Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

I know what we should do. We should listen to some weird obscure stuff that i have on various dubbed cds. We won't dive straight into the deep end, we'll start with Mr. 76ix's 3 (Minority of 1). Truth in advertising, it's his 3rd album. If you're totally new to electronic music, it doesn't tell you how to feel. This might sound like 52 minutes of gibberish broken into 18 completely arbitrary tracks, but what if it isn't? What if it's 18 pieces of electronic music that are stitched together to form a 52 minute stream of consciousness? No, no, i can see your face, it's clearly still gibberish. Ok. For the sake of argument, let's say there isn't any rule that says the various sounds have to interact with each other in traditional ways. They can do their own thing, other stuff can interact and/or interfere, 3 or 9 different meters can be happening at the same time, pretty sounds and scary sounds and annoying sounds can occur in rapid succession. ...

There are great Iron Maiden albums, there are terrible Iron Maiden albums, and somewhere in the middle they made Fear Of The Dark right before Bruce Dickenson quit for a while. I'm not sure i feel either way about it. It doesn't suck, but it's a little too all over the place to be satisfying. The title track is obviously a classic, and there are some fantastic instrumental sections (and the guitar tones are gorgeous in my opinion), but it's really just 12 random Iron Maiden songs about soccer hooligans, AIDS, the Gulf War, being framed for murder, dying and coming back as a ghost, you know random Iron Maiden stuff. I suppose it's all sort of loosely about fragile mental states, but not in any coherent way. It's too eclectic in my book. Don't get me wrong, i thoroughly enjoy most every song (The Apparition gets quite tedious), but as an experience it's about 10 minutes too long and none of it flows. I feel like there's 3 EPs hiding in here, but i woul...

Fall Out Boy certainly has a lot of things they do that could technically qualify as gimmicks, but is their sophomore album Under The Cork Tree middle of the road, forgettable pop-punk? No. I get that there were tons of bands flooding the market at the time, and i get that critical response has more to do with looking good in 6 months than having actual opinions, but this is way better than Brendan Urie, or the favorite comparisons Jimmy Eat World and All American Rejects. The latter bands had two good songs each and disappeared from mainstream consciousness like they should have. Here's the thing, you don't realize this is 2005 Fall Out Boy, not 2013 Fall Out Boy. This is some standout stuff from the decade of dismal.  I know i've talked about this before, but the mid to late 90s so totally warped everyone's perception because fringe rock was the mainstream. It went back to the fringe in the 00s. You hear big radio hooks now, but this wasn't in standard rotation ba...

Welcome to the disclaimer. We all remember The Offspring morphing into the cheesy pop-hop prankster image ensemble they became, and Ixnay on the Hombre has the first hints of that transition, but it's still a good album. It's structured the same as Smash, and the concept is somewhat similar. Smash was wrapped in the humorous enjoyment of the album with an adult beverage as an intellectually stimulating art experience (you know, like i do), and Ixnay extends that to another thing i like to do: lecture on the experience of life from a personal perspective. It might be completely disagreeable to you, and you are welcome to go away if you can't find some way to engage with it. It also tests your irony muscles. The beauty in The Offspring is that they neither telegraph their sarcasm, nor clarify afterward. That's actually hard to accomplish. You can listen to the whole thing either way and it gives some rewarding perspectives. It also has a bunch of my own personal philosoph...

Touch your nose and blow your toes, it's Thanksgiving. It's on a Thursday again this year, what are the chances? I could obviously just repost last year's blurb about Alice's Restaurant, but i thought it might be more fun to do a proper analysis of the album. Not the song, the album. It's actually quite fascinating, because the whole concept of the album is that you only care about Alice's Restaurant, you only bought it to hear Alice's Restaurant, and that's as good a reason as any for Harold Leventhal to tell "the story of Arlo Guthrie."  It's a great story in its own right, a little biography, some evidence that he's a lovably funny character, a nice little mention of the practicality of what an agent actually does (send letters and call people to get real gigs for musicians). And the moral of the story deserves a quote: "This record will give many people a chance to hear some of Arlo's other talents. I think they'll be i...

I don't have wordy words about things and stuff, i just wanted to hear some Vivaldi Concertos. He was music master of the Ospedale della Pietà for orphaned girls in Venice. Thus, Vivaldi wrote all sorts of stuff for random and now long gone instruments, and for varying abilities. This recording is interesting because Bernstein plays Harpsichord and the violinist is another famous composer, John Corigliano.  Quite lovely.

