

here is where buckley goes MEDIEVAL on some asses...or maybe it's early-renaissance...hard to say, really. what i do know is that the song's old—really old, like Olde old—and as you'd expect, it's got more of that solemn religious piety. here, Buckley showcases a piercing soprano vocal so sky-high and crystal-clear it'd put a 300-pound opera-singing broad to shame. the haunting echo on the vocals plus a shit-ton of reverb on the six-string makes it sound like your deep within some granite-lined sepulcher alone in the dark.

it sounds, at times, like a tender lullaby cooing sweet nothings into the tired ears of the chorus. 

then again, it sounds, at times, like a heart-wrenching threnody, weeping falsetto strains 

to the inconsolable ears of the verses.

9) ETERNAL LIFE:

ladies and gents, we've reached the BOILING POINT:

a colossal shit-storm of zeppelinic proportions...

an earthshaking slap-bassline so rabid, distorted, and ferocious,
it's practically foaming at the mouth...

the incessant pulse of the drums, like pounding coffin-nails...

and the distortion of the guitar, like bloody fingernails scratching from the inside...

this song has none of that quiet deathbed resignation outlook you've come to expect from buckley in tracks 6 and 8. it has none of that 'die-with-dignity' bullshit philosophy as the title might suggest. this is the sound of a man who won't go quietly into that good night. this is the sound of a man who's gonna go out with a bang, kicking and screaming in a knockdown-dragout fight to the death 'cuz he's not sure what's on the other side.

10) DREAM BROTHER:

a side-winding guitar riff with a cactus-like tone, beside a slow slithering bass, over tabla-ridden drum rhythms as formless as the shifting sands of the sahara. and above it all, a parched voice, thin and dry, like shed snakeskin...feels like i'm wandering lost in the desert.

then, once i've reached the moment where i think i couldn't possibly take any more of the dry oven-heat, the relentless midday sun, the endless dunes upon dunes of baked bronze sands, i see it. off in the distance. a lush green oasis:

a glass harmonica wall of sound, watery and crystal-clear,

its ghostly tones stacked sky-high and built up until it reaches critical mass

in a massive Lygetti clusterfuck-chord, humming electric

like a choir of a thousand judgement-day angels

but alas, the oasis is only a mirage. just the half-baked fantasy...

...Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

                                                         (Ode to Psyche)

*               *               *

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter, keats famously penned. 
BULLSHIT, i say. keats clearly never heard the likes of jeff buckley!

o captain, my captain:

captain beefheart's safe as milk

DON "CAPTAIN BEEFHEART" VAN VILET

january 15, 1941 – december 17, 2010

r.i.p.

i've decided to do a Captain Beefheart album review. not to honor his death, mind you, but to celebrate his life and the indelible texas-sized smoldering crater he left on the face of pop music.

(...as i am writing this, the word 'review' becomes less-and-less accurate. this is more of a booze-soaked rant than an album review. a long-winded tangent, both ludicrous and grotesque, in true Beefheart form...)

i think i loved his music before i ever heard a single note. his influence on countless great artists is nothing short of remarkable. that low-down vocal growl and the blues-soaked sensibilities you hear in post-1980 Tom Waits, for instance, or the grease-monkey grunge and angular rhythms of early PJ Harvey, or how about the out-of-this-world absurdity of the Pixies' lyrics...or, better yet, the one-part-progressive two-parts-regressive musical style of the White Stripes that's on the one hand, as cutting-edge as the space-age while, on the other hand, still knee-deep in the muck of the delta-blues swampland. this is one hell of a legacy Captain Beefheart has left behind. i think Tom Waits said it best:

'once you've heard Beefheart's music, it's hard to wash him out of your clothes.

it stains, like coffee or blood.'

ok, so the album in question is his debut Safe As Milk, one of his more (and i use this term loosely) accessible albums. don't get me wrong, it's out-there alright, but it's still within reach of the casual music listener. a perfect stepping stone into the utter chaos and absurdity of Beefheart's later work, like the infamous Trout Mask Replica. you've gotta crawl before you can walk, after all, and listening to this album is kinda like musical calisthenics prepping you for the grueling triathlon to come. riding with training wheels, so to speak.

