Weather Report [update]

As you might recall, I streamed "Splash" by Can last Friday, as a bit of psychic magic to help ward off a large snowstorm heading into Madison. I was confident that the magic was good and sound, the special incantations potent and effective.

I am dismayed to report that this bit of psychic magic failed miserably. In fact, I believe the magic actually backfired, as we've had almost two feet of snow dumped on us since early Saturday morning.

Not only that, but I was at a friend's house on Saturday night, where we played video games until about 2am. During the 6 hours I was there, approximately 8 inches of snow fell, and wouldn't you know it - on my drive home that morning, my car got stuck on a dark side street. Ayup...Right in the middle of the street, where the snow was heavy enough for my car to "float"...So, there I was, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a paved street, down on my hands and knees, digging snow out from under my car, just so I could get the smallest amount of traction to unstick my car. I was successful, but not before shaking my fists at the sky and cursing the low pressure front that was sauntering through southcentral Wisconsin.

The bottom line, people, is this - psychic magic, especially spells utilizing Krautrock, do not work against snowstorms. In fact, if this weekend's experiences are any indication, snowstorms and other low pressure weather systems actually HATE Krautrock (or at least the band Can), and these storms will explode with even more ferocity than normal when confronted with such magic and music.

Also...My gut, the arthritis in my right knee, and the tendonitis in my left thumb were wrong in their predictions this weekend. They were telling me 8-10 inches of snow for the entire weekend, and we got that much by Saturday morning...Now my back is sore from all the shovelling, and I've still gotta go out there one more time tonight. My bones seem to be conspiring against me. Until further notice, do not trust my gut, do not put yr faith in my ailments.

Hotcha!
Hank

Bonus Stripping Event

I was 10 strips into a Kieth The Perpetual Teen story about the Mooninite Terror in Boston when I lost steam and a way out of the story. This is the first strip in the series so far...

And here's probably the funniest one of the bunch, if only because it's the least silly and stupid, which is actually ANTI-Kieth The Perpetual Teen...It's #4 in the series...

And finally, let's jump to the tenth and final strip in series...If it feels like the end, it is because I copped out early...I've got an idea about extending the story another 5-10 strips, but The Day The Mooninites Nearly Destroyed Beantown is already a faded memory, only 3 weeks later...

Hotcha! Hank

This Weekend's Obligatory YouTube Sideways Maneuver

Can, performing "Bring Me Coffee Or Tea" from their 1971 album, Tago Mago.

Plenty of Damo Suzuki, and I would like to note that I own a pair of dayglo orange Chuck Taylors that look a bit like the sneakers in this video. Those shoes were some sort of musical statement for me in 1991. Now they're in a box, somewhere in the dark, deep corner of the basement, attracting spiders.

Hotcha! Hank

My 79th Annual Academy Award Picks

Here are my picks for this year's Academy Awards. These are for entertainment purposes only...Please wager at yr own risk...


Best Picture: 0/1

Babel - my pick
The Departed - winner
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Best Director: 1/2

Alejandro González Iñárritu: Babel
Martin Scorsese: The Departed
Clint Eastwood: Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears: The Queen
Paul Greengrass: United 93

Best Actor: 2/3

Leonardo DiCaprio: Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling: Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole: Venus
Will Smith: The Pursuit Of Happyness
Forest Whitaker: The Last King Of Scotland

Best Actress: 3/4

Penélope Cruz: Volver
Judy Dench: Notes On A Scandal
Helen Mirren: The Queen
Meryl Streep: The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet: Little Children

Best Supporting Actor: 3/5

Alan Arkin: Little Miss Sunshine - winner
Jackie Earle Haley: Little Children
Djimon Hounsou: Blood Diamond - my pick
Eddie Murphy: Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg: The Departed

Best Supporting Actress: 4/6

Adriana Barraza: Babel
Cate Blanchett: Notes On A Scandal
Abigail Breslin: Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson: Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi: Babel

Best Animated Feature: 5/7

Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

Best Foreign Film: 5/8

After the Wedding: Denmark
Days of Glory (Indigènes): Algeria
The Lives of Others: Germany - winner
Pan’s Labyrinth: Mexico - my pick
Water: Canada

