#NYR, the 80s, the 90s, going to shows (punk, ska-punk), cycling/modifying my track bike, getting tattoos, spending time with genuine people, making jewelry, watching frasier, visiting filming locations, rad nail art, graffiti (as an observer), ice cold coors light (bottle), graphic design, eargesting music, warm coffee/iced lattes, #NYM, netflix (binging in general), punk stuff, horror, autumn, winter, making t-shirts, watching twin peaks, vinyl toys, bargain shopping, architecture, traveling, reading, replacing nostalgic relics, philanthropy (whenever possible), wordpress development and coding in general (PHP, XHTML, CSS, SCSS, jQuery)
oh dear satan, this is torture. dan, how could you make me so divisive against myself?! this is so fucking tough because both of those albums were two of the first albums that i ever purchased on my own, while i was coming of age into my own music. both of those albums are tied to so many memories and feelings.
it’s kind of tough to choose also because they are two very different albums and styles of music. when weezer came out, i remember the nerd-core looking initial emos started w the grandpa/dad sweaters, buddy holly framed glasses and airwalks and shit – they weren’t really dressing the same as the green day folks, who then turned into your typical/probably rancid, souls and nofx fans. of course a lot of us listened to both, but i feel like especially in school at the time, you were either one or the other.
i went with the blue album.
i fucking love dookie… but for me, the blue album is a weird, dark, emotional and magical trip. when i hear the intro cords to “only in dreams”, my heart swells up like the grinch’s. that album just feels like a comfortable hug with a blanket or something (i sound like such a weirdo, lol).
i recently realized that i hadn’t listened to dookie fully in a really long time, so i threw it on while i was taking a shower one night and was just like “wow, this is still just so good”. i realize that’s not a very elaborative review, lol. i mean, of course the two MAIN hits are good (#4 and #7), but the rest of that album is really just so fucking good. they were/are so talented and while of course that album is adored, i still find the other tracks underrated. i feel like since green day became GREEN DAY 2.0, normal people only listen to 4 and 7 and MAYBE “when i come around”, but the entire thing front to back is just perfect and seamless popular “punk”.
i especially love “she”, and “coming clean” is my favorite song on dookie, if anyone gives a flying fuck.
there aren’t many albums that i recall listening to for the first time, but the blue album is one of them. i still have the receipt for the cassette and own it in four different formats! it just made me feel a way. ♥
anyways, you can vote if you’d like to… there are 15 hours left on this poll:
kerrang mag asks us nerds our musical opinions every few days on the gram. i thought maybe it’d be cool to feature the questions/my opinions here… it’s better than listening to me complain about things, lol.
“tell us the three best songs by linkin park”09/09/21
runaway, in the end, numb
***
yeah, i actually liked linkin park. not that i dislike them now, i just don’t actively listen to them on a daily basis. i totally don’t mind when they’re on. i know linkin park came out in the 90s, but when that whole nu-metal thing spawned in the early 2000s, linkin park was already there but soared at that same time as the other bands.
i remember the first time my sister and i saw “one step closer” debut on MTV… we were like “wow, wtf was that?” it was a rock band with a dude on turntables, what on earth?!
i never actively followed them, but i dug around for other songs/albums i like. i guess i like their early stuff, hybrid/meteora, but yeah, those are my favorite three.
…have i ever been to a show in queens that wasn’t a local band?
: scratches head :
does black 47 on irish night at shea stadium count? oh wait, i saw the sleeping one year at flushing meadow park, but i can’t find anything via google that ever happened. i think it was some type of free vans show? i dunno. the internet tells me it never occurred, so i have no information.
