All posts by G. Gordon Gritty
Question of the Day
Should workers be allowed to work as much as they want OR should vacations and holidays be mandatory? Let’s think about it. At companies like Lincoln Electric and General Electric, systems are in place where workers are paid according to performance. Essentially, if you work your ass off and produce X units of a good, you will be highly rewarded in pay. It could even get to the point where you don’t have to do any performance and still get paid for doing nothing, which is something that’s been discussed among KLYAMers in the past. With a performance based system (Piece work, as it is called), it becomes almost unreasonable for workers to complain about their pay. Yes, I could see them complaining about getting no vacations, holidays, working conditions, etc but in terms of actual pay it’s YOU making it or breaking it. At any rate, giving the worker complete freedom over how he or she wants to work is an individualist concept. It’s an egalitarian concept if workers and upper management are treated the same way. In fact, if production workers really sweat their ass off, they could make more $$$ than upper level management. Sacrifices would have to be made in social and family life and some people just wouldn’t want to make those BUT maybe that option is attractive for some people. Who’s to decide? If you think the government should set limits on work, isn’t that a case of intruding on somebody’s liberty?
CD Review: The Brutalist Bricks
Band: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Release: 3/2010
Label: Matador Records
1. “Mighty Sparrow” – A-
2. “Mourning In America” – C
3. “Ativan Eyes” – B
4. “Even Heroes Have To Die” – C-
5. “The Stick” – C-
6. “Bottled In Cork” – C-
7. “Woke Up Near Chelsea” – D
8. “One Polaroid A Day” – C-
9. “Where Was My Brain?” – B-
10. “Bartolomeo…” – C
11. “Tuberculoids Arrive…” – D+
12. “Gimme The Wire” – C+
13. “Last Days” – B
Comments: I’m not entirely unfamiliar with Ted Leo. I mean, I’ve seen their name thrown around so much, but I never really listened to them. Not going to bullshit you people, but I always got the impression that this band played some kind of math rock. That was unwarranted and I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns they are more of a post-punk or pop-punk outfit, somewhere between Louis XIV and Head Automatica. I have a spot in my heart for bands like this and I could tell pretty quickly that Ted Leo is going to be hit or miss personally. Not sure if the band intentionally ripped off Sonic Youth’s “Poison Arrow” with “Mighty Sparrow.” Obviously any well produced rip-off of Sonic Youth is going to sound pretty good. I guess listening to this band gives you hipster cred, because they dance on the line of what’s mainstream pop-punk and what’s not. Even attempts that are meant to be of the hardcore (not literally) “I don’t give a shit” variety of punk come off unnatural like in “The Stick.” All right Ted Leo, time to sign to Columbia. Enough of this shit, you posers. You make good bands signed to Matador look bad like the late Jay Reatard and Mission of Burma. Slightly kidding, but slightly not. The below average songs are really sucky and the decent songs are really decent. “Last Days” is a pretty good way to end a pretty ugly string of tracks.
Grade: C (75)
CD Review: The Rainwater LP [2010]
Band: Citizen Cope
Release: 2/2010
Label: RainWater (Self-Release)
1. “Keep Askin” – B
2. “Healing Hands” – B
3. “I Couldn’t Explain Why” – C
4. “Lifeline” – B-
5. “Off The Ground” – C+
6. “Jericho” – B-
7. “The Newspaper” – C
8. “A Father’s Son” – C+
9. “Lifeline (Barefeet Version)” – B
10. “Keep Askin’ (Acoustic)” – B-
Comments: Cope. Yeah, that guy. The guy that Matt Hurton loves. The guy that lands three consecutive nights (Thu-Fri-Sat) at the Paradise Rock Club. The guy that realized major label releases are over-rated and releases an album all by himself on his own record label. Cope’s got a funky acoustic swagger that is a little more digestible than what you’ll get in the mainstream. Speaking of which, other than a plethora of TV spots, Cope remains relatively unknown to the public eye (besides his fairly large cult following). His songs are ripe for media picking because of their flexible usage potential and flow. I like what Cope is doing most of the time here, but it’s obviously just not my style. It’s not exactly what I’d consider depressing, but Cope’s heavy delivery has that component almost built in. He’s not afraid to experiment with tropical genres, hip-hop, and electro-pop.