Best Cinematographer: 6/9

The Black Dahlia: Vilmos Zsigmond
Children of Men: Emmanuel Lubezki
The Illusionist: Dick Pope
Pan’s Labyrinth: Guillermo Navarro
The Prestige: Wally Pfister

Best Original Song: 6/10

"I Need To Wake Up": Melissa Etheridge - winner
"Love You I Do": Henry Krieger & Siedah Garrett
"Our Town": Randy Newman
"Patience": Henry Krieger & Willie Reale
"Listen": Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler & Anne Preven - my pick


Hotcha!
Hank

A Band By Any Other Name Still Smells Like Styling Mousse

As promised, a list of lame and crappy band names, found within the very pages of the newest issue of Alternative Press magazine.

Those of you who know me, or are familiar with my website, The ButterScotch Threshold, are hip to NAME THAT BAND, which consists of two very small notebooks filled with several hundred (I've never actually counted 'em) band names that friends, acquaintances and myself have dreamed up over the years. I started the first volume in 1984, in the freshman dorms at UW-Madison, and yeah, the vast majority of these names are stupid and silly beyond belief, and quite unsuitable for actual. A fair number of 'em are sexually sophomoric. Some refer to the rectal area, and the behaviors and functions of such. Plenty are inside jokes. A second volume was started in 1993, and those names are more absurd than stupid. Most of 'em are still quite unusable. Now they're all online if ya click the link above...

I tell you this so that you understand that I compiled this particular list today because these names suck as bad as any in my two tiny volumes, but these are worse because the bands actually are using 'em, and most are trying to become rockstars, to say nothing of respected artistes within their own scenes and genres.

Without further ado...

Oh wait, I'd just like to say that most of these sound more like song and album titles than actual band names...I don't know when this trend started, but you'll see how right I am...

Without further ado...

Haste The Day
From Autumn To Ashes
Cute Is What We Aim For
On Broken Wings
The Burning Season
Echo Screen
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Fear Before The March Of Flames
Widows & Orphans
Frenemies
The Devil Wears Prada [ed. note - currently the dumbest name in Rock]
Armor For Sleep
A Voice Like Rhetoric
After Midnight Project
Therefore I Am
Caecelia
Poison The Well
Opiate For The Masses
Taking Back Sunday
As Tall As Lions
This Moment In Black History
Madina Lake
blessthefall
Midnight Movies
The Photo Atlas
Circa Survive
Big D & The Kids Table
The Dear Hunter
Have Heart
Nothington
My Latest Novel

(remember, kids, these are actual band names)

Behold...The Arctopus
The Transit War
Envy On The Coast
Job For A Cowboy [ed. note - currently the dumbest name in rock]
Bomb The Music Industry!
Between The Trees
Every Move A Picture
School For Heroes
Hot Like (A) Robot
Classic Case
The Spill Canvas
Anchors For Arms
Look Mexico
You Say Party! We Say Die!
Daphne Loves Derby
The Handshake Murders
Life In Your Way
Night Kills The Day
Call Me Lightning
Black Tie Dynasty
The Early November
Emmure
Krum Bums
Alternate Routes
Massacre Of The Umbilical Cord [ed. note - I give up...This might be the dumbest band name in the history of Rock.]

Hotcha!
Hank

A Pointless Rant About Alternative Press

A nice perk I get from working at a media software company, is free subscriptions to various music and film magazines. Actually, the perk is due to being friends with Steve F., the Artist Relations dude in our marketing department, who is kindly cool enough to get me on these subscription lists even though I work in operations...Lowly operations...Minding the inventory and wrangling tape guns.

Anyways, one of the magazines I get for free is Alternative Press.

Once upon a time, Alt Press was a pretty good magazine - good enough, anyways, that I subscribed for many years. But at some point in the mid-1990's Jason Pettigrew seemingly became responsible for about 75% of the magazine's content, which is fine for a fucking blog like this one, or that one, but doesn't work so well for a music publication that had gone glossy and fairly mainstream. I didn't agree with Jason Pettigrew's taste in music, or the direction of the magazine in general, so I stopped subscribing.

