Here's to you, Kanye West. Even considering the venetian blinds style sunglasses and your world famous hissy fits, you have really outdone yourself in ridiculousness this time. Kanye has claimed, in a recent interview with Details Magazine, that he coded a sexually oriented Super Mario level. He then preceeded to tell the interviewer about something to do with gigantic penises and ghostly vaginas. I'm not sure what's more shocking to me, the fact that Kanye, is (and this is an actual quote) "the fucking end-all, be-all of music” or the fact that he's also a master ROM hacker.(How do you see through those? I don't understand it, are you trying to figure out what it feels like to have 30% of your vision?)
Yes, it's nice to see that Kanye made sure he paid special homage to the video game industry of yesteryear. I'm really glad he took time away from stroking his musical ego to remind us all that we are far inferior to him in every way. Just because we think programming is cool doesn't mean that it's been spared from the umbrella of Kanye's awesomeness.
Personally, I'm waiting for the day when he says he made a perpetual motion device back in the 9th grade.
The Bronx have to be one of my favorite bands of the modern age. I say this not only because of their electrifying music and live shows, but because of their business model. This is a band that after a handful of local shows had labels begging for a record deal. Not wanting to become slaves to the industry, the band declined and instead built up a fanbase by way of self-financed and operated touring and eventually put out their first album The Bronx (2003) on their own label, White Drugs. After signing with Island/Def Jam, the band put out their second album also titled The Bronx in 2006 in an agreement that required little inference from the label. Disliking major label support even more than they thought they would, The Bronx departed from Island/Def Jam and produced their third self titled which came out last year, soon to be followed by a mariachi (that's right, mariachi) album this year.
Now normally I don't do biographies for bands, but The Bronx deserve it because they stand it out in an industry built on deals with the devil and trend-based music. The band's unique blend of punk rock dares its listeners to pigeonhole them, only to be defied by the next release. After all, how many bands are bold enough to do a friggin mariachi album? The Bronx (who by the way are from Los Angeles) are band without fear or limitation and continuously impress me with their music.
The song featured is "White Guilt" from their second self-titled album. I use this song because it really stands admist the rest of their music and because i just think the video is really, really, really cool. I encourage you to check out the rest of their catalouge though. With clever lyrics, solid riffs, and enough collective energy to power a small city, THIS SHIT FUCKING ROCKS.
"I wanna be original, I wanna be surrounded by art / but everything is digital, the formulas are falling apart" - The Bronx, "Knifeman"
It's lines like that that make me love this band. I wanted to use that song for this post, but oddly enough there's no music video for it. Go look it up anyway n00bz!
I thought Pineapple Express was a decent movie. I laughed a lot, but it seemed like a bit of a trainwreck towards the end. One of the funniest scenes was the opening credits in which Seth Rogen cheerfully fulfills his job of delivering court orders to people. After handing them the order he slyly claims "you've been served". A clever joke...if it had come out 2 years ago before this Cyanide and Happiness comic dated February of 2006.
And so Brien slammed his forehead onto his desk like a defeated boxer after the final blow, his eyes panning over to the open Quantitative Reasoning Book laying open on his lap. His gaze fell upon the words "...'how heavy the traffic load is'...".
So there's rumors flyin 'round that New Hampshire is threatening to secede from the United States of America. New legislation was passed recently condemning the federal government for its recent actions and claiming the right to basically leave when they please.
I'd assume this thing has been in the works for a while and it is only coincidence that it comes out shortly after a new, mulatto president is elected.
I for one think it's unfortunately, a load of hot air; a bluff meant to inspire the Americans to realize just how grave our current situation is and to take the power back from Washington. It's a scare tactic meant to do...I'm not exactly sure...but I'd have to agree with one digg commenter: "I'm actually naive enough to believe civil war would be kind of fun". This of course not meaning something similar to the moral struggle that consumed the entire nation and took the greatest number of American causalties of any war it's participated in. I see a new "civil war" as a reform of the Federal Government and the dawn of a new America. As good a wet dream as it may be, it would be a TERRIBLE IDEA. I can picture other countries coming into the fray and taking control as we ourselves are so fond of doing. What goes around comes around I suppose.
In the unlikely (and by that I mean impossible) event that New Hampshire were to secede, I would gladly leave my comfy dormroom at Keene State College and head to wherever the action is. I've been praying for something like this for a while. I've hoped that an event would swallow me whole and throw me into the belly of some kind of Ragnarok. From the looks of things though, I'm gonna have to wait it out til 2012 (sigh).
Anyway, here's a couple links about what's going on. Enjoy!
Organization bent on secesion and the formation of a new America that operates closer to the forefather's wishes from what I understand: http://www.republicofnh.org/
The picture pretty much sums it up. None of us were interested enough in the Grammy to really write about it. Just like that particular picture of shit looks as you'd expect shit to look, and probably smells like you'd expect shit to smell, the Grammys met their expectations with full fail.
Here are some of the highlights, or lowlights depending on your perspective:
-Blink 182 made the possibly the most awkward reunion announcement in music history.
-Jonas Brothers reached a new level of fail thought unreachable my failotologists
-Katy Perry was stripped everything that made her unique in the endlessly ambiguous realm of pop music.
-A well-deserved homage to Dean Martin was followed by the "Rap Pack" performing the astronomical shitstorm known as "Swagga Like Us" in which a very pregnant MIA lip-synced random bits of her hit single "Paper Planes" in a see-through dress while four of the industry's biggest rappers fought for stage presence by seeing who could yell incoherent Ebonics the loudest.
So thank you, Grammys, for failing to meet your already increasingly low expectations.
And that's already far beyond what i had the will to write about this garbage. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen.
