Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Everybody brought their helmets? Ok, here's the dooziest of doozies in my album collection:  I can't count all the times i haven't reviewed System Of A Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize. At least once in every major story arc, but probably more than that. How do you review it? How, Skip, how? It's worse than Year of the Black Rainbow or Automata. They hate LA, they hate war, they hate right-wing 'Merica, they hate the genocide of their people, and rightfully so on all those counts.  On the other hand, they are like one of the biggest illusion bands ever. I don't mean they are fake or worthy of derision, i just mean that their decade and a half of inactivity is purely about money and "creative differences." They still play big shows, they all want to make more music, just not each others' music, and they can't agree on how to pay each other. That all sounds suspiciously like they aren't actually friends anymore, more like childish grown ups kni

Alright crew. It's time to fix this thing for real. The governor of Georgia thinks DST shortens the actual amount of night time, the guy who loaded mulch into my car decided i get black instead of brown, it's sleeting in April, some people still think killing each other is the best way to stop people from killing each other, and i don't have any more bottles. Believe me, it hurts to exert this much authority, but... Skip. Make the first book look like the second book. 11pt Palantino, odd pages on the right, quadruple check the final pdf for pagination errors.  Compy. There's still false references in the first index, and the second index doesn't exist yet. Sandra. First cover is fine, second cover gets a red and yellow color scheme, 'cause somewhere out there there's a Russian mouse who will get the Use Your Illusion reference and giggle. Bridbrad. Stop pretending you aren't the narrator/writing writer of all this cosmic space fantasy war silliness. GREG

I've mentioned In Utero a couple times, so you already know A) it's the "adult" part of the Nirvana chronology and B) it's not supposed to be trendy mainstream music.  It is, by most any standards for music or lyrics, disgusting. I love it. There are lots of back and forth and contradictory stories about the whole process and their relationship with Albini, who i believe called them "REM with stomp boxes," but i think it boils down to three things: 1) Steve Albini didn't want anything to do with anyone who wasn't an actual member of Nirvana, 2) Nirvana hated Nevermind and being famous, and 3) Albini characterized every band he worked with as "losers at the mercy of their label." Regardless of what anyone says about it, these are song about what it was like to be Kurt Cobain, and he clearly didn't enjoy being him. The finished product has a lot of tweaking that Albini wasn't happy about, but it sure sounds like he just pointed a

Today we'll listen to Bernstein's 1979 Tokyo recording of Shostakovich #5. Is it proof of the rehabilitating force of the Communist Party, or the Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy segment of Ren & Stimpy? That, of course, depends on you. Our old friend Structuralism says it means all the meanings it is capable of meaning. Well, unless you're lying and it didn't actually mean what you said it meant for you. I know that's confusing, but remember that Shostakovich said whatever Shostakovich thought Stalin thought Shostakovich should be thinking and the actual truth of anything is completely absent.  At least WE can all agree what constitutes unpremeditated murder again. Good.

I'm in a weird mood. Let's listen to the score for the movie The Rocketeer. You've heard a lot of James Horner's music, but i thankfully don't remember this movie. I remember that Jennifer Connelly is in it. One thing i can tell you is this is exceedingly sappy, decidedly American Classical music. Like, even Copland and Groffé would make the "why's there Elmer's Glue in my mouth" face. It's very "Back to the Future Part III" to my mind. Sure there's mystery and romance and adventure, but in a nauseating way. Horner, like John Williams, had a tendency to straddle the "borrowing" fence a little to conspicuously for the legal teams of many estates, and reused his own themes enough for movie critics to notice, but we all know where commie indonesian lady Bottle's feelings tend to land in that game of lawn darts: i didn't ask for the stuff you did to get stuck in my brain, and it's not like i just photocopied your

S: Pssst. Pssssssst. Oi! Bottle!  B: Yes?  S: It's mid April.  B: So?  S: You told me to remind you, remember?  B: Did i? Whoa, watch where you're pointing those eyebrows. Gimme a second...carry the one...flip it and reverse it... oh, yeah! We're supposed to find out if that Christmas album by The Vandals works out of context. Fire up the old yuletube log.  Believe it or not, The Vandals have the same problem as Kansas. Remember how critics  hated Kansas for being Kansas, but hated then even more when they started being Foreigner instead? Well, for some reason that i can't understand, critics don't like The Vandals because they keep making music that focuses on juvenial humor. Guys, that's what this band is, that's their box of raisins. If you don't like it, stop reviewing their albums. If your review is "i don't like The Vandals," then my response is "why did you interrupt what i was doing to tell me that?"  Merry Christmas, here

