Monday, May 31, 2010

Make sure you thank a veteran today...

That person was forunate enough to make it home alive after serving our country.

War is a political policy that can and should be argued but those who actually fight the wars deserve a lot more than they get. Happy Memorial Day.

Posted via email from Stephen Feller

Friday, May 28, 2010

Radiohead - Polyethylene (parts 1 & 2)

Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2) by Radiohead  
Download now or listen on posterous
02 Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2).mp3 (6188 KB)

Been humming this song for hours. Or maybe it's been days that I haven't been able to get it out of my head.


Of all the Radiohead b-sides and rarities, and there are many, this is absolutely one of the best. It's jerky moodiness, like the College Karma EP that it comes from, was the hallmark of the band's ascent to "Best Band In The World" status: the OK Computer era.

I swear to god I had a six-hour anxiety attack tonight, from about mid-afternoon to around 10:45 pm when I got on the highway to come home. I couldn't sit still, and had no desire to be anywhere, really. But I had this song stuck in my head the entire time. 85 mph, Motley Crue singing about strippers and cocaine on SFL's main modern rock station, and all I heard was Thom Yorke...

Sometimes the right song is what you need. In my case, I need to swap out the stereo in my car for the one sitting on a shelf in my garage because not having the ability to choose what I want to hear, or just shuffle a collection of songs I choose to carry, is killing my modern life. 

The delay made this song all the more perfect when I got home though.

Posted via email from One Stupid Mop

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The only thing better than tricking people into drinking your urine...

is making them think they just drank your urine. 

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Fat Mike comes out onstage dressed as Cokie The Clown, passes out shots of Patron and the proceeds to tell depressing and true stories, with a few acoustic songs mixed in, before starting a video that shows he pissed in the bottle before pouring shots for everybody. The world flipped out, he got banned from the club and nobody questioned whether he had actually done it because, you know, he's Fat Mike and it's believable.

So, he filmed it with two cameras: one for the crowd to watch after he was offstage, and the other to prove the illusion. Performance art of the highest order? I think so. Fat Mike is a god.

Posted via email from Stephen Feller

Monday, May 17, 2010

Black Sabbath - Time Machine

Time Machine by Black Sabbath  
Download now or listen on posterous
11-Time Machine (Wayne's World)-mw.mp3 (4046 KB)

I was introduced to the Dio era of Black Sabbath - and very possibly, for the first time, Sabbath - by way of the soundtrack to the first Wayne's World movie.

That movie is awesome, and this song is awesome. It's pretty simple.

RIP Ronnie James Dio

Posted via email from One Stupid Mop

Thursday, May 13, 2010

About FB privacy concerns: If you don't want people to know your info or favorite things, why would you post it ON THE INTERNET?!?

Since Facebook changed the way you "like" stuff, and made user info available on community pages, and generally put a lot more info out there - including making it easier to let people know what you like on the Internet - there's been an outcry about privacy concerns. But Facebook promotes this stuff before they do it - they talk about what they're thinking about doing, and hundreds or thousands of writers put stuff about it all over the Internet and in newspapers. Unless you live in a box, you should have heard something.

Regardless, hit the privacy controls and change stuff. You can tell FB exactly what you want out there. Be proactive and take care of your shit. Seriously - if you didn't want it out there, why did you post it ON THE INTERNET?!? 

The New York Times counted everything for you. Frankly, the number of options is impressive:

FYI - everything you do online is recorded and trackable. EVERYTHING. Every single website you go to leaves a cookie on your computer so that it will load faster. Every search you do, not just at Google but at whatever search engine you dig, is recorded to offer you more ads you might be interested in and improve the results you get when you search. This isn't new. It's just that now, you're telling a website what movies you like, and where you hang out, and what your politics are, and whether you prefer blondes or brunettes, and what websites you go to... And that website is selling ads and services to businesses based on the information you tell it so that it can provide a free service that we've all become obsessed with.

There is no conspiracy. It's not Orwellian. You have entered information into a website that tells you up front - and in the press - that it will use that info to make money off of you. Come on people, pay a little more attention and take some responsibility for what you're doing. Maybe that's asking too much in modern America (and the world). In which case, you get what you deserve.

Posted via email from Stephen Feller

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

If were able to make it to a show, and The Dead Weather were coming to South Florida, this video would force me to be there.

This comes from a performance of the entire new album that they streamed on MySpace, the rest of which you can watch here.

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Posted via email from Stephen Feller

Monday, May 10, 2010

Rollins Band - Starve

Starve by Rollins Band  
Download now or listen on posterous
Starve.mp3 (5890 KB)

When this track arrived at the radio station on a three-song teaser disc for "Come In And Burn," the first album Rollins Band recorded for Dreamworks, I had been listening to the band for a few years. I had already read one or two of Rollins' books, and was fast on my way to becoming a devotee.

But more than the self-loathing and expelling of emotion that characterized a good part of the band's work up to this point, "Starve" seemed different. It's like Hank went from being the scared wolf to the scary one who just got out of jail and has a world to fuck the fuck up.

"Come In And Burn" didn't do much for growing the Rollins Band's audience, and MTV ignored it aside from playing the video a few times on 120 Minutes, but this song remains hugely strong. Built on a rolling groove that grows stronger and more menacing, it's like a harder-core "Thunderstruck." 

For the record, it is especially effective on a Monday or any other day that you're trying to claw your way back to bed.

Posted via email from One Stupid Mop

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig As a Loving Couple in Gay Fantasy Minicomic (via @jesshopp)

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/comics/henry-rollins-glenn-danzig-comics-gay-fantasy/#

Gonna have to hunt down a copy of this for myself. Hopefully someone will have shown Danzig by then. We already know Hank don't care...

Posted via email from Stephen Feller

How To Destroy Angels: The first track from Mr. and Mrs. Reznor's musical child is everything I've wanted from Massive Attack since the late 90s.

You just know that Trent wants to leak the entire thing RIGHT NOW. Which is exactly what I'm hoping for. Or at least a webrip of this to pop up somewhere. 

The track is crawling, ethereal and probably mindblowing on headphones or in a car. For now, the laptop will do...

There's also several minute-long teaser videos on the HTDA website that offer, well, not much. Still, noise from the Reznors is better than no noise at all.

Posted via email from Stephen Feller

Monday, May 3, 2010

These United States - I Want You To Keep Everything

I Want You To Keep Everything by These United States  
Download now or listen on posterous
01 I Want You To Keep Everything.mp3 (5844 KB)

This would have been my post last week, had my computer not crashed and I been able to put the lastest album from These United States on my iPod and listen to it for any part of my drive to and from Orlando. 

Instead, I finally listened to it when I got back, exhausted from a weekend of chasing children around Disney World. For my exhaustion, and even when I'm well rested, this is a goooooooood album.

The combination of influence from Tom Petty and The Cars - yes, they can coexist - makes this a very comfortable feeling album. A friend of mine also suggested a big Springsteen influence. It took a while for that one to sink in but I think I've got it now.

What the album really reminds me of is the debut from Monsters of Folk last year. That was a solid record that brought together a kind of electric folksiness, a mid-point of fragile and not, that felt right on that album. This is more of that.

The thing I dig about "I Want You To Keep Everything" is that those influences, Petty and The Cars, are so apparent to me but the song doesn't really sound like either one. It's the familiarity that ropes you in. And with this as the first track on the album, it sets a good pace that gets you a little excited for the next song, and the others after it.

Now, about that computer...

Posted via email from One Stupid Mop