-Brien
BTW!11!1 this is part of a new section I'm dubbing "RAWFUL" (us and our clever puns, you know you like it) reserved for stuff that makes us go "EEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!"
And so, the final chapter of Christian Bale's freak-out ends in a well structured, honest apology. I think a lot of people could understand a method actor overreacting in the middle of a scene of a highly anticipated ACTION FILM. Bale gave his exclusive public apology to the guys at the Kevin and Bean show on radio station KROQ 106.7 FM, which is conveniently presented here via the youtube account of InternetPopular.com (whatever that is).
Well this completely restores what little faith I lost in Bale and I look forward to seeing his performance in Terminator 4.
Yes, Rolling Stone have just reported that pop-punk superstars Blink 182 will be breaking their hiatus to either present or perform at this year's Grammy Awards. It seems drummer Travis Barker's recent narrow escape from the clutches of death has altered the bands stand on their status. Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful re-friendship.
I personally thought their last album was a great turn in a new direction that unfortunately got cut short. It was experimental, yet catchy; Exciting, yet romantic; Blink yet, not Blink. It was a beautiful redefinition of a band that seemed to be growing out of themselves, and it was tragically denied a follow up. Perhaps if we close our eyes and hope real hard, we'll get it some time in the near future.
Anyway, to celebrate, here's some classic and modern Blink 182 for ya's. Enjoy! :)
It was October of 2007 when I found my beloved Schoolyard Heroes. I was going through my daily music news rounds and an article caught my eye about a newspaper in Seattle condemning the band for their violent lyrics, warning readers of the enormous threat they pose to society. Clearly, no one had ever explained to the author the meaning of "metaphor". The thing that separates Schoolyard Heroes from most other horror-punk bands is that their twisted, graphic lyrics about zombies, blood, and the apocalypse are posed as metaphors for more relatable issues like love and the superficiality of American society. This, and the endless barrage of catchy guitar riffs and leads, interesting song composition, and the dual vocal attack of guttural screams contrasted against frontwoman Ryann Donnely's operatic singing style.
The Video below is for the song "Plastic Surgery Hall of Fame" from their most recent (and IMO best) album Abominations (2007). Dissonant, biting guitar licks, graphic horror-themed lyrics, soaring vocals from an actually respectable female lead (a rarity these days) - oh yeah, THIS SHIT FUCKING ROCKS.
I Haven't been contributing much lately, so I'm going to start up in earnest. This new section is going to be called PWNCH4!R (see what I did there? It's a double pun) Being something of a videogame nerd, I figure it's good to post about what's going on in these changing times in the industry. I'll try to post every Monday, I realize it's saturday but I've got a burning desire to talk about Jack Thompson but Brien wanted me to showcase this first
I got D-Pad hero for my NES emulator (Nestopia if you were wondering and it is awesome). I may be behind the times, for some reason I always seem to hear about things 2 years past. But I digress, this game is fun once you fix the controls to suit your keyboard (Shift and Option do NOT work on Mac when the game is as fast paced as it is) but it works well.
There's only four tunes on it so far, but they're pretty fun. There's a Micheal Jackson tune that I don't know (I'm a product of the nineties), Sweet Child O' Mine (I grew up a "Classic Rock" fan) Some random song I have no clue what it is and Daft Punk which drew me in the first place.
Either way, I guess this works as a pseudo-videogame review, and you should definitely check it out. 8 Bit music is so cool.
Check out this video posted of it by ScaryBugThing
(Finding ROMs for emulators is kinda hard when you can't use .torrent clients so I have to wait until I'm on a network that can. Oh well, TANSTAAFL)
For those of you who haven't heard, actor Christian Bale is currently involved in production of the next (Schwarzenegger-absent) Terminator installment. Apparently while shooting, the director of photography stumbled onto the set and threw off Bale's groove. An audio clip of the event has been circulating featuring Bale chewing out the guy in ways rivaled only by the infamous Buddy Rich tapes. More important than all of this however is the remix of the recording made by youtuber RevoLucian cleverly titled "Bale Out"
Prepare to BAMWROFL ("bust a move while rolling on the floor laughing").
Yet another addition to the world-wide phenomenon that is Leaning Back, allow me to introduce ROFLCHAIR. The title's origin stems from a distant cousin of the ROFLCOPTER. As you clever rapscallions might have guessed, here we feature discoveries that make us SICLOFAO (that's "spinning-in-chair-laughing-our-fucking-asses-off" for those of you a lil' slow on the uptake).
To break it in, today we feature the phenomenon that is "Half-Life: Full Life Consequences". The video's received well over one million views by now but I came across it the other day and SICLMFAO for hours. It's amazing how much a few guys having some fun with Garry's Mod and some poorly written (and narrated) Half-Life 2 fan-fiction can brighten up your day. (:
Those unfamiliar with the game should still find it pretty damn funny. Or maybe just retarded. If you like it be sure to check out creator-youtuber Djy1991's other videos.
Without further a due, here is today's ROFLCHAIR. Enjoy! :D
Today's installment of TSFR features Cincinatti's own Foxy Shazam. I stumbled across them whilst digging up some tunes from one of my personal favs, Every Time I Die, with whom they share a label.
The song below is "A Dangerous Man", lead single from their Ferret Records debut released a little over a year ago simply, yet elegantly titled Introducing Foxy Shazam.
Foxy's explosive blend of indie, punk, and stunning theatrics make them quite the sonic spectacle (dig the mic-stand-kick-twirl at 2:23).
And with frontman Eric Shawn Nally exhibiting stage persona that can only be described as some bizzare fusion of Iggie Pop, Freddie Mercury, and Michael Jackson, THIS SHIT FUCKING ROCKS.
(How do you see through those? I don't understand it, are you trying to figure out what it feels like to have 30% of your vision?)
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