WELL… i got to see rancid this weekend, and it was so nice to feel normal for a night. it was the first show i’ve been to since the pandemic happened, but it felt more like 4 damn years.
not gonna lie, singing and dancing at the same time was hard to do, lol. i was winded first song that i really started dancing (erm, in a punk pit for you non-punk show goers, it’s called skanking… if you’d like a visual, this is hysterical, and not a terrible representation at all). it’s confusing that i felt so damn out of shape and out of breath, bc i’ve been either cycling or doing aerobics on a daily basis for the last few months, with cycling being more regular for even longer… maybe it was just that when i do aerobics, i don’t use those mosh pit muscles. either way, once i started getting into it, my body just kind of kept up a little better.
the show was at forest hills stadium, which i never even knew existed. i have no idea how i didn’t know it existed, seeing as that i grew up in queens, lived in ridgewood, glendale and rego park. i’ve even walked over there a billion times and there is a freaking sign that reads “forest hills stadium” on one of the bridges in the little apartment complex/square i’m in love with, by the LIRR stop off of austin st… smh.
i’m guessing no one i really wanted to see ever played there. it was a really cool spot though, and i wish more bands would play it. when you first walk onto the property, there’s a bunch of different booths for local restaurants, lots of different things to drink, etc. and you’re on this big astroturf lawn right outside of the stadium itself. everyone was all spread out and it was nice to not be on top of each other like when you’re at a bar at a venue, in the lobby/merch areas or the floor of the venue.
as big as the area was, people we knew kept popping up out of the woodwork. i’m sure so many people were just itching to come out, too. i went to the show with kristen and missy and we ran into so many people there, from so many different eras of life. old friends, current friends, awkward people, old flames, jeff, marilyn, andrew, frank and buzz, kristen’s MIA friend brendan, a bunch of old buddies i met through greek steve… it was weird/nice to see those folks.
anyways, i didn’t care for the dropkick murphy’s setlist that i sneak peeked from setlist.fm, and missy and kristen didn’t really give a shit about them, so we skipped them. i think we’ve all seen them live, so it’s not like we missed out on them in our lifetimes entirely.
rancid was awesome as usual. i really wanted to see “red hot moon” but they didn’t play it. they also didn’t play “hooligans” or “nihilism” which would have made me very happy, le sigh. hopefully they won’t take another 4 or 5 damn years to come back.
i’m also glad i didn’t break my damn neck on a crushed can doing any dancing or circle pitting on the tennis floor surface. it seemed more grippy than i had anticipated, and it even took a few kicks to get any crushed cans out of the way that i was trying to move so that i, nor anyone else slipped and humiliated themselves. i already feel like the old weirdo at the show, lol.
***
i asked my mom if she’d ever been to FHS and her snarky little answer was “OF COURSE! i saw the cars and wang chung there, it was awesome!” and then she mentioned someone else i had no idea about… my heart yearned to see the cars, life is so unfair.
years ago, i dated a dude whose brother and best friend were obsessed with glassjaw… i soon also became obsessed with glassjaw, and kept following along with other projects that came about via the extremely talented lead singer, daryl.
one of his musical projects ended up being a band called head automatica. i was fucking THRILLED about this in particular, because this mixed up genre of a band was absolutely right up my alley. i am extremely into new wave/80s/dance/electro anything, so this new band fit right into my repertoire of musical interests. like, so right up my alley that it even featured tim armstrong (a dude from one of my favorite punk bands, rancid) on a pop dance track. what in the actual fuck?! (but it worked…)
i grew up in the 80s and have always loved new wave (especially the weird, left of center shit), i love synthy pop dance stuff, i came into various types of punk on my own and went to raves in the 90s. i feel like head automatica sounded like pieces of all of those things. it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what they sound like. i listen to all different types of music/bands and i don’t even know who to compare HA to. when it came out, i guess you could call it some type of indie pop rock, because it (thankfully) wasn’t main stream enough to be straight up pop music, not that daryl would have allowed that shit anyway… that was a genre we kind of what we kept shoving all types of “myspace bands” and indie into at the time.
so now that i’ve professed my love, i am here to profess my frustration.
i was looking around some archived bookmarks i have in my browser and came across this, which i had forgotten about:
first off: i didn’t take this video – it’s just on youtube… but i was at this show at blender theater, and i did get to witness this IRL and it was glorious. i remember while this was happening, i was instantly like “this is going to be my favorite song off of this new album”, and proceeded to shake my fat ass in the crowd.
secondly: this song, nor the album it’s on were ever released. they were performing songs off of the 3rd album live, soon before they were going to release it. it was named “swan damage”.
i googled what i could about the release of that album, and came across a few things and articles regarding swan damage. tl;dr: daryl wanted his projects off of the label they were on, and unfortunately that also affected the album. he talks about it MAYBE being leaked someday, doesn’t say who or how… just kind of eludes to it. unfortunately though, it seems as if he’s put all of this behind him. as a fan waiting for this stuff, well, that selfishly hurts.
to me, head automatica feels like “well, it’s better to have loved and lost”. like, thank you universe for letting us experience it, but we should just be grateful we had it at all? uh, we could still have swan damage probably/maybe/who knows/i dunno/please just do this one last thing.
i dunno how that’s fair, but still we devoted fans still follow DP’s moves and punish ourselves, lol.
