I was looking over my internet history and noticed a few youtube music things worth sharing.

First off, I won the local band lottery so I've been to a dozen Red Fang shows. As good as they are, as often as I've seen them, I still haven't seen too many active, alive, yet also respectful large audiences. I have to say I'm jealous of France:

This one is Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre) discussing where the title of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came from. It's a good story, and after the explanation the story gets even better. If you don't know who this lady is, you have research to do.

Also, even if you don't care for black metal, you may find some merit in this. Janaza is a one-woman anti-Islamic black metal "band". As the kids say, she's got some balls. Enjoy the lyrics! They remind me of Marilyn Manson... but don't let that stop you.

Finally, cool off with an angry love song:

Whores just shared these guys on facebook today, and being of the band's general demographic, I had to share them, too. I present Rough Rope:

There's that "pig fuck" tag ag-ain. Look ma, I found a description! "A late 80s musical style that predates the music of grunge. Gritty, dirty, and noisy. Sonic Youth, Big Black, and the Butthole Surfers are the most well know purveyors of this type of rock music." I learned something today.

Anyway, Rough Rope reminds me a little bit of Black Elk, Kowloon Walled City, obviously Hawks and Whores, and the usual Melvins/Jesus Lizard comparisons to this kind of music. It's noisy sludge. You may enjoy it.

You mean I have to wait another month to hear all the new Big Business songs? UGH.

I made a year-end list last December regarding my watched and favorite movies of the year. I've watched plenty of movies since, so I figured it was time for a convenient six month update.

Most of the movies I've watched these last six months were during school breaks or when I was sick/down, but I seem to have continued the habit of watching movies most often before sleeping. I also re-watched a ton of movies I saw as a kid (or mistakenly thought I saw as a kid) but haven't seen since. My quality filter on some of these has... diminished. I don't think there was ever a time I totally turned my nose on particular types of movies, but it seems my poorness and the serious lack of shit for me to do some days has made me more accepting. It's also made me way less enthusiastic about the "good" movies. Then again, you could argue I'm not enthusiastic about anything to start with.

I'm just going to jump right in this. So, first off, some of the movies I saw when I was younger and re-watched.

Batman. I watched the entire 80s-on hollywood Batman filmography (I also saw some of the earlier 60s? Batman movie by chance but not enough to say I'd actually seen it). I have most of the first '89 Batman memorized since it was one of my favorite movies growing up but I hadn't seen it in maybe over a decade. The rest I'd only seen a few times before. As always, I found the lack of continuity between the first movies and the newer ones annoying. I also caught a few subtle things I hadn't when I was younger, and picked up on odd movie cliches per each time period of each movie that reminded me of 'where I was when'. I saw Batman when I was about seven probably at home on tape, Batman Returns at the theater in the company of a 10 year old I had a crush on, Riddler Batman at a drive-in theater with my roommate, Arnold Batman when I was hanging out with my best friend in high school a lot, Begins when I first moved in this area and was spending too much time around family, and the recent one in close proximity of (re?)seeing Secretary and being unable to get that image out of my head - also, one of my fucking idiot friends was raving about the movie before I saw it, and I had a hard time not being very cynical. Maybe not so much for the latest two movies, but age seems to have made a difference in filtering for the others...

I also saw most of the Indiana Jones filmography to usher in my first viewing of Crystal Skull. I heard it was terrible and needed to see how it held up to history, and I also hadn't seen Indiana Jones movies in fucking forever. Well, okay. It wasn't too bad, just kind of dumb. But the rest of the movies were kind of dumb. To me, it's not a long shot between Jesus' contaminated tupperware and aliens.

I re-saw The Rescuers movies... You know, the mice. I barely remembered Down Under, but the first one I haven't seen since I was fucking little, yet still managed to recall every turn. The crazy lady character seemed to be modeled after the orphanage caretaker in Annie which I hadn't noticed as a kid. Either way, it was nice seeing such 'grit' in comparison to today's animation.

The many years taught me that The Brave Little Toaster is rather morbid. I definitely hadn't picked up on that as a kid. He also didn't seem all that brave.

