Rubber 0 Cement, "Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover" dvd-r (Brutal Sound Effects, 2007)

Rubber 0 Cement, Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover dvd-r
(Brutal Sound Effects, 2007)

For more than a decade, the costumed noise anomaly known as Rubber 0 Cement has been the mutant poster child of the San Francisco Bay Area's bizarro music community. In that time, Rubber 0 Cement has toured Europe, Japan, and the USA as the Bay Area's freaked-out flagship act, having shared the stage with such acts as: Wolf Eyes, Nautical Almanac, Boredoms, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Smegma, Speculum Fight, Comets on Fire, Karla LaVey, and many more. What do I actually know about Rubber 0 Cement? Not much. Never having seen a Rubber 0 Cement performance, Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover is my only window into the crazed sonic terrorism this creature cooks up in a live setting. And just what in tarnation is that seven-foot tall 'instrument' he beats, smashes against the ground, swings through the air, and somehow amidst all the commotion, plays? Answers are pending.

Personally, I enjoy the pungent air of mystery (watch out: could be Agent Orange) surrounding Rubber 0 Cement and the Brutal Sound Effects community at large, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Theory of Obscurity once beheld by another notable Bay Area act, The Residents. Besides, in this hyper-modern era of ultra passivity via high-speed multi-media supersaturation, I savor the challenge of having to actively seek out, and possibly personally contact artists to gain even the slightest shred of information or copy of their work, as opposed to just passively filling up my Amazon.com basket and learning everything I never needed to know about (insert obscure artist here) on AllMusicGuide.com. In any case, what I do know is that Rubber 0 Cement churns out, spits on, and bleeds some of the most weirdly addictive electronic noise to ever blURP, squiggle, and SCREECH within range of my cartilage sound-catchers.

Initially, it seemed to appear as if Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover was the most professionally packaged thing I'd ever received from the Brutal Sound Effects label. Most, if not all of their releases have come to me ornately wrapped in what looks like physics homework, plastered with hand-made art, and tightly tucked within magazines or comic books, whereas this dvd seemed pretty normal. At least, until I opened the package to discover on the inside cover that the dvd case had been recycled from a Wicked Pictures porno, which was just as cool finding my copy of 'Melancholy Petri Muse Si-Si-Si' stuck inside a Green Arrow comic. Seeing that reconstituted corporate dvd case made my day before I even popped the disc into my dvd player, so kudos to Rubber 0 Cement for yet another example of creative recycling! Bubbling over with anticipation, my excitement level peaked when I discovered, sandwiched in between a Brutal Sound Effects festival flyer, a pair of *Gasp cardboard 3-D glasses tucked within the inside cover. A Rubber 0 Cement dvd in 3-D! I'd say "sign me up!", but I already bought the thing! Before even viewing a split-second of the total visual meltdown to cum, I knew that Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover really was, as Brutal Sound Effects described it, "the best noise deal out t/here (sic) right now!!"

The disc's menu, like every piece art adorning a hand-packaged Rubber 0 Cement release, is a Bonnie Banks (correct me if I'm wrong) drawn barrage of inscrutable graphics and brazen colour: bio-mechanical Cthuluoid horrors infecting amplifier deities, electronic bat-skull brains, pulsating organ detritus, all emblazoned in brain-frying neon. As soon as the title menu appeared before me, a sharp screech of burning lazer ecstasy had me scrambling for the remote as my eyes vainly attempted to make some sense out of the menu. There are no titles to speak of, save for the trademark Rubber 0 Cement logo flickering on the top of the screen, and three numbered circles along the bottom. Clicking on the 0 (or, the tire graphic) in between Rubber Cement plays the entire dvd in full, and after viewing the entire disc, I realized that the three numbered circles on the title menu divide up the disc into its three major arcs. Digging deep into the discs many multi-tiered menus reveals plenty of awesome eyesore secrets to be discovered by the intrepid viewer; one of my favorites being the menu screen that allows you to select several clips set to loop indefinitely for "insta-insanity."

Rubber 0 Cement's Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover features 22 chapters of 3-D monster madness, obtained from live performances "and scenarios" reaching as far back as 1999. While I wasn't checking my watch, I figure that this baby is loaded with well over an hour of Nasa-D face-melting noise. It's 0bvious that Rubber 0 Cement and those wonderful mutants at Brutal Sound Effects put a lot of effort and care into making this an absolute must-have for even the casual noise fan's dvd collection. Butyl RNA World, Solid City State, Ratar Toilet Seat Cover is a radioactive treasure, and easily ranks as my favorite Rubber 0 Cement release yet.

Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, "Happy As Pitch" cd (Crippled Intellect Productions, 2006)

Before getting into this review, my hugest thanks must go out to MP Lockwood, without whom this review would have been lost to the deepest, blackest depths of this porno-viewing utility we call the Internet. Moral of the story is: always keep a back-up copy! And now, onto the review!

Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, "Happy As Pitch" cd
(2006, Crippled Intellect Productions)

Without making too many broad generalizations and statements about my feelings towards the state of "noise" in 2007, I am willing to say this: more often than not, I like my noise peppered with a healthy dose of FUN. Now, I can get down with some shit-stained Michigan scum-crust. I'm a paying customer of Chocolate Monk, Hanson, and all the other fantastic dirtbag labels (and I mean that as the highest of compliments), and I'll eat up everything from To Live and Shave in L.A. to Fat Worm of Error to The Gerogerigegege to Gastric Female Reflex, but I cut my baby teeth on early Boredoms. Hearing Boredoms for the first time was akin to a spiritual awakening. They were at once the single most horrifying and incredible band I'd ever heard. Nearly everything I like about noise rock, noise music, art, performance, whatever, can be seen directly connected to my absolute appraisal of everything Boredoms-related. This is my bias. In the past year I've found that the noise that appeals to me the most, is the not the horror-obsessed paint-fume lurch rock, but the excited real gone ecstatic stuff that's most preoccupied with cooking up a juicy stew of some totally weird sound. Currently, at least on this continent, my money for the most alien sound-making goes directly to the Brutal Sound Fx community in San Francisco, California. A community of musicians and artists responsible for Caroliner Rainbow, Rubber 0 Cement, The Bran (...)Pos, Ecomorti, Tarantism, Commode Minstrels in Bullface, Spider Compass Good Crime Band, Diatric Puds & The Blobettes, anyone who's ever performed at a Godwaffle Noise Pancakes show, and of course, Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet.

Now here's the skinny: Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet have a great bio (which you can read here) full of a lot of made-up comical nonsense, they perform in costumes with cardboard German houses on their heads, and they make a freakishly atmospheric racket that only members of the Caroliner Rainbow Extended Ergot-Poisoned Singing-Bull of the 1800's Family Tree could. Imagine yourself in a pre-WWI German village where wooden children with mekanikal insides have taken over as they conspire to concoct the most demented Moog-driven kling-klang you've ever heard in your livenlife. "Okay...so they're like a Germanic Caroliner Rainbow, right?" Wrong. Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet take the sonic blueprints already conjured up on the more instrumental Caroliner albums ("Toodoos," for example), but make it their own special brand of brutal sound effects with a heavier emphasis on orchestration, vintage analog electronics (they'll make you moo "MOOOOOOOOG") and a subtler approach to the sensory overload aesthetic first pioneered by the Caroliner Rainbow costume crew.

Featuring three multi-part kompositions spread out over 13 tracks, Hans Grusel and co. krank out some delightfully strange electro-acoustic music on "Happy As Pitch." Where one song will be heavily based on original compositions for the Moog System 15 synthesizer, the next track will find the group goofing around with electronically manipulated trumpet and violin, or performing a bizarre song and dance number in waltz-time. Each individual piece of the album sounds different from the next, with tracks being drawn out just long enough to leave you wanting more, while never boring you with repetitious passages or ill-conceived improvisations.

More and more these days it seems to me that the greater majority of electronic musicians are wont to follow whatever trend flies within view of their gnat-like attention span (Digital Hardcore today, Harsh Noise tomorrow...), thankfully Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet avoid the typical trappings of genre entirely. Instead, these "Germans" have gone and carved out a kooky niche utterly unto themselves, while at the same time acknowledging the influence of the artistic community from which their semi-organic limbs came a sproutin'. Although it may be over a year old now, but "Happy As Pitch" is absolutely worth repeated visits. Their recent appearance at the 2006 No Fun Fest was one of the festival's highlights (so I've heard) , and I expect to be more material from them to be arriving very shortly (I see they've got a "Filmworks" box-set due on Resipiscent Records).

If you've never been exposed to Caroliner Rainbow, Rubber 0 Cement, or any of the San Francisco noise artists I've mentioned, I'd recommend that you immediately drop your pants and direct yourself to the Brutal Sound Effects and Resipiscent sites and familiarize yourself with the fantastic world of high-energy electronics, cardboard-clad performance artists, and outright awesome sound.

