Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Tonic sounds like an alternate universe where Pearl Jam and Live broke up and the 4 members who refused to move back in with their parents formed a new band. Or maybe if Molly's Yes had actually cracked the mainstream. If Alternative could have a Butt Rock contingent, Tonic would be that. "Nothing but Alt-Rock filler, it's a 12-way tie for 4th place!" That sounds like a negative criticism, but i don't mean it that way. I quite enjoy Lemon Parade, but even though Lemon Parade is an official Platinum Album, i also wouldn't call them essential. No one's going to act incredulous if you've never heard of Tonic.  What's a more controversial way to say it? Ok, i know, Celtic Rock has a good side and a bad side. I don't know that Tonic ever thought of themselves as a Celtic Rock band, but their music has a very inauthentic Celtic Rock flavor profile, like "maple flavored" pancake syrup or "chocolate flavored" cupcake icing. Most cri...

Grouper. Not the fish, the musical pseudonym of Oregon multi-media artist Liz Harris. She grew up in a cult. As far as i can tell it's not a particularly malevolent cult, its main attributes appear to be esotetic pretentiousness and "dances." Look, from what i've read about Fourth Way it's basically everything i've ever said: focus on where you are and which direction you're going. You can't really control what direction that is, so just really focus and adapt. Basically, live intentionally. My way you don't have to hide in a commune or ironically deify your leader. If i'm your leader, you've got way bigger problems than imagining that the universe obeys the fundamental nature of a piano keyboard can solve. That's the Law of Seven in a nutcase, i mean shell. You do you. The second cosmic law is the Law of Three, but that's so banal i can't even justify making fun of it. You don't gots to travel to the mystical magical east t...

I started out doing a snarky gloomy review just to finish out the list, but it's such a lovely morning and the self-titled debut from Fountains of Wayne is such a great album that i have no gloom left with which to doom us. Instead we'll lose the monkey and not slouch so much.  Radiation Vibe after Lit's A Place In The Sun, that's pretty good unintentional review flow. Fountains of Wayne is not from Indiana, they're from NYC and it was the name of a lawn ornament store in New Jersey. They considered lots of other silly names, but eventually everyone accepted it.  Oh yeah, i honestly forgot how good their self-titled debut is. Sadly, we lost Adam to Covid, but i don't think he'd want us to dwell on that. This, to me, is proper Power Pop. It's happy, it's fun, Alt-Rock was the mainstream at the time, and these guys are just so nerdily likable. It also doesn't have Stacey's Mom on it, because that was from their 3rd album in 2003, but it does ha...

Please tell me pi. I think it's 3.1415926535.... i always thought that would be the perfect Bill Nye The Science Guy music video spoof, but i neither wrote for that show nor paid their licensing fees, so that sadly never happened.  Fun fact, Lit's 2nd album, A Place In The Sun, was released the day before my 19th birthday. Also fun fact, i know exactly why i was sleeping with my clothes on every single time. I was too tired to care. Bowling alleys. I dunno. This is the first one of these albums i haven't actually listened to all the way through because we all knew they would be a one hit wonder. Will it be the first not good album of the week (Oleander was still a good album even if i didn't like it that much)? Allmusic said they were definitely not better than Better Than Ezra, as well as much less than Less than Jake. So, thank you for that clairvoyant Bottle-style grammatical humor opportunity, but let's find out for ourselves.  Judging by the cover, the place th...

Bahahahaha! Fever In Fever Out is next. I assure you, i did not assemble the list we're following on purpose. Don't feel bad if you aren't noticing the coincidences, it's a me thing.  Luscious Jackson (it came from hearing a sportscaster mispronounce the basketball player's name) was a female Alt-Rock/Hip-Hop band. Not many people seem to know this, but Kate Schellenbach was a founding member, aka the original drummer, for the Beastie Boys. Luscious Jackson's first gig was opening for said Beastish Boys, and they were not surprisingly the first band the Beastlike Boys signed to their new label Grand Royal. The label only lasted 9 years because the Beastesque Boys couldn't afford the mounting debt the label generated.  That brings up an interesting phenomenon that many people also don't understand. I know because all day every day i hear and read people loudly not understand it. You can't be a person and a business at the same time, money-wise. As a p...

Now we'll climb out of the hole of disturbing behavior and ask Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?  If you remember Harvey Danger at all it's because Flagpole Sitta was the promo music for the movie Disturbing Behavior. Don't make that face, you remember, "paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get meeeeee....." These guys never set out to get famous, and all things considered they didn't, so success!  I kid, what really happened was they recorded a few songs and shopped those cassette tapes around. An intern heard one of those tapes and said "i want to put out a full album by these guys." They gathered up all those early recordings, rerecording only cost about $3,000, and people actually liked it. By the end of 1997, though, sales slowed and the band was ready to break up. Then they put that song in that movie and presto chango. Harvey Danger did make a second album, but it got lost in label limbo in the midst of lots of corporate legal bafo...

