WATER AND SOLUTIONS

HERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND....

2010-11-21T06:07:00.000-08:00

COULDN'T YOU TAKE THE SECOND BUS HOME?

2010-11-20T01:03:00.000-08:00

"DOC, YOU DISINTEGRATED EINSTEIN!"

2010-11-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I used to love the hoverboard, the Nikes and the special FX whereas nowadays I love the Back to the future series for its depiction of suburbia and the overall warmness and charm that just oozes from these movies. There's just so much chemistry going on between everyone involved I find it hard to believe that someone could not like this trilogy. It's also hard to believe that Michael J. Fox, the most American Canadian teenager that ever graced the big screen, wasn't even involved with the first installment five weeks into filming. As a fan I knew Eric Stoltz was originally signed up to do the part but I never knew they actually had footage with him playing Marty Mcfly. Some of that footage was released some time ago (and some random stills before that) and can be found on Youtube. Look it up if you haven't already. It's really weird seeing the exact same scenes with a different face. From the bits I've seen Stoltz gives the role a darker kind of vibe and even though I like some of his films Michael J. Fox just blows him out of the water with his zaniness, hint of youthful innocence and a classic outfit. For some reason the studio had Stoltz dress in black, which wasn't really helping either. All in all this is a cool find and a late pass from my behalf. Here's a picture of a random hardcore kid with a funny hat pushing the retarded shtick, ugliest betty and a black hole with Eric Stoltz' face on top of it. "See that, doc? Class of '84.".

"DON'T FORGET ME."

2010-11-07T14:10:00.000-08:00

She closes the door and drives off. Homer watches the van leave, then sits on the hood of his car until nightfall, staring contemplatively at the stars.

WHY DID I MOVE TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA?

2010-03-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

This post will be about a band called WAX. They formed in LA, existed from the early to mid nineties, played a type of punk rock one might deem alternative and eventually rose to moderate fame through a somewhat controversial spike jonze video and subsequent airplay on the mtv. Their major label debut was called Thirteen Unlucky Numbers and saw a release through Interscope well over a year after the actual recordings. Major label records that clock in under half an hour are by definition great (reign in blood) and this one is no exception. It rages through 10 songs of a somewhat unique PIXIES/DESCENDENTS hybrid and awkwardly ends with three tracks of 6-second silence respectively called 'thirteen', 'unlucky' and 'numbers'. A cute gimmick that may serve as a statement to the rest of the album being devoid of any filler. Singer Joe Sib went on to form the SideOneDummy label who signed bands like PIEBALD and GASLIGHT ANTHEM and drummer Loomis rose to fame in the early noughties by lighting some fireworks out of Steve-O's ass crack. I lol'd. One of their last achievements as a band as well as a career highlight was their performance in a Pauly Shore vehicle called Bio-dome. That guy is so blatantly unfunny it's surreal but I watched it anyway.

Peace.

CAUSE I'M THROUGH BEING COOL.

2010-02-07T13:18:00.001-08:00

TREMBLE WITH A SIGH.

2009-12-13T01:27:00.000-08:00

I was planning on doing a more obscure post again but my girlfriend is blasting out RIDE's nowhere at full volume right now so I couldn't resist. Sometimes, most times really, I'd pick this over 'loveless' as the ultimate shoegaze record. Like millions of confused kids before me I heard 'vapour trail' and was sold instantly. Hearing it today still takes me back to a time when going out meant staying in and watch mtv till 4am. When I first saw that video half asleep and half dead a term like dream pop actually made sense. Makes me want to hug lonely people when I'm alone. In a scene that celebrates itself and EP's only RIDE managed to release an LP that's actually considered worthwhile even though the EP's are, naturally, better*. Nowhere is highlight after highlight. Perfect mixtape material. 'Dreams burn down' is insane. It crushes your skull just to stuff it with happy thoughts. So heavy and yet so much comfort comes from it. Maybe that's the main thing I'm missing from MBV records, the whole soothing bit I need from all music in general. Anywho, since I consider this to be a staple that belongs in everyone's record collection and since it's still very much available I won't be uploading this baby but I suggest you to pick this one up. Big ass chains like Saturn and Fnac are selling it for real cheap these days.

Peace.

*I don't have the time nor the money nor the knowledge to track down every praised shoegaze single out there so instead I spend my cash on discount-priced compact discs that are considered lackluster. It's a way of life.

GUESS I'VE GOT MY FEET IN THE SKY.

2009-12-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

Bands are just bands and music's just music but every once in a while a song comes forth and tears itself from all conventions and definitions and whatnots to become as timeless as the sun and the moon and most things inbetween. The kind of song that lets star crossed lovers relief in a sea of fuzzy harmonies, swirling on forevermore. DROP NINETEENS did something what most of their UK peers couldn't. They distilled beauty from the endless yet shortlived reverb we call shoegaze and even though I'm a sucker for endless yet shortlived reverb myself there's actually very few songs, let alone bands, left to remind us of how great this could've been (bar the usual suspects that is). Since I'm a sucker for themes as well I'll try and dig up some other gems from the era in the upcoming weeks just so I could dub this shoegazing month at the W&S HQ's. But in addition to the previously mentioned reason of quantity over quality I'm also a very lazy person. Fucked from the outset. Just like this band.

Even though the LP doesn't live up to winona's promise and meets the required endless reverb standard instead I've uploaded it anyway. RIP extrazone.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nxnzt0nmmfz

Peace.

CLASSIC.

2009-12-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

THE STARS ARE THE GREATEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN.

2009-09-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I need a swift kick in the ass for not appreciating this band as much as I should and sometimes I should just lay my head in a pillow of grass and be overwhelmed by the beauty and the wonder. It's not that I don't love this band, it's just that I'm not fully aware of that fact just yet. As if somebody should first steal all my R.E.M. records in order for me to realize what I really had. I actually sold my first Green copy because it didn't seem all too helpful in getting me through a world of shit and it didn't really seem like a step up from the singles I already knew. I missed the fuck out of it as soon as I let go, though. All of a sudden it did make sense and the songs popped up in my head and I just wanted things to be as they were. I missed the warmth of the artwork and the warmth of the songs. I wanted to go out in the woods and sneak into a cabin and use this as a blanket when the sun makes its last attempt at breaking through and holding on to trees of a thousand years. Something as timeless as this deserves to be cherished but I'm too much of a goon to fully get that point across. One piece of advice though, if you ever have a few days off of whatever it is you're doing you should just take your time to work your way through this band's career and discover the treasures that are hidden under the hugeness of their back catalogue. There's a lot to be found and it's definitely worth the effort, I swear.

