Category Archives: Entertainment

Top Songs of 2000s (A-C)

It was hard choosing just three songs for these guys!

A maximum of three songs per band and they must be favorites!

Alec Ounsworth
1. Pass Along This Way – 2003

Almighty Defenders
1. Cone of Light – 2009
2. Ghost With The Most – 2009
3. All My Loving – 2009

Animal Collective
1. Fireworks – 2007
2. Grass – 2005
3. Peacebone – 2007

Arcade Fire
1. Rebellion (Lies) – 2004
2. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) – 2004

Arctic Monkeys
1. Fluorescent Adolescent – 2007
2. I Bet You  Look Good on the Dancefloor – 2005
3. Dancing Shoes – 2005

Atlas Sound
1. Walkabout (Featuring Noah Lennox)

Beirut
1. Postcards From Italy

Black Lips
1. Not A Problem – 2007
2. Fad – 2003
3. Juvenile – 2007

Bobby Ubangi
1. Back To You – 2009

Bon Iver
1. For Emma – 2007

Bright Eyes
1. Road To Joy – 2005
2. We Are Nowhere and It’s Now – 2005
3. Lua – 2005

Built to Spill
1. Strange – 2001

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
1. Over and Over Again – 2005
2. Heavy Metal – 2005

Cold War Kids
1. Passing The Hat – 2006
2. Pregnant – 2006
3. Hang Me Up To Dry – 2006

Crystal Castles
1. Crimewave (Crystal Castles Vs. Health)

Dandy Warhols
1. We Used To Be Friends – 2003

Deerhunter
1. Disappearing Ink – 2009

Editors
1. Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors – 2007
2. Munich – 2007
3. Papillon – 2009

Flashy Python
1. Obscene Queen Bee – 2009

Fleet Foxes
1. White Winter Hymnal – 2008
2. Mykonos – 2008

French Kicks
1. Abandon – 2008
2. So Far We Are – 2006
3. 1985 – 2002

Fugazi
1. Argument – 2001

Grizzly Bear
1. Colorado – 2006
2. Knife – 2006

Handsome Furs
1. Dead + Rural – 2007
2. All We Want, Baby, Is Everything – 2009
3. Evangeline – 2009

Head Automatica
1. Please Please Please – 2004
2. The Razor – 2004

Immortal Technique
1. Freedom of Speech

My Christmas Must Sees

Films (in no particular order):
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
2) A Christmas Carol (in any of it’s versions, specifically 1951. I usually attend the play, as I will be in two weeks. One of the few plays I enjoy seeing)
3) A Christmas Story (1983)
4) Home Alone (1990)
5) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
6) The Santa Claus (1994)
7) Edward Scissorhands (1990) (okay, so only towards the end of the film this is applicable, but for me it gets me in the mood)
8) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) (I suppose this is more apropos for Halloween)
9) Bad Santa (2003)
10) Die Hard (1988)

Tv:
1) The Simpsons- Most of their Christmas specials are worthy, but specifically, “Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire” (1989)
2) South Park- Same deal as above, but especially “Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo” (1997)
3) Family Guy- “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” (2001)
4) At least one Johnny Cash Special
5) Dr.Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1964)
6) Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer (1964)
7) Frosty The Snowman (1969)
8) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas (2009)- Potentially Must See because the show is great, but I have not yet seen this special
9) A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
10) SNL- various skits

Reading:
A Christmas Carol By:Charles Dickens (1843)
A Story A Day Till Christmas Various Authors (1985)
The Catcher in the Rye By: J.D. Salinger (1951)

I usually end up viewing only half of these! But, either way, I have a lot of work to do and I recommend others to watch/ read them too. I would recommend music, but that will take too long. I’ll save it for another day. To kick things off, here’s Adam Sandler in a classic SNL skit. It’s too bad that Youtube doesn’t have the actual video, oh well.

Chris

Jay Is Better Than One Line!

Look at your Boston Globe and read the Pixies review:

JOHNNY REATARD GOT ONE FREAKING LINE!

“Buzzed-about indie rocker Jay Reatard handled the evening’s warm-up duties.”