BEWARE:

jumping right into an album like Trout Mask is downright dangerous. first you need training. you can't expect to circumnavigate the whitewater rapids of its stream-of-conscious rhythms or traverse the steep slopes of its densely-layered electro-blues polyphony right off the bat. no, many great minds have been blown that way. to grasp the colossal mindfuck that is Captain Beefheart is no easy feat. it takes careful study, constant practice, and, yes, repeated listenings of Safe As Milk is a must.

this album certainly paints a picture, but not like your budding van gogh or wannabe picasso would, not by a long shot. it paints not with delicate brush strokes, painstaking attention to detail, or a subtle palate of colors. it paints a picture like an avant-garde artist would, by hurling entire cans of paint angrily at the canvas, stabbing violently at it with a broken brush, lunging nude and paint-covered at the picture full-force, and when the paint runs out, smearing the canvas with the artist's own blood, hurling putrid buckets of fecal-matter onto the grotesque dripping masterpiece, until the starving artist finally collapses utterly exhausted into a sweaty heap on the grimy cigarette-littered floor of his/her studio apartment.

yeah, this album's so post-modern it's post-mortem. so post-modern it's compost-modern. in one word, SAVAGE. this is an album that, once you've heard it, you can't unhear it. no amount of easy-listening jazz or the coma-inducing muzak of Enya can rinse this twisted audio-mung from your ears. it festers in your brain, swelling like a tapeworm until it becomes a part of you and you're infinitely better for it. 

to call this album blues-infused would be putting it lightly.

this is electric-neon blues incarnate.

THIS...IS...THE DELTA-BLUES ON STEROIDS!

drenched in muddy waters, it reeks of testosterone, from the gravelly two-pack-a-day vocals of Beefheart, to the macho punches of the bassist, like some deranged prize-fighter past his prime shadow-boxing amidst the heavy tumult of the scatterbrained tribal rhythms of the drums. hell, even the guitars have five-o'clock shadow. when combined, they mold a sound so dense, so heavy and distorted, it sounds like how a juiced-up bodybuilder looks: grotesquely muscular, blue veins bulging, muscles twitching.

yes, the whole album's bluer than a mississippi-delta barroom at midnight, but none so bluesy as track 11: Grown So Ugly, a raunchy lopsided blues number. a Robert Pete Williams cover that's shed its humbler cotton-pickin country-stylings in favor of a fuzzboxed day-glo instrumentation. a cover that's been possessed by the devil. electrified-radioactive-subterranean-mutant-blues.

some simple-minded listener might call this album psychedelic, when nothing could be further from the truth. it's not so much psychedelic as it is purely PSYCHOTIC. psycho-delic, if you will. as manic-depressive as music can get. take, for example, the out-and-out 'roid rage of Dropout Boogie's super-distorted blues that rampages for a few verses until, out of nowhere...

a giddy little harp plucks out a dulcet waltz
smack dab in the middle of it all,

like some beethoven scherzo,
a sick joke, undermining the black-out rage
of Dropout's fierce boogie

...and then, to take such a ninety-degree turn from this gruff-albeit-bipolar blues to the slow bubble-gum doo-wop ballad I'm Glad is freakin' schizo. it happens so fast and so sudden you get whiplash for christ's sake.

yeah, this album's so batshit-crazy that if it killed you in cold-blood, a jury of it's peers would vote unanimously and find it not guilty by reason of insanity...and all things considered, this album is, believe it or not, relatively sane in comparison to Beefheart's later works, like Trout Mask &co., which would embody the raving lunatic off his meds, as opposed to on them. and yes, its rather odd title couldn't be further from the truth. it IS safe as milk at least when compared to the full-moon lunacy of the albums to come, but that's not saying much. in reality, it's about as safe as milk to someone whose lactose-intolerant or, god forbid, lactophobic.

alright, Walt Whitman, quick say something inspiring and profound so i can end this review on a high-note...

O CAPTAIN! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

godspeed, Captain Beefheart, we salute you.

ODE TO A STREET PERFORMER IN HARVARD SQUARE

O elderly little asian man in harvard square

who plays that bizarre-looking chinese fiddle,

sure, your music sounds like what you'd hear

if you shoved a cattle-prod up some poor cat's ass,

or like the nasty metallic shriek of the green-line train

when it finally comes to a slow screeching halt,

or, better yet, like the shrill squeal of a tea-kettle

or the insufferable sound of chalk-board-scratching, 

but, even so, my friend,

i can dig it.

i'm sure it must drive dogs nuts, people too,

'cause it sounds so out-of-tune to our western ears.

but then, i'm sure the tough-as-nails grit of that

savage electric guitar being played across the street

by that tattoo-sleeved sleaze-bag with the face like a pin-cushion,

probably sounds equally as alien to your ears.

holy shit, can you play that thing fast,

shredding like some gung-ho guitar-hero high on cocaine.