* * *
listen, daryl, you sexy bastid, if you ever see this post… please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please (zing!) release the kraken. swan damage does NOT feel old to the people that have been waiting for years now. we haven’t heard it over and over again. this song above, i don’t know what the actual lyrics are bc it’s a bit fuzzy. i want primo quality… i would like to see this in front of me again, when we can go to shows and dance my ass off. the few swan damage tracks you did play during that era sounded so mature in the HA archive. as aforementioned, HA wasn’t like most bands out there. you did what you wanted. i KNOW who inspires you musically (squeeze, elvis costello, the jam, etc.), and i feel like you were finally applying it to this project. don’t get me wrong, i love “beating heart baby”, and fuck the label for wanting 10 of it… but that wasn’t my favorite track. “the razor”, “laughing at you” and “cannibal girl” are probably my favorites, alongside the song above. i don’t even know what it’s called… but i’m sure the mastered version would have been in my top 3, sir.
* * *
it’s so hard being a fan of daryl’s, bc while he’s a musician, he’s also a CREATIVE human being. he moves fluidly between or onto new projects, and for us greedy fans that want more of something, we get the brunt of it and get impatient. as a glassjaw fan, we had to wait 9 years for new EPs and 15 years for a full album.
on the other side of the token, i actually feel guilty having these feelings. it’s not my business to get pissy about having expectations, i guess. it just sucks that he was just kind of over it, when i felt like he was finding himself in such a great, creative place. i feel like a label and it’s expectations killed this shit for all of us.
as for side projects, house of blow, head automatica, SPORTS, color film (bad saint… i melt. ♥)… they’re all so good! i guess as fans we just have to cherish what we get blessed with by him and just be happy with it.
* * *
i got to meet daryl at an album release party via some rapper i used to know. not only did he perform there that night, but we were all in VIP, so once i was drunk enough to actually utter words to him, i thanked him. it was all i wanted to do, honestly, bc you know that whole “never meet your heroes” expectations thing… i was at a loss for many words, but he was sweet when i said that to him, and i hope he knew how much i actually meant it.
we chit chatted about nonsense i’m sure. at that very moment, i was schlepping vinyl records in milk crates for a mutual connection DJ friend, who had also performed there that night. i remember him thanking me for knowing all the words to the house of blow songs (i’m guessing he saw me in the crowd singing along) and then asked me if he could hug me (obviously i said yes, and i remember that his leather jacket was so damn stiff, that it was hard to get a good one, but i still got one ♥).
anyways, my point is… i don’t know if musicians really understand just how much music touches people, but hopefully when we tell them “thank you”, even if that’s all we can get out of our star struck mouths, they understand what we mean. music has always been a massive part of my life, and while i’m not a very emotional person, music always overwhelms me. it powers me, it helps me, it makes me emotional… music is magical.
to have another chapter of head automatica would be amazing for us fans… just putting it out there. maybe our other mutual connection that works at the shitty label will find a way to um, *cough*leak*cough* release it.
i finally sat down to sift through the newest offspring album. of course, as with any band i loved in the 90s, my anxiety is at an all time high, with the lowest of hopes. i always feel like these bands aren’t going to put out anything they release in the present, that can be compared to their heyday. i know that’s super unfair, i think i’ve just been burned by weezer so many times, lol… anyways, i figured i’d give this a fair shot.
my thoughts until track 6/7ish were just “well, this doesn’t sound like the offspring”. like it legit doesn’t sound like dexter singing and i was confused and thought they replaced him for a hot second, lol. i don’t know if they were trying to do that on purpose bc they are basically a typecast sounded band… but i did not like that. i know it’s dexter bc i can hear his signature octaves in the chorus of the first song, and realized it was him… but it was honestly confusing.
