The Weekly Music Pulse Stuff I Think and Shouldn’t Say 43
Don’t get me wrong, I truly do enjoy writing the Weekly Music Pulse, but I’ll elaborate later in this very column as to why I am dropping that part of the title. Trust me, the answer is at the end!
In the mean time:
Earlier tonight, I had a vision.
There, in a desert oasis, was a Native American man sitting on a log. Yes, a log in the desert, as it was a “vision” and not reality. It was a vision, so a log can be wherever I need it to be. My vision = logs are everywhere and are used for benches or stools, capisce?
This Native American, had tears running down his face. The burnt out remains of a once lit cigarette were clenched between the fingers of his right hand.
“Why, sir, are you crying?” I asked.
The man’s voice shook my core, “Fernandez is gone. The Bootleg is gone. What have I left to read?”
I reminded him that the best way for us, the Inside Pulse Music Staff, to carry on was to live up the standard that they set.
“Cut and Paste, Cut and Paste?” he said.
I shook my head, “No sir, Cut, Paste, and Italicize!“
Welcome To The Dollhouse
As some of you may not have heard, there are some Super Secret Rumblings about the future of Inside Pulse and a V(ersion)3. Changes are a coming, heads will soon be rolling, and I just want to let you loyal IP Music Fans know that I am totally safe…for now. That’s because while Gloomchen can do all the reviews in the world, eventually, that machine will break down!
Gloomchen has done a phenomenal job through all of the various personnel changes and some tumultuous times, and I wanted to thank her here for all the hard work behind the scenes.
I also want to say “hi” to Kyle David Paul, our Monday Columnist, who had to take a sabbatical while he began a new life in KOREA! Turns out that Kyle was offered a job teaching English, and was told that he would start immediately, so off he went. I had friends in college who taught in Japan through the JET program (Ssquared note: google it, I don’t know what JET stands for!) and said it was the most rewarding experience. If you can’t get enough KDP here (and I heard he has a ton of reviews coming up, so be on the look-out) follow his life through this site. He’s also working on his second novel, so send him an email and check up on IP Music’s only Canuck.
The reason I can jest at such time, truthfully, is that I stuck around long enough to make myself indispensable. No, not because of my monster hits and winning personality, but because I will not only chronicle my legal battles with my former employer here for the world to see, or tell tales of how I almost died on a Caribbean Cruise, but I do what I am asked: make minimal waves.
Frankly, when I quietly appeared three months into IP’s existence (November 2004, for those playing along at home) I never thought I would have this big ol’ sexy column. Sure, I disappeared during the shoulder/disability crisis, but personal life can get in the way of the intraweb.
And like Fernandez and Cameron have told me, don’t get caught up in this crazy rollercoaster…take a seat on the bench a while and let others enjoy the ride for a bit.
On a Serious Note
Two weeks ago, I promised you a slew of reviews, and I have yet to deliver. The CDs are sitting just a few inches from my keyboard, and it’s been really hard to write. Not to dive too far into the realm of “blog” writing (which may or may not be happening with V3) but I have suffered a second-degree personal tragedy. It wasn’t my family or friends, but it was a close friend’s family. Make sense?
Every person has to take a step back and reprioritize at some point, and after a very close friend told me that her father had taken his own life, I have spent the better part of the last few weeks in shambles.
No, I didn’t know her father at all, and I feel selfish for feeling this way, but her father and I had something in common: we both suffer from bipolar disorder. I know that you might also hear the disease referred to as “manic depression,” because of the wild and seemingly irrational mood swings, but I prefer the term I used. I am Bipolar.
My father was bipolar, his father and brothers were bipolar.
There were quite a few times that we sat and talked about how she could reach out to him one moment and he was distant and angry, and the next he was the same happy-go-lucky man she had remembered, and how that made her feel unloved. It hurts to feel a rejection that someone doesn’t understand that they are giving off. Remember: parents are supposed to be the first true source of unconditional love for any child, regardless of whether or not it ends up that way. Life’s not easy for the sufferer or the people who get caught in their path during an episode.
Suicide is not the answer, and while I make light of many things, there is nothing funny about that.
If someone you know starts talking about taking their own life, tell someone or do something. If you don’t have the power to intercede on their behalf, find someone who does: a parent or guardian, even a counselor or R.A. for those still in college, and tell them. Sometimes, it is a phase, a passing thought or a phrase from someone who sincerely does not want a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Sometimes it isn’t, and it’s better to be wrong and have that person be upset, than to say nothing and think there was something you should have done.
The valley of pain over losing a friend, lover, best friend, or close family member through suicide is deep and treacherous.
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.:.Columns from the Week that Was!.:.