I thought the movie Oliver & Company was AMAZING when I first saw it (apparently when I was six?), but I hadn't had a chance to see it since. All I remembered about it was the fluffy orange cat, and sitting at home with a stuffed striped kitten thinking about the similarities between it and Oliver. My character for the stuffed cat apparently overtook my memory of Oliver, as I remembered he was a city slut but... nope. It was actually the dog. I also noticed some early conditioning there regarding Cheech Marin. Now I know why he seemed so familiar when I picked up the Cheech & Chong movies as a teenager, short of maybe seeing Born In East LA somewhere in between.

There were plenty of other movies I re-saw, both recently and from when I was young, but that's enough for now. Time for the new shit.

I've put my (uncapitalized, all out of order) notes of what movies I've seen in the last six months into similar categories. First off, children's, family, and animated movies, followed by my commentary:

toy story 3
gnomeo and juliet
the black cauldron
harry potter & the deathly hallows pt 1
chronicles of narnia: the dawn treader
tron
the dark crystal
tim burtons corpse bride
tron legacy
despicable me
ramona and beezus
megamind
tangled
wizards (1977)
rango

I strongly dislike propaganda in my entertainment. The Narnia movies are okay until their grand morals, which I can usually ignore or pass off as part of the storyline, but this one in particular made me cringe.

Harry Potter was really drawn out. Also, I think even if I were ten years old I'd be pissed off that those three haven't had an orgy yet for as much time they spend around another.

I never really liked Toy Story. Not sure why. Maybe I can't relate to the characters.

Ramona and Beezus was better than I thought it would be. I read the books when I was younger but I didn't remember anything about them to influence the movie.

Yep, I hadn't seen Tron yet. I saw the movies in reverse order because I wasn't sure I could put up with Tron's "special effects" or any latent nerdy bullshit. Legacy might have been subtitled Your Computer Has A Nice Ass. Both were interesting concepts for me, a'course. The movies, not the asses.

The Black Cauldron was giving me creepy "I stole this from/for Lord of the Rings!" vibes until the story started getting more action-oriented. Goggie better shut the fuck up and give me my fucking precious unless he wants to be put down.

Wizards was not exactly a kid's movie. You see things in it that aren't necessarily kosher for children or even sensitive adults despite the fact that it's animated and has a few child-like themes. Some of the material was a bit rough, too, considering one of the main characters has a thing for nazi/hitlerisms. It was a cool movie, though. I'll definitely remember it.

I think I saw The Dark Crystal when I was really young and thought it was extremely boring. I didn't remember anything about it. And yeah, it's kind of slow. Where did the complicated puppet movies go?

All of the recent animated movies were an okay waste of time, but yeah... not memorable for any reason. Family movies wrap up pretty neatly. The characters usually get exactly what they want/deserve in the end, leaving no need to think about them or their story later. Great for time wasting, not so great for talking. Unless you're five.

Alright, next category. I called this "lame first world problems" as a catch-all for movies that weren't very serious or had plots that involved superficial relationships and narcissism or dumb comedy. There's really nothing deep or particularly interesting to say about any of these.

date night
the switch
it's kind of a funny story
no strings attached
scott pilgrim vs the world
just the way you are
burlesque
how do you know
the social network
valentine's day
somewhere
the green hornet
i am number four
due date
the tourist

I did get mad at The Social Network for being historically inaccurate as well as belittling the intelligence of its audience. Perhaps if you're going to make a movie based on something real and relatively current while the technology is still around to reproduce said reality, you should do that instead of using cinematic cop-outs. And yeah, I get it, they were just trying to keep the plot away from mundane true-to-life geekville for the idiot masses.

Somewhere was stylistically supposed to be "deep" like Lost In Translation, but... no. The ending was a cop-out.

I hate Christina's terrible voice but Burlesque didn't make me want to choke small animals as expected. I also found the Marilyn Manson cover incredibly ironic.

Scott Pilgrim had a lot of cute and subtle references - some of which I don't think the larger masses would have caught - and I do like the Culkin brothers and their gender-bending ugly sexiness, so it was a "fun" movie. Still, after it was over, it was over.

A few documentaries / live action movies that didn't fit elsewhere:

waiting for superman
smash his camera
pee-wee herman on broadway

Yep, I watched that shit. I don't think I cared for Pee-Wee Herman much growing up but I "get it" now. I remember first seeing whichever Cheech & Chong movie it is with the chinese restaurant (Nice Dreams) and having a laughing fit at the idea of Pee-Wee snorting coke. The internet isn't helping me find this scene for visual aid...