Peace.

ANOTHER LOW LIT MEMORY

2009-08-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

Except for the neon sign which didn't come into play till years later my make believe hideout looked a lot like this when I was still a kid. Breakups weren't exactly an issue since I didn't ponder about girls too much in those days but I'm pretty sure that loneliness in general is an all ages ordeal. Maybe it was just me and all the choices I've made but I must've been a boring kid due to the social retardness that seemed to be my shtick ever since I started to mingle. Seeing how I'm the world's most repetitive blogger today not much has changed. I just wanted to point out though that in spite of the heat it's been a real good summer if you're into deep blueish stuff that stretches out for miles and miles and way over your head. At this time of year 9pm bike rides definitely deliver after a humid day. I would also like to establish once more to all five of my followers and possible other readers that poppunk still has that special in my heart right next to my GF, my memories and Regi ca. 2002. God, it's so hot right now.

Peace.

AND SOMEWHERE IN THE NORTH-WOODS DARKNESS...

2009-08-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Some five years ago an old lady bought a box of junk at a Michigan yard sale. When unpacking her junk at home she bumped into an 8mm film with a tag that said “GABLE CASE #MPO41177-1”. After finally obtaining a projector she seemed a bit shaken by what she saw on the film so she passed it on to local radio DJ Steve Cook who, in that area, is also known as the creator of the Michigan dogman song and a somewhat questionable character. He somehow obtained the rights to the film, had it examined by ‘experts’ and just put it up on youtube when those ‘experts’ couldn’t come up with anything conclusive. The film caused quite a stir in crypto circles and was taken offline again all in the span of a couple of weeks somewhere in mid-2007. I missed the boat on this one the first time around but luckily for me the film made a huge comeback a month or so ago when somebody uploaded the full version on youtube. Fox news picked up on it and all of a sudden thousands of theories as well as a new piece of film (gable film part deux) started to pop up all over the world wide paranormal web. Despite the shakiness of the back story and the pretty big Blair Witch vibe which I already find quite charming the film itself is actually really cool. Whereas the first one just depicts the attack the full version added a lot of background to the original. The first few minutes show random footage that seems pretty typical for a kid that just got his hands on his first camera. A lumberjack family doing their lumberjack business. Fooling around on snow scooters, chopping some wood, fixing their Ford pick up truck and rocking more flannel and sketchy haircuts than a 1991 grunge vid. If not actually shot in the seventies it’s clearly intended to look that way. All items stem from that era and if this really is a hoax then somebody went well out of his way in obtaining all this stuff and was actually clever enough not to make any mistakes in that department since it all seems to add up. Things really start to get going when this kid decides to take his camera out on a little roadtrip and appears to be looking for something. You briefly see him filming himself in the side view mirror before he spots something unusual. This is sort of unnoticeable when played at regular speed but somebody blew up the frame and it shows a human type of being doing some sort of stretch-out in a field. A lot of shaking ensues and the person holding the camera, could be the driver at this point, gets out and films the following: for half a second it looks like a person crawling on all fours in a bear suit or something and a human leg can actually be seen very briefly. As it’s moving sideways, keeping an eye on the guy that’s filming, it’s sort of looks like the gait of a silverback gorilla and when the beast decides to make its move it does so in a way that makes it look impossible for a human in a suit to pull off. At one point it actually leaps over a log or a trunk and whilst in the air it seems to be morphing into a raging bull. Some more shaking follows which probably means this dude is making a run for it and the last thing you see of the creature is a canine snout taking a bite at the camera. That last shot is so over the top it almost seems like it’s added for dramatic effect but there’s some weird shit happening nonetheless if you open up your mind to this type of stuff. As far as theories go, some claim it’s the family dog running around wearing one of those bear rugs you put in front of your fireplace, others say it might actually be a werewolf due to the morphing thing that seems to be going on. If this is fake I’d go with CGI as I can’t really think of any other way to hoax this or maybe somebody tampered with the footage of an actual bear attack. For now I’ll just say that this was one of the coolest hoaxes in a long long time but as with any other paranormal case we’ll never really know what did or didn’t happen. And that, my dear friends, is the life and death of cryptozoology.

Peace.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

2009-08-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

It’s like when I close my eyes and I can still see everything I want to see. As if life itself becomes something tangible and is being boxed and crammed inside my bewildered head and my mind starts playing all these tricks and starts pulling all these strings. I grow a heart and a pulse and it collapses walls and I’m out in the open, following power lines. I can feel the electricity as I’m tagging all the streetlights across this town and across the country and straight into the real world. I can see the real world. I can see it upside down. Sometimes prettier and sometimes uglier than reality really wants me to believe. I can still see all the signs flickering on and off. Sometimes slower and sometimes faster than reality wants me to believe. I can still see a life that’s miles away from mine without there being any connection whatsoever. It’s all just a misunderstanding and it’s all just really easy to unravel but courageous people rarely breathe and I breathe rather heavily when I sleep and when I dream and when I’m wide awake in the faintest morning after sun. Nightlife defragments me and I always make the same mistakes. A billion pieces left wherever I go with hopes of someone tracking me down and I end up finding myself scattered across the floor. A veil of nothingness covering hundreds of non-plussed kids out in the streets that are supposed to be familiar but never shake the feeling of being lost. When I open my eyes I see cars spun out of control hugging telephone poles and it’s a lifestyle I’d love to call my own. Fuck me for holding out and fuck you for holding in.

BUT I DON'T WANNA WASTE THIS WISH.

2009-08-05T03:20:00.000-07:00

I haven’t bought a twelve inch slab of vinyl in ages but I bumped into KNAPSACK’s Silver Sweepstakes LP last weekend and got pretty stoked. I’ve known this band for so long now and this was actually the first time I came across some of their recorded output irl. I paid a tenner, which is way over my usual price for flea market finds, and went home with a record still shrink wrapped yet worn out by years spent in a curver box. The chances of this ever getting played are slim to none though. Locating a record player in my room is like one of those where’s Wally drawings and I have a digital copy anyways so I’ll just leave this with all my other stuff and know it’s there somewhere in my room or in my house or in my life whenever that digital copy is doing its digital rounds. Fans of SAMIAM/good music; click and rejoice.

