Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

How ya gonna review Emperor of Sand, B-man? What do you mean, Compy? What do you mean, what do i mean? Are you going to review it, and if so, how? It's the inner monologue of a fictional character doomed to die in the Peruvian desert. Well yeah, sure, that's what it IS, but what about the background, the production, the fact that it's skipping even though you've been unusually careful with it, the fact that we're four years later and all we've had is an ep of b-sides.  Compy, Mastodon is just a band. I happen to like them a lot, but they are real people with real lives and we're trying to literally reboot the economy here. Not that it deserves to be rebooted, but still. It's an album about the curse of death. Yeah, friends and family dealing with cancer were the impetus, but it's just a Mastodon album. So you don't like it? No, i love it, it's fantastic, it's gorgeous. None of the guys from Mastodon are T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, but why w...

Everyone, we have a new friend joining us today. Would you like to introduce yourself? Peg leg? Stone belly? Oh, sorry, i'm with you now. Hi everybody. You can call me Bottle, and i haven't reviewed an album in 7 days.  That's wonderful! We're all recovering critics here, so we know what you're going through. Would you like to try sharing what you're listening to without any context or ulterior motives? Oh, geez, i dunno. Gene Simmons says rock is dead because bands aren't maxing out 12 credit cards and signing away their future royalties, and while that's half true if you squint into the sun, it's also not true at all, and... Don't feel bad, Bottle. It's ok. You're not ready. Bugger that! I'll just drop this here and b-line for that coffee table over there. https://carsonmurphy.bandcamp.com/album/bad-habits

Architectronics. Building sound worlds. These are the voyages of the sound sculptor Dave Gedosh.  A lot of you might think, why would i want to listen to the incidental sounds of a woodshop classroom, or a train station?  To which i reply "awesome! You understand the basic building blocks, the raw materials being arranged and sculpted. Now let's find out what he's building with them."  Right from the get go, i can assure you that this isn't unfamiliar territory. You will almost instinctively hear these pieces like the ambient soundtrack of a movie. Probably a horror movie. Why? Because this kind of heightened sense of environment is also what happens when the adreneline of fear kicks in, and the machete wielding madman could be right around the next corner. There is, however, a much wider and more interesting world beyond that conditioned response, you just have to keep putting on clean pants and walking forward. Luckily, Dave's really good at easing that tens...

So, yeah, if you can follow the unwritten train of thought that leads from R.E.M.'s Monster to tonight's album pick, then knowing nod from me to you. That's some unsavory subject matter, right there. We're listening to Traci Lords's album, 1,000 Fires. If you're certain you're curious i'll explain it somewhere that isn't a public facebook post. For now though, let's just say i was gonna write about the 1995 Mortal Kombat soundtrack, but learned that Traci Lords did actually make a full album, so now i can't not listen to it. You remember her from the Jonny Depp classic Cry Baby. No, not Rikki Lake, the blonde one. No, not the ugly blonde, forget it. The Mortal Kombat soundtrack has a Juno Reactor remix of the lead off track, Control. They did a lot of the music for The Matrix, so you are actually familiar with their kind of industrial tinged techno. The whole soundtrack is a who's who of 90s Industrial Metal and EDM. But, we're here t...

Understanding Monster: 1) it's the R.E.M. album, not the Steppenwolf album. 2) i didn't like it then, but now i do. Got it? Great. Good night everybody. Ok, ok, there's more to it than that. It's actually a fascinating album, and it isn't simply another R.E.M. album like you might think. I've talked about quite a few albums that were interrupted by real world things: riots, medical emergencies, airplanes crashing into skyscrapers, etc., and this album had a couple of its own. We'll get there, we just have to set up the real context first. Critics mistakenly labeled this album Grunge. You already know i don't think that's a genre, but it does have some common tropes of the time period: crunchy distortion, character pieces, and a cynical view of celebrity and fame. The monster is fame, and the deaths of River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain are an integral part of the album because they were Michael Stipe's actual friends. River ODed while they were demoin...

Available here. Guys, guys, girls, and skeletons, look what just arrived, our book. We did it. We have 14 copies of my first 365 album reviews. Check 'em out. Whadya think? Uh, i think we got confused and formatted the page numbers to the wrong side. Sweet, now everyone can use both top and bottom corners for flip book animations. I'm appalled! Who would do that to a book? Relax, Sandra, it's my book compiled from facebook posts, remember. Not exactly Pulitzer material, am i right? Bottle? Why's there no bottom margin? I admit, i was afraid of that. I was trying to cut down on page length, but i squeezed a little too hard. I suppose i could have used a smaller font, but i didn't. We could fix those things if we wanted to. Maybe for the next one. Now though, we gotta Kai Risdoll this litter of puppies (do the numbers, if you're not up on you NPR personalities and their catchphrases).  The $49 setup fee is my cost. In the great ledger in the sky, i'd claim is ...

You guys remember Judgement Night, don't you? Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Stephen Dorf, and Jeremy Piven getting chased through the ghetto by Dennis Leary and his gang of drug dealing murderers? No? Well, I do, so we're gonna listen to the soundtrack.  Brilliant idea, pair an alternative rock or metal band with a rap group. Some amazing songs on here. There are a couple "meh" songs, though: i'm looking at you Cypress Hill and Sir Mix-a-Lot. The point is that this is real rap rock, not rock bands rapping for no reason, and it's fantastic. My two favorite tracks are Another Body Murdered by Faith No More and Boo-Yaa Tribe, and the title track by Biohazard and Onyx. You might remember B&O from their collaborative version of Slam. I love, love, love Onyx, by the way. I loved them when i was 11, and now i'm gonna go binge watch their videos. See you tomorrow, when i might have exciting news. Hopefully Dennis Leary doesn't blow up my RV and send Ev...