Smash His Camera was decent. It's about a paparazzi photographer's job and life. It showed a lot of pictures he had taken over the years and focused on his non-relationship/legal issues with one of the famous people he liked.

I heard about WFS like it was the best must-see documentary ever. Nope. A whole lot of I-already-knew-this. I could write about the topic of school being ridiculous for hours, if not days, but I believe I will not.

I also saw a documentary about dyslexia but I didn't write the title down and I can't find it now. I do not have dyslexia, but again, this told me almost nothing. It actually wasn't that great of a documentary, either. It didn't really explain dyslexia in itself and glossed right over the types, and in general the documentary lacked 'flow'.

Next category: drama, epic struggles, and feeeeeelings. Some dark topics, some not so much.

all good things
the kids are all right
love and other drugs
the romantics
rabbit hole
another year
three colors: red
three colors: bleu
three colors: blanc
the sunset limited
beyond a reasonable doubt
made in dagenham
excalibur (1981)
the company men
the town (2010)
in america
the next three days
the fighter
the king's speech
mr nice (2010)
get low
true grit
hereafter

I actually thought I'd seen the Three Colors movies before, but it seems there's some other "red"-named or focused foreign language movie. All were alright but a bit heavy. One was about a guy with erectile dysfunction who hates his ex girlfriend, one was about an illegal spy getting caught by a sad model, and one was about death. They all wrapped up really neatly at the end of Red.

The Romantics was kind of annoying. These people were not based on real human beings.

Another Year was different from what I expected. There are a few unsaid things in the movie that is left for the audience to figure out which was irritating after a point. One of the characters is very "real" and does unlovable, selfish shit but somehow you feel for her plight.

Made in Dagenham was a workers/womens' rights movie. Decent enough. I like how some of these older and non-american movies feature people who aren't outright perfect-looking or polished.

Excalibur was cracking me up for the first half hour or so of the movie, but the pace ruined that. This might benefit from a "serious" LOTR/Braveheart-esque re-make.

Hereafter was not the movie I wanted to see directly after the Japanese earthquakes/tsunami. The opening bit of the movie was rather close to home.

The Sunset Limited may very well be a must-see. The entire movie takes place in conversation between two guys shortly after one "saves" the other from killing himself, and they get into a wild argument about "life". Some of the topics are pretty brave.

I don't really need to talk about the rest.

I called this category "death and psychos". They're almost horror, some thrillers, some just really fucking dark movies.

the beguiled (70s)
catfish
black swan
the chaos experiment
127 hours
valhalla rising
blade runner
four lions
shelter
peacock
conviction
the experiment
buried (2010)

Catfish was memorable-the-frig. It's technically a documentary but I found some of the movie a little bit far-fetched and am not convinced it was an actual documentary. All the same, if you've ever had a long-term internet friend or pen pal or phone friend that you've never once met in real life, this is a must-see. It's best going into it not knowing what you're going to get besides that.

I started watching 127 Hours as I would any movie, but ended up skimming through most of it. I am not a fan of "acid trip" style movies. Way too much tension for me. I had a similar reaction to Buried, but Buried was mostly just frustrating to watch.

The Beguiled was interesting in retrospect. It's about a wounded soldier who is found by a girl from a girls school where he goes to mend. Apparently the girls and their teachers don't see men very often and they lose their shit. There's a feminist message in there somewhere.

Valhalla Rising. This one is really "stuffy" in the sense that you feel trapped with the characters. The boat scene disturbed the fuck out of me. Also, before you see this and get confused, here's a pointer: when they start acting creepy and out of character, they're tripping out. The movie doesn't clearly spell it out. You're welcome. Also, I think if this movie came out when I was 16 I would have fallen in love with it.

I liked Black Swan. I had a moment the other day walking around and hearing the movie blasting out someone's window from the street, and finding it funny that I knew what they were watching just from the bit of song I could hear. Music makes for some excellent conditioning.

Blade Runner has been on my mental to-see list since whenever I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I definitely liked the movie despite that some of the most compelling parts of the book were missing.