I also picked up Henry Poole Was Here (or A Perfect Day For An Imperfect Man as it appears to be called over here) and thoroughly enjoyed it. The feeling of watching your former self go to the places you’ve come to fear the most is fully backed. You get nothing out of it but it passes the time and what else are you supposed to do on hot summer days or cold winter nights?

Peace.

COUNT THE PAGES TORN AWAY.

2009-08-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, when I was on my way to work in the wee hours, I saw a rabbit getting caught in a headlight. Then the next day, about 24 hours later, I saw a person being caught in an ambulance. Both might be dead by now. This week’s soundtrack to the 5 am eeriness was carefully selected by myself and consisted of LED ZEP’s Achilles Last Stand, AYWKUBTTOD’s Source Tags And Codes and large chunks PORTER HALL’s Everything I Know Is Stolen. The latter is a record I tend to dig up every couple of months ‘cause songs from it get stuck in my head on a real consistent basis. This band hailed from Alberta, home of the Albertosaurus, and they sorta remind me of the stuff JIMMY EAT WORLD did way back when Tom Linton was still singing lead(singles comp ftw). The vocals on Everything I Know are a bit harsher and gruffier and their sound also has a slight Midwest tinge to it so they basically meet all your nineties emo requirements. Hooks are catchy as hell but somehow no one ever got hooked besides me and that guy from Dead Serious Rex of classic NYHC reissue fame. Still no clue as to why he decided to put this out as it took the band well over a year to record and another year to find a label and, posthumously, get it out. It’s just really weird they couldn’t even get the attention of any of the billion smaller indie labels out there. Anyways, I checked and it’s no longer up on the DS webstore so the link I’m posting might actually be legit. Plus I got this as a freebie myself anyway when I still visited the Good Life office more regularly. It was either this or the ENEMY OF THE SUN EP.

Online home of the revamped band:
http://www.myspace.com/porterhallisrad

Everything I Know Is Stolen:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6ed66947fcef4c6bd2db6fb9a8902bda

Peace.

I'M IN AN AWFUL STATE, IT'S GETTING LATE...

2009-07-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

Pls describe your sound to those who have not heard (of) you.
Hardcore Punk Rock: Heavy, Raw, Melodic. Our songwriting isn't formulaic and we don't rely on shitty mosh parts to carry our songs. We dig bands like black flag, unbroken, husker du, buzzcocks, descendents and tragedy.
How did you feel about going from martyr rex to deathwish inc? Did it open new doors for you guys. And how do you feel about the efforts from the european front (reflections)?
It has definitely opened doors for us. Martyr quickly became too small for us...not enough distribution, money, time or resources. We needed a label that can work as hard as we are working. We've always been pleased with Reflections work for our band and they are great people to work with.
I saw you on your first euro tour in ghent playing for about 50 people and no crowd reaction whatsoever but pics of other shows on that tour showed the kids going berserk. How does it feel playing for an indifferent crowd one night and get the most awesome response on the next?
Playing for an "indifferent" crowd sucks. Playing to a crowd that isn't going crazy is ok as long as people are willing to come up front and you can feel a connection with the crowd. But obviously the best is when kids are losing their minds. On the best nights it's like a religious experience.
The new record seems to deal with growing pains and not having much of a future.

I think that is a pretty narrow way of looking at it. It's a record about embracing your past, who you are and where you come from. It's about being alienated but not defeated. It's about having heart and soul in heartless and souless times.
You have new merch referring to ramones, skinheads and rimbaud and you have a song called the outsiders. How do these 4 things influence you and in what way?
Well the ramones are the original american punkers...the first to play that hard and fast and play a ton of shows all over the country...a strong work ethic and uncompromising. I wrote that song cause we were out on the road carrying on that tradition in our own way while The Ramones were dying. We will never have the importance that they had...but our dreams were coming true while theirs were coming to a close so i wrote that song. The song "martin atchet" on the new record is based on a fictional skinhead character from the graphic novel "SKIN". I've had a fascination with skinheads since i started seeing them at shows when i was 16 or so. I think that skinhead is the coolest youth subculture of all time...from the style to the music. There was a post on the internet asking if we were nazis. If you equate skinheads with Racism, Fascism, Etc....please do some research. Arthur Rimbaud was a french poet who wrote a harrowing epic poem called "A Season In Hell" Just read it. Whether by birth, or by choice, if your life revolves are hardcore & punk rock then you are an outsider. Stay gold, ponyboy.

Peace.

MY NIGHTMARE HAS COME TRUE.

2009-07-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

Songs about a very young Zooey Deschanel having issues, rehashed VANDALS riffs, some minor attempts at social commentary, blatantly unfunny attempts at parody, Davey Havok backings (Ixnay leftover) and a nice slew of awesome punk rock anthems and singalong choruses. The pros definitely weigh out the cons but it’s those few cons that might put you off of this record. I made the mistake of dismissing THE OFFSPRING on account of a few dreadful singles that sounded unclever at best when I first heard them as a kid but somehow the bands I loathed for being immature in those days are now the staples on my iPod/creative zen. For years I didn’t think much of this band until Smash hauled me into to their back catalogue and I realized that I had been fooled by those few dreadful singles. I’ve always felt that Smash had a harder and more altrockish sound than its Epitaph peers and it deserves every bit of praise it gets as one of the key albums of the alternative nineties but Americana, as well as Ixnay, shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to good songwriting. Both records are chockfull of punk rock tunes that, after some time spent ripening in the Californian sun, range from highly enjoyable to fucking amazing. The songs that gave Americana its multi-platinum status are the ones that could be considered filler but I guess they’ve served their purpose and in the end Pretty Fly and Why Don’t You Get A Job are the only ones I ever skip due to the MTV overdose of ’98. I’m actually thinking about giving Conspiracy Of One a shot as well even though the artwork is horrid (unlike Americana) and Original Prankster isn’t exactly Redman’s finest hour (a Blackout! post from my behalf is an accident waiting to happen). I’d also like to point out that in No Brakes it sounds as if Dexter Holland is singing “no braids” which, given his ongoing descent into the realm of sketchy hairdo’s, struck me as quite funny. I’m a geek.

