CD Review: Eskimo Snow

Band: Why?
Label: Anticon.
Release: 2009

1. “These Hands” – 8.1
2. “January Twenty Something” – 8.7
3. “Against Me” – 9.2
4. “Even the Good Wood Gone” – 8.3
5. “Into the Shadows of My Embrace” – 8.5
6. “One Rose” – 8.3
7. “On Rose Walk, Insomniac” – 7.5
8. “Berkeley by Hearseback” – 7.7
9. “This Blackest Purse” – 8.8
10. “Eskimo Snow” – 8.1

Final Grade: 8.3

King Khan & BBQ’s Invisible Girl

The King Khan & BBQ Show, wacky motherfuckers that they are, don’t announce new albums via press release, the way sane people do. Instead, the dynamic garage rock duo jump on their MySpace page and post an alternately informative and annoying “KKBBQ Infomercial” featuring tons of song clips and goofy voices. (Whoever does the Snaggletooth impression should really consider never doing a Snaggletooth impression again.)

So here’s the pertinent information: The new album will be called Invisible Girl. It’s out on November 3. The infomercial promises “12 songs loaded with kicks”, and someone describes it as “a love story of hate.”

And just apparently the Almighty Defenders/King Khan & BBQ Show tour will kick off in late October.

Concert Review: Trevor Hall


Artist: Trevor Hall
Location: Harpers Ferry, Allston, MA
Date: July 29, 2009

Trevor Hall and his band mates put on a simply fantastic show! Hall reminded me of Bob Marley with his peaceful demeanor and dreadlocks. He and his boys impressed the crowd with amazing musicianship and an undeniable love for their craft as well as for their fans. Which isn’t hard to see, because I was surrounded by die hard fans for the performance. Unfortunately, I am not a “die hard,” but I am a fan and very much enjoy the invigorating and contagious music of Trevor Hall. I only knew a few songs, but in spite of this handicap, I managed to vibrantly dance, cheer, and sing along to all of the songs. It was impossible not to! Which, I must say, often when I see bands I am not as familiar with as other fans I can’t get “into it” and dance or sing along. So kudos to Trevor and the gang. On top of singing heartfelt numbers, such as, “Lime Tree,” “Unity, ” “Venomous,” and “Sunny Day,” amongst other classics, Trevor demonstrated his unquestionable ability to communicate with his audience: making direct eye contact with fans, replacing Boston instead of Heaven the lyrics of one of his tunes, reciting his personal, passionate, poem, hopping into the crowd and pogoing with us. I hugged him (and his guitar), not as intensely as some of the femmes lol, greeting us with bananas and oranges (I ate my banana there!), quite different from my last HF show in which we were greeted with Jay Reatard’s Corona directly from his saliva!. Once again, I make the Bob Marley comparison, because Hall took the time to mention the awful conflict of war and religion in the world and how young kids are starving in India, and the band set up a table for fans to make donations to help them out. With a guest rapper and a three song, powerful encore, I can say with certainty that it was a great night.

Chris

Elementary Ideas on Democracy

Changes come from the bottom, not the top. As everyone knows, Obama championed the vague concept of “change” to the American people throughout his campaign. And of course everyone ate it up because eight years of a right wing war criminal in office will do serious brain damage to you. So, people wanted a Democrat to fuck things up once again. Anyway, as history demonstrates major societal changes, such as severely kicking racism square in the pills (though it’s alive and well and still needs ass whooping)come through the struggles of everyday people and then the elites react to it. Your history and government textbooks want you to believe the opposite: the elitists, like the Supreme Court randomly decided to battle racism and end legal segregation in the South. Yes, it’s true that that wasn’t the top priority for the majority of America, but as Abbie Hoffman once stated, “You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.” Well, the black rights and civil rights activists, such as Richard Wright and Rosa Parks, and countless others were the “dissidents” and the American people were the “assimilated conformists.” In simple terms, democracy is everyone’s opportunity to participate and have a major influence in the political process. Not mob rule as school an TV have led you to believe. So, the very idea that Obama will clean up the mess of the Bush Administration and previous administrations through health care reform, abortion reform, etc. is absurd. The social ills affecting everyone, particularly the poverty stricken people he doesn’t care that much about, cannot be obliterated through reforms because reforms imply that the system is well intentioned and good, but needs some tidying up. WRONG! you never hear a politician say “we’re doing our best to reform rape” or “With our new program we plan to seriously reform child abuse.” Of course not! because we want to ABOLISH the evils of rape and child abuse. In short, we don’t need reforms, we need changes…. but don’t look to your pal Barry for that, look to one another and create some real dialogue.

Chris

Holy Crap, Banks Suck, Kill Me

This news makes me sick. I hate banks. I recommend you instead store your money under your mattress.

NEW YORK — The New York Attorney General’s office says Citigroup, one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, paid out $5.33 billion in employee bonuses for 2008.

The attorney general has issued a report Thursday that outlines 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Bank of America, which also received $45 billion in TARP money, paid $3.3 billion in bonuses.

U.N. Extends Darfur Peacekeeping Mission Mandate

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously extended the mandate for the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission which has been slowly deploying in Sudan’s conflict-torn Darfur region.

The force’s mandate has been extended until the end of July 2010.

It’s a little surprising and sad that this War in Darfur is shaping up to last longer than the Iraq War. But there’s a little bit of good news.

Sawers said there have been some encouraging developments in Darfur. He welcomed the improved cooperation between the U.N. secretariat and Khartoum in deploying UNAMID, which is currently at just over two-thirds of its planned strength of 26,000 troops and police.

Boston based shows/fests – DIY, punk, noise