Gloomchen: Summertime Blues, News, and Views
Open Mike Eagle: Letters From Freakloud
Mathan: More Reasons Why Being Deaf Sucks/Rocks
The Ultimate Fighter coverage has been phenomenal here at Inside Pulse. Shelly goes above and beyond and really has a grasp of the fighters and the format of the show. I missed the first 43 minutes (!) of this week’s episode, so I was glad to see this today, if only to know what the hell “wifey” (that’s Native American for FRIEND!) was talking about. Who came back? Wait, what happened to Matt? Thank you, Shelly. Having you and Sick here has made the Pulse much more MMA centric.
Puroresu Pulse Issue 72. David Ditch is my guilty pleasure. It’s not his wit or his charm, it’s his love of Japanese Pro-Wrestling! With Gordi on a hiatus, Ditch fills a hole in my life that can’t be filled by Ring of Honor alone.
Cars– Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz writes a lot of reviews here at Inside Pulse. He’s concise and thorough, and this one made me want to go see Cars. So I will.
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Ssquared’s Music Pulse Hook-Up!
The Editors – “Munich”
I am so glad found this!
Enough kidding aside, I reviewed the Editors’ The Back Room last month, but hadn’t seen a video for them anywhere.
I guess I missed it, but you shouldn’t have to, dear readers. So here is another sample of this really great, hidden treasure sort of disc that you need to hear…yesterday.
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brought to you by Kingdom of Loathing
.:.Cutting to the Chase.:.
Maybe they don’t feel like cutting a rug, but– Ta-Dah!– the Scissor Sisters felt like cutting a new album. The glitter-tastic band’s sophomore effort, titled, yes, Ta-Dah, arrives in North America on September 26 (September 18 in the UK), on the heels of the leadoff single “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin'”, which appears internationally on September 4. The song is a collaboration between the band and one of their more obvious influences, Elton John.
Although the band has yet to reveal a complete tracklist, Ta-Dah will probably feature some of the new material that the Sisters have been performing live on stage all the way since Live 8 last year. According to Billboard.com, “Hairbaby”, “Monkey Baby”, “Paul McCartney”, “She’s My Man”, and “Everybody Wants the Same Thing,” are all likely candidates for the final track list. The band is also rumored to have collaborated with another one of their idols, Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry. So much fabulousness…I think I’m going to explode!
More information about Ta-Dah will appear on the band’s new website, which arrives on the interweb June 30.
(credit: Pitchfork.com)
Ta-Dah? Evidently, those other “Sisters,” the POINTERS, really did steal the name Whoopity Freakin’ Doo right out from under the unintentionally gayest act since the Village People. Sounded like a classic, but Ta-Dah! says so much more.
Man, that was insensitive.
Honestly, I have no problem with homosexuals at all. I find the Scissor Sisters to be very fun, and progressive, and light…in their loafers.
…
Talk about starting on a bad note.
.:.Cashing in from the “Great Beyond”.:.
As recently reported, the next chapter in Johnny Cash’s celebrated American Recordings series is nearing its summer release date– with American V: A Hundred Highways hitting stores on July 4. How appropriate for such a consummate American institution.
Once again produced by ZZ Top understudy Rick Rubin, the album will feature twelve selections taken from the country legend’s final 2003 recording sessions. The official tracklist has made its way into the Pitchfork inbox, via a recent press release from Lost Highway Records:
01 Help Me
02 God’s Gonna Cut You Down
03 Like the 309
04 If You Could Read My Mind
05 Further on up the Road
06 The Evening Train
07 I Came to Believe
08 Love’s Been Good to Me
09 A Legend in My Time
10 Rose of My Heart
11 Four Strong Winds
12 I’m Free From the Chain Gang Now
A less flashy batch of tunes than the previous American entry (which saw the Man in Black singing on such square-peg covers as “Personal Jesus” and a dazed Fiona Apple duet on “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), the record offers a genuinely warm epitaph to Cash’s influential career with weathered but spirited takes on Bruce Springsteen, Gordon Lightfoot, and Rod McKuen tunes, as well as his own “Like the 309”, which marks Cash’s last original composition put to tape.
As Rubin said in a previous statement about the collection, “These songs are Johnny’s final statement. They are the truest reflection of the music that was central to his life at the time. This is the music that Johnny wanted us to hear.”
(credit: Pitchfork.com)
Johnny Cash is the country artist that my white trash family “up north” didn’t like. They loved them some George Strait, though, so I really hope Rick Rubin doesn’t try and get together with him for some sessions.
.:. Murdered…in the parlor…with a Zombie?.:.