On a completely unrelated note; this week’s best reads include:
-EVERYBODY GETS HURT int in Double Rabies Ish Six. “I was creepy-crawling across the floor and this big German guy just stepped on my back like a fucking bug.”
-Three Men Seeking Monsters, an account of cryptidhunting whilst travelling on an unhealthy diet of RAMONES, SEX PISTOLS and BLINK 182. Is supposedly being made into a movie, Jon Heder was involved but I’m not sure if he still is.
-I’m also in the process of rounding up The Mothman Prophecies (of underrated movie starring Richard Gere fame) and I’ve already learned that there’s way more to the MIB-phenomenon than Will Smith in a fancy suit. Expect some actual book reviews on here sooner or later or never.

Peace.

WATER WATER WATER.

2009-07-25T11:39:00.001-07:00

Already painfully confronted by the fact that Conor Oberst was my age when he wrote and recorded BRIGHT EYES' acclaimed Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground record he also figured he could do a little band on the side that ended up being just as brilliant. Way to make me look like a fool at 22. DESAPARECIDOS was incepted as a way to voice his opinions on suburban life in America (the outcome's negative) and released one record called Read Music/Speak Music. They were around for about a year or two, took their cues from the revolution summer bands and toured with JIMMY EAT WORLD. Perfect career. Toy Machine meets post-hardcore. Have a peek.

Peace.

I CAN SEE DEATH IN YOUR EYES.

2009-07-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

DOWNER could have been a nineties gem. They had everything going for them, the name, their HELMET meets TOOL approach, some cool Pushead artwork and a deal with roadrunner records. Pretty much all the ingredients to become one of those semi-legendary post-hardcore acts that still have cult followings in certain circles. You’d think they’d be set after touring the states with EARTH CRISIS (Destroy The Machines-era) and a spot on lollapalooza but due to a lot of mishap they didn’t release this until years later, in 2001, and at a time when Roadrunner was too busy with putting out new records for bigger bands like SLIPKNOT (Iowa), FEAR FACTORY (digimortal) and SEPULTURA (nation). As a result, DOWNER received very little publicity and ended up being disillusioned one more time before finally calling it quits shortly after this eponymous debut came out. The only form of promotion they got besides a video for Last Time were numerous spots on those samplers that seemed to come with every heavy metal mag out there and that’s pretty much how I got into them as well. Ironically, I bought those magazines to keep myself updated on those bigger bands but I guess I cared enough to dig a little deeper and I still do. The sampler that initially got me into DOWNER (as well as GLASSJAW) may have vanished into the fog of time and it would take me over half a decade to finally score an actual copy of their record but this band still holds up so fucking well. If you like your post-hardcore metallic and topped off with James Maynard Keenan-styled vocals this is definitely right up your alley. So good…

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ndbmtnmj5zm

Peace.

FUCK YOU TO EVERYBODY

2009-05-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

Legend goes that is the first full length ever on VAGRANT records so you’d except this to be a staple in the record collection of anyone who has a slightly emo-tinged taste in music but for some reason it really isn’t all that talked about. This came out hot on the heels of JERSEY’S BEST DANCERS and it damn well shows. From the semi-awkward song titles to the undecipherable semi-clean vocals with semi-ironic into semi-emotional lyrics this is about as identical a LIFETIME rip off can get. But respect where respect is due, BOXER is very enthusiastic in their presentation of Yemin leftovers and they pull it off fairly well. Definitely well enough for me to listen to this on a semi-regular basis. I remember buying a really cheap copy in a FREE RECORD SHOP of all places but I sold that one because I was under the assumption that I’d bought an album by that shitty band that probably took their name from this record. When I started my whole VAGRANT/LIFETIME worshipping thingy I realized I’d let go of a pretty cool gem but I’m very persistent and I managed to come across another copy somewhere on a flea market in Bruges. It was like one euro or something and I remember scoring the DMD ep as well. Bargains rule. Anyways, you won’t really find this that often and I’m pretty sure it’s out of print but it’s up for grabs here. Worth the twenty-something megabytes/minutes if you dig this type of stuff. Also, if you’re into random nerdy info I should mention that this was produced by Trever Keith aka one of the coolest guys in punk rock ever. People that could possibly dig this are the same people I would possibly hang out with.

peace.

WHEN THE WORLD CAVES IN...

2009-04-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

Somewhat pretentious and overly emotional. Story of my life. Many bands hit home on the latter whilst safely avoiding the first. But It’s OK to go all the way, you know. Just drag those songs through miles of whatever it is kids have been dreaming about for centuries and always keep in mind that random photography is a must. It just might work and it just might warrant a 10-year anniversary tour I’m bound to miss out on. The soundtrack to about a million summers bridging high school and college, when all your lifelong friends move into the sadder parts of your brain and the hooking up on an irregular basis fuels your fear of a future ever so bright. First stars and faintest of snow may not seem as mature in hindsight but it’ll do if you screw up your eyes and the screwed up kid from way back when is staring back at you again. Just make sure you snap out of it when you’re starting to wait for a call that’s long overdue. I cared back then and I still care now and I guess I will always do so. I’m just a very emotional, somewhat pretentious guy.

Peace.

GOTTA TRY, GOTTA FIGHT, GOTTA NEVER QUIT...

2009-04-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

When springtime came in the shaky year that was 2003 blue skies and broken hearts were stretching all over Paris as if it was the only place that could really comfort me in the whole wide world. I hadn’t been to many places and bleak romance had never really been my share but roaming those streets was such an eye-opener, a culmination of all things that you know you’ll miss after high school. I saw the weirdest flick ever at Centre Pompidou and got poked by some weird foreigners who thought I was part of the act, I got high on sugar and fell into the tub that kept our pubes and Heinekens cold when hiding from a teacher, there were fake drug transactions, hotel room raids by a Marseille gang I don’t really wish to ever encounter again and we also managed to perfect the ancient game of tossing a bra from one hotelroom window to another. I wish I could remember everything a bit more vividly but all these trips down memory lane have gotten the best of me and all the details.

