Back from the dead!

Four Minute Mile has been dominating my last.fm charts and, basically, my life. I fucking love this album, and rediscovered its brilliance in he middle of the week. It's the grand (album) debut of the Get Up Kids and it's awesome beyond belief. There's just so much energy put into it that you want to punch a dumpster and pump your fists. Or get an abortion.

OR FLY TO THE FUCKING MOON

So, yeah. This is some good shit. The bass and synth are placed perfectly, the guitar is bitchin', the vocals are raw, and the drums are, dare I say, rad? Not a bad track on this one. Essential for all you pretentious emo types.

This post is really fucking lame!

Adam jumped ship about a week ago, in case you haven't noticed. Don't worry; he's off to bigger and better things, like puffin' down cigs like a h4rdc0r3 muthrfukkr. Stay classy.

So, yeah. This post is pretty fucking lame because I'm plugging in my solo career blog.



See? Told you it was lame. Fear not though¹, I'm still going to reccomend my shitty musical findings here, but the other blog is going to be, basically, everything that isn't music recomendations. That means I can still talk about music, which is kind of pathetic because there's not much else to write about; but I'll find stuff, dammit!

So, without further ado, my shitty new blog:


¹As if leaving would be significant to anyone

Indie? A GENRE? Controversy!

Once upon a time there was a delightful little genre called "alternative." Bands stripped off the excess noise of 80s metal and turned what was left into, you know, not shit. Leather pants were replaced with faded denim, Gibsons with Fenders¹, glam-locks with five o'clock shadow, etc. etc. When R.E.M's single "The One I Love" made it on the Billboard 100 in 1987, America went fucknuts. By the mid 90s, "alternative" could pretty much describe anything that wasn't rap or metal. In 2010, alternative is the new rock, indie is the new alternative, and rock is the new...hard-rock? You get my point though. Alt. went places, good (Weezer's first two albums, The Bends, Beck) and bad (Weezer's post-Green Album works², Nickelback, Coldplay, etc.)


In the late 80s, a couple of masterminds were creating what would go on to be known as the "indie sound." These rambunctious lil' scamps were known as the Pixies. In 1987, Steve Albini helped produced their 1988 debut Surfer Rosa, the follow up to their 1987 EP Come On Pilgrim. It was fucking awesome. Drums, vocals³, bass, guitar - everything was epic. While their 1989 album Doolittle⁴ usually gets more credit, Surfer Rosa is still a classic and cited by a fuckton of musicians as an inspiration⁵. Oh, and the album cover has titties. Fucking awesome.

(How wonderful. At the time of writing this, MediaFires decides to break down. I'll put the link up ASAP, folks.)

1. This is speculative
2. Okay, the Red Album was pretty fucking good.
3. Have you ever masturbated to Kim Deal's voice? Feels good, man.
4. Listen to this as well
5. Kurt Cobain said that Smells Like Teen Spirit was basically his attempt at a Pixies song. CUZ IT'S NOT A RIP-OFF IF YOU ADMIT IT, AMIRIGHT????//?///?

open your parachute and grab your gun

Elliott Smith will make you sad. Not "high school" sad, like the Get Up Kids or the Promise Ring; but real sad. This is due to the fact that Smith doesn't write about being a depressed teen; he writes about being a depressed human. From a Basement On the Hill was released on the same year of his suicide (2004), and it's his sixth studio album, just posthumously released. It's mainly a mix of his original works intended to be on the album, but some B-sides have been added in.

From a Basement On the Hill is one of the few albums that's sadder than Hospice. King's Crossing is probably one of the saddest songs ever made; it's also one of the greatest. When you put it into context of his suicide, it's really tragic. "Give me one good reason not to do it/So do it" is pretty overt about suicide, but the lyrics in general paint a picture of someone that doesn't want to go on living. Even Elliott Smith's interviews are depressing. I recall an interview on MTV Live where Elliott Smith is sitting on a stool, hugging his guitar while he's being questioned about his song Miss Misery (of Good Will Hunting fame.) He's not some glamorized asshole like Kurt Cobain; he's just a dude, and maybe that's why his music is so fucking good. He's singing about something that's got him so miserable, but it's hard to say what it is. So we're left to look at the details of his fucked up life and conjure up guesses as to why he stabbed himself to death.

More nice indie-folk :)

Do you like bands that sound nice?
I'm guessing you probably, and i plan to work on this assumption throughout the rest of this post.

So anyways, i've been enjoying a rather nice sounding band as of late called Hop along, Queen Ansleis who are an American indie-folk outfit as twee as they come. Well maybe with the exception of Watercolour paintings, but it's close. So anyways, HA,QA fronted by female American songwriter Frances Quinlan are a juicy explosion of uplifting folk with a melee of instruments and a love it or hate it voice. I personally can't get enough of it! So yeah, i'm posting the link to their album "Freshman year" from 2005, which is according to last.fm their "most solid album to date". It's good stuff, like heroin or grave looting, if that's the sort of stuff you're into. So enough of me rambling about it here's the download.