Then, about three years ago, Steve F. got me on their subscription list again, and every month since I've found a new copy of Alt Press in my mailbox, and man, it's fairly amazing to me to see just how far the scales have tipped in the intervening years.

Nowadays, I consider Alt Press a comedy magazine. It's funnier than Mad, Cracked, Radar, etc., and on a par with The Source (a hip hop mag) for making me laugh and shake my head in wonderment and disbelief. What's difficult to discern is whether it is the magazine itself that makes me laugh, or the bands it covers. Is it all the ridiculous full-page ads for all manner of fashions emblazoned with flaming skulls, or is it the long, sweeping bangs hanging in the faces of 46% of the musicians in the pictures? Is it the overloaded content that renders short, superficial reviews, or the illegible band logos on every other page? Maybe in my middle age I'm just able to recognize homogenous music scenes when I see 'em and hear 'em, or maybe Alternative Press is more and more a part of the non-alternative machine. Once upon a time, some folks considered 'em tastemakers, but nowadays they cram so much content into every issue that they're bound to get it "right" once in awhile. And more and more, the bands they truly champion have big contracts and tours sponsored by Honda.

Jason Pettigrew is still with 'em, which I respect and admire, and nowadays he's Editor-In-Chief, so he probably wields as much power as he ever has, but at least these days they've got 4 dozen contributing writers, if I've counted correctly. A magazine need that kind of muscle when they're telling us about the 100 Bands We Need To Know in '07. It's still not tastemaking. It's more like throwing as much against the whiteboard as possible, and seeing what sticks. What sticks with the chicks.

As much as anything else, Alt Press appears to shape their content around the tastes of their readership, which seems to be comprised of about 85% teenaged girls, if the magazine's letters section and online forums are any indication. Perhaps this is just good business sense, giving those girls what they want, especially in this post-internet world, but I believe it makes for poor content and a skewed editorial perspective. But again, I'm old enough to be these girls' dad, so maybe it's not fair for me to find fault.

To my thinking, magazines like Alt Press should be influencing their readers, and not the other way around. People who write and edit for culture magazines (especially one called Alternative Press, and really isn't that bit of semantics what this rant of mine is really all about?), should have a better grasp on culture than the average citizen. Yes, they should recognize trends when they naturally occur, but really, they should be working to uncover great bands and local scenes, and then spreading that gospel, and doing it with a bit of heart and true belief. Instead, Alt Press fills it's magazine with glossy photos of bands like Fallout Boy and AFI, and full-paged ads for the likes of interpunk.com and Draven Shoes. I'm not exactly sure what's "alternative" about most of the bands they cover, or the cookie cutter fashions being pitched, but there ya go...So-called "alternative culture" as defined by 17 year olds named Amber and Cody and co-opted by Verizon. Or maybe it's the other way around...I'm not sure.

I'm certainly not Alt Press' main demographic, but then again, I'm still quicker to embrace truly alternative music and culture than 1000 Ambers, and damn if I don't have more disposable income than a typical Cody. My point, again, is that Alt Press seemingly has things backwards, and rather than exposing these kids to the truly alternative, they're seemingly only regurgitating what these kids have already embraced en masse...Add to the fact that they have a palpable disdain for history before about 1980, and take potshots at Pitchforkmedia.com at least half a dozen times per issue (hey, at least Alt Press recognized their enemy), and it becomes obvious, to me anyways, that Alternative Press is more concerned about their bottom line than actually being arbiters of interesting music and vanguards of culture.

So, I'm not sure where this rant is supposed to go. And let's face it - it's was a cookie cutter rant from the start . (Did I namecheck Hot Topic yet? I have now. Check!) To sum up - bad music magazine not living up to it's name, covering popular music that all kinda sounds the same for a bunch of young people who all dress alike.

As I've said so many times before, I'm a nice guy, but maybe I really am anti-social.