once you get to breaking these bones and the opioid diaries, you hit THE OFFSPRING (and hassan chop, too). THEN THERE IS GONE AWAY SUNG ONLY WITH PIANO, AND MY HEART MELTED. it’s honestly so beautiful.
i liked some of the songs but i’m not sure if i would insert them into any playlists just yet. in all fairness, i don’t really listen to music anymore, if i’m not out riding my bike. i don’t really have the attention span for it.
overall, i was definitely NOT in love with this album as i have been with other offspring albums. i’d give it a 3.5/5 if i had to rate it.
i’m glad that they’re still making music, though. ♥
i’m currently listening to the new =w= album… i figured i’d live post my first impressions while listening.
* for songs i love on first impression.
all my favorite songs – i don’t vibe with it fully but the words apply to me perfectly
* aloo gobi – this sounds like something indie i would have listened to during myspace days. i do like it, and it didn’t feel weezer-y enough for me until the first chorus and the further it gets into the song, the more weezer-y it got.
grapes of wrath – pleasing enough, very poppy and happy but doesn’t resonate as a song i’d go back to just yet.
* numbers – this is very cursive, sad and romantic sounding to me and i love it.
playing my piano – see below.
mirror image – i don’t really vibe with this song, it’s overly whimsical if that makes sense? haha i didn’t realize “playing my piano” changed over to mirror image… so same for both songs. meh.
screens – this is a very happy, modern 60s sounding song to me, if that makes any sense. i liked it, but don’t really connect with it (other than being annoyed with everyone staring at their fuckin phone screens).
bird with a broken wing – a lil too slow for my liking, but a pretty song none the less.
dead roses – a lil too slow for my liking, but a pretty song none the less.
everything happens for a reason – just a 23 second in betweener.
here comes the rain – it’s catchy if you have an ear for this specific type of song, and it’s not really for me. super happy… too happy for me.
la brea tar pits – i feel like we’re back at the “this sounds like something from myspace indie band days”, but polished. i don’t really listen to that type of music anymore… that kind of music reminds me of the band japanese gum – it’s not bad, i’m just not feelin it.
every time there’s a new weezer album, i clench and cringe a bit… i know there’s never gonna be another blue album, but i keep praying for it. i love pinkerton, i love parts of maladroit and some of the green album. maybe a song or two after that, but never a full album again, and i hate it. i tried to listen to the entire discography at some point a year or two ago and couldn’t really find anything i liked. it made me so sad, because the blue album and pinkerton are so epic. the blue one is always going to be the mecca for us weezer fans, and nothing will ever top it. it’s so depressing.
while i’m not a huge fan of it, i will say that i think overall, “everything will be alright in the end” comes pretty close to the blue album soundwise, from modern day weezer. da vinci is probably my favorite track from the album.
in case you don’t feel like sifting through their entire discography, here are a few notable song/scattered gems i adorrrrrrrrre:
you gave your love to me softly (b-side)
green album – photograph
maladroit – possibilities
raditude – (if you’re wondering if i want you to) i want you to – okay, this song is sorrrrrrrrrrrt of a wee bit obnoxious, but it’s so happy how could you hate it?! i don’t find myself listening to it often, but i do like it. ♥
pacific daydream – mexican fender, happy hour (it’s so dreamy! …and poppy but not offensively poppy), weekend woman feels blue album to me but dreamy (i guess they were going through an electro-pop dreamy sounding phase? lol), any friend of diane’s is a good one, too.
the black album – while i just wanted to note that i reeeeeeally didn’t dig this album, “i’m just being honest” is one of my favorite weezer tracks, ever. while it doesn’t feel like a weezer track at all, it’s right up my alley.
i feel like maybe some people wouldn’t pin me for a fan of this song, but it’s one of my faves. in fact, i’ve been building a list of my top 100 faves throughout my entire life since last year, and this will definitely be on it. it’s a sentimental one for me. when TRL first came about, i used to go over to my twin friends’ house and we would watch the whole countdown, and it was about the same time when this came out. this was on there for what seems like forever. just brings me right back to my senior year.
