This week’s Stuff I Think and Shouldn’t Say is brought to you by:
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And…
Kyle David Paul’s Let’s Rave On.
Hello, SITASS fans. What a funny, confusing week it has been here in NYC.
I started the new job. Training is going well, but it took a while to get to this point. See, Tuesday was supposed to be the first shift, but seeing that the five of us who are partaking in this excellent training foray were not in the proper attire, we got sent home to “learn from our mistake.”
Shit, I got yet another afternoon off, so I wasn’t about to spend the extra hours I was granted, albeit due to my own stupidity, wallowing in my sorrow.
I did the next best thing: I bought an air conditioner.
It’s a necessity here in Manhattan, in that, if you don’t have one, you will never want to be at home. If you don’t have one, your only alternative is to ride the subway all day, hoping that you find an air-conditioned one, or staying at someone else’s house.
Seeing that I have a dope ass apartment, and I live with my girl, I don’t think that the latter option is plausible. I would never have sex EVER again if I decided on that, so we had to get another A/C.
Today at work, I sampled various dishes that we sell at the “House of Hospitaliano,” and drank all sorts of wine, leading me to remark that I felt like something out of:
In case you were wondering, I would want to play Miles. I love Paul Giamatti.
This week, I got a message on MySpace from a musician that was looking to garner interest in his material. Really, he just sent a generic hello, but I was touched that someone reached out to me, so I am going to plug him right now:
On various sites around the pretty, tidy internet there are a few comparisons to Elvis Costello and Aimee Mann, so I won’t make that comparison here. Instead, I will just say that I think his music is brilliant poetry set to palpable melodies, something I am stickler for. Sing me a pretty song and I am sucker for your material.
So, go check out Adonis Cross at MySpace.com and if you dig his stuff, let him know. I am sure he’ll be happy to have reached out to me now, eh?
Ssquared’s Album of Da Week!
Gorillaz Demon Days
If you don’t own this, you are missing out. There is so much awesome shit on this album, I can’t do it justice. Nevermind that Apple bought “Feel Good Inc.” for the new iPod campaign, this will probably make my best of 2005 list.
Go get it…or don’t. It’s your loss, though.
SITASS NEWS: Something To Stuff Your Face With
Remember kids: Ssquared doesn’t report because he has to; he kinda feels bad when he doesn’t!.
Darkness Got a Case of the Yokos?
In keeping with rock forefathers the Beatles, ousted Darkness bassist Frankie Poullain claims that he was kicked out of the band due to pressure from singer Justin Hawkins and his girlfriend, who is also the band’s manager. “At Darkness HQ, where Justin and his partner reside, I have gradually been frozen out over a long period of time,” Poullain told NME.com about his dismissal from the band. Poullain says his work remains on the Darkness’ follow-up to 2003’s blockbuster Permission to Land. “The second album is incredible,” Frankie says. “Co-written by Justin, Dan and myself, I’m convinced it is destined to be a huge success.”
A recent post on the Darkness’ official studio diary begs to differ: “The album will not be delayed by bassist Frankie Poullain’s departure as he had elected to perform his parts last. All bands work in different ways and the Darkness preferred to record their parts for this album individually with producer Roy Thomas Baker [Queen, the Cars, Journey]. Frankie had yet to participate in the recording of the album when his exit from the band was announced, so no re-recording of bass parts will be necessary.” Instead, guitarist Dan Hawkins will handle bass duties in the studio, the band says.
(credit: Spin.com)
.:.Wait, so this band not only kicked out the dude who looks like a pirate, but they are going to go on without him?
Here I am in Astoria, hearing that one of the coolest, “cock rocking-est” band of the past 5 years is actually being granted the opportunity to release a second disc, and all I can think of is that if they mess this opportunity, I will beat them mercilessly.
This is not a good press. You want to make it big in music? Do this:
1. Release an album, tour like mad, rock hard.
2. Piss on someone famous.
3. Dance around in a cat suit (even a wool blazer will do…they’re British!)
4. Rinse, repeat.
It’s not rocket science, folks. It’s rock and roll. Make some good music, stand out among all the crap that swirls down the drain these days, and you might sell some CDs.
Fucking rock stars, I just wonder if these guys have any idea what ridiculous nonsense this sounds like.
Please, guys, just make a great album. I don’t care who’s in the band, or why they left/got kicked out. Just rock, and the rest will take care of itself.
The Lips Crash “Wedding”
Coyne and Co. lend new song to movie soundtrack, cover Queen
A new song by the Flaming Lips, “Mr. Ambulance Driver,” will be featured on the soundtrack to the upcoming summer comedy, Wedding Crashers, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Packed with indie rock — including tunes from Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley, Bloc Party and Spoon, and a rare early track by Jimmy Eat World — the CD is due three days before the movie’s July 15th release.
Lips frontman Wayne Coyne can appreciate the premise of the film — about a pair of womanizers who sneak into weddings to meet women — having recently survived a family ceremony in Pittsburgh. “As the night wears on, it gets a little difficult, what with the old people drinking too much,” he confesses. “And there are a lot of ‘relatives’ you’re not sure you even know.”
The Lips’ track on the album, however, is considerably prettier and more melancholy, as “Mr. Ambulance Driver” was inspired in part by Coyne’s sickness and a dark Seventies hit.
“My mother died about a year ago, and there was a mood that came with her illness that felt so desperate — the shock of thinking about what the future might be,” he says. “And I had this folksy, storytelling song about the scene of an accident: The guy is pleading with the ambulance diver to hurry up, but he realizes that the girl he’s with is already dead. You know, there was a hit here in Oklahoma in the Seventies called ‘D.O.A.,’ this real heavy death-rock song [by Bloodrock] about a guy in a crash — but I wanted to make something more emotional.”