Stay tuned for my list of really crappy and lame band names, culled directly from the latest issue of Alternative Press. Sometimes you really can judge a book by it's cover.

Hotcha!
Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 27

It's been a strange winter, this one...

Unseasonably warm and not much snow in November and December, or even January, really, and then we got hit with a rather frigid February, two solid weeks of temperatures below zero, and it got so cold I had to replace a car battery for the first time in at least a decade. Just BRUTAL cold, "brutal" being the defacto adjective used by everyone, whether they're on television or not...Then a week later, which was last week, we hit 50 degrees...Go figure.

Now we're gearing up for a huge snowstorm this weekend...Buffalo NY kinda snow...Upwards of 14-16 inches of the stuff if the storm breaks the right way, though my gut, the arthritis in my right knee, and tendonitis in my left thumb are telling me we'll only end up with about 8-10 inches by the time Monday morning rolls around...Trust the gut...Put yr faith in my ailments...

So I was thinking about streaming a Snow Patrol song for this week's Something 4 The Weekend, but here's the thing about that band...I don't think I like 'em that much...

I mean, a few week's ago I went with some friends to see Children Of Men, and on the drive to the theater the three of us were talking about whatever (politics and film, and political films) and a song came creeping out of the car's system that I recognized...I asked what it was and C&C told me it was Snow Patrol...I recognized the song from some television show I had seen - Scrubs, maybe, The OC, or Weeds...Who knows...The thing is, it's the kind of song that a hipster music director might choose for the show they work for - pleasing enough, but not too intrusive or disruptive to the show itself, while at other times mildly anthemic, something that could very well crop into the last two minutes of The Unit...In other words, the kind of song one notices and vaguely recognizes while having a conversation in a moving vehicle, but not quite good enough to distract for more than the ten seconds it takes to ask about and get answered.

It was good enough, in a vaguely nostalgic way, for me to pick up a used copy of their Final Straw CD on my subsequent trip to Mad City Music Exchange ...After listening to it a couple times, I came to the conclusion that Snow Patrol aren't exactly the most engaging band in the world...In other words, it's the perfect kind of music for television shows and background music...

Like I said, I was thinking about streaming some Snow Patrol tonight, but I'm not thinking about it anymore.

Instead, I think I'm gonna stream some Can.

Can: "Splash": mp3

Can, because they're one of my favorite bands. "Splash", because the title makes me think of swimming pools and summer, psychic magic against the coming snowstorm.

Hotcha!

Hank

Much Hairdo About Nothing

Yesterday Britney Spears shaved her head.

If you are one to read the celebrity gossip blogs and websites, as I am wont to do, you will have noticed the great uproar and general disgust over this latest bit of trivia in the life and times of the pop princess.

The consensus seems to be that Britney has completely lost her mind, that the act of shaving herself bald is a clear indication that the young woman is mentally disturbed and or under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Many of the posts at these celebrity blogs, posts by so-called "normal" people, like you and I, are full of "OMG" and "WTF", and of course, many people simply saying that they feel sorry for her, and hope she gets the help she needs...

IT'S FUCKING HAIR, PEOPLE!

Not only is it hair, but it's HER hair, and it will grow back.

Are we so narrow-minded as a culture that we cannot fathom a bald woman? Are we unable to confront anything outside our "normal" cultural constructs? You know, prior to WWI, long hair and long beards were the accepted norm among men. It was only exposure to lice and fleas in the trenches of that war that ultimately led to short hair and clean-shaven faces on men becoming the acceptable norm. Nowadays, if a man sports long hair and a beard of any length we automatically assume that he is a hippie (with all the negative connotations associated with that lifestyle) and furthermore, has poor hygeine. Likewise, a woman with short hair must undoubtedly be a lesbian, and of course, a woman who goes bald absolutely MUST be mentally disturbed and/or under the influence.

I will offer the opposite - It is my contention that men with short hair and women with long hair are gutless and spineless soldiers in the army of the mundane. They lack imagination, they lack a sense of self, and they are consumed with a drive to please all others at all costs. These are the kinds of people who offer nothing of value to the world in which they live, and serve no better purpose than to pass judgement on blogs.