Four Lions was pretty good. It's a comedy about a few guys who live in the western world but somehow maintain extreme muslim ideas and decide they're going to become suicide bombers. It's way more entertaining than it sounds on paper.

The Experiment was memorable even though it was kind of stupid. It was about guys who sign up to be imprisoned and abandoned for money, and the fake guards have an almost otherworldly power-trip. If you're the type to believe in evil and psychological clusterfucks, you'll probably "like" it.

The Chaos Experiment irritated me. The characters were flat-out dumb. It's about a guy who traps some people in a steam room. One of the guys in the movie flips out and breaks a pipe but somehow it doesn't occur to him, or the others, to use that pipe to break the source of the steam so, if nothing else, they don't die so soon. Instead, they drop the pipe where they can't reach it ASAP. Total fucking morons. I also found the ending enraging because it implies you should see it again.

Finally, horror, sci-fi, and creature thrillers:

monsters
the rite
devil's playground
troll hunter (trolljegeren)
april fool's day (1986)
a nightmare on elm street (2010)
the last exorcism
waxworks (part)
from beyond
season of the witch
let me in
paranormal activity 2
close encounters of the third kind
red riding hood
the gravedancers
re-animator
battle los angeles
the living dead girl (1982)
the skeptic
the evil dead

Let Me In did not do Let The Right One In wrong. It was almost totally the same movie under a slightly different setting. In other words, really fucking pointless. But it was nice to see "again". I would appreciate it if americans stopped remaking foreign movies and instead spent that time/money on educating mass america on how much better some foreign films are to ours.

April Fool's Day was disappointing. I might have liked it better when I was young.

The Gravedancers was terrible, but The Skeptic may have been the worst movie I've sat through this last year. Terrible, terrible acting.

Nightmare on Elm Street remake took all of the fun out of the original. I hope that's the end of that.

I've seen little bits of Close Encounters before but this was my first time sitting through (most) of it. I think I need to see it again.

It looks like I forgot to add The Evil Dead to this list. I hadn't seen it before. I can see why not. I picked up on things that other movies stole, but other than that... ugh. Tree rape. That isn't right. The bathrobe zombie reminded me a lot of my niece. I swear she must have seen this movie as a kid and modeled her personality after it.

I'd never seen From Beyond or Re-animator. Again with the weird rape/"sex" shit. From Beyond had me cracking up and I was talking about it for a few days. It's been a while since I've seen a decent sketchy old horror movie like this/these.

The Living Dead Girl was alright. I see those words and think Rob Zombie foremost, but the movie didn't feel contaminated. So to speak.

Monsters was slow but somehow really awesome. I like the dual-meaning and sarcastic title in relation to the plot.

The Last Exorcism was worth it. It's not the greatest movie, but decent. I can't remember what happens offhand but it seems the ending was fucking weird.

I've seen Waxworks II a thousand times, but still hadn't seen the first. I could not fucking get through it to the end. I don't know why, but maybe it was boring, maybe it's because I already know what happens. A few scenes were interesting/gross.

I liked Paranormal Activity and the sequel (prequel, actually) worked out okay, maybe better. I'm curious what's next.

The Troll Hunter is where I'm going to leave off. With a mostly american hodgepodge sort of culture behind me, it came across as unique and really interesting. I gotta say I like the idea of christians being eaten by angry beasts, too.

So that's it. Hopefully summertime sends some quality inspiring movies my way so when (if) I make a year-end update, it will be a hell of a lot more interesting. In the meantime, I suppose my favorites were:

Catfish
Troll Hunter
Wizards
From Beyond
Black Swan
The Beguiled
Four Lions
Paranormal Activity 2

And you're welcome for the incredibly long post.

This comes out today:

Premonition13 - 13.

You will like this if you like Saint Vitus. Or whatever regurgitated, albeit awesome thing Wino happens to be doing.

If you need a place to start, "Crossthreaded" from their EP earlier this year works.

Edit: It's also streaming on their website (on the bottom): premonition13.com

I can't get this song out of my head today. I don't know what prompted it. The worst of it is "whose reality I knew was a hopeless to be had". Jupiter is conjunct my Venus?

