Tags: Charts and graphs, Picture of the day, Pie
Tags: Charts and graphs, Picture of the day, Pie
Punk like The Stooges or The Black Lips. Retro like Nobunny or The Ramones. Psychedelic like The Standells. Grungy like The Electric Prunes or Wolfmother. Splinters and blisters of songs, like “The Park (Dig It),” that could and should have gone on longer. Fully formed but bizarre ballads that sound like they were recorded in someone’s basement. Sudden bursts of crispy fuzz. This, dear readers, is The Jacuzzi Boys. The Florida band has released singles now and again, but it wasn’t until the end of the summer that they finally hit us in the mouth with a full record. And how fucking cool is it?
Well, I’ve already counted the ways, but I can add a few more. Many songs clock in at less than two minutes, and most combine all the various moods and genres that punk music has gone through since Iggy Pop began bleeding on stage: Surfer, psychout, grunge, fuzz (lots of fuzz), lo-fi, druggy, three-chord pop . . . The only one missing, really, is hardcore. Most folks think of punk as three chords and a bunch of shouting or vocal effects, but Jacuzzi Boys have such a studious love of the genre that they can move seamlessly through its subtle style variations, all the while sounding laid back enough that this album could have come up in the 1960s as easily as today. In short: This album is a party.
Tags: Indie rock, Punk
BONUS: KOOKS COVERS BY REQUEST!
Beast of Burden/Sweet Jane (repost by request) (ysi)
Young Folks (Peter, Bjorn and John cover) w/ Simon Wilcox (ysi)
California (Mason Jennings cover) (ysi)
Crazy (Live Lounge 30/3/06) (ysi)
Tags: Covers, Indie-ish rock, Picture of the day, Zombies
Live Simpsons!
Tags: Simpsons, Video of the day
1. Thor and Avengers Movies. According to Ain’t It Cool News, Dr. Donald Blake will not be in the movie. I guess they’re going for more of an “ultimates” thing than a classic Avengers thing. I’m not too sad about that. I never understood why a guy like Thor would ever bother reverting to another identity anyway. Similarly, among the buzz about Jeremy Renner on the shortlist to play Hawkeye—possibly in both movies—is news that the character will be a modern version—again, like in The Ultimates. I always said that Millar and Finch made the greatest superhero movie ever done in comic book.
By the way, I am finally getting around to reading the first Trade Paperback of Stracinsky’s recent reboot of the Thor title, and I have to say, as someone who hasn’t been a fan of the book since Walt Simonson’s run many decades ago, it is freakin’ awesome.
2. The New York Times released it’s list of 2009 graphic books worth buying, mentioning several titles that were included in Berkeley Place’s “Best of the Decade” list. So if you didn’t believe me, believe them that you need to go buy “Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” Ed Brubaker’s “Criminal,” and the “Scott Pilgrim” series. Not to mention the Zombiecentric “The Walking Dead,” written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn.
3. The poster for Iron Man 2 is out. And it’s got War Machine and a May 7 release date. I’ve said before that I liked the first one a lot, but the climactic battle lacked tension, and was impossible to follow (too dark!). Here’s hoping they improve the action side of it—I can’t imagine they’ll improve the Tony Stark side of it. Speaking of Iron Man, I had the good fortune of getting the first two trade volumes of Matt Fraction’s Iron Man series. Good stuff. I’ve never been a huge fan of the tin can, but Fraction does a goo
d job weaving Iron Man into the Skrull Invasion/Osborn tapestry. You can see the poster, along with some incredibly hot pix of Scarlet J as Black Widow, here.
4. Anyone who wants to show me how much they appreciate me this Xmas can get me the new Shield boxed set. Out of all the “best TV shows of the decade” lists that I’ve read—which include great shows like The Wire, Sopranos, Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer . . . The Shield is hands-down my favorite show all time.
5. My buddy and occasional contributor CD published a bunch of superhero songs recently, and admitted that more than a few came from this very website. I’ve been trying to get together a worthy A to Z for about 6 months now. Still working on it . . . Anyway, CD hasn’t been all that well lately, so he’s delinquent on contributing to this site. If you miss his comic posts, or if you just want to be a nice guy, stop by his site and tell him you hope he feels better.
6. Speaking of comic book posts . . . Here’s an interesting article: Guess how many times Jean Grey has died and come back? Hint: the over/under is 12.
