CD Review, Entertainment, Music

CD Review: Happy Birthday [2010]

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Band: Happy Birthday
Release: 3/2010
Label: Sub Pop

1. “Girls FM” – A
2. “2 Shy” – B+
3. “Cracked” – C+
4. “Perverted Girl” – B+
5. “Subliminal Message” – B-
6. “Eyes Music” – C+
7. “Maxine The Teenage Eskimo” – B+
8. “I Want to Stay (Run Away)” – B
9. “Pink Strawberry Shake” – B
10. “Zit” – C
11. “Fun” – B

Comment: Right off the bat, Happy Birthday sounds like Islands. That comparison pretty much dies, though, after “Girls FM.” Considering the band is still obscure as fuck (they were signed out of the blue by Sub Pop after forming in late 2008), it’s necessary to give them a decent amount of credit just for releasing something polished relatively quickly out of nowhere. I can’t really describe the sound too well on this record. It’s merely an eclectic pop record…what the “independent” big shots like to call “indie-pop.” That really doesn’t tell anyone much, unfortunately. On “Maxine,” you’ll definitely hear some surf-pop Beach Boy influence. Like you’re deaf or something if you can’t hear that. I guess I could namedrop Girls as well, but Happy Birthday is much more spastic. They do a pretty bad attempt at garage/punk on “Zit.” I don’t know, I thought I was going to like this record more than it turns out in the end. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but nothing special.

Grade: 83 (B-)

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Classic Album Review: At Action Park

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Artist: Shellac (of North America!)
Full Title: At Action Park
Year: 1994
Label: Touch and Go
Grade: A
Tracks:

1) My Black Ass– 10, Open up a can of whip (black) ass!2) Pull the Cup- 7
3) The Admiral- 8/9
4) Crow– 9
5) Song of the Minerals– 9
6) A Minute– 9
7) The Idea of North- 8
8) Dog and Pony Show– 9
9) Boche’s Dick– 9
10) Il Porno Star– 9

Comments: Steve Albini is Killing Me Slowly with His Songs! At Action Park delivers a full blast of audio assault and yet it’s so soothing to my ears. Albini and crew whip you with their guitars, so brutal you are wetting yourself in Kim Gordan’s panties. But, it aint rape man ahaha, it’s a fucking fix! Most artists I adore are very pop like in nature. With Albini, it’s a whole other kitten to tackle. The Albini “sound” is heavily guitar driven, mean fucking guitars complemented by pounding drums (“Crow” is a great example of this). The record opens with the beloved, fan favorite, “My Black Ass,” an immensely catchy number and one of the best guitar riffs in all of Rock music. There’s a spectacular groove that just rolls through your headphones and slides down your skin; it feels better than sex… ok, I have no authority to say that :( but, it will one day feel better than sex :). This groove thang is commonplace throughout AAP, but is best exemplified in the closing track, “Il Porno Star,” which highlights one of Albini’s greatest talents: Dark, strangely humorous, and often malevolent lyrics. Albini shouts, “Porno Star Arrives… No English… No Money.” Go Figure. Overall, I highly recommend this classic to all Albini fanatics and newbies as well. If you don’t like it, you can kiss MY (BLACK) ASS!

Chris

business, humor, Music, TV

King Khan BBQ Show In AE

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Go to your nearest American Eagle (or just take my word for it) and you might just hear The King Khan & BBQ Show. Take a look:

Don’t be mistaken for genius on part of the corporation, though. Radio K, the radio station of University of Minnesota, won some competition that allows them to have their customized play-list looping throughout all stores in the USA for a select time period. Other great bands that you might hear if you go into an American Eagle (why the fuck would you in the first place?) are Atlas Sound, Deerhunter, Girls, Handsome Furs, Julian Casablancas, MGMT, Peter Bjorn and John, Phoenix, Shout Out Louds, Thee Oh Sees, The War on Drugs, Thurston Moore, and Yo La Tengo. Typical college radio.

Entertainment, Music, News, Quotes

Ham Talks New Album

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Hamilton Leithauser on The Walkmen’s untitled sixth studio album:
I’m not 100 percent sure what’s going to be on it; we’ve written so many songs. We wrote a lot of songs for You & Me, but we ended up basically using like 90 percent of them on the record because we wanted it to be a long record. But this time, I think we recorded 22 songs or something like that. There’s talk of doing a 20-song record or something, a White Album kind of a deal. But I don’t think that going to fly because I’m not sure that all of them deserve to be on it. But I mean, I don’t know. It’s coming along nicely now. We just did our first session by ourselves. We haven’t done one of those, where we engineered everything and recorded, in like five years. I’m really happy with the way we did it. I was actually impressed that we could still do it.

Boston based shows/fests – DIY, punk, noise