1.5.13

On January 5^th I listened to The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones, The Cure Three Imaginary Boys and Tame Impala Lonerism.

I watched Crossfire Hurricane, the new Stones documentary, right before the holidays and was still high on the band when I threw on their self-titled debut. For the most part it’s all cover songs with one jam written by Mick and Keith. 

I guess some of the covers are kinda cool, but Depeche Mode’s cover of “Route 66” is better. The blues tracks they cover don’t have the howl and passion of the early Beatles cover band days and I doubt I’ll ever listen to this album again.  Did I just dismiss The Rolling Stones introduction to the world?

The song Mick and Keith wrote, “Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)” definitely shows the potential for what The Stones were to become, but it’s really simple and has that right-before-the-60s-got-cool twang. If I take one track away from this album, this is it. I also liked "Little By Little" and "The King Bee." 

Right after “Tell Me” they romp into Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness” and from the intro I swear to Christ I thought Mick was going to start singing “Ooo wah, ooo wah, cool cool kitty. Tell us about the boy from New York City.” It’s a rather unfortunate arrangement, but not too far from Gaye’s version.

Having watched Crossfire Hurricane I can’t wait to dive into the rest of the band’s discography throughout this year of music. It seemed to me that the band really was shaped by the environment they were born into and they turned the adversities they faced into an endless string of anthems.

I don’t get England and all their “compilation” releases. Here in the states, we do the Greatest Hits thing, but over there, especially back in the day, they really fucked ya with all their different bullshit repackaged releases. I just spent 30 minutes on Wikipedia trying to figure out The Cure’s true discography. It’s a fucking nightmare.

Boys Don’t Cry was the American version of this album but five songs were different.  And then they have like three or four other compilation releases that came out from 1980 to 1986, plus five proper albums and I’m realizing right now why I wasn’t a Cure super fan. It was exhausting! I’m pretty sure the first thing I owned from the band was Standing On A Beach. Which I always thought was called Standing On A Beach, Staring At The Sea. But that’s not the case. I’m so confused.

But, Three Imaginary Boys is The Cure’s debut album released in 1979! I was eight!

I’m pissed I never listened to Three Imaginary Boys before. I’m pretty sure I have never even seen the album cover until I listened to the album. The only real hit on the disc is “10:15 Saturday Night,” but I definitely found some forgotten gems here. Their cover of “Foxy Lady” is a novelty, but tracks like “Grinding Halt,” “Object,” and “It’s Not You” gave birth to The Cure “sound.” If I was more of a rock journalist I could describe that sound, but all I can think of is “tiny toy Rock,” which I think I whipped up while looking at the album cover. (I’m really an idiot.)

Tame Impala are Australian and it’s one of those one guy deals. Kevin Parker basically is the band, I guess. I liked their debut, 2010’s Innerspeaker. It really has a Beatles psychedelic era sound to it. Songwriting wasn’t as strong, but the sound was there. When they put out Lonerism last year, I listened to it right away and it’s more of the same stuff.

The first track starts off super annoying, then nicely makes its statement, but annoying. I would say they should punch their producer in the dick for letting them start off with such a grating track, but Parker produced the thing himself. Figures.

Who’s that fucking guy everybody loves? They call him the musician’s musician. Was in and produced a million bands. Ken Andrews! I refused to Google it. Andrews was in Failure, ON and Year Of The Rabbit, plus he produced stuff from NIN, A Perfect Circle, Pete Yorn and more. Guy’s a genius. The problem is, unless you’re a musichead, you don't know who he is. I would put Kevin Parker’s work with Tame Impala in the same ballpark. (That's me not looking at the camera in a picture with Ken after a Year Of The Rabbit gig.)

“Apocalypse Dream,” from Lonerism, is right out of the Ken Andrew’s offensive playbook with an enormous lush and layered sound. But, Tame Impala add a more distorted chaos to an otherwise squeaky clean mix. (I have publicly bashed rock critics for writing sentences like that one… and here I am.)

The only problem with a record like this is that you can’t connect with it on one listen. It takes some time. Give it a chance if you can.

I dunno, maybe. 

Where Are Turtle's Balls? And Why Is Entourage Sucking Balls?

Hey Dickeaters! It's been a long time! So, I got a job on a morning show and I just haven't had the time or energy to write my stupid blog. But lately I've been feeling stifled and figured I'd pick up this blogging thing again.

This week's episode of Entourage was entitled "Hair" (The Sixth Ep of Season Seven.) and it was a total and complete pile of unbelievable SHIT!!! Infuriating in its gall!! How dare the writers of this once awesome show? HOW DARE THEY? It's like they pulled a rotten diaper out of the dumpster and poured its contents on the dinner table and said "we didn't have time to make anything better, so dig in jerks!"

This whole season has been toilet paper. (I'm really into excrement analogies in this blog.) But this episode was the cure de crai? What's that thing the frogs say? Kir di gra? (I'm in the process of Googling it. Ah, here it is.) Coup de grace! This episode is the mother f'ing death blow!

Quick recap for those who don't know... Entourage is a show on HBO. It follows Vinny Chase, an actor and his entourage. Drama is his has-been brother, E is his retarded little friend, Turtle is the completely useless guy, and Ari Gold, his truly awesome agent. Smoking weed and getting laid have always been very important nuances of the show as the crew deals with navigating Hollywood.

Having said that...

Am I really supposed to believe after watching six seasons of Turtle bang a countless number of Vince's castoffs, a hooker from the whore house next door and participate in a three-way with Drama, that he's never had a girl with no bush?! REALLY!!! In L.A.! And even if that's true, the sight of one would make him lose his wood?

I'm no freakin' playa, but I've cum across (pun intended) that phenomenon quite a bit since college! And I was in college in the early 9o's!!!! I had a front row seat for the receding "hair pie," to use a phrase from Revenge Of The Nerds. I saw it go from untamed, to the triangle, to the Mohawk or landing strip, to the Hitler mustache, to the bare minimum of what it is today.

And on top of the no bush thing, when did Turtle become a whiny little fucking bitch!!! This whole storyline with him and the Hispanic chick is a hollowed out pair of balls filled with warm piss and garlic served in a dirty ashtray!

Turtle has been in Hollywood with Vince for fucking years! He's pulled every fucking scam there is to get laid and thankfully we never actually had to see him do it! But in this "Hair" episode some fucking genius thought it would be great to show Turtle banging. Good call! Probably the same guy that decided to just completely alter the universe of the show and make him a ball-less pussy! Give Turtle his balls back!!

And take the balls out of the show's mouth while you're at it.

The rest of the episode was a basket of forced drama. Whatever was going on with Ari and the rest of the jerkoffs sucks! Why is E buddies with that guy he's working with? He's a total a-hole d-bag! And speaking of a-holes! Why the heck would you bring Billy Walsh back and cut his balls off too!

It's kinda cool that Vinny is now "dating" the porn star Sasha Grey and becoming a drunk, but that's about it. And in a nice twist in the end of the episode, we get to see Sasha naked and her full bush as she descended into the pool while Vince is passsed out. Enjoy the most G rated picture I could find of Sasha's "Hair."


But whatever you do... don't shop at American Apparel.