Stuff I Think and Shouldn't Say: Revolution S!

Shawn M. Smith at Myspace

This week, Stuff I Think and Shouldn’t Say is 24 (columns!) old.

“Famous” Musicians Who’ve Died at the Same Age as SITASS

Nicholas Dingley (Hanoi Rocks)
Duane Allman (Allman Brothers Band)
Peter Laughner (Pere Ubu)
Andrew Wood (Mother Love Bone)
The Notorious BIG

Yup. B.I.G. was 24. What a waste, eh?

To think that I have out-lived truly talented people makes me a little sad.

Read on…

And Now, Words of Wisdom…

Sit still as I completely pilfer a bit from this week’s Let’s Rave On by Kyle David Paul

And please, don’t confuse keeping it real with what I’m explaining here. Keeping it real is a cliche used by hip hop artists (and their fans) to represent a half-hearted respect for the ‘streets’ regardless of the artists’ association with any street. I hate to break this to you, but not every young black youth lives in poverty, and not every rapper should be expected to have come from poverty. As well, it really shouldn’t be expected that every hip hop artist has a great car, thirty nameless dancing girls, and a ‘crew’ in which to brag about how he rolls. Keeping it real has been misused by so many people that just about all levity it once held has been squashed by the great giant of consumerism.

Truth, however, will always have weight. It will always be the most important aspect of culture, because it is what ultimately connects everyone.

“Keeping it real” is a cliché? No shit. When people misuse the phrase it loses it’s meaning? No shit.

Folks, I am all about KDP’s weekly forays into music history and significance it plays in everyone’s life. Honestly, I am. In fact, I was one of the first people on InsidePulse to plug him when he first started his reviews for Coachella. I thought his work was thorough and concise, and was an excellent primer for fans who were heading to the festival, and even those of us who wanted to become more familiar with the artists on the bill.

Now, I just get fed the f*ck up when I read his shit.

We got beef. Honestly, I don’t know how it started, but if you don’t see why I am annoyed, scroll very quickly to the end of this piece. At the bottom is my catchphrase: “Keep it real.”

I would like to say that this was a manufactured feud, you know, the consequences of me slowly weaning myself off my Lexapro, but its not.

I do keep it real. In all of the months here at InsidePulse, I have never once covered an artist that I don’t like, and painted them in a glorious light. I hate the Rolling Stones, and if you read my back catalog, you will see that I think they should hang it up.

I also don’t pretend to write a column anything like Gloomchen’s. Seeing that the people that read her stuff care about the person she is due to her quasi-celebrity status on the ‘net, they really wouldn’t care much for my inane ramblings.

Frankly, what I keep it real about is that I am true to me. I don’t write f*cking stories about my love affair with certain bands, or my choice of hair product (Bed Head, by the way) I just f*cking write whatever is in my head.

Hence the name of the column. It’s CALLED Stuff I Think and Shouldn’t Say. I don’t pull punches. I am a hip hop fan, but I don’t keep it real to appeal to anyone. What appeals to most people is that I have no problem being myself at all times, and f*ck anyone who doesn’t get that.

Jesus, it’s just the ‘net. If I can’t take it seriously, why do so many others?

Hold on, I just got something in my email:

Ssquared,

Ryan.

If I am not mistaken…”Ryan” is currently crashing on my couch. If this is the case, that means that not only did we get drinks together last evening, but I believe he is mocking me. He spelled “amusing” wrong as well.

After all the months I have spent here, I get very little fan mail.. I would have to say something horrible, so terrible that people would have to write. That’s just not my style. I am the dude. The guy that just writes silly shit and has fun doing it.

I don’t pretend to be deep here. I connect with people the way they connect with White Castle. Sure, I am an okay substitute for real entertainment, but honestly, you should know better. You are going to regret it in the morning. You might get a laugh, but you won’t be a better person after you finish reading it.

With my luck, my next email will be from Widro or Fingers and will go something like this:

Ssquared,

Fingdro

When it all comes down to it, I am completely and totally unaffected. I am still the corny redhead from Upstate NY who is amused by shiny things and loves his family. I crack inappropriate jokes at funerals, laugh at dogs humping and porn. I help old ladies cross the street and then pinch their asses and run away. Hell, I do that for old men too.

Gloomchen once told me “people don’t give a shit about you because they don’t know who you are” and I think she’s right. Truthfully, I didn’t think that was this was supposed to be about. I don’t think the tens of…well, ten readers that I know I have care to respond because it pretty much the shit I say in everyday life, and those people know me, or act like they do.

Is this a quarter-life crisis?

I honestly don’t know what to think.

Aaron Cameron loves me.

Fernandez tolerates me.

I think that Fingers and Widro just humor me.

So should I hang it up?

Let me know: ssquared22@gmail.com or behemoth4life@yahoo.com.

SALTY’s Album of Da Week!

Two weeks, two stellar reviews. Jon Sevastra is on a roll. Hell, even Tom D’Errico plugged him this week.

Until I get tired of doing this, I will continue to plug his work here at InsidePulse. If you are a fan of Ssquared, it’s your DUTY to check out his work.

Still Remains – Of Love and Lunacy

There is a weaving thread of conceptual similarities in the tracks on this album. But it is not a “concept album”. The lyrical content is substantially based on inner conflicts and self-discovery, despair, fear, love, hope, rebirth, and the connection of religion in their lives. Explains singer T.J. Miller, “When I was writing this album I was going through phases of happiness and severe hurting. I wrote what I was feeling and the words love and lunacy best represents those emotions.”