7. Green Lantern/Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds recently said in an MTV interview that the GL movie won’t be all origin—they’ll tell it, but there’s a story after that. More importantly, he said that Deadpool is still “on the horizon.” He also agreed that Deadpool was mishandled in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But then again, he said that “every line I had in that was stuff I thought he would say. It wasn’t something that a writer said to me.” So, knowing that Ryan is a big part of the potential Deadpool feature, is that supposed to fill us with confidence? I really don’t care too much if they screw with Green Lantern—I agree with Frank Miller’s All Star Batman that GL is kinda dumb and lame—but they better not mess up Deadpool.
8. And, finally, news and stats: Diamond Comics Distributors announced the sales stats for October 2009, and boy is it bleak. Sales are down 1.3 million from October 2008. Of course, that may be due to the ever increasing number of trade paperbacks. I know I can’t afford to buy all the $4 books I want each month, so I’ve been waiting for trades on series like New Avengers and Iron Man. Wish I’d done that with Blackest Night, because that series is turning into a huge disappointment. Good sales news was that Wolverine Old Man Logan, a quality series recently hardbound, moved a staggering 7,341 units. Marvel controls 40% of the market, D.C. 37%–closer to even than they’ve been in a while, I believe, and DC beats Marvel on trade sales—by just 300 books, though. Interested in knowing who is buying what? No surprise, Blackest Night was October’s bestselling book by far, followed by Batman and Robin, Green Lantern, and Blackest Night/GL spin offs. Marvel doesn’t crack the top ten until numbers 7 to 9, with New Avengers, Dark Avengers, and Uncanny X-Men. Spidey took rank 10. If Dark Avengers is such a good seller, how can Marvel really end the series after Siege? It’s not like them to leave money on the table. Just ask the always-bitter Chris Claremont.
Tags: Best of the Decade, Deadpool, Filthy Muties, Iron Man, Movies, Superheroes, Wolverine
This is a Public Service Anouncement . . . With guitar!
I’m one of those people who is underwater on a home loan. Our “great” President, who I voted for, bailed out the shmucks who sold me the loan and who went out of their way to assure me that everything would be okay in 5 years when the loan exploded–they’d get me another one. But has he bailed me out? Or anyone like me?
Fuck no.
It would have cost less–and stimulated the economy more–to take all those hundreds of millions of stimulus money and buy homes for everyone.
Fuckin’ A.
‘Scuse the rant. Seeing these kids coming home with serious brain injuries and missing limbs and horrible hallucinations can get to you sometimes. Make you wonder what the fuck is wrong with our leaders. Oh, wait, I know. None of them are living with mortgages out of control. None of them has a kid fighting the war in Iraq who has to tape phone books to his jeep because they won’t spring for body armor. Thanks George, for starting this . . . And thanks, Barack, for keepin’ it going!
And with your purchase of an unwinnable war and the deaths and maiming of countless young men, if you’re the first 100 people to click the links below, you’ll get downloads of the following great songs!
Bombs Over Baghdad (Outkast)-Rage Against the Machine
Tags: Covers, Hip Hop, Penis, Picture of the day, Unka Sam, Whining
Polaroid Fame are not hard to explain. Think 1980s “modern” rock, from English Beat to The Cure to The Police, with clean, modern production. Or think Duran Duran without the wailing. Or, if you’re into esoteric Australian postpunk, think The Frankie Band–because Frankie Kimpton is the frontman of this Byron Bay band. They’ve won some awards and stuff, but how important is that, really? The real question is, can they do something interesting while being retro? Do they have their own sound, or just crib from established masters? The answers to those questions are, happily, yes and yes. I had a little bit of trouble getting into this band, because I’m a big Colin Hay fan and he pretty much does this same thing. But as I listened, track by track, the album really grew on me. The synth work is almost subtle, which is a rare find, the vocals are solid and the percussion and bass . . . Truly awesome. And anyone who knows the ’80s knows that without a good beat, the songs were crap. I bet these guys are a lot of fun live. So, if you’re reading this from Down Under, go check ‘em out.
A View To A Kill (duran duran)-Skye (alt link)
Save It For Later (The English Beat)-Pearl Jam (alt link)
Tags: Covers, Indie rock