it was a bittersweet lil era… a tough time. i had just broken up with randolph, i was spending more time with new/old friends because i was kind of fighting with sophie, my friends just started going to raves which was changing our dynamic (before i started going), so it was kind of synced up to a transitional time, i suppose. it’s also just a good fuckin 90s pop song.
i mean, if this year fucking deserves to come in with a biden bang, this is def a way to do it. i’m glad gregg and co. aggreed to it… this makes my 2021 hear very happy already, just with them playing the inauguration.
there are just some songs that grab my cold ass heart and squeezes so hard that tears well up in my eyes and i get emotionally overwhelmed. i really need to start a top 100 songs of all time list (maybe i’ll do it in 2021…), but here’s one of them:
this is one of those songs that make me miss the early 90s so much, i could just cry.
it is marie/mountainview.
it is coming of age.
it is me in my bedroom in whitestone – playing super nintendo, listening to z100, being creative or whatever it is my junior high school ass was doing.
“Gwen Stefani has released a new single called “Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” which has the same homecoming energy as the Cars’ “Hello Again”” – [writer on vulture]
GORRRRRRRRRRRRRL… no.
listen, i love the shit out of ndxgwen, but this is absolutely not anything like “hello again”… as a massive fan of the cars, this irritated me so badly that i am now in defensive mode, lol.
energy wise, style wise, just overall, the mention of “hello again” attached to this song is insulting. warhol would scoff at this watered down bullshit. the energy of this song is tepid AF. this song sounds like the recycled chorus of sparkle.
this is a horrible attempt at doing something without no doubt (i swear they don’t fux with her anymore bc of that country bumpkin – esp tony bc blakey poo is a hunter of animals) and at a clearly uninspired time in her life. she’s basically only doing the voice (zzz who cares?), christmas music and blake as her career. wtf is this shite? this feels like those weird two songs she did that she basically erased from her own history a few years back.
the fact that you even had to put out an entire song talking about how you’re still relevant means you are in fact, not. if you were the original you, you wouldn’t be a plastic version of what you once were.
ma’am, you are irritating all of your real fans, cut the shit.
in case you want to listen to this monstrosity: click here. i’m not even embedding this crud.
so in my last post, i mentioned watching the richard bey show (which was mainly known for crazy jerry springer-type topics/antics). i did a search on youtube to see if i could find old episodes, and this popped up. a serious topic vs the usually sleazy stuff… it was about skinheads. the episode started with skins that ARE NOT racist, trying to prove to people not well versed in the subculture, that the majority are not the hateful shitheads typically portrayed by the media.
i am sitting here with my eyes bulging as much as i do on a regular basis, watching the GOP lie through their teeth on tv nowadays… mid-show, they bring in one of the bad types of skins. the entire episode at the start was a group of spirit of 69 skins – more ska punks than anything. i mean, they have some questionable viewpoints, but for the most part, they were decent people. i wonder what year this was from, i’m assuming it’s the late 80s, but holy shit, not much has changed from the shit coming out of the racist one’s mouth.
when the shithead enters the picture (@ 18:00), he is already spewing untrue, annoying bullshit about abraham lincoln and making excuses for having a swastika tattood on his arm (which was “in no way related to hitler”… yeah, okay, buddy). my favorite part was after he started mentioning the honest abe schpeel, he goes on to call himself:
A HISTORICAL REVISIONIST!
he says he used to read history from his encyclopedia britannica but then started reading from underground presses, and so now he knows better.
lmao, sure jan.
he then called abe lincoln a white supremacist… yep.
he also went on to say that skinheads are majority anti-white that cause the problems (while he’s also wearing a confederate flag on his arm?).
the racist asshole skin goes on to preach that white vs black power is just that you have to look out for your own race and that’s it. that he’s not against black power… just they have to only worry about themselves.
that is one of the most un-american things i’ve ever heard.