Still no news regarding the rumor of Fiona Apple having an album coming out this year. :(

Song: "Adolescents"
Artist: Incubus
Album: If Not Now, When? (2011)

I was just doing my album releases updates for the year and discovered this album is coming in July. Big fucking sarcastic deal for the lot of you, but hey, I don't hate Incubus (at least they're not Coldplay), so I checked out if they had any singles or leaked material yet.

Yep. I'm two months late on this, but that's understandable.

Incubus reminds me of an ex. We had a musical disparity and he wanted me to listen to them. I shuddered to think. Something about their sound feels like his 'energy' now. Hearing this song for the first time: new Incubus sounds just like old Incubus, and I got that same ex feeling. Gaping worm-mouth in the name of The Wall.

You know what's scary? I was in high school when I first heard Incubus. The tail end, but still. No wonder I had "uh, no" feelings about them at 21. We'll see how 29 goes.

Song: "Rope"
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: Wasting Light (2011)

God damnit. This song was stuck in my head for days. It no longer is, thank fuck, because that was doing damage to my self-esteem.

I think it was made worse by the long dark hair, all black clothes, and then violently remembering how old these guys are. You could almost hear tires screeching, swerving off road to avoid the zombies. Didn't I think these guys looked like jackasses in 1995? WA HAPPEN?

Same as it ever was.

I think I am supposed to say something of quality about this song now. Hmm. Well, the fast guitar bit that's constantly paused and repeated is evil.

Song: "Sovereign Through The Pines"
Artist: Trap Them
Album: Darker Handcraft (2011)

I'm still infested with free metal festival herpes. Actually, I'm mostly over it now (I'll never be over UNKNOWINGLY MISSING BLACK COBRA, WHY?!), but it seems this album is a gem.

Trap Them isn't totally in my sphere of favoritism, but they have some excellent heavy moments - as with this song. It's one minute, thirty six seconds long, so I think you sad little hippies can withstand it.

Don't be surprised if I post "Scars Align" later. The last three songs on this album (all the ones I have mentioned) go together - and within the context on my blaaaahg - very well.

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

You may also ask yourself, what the hell is going on with the band Iota? Well, I don't know either. But I do know one of the guys from the band - the vocalist - is in another band! It's called Dwellers. They do a garagey, bluesy rock that may or may not also be qualifiable as stoner.

Recently they put out a free, downloadable EP to whet the public's appetite in advance of their actual album. It is not stoner. Or garagey. It sounds like Headdress. Headdress sounds like psychedelic drone, in case you forgot or didn't know to begin with. I like Headdress, and I think I like this, too.

Listen to the first song if nothing else.

Song: "Hey Friend"
Artist: Jeff The Brotherhood
Album: We Are The Champions (2011)

Quit thinking about my family, perv.

And one more to get away from that junk.

The switch in energy between "Parabol" and "Parabola" still gives me chills.

Check out their sweet moves about two minutes in. It's more effective if you watch the whole thing before, though.

Fucking serious, this life thing.

[118] Naam, Gates of Slumber, Orange Goblin (2011)

I didn't get a whole hell of a lot of sleep due to a frustrating number of distractions and interruptions. I thought I might need to opt out of the show. But these stoner metal nights are my kind of thing, and I have been getting a bit of cabin fever lately. Plus, when the hell would I see Orange Goblin again? They're from the UK and haven't been here in years.

Well, Dante's didn't lie for once and say they were going to start at 9 and really start at 10. Naam got started at 9:15 according to the front board, and I walked in about 9:35. Already there was a decent crowd.

Oh well to the lost minutes; I don't really care for Naam. The 2-3 full songs I got were more than enough for my palette. Thing is, I kind of missed them after they left the stage. I find them a bit too slow and drugged out for my overall needs, but they were a hell of a lot more interesting (and better sounding) than Gates of Slumber. If nothing else, Naam's drummer was pretty cool, kind of reminding me of Witch Mountain for a brief "that doesn't make any fucking sense" second.

Gates' drummer looked drunk and/or stoned from where I was and had a very slow playing style to match it. The rest of the band did not make up for the lack of interesting happening there. Instead of sounding like a Saint Vitus rip-off like they do with their latest album, which might have worked in the right setting, they just sounded like mediocre hash-doom. I have more than enough tolerance for boring doom bands live, but yeah. Maybe it was Dante's fault. Still, I should have left, taken a walk down crackhead alley and cooled off or something. Anyway, they were spot-on with their name.

