Stunslinger.com Blog

I made a big deal about it last Tuesday when I purchased Against Me!’s new album, New Wave.  I’d been looking forward to its release for months, but then I didn’t post anything about it once I’d listened to it.  Allow me to explain briefly: I believe that it’s important to give an album a fair shake before passing judgment.  Many times I didn’t really like an album on first listen, but later that same album became one of my favorites.

I had such expectations for this disc, I knew that I needed to listen to it several times before judging.  And at first I wasn’t that impressed.  As reported in the media, this album is a progression from their previous album.  Of course, isn’t that what I want from a band?

Generally, this album is very good as a whole.  The more I listen to it, the more I appreciate the variation in energy.  Some songs (White People for Peace, Piss and Vinegar, Americans Abroad) are great for those who like where Against Me! has been in the past.  These songs have high energy, and are reminiscent of my favorite songs off of Searching for a Former Clarity.

Other songs, such as Up the Cuts, Thrash Unreal, and Animal have a distinctly slower, more melodic vibe.  At first I was disappointed with these songs, but they’ve absolutely grown on me.  New Wave, the title track, could be lumped in with these songs, although it’s a bit more spirited.  New Wave is actually my favorite track on the album, as I seem to continually get it stuck in my head.

The band ventures out a bit on tracks like the minimal dance number Stop, and the slow duet with Tegan (of Tegan and Sara) Borne on the FM Waves.  I like these songs as well, but really I like them in the context of the whole album.  Ocean is a slow, but satisfying end to the album.

I think the biggest thing for me is that I really love this whole album.  I like the choice of mixing up the energies of the songs, and the sequencing.  To me, it’s a very listenable album as a whole.  Some of the tracks hold up very well on their own (New Wave, White People for Peace), and others seem to work best in context.

Overall I heartily recommend this album….go buy it now!

That’s right, I’ve been an MxPx fan since they were called Magnified Plaid!  I discovered their first CD, Pokinatcha, back in 1994 and have been a fan through their ups and downs since.  I definitely have my favorite albums and my less than favorite albums, but I still have them all.  I don’t particularly know why I’ve stuck with them, but I have.  It was because of them that I first found out about bands like Social Distortion (Mike had a sticker on his bass in an album cover) and Rancid (a t-shirt one is wearing inside an album cover).

Anyway, they have a new CD coming out today, and I’m going to pick it up after work.  Like Against Me!, I’m getting it on release day and I’m going to get the deluxe edition, with the additional DVD and 3 extra songs.  I’m looking forward to it, although the Against Me! album has been getting constant play in my house since last Tuesday.  Perhaps this album can disrupt that pattern a bit.

Anyone know why every album seems to be released on a Tuesday?

Today I had to get the new Against Me! album.  It was a requirement.  So I got ready for work early and tried to go to my local FYE (which used to be the Wherehouse, which I preferred) to find it.  But they didn’t open until 10am.  So I went to work.

On my way home, I drove the odd way it takes to get to FYE, rather than having to make two awkward left turns across four lanes of traffic each.  And I bought it.  Not just that, but I bought the deluxe edition.  Now I have a new CD AND a live DVD.  Kickass.  But now I can’t watch it because my wife is due home soon and I need to come up with something for dinner.

This is the worst…new music I’ve been obsessing about for a couple of months, and I still can’t watch/listen to it.  Oh the agony.

Seriously, go buy this album.  And pick up Searching for a Former Clarity too… sonic delights in the form of folky melodic punk.  Weird title, because it’s not really folk that much, more in spirit.  But yeah, buy it without question.

I was reading an article about this year’s Ozzfest being free to fans.  Apparently they’re having bands play for free and they have sponsors who are covering the travel costs of the festival.  The article was an interview with Sharon Osbourne, who said this move was a way to combat the inevitable rising cost of a traveling festival, which gets passed on to the ticket-buyers.