Speaking of interesting concepts, here's Songs For The Deaf, it's the one with Dave Grohl sitting in as drummer (they met when Homme was still in Kyuss). Lots of people do the changing radio stations thing (Rob Zombie, for example), but Josh Homme brought in celebrity guest DJs to narrate this conceptual drive from LA to Joshua Tree. This is kind of the biggest and lastest first stage Queens of the Stone Age album (Homme calls them a trilogy of not being Kyuss, doing more of that, and finally getting it right). It's heavy and creepy. Not so much evil, but creepy. Desert stoner rock/metal. A lot of the songs came from Desert Sessions (that's the side project where Homme just invites friends out to his studio to just create music for music's sake). The radio concept is nice because it means different things for everybody. For Homme it's the way all the disparate styles they were going for fit together fluidly, for Oliveri it's making fun of how radio stations ...

Dear my friends,  I imagine everyone's first impression of Coheed & Cambria is something along the lines of "what the bloody hell am i listening to?" Then you learn that the whole thing is Claudio's comic book scifi-saga, and you're still like, "no, but this isn't how words work. I can't tell what's a noun vs a pronoun or even a verb, which character is talking at any given moment, how the hell does he play and sing this prog-tastic insanity at the same time?" I've read a big chunk of The Amory Wars, and i still don't know. It's insane, the first album is part 3, there's a prequel hiding in the middle of their discography, they write a little note at the end of Three Evils reminding you that it's a story not an actual suicide note. They write some super-freakin catchy stuff and that totally belies how brutal and terrifying the whole thing is. What's a Newo? Who/what are the Prise. Those interludes sound ghastly. An...

Welcome to the inevitable downside of the reopening of 'Murica. How fitting that i find another Joe Cocker album for the occasion. It's his sophomore exclamation point. I mean, Feliciano wore it first a year earlier, but we aren't here to cat call the catwalk. We're here to listen to a spastic British curmudgeon belt out his versions of other peoples' songs. Yeah, no, how interesting that the Cuban Jazz guitarist and British Blues singer both yell their names at you. But you know what i hear? It's a word i've used before. That word is "authentic." Disregarding the self titled second album (a fashion faux pas to be sure), there is nothing questionable about it. You might ask why he chose that particular song by that particular songwriter, but you definitely can't say that there is any other way that Joe Cocker could possibly sing it. Joe Cocker is not Barbra Streisand, he's not making choices; Joe Cocker walks up to the microphone and has an...

What a bizarre sight indeed to watch Bottle and GREGORY walking down the empty corridor toward the Bunker of Beef. One might liken it to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito, or Gandalf and Bilbo, or even the obvious Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, but let us not romanticize the image too much: a bumbling short guy and a 6+ foot tall anthropomorphic skeleton don't really need any further contextualization to fully inhabit their peculiar proximity.  You really think they missed me?  OF COURSE. WITHOUT YOU THEY HAVE NO DIRECTION, NO PURPOSE, NO RAISINS TO EAT.  Hey, that's my line. Anyway, i still don't know what to do next.  HAS THAT EVER STOPPED YOU BEFORE?  Touché. I guess i'll just keep winging it like i always did. I assume you'll go back to just snarling and hiding in the closet?  OF COURSE, THAT IS MY FUNCTION.  Well, it's been something, i'm still working on that piano for you. Can you try banging up some drum beats for me?  I'LL SE...

Ok, i've finished gluing all the pieces back together. Let's see if he holds water. Glug, glug, glug, glug. So far so good. Yes, i think he's ready. We'll just put the top back on. There. How do you feel, Bottle?  With my fingertips.  See, good as new. Should be fine as long as you keep him away from high heat. Anything else i can do for you Mr. GREGORY?  NO. THAT IS ALL. THANK YOU MR. ROBIN.  Sorry, i must have dozed off. Where's this bus headed?  Do you remember what you were doing before you don't remember being here Bottle?  First, who the hell are you? Second, why are you asking the right questions? Third, are we in the THX 1138 white room prison?  Now Bottle, those are obviously rhetorical questions, and you asked them in the wrong order.  No. Skullboy will back me up on this, i asked them in order of increasing importance to me. I don't respect authority, i'm super confused when people who aren't me have a firm grasp on implied reality, and...

