it's truly a lie, i counterfeit myself

so my laziness caught up with me and i haven't updated in about 5 months. shit's been kinda weird lately, and i kept meaning to update, but meh. i started smoking more weed than snoop dogg, and i can't remember shit these days.


i've been pretty fuckin' sick for the past month, in and out of doctors' offices battling my rapidly declining health. it's cool, just proves my theory that shitty people get what they deserve. yep, i'm admitting it folks, i'm a shitty person and i totally deserve whatever's comin' to me.


aaaannnyyyway, enough of my self pitying at the shitty hand that i've been dealt in life. the bed rest has given me lots of time with my 800+ cd collection and my rad little stash of totally sick bud, but naturally, as in times past, when shit gets to me, the only thing that i can identify with is dylan. i think i've watched "no direction home" at least 5 times in the last week, and listened to "blood on the tracks" at least 3 times a day for the past month. the music and the drugs, man. whatever gets ya through the night.


i guess nothing really cool has happened since i disappeared from the virtual world. manson and twiggy reunited, nick cave and the bad seeds got together and recorded another album, and amy winehouse is in worse off shape than any of us. yeah, i got tickets to go see manson at the wiltern in february. yeah, i'm stoked. yeah, i'm gonna totally goth out.


so lemme get down to brass tacks. there ain't nothin' left in this world for you or me, babe, and almost all record reviews are just a way to show the world how cool you are, or how much you know about something you don't even like. i thought that 2007 on the whole was a bust. i started off the year doing shit i didn't wanna do, and ended it with people i didn't wanna be with. least we got a couple of good records from it, and i personally learned that drugs (like psychedlics and weed) are cool.


so what was worth it for me?


era vulgaris - queens of the stone age

i don't care if josh homme calls mark lanegan over to come take a shit in tandem with him, records it, then adds a killer bass line to it and pow! releases another lil' nugget to the world for all us to hear. it's fuckin' killer. i saw 'em a bunch this year, hung out at a few shows, and talked mad shit on how rad this album was to anyone who would listen. plus, they added that dude from wires on fire to their ever changing rotation of bassists since nick went off to do lots of blow and create knock off qotsa renditions to a bunch of fat overheated porkers at ozzfest.

from the opening line of the opening track "turnin' on the screw" to the rollicking repetitice chorus in "sick sick sick" and the simplistic bass intro to "suture up your future," this record does little wrong and a lot of right. do yourself a favor, get fuckin' blitzed and blast "i'm designer" 'til your cunty neighbor bitches at you to turn it down at 3am. guess they don't teach rock 'n roll in the midwest, bitch. fuck yeah!

smokey rolls down thunder mountain - devendra banhart

i was late coming in on the devendra banhart love train. yeah, i'd heard of the guy, knew he had a hippie beard, weird tattoos, and sang about seahorses and sparrows, but other than that, he stayed off my radar. that soon changed when i heard this record and realized that there was more to this guy than hippie crystals and a mat of long hair. plus, the dude totally owned jim morrison's old couch and let a bunch of dogs chew it to fuck. how's that for rock and roll? do yourself a favor and get into this record. he's supposed to play a show at the hollywood bowl sometime around my birthday this year, anyone in?

health - health

what the fuck is this? it kinda sounds like throwing a pot full of hot water and silverware down a stairwell and recording the ensuing chaos. the songs are short and pointless, but fucking great. they sort of blend experimental with shoe gaze and straight up prog rock. plus, they're playing with autolux on feb. 1 at the el rey.

mirrored - battles

i had a weird discussion about this record with matt groening and his son. we all agreed it was a departure from their earlier records (duh, hey added vocals this time around), but more so than that, it was and evolution from their earlier work. see? i can name drop too. look at how fuckin' cool i am and the people i have cool discussions with. plus, the video for the song "atlas" was one of the best music videos of '07.

in rainbows - radiohead

duh. everyone loves radiohead, and everyone loves to contemplate suicide while listening to kid a on repeat. the progressive release of the album digitally made 'em even more popular amongst indie hipsters who like to think they're part of a bigger plan to make the world a better place by saying things like "well, it's a good thing they released it themselves and added the 'pay what you feel' diatribe to the world. they really are fronting a musical revolution." farrrrrt. hey, dickbag, your pants are tighter than mine and i think that's causing the blood to rush away from your balls and into your brain. if you ever wanna have little kids named after cities in europe, you better loosen the lock on your tighty whities and let those balls hang down. radiohead did what they felt like doing, and out of practicality for whatever reason, just threw the tracks up online for whomever wanted 'em and said "fuck it." yeah, record labels suck a fat nut now, but once upon a time, without 'em you wouldn't have heard a fraction of the bands you like out there 'til the advent of file sharing and myspace.