Anyway, what I still remember the most from that era is how concerned the teachers were about me. Looking back I guess they were just scared that I’d show up at school one day and blow their heads off ‘cause they definitely went out of their way to prevent that from happening. I always had to go on these little talks about drugs and depression and they always granted me privileges they thought would help me get through life a bit better. Whenever I wanted some time off from field trips I just asked and they would let me go out on my own while everyone else had to stay together for whatever tour they were doing. That was pretty awesome I guess but I didn’t think it would work in a metropolis that has about 10 million people ready to run me over with their twingo’s, an event that would most certainly screw said teachers over both insurance –and conscience-wise… I guess they thought the risk of that happening was minimal when they decided to let me stroll down the Champs Elysees on my own. I already had the whole thing planned out perfectly back home. I pretty much survived the entire weekend on Mickey D’s 95c hamburgers (meat is murder, people) just so I could spend the majority of my pocket money on records. In order to be able to spend that money I had to come up with an excuse that pretty much went like “Ey yo, I’m gonna go ahead to the Virgin Megastore and I’ll meet you guys down there.” Ferris Bueller ain’t got shit on me.

Up till that point, the Virgin Megastore was the wildest place I’d ever been to. They had actual copies of all the records I had read about online. I had this whole wantlist in my head that just vaporized upon entering the punk/hardcore section. Making a selection was a task not even God Himself would be up to but I fucking managed. The crop: JANE DOE, to which I’ll probably dedicate an entire fanzine at one point in my life, JUPITER, to which I’ll probably dedicate an entire fanzine at one point in my life and FUEL FOR THE HATE GAME which I was just listening to right before typing this out. The price: 56 EUR. Nowadays I have enough sources to score about 30 records for that kind of money but I still think it was worth every goddamn cent.

I could’ve done this post about the other two records as well but I'm already doing two entire fanzines on those and it had been a while since I listened to HWM but I just did a sec ago and they still hold up so well. Also, they were the only band I had properly checked out prior to my Virgin Megastore revelation as opposed to CONVERGE and CAVE IN who were only just myths to me until then. But the CAUTION record had been on constant rotation and I was still figuring that one out when FUEL FOR THE HATE GAME ultimately pulled me into lifelong HWM loveage. You can’t put a price on that and you just can’t trade in all of those wonderfully depressing memories that come along with it. I survived and so did my teachers so I guess it’s all good…

Peace.

I WISH I'D NEVER SEEN YOUR FACE.

2008-12-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

It’s been well over five years since Elliott Smith stabbed himself in the chest and died, what must’ve been, a rather painful death. A couple of years prior to his suicide, around the time XO was being made, he jumped of a cliff and was saved/impaled by a tree. Nothing in his music depicts the harshness of these acts and I still wonder at what point sadness can turn into so much self-hate. I guess when bitterness is stripped clean from all its sweetness and you can no longer see what you want to see there’s really no other way but down. One day you just wake up with a stone cold heart and you’d expect the knife to fucking break but it doesn’t… and you take another stab because there’s no other way but down and you realize you we’re a human being all along and not some shitty excuse. There were days when I thought hope was a bitch and there were days when I was really fucking pissed at people like Elliott Smith for having the balls I’d never have. I could’ve sworn I felt death’s warm embrace on several occasions but every time I turned around it was that goddamn sun bearing down on me again. When I’m listening to XO I’m pretty sure Smith must’ve seen that same sun just as much I did, and I’m sure he could’ve gone more gently than he did but I guess there comes a time in everyone’s life when there isn’t any room left for romanticism. No last Herzog film and no last writing on a bedroom wall. It was my first suicide and it definitely shook up my idea of the artist and his tormented life. No goodbyes whatsoever. One day you’re listening to Elliott Smith and the next day you’re listening to the Late Elliott Smith. All of sudden your records get an extra pinch of bleakness and you just sit there with a kitchen knife, too much romanticism and no fucking guts. This kid in my class always told me how much I looked like Elliott Smith and I’m still not sure if he was pointing out a physical resemblance or if he was just referring to my state of mind. Either way, I guess I was that ugly. And even though my days of wine and roses are long gone I can still get bummed when I come across a used XO copy at whatever local flea market it is I’m roaming and I feel like punching the guy who thinks he can sell so much beauty for a just a buck. In the end I always buy the damn thing because Waltz#1 is my jam and it always makes me cry a little on the inside. With each passing year the price I have to pay for everything that is priceless in my life becomes a tad bit smaller.

peace.

THIS IS WHERE I BELONG...

2008-10-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

According to my calculations this will be my 6th blog entry and according to my gumption the other 5 ones pale in comparison to the classic that I will now touch upon. I kid you not, DUDE RANCH pisses all over every record you’ve ever heard (from age of quarrel to blonde on blonde) and it pisses all over credibility. Who the fuck needs credibility when you can listen to the greatest thing since pet sounds? Too many goddamn people, that’s who. It bums me out to no extent when dudes think too highly of themselves to enjoy a BLINK record, let alone acknowledge its genius. Just picture BUZZCOCKS playing some NOFX covers or something. Now try figuring out how this could be a bad thing. You fail. BLINK wins.

This band was able to combine all of the genre’s best assets and they really fucking nailed it with DUDE RANCH. Under the supervision of Mark ‘the legend’ Trombino and with the urgency of a bunch of youngsters dying to get out of the garage and possibly even sunny suburban San Diego staleness, BLINK rages through a flawless collection of coming-of-age-anthems that is yet to be rivalled. DUDE RANCH depicts the fun of giving some kid a wedgie but then just gets really sad when you realize that same kid is probably jerking off to some picture of some girl in some yearbook with parents that don’t care about anything as long as he doesn’t leave a mess and gets good grades. Realisation can be such a party-pooper sometimes.

I know it’s easy to just write this off as completely irrelevant frat boy shenanigans but in reality it’s one of the most accurate descriptions of life ever recorded. We’ve all yanked out other dudes’ pubes and we’ve all tried skateboarding. We’ve had our forgettable love interests and we’ve learned from our mistakes. This ongoing process of maturation might not allow us to set our farts on fire anymore and each problem we now meet surpasses any of the high school crap that made us long for adulthood. But just know that if someone would’ve actually taped your most embarrassing moments and compiled them into a 3-minute video, any song off of DUDE RANCH would be the perfect soundtrack. And you’d laugh really… Hopefully…

A much wiser man than myself once said: “BLINK haterz: quit the pose.” But unfortunately, truth will always be overlooked and there will always be people who refuse to enjoy a record that has a bull’s scrotum for a cover. Their loss I guess.