The number of holes i dug today is ridiculously around a hundred. My whole body hurts. Rum and coke number two is gently fizzing, and my copy of Deltron 3030 is rotating. Glorious. Once upon a time, Ice Cube turned to his cousin and queried "Del, what the hell is a Funkee Homosapien?" Del probably had some crazy answer for him, but the real answer is that Del is THE funkee homosapien. As a kid he was super into computers and writing poetry, and when he heard Grandmaster Flash he said "that, that's the kind of poetry i want to write." He thinks rap is a legitimate art form, and he is prolific, to put it mildly. He formed this super group with Dan Tha Automator and Kid Koala. He wrote the entire concept album in less than 2 weeks. It's the story of a former mech warrior in the year 3030 who rap battles to defeat the corporate overlords who made rap illegal, but gets captured and has his memory erased. "Conscious Hip-Hop" might not be a familiar subge

Whoa whoa whoa whoa, we haven't listened to my favorite Mastodon album? Really? Oh, yeah, i know why. A) i never have much to say about stuff i really like, II) there's that highly uncomfortable issue of Brann's sister's less than intentional suicide (Brann himself is pretty sure she didn't realize the handful of pills would actually kill her), and Triangle) it's the Mastodon version of Rasputin. My wicked Caddyshack slice would have us debating that nasty bit of history where Lenin did a really bad job of reading Marx and somehow ended up being Jaime Lannister. I have in fact visited Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square, i rode an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, i have actual Russian street art i watched that guy paint and patiently waited for it to dry, and bought my dad a bottle of Stolichnaya at the duty free shop on the way home. So yeah, we'll just avoid all that and point out how frustrating it was to read 900,000 pages of Song of Ice an

I knew what this album review would be before i even finished ordering it: what's my album collection have to say about Brooklyn?  Well, the Beastie Boys say we can't sleep 'til we get there and have a fight or possibly play baseball with 3rd Bass, you can dial a 900 number to hear They Might Be Giants songs, Biohazard says be careful walking to the subway 'cause you might get shot, or possibly undead if Type O Negative's posse of vampires gets to you first, and now El-P tells me there's drones flying everywhere.  Google maps has some pictures of the pretty landmarks. It has its own bridge to Manhattan. Queens and the rest of Long Island to the east, where the Good Rats and Aesop Rock used to live.  What i didn't know was how well it would culminate the random string of albums from the weekend. Too well, it turns out, but we're here to review an album not psychoanalyze myself. Turns out we'll hear El-P psychoanalyze himself, his occupation, and his c

Comeback albums. Back in Black and Californication spring to my mind, but everybody probably has a list of their own. You know what's not on any of them? Marianne Faithfull's Broken English. It's a doozie of an album though.  She was a 60s pop idol, like Eric Burdon and Dio. She came from the Rolling Stones camp, she was Jagger's girlfriend, but she had a legitimate career with crossover hits. But, the drugs took their toll. She got noticeably raspy, and eventually anorexic, homeless, and heroin addicted. The preceding two albums were folk rock that nobody liked, she hired an aspiring producer who convinced her to go full on new wave synth punk by hiring Steve Winwood to keyboard all over it, and it's quite a shock to the system.  If Lord Sutch is my spirit animal, then this is definitely the Bottle of Beef soundtrack. It's not a concept album, but very clearly the concept is "you wanna know what i think? Never mind the bullocks, here's a little slice o

It was like the crime of the century how dirty this copy of Supertramp's Crime of the Century was. Still scratchy and in need of a deep clean, but it's at least listenable after a quick dawn bath. This is their third album after a lineup change and no longer being supported by a Dutch millionaire. They lived and made demos of 42 songs at a farmhouse in Dorset, and picked 8 for the album. It's not a concept, it's named after the final track, but there is a definite theme of being alone in your own insecurities, afraid of the wider world and what everybody else is thinking.  Their first two albums were panned for containing too much self indulgent instrumental music. That's nonsense in my book, but this is definitely a stellar album. I love Supertramp regardless, but there's an almost "psychological thriller" aura to the album. The band all felt like this was their creative peak, but they hadn't written Breakfast in America yet, so... The clash betwe

