Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Chapter 5  Styx is an institution. No, not the mythical river (which by the way is only 1 of the 5 rivers of the underworld, the Hatred one, the others being Lethe (Oblivion), Archeron (Woe), Phlegethon (Fire), and Cocytus (Wailing); it's full on functional logistics down there), the Prog-Rock band from Chicago. They opened for Kansas one time and immediately decided they should also try not to generically suck any more. Now, the obvious litmus test (sorry, the Acid House from yesterday hasn't quite worn off yet) of objective fame is having Weird Al parody one of your songs, but only slightly less official while statistically much more significant is Cartman just doing a straight up cover of your commercial breakthrough hit about your boat turning into a spaceship (i knew there was a clairvoyant reason Skip went fishing hiding in here somewhere). I don't think anyone will be surprised that Dennis DeYoung was depressed about how crummy their couple previous albums were selli...

Chapter 4  Last night i think we were all a little surprised by how much Fastball rocked us. Today i have the nagging feeling The KLF was supposed to do that particular job. Did they? Too far back to remember, so instead of redecorating Chriscrosstopher Robbins' apothecary with suitably ominous black curtains, we'll instead go full THX-1138, drop some mandatory mood stabilizers and hang out in The White Room by The KLF. If none of that makes any sense, you can read more about it in my second book, Bottle of Beef: The Media Empore of Doom. Go ahead, we'll wait.  Quick, while they're gone! Technically their last studio album, The White Room also features several of the 9,000 different versions of their most popular tracks, 3 AM Eternal probably being the only one any surface dwellers have ever heard. I know i'm not a huge Acid House aficionado, but i assume this will be a lot like Chemical Brothers, Daftpunk, Orbital, EMF, or any other 90s DJ-tronica outing. Sample he...

Wowzers. Sight C-er wasn't fooling around. This is some serious stuff. No clue where to begin, though, so we'll just let the old subconscious compass guide us.  Where were they going without ever knowing the way?  Welp, that was easy. No curve balls or knucklers or underarms or balked pick-off attempts, Fastball right down the middle.  All The Pain Money Can Buy is their sophomore album from my senior year, and it took only 6 months to go platinum. 3 hit singles and they never saw the mainstream again. They kept putting out albums, though, and they finance it all through Patreon. Kudos to youdos, i like it. Now let's get some actual nostalgia brewing in my brain. I can listen to The Way any time i want because it has a permanent brain cell, but i've never heard the full album. Erlewine says it sounds way better today than it did back then because back then it was just another face in the post-grunge crowd, but now it stands out as extremely well-written Guitar Pop. I sh...

C: Redecorating? Hate what you've done with the place, Bottle.  B: Me casa es su dilapidated shack. How's Garbage Lady?  C: Lovely. Why'd it take you so long to unbury me?  B: Straight to the not pulling punches, huh? Well, i short circuited everything to smithereens, like i'm wont to do. Then i got all mopey, but in the unmopifying process i accidentally lured Skip and Sandra back from their vacations and tried to sell people stuff, and bits and pieces were all falling down around us, so they got mad and stopped talking to me. I just wasn't in the mood to restart all over again, so instead it snowballed and i started answering random questions from the strangest of scantily clad strangers, and now Bridbrad's cranky 'cause i interrupted his porch nap and made him narrate the minion making episode to dig you out. It's all napalm in a netti pot at this point, and i need to be wrangled.  C: K, that all sounds like normal you. How bad we actually talking her...

Bottle paced. From an observational perspective it probably looked more like he was constantly remembering to go get something he forgot in a different direction, but we'll go with pacing. "I need therapy," he said out loud to no one in particular.  Finally, after a couple more false starts, he wound his way over to Skip's office. He got as far as "Shave and a hair" before he saw the crayon scribbled note on the door.  "Not here. Gone fishing. Skip, the Editor."  "Didn't know we had a lake around here," Bottle said to the door. "Sandra! You up there?!"  "If you have to ask, then no," came the distant reply.  "Fair enough. I guess it's back to the bakery to cook up a batch of imaginary minions to do all the heavy lifting."  Several hours of crashes, disturbingly gloopy sounds, and the occasional half-hearted swear word later, there came the tiniest of meeps. Then another. Then a few more. Like a kettle...

Dave Lewis was a highly notable teenage Rock & Roller in the 50s, and somewhat unintentionally responsible for uniting the two segregated musician's unions in Seattle. The story goes, local club owner Dick Parker said if you're gonna make me choose between Dave Lewis and the entire Local 76 white roster, i'm gonna book Lewis. On Jan. 14, 1958 the two locals merged and Seattle's music scene became a little less terrible, at least on paper.  Lewis's various bands opened for all sorts of famous acts on tour in the Pacific Northwest, but regular club gigs were his main career throughout the 60s and 70s. Jimi Hendrix even jammed with them a few times, but audiences wouldn't exactly call Hendrix "danceable." That's fair. Lewis had some arrestworthy drug problems later in life and died in 1998.  None of that matters much, tonight we're hearing his jazz organ covers of Herb Alpert tunes. I'm told it's an all the stars album, so i expect it...

I don't have a positive nostalgic image of the early 80s in my mind. I just don't. Everybody's all coked up and sweaty, wearing neon leotards and headbands, everything looks grimy and chaotic, car horns blaring, crying dumpster babies, it's horrible. Doesn't matter that i was born in 1980, it all just looks like the combined cityscapes from Star Trek IV, Police Academy, and Short Circuit. Olivia Newton John feeling up bodybuilders in the YMCA weight room doesn't help much either. Nothing about any of that do i consider sexy.  But can i just bottle all that up, shelve it, and approach Physical with fresh ears? Yoda might scold me, but i can at least try. Did you know Olivia Newton-John was basically responsible for the industry-wide shift from time-based contracts to quantity-based contracts? See, the way it happened was that she agreed to record 4 albums in 2 years, while MCA retained the option to extend the time frame as penalty for a late album and more recor...