baby 81 - black rebel motorcycle club

this album helped me to realize that i like making out with girls AND boys. 'nuff said.

grinderman - grinderman

...and so did this album. i've been raving about this record all year, and i ain't gonna stop in 2008. nick cave slays it in whatever form he chooses to take. grinderman is just another continuation of the "nick cave: australian badass" saga. anything this guy touches turns to a deeply emotional river of dying, pain, and sorrow from the depths of your innermost soul. this is album is a little more "upbeat" at times than let's say, anything on boatman's call, but that's not to say it's lacking any depth or character. who hasn't felt the twinge of the "no pussy blues?" yeah, that's what i'm saying.

icky thump - white stripes

jack slays with his axe twice as hard as before, and meg pounds furiously on the skins, trying to keep up. fortunately, it works, and every bit of blues revival and southern influence on this detroit duo seeps through each track like oil sliding through the gears on a factory assembly line.


war stories - unkle

as if james lavelle didn't do enough for the music world by discovering and signing dj shadow to his label when the kid was only 18 years old, he starts his own band, and starts churns out rad collabs with bands like radiohead and queens of the stone age, too. if that wsn't enough, he decides to go out to the middle of desert, presumably do a lot of drugs, and call up a few folks you might've heard of, like the duke spirit, autolux, ian astbury (of "the cult" fame), and yep, you guessed it, everyone's favorite stoner rocker, josh homme to come out and jam. every second of this album is pure fucking gold. i had the fortune to see 'em a few times this year, since i'd heard that he'd added a full backing band to support him on tour. yeah, those shows blew my mind. i spent each time fully baked, so i might be a little partial when i say seeing them perform live was one of the single best musical experiences of my life.


so of course with the good must come the bad, too. since there was a particular lot of mediocre and all around basic garbage in '07, i've decided to water the "worst of" down to shit that could have been good, or was at least done by musicians that have more than proven themselves in the past to be talented and worthy of being defined as an "artist."


white chalk - pj harvey

we get it. you had a couple of abortions, nick cave wrecked your area for a while then stopped, and you got super bummed out and sat down at a piano to write songs about it while dressed up like a victorian seamstress. please go back to singing ambiguous songs about sex and love while screeching about the emotional pain you're subversively seeking and continually setting yourself up for. we liked that polly jean harvey much better than this third-rate tori amos knock off. blech.

year zero - nine inch nails

i'm sorry, i didn't hear this album. i was too busy farting. oh wait, i didn't miss anything? wait, you mean that wasn't me farting? that was the record? fuck.

back to black - amy winehouse

okay, so technically released in 2006, this album didn't get "big" until nme started writing articles about how she got so drunk that she puked on stage somewhere in london and stumbled around in a coke haze at coachella. i'm sorry, but shitty tattoos and songs about various substance addictions are soooooo 1994.

american doll posse - tori amos

in addition to being a contender for one of the worst album titles of 2007, when i stopped cutting myself in my twenties, i stopped listening to tori amos. somehow, she still manages to stick around and find the underground group of lesbians who are still anxiously awaiting another ani difranco album and a more intellectual form of "pussy power." over it. so, so over it.

eat me, drink me - marilyn manson

hey mr. superstar, please stop now. every step you take musically leads you further and further away from the brilliance of antichrist superstar. somehow, you've managed to make a parody out of yourself AND ruin any shred of "evil" servitude and anarchy on the world you once held. newsflash: no one's shocked, anymore, dude, so give it up. no thanks.


so there you have it folks. the best and worst of 2007. i am still alive, and i am still gonna post on here, deal. so here's to 2008; to the hope that we will finally see the release of gnr's chinese democracy, a new my bloody valentine record, another year of keith richards continuing to slay it despite all medical , oh yeah, and a much needed shot in the arm to rock 'n roll. come on, dudes, let's make this one a year to forget!