You are here.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 26

The Brit Awards were held this past Wednesday night, and in case you don't know, the Brit Awards are essentially the British version of The Grammys, except that they only hand out thirteen awards, and seven of 'em are specifically doled out to British acts, which seems reasonable enough to me.

Arctic Monkeys: "Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong, But...": 128k mp3

So, the Arctic Monkeys won two Brit Awards this year - Best British Group, and Best British Album, and again, that seems reasonable enough to me because I'm not British, making it hard for me to guage what's hot and what's not in the UK, and at the moment I'm having a difficult time thinking of a different British act/album who maybe deserves it more. I'd say Lily Allen and her Alright, Still album, but I get the feeling plenty of people don't like Lily because she blew up on the internet, outta seemingly nowhere, and I'm guessing those same people think of her as an undeserving heiress of sorts (her dad being a famous British comedian/actor), and maybe lump her in with the likes of Kevin Federline or Paris Hilton, two "musical artists" who got record deals and major distribution because of who they are and who they know, and not because they're talented or compelling artists. I like the Lily Allen record quite alot, and certainly could never equate her with the unredeemable crap that Kevin and Paris foisted upon us in 2006...And besides, her dad really had no say in Lily's MySpace successes, cuz in that medium, her songs and her image had to succeed or fail on their own merits...

Anyways, I like the Arctic Monkeys album quite alot. It's a bit more progressive and heavy than their counterparts in the British rock scene, many of whom seem content to simply ape what has come before. What we end up with is a bunch of Oasis ripoffs (Oasis themselves being one of the most unoriginal and boring bands to ever find huge success) and Coldplay wannabees, and for the life of me, I don't know why anyone would want to be Coldplay, except maybe for the chance to make babies with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow...No, Arctic Monkeys aren't quite that content. Yeah, they wanna be rich and famous rock stars (who doesn't?), but at least on the surface it appears they wanna do it on their own terms. Hell, their bass player quit the band just as they were blowing up, and that's nearly enough to convince me that these guys are doing it for all the right reasons...

The band also has a chip on their collective shoulders, which is almost always a welcome trait in a rock'n'roll band. Take this song, for instance...The chorus goes, "All you people are vampires, and all your stories are stale, and though you pretend to stand by us, I know you're certain we'll fail..." If you've ever been in a band, especially a band that's had at least a bit of success in yr local scene, you surely know how people kinda worm their way outta the woodwork to attach themselves to you. Dudes start showing up at practices to foist free drugs upon you, just so they can hang, and chicks start showing up at gigs with blowjobs on their minds, dig? And as often as not, these people don't even like your band, they just wanna get as close to the spotlight as they can, and if another band comes along with a slightly brighter spotlight, well, the drugs and blowjobs are suddenly a bit more difficult to come by...

So, here's my "congratulations" to the Arctic Monkeys for winning best British Group and Best British album at the 2007 Brit Awards, and here's to hoping that their sophomore album ups the ante and delivers an even bigger "fuck you" to the haters...

Hotcha! Hank

Superchunk: Watery Hands

What do you do when you don't have anything to say?

Let me rephrase...

What do you blog about when you don't have anything to say, and you've got a blog, and you feel like, in the spirit of blogginess, you ought to be posting regularly, but you just don't know what to write about?

Ya see, I'm 41 years old...I've been the "creative type" my entire life, and I've been prolific in many respects...I've written and recorded hundreds of original songs over the past 25 years...I've acted as engineer and producer for other bands...I paint, I cartoon, I've written several screenplays, a book of short fiction, and a couple of aborted novels, to say nothing of the pornography I've written...

I've done alot of creative things over the past 2-3 decades, and while I can't say that any of it was worth a damn, I still did it all, nonetheless...

The thing is, after all this time, and all that effort, at the age of 41, I feel empty...Drained...I just don't think I have anything to say at the moment...I haven't for the past couple years, actually, and I wonder if I'll ever have anything meaningful to make/share ever again...