The reason I’m writing is the argument ticket companies used in the article to argue why this is a bad idea.  Their argument was that by offering the tickets for free, Ozzfest is being devalued.  They said that Ozzfest is a commodity which is worth something, and by not getting adequate compensation, Ozzfest is devalued.

Really?  I just don’t buy that argument at all.  If we really espouse that argument, the more we charge for something, the more valuable it is.  So, if Ozzfest wanted to be the best tour out there, they’d charge $250 per ticket.  Instant value, purely because of the ticket prices.  Wouldn’t most people argue that the value of a concert is determined by the bands playing, and what type of show they put on?  Or maybe the band’s music doesn’t sound as good when you haven’t paid for the opportunity to hear them.

I’m betting there’s another argument, one the ticket companies really can get behind: They don’t make any money on a free concert.  Of course they can’t say that because it’s bad PR.  But really, I doubt they care much about the “value” of the concert any more than the monetary value of each ticket.

I’m just sick of PR people spinning crap responses that don’t even make logical sense.  Free concerts devalue the bands playing?  Please.

Lately I’ve been thinking more about getting the word out on two local bands (well, local when I lived in Oregon, and when I return!) I think are the bees-knees. Wow, what a weird way to say I think they’re amazing! One band (800 Octane) is criminally overlooked in my opinion (and this isn’t influenced by the fact that I’m friends with them), and the other may get big in a bit, but I thought I’d give one extra push.

800 Octane - Get In The Van

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Broadway Calls - Suffer The Kids

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Since I can’t seem to stop telling Apple how to improve iTunes/iPod functionality, I have yet another suggestion.  This time, I’ve thought of an addition to the shuffle function:

Add “random album” and “random artist” functions!  You see, I have too many songs, and (as I wrote before) I often have trouble deciding what to listen to.  And when I use the shuffle songs function, it’s cool and all, but sometimes I want to listen to a random album or a random artist in its/their entirety.  This is due, in large part, to the diversity of my music collection.  Since my tastes range so much, the shuffle songs function comes across as disjointed and isn’t a ton of fun to listen to.

Until they discover my blog and realize my brilliant suggestions need to be implemented immediately I’ll have to continue making do with my ghetto solution: Closing my eyes and spinning the scroll wheel in all directions multiple times.  Pseudo random music listening.

I’m addicted to music, I think it’s fair to say.  Ever since high school, when I found music that spoke directly to my frustrations and worldview, I’ve been a voracious consumer of music.  After years of joining CD clubs, buying new and used CDs and everything, I have well over 400 albums, all on my iPod.  So why do I have a hard time finding something to listen to?

I scroll through my music, ranging from punk rock to indie, pop to rap and nothing jumps out at me.  I keep saying, “That wouldn’t be bad, but maybe there’s something better.”  Right now I’m listening to Eastern Philosophy by Apathy, which is a great album, but still I wonder if there isn’t something else I’d be liking more.

I remember when I had eight CDs, in junior high.  At that time I absolutely loved my CDs.  I never complained, I always knew which one I wanted to hear.  So essentially my mind has become paralyzed by the wide range of options it must choose from.  I know I’ve read about things like this in my psych textbooks, but I’ve never really experienced it before.

Maybe it’s time to just hit random and see what comes up (chances are I’ll like it!).

This is really bugging me.  I’ve got a tiny part of a song stuck in my head, and I have no idea who the artist is or what song it is.  More than that, I can’t even say what the words are exactly.  Somehow I have this general idea of what I think the words are and the melody, but that’s it.

Normally when I get a mystery song stuck in my head I have enough to Google search the lyrics and find out who it is, but not this time.  It’s been in there for almost a week now and it won’t go away.

Sigh.