"Happy As Pitch" was released through Crippled Intellect Productions. I purchased my copy through Forced Exposure, and I highly recommend you do the same (and while you're at it, gribben-grab a copy of their ultra-limited, Ultra Eczema-released lp, "Another Miserable Day").

Smegma, "33 1/3" (Important, 2007)

Smegma, "33 1/3"

Important Records, 2007

Since the release of "The Beast," Smegma's collaboration with Michigan noise-kings
Wolf Eyes, their subsequent performance at the
2006 No Fun Fest, and last but not least an appearance on the August 2006 cover of The Wire, this longtime group of west-coast weirdos closely associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Scene (or, LAFMS) have suddenly found themselves scrutinized under the cool glare of the hipster spotlight. I'm not here to bullshit you, being a relatively young guy, before I read John Olson's passionate exhaltation of everything Smegma in a promo written up for "The Beast" that I found at Zulu Records in Vancouver, I had no idea who these people were or the music they'd been making for 33 1/3 years. Of course, whenever someone begins to boast that (insert band name here) makes the craziest, most out-there sound, I see that as a welcome challenge. In fact, I'm already there: wallet out, eyes gleaming, mouth foaming.

When I was a teenager, it was the usual suspects: Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Boredoms, The Shaggs, John Zorn, and later in college it was Caroliner Rainbow, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. And so, after hearing all this hype, I couldn't resist the temptation to see whatthe fuss about, and began digging into their laudable back catalouge. Thankfully, courtesy of the Mutant Sounds blog, I was able to get ahold of the out-of-print 1982 lp "Pigs for Lepers," free of charge, and after spending a bit of my own bread, wound up with the recent reissue of 1981's "Nattering Naybobs of Negativity" (which includes a remastered edition of the cassette-only release, "Morass"), a 2005 collaborative lp with Metalux and Mr. No-Fun himself, Carlos Giffoni, the album which I am (sort-of) reviewing, "33 1/3," and Smegma's latest release, a collaboration with Norweigan noiseniks turned metalheads, Jazkamer.

Clearly, this is a lot of music to digest, and so far, I've managed to absorb the majority of those records with glee, along with enough comprehension of who Smegma are and the sounds they make to write a summary review of "33 1/3."First of all, I think it's important to note the label that has released this record. Important Records have a fair bit of clout in both the indie and avant-garde music worlds, and it's worth noting that as all of their releases receive professional packaging jobs, and are released in fairly reasonable quantities (if you don't count Boris' "Vein" lp), Important Records releases have a better chance of reaching a wider audience, remain in print longer, and might even wind up in your local chain record store.

This is not a criticism of the label itself, or it's business and distribution practices, but I do think that this is reflected in the music Important releases. Like the recent Jessica Rylan album, "Interior Designs," Smegma's "33 1/3," and indeed, much of the music Important releases, tend to function as great introductions to the bodies of work produced by the artists in question. Many of these albums are great, no doubt, some could even be considered essential, but it's my feeling that none of them are classic-status albums. "33 1/3" is an excellent, even essential record, and one of the best new releases I've heard all year, but I can't help but feel that with all it's bells and whistles, it lacks some of the unpolished character which early Smegma classics such as "Pigs for Lepers" and "Morass" have in spades. That being said, for old fans and newcomers alike, "33 1/3" finds all the trademarks of Smegma's peculiar sound intact and sounding better than ever: the Harry Partch influenced homemade instrumentation, altered electronics, warped vocal samples, and turntable manipulations aplenty, and lengthy, unpredicatble jam sessions reminiscent of those found on Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica," only weirder.


Smegma have been performing this personal blend of soft and chewy free-jazz for over three decades, and it should come as no surprise that as a band of musicians, they've got much tighter with age. As I first listened to this record, one of the things which struck me as really remarkable was how loose Smegma's improvised carnival tunes seemed to be, and yet, on closer examination the composition, instrumention, and sense of dramatic timing that is employed is appropriate, I realized that while Smegma might be a bunch of goofs, they're not goofing around when it comes to technical proficiency. On past releases, Smegma's Beefheartian bozo-antics seemed at time almost randomly slapped together, sounding as if they'd been violently shoved down thirteen floors of stairs with a trampoline waiting at the bottom. In contrast, "33 1/3" finds these freaks strutting their stuff and showing off some serious musical sophistication, while sneaking in a little more structure than before into their gelatinous sound. For example, "The Door," which is the longest track on the album, and my personal favorite, plays for four solid minutes nothing but sound effects and seemingly random noise bursts and blurps before diving into a warbly surf-rock jam which sounds like it was recorded underwater, and continues on in this fashion until peaking at the ten-minute mark. Each track on the album is worth noting for its own nuances, but others I enjoyed profusely include "Glossolalia," a dynamic five-,minutes of sampled vocal dementia, the mushrooms on the midway vibe of the circus-like jam, "Antics," and the smooth-jazz ambience of "World of Plugs."