In one paragraph, Salty got ME interested, so hopefully he did the same for you. If so, head over and check out the review.

SITASS NEWS: Life Ain’t Nothing But Bitches and Money…

Remember kids: Puppies AREN’T to be trusted…they get boners too!

MORRISSEY TO START WORK ON NEW RECORD

Morrissey has announced that he will start work on his new album in September.

The Mozfather will record the follow-up to 2004’s You Are The Quarry in Rome.

You Are The Quarry marked the singer’s first album since 1997’s ‘Maladjusted’ and received a rapturous worldwide reception. The LP produced the singles ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’, ‘First Of The Gang To Die’ and ‘I Have Forgiven Jesus’

(credit: NME.com)

God Bless Morrissey. With a large number of the UK acts that are currently populating the charts trying to emulate Radiohead’s The Bends, it was not only refreshing, but a welcome departure from those sounds.

Very few frontmen have the appeal or rabid following that Morrissey has. His delivery and lyrics appear to have improved with age, so the new album should be another must-have from the Mozzer.

Stellastarr* to Tour in Support of New Second Album

Sometimes when you’re writing a press release, you just gotta go for broke. New York’s Stellastarr* are a pleasant enough punkish indie pop wave whatever combo, and their 2003 debut got a 7.4 from this very ‘fork. But the announcement of their sophomore album on RCA, Harmonies for the Haunted, promises “a grandiose, limitless expression of the array of emotions that can occur within one moment.” Furthermore, we the listeners will be “awestruck, engrossed, and lost in time” upon the entry of Haunted’s honeyed tones into our auditory canals. Nobody can accuse Stellastarr* of playing the low-expectations game.

Harmonies for the Haunted will reach the public on September 13 with a grandiose, limitless tracklist that goes a little something like this:

01 Lost in Time
02 Damn This Foolish Heart
03 The Diver
04 Sweet Troubled Soul
05 Precious Games
06 Born in a Fleamarket
07 On My Own
08 When I Disappear
09 Love & Longing
10 Island Lost at Sea

(credit: PitchforkMedia.com)

The lineup for the 14th Locobazooka! United We Rock! Music and Arts Festival in Fitchburg, Mass., boasts more than 50 bands, including Disturbed, Dropkick Murphys, Life Of Agony, Ill Nino, Seemless, 10 Years, Danko Jones, Clutch, Dope, Bloodsimple, American Minor, Lost City Angels, Darkbuster, Bury Your Dead, Since The Flood, Darkest Hour, God Forbid, Hexerei, Leaving Eden and A Breed Apart.

The event will be held Sept. 18 at Fitchburg Airport. Tickets are $39.95 and are available through Locobazooka.com

ACROSS THE NARROWS
PRESENTED BY PLAYSTATION®

Oasis, The Killers, Beck and the Pixies are among the acts lined up to inaugurate “ACROSS THE NARROWS PRESENTED BY PLAYSTATION®,” the two-day, four-show modern rock event set for Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2 in Staten Island and Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Created by Ron Delsener Presents, tickets for the two-boroughs event–featuring each artist performing on one of the four separate bills–go on sale Friday, August 12 at 10am ET.

Separated by the Narrows section of New York Bay, the concerts will take place simultaneously each day at waterfront ballparks. In Coney Island, the shows will happen at Keyspan Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the New York Mets’ minor league baseball team. In Staten Island, the concert will take place at Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, home of the Staten Island Yankees, the New York Yankees’ minor league baseball team.

(credit: AcrosstheNarrows.com)

Twenty-six year old Joseph Yacteen was charged on Tuesday with first-degree attempted murder after allegedly shooting singer-songwriter Marc Cohn during an attempted carjacking. Yacteen faces up to ninety years in prison.

Elvis Costello and wife Diana Krall were on hand when Oscar Peterson was honored with a postage stamp by Canada Post earlier this week. The jazz pianist has become the first living Canadian to be given that honor.

Eminem has cancelled the European leg of his Anger Management Tour, citing exhaustion and “other medical issues.” The trek, which was set to begin September 1st in Hamburg, Germany, is not expected to be rescheduled.

Avril Lavigne is auctioning off concert tickets, autographed photos and other items to benefit the California nonprofit organization, Health Care for All. Details are available at Auctions For Change.com.

Cassidy’s first-degree murder count was reduced to a third-degree charge this Tuesday in relation to the April 15th shooting that killed twenty-two year old Desmond Hawkins. The rapper was ordered to remain behind bars pending an appeal from the prosecution . . .

Shania Twain will be the subject of a six-part series highlighting her career on XM Satellite Radio, beginning August 22nd.

Michael Jackson avoided arrest on August 17th, when his attorney Charles Gay appeared at a hearing in New Orleans for a sexual assault lawsuit filed earlier this year. Jackson, who had been fined $10,000 for missing two previous court appearances, is accused of luring a then eighteen-year-old boy into his limousine during the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans and sexually assaulting him.

(credit: Rolling Stone.com)

Okay, to say I know this artist personally is a stretch, but as a charter member of Los Cinco Enfuegos, Mike Eagle is my boy…and he’s one hell of an MC.

So, check out his triumphant return to InsidePulse here, and when you get time, go check out Mike’s EP at MySpace.com.

You can thank me later.

Alright, that’s it for this week, so if you are having a shitty day at work, the boss is riding your ass like 90s era Mariah Carey on Tommy Mottola’s jock, just remember “f*ck ’em if they can’t take a joke!”

Keep it real!

Ssquared