NO FUCKING SHIT HE WAS THE OPENER. THAT’S OBVIOUS. HE GOT ME SWEATING, SHAKING IN MY SKIN. APPARENTLY HE WAS ONLY WORTH ONE LINE TO YOU, BOSTON GLOBE. YEAH NO SHIT THE PIXIES ROCKED THE  SHIT OUT OF THE PLACE, BUT  ONE LINE FOR “INDIE-ROCKER”? GO F YOURSELF.

Chri$tmas

I love Christmas, plain and simple. It’s my favorite holiday. No, not for the sharing of joy, and spirit, not for celebrating some dude’s birthday (can’t remember the guy’s name), and certainly not for seeing some fat fuck lodge his holly, jolly ass in my chimney. No, rather, I adore all the little doo das that are packaged with this season. At first glance, y’all that know me, must be screaming to yourselves, “WTF?! WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO?!” But, don’t bash your pathetic, worthless skulls through your computer screens, just yet. It’s not like I’m hawking Dr. Pepper *cough Mr. NWA. Mr. Dr. Dre. Gangsta* Anyway, I think if one carefully plucks out the good, the bad, and the ugly, you can still maintain some politico aficionado dignity. So, yeah I’m mostly anti-consumerism and anti-corporate, but I must say I have an affinity for the GOOD Christmas specials, films, songs, decorations, traditions, etc. that make Christmas Christmas, that is the commercialized Chri$tmas, not that guy’s birthday, whoever he was… So, like everything else in life, I have mastered the task of weeding out the bad and especially the ugly and preserving the good ( a must see Christmas list will appear as a future post). To wrap up (no pun intended lol) this little, somewhat aimless, rant, I’d like to mention that a major beef of mine about Christmas is the way it’s pushed on consumers sooo early. I for one, do not begin my Christmas splurge until the day after Thanksgiving, in which Christmas With Johnny Cash rocks into heavy rotation until the Twenty-Fifth of December. Anything before this is wayyyy too early. Satan’s little helpers market Christmas the day after Halloween, if not before then. Thanksgiving is merely a break between the jamming of Christmas down your throat, squirting out red and green blood under the mistletoe.

Chris

Jay Pixies H & E

Hey, it’s No Age!

Well, in a rare instance, this post is mostly reserved for the opening band, Jay Reatard.

Hopes: Jay plays all of my favorites, plays for an hour, and his new crew sounds infinitely better than his last band, whom were entertaining and talented in their own right. And for the Pixies, I hope they put on the best show I’ve ever seen and play all my non-Doolittle, favorites.

Expectations: Jay and gang have better chops than his previous band mates, but aren’t as amazing as I suggest above. Seeing them live will be fun, but not the same experience as the previous show at Harpers Ferry, because we will be seated and what not. He will play a good amount of my favorites. The Pixies’ performance will be top notch and the show will enter my top 5 or at least top 10. They will play at least a few of my non-Doolittle favorites.

Chris

Classic CD Review: Safe As Milk

Band: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
Label: Buddah Records
Release: 1967

1. “Sure ‘Nuff ‘N Yes I Do” – B+
2. “Zig Zag Wanderer” – B+
3. “Call On Me” – B+
4. “Dropout Boogie” – A-
5. “I’m Glad” – A-
6. “Electricity” – B
7. “Yellow Brick Road” – B+
8. “Abba Zaba” – B
9. “Plastic Factory” – A
10. “Where There’s A Woman” – B
11. “Grown So Ugly” – B+
12. “Autumn’s Child” – B+

Comments: This is a very encouraging album for me. It’s an exciting listen (as is most music from the 1960s), although I won’t go as far as to designate it as one of the best “classics” that I’ve heard. I wouldn’t say a lot of modern day garage/punk/psychedelic bands are necessarily derivative of Captain Beefheart, but influenced for sure. The best way I can describe this record is: saner than Bloodshot Bill. I guess my own real gripe is that most of these songs feel too archaic; this may be where the delta blues references are validated. My comments may be a bit skewed: most of the bands that I love play music that has several grand-daddies in a plethora of genres and styles. These guys, on the other-hand, could only draw upon a few primitive fathers such as the blues and early rock. I can’t wait to hear Trout Mask Replica, their magnum opus.

Grade: B+