Grade: C+ (79)
Mando Diao – Long Before
I love the energy of this band as I’ve said before. According to a fellow by the name of Rich, they should be bigger than they are here in the United States.
GIL SCOTT-HERON
IS SO INDIE SINCE HE’S SIGNED TO XL IMMA GIVE HIS ALBUM A…8.5!
I listened to an early leak of I’m New Here by the inventor of “rap” and I got wicked bored. It was painfully boring that I couldn’t follow up and review it. I respect those with the patience to give this a worthwhile listen.
QUESTION!!!
Remember when we posted some photos of naked or near naked women to get your attention to some posts.
Is that the same thing as objectifying women or, if it is done in good fun, acceptable?
WHAT DO YOU THINK, DAMN-IT?
Boston Walking Distances
I’ve been making several jaunts around the city for the past 30 days since I got here. Generally speaking, you can easily cover a lot of distance around town if you know where you are going.
If you are walking from Northeastern towards Fenway Park, you must realize that there is a pretty decent sized green area called Fenway that could fuck you up along the way. Basically the big thing on one side of it is the Museum of Fine Arts and the big thing on the other side is Fenway Park. If you are near the Museum, keep walking until you get to the outer edge of park, make a turn, and keep walking straight ahead until you get to what is called Landmark Center (a big ass art deco building). Along the way you should pass Simmons College and Emmanuel College. Once you get to Landmark, keep heading straight down Brookline Avenue and you’ll end up very close to Fenway Park. You’ll have to take a right down Landsdowne or Yawkey…the choice is yours. The walk is about 20-25 minutes which is really nothing in the grand scheme of things.
If you are walking from Northeastern to Boston Common, you shouldn’t run into any problems. It’s about a 25-35 minute walk down Huntington, Columbus, or Tremont. If you walk down Huntington, you are going to have to change direction a little bit and travel up Boylston because Huntington stops near the Convention Center. I think Columbus is faster and more convenient than Tremont, but Tremont is a pretty fun walk because it’s a bit less “urban” in the sense that there are more antiquated small housing residences. Once you get to the Common you can keep walking straight past the Financial District and Faneuil Hall until you get to the North End.
There’s really not much going on Northwest of the Common. There’s hospitals and old little housing units. If you head past Northeastern to the West, you’ll end up in Allston, Brookline, Newton, or some other place like that. If you keep walking past Boston University that is.
This may be of no interest to you, but if it is then cool!
Strange Boys – Be Brave
Here’s a live capture of this new one which I gave a solid A+. I dig.
Bitchfuck Hacked Or Not?
I’m probably blogger number 532 to point this out, but whatever: Go read Pitchfork’s review of Eminem’s The Eminem Show. The “ryan” character refers to the founder of that site:
ryan loves it and he likes mmlp too so he’s all sonning me now with this ‘well ethan yes perhaps i’d allow you to give the marshall mathers lp a 10.0, i mean that particular record was perfect, but not this one’ yeah well you were busy talking about at the motherfucking drive in back then so let me redeem your godawful site now. jeez unless he went back on his dumb-ass ‘policy’ theres a nine dot one up there but i promise you ‘the eminem show’ is really a ten, know that
oh my darling eminem! how i love you marshall, spittin shiny massive magnetic acrostics to fit the thrillest rhyme style ever invented (ugh yeah i’m trying not to explain his quote unquote flow in those meaningless autechre words like architectural and labyrinthine but SHIT) but yeah although em’s lyrics arent usually quotably evocative for rock reviews like wu or jay here i’m not even going to try, you have to hear him spit at it live or on record
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 