carburetor dung

So, people get to review stuff when they have blogs, right? Cool. I'm going to do a record review for this CD. Here goes.
This is simply the most putrescent, repulsive, crappy shite east of shitville. I would wipe my arse with this if I actually bought it, which I of course never would. I would rather buy my own slow demise, which I guess I do everyday for 5 bucks at the Marlboro store. This disgusting little specimen of fecalness deserves a slow death on the rack. The Spanish Inquisition ended far too early and spared this noisome, stupid, fake, hideous child of Satan. For her and her legions of "producers" and "song doctors" and "promoters" and "A&R staff" I wish nothing but vile skin eruptions and the falling off of genitalia into the foaming mouths of the icky little demons that dwell in their groinal regions and await no doubt just such tasty fare.
If this CD were my dog I would drown it and bury it with its head above ground that the insects and beasts of the forest could slowly devour the skin and eyes, leaving only the skull with its weeping eye sockets. If it were my only acre of land I would salt it that nothing e'er would grow therein. If it were my child I would baptize it in tainted blood and beer puke and sputum and offer it to Burmese slavers. I would give them money to take it hence and feed it upon scabs and vile burgers. If it were my true love I would slap it and kick it and cheat on it with sailors and all manner of diseased, corrupted creatures that I could return unto her and seduce her with sweet words and gestures and then befoul her with sickness and buboes and sores beyond description.
This CD is so bad that if I ever actually played it I fear my ears would crawl into my head and kick my ass from within. My brain would roil, and flylike, deposit crispy green chitinous maggotry throughout my braincase. My butt would give a mighty heave and collapse upon itself, depositing waste throughout my torso and thereabout.
My tongue would grow spines, cause itself to become swallowed, and slowly eat my throat until a keening shriek would issue henceforth and envelope the universe in a trillion years of blackness.

I always wanted to write a record review. Y'see, I've had it done unto me umpteen times through the years, and I'm actually good.

I forgot what record it was paragraphs ago.


 

a sigh for europe

back before they tore down music, this is what rock bands looked like. Grampy just thought he'd share. 

O.K.- just one more.

One hates to dick with the genius of this cartoonist (I forget his name). One just doesn't hate it quite enough. 

the symptoms are consistent

with a diagnosis of looooooove.

extremely important bulletin

in case you didn't know, there is a website that collects audio and video rarities from the band XTC. In case you didn't know, XTC is amongst the best bands in the history of the universe. the url of this website is XTC4U.org.

Now get going.

Oh wait- another one of the best bands in the universe, the vast King Radio, has a website with song samples that defy adjectives. the url of this website is kingradio.net. It is of TANTAMOUNT IMPORTANCE that you go there and hear this...this...marvel.

You'll be happier than anything that you did. You'll be all like, "man! I'm happier than anything."

filthy lying rigatoni

i'm going to post just one more of these for now, before the joke wears thin (that's sort of like Hitler deciding to kill just one more gypsy, huh?). 

the final result.

oh, jeez- now there's the corker. see what i mean? it's a shame i had to go to a two-line caption, but sometimes sacrifices must be made to impart the necessary message. now this is some funny shit, and you know what? it's something the whole family can enjoy. 

the second draft

we're getting closer with this second draft. Notice the Zen-like approach to simplifying. Also snot-rocket-shooting funny, but _not quite_ where we need to go. 

the first draft, or, Inspiration Strikes

sometimes my work evolves through several drafts. here we see an early example, which, although puke-inducingly hilarious, is not quite what the doctor ordered. 

cute doggies

criminy, is that funny. i love dogs. this one is inspired by real events. 

the old flying penguin joke

truly one of my favorites. the original caption was "we just haven't been flapping them hard enough." How fucking lame is that? this one speaks far more directly to the human experience. 

The Black Cat

sorry i don't know how to post multiple examples of my awesome art to a single post. i will not let this lack of skill or knowledge dissuade me from disseminating this important work. this one is inspired by the work of Edgar Allen Poe, as is much of my best work. 

ideally one writes "fuck stain" as two words.

I'm very fond of this one. Witty and inspired. isn't that just eruditer than shit? 

let's get to the art.

today i'd like to introduce you to some of my recent cartooning efforts. since i can't draw, i like to recaption cartoons from the awesome and wonderful New Yorker magazine for my skillful and witty work. here is the first of several brilliant examples. 

a showdown in Las Vegas

I had to edit the "karen carpenter" post because i realized i'd mistakenly written "i even found some cock on ebay" instead of "i even found some coke on ebay".

ha.

i did front of house production for a show band in vegas and l.a. and one of the female singers was always hitting on the other (straight) female singer. Once when I was backstage i heard them arguing behind the dressing room door and the straight one was yelling, "how many times do i have to tell you I LOVE COCK!"
i treasure this memory very much. on summer nights i can still hear her pendular predilection whispered on the wind.

though yea, i share it not.

back when karen carpenter had meals.

is it just me or is early-to-mid 70-s soft rock sort of where it's at?

with music downloads you can satisfy just about any musical wild hair you have, and i recently put together some of the songs that reminded me of a time when i looked forward to making out with girls 4 or 5 years hence. Um, "Rainy Days And Mondays"? This is like fucking Palestrini, gentle folk. If you don't believe me listen for yourself. "Summer Breeze"? "Ventura Highway"? "If You Leave Me Now"? This stuff is like The Well Tempered Clavier as far as being the obvious springboard for subsequent modern pop arrangement and songcraft. Ambrosia, Bread, America- I mean, I _ask_ you.