Hard rocker Rob Zombie who directed last year’s The Devil’s Rejects and 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses, has signed on to write, direct and produce a new Halloween movie for an expected October 2007 release. He will also act as music supervisor. Zombie says his take on the horror classic will make a complete break with the previous Halloween films. “Everything that has come before does not figure into this one,” Zombie told The Hollywood Reporter. “That series is done.” But there is one familiar element Zombie plans to retain: The signature Michael Myers mask.
(credit: RollingStone.com)
Zombie has since gone on the record that he is not planning on making Halloween 9, but will instead create a newer version of the origins of the fabled Myers. Bravo, Rob. Way to buck the system!
Hey, when Hollywood runs out of ideas for new movies, go to the guy that has recycled the same song for the past three albums! He seems like he’s got his finger on the pulse (pun not intended) of pop culture!
Hollywood and Rob Zombie = match made in Heaven!
.:.Strokin’ Vedder and Homme.:.
The Strokes have enlisted the help of Eddie Vedder and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme for a cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 hit, “Mercy Mercy Me.” The song will appear as the B-side to the Strokes’ upcoming single, “You Only Live Once,” expected to be released in July. Vocals on the B side are split between singer Julian Casablancas and Vedder, while Homme shares percussion duties with Strokes drummer Fabrizio Morretti. The band, currently on tour, recently shot the video for the single in Los Angeles.
(credit: RollingStone.com)
Well, at least all the stuff that PJ’s front man was doing with the Strokes here in New York makes sense. He was working with them…a bit of a vacation from the PJ monotony, and as long as he remains focused on rocking and having fun for the first time in 10-15 years now, things can only get better.
As for Homme, I find him a tad over-rated, but the Eagles of Death Metal’s last album was fun.
.:….And I Would Do Anything for Love, But I Can’t Stop Eating!.:.
Beefy arena-rock singer (and sometime actor) Meat Loaf has sold more than forty-eight million copies of his 1977 sophomore album, Bat Out of Hell, and the album’s 1993 sequel, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. Now, he feels like he deserves the rights to the album’s title. Meat Loaf (real name Michael Aday) has filed a lawsuit claiming that his name should be the only name associated with the phrase and music. In the suit, he seeks more than $50 million in damages from the song’s original scribe Jim Steinman and his own manager David Sonenberg, who he says have been disrupting the release of the third Bat Out of Hell album, due this year.
(credit: Rolling Stone.com)
If your manager is telling you not to put out the third Bat album there is a reason. It’s usually one of the following:
1) No one is going to care (i.e. “Who the ‘F’ is Meat Loaf?”)
2) Since you had prosthetic breasts in Fight Club, you grew them for real and it’s embarrassing.
3) It’s generally a bad idea, but you just don’t realize it…yet.
See, not everyone is out to get you, Mr. Loaf. Fans of SITASS (i.e. my mom and my Native American “friend” Chief Runs-Out-Of-Jokes) know that you can still hit that A above High C. You don’t have to prove it anymore, and after that dreadful performance with the McPheeverous One on Old White Folks Can’t Vote For An African-American Idol, you should keep this bat couped up in the belfry, sir.
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Check out the Archive or you can just click the individual reviews below:
The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers
The Submarines – Declare a New State!
Mabus – Cheers, To Doomsday Gloom
Thursday – A City By The Light Divided
Paatos – Silence of Another Kind
Def Leppard – Yeah!
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.:.Another Week, Another Legend.:.
Billy Preston, the gifted keyboardist who recorded with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and scored two of his own Number One hits, died of kidney failure in Scottsdale, Arizona, Tuesday at fifty-nine.
Preston worked with everyone from the Stones and Beatles to the “No Longer Red Hot” Chili Peppers.
A phenomenal talent that will surely be missed.
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I have had just about a week to reflect on Jeff Fernandez’ final Saturday Swindle Sheet. I was shocked that he broke this cute little team up, and out of respect for Jeff, I will not use the “Weekly Music Pulse” moniker again.
You will always be the Saturday lynch pin here in IP Music, and life got in the way of your awesomeness. Sure, Greg will be a fill-in who can garner an intelligent and rabid fanbase, but where are all the dick-and-fart jokes guys going to?
Where will I find out who 50 Cent looks like?
Actually, I have the answer right here. It came in an envelope with no return address, but I opened it right here in the Grace Chateau lobby.
(Seriously, Widro has the Mango, I live in a chateau…deal with it.)
50 Cent not only LOOKS like Mush Mouth (from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids) but he has the same “cake-hole full of marbles” approach to speech as well.
This was never meant to be high-art, but thanks Jeff for the “mammories.” There may never be another “Dramatis Personae,” but there’s always your archives!
Keep it real!
Ssquared
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