Has anybody seen Bottle? He's not in his office, or his other office.  No, i thought he was with you.  Two days ago we were listening to greatest hits albums, but i haven't seen him since then. New reviews, Skip?  No, my inbox is empty. He shared that Ebow on Dobro thing last night, so he was near a computer, but nothing new to spellcheck. Maybe he saw a butterfly or went for a jog or something. He does seem restless lately.  Check the Gallery. Sometimes he just paces the halls and admires his braindiwork.  I think it's more serious than a nostalgia trip can cure. Search party. Everybody pick a hallway and always veer left. Shout if you find him. And check the electrical sockets for scorch marks. He's been casually mentioning being real again.  Oh, that's just what he says when he's not feeling on top of everything. I wouldn't worry. Then again, that thing you're doing with your eyebrows tells me a walk would be good for my health. We'll see what C s...

Why do you dislike Greatest Hits albums, Bottle? Because it's a dumb concept. You know that band you love? Well, here's most of the songs you already know you like! Or, we can't afford to keep publishing their back catalogue! Or, you've heard OF them, they're famous, here's all the songs you need to fake a conversation at a party you didn't want to attend! They never flow, they sound like a slapdash mix tape, any new songs aren't strong enough to build a new album. This isn't the 50s, Sandra.  But you do have a lot of them. Of course i do. I either couldn't afford to buy all their albums the first time around, or i wouldn't want to. You could argue that's how they get you, but just because the concept is dumb doesn't mean i can't like their hit songs. Most of the time, though, it feels like channel surfing, so you have to be picky.  Ok, what's your favorite? The best of the worst of the best? It just so happens i can honestly ...

See, told you i'd wake up again today. Remember that time Metallica lost the Grammy to Jethro Tull? We aren't listening to that album, we're listening to Aqualung, but that particular injustice led to finally separating the hard rock and metal categories and there was eventually justice for all. It was great, Jethro Tull took out a full page ad proclaiming flute a heavy metal instrument and Metallica added a sticker saying Grammy Award LOSERS, and the academy was completely embarrassed. I'm not a voting producer because as Groucho Marx so eloquently put it, i refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.  Before all that, Jethro Tull made a few Prog albums and Aqualung was the first. They weren't trying to make a concept album, but they ended up putting the concept right there on the back of the jacket.  The two sides are subtitled Aqualung and My God, and the whole thing is a contemplation of society creating both its dregs and gods. Intended or not, that...

The story of Beat Street is mildly confusing to me. As far as i understand it, Henry Small showed up to make his 2nd Prism album (Ron Tabak got fired somewhere in the past), only to find out that the rest of the band had already quit. Their producer owned the name Prism, so they just made a Henry Small solo album with session musicians. So, bizarro Pink Floyd.  Call me crazy, but standing on the corner at night with an electric guitar slung across your back seems like a great way to get mugged. Then again, we're in Canada. Maybe they don't have muggings up there. I don't know.  Critics say "hey, wait a minute, this isn't wacky synthy arena rock." Again, i don't know, i haven't heard it yet. What i do know is that i'm not good at picking out random records. There's probably a good reason why i imagineered the Compiler up. Welp, time for Darth Bottle to get what's coming to him.  Huh? Nightmare doesn't suck. The title track is pop, but th...

Red Rider again? The album WITH Lunatic Fringe? Ok, blame Canada, i guess. With a name like As Far As Siam, it's not going to be amazing. Obviously it will be undeniably 80s, but if Neruda was what they made after their one fluke hit, then there's no reason to expect the album that random one hit came from to be consistent...  ... and my goodness that's a bit too much country for a Canadian rock band. But, i expected it to suck, so it's a tiny bit better than i expected. Here's the thing, you honestly had no idea that Lunatic Fringe was about the appalling wave of anti-semitism that resurged in the 70s. Knowing that kind of makes the concept of "cowboys in Hong Kong" seem a little ironic. Not ironic in the Alanis Morissette coincidental ennui sense, or the Celine Dion "ironical" sense, but in the Iggy Pop/David Bowie China Girl sense. Luckily, the rest of the album is terrible enough to render that tumor completely benign. Terrible album, throw i...