The tune will also grace the Lips’ long-awaited twelfth album, At War With the Mystics, now due in January or February. (“At some point, you need a deadline,” says Coyne. “That’s how the Hoover Dam got built!”) The band has recorded six songs for the CD, the follow-up to 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
While he described earlier tracks as “progressive Dixieland,” mixing banjo with “futuristic jazz,” Coyne claims that the Lips recently made a revelatory change in direction. “We really turned a corner when we did a cover of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ a couple months ago,” he says. “We were already recording big, epic songs, and somebody here said, ‘Sounds like you guys are doing something like Queen.’ So we wanted to explore what about Queen has to do with us.”
One track in that vein is “The Wand.” “We’ve been recording for about two years,” says Coyne. “And as the election happened, when this feeling of utter frustration and defeat came over all the losers out here, I tried to remind people that we still have this power within ourselves. There’s this homeless guy who walks around here with this cane, and he thinks he can do magic things with it. Sometimes the belief empowers you more than your actual ability. So this is kind of a protest song on acid — maybe more trippy than political.”
“My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion,” which the band has been performing live this year, is another Queen-inflected song. “It’s one of these sort of grand, existential, religious-type songs the Flaming Lips have always done,” he says, “where you take a miniscule moment in your life and really blow it up.”
As for the new album’s title, Coyne says, “It’s about being at war with the unknown, confronting the invisible forces — whether they’re an internal thing or something outside. The truth-seekers are always at war with the mystics.” He pauses before adding, “Of course, this is when people start to question your sanity, when you delve into this territory.”
(credit: RollingStone.com)
.:. I was feeling kind of lazy with this one. Just cut and paste, cut and paste. Oh, and I tagged the credit part, so it appears as though I put effort in.
Anyway, Wayne Coyne is a genius. This is another album that I cannot wait to purchase. Many weeks ago, Matthew Michael and I had a discussion on how the best albums he has purchased recently have all been soundtracks.
Maybe if I get him a copy, he will start returning my calls.
You would think I have some rare communicable disease the way that cat avoids me. Maybe he is just busy…maybe.
LIAM GALLAGHER BRANDS U2 ‘WANKERS’
The latest targets in LIAM GALLAGHER’s war against the world are U2, who he has branded “wankers”.
The Oasis frontman has been making a splash on the comeback trail, dissing the new generation of rock bands like Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs.
But now, Gallagher’s wrath has extended to the old guard, with him lashing out via the Sydney Evening Telegraph after hearing that the U2study video footage of themselves after gigs.
He raged: “Wankers. Haven’t they got f*ck-all better to do? I’d rather be out there getting pissed. I certainly wouldn’t go back after a gig and analyse it. No wonder they’re the biggest band in the world: ‘Oh Edge, the fourth guitar solo wasn’t right tonight’. ‘Oh sorry, Bono’. If that’s what people think rock’n’roll is…”
Gallagher’s comment follow U2’s admission to NME.COM earlier this year that one of the reasons they turned down the chance to headline this year’s Glastonbury was because they were uncomfortable about being filmed for television without having control of the edit.
Meanwhile, U2’s televisual assisted Vertigo tour arrives in the UK next week, kicking off at City Of Manchester Stadium on June 14.
(credit: NME.com)
.:.At least SOMEONE other than me is saying it. Bono is a dick, can’t write a great song anymore, and is so self-absorbed, I consider him the British Brawny Man.
Fuck U2, and thank you Liam, you silly drunk crackhead for putting him in his place.
In “The Most Ridiculous Thing I Have Heard This Week” News
Stolen directly from the Inside Pulse Super Secret Staff Hush-Hush Boards:
Study Shows Orgasmic Ability Linked to Genetics
by Sunil Setty
June 08, 2005
Scientists in Britain have found evidence that a woman’s ability to orgasm is linked to genetics, reported this week in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society, Britain’s independent academy of science.
4,037 twin women took part in the study.
“It’ll be upsetting because some women will think, ‘Oh my God, maybe I just can’t.’ On the other hand it takes away a kind of guilt or pressure,” said Dr. Virginia Sadock, director of the human sexuality program at New York University Medical Center.
14 percent of the women studied had an orgasm every time they made love, while 33 percent never or seldom did.
“If we had the funding now, it might take us three years to find some of these genes,” said Professor Tim Spector, director of the St Thomas’s Hospital’s Twin Research Unit, who led the study.
Only identical twins share all their genes, and comparing identical and non-identical twins is an ideal way of identifying inherited features.
In the case of masturbation, 45 percent of the differences between women who could and could not achieve an orgasm was due to genes.
Spector said the female orgasm was still a subject shrouded in mystery.
“There’s so little research on the female orgasm; it’s a taboo subject,” he said. “It’s very difficult to get funding for it, and for some reason it’s treated very differently to male impotence.”
(credit: Fernandez is kicking ass and taking names.
Aaron Cameron is maxin’ and relaxin’!
Gloomchen knows how to roll with her homies.
Did you think I could possibly forget Los Cinco Enfuegos?
Dan Hevia slaps some chicks in his Crucifix.
Mike Eagle where have you gone? El Camino Negro is M.I.A. I miss this dude.
Michaelangelo McCullar delivers the goods straight from his ‘hood!
Kern must still be bitter. There’s nothing funny about that!
Aight, that’s it for tonight. 7 more days until we get to do this again.
Until then, keep it real!
Ssquared
