Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

C: Great news, Bottle! Turns out there are some copies in stock, just under a different listing.  B: How's that possible, Compy?  C: Oh, well the $25 one was backordered, but the $28 one is still in stock but low quantity.  B: I know where this is going, Compy, but indulge me a moment. They're the same pressing, right?  C: Well, yeah.  B: One doesn't have a used napkin or a keychain inside?  C: No, that's silly.  B: Silly or not, and correct me if i'm wrong, the only logical way the exact same record could have 2 different listings at two slightly different prices is the reality that they aren't currently housed in the same building.  C: Yeah, the backordered one would have shipped from Kentucky, but i'm not sure where this one ships from.  B: So again, i'm willing to be wrong here, but Merchbar isn't really what we'd call an actual "retailer," are they?  C: Huh?  B: Merchbar is just an order placer, skimming pennies off facilitating tr

E: what's with this passive aggressive drivel, Bottle?  B: i'm just tired and mopey and i was listening to AFI before stumbling across Penfriend. Plus the world is constantly being terrible, and you can't ever just go get what you want, often because it doesn't actually exist yet. Presumably that record will materialize in the future, or else merchbar would remove the ability to pay for it, but that's really just your standard 401k, better off just assuming that money's gone forever in exchange for the hope that someone will eventually captain this sinking ship to shallow peaceful waters. Plus i was revisiting that Pete Singer argument that regular people are evil.  E: they are.  B: no i disagree, they aren't. They are only given the choice between immediate pleasure and immediate sacrifice and they are punished for choosing contextually wrong. Altruism and Objectivism, like oil and water, don't mix without some kind of emulsifier. In this case, the rewa

The only reviews they care about are from fans of music, and i'd like to think i qualify. Granted we're working from the nanosecond of scrolling past their video in my facebook feed, but Ned's Atomic Dustbin is in some way associated with whatever insanity my brain registered, so i'm gonna say Penfriend is some kind of English band from England. Bold assumption, i know, but i am no stranger to Exotic Monsters. I am a bit of a stranger to spendy money for the next 3 days so we'll unfortunately have to youtubumalate this particular adventure.  I'm finding what appears to be many EPs and a full album all updated in the last week, and a completely different album from way back in 2011 by who i'm certain is the same person named Laura Kidd called Automatic where i think she's torturing a Bratz doll (or whatever kind of Barbie knock off dolls England has). Lets ADD that one first.  Upon closer inspection that's all 7+ minute remixes of the song Automatic w

Robert Christgau says Erykah Badu's debut album Baduizm is too bougie-boho for his tastes. I don't know what he actually means by that (that's a lie), but i do know A) i'm a big fan of all sorts of things Christgau hated on first pass, and B) calling your debut album "[name]izm" kind of forces us into deciding whether or not to join your ideological cult, so this should be fun. Grab your turban shaped helmet, we're time traveling back to 1997 for some sure to be delightful R&B/Neo-Soul.  You all know me and how i'd normally balk at the just shy of an hour run time over two records, but it's kind of the orientation seminar for this Izm of Badu we've got ourselves into, and it was never intended to be released on vinyl in the first place, so i'd expect nothing less. I gotta say though, looking at the itinerary it seems well organized and there's every chance we'll stay on topic, or at least in the general vacinity of the topic. Th

Glad i made no promises yesterday because we're going off in a totally different direction.  It's been said that if you don't like Kind of Blue, then maybe what you actually don't like is Jazz. Cornerstone of any Jazz collection, about the closest to pure spontaneous improvisation as you can get, call it Modal Jazz or Post-Bop, it's 5 pieces where Miles Davis said here's the type of piece it is, here are the scales you can use for your solo, start playing.  Obviously this isn't a Meat Puppets album, so only 1 was a legitimate first take, but they are all the first completed playthrough. And they are fantastic.  I'll go a step further, if you're not blissfully enraptured, then you just need to accept that you don't actually like music. I get that you could not like the way Miles Davis plays Trumpet, and the mix is pushing even my tolerance for left-ear centric mixes, but for an "album in a day" spontaneous live ensemble improvisation alb