Yes, i am fully aware that you are loco, and no i don't particularly want to eat a bowl of dick up. Is it wrong to listen to Cypress Hill's Black Sunday on a Friday?  Now, most rappers will try to diversify and rap about all sorts of stuff. Not Cypress Hill. Gun fights and legalizing marijuana, that's it. They are on message all day, all night, 100%. Looped bass line, simple drum pattern, one or two great samples, rap about pot and getting shot; one, the other, both at the same time. If you like variety, Cypress Hill is not for you. But here's the thing, the songs are good. Sen Dog and B-Real have great flows, they aren't cruising for trouble, life's just stupid violent in southern California. They're the first famous Latin American rap group. Will it make you like hip-hop if you don't? No. Is it better than all the other Cypress Hill albums? Probably yes. Does it have anything to do with the actual 1935 dust storm of the same name? No, unless you've...

Serious? That's it? You're just gonna flip the switch and walk away? Leave it all behind? Look at all the awesome stuff we accomplished Bottle. What will Marvin and The Compiler do? We're all just supposed to sit here and wait for GREGORY to eat us? Dang me, Sandra, i don't know. I was just chug-a-luggin' away from the orange nightmare. I assume he cornered p(nmi)t in a dark alley and chopped his head off or something. I don't think Bridbrad and Gladys are coming back either, and i've used up most of my rage-o-hol. Who's gonna worry if Bottle doesn't come home tonight? I'm pretty terrible, you know. You squares make the world go round, not Bottle. It takes all kinds to make a world, Bottle. That's why we love you like we do. We all feel lonesome and miserable sometimes, i mean not usually because things are slowly improving again, but we get it. You can't give up for real. Sure i can, but i hear you. I just don't know what else to do ...

No joke, i'm at a loss as to what to write about anything. So we'll just listen to Meat Puppets. Too High To Die was their mainstream breakthrough, and with No Joke they happily crawled back underground. I never have much to say about stuff i really like anyway, so just enjoy this bizarre country meets stoner metal approach to mid 90s alternative noise rock. It's Meat Puppets, you should just expect weird and all over the place. Great songs though. Go enjoy it while i figure out who to be anymore. Toodles.

Don't be mad 'cause i'm doin' me better than you doin' you. I got a raise today. Not a secret strings attached raise, a proper keep doing a great job for more money raise. So, obviously i went on a great hip-hop binge. Childish Gambino, Run The Jewels, Geto Boys, Gravediggaz (i love horror core, no surprise), and then i thought "what's a great album from a terrible rap group?"  I have an album for that! Here's The Great Milenko from Insane Clown Posse. No, we aren't going to learn how magnets work, but we do get an intro from Alice Cooper. I'm sure you all know ICP is a concept group like Coheed & Cambria, or Mac Sabbath. They are insane clowns in an evil carnival from the Netherworld. Each album is centered around the arrival of a new character from the carnival. Milenko is kind of like the Ghost of Christmas Future, all the songs are kind of getting what's coming to you fables. Obviously the whole thing fizzled out into nonsense b...

Suddenly it came to me, we did the bookends of my Bad Religion collection, but what about the middle? Recipe for Hate, Stranger Than Fiction, and No Substance are my favorites after all. Why? Because the songs are great. I don't think i could really tell a story with them, and i certainly can't review them. They are so ingrained in my brain that i can't tell the difference between them and myself. I could tell meandering anecdotes, i guess. Nah, we'll just leave it at they are my favorite. I shouldn't have to explain why. I'm allowed to just like stuff. The sarcasm is probably a big part of it. And the abject refusal to recognize authority. Oh, and i really like that idea that we are all a microcosm of the human race. Plus the idea that the real, ugly, mundane world is more important than idealism and ideology, that really seeing the terrible stuff is how you develop compassion, that life isn't striving for an image, it's the living it. No matter how muc...

$23 Adventure Time, part 4/4 So, what do we do after the fire? We listen to After The Fire's compilation album Der Kommissar. In the US it was simply called ATF, and very confusingly reused the cover art from their 3rd album Batteries Not Included, but the whole point was to release their translated cover of Falco's Der Kommissar in album rather than single form. This isn't my normal album review, it's more a "meta" interlude in a much larger train of thought. See, 3/4 of the albums C-the-ball-be-the-ball picked happened to be synth heavy new wave. Plus, i'm about to take a break from album reviews, and invite you to actually read Das Kapital with me.  Everything alright, officer? I assure you it won't be as unpleasant as you think it might be,  much like this album. If you think After The Fire is a one hit wonder, you might be surprised that there's absolutely no reason why they should be, this is lovely even if it is a compilation for the sake of...

