Friday, July 31, 2009

Ok seriously...just stop.

I don't even know what to say to this. Garageband and some shiny leggings from American Apparel does not make you artistic or musical. Nor does alliteration and deadpan rapping. It makes me hurt in ways I have never hurt before:



Thank you to Look at this Fucking Hipster... I think.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

FAIL: blink 182


So what gave Blink 182 the idea that they could ever become relevant again? There is a reason that I haven't listened to this band since I still thought zip binders and skater shoes were a fashionable choice. This latest publicity stunt only furthers my belief that these guys are getting a little pathetic. As quoted from the press release I received:


"blink-182 has teamed with photographers Jered Martin and Lisa Johnson to create special limited edition t-shirts for each stop on the tour. The shirts will be limited to 182 pieces per night. Once they are gone they are gone. The screens and film will be destroyed and never printed again."

Gasp! Destroyed? After only 182 a night? How ever shall I continue to breath if I do not obtain one of these unique and original shirts? Oh wait, I forgot for a second that I don't really care. Get over yourselves guys, you are not a pivotal rock band and you never will be.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Yacht rock (and other types of rock as well)

This Thursday, July 16 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. to , there's going to be a pretty rad FREE concert outside city hall featuring YACHT, Point Juncture, WA and Y La Bamba. I'm fairly new to all of these bands, but I am currently in love with YACHT after seeing them live at Superfest a few weeks ago. Y La Bamba and PJW are pretty boss as well. The event is in connection to the up coming PDX Pop Now! festival, which will soon be upon us. Let's hope the weather stays lovely.

YACHT - Summer Song from Jona Bechtolt on Vimeo.

Dj Robo-Smurf

I was in the middle of trying to write a review of a recent show I covered and looking for info on local dj E*Rock. Along the road, I came across this gem of an interview. I especially love the part about building a two story robotic smurf to tour the country in. E*Rock, you are now not only my favorite dj, you are also my new personal hero:

Monday, July 6, 2009

Winy Wino

Neil Steinberg’s Drunkard: A Hard-Drinking Life is awful.

Steinberg comes across as self-absorbed, selfish, pathetic, melodramatic, self-depreciating, self-pitying and possibly a sociopath. He tells the reader what people are thinking and feeling rather than showing through events, making him an unreliable narrator.

On page 164 he admits that after likening his history to a Greek tragedy while regaling his tale to fellow addicts as they blankly stare at him, he adds that it was, “just Neil babbling nonsense.” It comes across as an insult to the less educated addicts’ intelligence, but “just Neil babbling nonsense” is actually a good description for the entire book.

It is not a Greek tragedy. There was no family curse (his parents didn’t drink) and no gods intervened in his life. He drank too much and one night he slapped his wife.

Even with his over-the-top praise for his wife Edie, at several times during the book he starts blaming the “bitch” for calling the cops on him when he slapped her, causing him to go to jail and then rehab.

Since the book’s written in present tense, it’s difficult to tell whether that was his opinion only when he was trying to sober up or if that’s still what he felt while writing the book. Seeing as he remains bitter toward her throughout the book and repeats how it’s her fault he has to go to rehab, my guess is the latter.

Memoirs are usually written in past tense, so that the author can relay events as well as reflect on how they’ve learned from time, maturity and distance. Without any intellectual interpretations and random tangents that lead nowhere, Steinberg’s book comes across as little more than a drunken ramble.

Just as I would not sit next to a drunk in a bar as he pours out his entire self-pitying story to me, I did not want to finish Steinberg’s stream of consciousness. However, I sledged through 270 pages to warn you readers to stay far, far away from this book. There are many superior addiction memoirs. Unless you prefer a drunken ramble by a man who hits his wife and isn’t able to show appropriate remorse.

-Sarah Hutchins