We're stretching the boundaries of the post-Cobain era by including his wife's 2nd album from 93/94. Totally fine, they're guidelines not rules. What actually matters was that i immensely enjoyed this album back when it came out, at one time i could play every single song and more, but i haven't sat down and listened to it in a loooooong time. Not sure why i don't have it anymore (i assume i sold it for $5), but i do wonder if it's still as good as i remember.  Whatever you think about Courtney Love, just keep in mind that the standard mansplanation is that Curt actually wrote this album. First of all, who cares? Lots of people wrote other peoples' albums, and lots of people never get credit for things. I don't think he wrote any of these songs because she was constantly telling her audience which songs he did write. Second of all, the only possible motivations for saying that are negative and misogynistic, so [toilet flush sound effect]. You know someth...

Stop the presses! Cut to Mark and Rebecca in the studio! We interrupt your regularly scheduled late 90s slacker Alt-Rock things we sort of remember to bring you the most "da fuck?" album we here at Bottle of Beef have ever laid eyes on. Way back in 1990 Sony let Mark Knoppfler produce a duet album with Chet Atkins called Neck and Neck. No, i didn't have a stroke, i'm holding it in my hand.  I thought i had a second stroke when i heard Chet Atkins say "you got your money and your chicks for free." Jesus "name in vain" Christ, he also says "pretty good, but you're no Mark Knoppfler." Vince Gill had nothing better to do that day than sing background vocals, and there's a Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grapelli cover? Why is this album this good? Seriously, why?  Don't get me wrong, it's cheesy as all get out, and Country as Fred Ziffel taking his straw hat off to Mrs. Douglas while he scolds Arnold the Pig, but jeez it's a pur...

What a coincidence, i'm a February Son and so is Oleander's 2nd album. I actually remember the first time i heard Why I'm Here on the radio in my '77 Chevy van in the parking lot of a coffee shop in Bethany. Is the album still listenable 23 years later? I guess you and i will both find out.  The core sentiment here is clearly defined. I don't want to hate everybody, but it's already too late and i hate everybody. Yeah, that's about the gist of it.  The first thing you'll notice though is that this is a whole lot slicker than Local H; the spendy-time string section is a pretty dead giveaway. That's not bad, but it is a thing we have to navigate if we're talking about some sort of real world v. some sort of facade populated by posers. I don't buy that argument and i'll tell you why, it sounds good. Fun fact, same producer as Local H, Steven Haigler, but 3 years later. At the end of the day, no producer or engineer sets out to hack together ...

Welcome to the mid to late 90s. Long before 21 Pilots or the White Stripes, but not quite as long ago as the Carpenters, there was the remnants of a full band called Local H. After the other two guys quit, Scott and Joe said "screw it, we'll just be a drum/guitar duo." I'm not sure if that's keeping or not keeping it copacetic, and i'm equally not sure if they ever gave each other a high-five, but i think the results speak for themselves. Here's their second album As Good As Dead.  Oh, yeah, this is actually a great place to start. See, we hated a lot of things about life in the 90s. The consensus was we were just losers with chips on our shoulders who hated "success," but that's about the least amount of effort you can put into analyzing the phenomenon.  Right off the bat, we didn't necessarily hate high fives and steroids and monster trucks as things, we hated the guys who wanted to high five each other for taking steroids and being sup...

I used to have a copy of the first Foo Fighters album (i wish i hadn't sold it over a decade ago), and now with the untimely passing of Taylor Hawkins i have a copy of what i will consider their last. Not gonna lie, after The Color and the Shape i haven't heard any of their albums. Let's see what happens if we feed the Mogwai Medicine At Midnight.  Right off the bat, there's something about the first few tracks that i can only describe as: i wouldn't be surprised to learn that Prince wrote all of these songs a year or so before he died. Obviously he didn't, i just have that feeling while listening to it. It's not surprising considering Foo Fighters cover all sorts of Prince songs, and even Chris Cornell did his version of the quintessential "Prince wrote that? Yeah, that makes sense" song Nothing Compares To You. Even if there isn't an actual word for that feeling, it's tangible in my mind.  I didn't actually review Nowhere Generation b...

I think, yesterday we'll listen to Underoath. They have a fascinating backstory.  No joke, Underoath started out as a Christian Black/Death Metal band. After a lot of lineup changes and 1 album with no original members whatsoever they all kind of realized the Christian music scene was just about the most horrible place they could imagine themselves being, so they said "yeah, we're not that anymore." Now they're just an EmoCore band and i can totally respect that. Don't thank me, thank Fat Mike. He treated them like people who matter by good naturedly ribbing them the way actual friends do. Not just Underoath either, Fat Mike has done some incredible work with all sorts of no fun to be around bands, Paramore even. I've implied it a thousand times, and i'll unsubtlely remind you any chance i get, if your ideology teaches you to treat the non-believers like garbage, then you are no fun to be around and you are the one who should leave. I hold myself accou...

