Arctangential

Report from the discount CD bin. The following discs cost me $5 (plus applicable taxes):

Agnes Gooch – blind
violent bruised sky – unlearn
Big Car – Normal
Willie Wisely Trio – Raincan
Junkster – Junkster

As you can probably tell, I just choose them based on their having interesting names (or sometimes interesting cover art).

Mini-reviews of each:

Agnes Gooch (which seems to be made up only of men, so that’s just a band name, not a person name), is sort of semi-mediocre guitar rock. The lyrics aren’t really intelligible, so I can’t say if they’re intelligent or not. It’s not bad though — I will listen to it for a while probably.

Big Car… maybe this is the “Emo” thing I keep hearing about — these people sure are emotional, anyways. It’s hard to say exactly what they’re emotional about — maybe the issue is that their music SUCKS ASS. This will not be getting much airplay on Radio Avi.

violent bruised sky: Shitty Cannibal Corpse wanna be death metal, lots of high pitched meaningless screaming, random guitar mutilations, steam hammer drumming a complete lack of rhythm or melody. I think I like it. Too bad it’s only 4 tracks.

Willie Wisely Trio actually has a guy in it named Willie Wisley, but… it’s actually 4 people. So I’m not entirely sure what’s up with that. Anyways, it’s an improv jazz kind of deal, and when I say “improv” I mean “Music this bad couldn’t have been planned in advance.” The lead singer sounds like Jerry Lewis with a head cold and the lyrics are on an intellectual par with Phish. Hating it.

Junkster, despite its decidedly stupid name, is actually pretty good. Female vocalist, a nice mellow rock sound, very catchy. It is making my head move around a little. Prime replay material.

So, for $5, I got 2.5 pretty decent albums and 2 really shitty ones. That’s not a bad deal.

I had an interesting experience today. I was having my standard breakfast at the local Burger King (#2 w/ cheese, large sized) when a fellow in a ludicrous leather jacket with an even more ludicrous beard approached me, set a CD case down next to me, mumbled something about a “metal fest” and then left. The CD was in a plain case with no backing, and a liner booklet made from two pieces of folded photocopy, and the label looks like a photocopy too, glued to the CD itself. The cover art is just black & white, depicting the silhouettes of 4 hung corpses over some flames, and the CD is apparently a compilation of a number of bands who will be performing at some kind of big concert at a nearby music store / coffee house (yes I’m serious) called the American Music Cafe.

This was all reasonably weird. Especially when I saw, out the window, the guy leaving in an enormous black van with red tinted windows, red grille, etc. Anyways, I went to work. On the way home I decided to give the new CD a listen, fearing the worst. And it actually wasn’t all that bad! Some of the bands have stupid names, like Sinning is our Savior or “Hellrazor”, and the tracks are no different, viz. “Coalition for the Grievous”, but it was actually a pretty good listen overall. The fest itself is 2 weeks from today, and if I’m not doing anything else that night I very well may check it out.

Also, Woody Allen rules.

Q: What’s better than finding a CD by a band called “Filthboy” at a used CD place for $3?

A: Finding out that Filthboy is actually a pretty damn cool band.

So I’m driving home from the movies, and I’m listening to “The X”, which is sort of an alternative rock station… I think it’s national, so many of you may know it, but anyways… it’s the whole “new music” thing going on. I usually listen to the classical music station, but they had opera on, and in my opinion listening to opera on the radio is like reading about a blowjob.

So I’m listening to all of this new music, and they play a song by a band called Gub, or Gup or Glub, or something like that — they’re a Canadian punk band. Yes, Canadian punk. Anyways, it gets weirder. The song wasn’t too bad. It gets even weirder than that. After the song was over, the DJ came on to let us know that Gub or Glupp or whatever will be playing here in Pittsburgh next month — they’ll be opening for Avril Lavinge.

Now I knew punk has been on the ropes lately, but I didn’t know things were that bad. I think we should all say a prayer to the ghost of Iggy Pop tonight.