Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Cool is often objectively subjective, but sometimes good doesn't need to be qualified. I adore Huey Lewis and the News. There's a really interesting history of lawsuits about I Want a New a Drug, but i'll let you go read the little bit about his dust ups with Ray Parker Jr. on your own. I'm more interested in the fact that it's the only album named after an actual segment of "the news." You don't even want to know how many different ways he tried spelling his stage name. Half-right-ipedia is half right as usual, they got the Rock and New Wave part correct, but it's serious old-school Rock & Roll, saxes and harmonica style.  Absolutely true that Back to the Future was the reason people went out to find this album, but how could they be dissapointed? It's like 38 years later and though this old man's barely breathing, the heart of Rock & Roll is indeed still beating. I'm perfectly happy with small amounts of the old-drugs. As an a...

The books are done. Time to reboot the franchise.  Everybody who has a basis for comparison says Demons & Wizards is Uriah Heep's best album, and now i can say i'm no exception. This thing is phenomenal. There's prog, there's some heavy metal, there's a whole lot of bluesy endings to musical phrases, there's Dio style falsetto ridiculousness, everybody sings lead at some point, and it all just rocks. Yes, it's all kind of fantasy magic characters and stuff, but no it's not really a concept album. But wow is it fun. David Byron's vocals are dramatic and engaging, Gary Thain's melodic bass lines are just gorgeous, Ken Hensley is bloop-bleeping on every available keyboard, and there are legitimate moments of everyone spastically flailing their picks at an acoustic guitar. If nothing else it sounds like a group of people having fun, and that's a recipe for awesome in my book.

E: Bottle, i'm really lost here. I sort of get the coin flip metaphor, but i don't understand the point. B: oh, ok, that's sort of an easy one. We're stuck. Instead of doing anything, we're just flipping a coin without calling it in the air. The point is that we are literally ignoring the choice because we are somehow dissatisfied with 50/50. I don't know why, i mean statistics says 50/50 is better than nothing. Still, that's not the real answer to your question. The real answer is that we're afraid of all the consequences, even the good ones. E: ok, sure, what's your point? B: let's look at it like binary logic, but with goods and bads. Good + good = good, and bad + bad = bad, right? E: yes? B: but that's not the whole story. A good thing that turns out bad is bad, but a bad thing that turns out good is still bad; a different kind of bad, but not everyone has such a discerning palate. The end result is that 3/4 of the possibilities are some ...

B: I really should save it for this year's Beefoween, but i need it today. Ow! What was that for?  S: It told you last year.  B: oh, right, "i hereby outlaw...." i was hoping you weren't serious, but a boot to the head rings loud and clear. May i proceed?  S: of course, i still have a one more boot, though.  B: understood.  I've got good news and bad news. The good news is tonight we're listening to Rob Zombie's first solo album after White Zombie broke up. Maybe we'll save La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 for actual Halloween. The bad news is we have to navigate this ethical vegan, PETA award thing. We are Sex-bob-omb, and we're here to sing about demons and living dead girls and rescue farm animals in our spare time!  I'm joking, i hate the industrial food complex too, possibly more than most Vegans, ethical or not. I disagree with PETA strictly in terms of their approach to living living people and their eagerness to treat them in a decide...

Speaking of alternative hipster rock, am i the last person on earth who still remembers all of the lyrics to Semi-Charmed Life? Remember when Michael Stipe needed someone to transcribe It's The End Of The World As We Know It and physically hold the sheet of paper up in their Unplugged? As far as i recall, Third Eye Blind never did an Unplugged, but i have referenced them several times over the last 2 years. Let's not jump off the skyscraper and instead listen to their self-titled debut.  My fellow discerning drugs in music listeners will know that Alcohol is obviously at the top of the pyramid, with Marijuana being his Vice-President. Below that we have the Twilight tandem of Heroin and Cocaine. Bit of a free-for-all below that, but basically you have Amphetemines, Hallucinogenics, and Barbiturates. Third Eye Blind fall under the influence of cleaning your entire bathroom with a toothbrush, because "Ooh-wooo, Meth!"  We're going to have to put the question of Step...

Coldplay was super-famous, right? I'm not saying that as a joke, i just have this notion that  everyone but me knows about their entire career. I literally only remember Yellow. Butthole Surfers told us Jet Fighters never die, and i'm just gonna go ahead and say it's because their Parachutes worked properly.  I do remember that they were hailed as the new Radiohead because tons of people detested Kid A and thew their copies out the window like my friend Stephen did. I honestly didn't know Post-Britpop was a genre. I do know Chris Martin grew sour on Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop and started not being a vegetarian after they separated. I have no interest in anyone's dietary proclivities (not by choice, but i've eaten quite a few animals on the list of things people think are off limits).  Somber and slow music with happy-ish lyrics is a pretty solid recipe in my book, but none of this stuff is actually in my head. I do know the band actually thinks this album is com...

Kay, so we’re back in the Folder of Doom, and I guess I have to point out that the last time Butthole Surfers made a studio album was 2001. They were originally making an album titled After the Astronaut in 1998, but they stopped giving a crap for 3 years. Released in August of 2001, so yeah. You remember their one weird hit song Pepper, and you probably remember being really sorry you checked out anything from their back catalogue. Good. They didn’t want you to like their music. They truly did not care. I adore them. So, yeah, the baby shooting laser beams at fighter jets was total coincidence. What’s not a coincidence is that they didn’t really like this album at all. I could pull out all my Bottle Battle cards and go to town on behind the scenes stuff, but all the drums are made to sound sampled even if they aren’t, there’s very little actual guitar work of Butthole Surfers “quality,” and if I didn’t know any better I’d say someone who thought they were important repeatedly screamed...