$23 Adventure Time, part 3/4 If we were playing the standard Sesame Street game One of These Things Is Not Like The Others, you wouldn't even need to know the fourth album to know that the lower left hand corner is the answer (coincidentally where i seem to fall on the political compass; i'm quite a bit more anarchic than Ghandi).  Steam Powered Dildo is an awesome name for a band, but ABC is not Bottle of Beef so Becker and Fagan went with Burroughs' name for it, Steely Dan. Here's their 3rd album, Pretzel Logic. It's a 5-star album across the board. The only criticism of the album is that most people don't have a clue what any of it's about, but when has that ever mattered? The point is that this is one of the few jazz-rock albums where no one can find any sort of pretension or insult lurking beneath the surface. They certainly aren't trying to call you an idiot for not "getting it." Jay Black famously likened them to the Charleses Manson and...

$23 Adventure Time, part 2/4 I'm a man at work, i deal with cargo, Lance may not want it anymore, but i can't not buy it. Cargo is the second Men At Work album, the one they made after the first one we listened to a year ago. Is Colin Hay still quirky? Only one way to find out. Oh yeah, just wonderful. Men At Work is the Australian equivalent of The Cars (even a couple of Elliot, sorry Ron Strykert, songs), but with a definite Elvis Costello quality all around (critics would say Sting/The Police, and sure i can hear it too, but it's way more Elvis Costello to me). This album has the standard bipolar critical response. Some say it lacks the punch of the big debut singles but the album as a whole is better, others say it's an REO Speedwagon album (two hit songs and a bunch of pointless filler). Ummmmm, yeah, I'm gonna totally be that guy and remind you it's called Cargo, as in "here, i brought you all this stuff, get it off my truck and deal with it yourself....

$23 Adventure Time, Part 1/4 To paraphrase the poetress of our modern age, we are living in a material world, and i'm an immaterial girl.  Life's Hard and Then You Die is the first album by It's Immaterial.  But who's it by? It's immaterial. No seriously, tell me who made it. The band's name is It's Immaterial. Oh, ok, thank you for grammatically clarifying that for me. You're welcome. These gentlemen are from Liverpool, and the back of the jacket has a photo of a man spraying a flammable liquid from his mouth onto a flaming torch in front of another man with a bucket on his head. I don't care what it turns out to be, i can't not buy it and listen to it. Get in your car? You betcha! 30 miles or more seems kind of arbitrary, but i'm in for the long haul and i don't mind ridiculous. It's suspiciously Talking Heads-ish, but it's only the first track. Perhaps a bit of an ellipsis is in order... ... song about quitting being a tupperwa...

I gave C-lab2021 very explicit instructions this afternoon, and boy did he deliver a doozie of an adventure time. Those instructions were "pick albums by title that Bottle would say "i don't care what it turns out to be, i can't not buy that." $23 dollars later he somehow picked a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and a graduation montage by total coincidence.  Now, i'm not one of those people who won't tell you they voted for Biden because A) that's not shocking at all and you knew i was going to, B) i've been begging you all to come assassinate me for years, and C) i don't want Trump to be president but Bruce Willis still hasn't time traveled back to correct it (yay! a 12 Monkeys reference).  I also don't want to just blow through them all in one go, even though we all know i totally do want to, and also not be near a tv or radio from now until next Thursday. We'll compromise and do the next 4 posts as a serial. If you want to get...

It's time to Check Your Head. It's the third Beastie Boys album, and it's their return to being a band. It's not really hardcore like they started out, it's not alternative rock like everyone calls it, this is a specifically hip hop band. That's surprisingly unique, and there aren't any others i can think of off the top of my head. Lots of collaborations, but nothing so self contained. Believe it or not, this is a golden age structured album. A mix of songs and interludes, a real back and forth between the sampling and band, silly and serious, all of it designed to get your head bobbing. The album is an audio block party, something for everybody to enjoy.  Christgau called it a great concept with "half there execution," like they were Sexual Chocolate or p(nmi)t's Audiodetritus or something. I disagree for the simple reason that he is only comparing them to an idealized image of big business mainstream, and his judgement is based on the suppose...