Whether or not Smegma and their LAFMS friends are the godfathers of the American free-noise scene is besides the point, and so is the fickle attention temporarily being given to them by the hipster press (Pitchfork, Tinymixtapes, et al). I for one will continue to pick up whatever records I can get my grubby hands on from this entertaining group of American originals. If you've become the least bit interested in Smegma after reading this review, I heartily suggest you nab yourself a copy of "33 1/3," or any of the albums I've already mentioned. Better yet, taste test a copy of "Pigs for Lepers" on Mutant Sounds right now, and see for yourself what all the hubub is about.

Porest, "Mood Noose" cd (Resipiscent) & "Tourrorists!" cd (Abduction)

Continuing my seasonal descent into a crazed, credit-card fueled froth, I now present yet another semi-recent find from beyond the margins.

Porest.

Porest is the moniker of producer and musician Mark Gergis, creator of some of the most intelligent, hilarious, and incendiary music of the post-9/11 age. Gergis' music is thoroughly saturated with thought-provoking, point-blank politics that take deadly aim at many of the orthodox institutions that North Americans take for granted as "our way of life." Marriage, misinformation by major media corporations, domesticity, passivity, tourism, terrorism, the wholesale slaughter and exploitation of the so-called 'Third-World' by the U.S.A. and their allies (which includes us, unfortunately): nothing is safe from Porest's oft-hilarious, always accurate scorn. Which isn't to say that you won't disagree with me when you first hear his music, in fact, this music might just piss you right off, but I find it hard to believe that someone who isn't a complete sociopath couldn't be provoked, for better or worse, by something they heard on any of his albums.

He's had his Myspace page shut down at least once by American Zionists who didn't take kindly to his apt criticism of the state of Israel; its continuing oppression of Palestine, involvement in the so-called War on Terror, and insidious partnership with its equally malignant benefactor, the good 'ol U.S.A. Though I guess we shouldn't count on Myspace to uphold the U.S. constitutional rights for it's American users when Rupert Murdoch pulls the strings, now should we?

Porest asks questions that evade easy answers, and rather than spoon-feed you with safe reassurances, he pulls the rug out from under you and kicks the skeletons out of an Imperialist, late-capitalist nation's collective closet. This is music made in the hopes that it will cause a stir in people, get them asking questions, or at the very least, maybe wake them the fuck up.


















Mood Noose cd (Respiscent, 2006)

Porest's third full-length album, released on Resipiscent Records (one of my favorite new label discoveries of the past few months), is a densely layered exercise in drawing a number of scenes and compositions detailing some of the darker undercurrents of American life. Of course, as any trip you're likely to take with Mark Gergis, and twists and turns are what make this cd special. You see, Gergis is an accomplished field-recorder as well as a musician. As result of this, his music is unfortunately frequently described as Negativland-styled plunderphonics as it is grouped into the ghettoized genre of *shudder to think* World Music. Rather, Gergis' compositions take on their own unique forms, and on Mood Noose, this means that where one song might comprise of thick, sample-filled sound-collage ("Lady Surinam," "Cartoons Aren't Funny"), the next track might have Porest doing a Residents meets Iraqi Pop song and dance routine ("The Highest Order," "Kabar Yetse Poniskyo").

Mood Noose is less tightly wound around a conceptual framework than Tourrorists!, which was released just a few months afterwards on the Sun City Girls' label, Abduction Records, but as with the rest of the Resipiscent releases I've been exposed to, its quality is impeccable. The cd is held within your standard jewel case, with not much of an insert to speak of, but overall the art and packaging has a slick, slightly home-made feel to it that speaks of real artist' work, and not the careless manufacturing of a major label release. Also of interest to fans of SF Bay Area music, Liz Allbee (who rumor has it is in Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet) lends her trumpet to "The Mother of All Mistakes." If you've never been exposed to Porest before, Tourrorists! is probably a better place to start, but don't miss out on Mood Noose if you find yourself satisfied and wanting more, like any good capitalist piggy should.