I needed to hear Vinyl Confessions for myself. Now that i have, i am completely convinced that Kerry Livgren was completely bat-shit insane. Hear me out, this is an important part of my much larger collection of containers with cow parts in them.  First, let's go back to Flyleaf.  I pointed out that that was a Jesus album that didn't actually have anything to do with actual Jesus. Guess what, neither does this Kansas album that Steve Walsh preemptively opted out of, and after which Robby Steinhardt said "yeah, me neither." Now, Christianity at large might have been totally different in the 70s, but to me it's no better or worse than other religions. Critics hated this album and the next one (and multiple band members quit) because they were "overtly Christian" and they might as well be Foreigner albums, but critics didn't like Kansas before these albums either. No Kansas album ever got great reviews in its first decade. I've said it multiple time

Wowzers, have i got an obscure album tonight. Even more obscure than Starcastle, if you can believe it. Here's the self titled debut by Trillion. Snow-leopard Cerberus doesn't lie, this is weird prog from Chicago, Illinois.  Prog rock has always been one of those give it a decade genres, but Trillion got 1 album and no proper follow up. They fired their singer then drifted off on various side paths. Patrick Leonard had the most prolofic career, cowriting and arranging most of Madonna's biggest early hits. This album, though, is high octane glam with enough twists and turns to make you deeply regret eating all that deep-fried carnival food before strapping into the Tilt-o-Whirl.  Let's talk about obscurity. It's a ridiculous concept, considering 100% of all bands start out as obscure. In fact, it's statistically bizarre to be famous. The industry cheats by spending millions of millions of dollars manufacturing that recognition, pretending that you should think th

[Yawn]  Welp, 11 hours of sleep seemed to do the trick. What's next for an album? The American version of Red Rider's first album, Don't Fight It? Ok, I won't.  Did he seriously just pronounce Somalia like it rhymes with Jambalaya? Yes, multiple times. Alright, i know i've experienced Red Rider backward, 3, 2, 1, what the hell am I listening to?  This is the weirdest conglomoration of New Wave, 80s Apartment Rock, and Alternative Arizona Troubador (think Dead Hot Workshop or Gin Blossoms). I know i said you can taste the neon rainbow, but even that doesn't do it justice. It's like the Miami Vice version of Jewell of the Nile inside Toto's Africa. One minute they're on a yacht, then they're at a corporate $1,000 a plate fundraiser dinner, then their Jeep is stuck in a mud pit for no reason. We could have just skipped the entire Sandra saga, and only listened to the title track.  Why did they shuffle the playlist and leave out Talking to Myself? So

I've been on an extended break. No particular reason, i just wasn't feeling it. I have a new record coming next week, but i bought a few old ones today. It's an interesting collection, for sure. In honor of feeling quite fragile after my second dose of coronavirus vaccine, yes, you guessed who right, it's Yes's Fragile. Even better, in honor of acquiring a new keyboardist who wasn't afraid of a little Moog, Yes made a Richard Wright style not a Pink Floyd album. Every member has a solo track, but the rest are group jams. They were crunched for money after buying Wakeman new gear, so they put the whole thing together quick as an experiment. Rick Wakeman was actually offered a spot in Yes and David Bowie's band on the same day, but in the end he decided he didn't want to play David Bowie songs every day for years.  Fragile isn't a concept per se, more like a conglomeration of coincidental feelings about the band. As for it merely being a technical show

Bottle wandered the hallways, lost in thought. Is it really over? Did i miss a thing? Watch out for that pothole. Did we already do it, or did i just imagine not having done it yet? I need a spin doctor, or something. The rest of his thoughts were somewhat less coherent, more flashing lights and pretty colors than actual grammatical sentences. There was a lot of snapping, though. Lost in his mind, he didn't seem to notice that every snap blinked another architectual anomoly into the wake of his existence. An escalator appeared, then a frighteningly ornate wood-framed mirror. A hallway that stretched as far as visible sight would allow, but almost certainly farther than that. From a distance, his path traced a giant spiral through space, as though his left leg were ever so imperceptably shorter than his right leg. Suddenly he stopped and turned back to retrace his steps, when a voice stopped him again. "Hey, mister. Where are you headed?" Without so much as a blink of a p