And yet, I WANT to say things...I want to create...I want to share, teach, whatever, but the fact that I seemingly CAN'T at the moment is what puts me in this losing situation...

You don't want to read about my two cats, do you? I could tell you about Eno suddenly developing this urge to slip and slide around in the bathtub, or how Isaac lost another fang, so that now, at the age of 12, he's only got one of his four fangs left and he's now relegated to soft food...You don't want to read about that...Hell, I didn't want to write about that...

I could share with you my recent forays into needlepoint...Nah...

I don't go out to the pubs much and get sloppy drunk, so I can't regale you with tales of drunk Mohaski...

Last night I made spaghetti, but there are enough blogs out there already recounting last night's meals, so I won't go there either...It was damn good spaghetti though, because I am a damn fine cook...

So what's left? What do I do when my head is empty and echoing with useless thoughts?

I guess I post things like this Superchunk video, in which Janeane Garofalo and David Cross (and the band) make lighthearted fun of stupid conceptual music videos...For the record, I still think Laura Ballance is one of the hottest foxes in rock, and I still think the best part of this video is the drummer, who appears to have a mind and will of his own until "confronted" by his bandmates, at which time he acquiesces to their furrowed, displeased brows...I think it's a sly and nifty way of pushing the theory that drummers are little more than hired guns and trained apes...Anyways, enjoy the video...I was looking for a video for "Slack Motherfucker", one of the greatest rock anthems ever recorded, but came away with this...

I still don't think Janeane Garofalo is funny, but that's my cross to bear.

Hotcha! Hank

Line Rider Jumps The Shark

What? You've never seen a Line Rider video before? Lucky you.

Hotcha! Hank

The Knife: We Share Our Mother's Health

"We Share Our Mother's Health"...

Another band adding to the argument that Sweden is currently the hottest spot in the world for modern music...Excellent video, too...Enjoy!

Hotcha! Hank

Stereolab: Miss Modular

"Miss Modular"

Stereolab are an indie motorikrautrock kinda band outta England. I like 'em alot.

Hotcha! Hank

Chin Up Chin Up: This Harness Can't Ride Anything

"This Harness Can't Ride Anything"

Chin Up Chin Up are an indie rock band outta Chicago, and that's really all you need to know, buddy...

Hotcha! Hank

Tape Jazz Massacre

Whatthahahahahell?

Why not do a bit more cross-promotion?

Straight from the top rung of Thee ButterScotch Threshold ladder, howzabout a link or more to TAPE JAZZ MASSACRE, the dynamic duo of sampling sonics, 100% (or close enough for Jazz) copyright infringed audio...Ornette Yukahiro does most of the musical slicing and dicing, while Big Jimmmmi Cakefingers has the painstaking task of cutting up the spoken word stuff into fork-friendly chunks of chocolately-smooth concrete...

I think the guys reached their peak with Cookin' With Tape Jazz Massacre (shit, apostrophes make for bad links), on which Ornette sampled alot of Jazz...more Jazz than he ever had sampled before, and Big Jimmmmi served heapin' plates of word salad cut liberally from cooking shows and whatnot...

Of course, more than one person I know prefers 2003's Electro:Quote, another concept album, this one dedicated to television and politics...

The boys have been laying low the past year...After 2005's Antique Technique, which re-imagines The Saint, an old radio show starring Vincent Price, as The Aint...But I have it on good authority that before the end of 2007 we might be witness to a brand new TJM longplayer...Rumor has it the album is called Bakin' With Tape Jazz Massacre (no link available at this time) , and yeah, it's a sequel of sorts to Cookin'...

And finally, I have to mention The Special Jellies...The Special Jellies are/were a project/object/band I did with Ornette back in the winter of 2001/2002 while Big Jimmmmi was ice-fishing on Big Cedar Lake...Essentially, I sang the lyrics of some favorite songs from the 1980's, while Ornette provided random sampled accompaniment NOT confined to that decade...It's part-karaoke, part-mashup, I guess, and my singing is half-honorable, half-horrible...

