Who Owns The Suck – By: Phil McNamara

These guys had everyone fooled into thinking that they were doing something worth hearing. I’m biased because I think that as people, they’re assholes. They tried to cook and eat my friend Marc Paolini’s cat Boris once back in 1991. I guess I shouldn’t hold grudges. As musicians they sounded like school kids at their first practice, as songwriters they wrote repetitive embarrassingly juvenile meaningless lyrics, their live shows were a bloated mess of cheesy makeup, dry ice, and some sort of goo that they liked to spill all over the stage. After seeing the whole mess a few times, I found their CD in a WAG throw out bin and put it on thinking that perhaps Upside Down Crosses’ mystique wasn’t in their live show. I was wrong. The CD is one long drone of atonal guitars and the singer moaning monotonous phrases and laughably bad lyrics. I used to play this CD for guys I knew that were into death metal and ask, “Do I just know absolutely nothing about death metal or does this just really suck?” Most of them would tell me that Upside Down Cross were not death metal, but in fact doom. That’s possible, or it’s possible that my friends didn’t want to admit that some bands in their favorite genre might suck donkey dick.

Despite the lack of love I felt for Upside Down Cross, they had their fans and supporters. Martin Doyle and Chuck White, then of the Middle East used to put them on high profile bills there and at Axis and Avalon. Curtis was stupid enough to sign them to Taaang!! Records and pay money to put out that document of infantile retarded rambling and uninspired music, Dinosaur Jr. frontman J. Mascus liked them enough to play drums on this mess. In retrospect, the masturbatory atonal stuff was right up J.’s alley. John O’Neil called front man Larry Lifeless hilarious and a lyrical genius. This was when John was at the Worcester Phoenix and booking Dinny’s, a bar on Lincoln Street. I remember reading that article and thinking, “Well if he likes them that much, why doesn’t he have them fuckin’ play the bar that he’s booking?” John was smarter than that. He knew what he would’ve been in for: putting up with five drunken assholes, who’d probably fuck shit up and cost him his gig there. He would have spent the night having to be apologetic to everyone else involved and to hear the twenty to thirty seconds on their CD that he found mildly amusing he would have had to cringe through a half hour of that monotonous sludge.

A sucky back beat, sandwiched by a squall of pointlessly loud sucky guitar and infantile sucky singing served on a soggy bed of overall suck. If there was a band that sucked worse than Upside Down Cross, I don’t know who they are. I’m glad I got all of that out of my system, I feel much better now.

Posted: February 2nd, 2010 under Funnies, General Debauchery, Music, drob.
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Christmas is all Around Lip Dub from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

Happy holidays from Strutta, Bootup Labs, Adhack, Layerboom, LetsGoForDinner and QCDocs. Song: “Christmas is all Around,” performed by Bill Nighy as “Billy Mack” from the “Love Actually” OST.
bootuplabs.com

Posted: December 19th, 2008 under Funnies, General Debauchery, Music.
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These guys are crazy. Their album was released after they broke up. I was pretty bummed about it because we played the same circuit in Boston but it was finally released now 3 years later on Small Stone Records > – > Very accurate review snippet(s).

“If you want safe and predictable, then you’d better shop elsewhere. This music is like a Cro-Magnon chief blasted out of his head on mushrooms, sucking the marrow out of a femur from the chief of a neighboring clan: brutal, intense, and vision inducing. Sadly, Milligram is no more.”

And…

“Tearing hair-splitting genre definitions asunder, Milligram’s brand of feral, gut punching rock and roll only needs one word to describe it – intense. Equal parts of stoner rock and speed punk morph into a saw-toothed, fire breathing, supersonic murder machine with wheels greased to meet Jesus in triple time.

This one’s my favortie…

“If Henry Rollins met Jonah Jenkins on the street in a dark alley I can only imagine what would happen… Henry rollins would shit his pants right before Jonah and Milligram ate him and his merry band of puny, lame-ass do-gooders, and spit them out like yesterdays rotten fish. I’m not kidding… these guys are bad mutha fuckers…”

Milligram

Posted: September 19th, 2008 under General Debauchery, Music, drob.
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Ok, this is HUGE for me: This hasn’t happen to me for music since I first discovered Hot Water Music. When that day happened my outlook on music changed forever. I think of music in a completely different way today because of that band. I don’t quite know how to describe what that statement means or more appropriately how it “feels” but it’s really good and emotional all at the same time.

The ever-lasting and ever-loved Pandora and has delivered to me the ability to (once again) have a new opinion about music by way of introducing me to an amazing band called Red Collar. Their “The Hands Up” Ep is simply amazing. The track “Used Guitars” is so awesome and can’t even put it into words. Listen to it on their myspace page and then buy it. I got my (no-DRM) MP3 version of the album from Amazon.

photo by Dave Jones

Jason Kutchma of Red Collar, photo by Jonathan Truesdale

From Josh Spilker of Southeast Performer Magazine: “Red Collar channels the angst of the workingman in a way that hasn’t been seen in rock in a long time. Thankfully, Red Collar has enough experience and well-chosen punk-rock influences to create an energetic and convincing modern rock anthem that anyone frustrated with The Man should be proud to own….