Ahhh, it's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It means i've had several bad brain days. Normally that would be perfect for intruducing the self-titled debut of Bad Brains like i planned to do several days ago, but Mrs. Bottle and i have officially been married for 20 years, i saw an entire family wearing pajamas at the gas station, some kind of predatory animal turned the chicken house into a Rob Zombie movie, and thanks to the Josinator i'm imagineering the latest addition to the Bottle of Beef roster, Gucci and the Tiddy Cats, so we're ditching the customary rum and coke and going for a glass of wine, my favorite uncomfortable office chair, and this classic compact disk playing on my computer that masquerades for a home stereo. Join me for Smash, won't you?  19 Crimes is a gimmick created by an Australian winery. I apparently got #4, stealing semi-precious metals and selling them for quick cash. This particular bottle is named Uprising, something about citiz

We interrupt this story i honestly lost interest in telling last Friday for a better story. My copy of Structures by Thrupence arrived today. No joke, I ordered this thing on Christmas Eve, it went through customs in Chicago on Sunday, and now i can bask in the warm neon glow of some truly wonderful Ambient Melodic House. Even better, i got to do the Discogs listing and upload photos of my personal copy number 61 of 100.  Not much to review though, as electronica goes this is a soft, fuzzy, warm blanket on a rainy night. If you're confused about why he uses both names, it's because Jack Vanzet is a multi-disciplinary artist, and Thrupence is his musical persona. The design, art, and animation is Jack collaboratimg with himself.  Now, there is one coin flip of a situation, and it's the inclusion of both the full Diminishing Light with guest vocalist Fractures and the instrumental only. Depending on what kind of mood you're in, it might totally be annoying to hear both ba

Rocket to Russia is a better album than Ramones, but i don't think it's the 25k+ budget that makes it better. For starters, i generally set production off to the side because the sound of a record is totally not a level playing field. Packaging is a different story, this is the quintessential cartoonish drawings of all the songs lyric sheet, humorous mocking of traditional values we all know and love as Punk.  Oddly enough, this album was an immediate angry response to the one and only Sex Pistols album. I've mentioned before that Never Mind the Bullocks... is not a fun album, but part of that really is that it feels like a mean spirited joke. I don't mean the songs are bad or that it isn't appropriately obnoxious, i mean that much like the Beatles you get the sense that they're kind of mocking you for enjoying it.  Rocket to Russia, however, is actually fun. The difference is that Sex Pistols call everyone garbage, while Ramones make fun of the hypocrisy of &qu

Continuing on this philosophical journey through the underground, who's the first Punk band? If you said Sex Pistols, then you're wrong. It's the Ramones out in front by an entire year. Really the first? Probably not, Punk is not really a genre, it's an attitude or ideology formed around consciously rejecting the Mainstream. Amazingly enough, the Beatles were their major influence as well. Adopting the psudonym Ramone came from McCartney's tendency to check into hotels as Paul Ramon. Also like the Beach Boys, all killer no filler was the spark, only now anything studio related like orchestras and hi fidelity effects and the like was totally out of reach for real working class Rock and Rollers. This is DIY 'cause nobody's gonna help you territory. Fast, loud, cool, that's basically it as far as ingredients.  Contrary to popular belief, the Ramones were not a commercially successful recording band. They made more than enough money to sustain their 20 years

C: lotta Punk here, Bottle, but i don't get it. Is there a theme? Did you just buy out the "B" section?  B: no to the latter, yes to the former. How do you not see the theme? Rhetorical question, i know why. It's a human theme, not a computer generated one. It's also conceptually rather than physically chronological, so that's loads of fun.  C: yeah, still no clue.  B: one step closer to a complete hardware overhaul, patches just aren't gonna cut it anymore. Let's lay 'em out and ponder.  Beach Boys - Pet Sounds Ramones - Ramones and Rocket to Russia Bad Brains - Bad Brains Bad Religion - Generator Echo & the Bunnymen - Songs to Sing & Learn  C: i mean "R" is like 4/5 of "B."  B: you're not wrong per se, but that's more like a ridiculous thing humans would trick AI into thinking because it's funny. The real answer is that it's before Punk, Punk, and Post-Punk. The fun part is the extra-dimensional twist i