one of the skins at the top of the show went on to say this after an audience member was asking why the racist shithead was being attacked for his feelings:
“the way i feel about this – and you notice i’m not arguing because this is america – it is a free country and everybody has the right to believe in what they want… he has as much right to believe in what he wants, as i have to believe in what i want. i am not going to sit here and call him any names, because that’s his view. it’s only when somebody takes those views and pushes them on somebody else and alienates their right – takes away their right to have their freedom… that’s when it’s wrong.” – marcus of SHARP
THANK YOU, MARCUS. i have said this over and over again the last decade and in lots of posts on this website. this is my stance on why republicans, conservatives especially, are the fucking devil. case in point: here.
the hardcore kids at the end solidified the program. it’s so crazy, that decades later that this is still so relevant… and we’re still so stuck. when i was growing up, i’m sure i would have watched this and not have any idea wtf they’re talking about… but here i am, age 39 and this is so important AND i turned out to be one of those people.
i have NEVER called myself a skin – i really don’t go around calling myself a “punk” either, but i’ve been way into punk since i was a teenager, it’s been my social life since then, i have plenty of punk friends from the scene over the years and obviously stand by the values they support. even though i’m not a skin, it’s part of my subculture. just like that chick at the end said – america is a melting pot. well, so are punks. we’re all on the same team (aside from the racist or annoying straight edge kids) and about equality. this is why i love this subculture. the punks hang with the skins, the ska kids, the hardcore kids, the metal kids, etc. – all of us weird or bullied or rock kids all stuck together, and for the most part, we’re still there.
for some odd reason i had this song stuck in my head all day. for an even odder reason, since childhood, i thought taylor dayne performed this song, lol.
as i’m watching it, i realize the “bouncer” in the video looks a lot like walter olkewicz (jacque renault on twin peaks)… i can’t find any credit that is actually him… but it really looks a lot like him. the shape of the lips are especially similar.
anyways, i googled him, and i came across info that says he’s in bad shape healthwise. i found a gofundme he has setup for donations. if you can help, please do! i hope he’s okay 🙁
please, when we can have concerts again, i would like this very much at terminal 5:
miami horror
tame impala
chromeo
daft punk
like, i need to dance for hours to VERY happy, funky music. i don’t think this would ever happen, but to have the trifecta of greatness as i have just listed, would be the biggest synth-pop/house music showgasm of my life.
and universe… please make it happen on a day that doesn’t conflict with any concert that is rescheduled from this the shit show that was 2020.
i treated myself to the most perfect little vase this year, for my birthday. all i’ve wanted to put inside of it (because it’s small), are marigolds. i can’t find any in home depot, in florists around here… etc. i’m getting so annoyed.
it’s the perf autumn flower, and a wonderfully nostalgic autumn flower from childhood.
there are marigolds all around the neighborhood… i’m about to steal my landlady’s clippers and jack some on a jog.
le sigh.
i’ll settle for marigolds in this dark form, instead. it also suits the season.
best concert: bouncing souls – cha cha’s/coney island, 2007
seen the most: bouncing souls
worst concert: bouncing souls terminal 5 – i was WAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSTED and greg played misfits acoustically on a ukulele (i hate acoustic music for the most part, REALLY dislike ukuleles). it angered me and ruined the show for me, lol. it was also my actual birthday, so i was extra irritated.
loudest concert: aren’t all concerts loud?
most unexpected pleasure: going to adicts shows and coming home with goodies from the lead singer (he throws playing cards, other party goodies).
wish i’d seen: sublime, nirvana (they were still alive/touring when i was almost old enough to go to shows), op-ivy, the cars, the academy is…
when i think “roaring 20s”, all i think about is art deco… lots of black and gold, handcrafted, durable, romantic, timeless, gorgeous art deco.
now we have a bunch of wayfair/ikea bullshit, lol.
don’t get me wrong, i fucking love ikea… i have since i was a child, but don’t get it twisted. that shit isn’t built to last. i’m surprised i have pieces that lasted over a decade, tbh.
anyways, here we are… in the 2020s. society hath fallen apart, mindsets are shite, everything is just so… rapid. no sustainability on many fronts. how depressing.
i don’t believe in resolutions – never have. i want to just make a mental note to travel more, freelance more, buy some jonathan adler and elsa peretti pieces, get my shit together even more and make sure i have a good year, just like last year.
