Showing posts with label Sweet Baby Jay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweet Baby Jay. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

GUILTY PLEASURES WEEK: Cobras Strikes Back!


Earlier today, JGD spoke a bit about the effects of domestic partnership on daily death metal intake, and how living with one of the fairer sex will often cause even the most most hardened of Hessians to find him (or her)self occasionally listening to Duran Duran or Nelly on the regular. No big deal. It happens.
I concur fully with JGD's thoughts on the matter. I too have fashioned "compromise mixes" for my girl and I to enjoy together on long car rides, and as a result, I think we've both turned each other on to some sweet jams we might not have ever inspected otherwise. I've given her Deep Purple and Dethklok, and she's given me... Well, she's given me today's featured artist, among others.
Don't get me wrong: my girl is metal as fuck. She shamed me in the pit at Amon Amarth last Friday, morphing into a flurry of hair and limbs as I struggled to find a safe spot where I wouldn't spill my Diet Coke. Homegirl has a boner for double-bass and lyrics about Vikings, but our taste in tunes tends to diverge just as often as it coalesces.
Enough pontification, though. If I had to choose one girlfriend-inspired musical revelation that towered above all others in overall significance, it would have to be the 2005 debut album from some chick named Mathangi Arulpragasam. This shit goes against every musical instinct and fiber of my being, but it still kicks all kinds of ass, and makes me a little giddy every time I hear it. Dance music? Yep, it sure is. But like the Smoking Crab says, DEAL WITH IT.
Sorry. I promise to post some generic Swedish death metal or something tomorrow.


மாதங்கி 'மாயா' அருள்பிரகாசம்


Buy it

MY FUCKING JAM:


(WTF censored lyrics on the "Ain't that you with the Mus-i-lims" part?)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

100% GUILT-FREE


Okay. This 'Guilty Pleasures Week' thing is either the best or the worst idea I've had in awhile. Either way, I'm stoked on it, and would like to encourage everyone to share their deepest, darkest musical secrets here. That's right, I'm not even gonna restrict this thing to "established" IllCon Contributors. Are YOU ashamed? Need to confess a guilty pleasure? Father Cobras is here for you, ready to assure your forgiveness through a series of digital Our Fathers. Send me an email. Let's fuckin' SHAME OUT.
Anyway, before shit gets too ugly or embarassing, I just wanted to share a trilogy of songs I was listening to on repeat yesterday, none of which being in any way shameful or guilt-inducing. Credit where it's due: Sweet Baby Jay shared the first song with me on Facebook yesterday, at which point I countered with the second, only to be completely outdone by Charles T. Heckler's (remember him?) addition of the third.
In a way, it kind of seems to me that these three songs describe some sort of story arc when played in order, a tale of lust and betrayal, deception and jealousy. I can't stop listening to them:







Let these sick jams be your own personal soundtrack to the rejection of shame and impetus to embrace your guilty pleasures. May "them Dirty-Foot Bitches" guide your way.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

I HATE YOU, MISTER HEAVENLY

Allow me to take you on a trip back through the Illogical Archives for a moment, all the way back here, where I ranted about "indie rock" and hipsters, and fake rock, and THE UNICORNS, a band who (thankfully) no longer exist, but who inspire rage in me nonetheless, a band who I described as such:

"... The Unicorns might be my LEAST favorite band (musically speaking) of all time. Their twee, pathetic little quote unquote pop songs are the antithesis of ROCK, the ultimate soundtrack to a life of of self-conscious self-absorption and resulting FAILURE. FUCK, I HATE THEM SO MUCH."

Well yeah, it's true--my spiteful anger has not diminished at all since writing this stuff last year... If anything, it's grown: you try living in a city where fixed-gear bikes and skinny jeans outnumber Sodom patches and bullet belts 10 to 1, a city where the Noise Pop Festival (ugh) reigns supreme, where the constant need to be "cool" by being "uncool" has turned the entire Mission District into a Mobius Strip of ironic detachment. Don't get me wrong, I love this city. But the "cool kids", man...
Anyhow, I digress.
Lets get back to The Unicorns. Namely the, uh, "creative"(?) force behind the band, one "Nick Diamonds" (below), who also went on to play in the equally-despicable Islands.

Go ahead, take a minute to let this picture FULLY sink in.

So apparently, "Nick Diamonds" has formed a new indie rock band with ironic-moustache enthusiast "Honus Honus" (left), who is pianist, songwriter, and vocalist for the terribly-named "Man Man". Reason enough to be worried, am I correct? No good could possibly come out of this particular pairing. I mean, to be fair, I'm not really familiar with the work of "Honus Honus", but something about him is giving me a bad taste in my mouth already... Look at the guy.

And I've never actually heard "Man Man", but check out their band photo:


... I think it's safe to assume that their music sucks and that they're all bad people.

So yeah, this new Diamonds/Honus project (I heard there's someone from Modest Mouse in there too--OMG INDIE ROCK SURGROUP!) is called "Mister Heavenly", and they've been making the rounds at South By Southwest or whatever, and everyone who loves bad music seems to have a huge boner for them right now. OK, great.
So why do I even bother talking shit? Why even acknowledge the existence of this sad abomination? Just ignore it, right? There's so much negativity in the world already, why dwell on bad art made by misguided turds?

Well, it's not quite that simple...