From Grayson Currin of the Independent Weekly: “Somehow, they fuse several great strains of punk—like the power plod of early ‘80s Boston band Mission of Burma and the scabrous edge of D.C.’s Fugazi—with a wide-open sense of pop…

From Blake Gillespie of Impose Magazine: “The first two songs are the Fugazi-esque standards. They rock fast, fuzzy and shout the chorus. But the final two songs are reasons to check for Red Collar. “Stay” invites everyone to give up on those higher aspirations for the great wide world and realize they are meant for their small towns. “Used Guitars” is like getting advice from some poor broken sap at a bar who tells you “we were made to fail everyday” and you take it even more nonchalantly as a chorus of bar flies affirms it with slurry “ba ba baduhs.” It is a fair warning that luck was lost at birth, meant to be taken unconscientiously, because there is a good chance it will not spark until it is too late and you are at the stool next to that sap muttering about broken hearts and used guitars to the next generation of young cocks.”

From Rich Ivey of the Independent Weekly: “With its Durham-bred dischords falling somewhere between Jawbox and The Replacements, Red Collar’s recently-released Hands Up EP is an engaging clash of post-punk angularity and anthemic rock ‘n’ roll melody, not to mention one of the best local releases in recent memory…”

Posted: July 30th, 2008 under General Debauchery, Music, Seriously?, drob.
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Snagfilms.com Ted Leonsis’ new startup.

Seven years in the making and culled from 2000 hours of footage, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock n roll, unearthing an incredible true story of success and self-destruction. Anton A. Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols are star-crossed friends and bitter rivals – DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce.

Posted: July 29th, 2008 under General Debauchery, Music, Seriously?, drob.
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Monday’s Wedding from Drob on Vimeo.

Posted: June 11th, 2008 under Music.
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Well I don’t quite know what to say. While Jefe and I were checking out Redux.com we came accross this… um… show, I guess. Redux says that they’re a discovery network and boy oh boy did we discover. What a crackup!

Welcome to: The Legend of Old Gregg

PLOT

While having a meal with Old Gregg, Howard learns of his possession of The Funk. Old Gregg said that if Howard marries him, he can have the funk and they can leave the cave and start a band together, so Howard agrees. While Old Gregg is preoccupied about picking out a wedding dress, Vince, Naboo, and Bollo arrive in a submarine and rescue Howard, who steals The Funk from Old Gregg. They use it to perform to the pub, singing a song about having the funk. They then leave, planning to bring the funk back to London. Unfortunately Old Gregg is shown on top of the van, exposing his mangina.

Posted: May 29th, 2008 under Funnies, General Debauchery, Music, Seriously?.
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By Colin Butler
CEO Orcaphat Records

I was checking my Myspace page earlier this afternoon, trying to keep up with all of the fabulous offers, media requests, messages from chix and general business nonsense that is funneled through it when I spotted an ad on my home page that asked “Are You Hotter Than Miley Cyrus?” and prompted me to push the flashing button to find out.

I was intrigued.

This isn’t something I have ever considered before (I swear), but what if I am hotter than Miley Cyrus? I could push the button, but am I prepared to accept the responsibility that would go along with the title Hotter Than Miley? Would it be fair for me, a grown man, to supplant a 15 year old girl in her fantasy life of nonstop fame and fortune? Seems like I was being offered the opportunity regardless of fairness, and if the powers that be don’t care, why should I?

I hesitated, my cursor hovering over the blinking button. I imagined Miley onstage, lip synching whatever tweener crap she’s famous for, when from stage right her achy breaky dad strides toward her, covers the mic, and whispers in her ear. She bursts into tears and exits stage left, followed by dad, who shoots me the stink-eye over his shoulder.

Someone takes me by the elbow and leads me onstage to what used to be Miley’s microphone, and there I am, the New Sensation, center stage, feeling the heat of the spotlight and the adoration (or is it rage?) of thousands of kids and their parents. The music starts again and I realize I have to do something, so I bust the only move I can think of, which looks like a combination of three things:

1. I forgot to take the hanger out of my shirt before I put it on.
2. One of my legs is three inches shorter than the other.
3. I’m killing a spider.

I’m hearing boos, so I try another move that I’ve worked on for years in front of my mirror that is a hybrid of The Mashed Potato and the Green Apple Quick Step. I hear gasps, but I ignore them and quickly do some calculations: Miley made $18 million last year…that’s about two grand an hour…$34 a minute…if I can keep this up for, say, two minutes, I’d rake in…$68.

I’m already out of breath. Do I really want to be referred to as the guy who had a seizure onstage at the Miley Cyrus concert for the rest of my life for a lousy $68? I don’t think so, but there’s no way I can keep this up long enough to make any real money.

So a stagehand rushes onstage and stuffs his wallet in my mouth so I don’t swallow my tongue, and suddenly I’m no longer in the spotlight, I’m back at my desk looking at my suddenly drab Myspace page, perturbed not by having a midday reverie about living the life of a 15 year old girl, because we all do that, but by something that will surely keep me awake tonight:

How is it that my fantasies end in failure?

I didn’t push the button. Fuck it, she can keep it.

Posted: May 28th, 2008 under Funnies, General Debauchery, Music, Seriously?, drob.
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Juliette & The Licks – Money in My Pocket
Juliette & The Licks – I Never Got to Tell You What I Wanted to
Juliette & The Licks – You’re Speaking My Language
Juliette & The Licks – This I Know

Purgatory Blues

Sticky Honey

Posted: May 28th, 2008 under General Debauchery, Music, drob.
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Crazy Bjork has a new video out. Or is it Bjork has a crazy new video out. I can’t decide. How about you?

Watch the HD version instead of the puny embed if you can.

Posted: May 8th, 2008 under Design, Funnies, General Debauchery, Music, drob.
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