Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

There comes a time in every man's life when you have to ask yourself "is Meat Puppets really that good?"  Not the band in its entirety, but their self-titled debut. Women can ask it too, but it's not compulsory. Yes. It sounds like it was written and performed by puppets made of meat. I'm coincidentally reading Jason Pargin's John Dies At The End, and this is exactly what the opening scene with the meat monster in the basement freezer sounds like in my brain. Saying they can't play their instruments is not at all true. Maybe you're not "supposed" to play them that way, but it's definitely on purpose and well rehearsed. And yet, Meat Puppets makes Butthole Surfers sound cold and calculated and constructed by committee after several rounds of test screenings. Meat Puppets sounds like everyone in the studio was too scared to politely ask them to leave. It's true, I like Meat Puppets II better, but I don't think i can argue that's...

Cracker is as good an example of a one-hit-wonder as i can think of. All anybody vaguely remembers is the lead off single from their second album. I urge you to not be some junkie cosmonaut, and check out their humble alt-country rock self-titled debut.  The world needs a new folk singer/Frank Sinatra like he needs a hole in his head. Then La Bamba, but as a sarcastic "happy birthday to me."  The concept is pretty fantastic. This is Cracker brand sardines and fried eggs, a product of the U.S.A., packed for Virgin Records America, Inc., in Beverly Hills. Yes, the Richard Branson label, but like his franchise period, not the full UMG sellout. You can compare them to Gin Blossoms because it's 1992, and this is what everybody else's answer to Geffen's Nevermind was going to be in 4 years.  Nirvana, Guns 'n Roses, Metallica were 1991, "alternative rock" was what was going to be the next big thing. Cracker was right there, but they didn’t quite connect bec...

Do you wish you could transfer to the space-time continuum where Midwest-Mathcore WAS Pop-Punk? I've got some great news, Snackd Out is a band. The bad news is that you have to spell pretzel wrong to find them, because @pretzlerecords is a new label in Champaign you can't tag with an at sign until later in your post after you follow them. Polyvinyl's address is actually a Safelight AutoGlass shop and the owner says "NOT A RECORD STORE" on the Google business page. College towns are fun (I've lived in or near 5 of 'em). https://www.facebook.com/share/1F4BuroP9L/ Juli and Doug of Snackd Out formed the label, and since I also live near Champaign because my significant other got a job at UIUC, and there's a saxophone on their 2023 album Obstacle Illusion, I totally paid for this record separate from the other 200+ dollars I spent at Record Swap yesterday. I am not at all disappointed. Hi, Pretzle Records i'm actually Bottle's Music, a transplant ba...