I like it a lot. I even found some coke on ebay.

can you tell?

when england turns to pie (an homage to Edgar Allen Pie)

When it dawns on the morrow in Stratcast-On-Rye
A pumpkin's sour sweetness, a pie in the sky
Cherry and mince will vie for the throne when England turns to pie
Agriculture and the food ind'stry will become irrelevant, shriv'l and die

So sing on, o muse, of a time near yet far;
Understanding's a trick in the box by the fire
Seldom seen sapphire shores aglint in the holy light of pie
Of pie, of pie, of pie, of pie
Of pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, yummy pie.

bobby lightfoot and the blues expulsion

this last saturday the Blenth of Flintuary i got a call from a drummer about a job at the 7 0's that one of my bandies had cocked up the booking of. the bottom line was, for the princeton sum of $400 would we toss together an assemblage of unrehearsed players and pull off a 3 hour show for a large and discerning crowd of punters.

thus was born bobby lightfoot and the blues expulsion. Looked really funny on the marquee. With Mike McKinney from Brattleboro on guitfiddstle and the best rhythm section in belchertown we weaved a seamless night of rhythm and blues. It was crazy.

Riding as i do the cusp between Gen X and Boomer, my favorite place to go back to for material for this sort of thing is the Beatles BBC Sessions, a long and loving compilation of the Fav Feev recorded for broadcast in the early- and mid- yixties.

the BBC Sessions are a aural Fake Book of American country, R&B and rock 'n' roll and the gift these guys have for choosing "numbers" tells you everything you need to know about why they were working seven to ten shows a week before they even considered bringing their own songs onto the stage.

Pel McClittey and Jim Lemon still rule the roost vocally, but Geordie Berenstein is brilliant on a zillion Carl Perkins numbers ("") and excels early on in his teenage guitar work that is sometimes so bad that it's good.

from my 8 quintillion listens of this collection alone I was able to cull "I Got A Woman", "Johnny B. Goode", "Rock And Roll Music", "Long Tall Sally", "That's All Right Mama", "Shot Of Rhythm And Blues", "I Saw Her Standing There", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", "Slow Down", "Memphis Tennessee", "The Hippy Hippy Shake", "Clarabella", "Ooh! My Soul", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)".

from our various associations to these songs we were all able to connect to "Bad Boy", "Kansas City", "New Orleans", "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby", "Matchbox", "Twist And Shout", "Bring It On Home To Me", "Wonderland By Night", "In The Midnight Hour", "Mister Moonlight", "Tracks Of My Tears", "King Of The Road", "Blue Moon Of Kentucky", "Raunchy", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Do Not Disturb", "Road Runner", and thus and sosuch.

Among other, lesser conclusions: Chuck Berry is the true father of rock 'n' roll, Little Richard its ever-reigning queen. As with any offshoot of popular music after this (or back a bunch of decades), the black people initiate, the whites innovate (wait- there's synthpop). It's interesting to me how consistent this is.

Rock and Roll is like a series of gears that either grind mercilessly or spin in beautiful synchrony. My favorite thing is how it's always close to sounding awful. But when it gets up to speed and this huge machine slips into harmonic convergence it carries itself without effort. What a joy it is to bring together a little axis of really experienced players with a huge common repertoire and, without rehearsal, plug into it mindfully and with an eye to good taste.

i love how the old guys, the ones who have been playing in bars and casuals for 40 years, have that cool common repertoire; all these amazing R&B songs that you've never heard. and the way they play them makes it sound like the old recordings, all sort of blurry and tribal. i played bass for this band called The Memories that was like that. the organ player had all the hand signs for key and chord progressions so you'd just watch if you didn't know the tune and everything is either I-IV-IV or 12-bar or I-vi-IV-V for Christy's sake anyway. and the singer is this black guy Woody who is so insanely good and so Stax you can't believe it.

the old music is really good, children. And I was ten years from being born when it was written. You'll know what that means when you're 40 and you've Taken Stage for every toothless beerbag across this great land of ours.

get a jib

i am suspicious of people who are immune to my charm. Nowhere is this disquietude broughttt on more acutely than during jib interviews.

number nine number nine number nine number nine num

The Ninth (or Second as guitarists would have it) is the closest thing in music to a chordal MSG. Added to a triad near or at the top of the inversion it possesses the the unique ability to make a major more major and a minor minorior. It is no longer permitted to use the Ninth in the root position for any effect other than irony. This requires form 267-9 to be submitted in triplicicicate.

a birthday wish

i thought i'd wait until all the hubbub surrounding your last few birthdays died down




so i could give you this