It was the usual disgusting temperature in the venue that it is this time of year and apparently I found the warmest spot in the room when Orange Goblin started. Further, it was more confirmation that I hate Dante's sound. The first song sounded empty and wrong - you'd think "The Ballad of Solomon Eagle" carried more power than it actually did. Things improved but that place still has limits. After a couple of songs I moved and that helped with both issues. Still, I was feeling worn out from the heat, and I think it affected my perspective of their part of the show a bit.

I gotta say it's really surreal to see a band live for the first time after years of knowing them. I looked: I heard Orange Goblin for the first time in 2006. I thought that they were that band I had been recommended because I liked Monster Magnet (which actually turned out to be Electric Wizard, not OG). I checked out their discography to that date and gave them a proper listen because a friend of Monster Magnet is a friend of mine - unless they try to get into an argument with me about my awareness of "Nod Scene" when I ask why that's their favorite song of all amazing Monster Magnet songs - in which case, go fuck yourself, hippie.

Anyway, it's been a while. Maybe too long. Maybe I would have appreciated this experience more a few years ago when I was listening to them more and liking stoner metal with a lot more blatant enthusiasm. But given that, it's so nice to know a decent band like they can make an overseas tour possible. I didn't imagine I'd see them live at any point, and I'm glad I got the opportunity.

I went in with no real expectations and was surprised at a rare interesting "noodler" guitarist happening in their band, how fucking tall Ben is over his bandmates as well as his magnetic stage presence (how does it work?), and that I didn't tune out on the songs that I didn't know/love so well.

I kind of thought the crowd would be dickish or aggressive, but they weren't too bad either. It was one of those shows where I only recognized a few folks, which is nice to see from a business standpoint, but apparel choices told me that I was right at home. High on Fire a-plenty, Venom, Slayer, Red Fang, Hawkwind, Weedeater... I had earlier read an interview of David D'Andrea, and the HOF shirt design he discusses in the interview was someone's jean jacket backpatch at the show. If I believed in fatalistic things, I would have gotten the feeling that I was "supposed" to be there.

So, like, I got a setlist because my boss is the most awesomest boss ever. This is what it says. I crossed out where I know it lies.

Ballad of Solomon Eagle
Vagrant Stomp
Shine
Cities of Frost
Magic Carpet
Cozmo Bozo
Hard Luck
Round Up The Horses
They Come Back
Blue Snow
Aquatic Fanatic
Some You Win, Some You Lose
-----
Time Travelling Blues
Quincy The Pigboy
Scorpionica

They also did "Your World Will Hate This" somewhere in the middle. (None of you jerks requested this for me, right?) I also heard little pieces of classic songs, shit I recognized but couldn't title offhand and they were too short to recount by lyrics so I forget what where. For the few mini-covers, though, some guy finally yelled about how "Some You Win" had a riff in it that was ripped off from some other band I couldn't hear him say. It did?

For me, the highlight was "Blue Snow". That's been a favorite of mine since I first heard the band, so I'm glad they played it after all. The whole set was better than I could have expected. The only song missing that I would have wanted to hear was "Solarisphere". But hey, next time. I very much hope there will be a next time.

Good show! Thanks for coming to Amtrakia, O.G.

I have "Scorpionica" stuck in my head. This is my punishment for looking at a setlist yesterday. I know better.

I am another year older. And it will be another year listening to music like what East End has playing on the 3rd of July.

East End's 2nd Annual Block Party:

• Red Fang
• Danava
• Lord Dying
• Lecherous Gaze
• Rabbits
• Drunk Ladies

Starting at 3pm in the smaller street in front of East End (203 SE Grand).

That will be Lord Dying's 364th day playing live for the masses. They've come pretty far this last year in terms of popularity and general acceptance. Bring presents?

Those of you with heavier appetites may realize that this show is the day after YOB, Dark Castle, Wizard Rifle, and Sloths. It may be a lot of music to ask of a person - at least ten great, current and upcoming bands in 36 hours? Hopefully it's not a million degrees that weekend, because it all sounds like bottled "yay!" to me.

Well, most of it. You all know how I can't fucking stand Red Fang.