and, for fuck's sake, there isn't even a fingerboard

on that little two-string bamboo fiddle of yours,

not even a fretboard to guide you and, what's more,

you're not even looking at the freakin thing when you play it.

no, you're staring off blankly into space,with a look of

ferocious concentration on your wrinkled face,

playin your heart out for a kleenex-box full of

the nickles and dimes of a couple slack-jawed yuppies.

now, that's talent.

then again, i can't help but think that maybe, just maybe,

that instrument you play, whatever the hell it is,

wouldn't actually sound as grotesque as it does now,

if it were in the hands of other more capable musicians.

that's right, man, i said it:

maybe you just suck royally at it.

maybe all the other chinese-born immigrants passing by

are thinking to themselves:

'damn, this guy fuckin blows.

why the hell are all these people giving this asshole money?

he sounds like he's sodomizing a goddamn cat!

what a buncha morons.'

if that's the case, then well done, sir. touché.

i've greatly under-estimated the scope of your genius.

and don't you worry, my half-pint friend,

your ancient chinese secret will be safe with me.

day-in day-out, you may be bilking all us

naive american suckers out of our hard-earned cash,

passing off your total lack of talent 

as exotic musical prowess, but you know what, 

it's really alright with me because

if that ain't the american dream in action,

then i don't know what is.

BRAVO.

 ADDENDUM:

so, i did a little research online and it turns out the instrument in question is called a JINGHU. i pulled up the wikipedia page and, lo and behold, there HE was on the webpage. a photo of the very same musician performing at the very same harvard square street-corner. well, i'll be goddamned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinghu_%28instrument%29

u2 - all that you can't leave behind

LO, it's been 10 long years since this album first hit music stores and invaded airwaves worldwide. an entire decade and still, even to this day, my ears feel raped by it. every once in a while, i'll have the extreme misfortune of hearing one of these songs on the radio, in television and movies, at trendy night clubs, and even on dive-bar juke boxes--and everytime i do, i die a little more inside. in the past decade, u2 have released 2 more albums of pure unadulterated shit, so it's easy to forget just how truly god-awful this album really was when it first came out. so, in honor of its 10 year anniversary, i felt it pertinent, nay crucial, that i remind everyone exactley how much this album sucked and continues to suck, lest we forget. what follows is nothing short of Divine Revelation; my small gift to mankind. now, without further ado...

10 things to do with U2's album All That You Can't Leave Behind
(that're better than actually listening to it) 

1. use it as a drink coaster

2. use the CD underside as a vanity mirror

3. frisbee anyone?

4. dashboard ornament

5. burn it--and no, i don't mean stick it in your disc drive so you can make a copy and give it to your boyfriend or girlfriend and tell em how this album like totally changed your, like, life. i mean literally commit this fuckin thing to flames.

6. eat it. yeah, not exactley nutritious or even remotely edible. in all likelihood, it'll chip your teeth, cut your gums, and make you sick to your stomach, that is, if you even manage to get it to your stomach without choking on the thing first. still, it beats having to listen to beautiful day one more time.

7. got a lopsided dining room table or chair? jam this thing under there. problem solved.

8. paper weight. (and yes, i am running out of ideas...)

9. an xmas present for your mortal enemy. and if someone actually gave this to you as a xmas present, i'd think long and hard about whether that someone really is your friend at all.

10. break the CD into jagged little pieces and use them to slit your wrists.

believe me, people, this is one thing you most definately CAN (and should) leave behind.

for those of you who have the digital version of the album, these alternatives are of no use to you. but don't despair, there is one other option: DELETE.

attempted humor

almost 2 months have gone by without a single post and all i've got to show for it is this brief attempt at humor. who cares, no one reads this shit anyway.

ever wonder what it'd be like if we lived in a completely politically and grammatically correct world? have you ever wondered what terrible ramifications this innocuously proper, anal-retentive, stictly by-the-book outlook would have on something as raucously improper as ROCK 'N ROLL? (or should i say "rock AND roll"? that colloquial conjunction "'n" is a grammatical no-no.)

no, you say? you haven't thought about it at all? ah, you're too busy working a full-time job, gettin your degree, or raising a couple kids. i see. well, for those of us with way too much free time on our hands, here's what rock 'n roll turned PC might look like.

let's start with the ROLLING STONES and their hit (formerly) known as "(i can't get no) satisfaction."

