DEAF FOREVER

New favorite timesuck at work: Nonstop Headbanger’s Ball...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:28:50 -0700

New favorite timesuck at work: Nonstop Headbanger’s Ball interviews on Youtube. What a wonderful world.

Favorite new tumblr: Bargain Bin Blasphemy. Because Cher in...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:01:35 -0800

Favorite new tumblr: Bargain Bin Blasphemy. Because Cher in corpse paint is never a bad idea.

fuck it, i’ve just been listening to “night...

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:37:31 -0700

fuck it, i’ve just been listening to “night moves” all the time.

Bill Clinton plays M83. Of course.

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:08:00 -0700

Bill Clinton plays M83. Of course.

Photo

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:28:08 -0700

Photo

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:25:26 -0700

GWAR is here to solve our country's political divisiveness

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:24:58 -0800

GWAR is here to solve our country's political divisiveness

Photo

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:43:55 -0800

pentagram's bobby liebling and his insanely hot wife

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:34:05 -0800

here’s the trailer: LAST DAYS HERE

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:31:26 -0800

here’s the trailer: LAST DAYS HERE

Pentagram documentary coming to SF next month! Prepare to spill your Evil Seed!

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:29:20 -0800

Pentagram documentary coming to SF next month! Prepare to spill your Evil Seed!

whatever

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:17:44 -0800

whatever

I wish that Whitesnake wasn’t so insufferable, because...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:11:41 -0800

I wish that Whitesnake wasn’t so insufferable, because this back patch is pretty amazing.

this song gives me the chills and this video gets me wet. who...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:56:22 -0800

this song gives me the chills and this video gets me wet. who knew how sexual and beautiful dog grooming could be, especially in tandem with swaying, elephant-slow, lawnmower guitar tones?

what the fuck.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:14:28 -0800

what the fuck.

I’m foaming at the mouth for the new Terry Malts LP...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:48:00 -0800

I’m foaming at the mouth for the new Terry Malts LP Killing Time. I got my grubby hooks on a copy and am putting my life on the line to post a track I (and maybe you) have never heard before outside a cave-like dive bar: the hilarious “Mall Dreams.” Enjoy. And remember, you didn’t hear it here first.

When I was a freshman in high school, barely venturing from...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:36:00 -0800

When I was a freshman in high school, barely venturing from beneath a heavy pile of Lagwagon and Bad Religion CDs, I was introduced to an album called The Shape of Punk to Come by a Swedish band called Refused. My friend Ashley Will and I spent literally hours on end listening to songs like “New Noise” and “Liberation Frequency,” fascinated by how much weirder and more pissed off they were than the melodious skate punk that had previously captivated us. I think Ashley started playing guitar specifically so that she could learn the opening riff to the album’s title track.

Although I would hesitate to call Refused a hardcore band—I think “post-hardcore” might be a more appropriate classification—I see them as being a both crucial and ephemeral part of my adolescence and my incubating appreciation for music of a hard, loud, and fast nature. Their recent decision to reunite has drawn mixed responses; some eye-rolls due to the assumption that it’s merely to collect fat wads of cash with which to line their swimming pools, some excited backflips from those of us who were too young or too far away to catch them in their prime will have a chance the second time around—and we’re not too cynical to miss that opportunity. For those who criticize their reunion as being a commercial strategy—wake the fuck up, they were always commercial. Have you ever seen The (International) Noise Conspiracy, singer Dennis Lyxzen’s subsequent band? They had matching outfits. They were a fashion band. Dennis Lyxzen was voted Sweden’s sexiest man by Elle magazine. Refused was always commercial, you were just too young and not jaded enough to realize it yet. So shut your piehole and buy tickets for their April 18 show at the Warfield.

This post is dedicated to Kris, who is smart enough to be going to this show.

PSYCHEDELIC SNOWGLOBE: A Winter Mix

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:58:52 -0800

Compelled by the atrocity of Monster Ballads XMAS (see previous post), I have produced my own compilation (with love, tenderness, blood, sweat, and tears) of winter tunes that are all excellent in their own right, but best enjoyed in a warm place on a cold night. Slightly heavy on shoegaze and post-punk, but with other sounds excavated from nooks and crannies throughout my music library.

Track listing:

1. Devo - Snowball

2. The Chills - Pink Frost

3. My Bloody Valentine - Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)

4. Roky Erickson & the Aliens - Cold Night for Alligators

5. Hüsker Dü - Ice Cold Ice

6. Lilys - Snowblinder

7. Low - Little Drummer Boy*

8. Cocteau Twins - Sugar Hiccup

9. The Magnetic Fields - Mr. Mistletoe

10. Medicine - Christmas Song

11. The Books - A Cold Freezin’ Night

12. The Pixies - The Holiday Song

13. Animal Collective - Kids on Holiday

14. Cap’n Jazz - Winter Wonderland*

15. King Khan & BBQ Show - Into the Snow

16. Black Sabbath - Snowblind

17. The Wipers - The Chill Remains

18. Mazzy Star - Flowers In December

19. Rachel’s - NY Snow Globe

20. Grouper - Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping

21. Salem - Frost

*Arguably counts as actual Christmas music, sorry.

Download link here.