So, there ya go...some links to assorted pages in the TJM section of Thee BST...Feel free to listen to any number of mp3's from all their releases...Six in total at the moment, seven if you include the unreleased Shit You Don't Hear At Parties compilation, and eight if you include Absolut Massacre, which is Tape Jazz Massacre's complete output from 1996-2006, and unfortunately only available to friends and journalists...I've got TWO copies, babycakes!

Hotcha!

Hank

Deerhoof: Wrong Time Capsule

Deerhoof's "Wrong Time Capsule" is probably one of my five favorite songs of the last five years, and maybe I could tell you the other four right now, but there's really no drama in that, is there, babycakes?

Hey!

This video hearkens back to the 1980's, music video's childhood, methinks...It's basically a lo-fi, artpunk version of something Peter Gabriel got famous for doing back then, and damn if this song ain't great, like I said...As the comments at youtube say, "Deerhoof owns my soul", "they are so amazing", "that's because her arms were caught in the machine"...

Bomp ba da da da...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 25

Deerhoof finally won me over with 2005's The Runners Four album, on which they seemed (to me) to really hone their pop chops while still maintaining a goodly amount of their quirky verve and dissonant tendencies. When guitarist Chris Cohen left the band last year, alot of fans were sweating heavy, wondering if the band would have the same mojo, cuz they had really hit their stride when Cohen joined the band for Apple O' in 2003...

Well, the new album, Friend Opportunity, plays a similar strain of The Runners Four, and early listens indicate they haven't really lost a step with Cohen's departure, though certainly the man is missed...They're a trio now, and a true power trio at that, and three's a magic number for them at the moment...

Deerhoof: +81: 128k mp3

Anyways, Deerhoof are from San Francisco, and from my experiences there, I'd say that's just about right...They're alot of fun, and they're challenging in all the right ways...Serious fun, I guess, and I'm sure they've got their pretensions, and probably a cache of weed and absinthe.

Soooooo, "+81" is a grrroovy something 4 the weekend...Enjoy, and get it on...

Hotcha! Hank

Fudgie's Beard Index 2-B

Speaking of Davids

David Sedaris reading an essay about his Stadium Pal on David Letterman. Good stuff.

Hotcha! Hank

I'll Smoke What David's Smoking

A French cigarette commercial directed by David Lynch. Only Mr. Lynch can tell us what it all means, though I assume it has something to do with quenching.

Hotcha! Hank

EVERYTHINGATHON! February 2007!

Another new month, another new EVERYTHINGATHON! , my monthly podcast streaming at my website, THEE BUTTERSCOTCHTHRESHOLD...

This month's episode is entitled DIGITAL DUMP, and it features a semi-random mix of songs about footwear, dogs, and mountains...Don't wonder, just check it out, and enjoy!

Hotcha! Hank

So, this is what terrorism looks like...

So, this is what terrorism looks like...Hmmm...

So, correct me if I'm wrong...

Terrorism does not look like a Ryder truck filled with fertilizer and gasoline?

Terrorism does not look like a young man strapped with a C-4 explosive belt riding the subway?

Terrorism does not look like a stick of dynamite, or several sticks of dynamite bundled together and sitting on the steps of a federal building?

Terrorism is not an abandoned briefcase making a distinct ticking sound?

Terrorism does not look like a passenger jet slamming into the sides of tall buildings?

Terrorism does not look like a corpse rigged with explosives laying in the middle of a street in Tikrit?

Terrorism does not look like an envelope discharging a white, powdery substance?

To the officials in Boston who are insistent that Lite Brites depicting a cartoon character are indeed terrorism, I would suggest they spend some time on the streets of Baghdad to get a better handle on what terrorism really is...I suggest they witness a car bomb exploding on the next street corner...I suggest they find the headless torsos of innocent civilians who had been abducted randomly off the streets a week earlier...In short, I suggest they live for awhile in an urban environment in which every piece of litter bigger than a can of soda must be considered a potential IED...

After the overreaction by Boston officials yesterday to the ATHF ad campaign, all I can do is lament the fact that large portions of our citizenry have lost their balls, and in the process, have allowed the terrorists to win...

Notcha! Hank