Peace.

...AND KISSED ONCE BY WAX

2008-08-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

Assuming the unlucky few who read my fanzine are the same few who read this blog I don’t really think I need to explain my love for a little three-piece called JAWBREAKER but I’m still gonna do it anyway. It is a love that goes deeper than oceans and expands beyond skies. Pretty much the most love one man can have for one band. In between jumping from one fad to another, various elitist indie sites and their smarter-than-thou-editors tell me I will grow out of this phase but I’m just a working class guy not eager to listen to difficult music just for the sake of coming of as difficult. I enjoy discussing krautrock influences on BOWIE’s post-ziggy stardust material just as much as the next guy, but when it comes down to the core of music I’d rather have my tunes drenched in tangible heartache and genuine solitude and my stories dealing with little men fighting themselves whilst being crushed by the weight of the universe. And it just so happens Blake Schwarzenbach was handpicked by some supreme being to deliver these tunes and stories to those who cared.

Picking his words carefully and writing melodies one the most lonesome of his Frisco nights Blake saw JAWBREAKER gradually growing out to the cult favourite they still are to this day. And his army of scrawny kids wearing chinos and reading beat poetry in the back of the classroom was constantly expanding until it was big enough for Geffen, still in their post-NIRVANA depression, to think that this could work on a major label level. All parties involved knew it wouldn’t and I guess that makes Dear you all the more a classic record. Weird how they come of so tight and still sound like they’re on the verge of imploding. Anyway, an expected break-up resulted in Blake clearing his throat and quickly bouncing back on his feet by relocating to Brooklyn where he surrounded himself with Jeremy Chaterlain and Chris Daly, ex-HANDSOME and ex-TEXAS IS THE REASON respectively. One can do worse I’m sure… Being the ‘supergroup’ that they were, JTB quickly managed to ink a deal with major indie Jade Tree and squeezed out an anticipated album only a year or so after the band’s inception.

Now this is usually the paragraph where I blabber about my personal involvement with the band’s music but before I can go on with that part I just have to bring up JB one more time. I can’t help it, I’m the boy who cried JAWBREAKER. I was just so awestruck with this band hitting home that I decided not to acknowledge anything else these dudes did afterwards. That way I could keep them alive in my head for as long as possible. I know that sounds crazy and all but the fucked up part is that when I finally gave in and checked out JTB it actually did change the whole JAWBREAKER experience for me. But that pretty much is the only real downside to orange rhyming dictionary. It’s vintage Blake Schwarzenbach and very hard not to like.

‘Cause in all honesty, this could’ve been the perfect batch of songs to follow up dear you and the only real significant difference lies in the execution of the material. The whole vibe around orange rhyming dictionary is a bit looser with an almost jam-like approach at times. I guess it’s the start of a natural departure from the urgent and angsty sound JAWBREAKER had at their most desperate. These men are experienced musicians coming into their own, wilfully shaking the urge to help out every lost teen soul out there. Same goes for the lyrics, it’s real obvious that Blake worked hard on them in an attempt to steer away from his past endeavours and the way he plays with the English language is just plain amazing. As usual he pours heart, soul and craftmanship into almost every sentence turning them all into little works of art but never neglecting the bigger picture of the story he tries to tell. Only this time the picking of words is just that tad bit smarter and not solely relying on the spur of the moment. The fact that there isn’t a word in the English dictionary that rhymes with orange should already give you an idea.

In my blurriest of days I sometimes see ORD as the record bivouac should’ve been. Where the latter was too serious and forced in it’s attempt to create a moodier and more epic sound, ORD comes of a lot more natural and just sounds like there was a lot more fun involved in the making of it. But I’d still pick bivouac though, I’m such a fanboy.

Peace.

STOP ME BEFORE I SAY TOO MUCH

2008-06-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

It’s getting late and it’s getting dark. People are retreating and gathering around their television sets. It may be artificial but at least it’s a glow you can always rely on. Their window to the world while I’m peering through a real one. Left eye to the sky and the other looking inwards, scoping for memories that will tell me change doesn’t have to be inevitable. But my head is empty and the stars are flickering and I have to get out for a sec. I put away the phone book on my lap and open the front door, I lay one hand on the street in an almost petting-like manner. The pavement and the earth below are cooling off. Inner peace strikes me before I realize I look like a fruit kneeling down like this. No cars pass by here this late so I guess I can act as nutty as I want. And if someone does see me acting all weird I just trust on God to tell them how I really feel, maybe they can feel it too for a minute. Or just long enough to get them through another day in this town… In reality though, they will just shake their heads in disbelief and pray for me next Sunday in hopes of relieving me from all the weirdness. I guess it comes down to which side God chooses to be on, and I never win this kind of situation…

I head back inside and pick up the phone book. I have a name and a town and now I have to find the address. Black ink of a thousand names starts to wear off on my browsing finger and I’m wondering who these people are. My nerves are twitching and I feel pathetic. Is this even legal? I manage to find what I’m looking for albeit with a few more options than I expected. But I live life on the edge and I’m taking another stab in the dark. The note I’ve been having in my back pocket for what seems to be a thousand years already is burning right through my pants. Maybe God’s with me after all and He’s giving me a sign. I scribble down a random address on the back of my hand and head out. My heart is doing backflips and my stomach is slow dancing with my intestines. My ribs ache and I’m pretty close to losing it. The madness of my quest is starting to sink in…

But the night is welcoming and the stars tell their stories to calm me down. I’m not realizing it right now but the scenery is being etched in my mind as I roll into it. Reason is starting to sip through the cracks of my maddened mind. And for now I’m just a kid on a bike with his mind set on something he’ll never have. That is a nice thought to hold onto as I take a left into your street and start counting numbers… Everything else I was having on my mind before tonight is now completely gone and I’m so tranquil that it feels as if my spirit is actually leaving my body. There’s this bench right in front of your house, the kind that’s randomly scattered all over the country, and I sit down for a minute. I play with these little rocks I picked up from your driveway but I’m not here to wake you up tonight. Hell, I don’t even know which window is yours, or if you even live here for that matter. By morning I’ll be gone and no one will ever know I was here, including me… hopefully. But that’s just wishful thinking. I close my eyes to reminisce about days when everything wasn’t completely hopeless but I can only picture you sleeping. I get up and sigh. But there's no way back and I can't slow down.