Tourrorists! cd (Abduction Records, 2006)

There is no doubt in my mind, Tourrorists! is the definitive artistic statement on America's so-called War on Terror. Both musically and conceptually, this is Mark Gergis' money-shot on the face of the U.S.A. Before I really get into this, however, let me get something off my chest. Generally, I feel that music and politics rarely make good bedfellows. More often than not, the ideas pushed by today's musicians proclaiming themselves as "Political" or, even worse, "Punk Rock," either lack the intelligence to generate a real dialectic, are entirely hypocritical when one examines their lifestyles and ties to major multinationals, or simply continue to beat a dead horse that doesn't interest me in the slightest. What's important to know though, was that much of the music I cut my baby teeth on was entirely mixed up in politics, and so I do sympathize with those artists who simply aren't satisfied with burying their heads in the sand and saturating themselves in blind escapist fantasy. Contrary to what most college-age youth tend to think (that I've encountered), Dada as a movement was driven by politics, and the desire to change the status-quo. Art that appeared to have no actual meaning, was in fact fueled with a radical intent to transform society. Free Jazz, another hot term liberally applied to much "experimental" music, was likewise driven by a intensely devotional spirituality, and a desire to see change take place.

My point is this, most of the music being made today seeks only to entertain, which is fine in and of itself, but where is the artist who would rather make himself a martyr than a minstrel show? The artist willing to be interrogated, hounded, and hated for asking the wrong questions, for saying what noone wants to hear? Mark Gergis is that kind of artist. The album art alone is enough to send shivers up the spine of any overly patriotic conservative: an explosive device inside of a suitcase is revealed when you remove the cd from it's jewel case, a picture of Gergis standing beside a Hezbollah soldier in Lebanon, a photo collage contrasting racist rendering of red Indians behind a meat grinder, and the large text that reads "God Bless the Terrorists and Their Families."

Rather than describe the music at length, I'd like to say that if you're still with me on this so far, please just spend the money and buy this album right now, or at least test the waters by purchasing the awesome "Eye of the Leopard" on iTunes. It may confuse you, make you angry, or make you laugh, but I can say with total certainty that it will grab your attention like two towers in the New World Mordor who shall remain nameless and ringless.

Peace

Summer Lovin', The Skaters

For the past four years, each summer has gripped tightly to a dear tradition of mine: the mad consumerist rush to obtain albums from all my current musical obsessions (and the excess of money from Arctic Circle Surveillance that makes tracking down said obsessions possible). Last year I was busy picking up back catalog items from Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Koenjihiyakei, Knead, and many more), as well as many other random discs of fancy. All in all, I'd say in four months I bought 36 albums. Which, I'll admit, was a tad excessive, but working full-time in the Arctic while taking a break from school should have its perks. Not having to rape my wallet for tuition in the summer months must count for something, right? I think that it does; a cause for celebration (with headphones on).

This summer, the same logic still applies, only with the added bonus that I won't be paying tuition at all this fall, but will be instead be investing in real life stuff, like circuit-bent synthesizers and groceries. So I've got some added carefree cash, complete with little anxiety towards my future state, which'll surely include buying records anyways, so why stop now? Two months have passed in this summer, and I've been on a paypal rampage. With the next few posts, I'd like to introduce you all to the heavy vibrations of my summer obsessions.

Today: The Skaters.

The Skaters are James Ferraro and Spencer Clark; an enigmatic twosome from that blessedly damned state of outsider art, abject poverty, and sun-drenched drone: California. Like so much of the quality lo-fi revelations being put to tape 'Out There' in North America, the term"Noise" doesn't even begin to describe what it is this duo does best. Theirs is a swirling, chaotic, often majestically melodic mushroom cloud of angelic all-vocal psychedelia, an impenetrable cosmic moan that reaches out at you with smoky tendrils, drawing you in deep. Others have said their sound to be an extension of the free-jazz aesthetics dreamed up by Coltrane and Miles Davis, but don't come to this hazy party looking to dig on saxophones, or any percussion that goes beyond one hand beating out a off-beat, repetitive cosmic t h u d d d. I'm not saying that I even really agree with this assessment of their work, but I will say this: there is consciousness and soul alive in this music. The Skaters may improvise their live, electrified incantations, but before they open their big mouths, there is some serious premeditation happening.