Alright, alright, i couldn't resist. We all know how much i like to smack talk Gorillaz, but the truth is it's mostly professional jealousy. Of course i had to check out the title track of their latest Cracker Island behind the scenes, and damnit it's catchy.  I've always said that the actual manifestation of a concept is subordinate to the concept itself. A clunky awkward realization of a great idea is infinitely more enjoyable than a sparkly polished dog turd of an idea, it just is. I'm led to believe that this time around the band forms a cult and wacky shenanigans ensue. I'm not saying they can't screw it up, but i am way too intrigued to intentionally ignore it.  It's Gorillaz, so we already know it's going to be high caliber, immaculately produced, R&B influenced Pop Rock, the question is do the songs do the concept a proper amount of justice, or is it all merely ridiculously expensive wrapping paper around a can of silly string and a plast

Seeing as it just so happens that we started this adventure last Sunday, and i recieved notice that my last outstanding preordered album got on a plane in Syndey last night and is as i write this currently in an aeroplane over the sea, we should epilogue the week by acknowledging that coincidental subplot of a detail and listen to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  Gotta find it though. It's here somewhere. Tricky because it has absolutely no writing anywhere on the jacket. A lot like the blueprints for that cat tower the minions helped me assemble earlier. It's somewhere over on the newer album shelf and it's a vaguish bluey green color, tada found it. ..."built a tower..." that's a fun coincidence.  This might be my favorite "you can't possibly describe what this is actually supposed to mean" albums of all. The best you can possibly do is take the obvious personal and historical references and make up a scenario in which t

S: alright, Bottle, we've all done this plenty of times, what wackadoodle curve ball of an album is next on this little adventure? B: who you calling little? It's a totally average sized meander of some might say excessive girth. I don't know, there's two possibilities. Nirvana was sort of the elephant in the room version of RFZSSM and i'm being bombarded by all sorts of nonsense, so it would be logical to properly Document the ending the world as we know it with REM, but that's not my first inclination. Wanna go with my 5:42am epiphany?  E: do we actually get a choice?  B: well, yes and no. It's what i'm going to listen to next, but if you guys absolutely don't want to revisit a late 60s acoustic rock album we last listened to several years ago, i can just veer this bus over to the shoulder and make this exordium of an interlude a "choose your own adventure" postludic terminous...  ... nothing, just glassy eyed stares and gecko style blink

B: Ermagerd, every day just gets worse and worse. It's like everybody's minding everybody else business but their own and then getting mad that their own stuff isn't working out.  Iowa politicians are on my 5:45AM radio cummute saying they're determined to ban and i quote "gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy" because they're upset about a future where i guess millions of people regret having elected to have these procedures.  First of all, it's not your job to protect us from our own well-informed choices, it's your job to help ensure that we are being well informed, as opposed to being manipulated and confused for profit. Ain't nobody being tricked into the long and documentedly arduous process of changing their bodies to match their deep intrinsic psychological identity. Quite the opposite.  Second, you're kind of equating medical doctors, therapists, and surgeons to drug dealers and unscrupulous tattoo artists and monorail sa

C: woohoo! you're a winner!  B: excellent sarcastic lottery machine voice impression you got there, Compy. Hopefully they just call me in early and we can get the whole thing done, but knowing my luck it'll be right in the middle of some supposedly "mandatory" training and everyone will be all grumpy like they'd rather have jury duty with me than learn a new inventory system. I personally don't care one way or the other, it's everybody else's nervous anticipation that irritates me. Every waking moment of my existence is a surprise.  E: seems like having Bottle on the jury is in nobody's best interest.  B: that's fair, i mean i'll be walking in assuming some jerk is guilty of domestic abuse or drunkenly running his tractor into the electric pole. People drive like maniacs, why just this morning the "simple" data migration IT was supposed to do last night apparently went real bad and we're all booted out of the system while they