Or how some teen punk with his heart on his sleeve ripped off LIFETIME and totally got away with it.

Dedicated to Sean McGrath, for obvious reasons…

Peace.

SOMETIMES, I MISS YOU MORE...

2008-04-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling kinda bummed today for no particular reason. Sure, the weekend’s over and work is waiting but it goes a little deeper than that. I was out for a little stroll around sixish tonight and there was just something that got to me. The sun was out but it was cloudy as well, neither cold nor warm. Indecisiveness in the air and it just felt like nothing at all. Summer’s around the corner but it’s only gradually taking little peeks, not ready to make a full appearance yet. And then I just got carried away thinking about summers long gone. In those days I felt like absolute shit and I guess that’s a good thing when you’re younger ‘cause I really really miss those days. I’m missing days of feeling like shit, go figure. In all my nostalgia I still realize it’s impossible to revive the past but there’s nothing wrong with getting yourself tangled up in its glow, right?

Luckily enough, I’ve collected so much music over the years that I pretty much have a tune for each particular mood I’m dealing with. What I do is I pick a record that stimulates said mood and strikes all the right chords. This may seem like a pretty depressive thing to do but it actually has an uplifting effect on me as it is very comforting in the process. I never understood why people take pictures and keep dozens of albums but I guess I’m using music for the same purpose. Just snapshots you look at every once in a while, providing a smile or a tear before you continue going through the motions of every day life. Right now SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT by THE GET UP KIDS perfectly sums up the feeling I was having earlier today and I’m loving every minute of it before I have to go on with every day life again.

I still vividly remember the first time I heard this band. I came across the action & action vid and it just kind of stuck with me. Nerdy looking characters playing an undeniably catchy tune with nerdy girls playing out a disposable background story. Still one of my favourite vids to this day. After some online research on the band I kazaa’d SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT and burned myself a copy. Even though I felt really guilty about listening to a CD-R it still took me about six years to finally score an official copy. Until that time it definitely made the top 3 of most listened to CD-R’s in my collection.

Despite their instant catchiness these are the kind of songs that evoke the feeling of being down but not the whole suicidal type of being down if you know what I mean. They’re just sad in the uplifting way I explained. And I’m just glad they’ve aged well unlike most of the other bands I was listening to in those days. I would actually go as far as saying that this is the last emo classic to ever see the light of day. Most people that know what’s up will beg to differ but I’m ranking these guys alongside the revolution summer bands (EMBRACE, RITES OF SPRING,…) or the Midwest pioneers (SPLIT LIP, FALLING FORWARD,…). Sure, the link with hardcore is practically non-existent and they sound a lot sappier than the bands I mentioned but still… The line between sounding cheesy or sincere is very thin when playing this style of music and THE GET UP KIDS just pull it off. They still sound as fresh and inspiring as the first day I got into them. Or is that just the nostalgia talking…

I’ve only just realized now that I spent my late teens looking up to early twenty-somethings that wrote songs about broken relationships. I guess I must’ve been impressed by the fact that they even had relationships to write about considering these kids were rocking thick-rimmed glasses, faded shirts and moogs. This type of stuff influenced me to the extent that my teen romances were doomed from the start due to my overly dramatic outlook on love. I was desperately trying to be the desperate emo kid and I always had this notebook with horrible poetry on me. It meant the world to me back then and sometimes I wish it still did.

“It’s all you get from me…”

I am so going to regret this post in the morning.

Peace.

THERE'S A PLACE I GO BUT YOU'RE NOT THERE...

2008-03-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Coming up with a second entry for this blog has been harder than I thought it would be since the first one was kind of posted on a whim. I had been toying with the blog-idea for a couple of months prior and I always landed on two options concerning the subject matter. One was focussing on all the cheap, neglected and forgotten gems I’ve discovered in bargain and used bins over the last couple of years. I love browsing through cheap old records until my fingers turn greyish from all the dust they’ve been collecting over the years, usually relying on nothing but mentions from thanklists and cool-looking covers. You can score some pretty sweet stuff that way and I thought it was a good idea to bring up some of those semi-obscure bands (with the emphasis on semi since there will always be a smartypants who has heard of this or that band). It always bums me out to see a good record slip through the cracks of time and I figured there were at least some that deserved to be pulled back through those cracks… Another option was some sort of trip down memory lane that would pretty much consist of me looking back at all the musical stuff I’ve waded through over the last 8 years and picking out the records that had the most impact on me. A pretty selfish endeavour as it would only seem interesting to me in a therapeutic kind of way. With my first post I kinda landed in the middle of those two options and I guess, when all is typed and done, the end result will do so as well. I’ve always had a hard time making choices so yeah… I’m just gonna go with whatever feels right and hope some will enjoy my rants in the process.

Today’s post will be about one of the bigger alternative bands of the last two decades, namely DINOSAUR JR. I’m pretty sure there are a ton of bloggers out there that have covered this band before and probably way better too as I don’t know much about this band except for the fact that I love their music. And I can also imagine some kids were thinking I was jumping the wagon (get it? get it?) whenever I was posting some DINO JR in a playlist or something. But truth is, due to some weird twist of fate I went from indie music to hardcore instead of the other way around. The way sellouts end up going in an attempt to look cool or something. It wasn’t until a year ago that I found out that this band was highly appreciated by the hardcore in crowd. Somewhat ironic as these were the people I was trying to emulate by digging all the early HC bands from the eighties.