So after work today I picked up the new Strike Anywhere CD and the new Much The Same CD. One of the many nice things about living in Salt Lake is access to CDs other than what Fred Meyer decided to carry. However, since I swung by on my way home from work I was still wearing my dress clothes and had my VA ID with the waving flag background hanging on a lanyard around my neck. Now, I know what my political beliefs are, and I know that they are completely inline with my punk rock ideals, and I know that I’m not at all ashamed of working for the VA. However, when people look at me, especially in a state like Utah, I doubt they think: “I bet he’s going to get the new CD from a melodic hardcore band!” It kind of feels good to be bucking a different looks based stereotype. Before I was the guy in the band t-shirt with spiked hair who was in graduate school, now I’m the uptight looking guy who played guitar in crappy punk bands.

As long as I don’t suddenly decide the mullet is my hairstyle of choice (seeing as it’s business up front, party in the back) I think I’m ok with this.

Speaking of the CDs… on first listen I’m a little less than excited with the Strike Anywhere disc. There are some good tracks, but it feels like it’s missing the energy that so defined Exit English (still one of my favorite CDs ever). Perhaps it will grow on me, and even as-is it’s better than a lot of junk being released. The Much The Same CD is better than I expected, based on the reviews I had read. Many of the reviews talked about this CD as more “rock” than punk and that it was much more mellow than their previous release. I really didn’t find this, in fact I thought it was pretty much what I would have expected for a sophomore release from the band. Sure, it’s not quite as raw as Quitters Never Win, but it’s not so different. At this point I enjoy the Much The Same CD more.

So yesterday I didn’t write a post because I went to see 800 Octane for the last time in a while, since they don’t make a habit of playing shows in Salt Lake City.  It was great to see them one last time, and it was great to hear a bunch of songs they don’t normally play (although I was hoping for some new ones…guess I’ll just wait for the album!)

So anyway, after they played we were standing out front of this little “bubble tea” place in Salem (the show was in the tiny, hot basement of aforementioned bubble tea place).  “The Bite” of Salem was going on a few blocks away, so there were a lot of people milling around aimlessly.  So there we were talking with the guys, standing on the sidewalk and there were maybe another ten kids from the show around us.  All of a sudden this bike cop comes up to us, shines his little bike headlight in our faces and says, “I heard someone say something when I rode past on the street…you wanna back up that statement to my face?!?”  Now, we had been standing there for half an hour and I hadn’t heard anyone say anything about cops, we hadn’t even seen them pedal by.  So everyone says “I have no idea what you’re talking about”, as politely as possible, looking at each other to see if anyone knows what in the world he’s talking about.  Judging by the look he gave us, he obviously didn’t believe that nobody said anything.  Probably just chalked it up to “spineless, troublemaking punk kids on the sidewalk who talk crap but then chicken out when confronted.”  Anyway, he didn’t seem to happy by our nonresponse, so he cleared his throat and informed the whole group that by standing on the sidewalk we were violating a city ordinance preventing the blocking of traffic on the street, and that he gave one warning, so next time he came by if anyone was standing in the middle of the sidewalk he’d give them a ticket.  So basically, because he told us, if an entirely different group of people was standing there an hour later…tickets all around.  Suh-weet.  So we just stared at him and he picked up his bike, spun it around in a huff and trotted off to his bike-riding cronies.  After they left we all made jokes about it, but everybody denied saying anything or hearing anything said to the cop (and usually, after the confrontation someone would speak up if something had been said).

So, it definitely felt like we were singled out because we “looked like ruffians” in our black t-shirts outside a punk rock show.  It definitely felt like the officer was looking for some reason to write us up, and I was just shocked.  I doubt he had us pegged as a high school science teacher, a computer tech, psychology intern, mail carrier, and other productive members of society.

Don’t misconstrue this post, I’m not against cops.  I don’t call them any of the many derogatory terms out there, and I don’t think that they’re out to abuse their power.  I do think that this guy was on a bit of a power trip and looking for a reason to book ‘em Dano.  Then again, perhaps somebody did say something that none of us heard.  I just don’t know…and it certainly felt weird to all of us there.  Welcome back to Salem.