If this has interested you so far, stay with me, because there are so important things to know when diving into the gaping body of these boys' canon. First of all, if you don't have it installed on your computer already, get yourself Soulseek (imho: the best P2P file sharing program out there), 'cuz these two sporadically release cdrs, records, and tapes that fall into two categories: 1) limited availability, and; 2) "fucking forget about it dude!" I've been into The Skaters for about a year now, so not very long at all, and I've got eight albums of what they call their "private imaginations" on my pc. Only one of these albums, Pavilinous Miracles of Circular Facet Dice, was paid for. Why? Because the others are gone, sold out, bye-bye. If you're an eBay hound, good luck, you'll do well for yourself, as I see the odd release on there from time to time, but if you feel like jumping into this psychedelic pool, be prepared to diligently nab whatever you can before it's gone in a puff of smoke. I suggest becoming familiar with the following: Fusetron, Midheaven Mailorder, Aquarius Records, Forced Exposure, Hanson Records, and Weirdo Records.

As a primer for any inductee into these secret worlds of Skaters skull-dome pleasure, I humbly recommend seeking out the following sunken treasures:

-Pavilinous Miracles of Circular Facet Dice
-Gambling in Opha's Shadow
-Mountain of Signs
-Receding Smokebath
-Untitled
-Rippling Whispers
-Humming Lattice Flowers (from the 10 lp "California" box-set put out by RRRecords)

Peace.

Return of the Head-Eye or Back Vibes for Heavy Blog-Massage

Well, don't get too excited just yet, but as many of you may not know, I'm currently 'on vacation' in the Canadian Arctic (Iqaluit, Nunavut, on Baffin Island, to be more exact), so my internet connections have been less than steady. Truth be told, I haven't had a decent (ie: dsl) connection in over a month. Future postings should be somewhat more frequent from here on out, however, this blog is going to take on a slightly different format.

Let's face facts (or rather, opinions): you have yours, and I have mine. Personally, I don't believe in such a thing as bad taste, or conversely, in the cultish hegemony of High Art either. All orthodoxies are borders, and personally I'd rather piss on the floor than have to confine myself to the acceptable parameters of what critics define as 'Music Criticism.' Me. I am not a music critic. True, I did write album reviews for over two years (most of them shitty reviews, but the more I wrote the better they became), and I have referred to myself in the past as an aspiring critic and/or a music critic. That age has passed. What I now realize is that all I can possibly hope to achieve, in writing about the sounds I like to hear, is that I may possibly turn someone on to an oddity they might have never been exposed to. Clearly, anyone who possesses a range of intelligence enough for them to place a simple verb before a noun, has the ability to criticize (ex: verb, "shitty", noun, "indie-band") . See, it's easy.

So why the predisposition towards pretention. Why must records be shoveled down our throats buy media (indie or not) organizations as these perfectly hip, fetishized commodities which, if you don't like (insert Trendy Band A here) means you are certifiably clinically retarded, and have 0 hipness experience points. Oh just eat my sweet dick. Nobody has to love anything, and I've certainly had enough experience in weirding out my friends (with their own individual tastes, neither better nor worse than mine) with fucked up music to know that some people, while they may appreciate the artistic intent involved, just don't like it. Giving an overrated, or even genuinely great, record 5 stars or a 10.0 with enough adjectives to fill a thesaurus (and obscure references to postmodern philosophy or fucking Don DeLillo's "White Noise") doesn't make you fucking Robert Cristgau incarnate, it just makes you a bigger douchebag than I'm willing to cop to.

So anyways, don't worry friends, I still love writing about music, and I'm still as opinionated and passionate about the whack-job weirdness that floods my engines as ever, but I'll leave the criticism waiting at the fleshy brown door of my asshole. No, expect this blog from now on to be more about what I'm into, and why it melts my fucking face off!

or (as I also scribbled down on my blackboard brain)

" Aloha boils and ghouls,

after a month-long hiatus (no internet being the damnable culprit), I'm back at the Heavy Vibes blog (http://heavyvibes.blogspot.com) with a slightly altered agenda.

Taste the good times people, don't hate.

I've resolved to remove any critical douchebaggery from the remainder of my music writing. I love what I love and I won't apologize for it, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to tell you that some obscure 4.99 cdr is the noise equivalent to the Tower of Piza (or that the Leaning Tizzower barely rates a 2.6 when compared to the 10.0 of my perfectly flacid cock). Fuck that.

Record ratings are for pitchforked twats.

From now on, think of these musings on music as the humble opinions of one zonked-out lover."

Continue to dye in Peace.

-Christian

P.s. I've got a nice steamy load of cdrs/cds/& dvds on their way, so keep coming back every week and I'll promise to have an extra special surprise waiting.