as a young stu, this was one of my favorite 80s videos/songs. what a weird kid, lol. i just thought they were like, cool spies or some shit. i still love this song so much, and as an adult, the video is so visually appealing to me – the colors and contrast of their suits, the architecture of the building and the industrial setting.
around an hour ago, my boyfriend came to personally break the news to me that ric ocasek died, knowing i’d be upset. i instantly started crying in disbelief. they (finally) just got into the rock & roll hall of fame… it just can’t be real.
the cars have been in my life since i can remember consciousness. my mother was a huge fan, and i absorbed it from toddler age. they’ve always been the soundtrack to my life. this just breaks my heart. i can’t put into words how much this band has made me happy, influenced me artistically and aesthetically, and have been there to help me through breakups and hard times. i listen to them on a daily basis, and i can’t remember a time that i didn’t listen to them on a daily basis, to be honest.
my sister’s cousins (via her dad, we have different fathers) used to babysit me and they’d constantly play the heartbeat video music videos VHS tape while babysitting. i loved it so much. i don’t know why panorama was on that video, bc it wasn’t on heartbeat city, but whatever. enjoy the video, it’s one of my faves.
i cherish every member, and it was hard enough not having benjamin orr, but this one stings. thank you for also producing other bands that i love as well, ric. your talent and artistry will be missed so dearly. i’m extra sad bc now i’ll really never get to see them live.
so when i was 16, it was the year of ball chain necklaces, kool-aid stained hair, airwalks, cool sk8r and pacific sunwear surfer shirts, jncos, etc. i had been in love with gavin rossdale for like, 3 years. bush was all the rage at that point. i wasn’t as musically versed as i am now, so of course, they were the greatest band EVARRRRRRRR…
my first concert ever was bush when i was in 10th grade, and i felt soooooooo cool pogoing at an alt rock show (lulz). that concert at madison square garden was actually the thing that brought me and my first love together. the first time i ever spoke to him, he was wearing a razorblade suitcase shirt and it was the topic of conversation that i used to get to him. for that, i will forever be thankful to bush, but i digress…
this afternoon, i stumbled upon a recent article talking about how fans hated the lyrics of sixteen stone and basically gavin was going on about his lyrics as artistic, magical and fluid and blah blah blah… my eyes rolled so hard.
over the years, people have always accused him of riding the coattails of gwen, and it always used to upset me to read that. she’s just in a different, incomparable category. she was in a pop band, she had a pop solo career apart from NxD, she was running two fashion lines, etc. – she was all over the place. in interviews, she used to say he didn’t love no doubt or her music. she made him sound very dismissive and she also mentioned that only he listens to dark/deep stuff, which is clearly the opposite of no doubt. those comments made it seem like he was unsupportive or jealous or something.
between her saying that and reading his interviews, he sounds like he’s got this weird ego where he thinks bush was this underrated, genius band or something. it’s kind of awkward. no offense to his talent, but bush had their moments, and then they did not. lots of did nots.
bush faded out over the years and didn’t stand the test of time (i’m not mentioning post-razorblade bush, bc i totally fell off the bandwagon – just the early stuff). in fact, i revisited razorblade suitcase today, and i sat here scratching my head as to how i ever liked it. sixteen stone is still good, despite the bad lyrics (i have always questioned wtf he’s ever talking about in songs, no matter how much i loved them), but the real gems are the b-sides.
i rarely listen to sixteen stone in its entirety. i REALLY have to be in a mood to listen to that type of music. that happens to me with lots of bands, but that is definitely an album i only pick up once a decade, but i do listen to individual tracks on a more frequent basis. “machinehead ” is an awesome song, still is in my mind. i could probably listen to “everything zen” and “little things” on a more frequent basis as well. honestly, i’ve always hit skip on “glycerine”, and i could live without it.
okay okay, i’m getting sidetracked… THE B-SIDES.
so if you’re a kevin smith fan, you probably know the aggressively grungey song snippet “bubbles” from the movie mallrats, even if you didn’t realize it was bush. i don’t remember what year i finally saw mallrats, but it was way before the internet was chock full of info as it is now, so i couldn’t find more info about it. i always knew that i heard gavin’s voice in that tiny song snippet, though. there was no b-sides or a single (that i can remember) released for it, and i don’t know why, but i didn’t think to buy the mallrats OST. it kind of just remained a mystery for a long time.
