Ollie Ottoman delves into the Backstage Passport 2 DVD by NOFX. I feel like I’m part of a dying generation who grew up on NOFX. Say what you choose about their music, but you cannot deny that their work ethic, approach to music and the impact they have had on punk rock has been a source of respect. That and they have made some killer records over the years. I became convinced when I put on Pump Up The Valuum...
A critical evaluation of The Best American Comics 2015 (Best American Comics) by Jonathan Lethem (Editor) and Bill Kartalopoulos (Editor). The Best American Comics series are simply imperative reading. Comics (note the editors don’t need to yank anyone’s chain like they do in the mainstream and substitute the words “graphic novelâ€) are undoubtedly a booming art form. More comics are being written, drawn and produced than ever, and lucky for us, Bill Kartalopoulos has the monumental task of finding the...
A critical evaluation of Human Society in Ethics and Politics by Bertrand Russell. Above all, one has always been able to count on Betrand Russell to speak his mind no matter what the consequences may be, historically. While he sometimes wrote on very specific topics like education or western philosophy, on other occasions he covered much broader subjects like in this book, Human Society in Ethics and Politics. I suppose this tendency to speak freely had gained him a reputation...
A critical evaluation of Let’s Go To Hell: Scattered Memories of the Butthole Surfers by James Burns, published by Cheap Drugs. Whether it was because of the book’s great quality or simply because it was the first to address the merits of the bands which erupted out of the American underground music scene in the 1980s, Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life truly did set a standard that any other book which intended to cover any of the...
A critical evaluation of Big Hard Sex Criminals Volume 1 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. I don’t know whether Sex Criminals is an imaginative idea or a sign that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Get this – the whole premise is that these two kids (and I say “kids†to be cute) find each other and discover that they can stop time somehow when they achieve orgasm. And what do they do with this power? They...
We dreamt about it; that night we fell in love at the Baths concert in San Francisco just 5 miles west of the ocean. A sold out show at the Independent on Divisidero in the middle of the city where the cool kids who spin vinyl stand in the front to have their drums blown out by the bass in the speakers created by the dynamic duo Baths. Duo? You must think I’m confused… but it’s true. One single man...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Hateful Eight official soundtrack LP by Ennio Morricone. We live in the good times, people – and by that I mean the times when we can get lush over-the-top vinyl pressings of some pretty peculiar stuff. A Quentin Tarantino soundtrack in no exception, especially because vinyl is the perfect format for a Tarantino movie. Instead of rehashing old tunes with new bands, Tarantino sticks to the original cuts, for that vintage...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “White Walker” 12” picture disc by Mastodon. When fans first hear the “White Walker†12” picture disc, the first thought which will pass through their minds (ALL of their minds) will likely be, “Wow – this doesn’t sound like Mastodon at all.†There’s no arguing that; “White Walker†has none of the metallic crunch that albums like Leviathan, Crack The Skye or The Hunter had, and it features none of the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the blackstar LP by David Bowie It’s amazing how outside factors can affect the qualities of the music on an album and change its focus. Any number of stimuli could play an active roll in the change – the medium through which the music is presented (be it vinyl record, compact disc, cassette or mp3 – whatever), the players who contributed to the recording or even unforeseen events which occurred completely outside...
At the beginning of February the groundhog told us that winter is fake and summer is real. This is probably in lieu of global warming. Some states experience a very summery winter – states like Florida. With the inspiration of forever summer comes upbeat pop with an experimental synth-y sound in Animal Collective’s tenth studio album Painting With released on February 19th, 2016. While band member Deakin is still M.I.A (he was also absent from 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion), Avery...