I consider my own hatred for pretension an unimpeachable personality trait, which might sound conceited, but I'm pretty sure there are worse ways to expend your frustration. Just back off, OK? This is healthy.

Here's where it gets SERIOUSLY FUCKED.

If there's one thing I hate MORE than the twee indie-pop of Nick Diamonds, it is the filmography and onscreen persona of Mr. Michael Cera (right). Something about the guy just drives me absolutely FUCKING NUTS: the nervous stuttering, the falsetto non-sequitirs, the forced "nerd charm"--sure, Arrested Development was pretty sweet, but everything he's been in since seems to be custom made to give me rage-induced aneurysms.
Morbid curiosity drove me to watch Juno (below), and as Sweet Baby Jay can attest to, I left the theater that night white-knuckled with murderous anger. And part of me must enjoy the feeling, because I watched Scott Pilgrim a couple weeks ago too, with quite the same result.


Sort of off-the-subject here, but Scott Pilgrim seemed to be a pretty polarizing film: people either loved it or hated it. I've heard several people rant about how great it was (Doug Benson and Asa, to name a few), but to me, that movie was the summation of everything wrong with modern cinema--all flash, no heart. Big stupid special effects. The "rom-com" banality. Ugh.
And the whole "indie rock" subplot? Don't get me started...


And here, my friends, is where our topics converge:

MICHAEL FUCKING CERA (left) HAS JOINED MISTER HEAVENLY.

Which is actually kind of amazing. Imagine: all of my most reviled pet peeves in one place! One-stop shopping for the spiteful Hessian! A singular object, a tangible THING to encompass every negative, ugly, malicious fiber in my being!

Michael Cera is in Mister Heavenly.

Wow.

He went from "pretending" to be a shitty, sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Scott Pilgrim to being an ACTUAL sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Mister Heavenly. There's kind of a poetic justice to it. Now Nick Diamonds and Michael Cera can dry their tears of unrequited love together, possibly even upon the enormous moustache of Bonus Honus!

More LULZ from Mister Heavenly's Last.FM page:

"Spurred on by a mutual appreciation for doo-wop and doomed love songs (aka doom-wop), Nick Diamonds (Islands/Unicorns) and Honus Honus (Man Man) set out to record a one-off instrumental 7” but soon found, within a span of a few late-night sessions, themselves writing an entire album." (more on DOOM-WOP HERE)

Last.FM also calls them "similar to bands such as: Rabbit!, Oh Jollity, and Marshmallow Overcoat."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.


Yes, I certainly do hate you, Mister Heavenly. But I also kind of love you, for proving one thing: THE CHASM OF FOULNESS THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ACHIEVE, WHEN CHALLENGED, IS INFINITE--JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE FOUND ITS ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, THAT BOTTOM FALLS OUT, REVEALING AND EVER-EXPANDING PIT OF DESPAIR BELOW. THERE IS NO GOD AND NO REDEMPTION. WE ARE ALONE IN THIS LIFE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. BUT AS LONG AS WE CAN LOOK INTO THAT PIT--TO FACE THAT SICK HORROR AND SPIT IN ITS FACE--WE ARE CHAMPIONS.

Monday, January 17, 2011

SWORDS + BONERS + OUTER SPACE = CLYDE CALDWELL

Clyde Caldwell (right) is a fantasy/sci-fi/D&D artist whose name I became familiar with only recently, via introduction by Sweet Baby Jay. Born in 1948 in North Carolina, Caldwell first began working regularly as an illustrator in the early 80's, with the rise of the role-playing phenomenon. Similar in form and function to the works of Vallejo or Frazetta (more so Vallejo), or even the like-minded swords and sorcery of fellow D&D wizard Erol Otus, Caldwell has found a solid niche in the fantasy-art genre, and his "future of the 80's" style is the perfect analog to anything from Nocturnus' The Key to Cirith Ungol's Frost And Fire. Enjoy a couple dozen lo-res replications of Caldwell's work, selected at random, then head over to his website and buy some prints. But only if you are a fan of heavy metal, boobs, or spaceships.

























CLYDE CALDWELL ONLINE

Classy people: BUY ART HERE (2 for 1 special on prints, January 1-31!)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

THAT THING WAS YOU


Just a quick birthday note for my sweet lady Jaybird--the Dog to my Beth (above), the Dagon to my Incubus (below), the Cassandra to my Wayne, the Cagney to my Lacey, the Marge to my Homer, the Niemi to my Swayz, the sober yin to my raging yang.
On behalf of the entire Contrap-Nation, I wish you the most special of days. Here's to many, many more.





NOW LET'S FUCKING PARTY




(Bonus shot: Peter as Violent J, Manslaughter as Eric Adams, and Jaybird as Dog, October 30, 2010. Killer bro sesh.)

Monday, December 20, 2010

IC writers retreat VOLUME II

On December 4th, 2010, an unprecedented number of Illogical Staff Writers gathered in a secret location for the second annual Illogical Contraption Writers Retreat. Cory, Peter, Manslaughter, Erik Del Tigre, Seanford and even the boss, Shelby B. Cobalas, were all rumored to be present. In addition to this overwhelming number of interweb elite, many IC contributors and epically tight bros were spotted in the area. Some reports mention Wendy Stonehenge, Mike Scalzi and Clint B somewhere in the vicinity of the meeting. Here now, for the first time in a public forum, are the minutes form the Illogical Gathering. Unedited and unauthorized.