Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Ok, ok, i can't end it the way i was about to end it for the book version, the aftertaste is terrible. Luckily, i heard Exactly What You Wanted and i haven't reviewed the 3rd Helmet album, Aftertaste. I'm certain me picking a fight with Erlewine is exactly what you wanted, so let's do it.  He calls it bland, numbing, and a downright shame for such an intriguing 90s alternative metal band. His narrative is that they made the awesomeness that is Meantime, pushed too far to the experimental side with Betty, and failed to return to the grandeur of their original immediate and visceral hooky riffs and stuff. Disheartening.  You know what Stephanie? Thom Yorke says it best, we hope that you choke. I guess if it helps you sleep at night, we'll pretend like we care. See, although the sonic onslaught is indeed loud and cacophonous, the harmonic language is insane to the point that it's actually impressive most of these songs have an identifiable, dare i say, demonstrable...

E: copy and paste, copy and paste, at first i really hated it, but now it suits my taste...  To say that everyone was incredibly confused by overhearing Skip's spontaneous burst into Editor: The Musical is a bit of an understatement. Sandra sat up on her beanbag chair and tilted her head in amusement. Compy kept looking over his shoulder with a mildly agitated nose crinkle, Gladys rocked a little faster in her rocking chair, Bottle hummed some experimental counterpoint underneath, and the whole thing was occasionally punctuated by a far off screech and thud of a door as GREGORY moved from closet to closet. A different kind of Saturday, but not without its own bit of charm. I suppose you could say that for once the rooms weren't rearranging themselves, but rather the occupants had found different ways of inhabiting them. "What's the plan, Bottle," i heard myself call down through the floorboards. "No plans, the best plan of all," came the reply.  No argue...

C: i think you should talk about the corporate takeover of artists catalogs.  B: i don't disagree, but that's a tough one to tackle because both sides have legitimate arguments, and neither choice is a good choice.  C: what do you mean?  B: how could i possibly say Bob Dylan or Stevie Nicks are wrong for choosing to cash in their chips and settle for the current monetary value of their music? They aren't wrong, it's their music and their choice. You can't afford to buy Bob Dylan's publishing rights, can you?  C: well no.  B: who ever inherits them is just gonna sell them anyway. Regular people don't have the education and experience to make sound investment decisions as a legal business. At least this way they don't get tricked or robbed out of those future royalties. Now, i don't for one second believe Bob Dylan wants his music selling cars or funding the pet investments of UMG execs, but what other choice does he really have? You and i can't bu...

Why are we listening to Symphonie Fantastique? I just have the urge to hear it, i'm sure there's some subconscious reason we'll find out at some point. At first i was trying to work up some joke about some malformed breakfast cereal ( Cheerios my ass, those are Barely-Os), but that's beneath me. So i dug a little deeper and thought "ok, what is it really?" Well, i'll tell me so you can find out. This is like a large scale autobiography in the making about Berlioz driving himself crazy crushing on a girl, Irish actress Harriet Smithson. Movement 1 is all about how sensitive an artist he is, filled with passion for Beethoven and Shakespeare and Harriet. Then he's at a Ball and she's not paying any attention to him. Of course not, Harriet didn't attend the premier (and those who did didn't like it very much). So he learned how to write fugues and won a big fugue writing contest. He won (like i just said) and used the prize money to study in It...

I feel bent like a reed in the wind, so we're revisiting Machines of Loving Grace. I want to unpack Gilt in as much stultifying pedantry as possible, you know like i do with everything all the time. We got a poem and the title and the artwork and the lyrics which include "supply and demand" and everyone's favorite Jim Jones quote in a song called Serpico, and even though the allmusic review implies it's just the same song over and over, it's a damned good song with a lot of great heavy guitars and some bleep bloops. What a jerk, there's tons of variety.  I of course like all types of music, but Industrial Rock is like the core of my being. Supposedly their first two albums are much more synth heavy. I don't know, like i said, this album is a committed piece of art not a random throwaway stab at fame or selling bottles of colored sand or moving your cult to an epithetic socialist commune in South America. It's like ogres and onions, you know? Layers...

S: just out of morbid curiosity, what would you call this record store? B: Bottle's Music. C: that's not exactly an exciting name. B: i'm not exactly an exciting guy. Records and a coffee pot, what more do you actually need? I suppose customers, but who the hell knows where to find them? Forbes said albums were dead 4 years ago. Me and my friends are dinosaurs in the micro-machine age. You could probably make 9 or 12 fortunes if you could find a mechanism for snorting music or injecting it between your toes or smoking it, but what kind of sales pitch is "if you buy it now and don't open it for 20 years it might be worth $20 more than you paid for it?" I suppose i'd have to sell stereo equipment and replacement cartridges and cleaning brushes and who knows what else. E: but you'd need employees and an accountant and... B: why? I sell records, you buy them. Tell me what you want, enjoy a show twice or thrice a month, help Mr. Sandos carry groceries ...

I woke up with Rush's Time Stands still on the old brainbox of doom, so that can only mean 2 things. One, it's Sunday and we have to wrap up this adventure. Desmond TuTu) it's always about money and new exciting ways to take it away from people. So, as the innocence slips away, we'll listen to the complete noise chaos that is Damsel. Liz Phair?  S: i suppose that is fair, the last two albums were really enjoyable and very mainstream. But how are we supposed to actually do it?  B: all sorts of ways. We could answer Maynard's rhetorical question how can this mean anything to me when i really don't feel a thing at all?  Then again, overthinking, overanalyzing separates the body from the mind. I'm totally fine with that, but most people are not. Let's define our experience. It's only 4 tracks.  E: but that means they are super long.  B: yes, but there are only 4 of them. Plus there's a guy from Wilco here, so it's not like we're in a room ful...