Somewhere in 2002 I figured it was the right time to skip cash money affiliated hip hop, post-Max SEPULTURA records and post-SEP Max Cavalera records. A tough decision to make at the time but in hindsight an important one as it kept me from having dreadlocks, sporting a full camo outfit + dollar sign necklace and being siked for that CAVALERA CONSPIRACY thingy and the LIL WAYNE record that seems to be in the pipeline forever. Thank you God. Now, since I was ditching all my shitty records I obviously needed some new ones to replace them. Turns out I didn’t know any cool record stores at the time so I roamed the local library for hours straight as they seemed to have a fine collection of quality post-punk, alternative rock and hardcore (RYKER’S and that one SOIA live record that came out on lost and found). I browsed the web for recommendations concerning all things indie and I ended up frequenting the pitchfork media forums, thus learing about INTERPOL and THE RAPTURE before you did. I consistently made an online fool out of myself in those days not realizing messageboards were the ideal spots for bitter fucks to showcase their witty sarcasm. But it all proved to be worth it when I learned about the classic stuff like PAVEMENT, SLINT, PIXIES and, at one point or another, DINOSAUR JR. Eager to check out all of this I headed over once again to the library and ended up having to chose between a bunch of DINO JR records. The GREEN MIND cover (courtesy of Joseph Szabo, as I later found out) intrigued me the most so I picked that one. Back home I instantly dug the shit out of this. And I really mean instantly. Ten seconds into the wagon and I was forever in debt. J Mascis must’ve had this huge bag of hooks right next to him when he wrote this and left it empty by the time he had the 10 songs finished. His singing is off key, the soloing is spot on. You can play air guitar to this, or you can reminisce. Rock out, but not too hard. The songs have this fuzzy type of sound that has the warmth of a blanket on a cold December night or an August sun at 22:03 pm, when the smell of summer is so present in the air it almost becomes tangible. Love it. Borrowing this from the library became such a habbit that I just never bothered to buy an actual copy until years later. I don’t listen to it all that much these days but it’s just one of those records I’m happy to come across when I’m looking through my collection. “Hey, I have this. Sweet…” and I move on.

I guess picking GREEN MIND as my favourite DINOSAUR JR record is an odd choice but keep in mind that I got into this band when I was still unaware of all the street cred you could get for picking the SST records over the SIRE ones, or the Lou Barlow-years over the J Mascis solo efforts. Although this one came out several months before NEVERMIND I guess they sorta got caught in that whole buzz that was surrounding NIRVANA at the time. Coincidely maybe, but it seemed like when Geffen won the whole bidding war over Seattle’s darlings other majors were settling for the next best thing and handed out record deals to whatever Cobain cited as an influence to his band. The result was a bunch of poorly promoted records that ended up being neglected by the indie kids but were still a bit too shaky for the mainstream. GREEN MIND was one of those and slipped under everyone’s radar, but Mascis works in mysterious ways and reached out to kids through libraries worldwide giving his post-LIVING ALL OVER ME work the appreciation it deserves. That dude is still one of my favourite slackers.

Peace.

...AND WE ARE NOT ALONE.

2008-03-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

I always promised myself I would start this blog with a post about HUM if I ever actually started it. The reason for that is that I always promised myself to do a blog whenever I was listening to HUM. That train of thought never made any sense to me either so I just never bothered to pick this up. That is until I was reading Kei Yasui’s blog a couple days back. Infamous for his input in HAVE HEART and now infamous for bringing up QUICKSAND, FAILURE and HUM in one blog entry. Some mindboggling shit right there. That almost made me go just as crazy as the time I found out my main bro Chasarion was secretly into this band as well. For more on that check his first podcast. Don’t ask me why but I always get stoked when I find out other core kids are into HUM.

For some reason I can’t really remember when I first heard of them but they must’ve crossed my path at one time or another ‘cause I sorta knew what I was in for when I picked up DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD just about a year ago. De Kaft, Ghent, a used copy for 4.75€. That place always has the weirdest prices and everything in their bargain bin is 2.75€. Unless they have a huge stash of 5 cent and 20 cent pieces somewhere I can imagine these guys run out of spare change every once in a while. One time they did have this 1€ sale and I picked up the BOTH WORLDS full length. That was sweet but a completely different story so back to HUM.

This band instantly hit home for me and they sounded really familiar but I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I dug up that HOPESFALL record from a couple of years back, the one that sounded all spacey and shit. Good record but a blatant ripoff nonetheless. I actually wish they still did this half-decent HUM tribute instead of putting out shitty albums with their own shitty songs. But that’s all water under the bridge now and it’s not really considered cool to be into any HOPESFALL so yeah… nevermind.

DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD is the last record that really ‘clicked’ with me. I can still tell if I’m listening to good or bad music but at a certain age it’s just getting harder to connect to music on a personal level. As a teenager in shitty times you just cling on to whatever you’re hearing all the while giving it a nostalgic level that doesn’t really hit you until you’re grown up. That kind of crap is part of the music-as-a-trigger-theory I firmly believe in. Even though I never heard this record prior to last year it still had the same effect on me like all of those teenhood classics I was clinging on to. I mostly listen to this when I’m biking back home from work after a late shift so the setting might help as well. Picture a rural scenery with a bunch of stars and me wondering what the fuck is out there. This record happens to be the perfect soundtrack for wondering what the fuck is out there. Somewhere halfway my ride I can see the streetlights of the suburbs of my shitty town from a distance and it all makes sense somehow. Listening to this also brought back this vision of an ideal world I had when I was like 10 years old. Just me lying in the greenest grass imaginable, looking up to the bluest of blue skies. There’d be the occasional fluffy white cloud and I knew that if I ever got up there’d be a place called home waiting. I just never felt like getting up though…. And that’s the kind of comforting stuff that comes back to me when I’m listening to DW=HW. Soothing shit. Who the fuck needs therapy?

As far as an actual review goes I can give you some random keywords like: layered, textured, walls, of, sound. Basically just post grunge going space rock on us. It comes of as natural as if they started jamming and someone accidentally pressed rec. but on the other hand you just know that every effect pedal was used with a purpose and every sonic detail was carefully analyzed and discussed. This record didn’t pop out of thin air but it’s greatness lies in the fact that you believe it did. Na’mean?

Random fun fact courtesy of wikipedia: after DW=HW was released HUM was hand-picked to do a cover of invisible sun, and that just so happens to be my favourite POLICE song. But apparently Sting himself decided to go all reggae with his own song right before HUM was scheduled to record. If it wasn’t for most of SYNCHRONICITY and GHOST IN THE MACHINE I’d definitely hate that guy. I still, however, back the ‘someone please give Sting his balls back’ review I once read for one of his Disney (barf) soundtracks.

Peace!

These are the vids to the only singles this album spawned.

HUM-COMING HOME

HUM-GREEN TO ME