Bottle battles the bargain bin 'bums he bought.  Never thought i'd see it, a whole shelf of perfectly new records on clearance at under $7 a piece. Most of them even i couldn't actually buy for a laugh: random Christmas albums, songs from The Proud Family, Lady Gaga, you get the idea. I did find 4 that have every possibility of being tolerable, but i honestly probably wouldn't ever pay full price for any of them. 4 albums i only bought because they were corporate clearance level cheap. Geronimo.  We could start anywhere, but since Rage Against The Machine just reunited after over a decade it seems unavoidable that we'll fly this spaceship straight up the nose of Chris Cornell's posthumously released (and bracingly unsubtle) No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1. On paper i'm probably supposed to hate it, but i have a feeling i won't. To be clear, this is Johnny Cash's American Recordings, only Chris is the one singing songs no one would expect Chris ...

I like to joke about Bottle's Taxonomy of Music, but i'll just let you search through the posts at albumsforeternity.blogspot.com (it's real easy, just use the magnifying glass/search bar). The important thing for tonight's review is that track-2 cool-downs are terrible. You know who knows better? My penpals, the Vests, as doubleVee.  I have never met Barb and Allen, but they are both a part of the fabric of my existence through no actual fault of their own. Allen, of course, fronted one of my favorite bands in the universe, Starlight Mints. Apologies in advance for how long it will take to get to the actual album, but i figured story time is much more interesting than whatever convolutedly creative way i come up with to say "it's freakin' awesome."  My friend Stephen Hughes had an extra ticket to see Flaming Lips at whatever they called that building to the northeast of the minor league ballpark in Bricktown (Coca-Cola Colosseum, or who cares), and he...

You know how some people have a skewed perception of history that conflates things that couldn't possibly have happened at the same time? You know, like humans and dinosaurs or Karl Marx and the Soviet Union. Well, i often have sort of the opposite problem. Case in point, Glen Campbell and Tennessee Ernie Ford couldn't possibly exist at the same time in my brain. Yet here they are, making a surprisingly awesome album together.  The joke of course should be Ernie Sings (some real cringe songs) & Glen Picks (his nose), but my ear holes are receiving the exact opposite. You should already know i love Ernie, but you should also know that Glen Campbell is a totally underrated guitar player. Total dork, absolutely, but listening to him overdub wonky-bendy solos over chords and upright bass is an absolute joy.  You might not believe me, but Ernie Sings & Glen Picks is an honest to amazingnessly good concept album. The concept is "Simplicity in music is a rarity to be cher...

I knew there was a reason i was procrastinating reviewing Dragged Under's sophomore album, i just didn't know what it was. I do know why i haven't officially reviewed their first album. It's because that first album is mired in the troubled transition from Rest, Repose to Dragged Under. I like The World Is In Your Way very much, but l also know that Tony and Fluff understand the demographic i represent because they directly addressed it in interviews. Rest, Repose felt like pulling teeth (that's foreshadowing) for them because A) it was a completely DIY slog through wishy washyness, frustrating lineup changes, and a hung jury on whether or not everyone actually wanted to full-on tour, and B) all that for something that really didn't feel true to themselves. I get it, Rest, Repose was definitely not exciting big-crowd concert material. Dragged Under's mashup of Metalcore with catchy-as-hell Pop-Punk choruses certainly is. I also get the feeling that you'r...

Eddie: Anybody wanna hear "Louis Louis?"  Crowd: Fuck you, Eddie!  That's the origin story of this compilation of Orange Valley's Eddie and the Subtitles. It's their "best" songs from their earlier EPs.  First we should clear up any confusion. This is not the Eddie who disappeared on the dark side in that movie based on that book based on being bored in New Jersey, and these are the Subtitles, not the Cruisers. This is also Punk, not 50s Rock and Roll. They do like to use the promo photo of Michael Paré, though, and some people would say Punk is just 50s Rock and Roll played faster and badlyer, so now that we've got that all squirrely...  I don't want to drown in American society either, especially in the shallow end of the gene pool. That's just embarrassing.  This, my friends, is gloriously trashy Punk. No metronomes were consulted, the amps sound like you can hear nuts and bolts rattling around inside, the bass is as loud as possible, yet ...

B: Oops, my mistake, i thought i had a train of thought going. This is Jack Killed Jill, not "off." Detective/Sherrif, potato/pomegranate, close enough for hand grenades.  Well, what did you expect? Well i never! What's that Lassie? Timmy's fine playing with his mopey ballerina action figures in his room? Well, then, here's Well from San Francisco's own Power Puff Girls, no sorry i meant Power-Pop-Punk band Jack Fell Down [snap] Jack Killed Jill. My head is nearly completely unscrewed from...  S: No, hold up there Bottle. You're just going to gloss over cancelling the Kickstarter for the album? I'm so angry i imagineered up an enormous spiral staircase just to waste time descending it so i would be more composed than i was at the top when i got here to interrupt you. So help me, if this is one of your passive aggressive open-ended moral quagmires of guilt...  Relax, Sandra. Our biggest backer backed the truck up so i executively decided to throw it in ...