REVIEW: Monster Ballads Xmas

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:19:00 -0800

My office is very into holiday music. We’ve been steadily rotating through the “Indie Holiday” “Joey Ramone Holiday” “Bruce Springsteen Holiday” and “Hanukkah” Pandora stations for the past two weeks (I do not recommend the Hanukkah station) (I’m half-Jewish, it just fucking sucks, believe me). In the interest of remaining spirited while coping with the fact that I was BORN TO ROCK, I have downloaded the MONSTER BALLADS XMAS and will henceforth review it track by track as I listen through my headphones.

1) Skid Row - Jingle Bells

This is an unimaginably bad way to start this album, or any album for that matter. Sebastian Bach sounds like Mike Ness from Social Distortion (not in a good way) and the production is bottom-of-the-barrel. In spite of the fact that this issue of Rolling Stone:

is a fixture in our bathroom reading pile, Sebastian Bach is permanently on my shit list because the other day my boss told me about the whole “AIDS Kills Fags Dead” scandal and obviously that shit does not fly in my world. I love gays way more than I love any Skid Row song. Plus, look at the above picture—seriously, you’re calling people “fags” while you’re shirtless on a magazine cover sporting skintight gold football pants and nipple-length blonde hair? GFY, SB.

2. Winger - Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

This track is actually not that bad, being approximately what I would expect from a compilation called “Monster Ballads Xmas”. It is a ballad, it qualifies as “monster” due to an ongoing chorus of wailing guitars, and it repeats the word “Christmas” many times over. Also, Google.com—maybe you’ve heard of it—taught me that this is a John Lennon cover! I like John Lennon. Bravo, Winger. Also love their look, especially the denim shirt knotted just sub-navel:

3. Jani Lane - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

RIP, Jani Lane. Recently laid to rest after years of being tormented by the fact that he wrote and would forever be known by “Cherry Pie”, Lane deserves a little pour-out of the cheapest vodka that you can find. That said, this song is fucking terrible and he sounds like a poor man’s Joey Ramone at a karaoke bar.

4. Twisted Sister with Lita Ford - I’ll Be Home for Christmas

This ditty really delivers. Lita Ford lends her pipes with enthusiasm and there’s a solid 1-minute guitar solo that really evokes snow peacefully falling on conifers while you gather round the fire with loved ones. I tried to put on the Twisted Sister holiday Pandora station after playing this but my coworkers made me turn it off after less than 30 seconds.

5. Queensryche - White Christmas

Opens with a sick little riff that sounds nothing like White Christmas as you know it. The vocals are disgusting, like your drunk uncle looking for attention towards the end of your cousin’s wedding as everyone solemnly tries to convince him to cab it home.

6. LA Guns - Run Rudolph Run

Lemmy from Motorhead does a way better version of this song, so I don’t feel I’m able to judge it fairly. It’s okay, but it’s not Lemmy. No one else could ever be Lemmy.

7. Firehouse - Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Some nice guitar effects in the intro, adding a sort of “stadium rock” vibe. Some tickly little guitar pickage between verses. I commend their efforts to rock. Fucking boring, though.

8. Danger Danger - Naughty Naughty Christmas

I am familiar with neither this band nor this song. Opening lyrics “I’ve been a naughty boy / I didn’t get a toy.” This is literally unlistenable, I had to change it before it even got to the chorus to avoid throwing the poinsettia on my desk against the wall.

9. Tom Keifer - Blue Christmas

In case you were wondering, Tom Keifer is the dude from Cinderella. He’s very pretty.

I wish that my makeup could look as nice as his, but his fake vibrato is pretty awful. Kind of like Steven Tyler but with the musical aesthetic of like 1992. I’m not convinced that he’s having a blue Christmas.

10. Nelson - Jingle Bell Rock

Jingle hell rock.

11. Faster Pussycat - Silent Night

HAHAHAHA! For some reason FP decided to interpret Silent Night through a Marilyn Manson-esque industrial wasteland filter. This sounds like Nine Inch Nails playing in a children’s choir! I love it! A+++

12. Dokken - Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Starts off with a sweet little piano melody, but don’t be fooled! Dokken is here to show you that the holidays are as hard as the frozen lake that you skate on until you accidentally wander onto some thin ice and die a miserable flailing death while your internal organs shut down from hypothermia. Oopsy!

13. Enuff Znuff - Happy Holiday

I appreciate the audacity that they adopted when naming their musical project. Truly self-flagellating. Love this track—definitely needs a video of some babes in Santa bikinis cruising in a Lamborghini and then making out underneath some mistletoe in front of a roaring fireplace. HOW HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS BAND? I LOVE THIS.

14. Stryper - Winter Wonderland

I think this was recorded live, which rules because that means that hundreds or possibly thousands of people somewhere chose to see Stryper on Christmas. It sounds about a thousand times better than many of the previous tracks on this godforsaken compilation, so kudos for that. Surprisingly rollicking and warm fuzzies-inducing.

15. Billy Idol - Christmas Love

Acoustic. Eww. And I love Billy Idol, but Billy Idol should not be acoustic. And he sounds all warbly, like a bad version of how Johnny Cash sounded when he got really old and was all about to die and stuff. But you know what? In the spirit of Christmas, I forgive Billy Idol, because this:

Peace on Earth, man. Whatever.

Download here to fill your home with Christmas cheer—until your roommates scream at you to turn it off.

In the aftermath of the Metallica show, things are getting so...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:17:00 -0800

In the aftermath of the Metallica show, things are getting so dire inside my skull that I feel like I have to perform electro-shock therapy on my brain to remind myself that other bands do in fact exist. Thank you, Adolescents, for riding in on your trusty steeds and coming to my rescue.