dun dun da nana nana nanana...
I am unable to acquire satisfaction.
I am unable to acquire satisfaction.
Though, on several occasions, I have attempted to acquire said satisfaction. A sentiment I feel must be reiterated several times.

satisfied? i thought not.

next up is NINE INCH NAILS' hit "closer.
forget that offensive, misogynist refrain "i wanna fuck you like an animal." i'll tweek it just a bit to make it nice and PC. ok, trent, let's try that one again.
Take 2:
"i...
     ...would like to take you out to a nice candle-lit dinner at an upscale French restaurant and get to know you a little better over a glass or two of a moderately-priced wine and then, afterwards, possibly see a movie with you--something tasteful, a romantic-comedy perhaps--and, if it's all right with you, maybe I could walk you home after and, if you feel comfortable, you could invite me up to your chic studio apartment for a cup of coffee that's not really a cup of coffee, if you know what I mean, and then we could make sweet love while I tell you what a strong independent career-driven person you are and how much I respect you..."

not as pithy, but at least no one feels objectified or offended.

alright, how about RAM JAM and their oldy-but-goody "black betty"?

African-American Betty (bam a lam)
Oh, African-American Betty (bam a lam)
African-American Betty had a child (bam a lam)
The darn youngster has, of late, become a bit hyperactive, no doubt due to his/her being recently diagnosed with ADD, a condition, which, with the proper medication, can be managed (bam a lam)

...bam a lame.

i guess i should touch on hip-hop as well. i wouldn't want to leave anyone out, lest they be offended.

how about Ol' Dirty Bastard. that name has got to go. it's not only grammatically unsound, but also politically incorrect. here's a PG-rated alternative:
       Elderly Hygenically-Challenged Child of Unwed Parents

that's all i got for now.

ROCK 101:

Part II

here's the next (brief) installment of...

ROCK 101: A How-To Guide on Being in an Unsuccessful Rock Band

so before we delve any further into the realm of indie rock survivalism, let's get this whole band name thing over with...

SIDEBAR: CHOOSING A BAND NAME

         now ultimately, you're goal as a rock band is to make a name for yourselves and you can't do this without, you know, literally making a name for yourself first.  choosing a proper band name is important. not as important as your overall sound or whether you're any good at all, but important none the less. think of it this way: a band name no matter how phenomenally clever it may be, won't mean a thing if the band itself sucks. there's no name in the english language (or esperanto or swahili or any other language for that matter) that can redeem a totally inept and shitty-sounding band. likewise, an awesome-sounding band with an awful-sounding name probably won't go very far either, but this is up to debate. there are probably a few exceptions to this.
        first off, a band name should somehow define the band's sound/style/attitude/outlook. this is no easy task and things become increasingly more difficult when trying to get each bandmate to agree on a single name and to stick with it. if you're in a punk band naturally you're gonna want a name thats gritty and raunchy (like the sex pistols or buzzcocks) 'cause that's what punk's about. if your goal is to be bland, then name your band something like, oh i don't know, the dave matthews band.
        come up with a couple ideas. make a list. then, do some research. i'll assume if you're computer-savvy enough to read a blog, you can manage a simple search on google or myspace. run the names on your list and see if any rock bands pop up that have the same name. don't get your hopes up. chances are most of the good band names are already taken--most of the bad ones too. probably multiple times. but that shouldn't necessarily stop you. do some further research into the bands. if they're fellow unsigned and unsuccessful bands with very little hits on the site, few if any shows, and low-quality music, then i don't see the harm in taking the name. a lot of band accounts on myspace are inactive and have been for quite some time. the band may have broken up years ago. etc, etc. in cases like these, i'd say keep the name. just so long as you're confident you can surpass their popularity if need be.
        look at it this way: if you wanted a completely original band name, it would have to be something so long-winded and bizarre that no one in the history of rock n roll has ever thought of it before. also, you might be surprised to find out that even some of the most peculiar names are already taken. like if you wanted to name your band, say, the Strawberry Alarm Clock you'd be saddened to find out it has already been taken.             
       so don't worry so much about whether other obscure garage rockers share the same name. just make sure once you've started making a name for yourselves in the underground music scene, you stick with the name. you'll start playin shows, recording demos, and building a fanbase with this name and changing it spur of the moment might make you lose your reputation. why do you think a douche-bag like axl rose would start a band with a group of brand-new musicians a decade later and have the balls to call it Guns n Roses? it's the name. it has a reputation and following of its own that he's trying to piggy-back off of. granted this is blatant infringement and should probably be punishable by death, but at least you can see how important a band name can become once things get rolling.   

that is all for now.