this afternoon is when i youtubed that mallrats bad boy (listen to it here), and while it’s VERY 90s, holy crap, that’s actually a good bush song. like, i would listen to it today on a regular basis. i went to see what it was on, and it says it was on a reissue of razorblade suitcase, along with 3 other songs – AND THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GOOD. i am sitting here in awe and confused as to why that they never released these on studio albums or as singles.
maybe they were *tOo CoMmeRciAL* for gavin or something? what a waste of singles that could have been doled out.
a confused, young girl in love is finally being exposed to her musical preferences that will set the tone for the rest of her life. a sexy brown boy, skateboard readily in hand, ball chain around neck with airwalks on is showing her what actual punk rock is. he shows her ska-punk as well, and she embraces it with open arms.
NO… punk rock is not green day (i still have a hard time calling green day punk, no matter if all of us 70s/80s babies came through that rite of passage or not), and 15 year old me is confused.
“BUT THEY HAVE BLUE AND GREEN HAIR…?” – her brain says
(still at that point, only actual rocker people had weird colour hair)
…he paves the way.
bands like rancid, goldfinger, bloodhound gang, no doubt, etc., but getting to the point here… NOFX.
the moment i heard “i heard they suck live!!”, i was hooked. the only exposure i had to punk that i can remember growing up was the ramones and green day (again, i thought it was straight up punk). while the ramones were definitely more punk than GD, this was different. this was faster, grosser and more vulgar. also: there were horns?!
i heard this live album before i heard the actual albums these songs came off of, and still to this day, the album versions don’t sound correct to me. this album is offensive as shit, but i always found it funny (ie: together in the sand, they talk about fucking your mother and then called her a hoe – i now know that slut shaming is wrong)
anyways, this album is going to be 25 next year (EW! plz kill me, i’m old), and i was thinking to myself about how fucking rad it would be if fat mike and the guys would do a 25 year anniversary show for it. i would be there in a heartbeat, with my beavis and butthead remote in hand (YES, I STILL HAVE MINE, AND YOU WILL ONLY UNDERSTAND IF YOU KNOW THIS ALBUM LIKE THE BACK OF YOUR HAND).
i made these absolutely ridiculous earrings yesterday (yep, from my actual 90s CD insert), which inspired me to listen to it while i straightened my glorious mane last night. in addition, it inspired me to post this. so, if fat mike + co., if you find this before 2020, please do this.
*~BONUS~* lastly:
picture it. times square, 2016…
jessica and two co-workers are on their way to see the gin blossoms live at bb kings (I KNOOOWWWW…. how un-punk of us, lol). we are in search of sustenance, when a co-worker suggests a restaurant that is too packed to even bother. as soon as we step out, a man with a red mohawk steps in front of us. male co-worker and i look at each other at the same time, trying to hold in our energy and excitement. female co-worker is like “WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU 2?”. we walk behind the mohawked man for half a block and i’m like “do we say hi?”, and he’s like “um, yes”, but does nothing, so i go for it. i flag him down and ask for a picture. mind you, aside from my hair, we do NOT look like a pair of punks. we had just come from work, so he’s probably like “why do these people want a pic with me?”. i wound up saying “hey mike!”, so i guess he put two and two together and obliges the pic and then chats us up with some small talk. i’m star struck because i always am, and my adrenaline filled ass actually asks him where he’s off to. :facepalm:
it’s really hard for me to say i have a favorite *anything* in music. i go by subcategories for everything. however, i will say, if i had to choose top 5 favorite genres… this would be top 3. i have such a love for these what i like to call “adult contemporary” (VH1’y) songs, lol. they hit me right in the feels. they remind me of being upstate with my cousin and screaming along in her room or the car. they remind me of nights i finally had my own room at the age of 14 in 1995, and i’d let Z100 or MTV play in the background while i wrote in my dumb diary or played SNES for hours.
whenever it’s gloomy, rainy, foggy or autumnesque out, i feel like it’s the perfect time for these types of songs. i equate this weather to comfort. anyways, if you don’t already know/listen to these songs, maybe you’ll enjoy ’em 🙂
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