Some Peoples' Fame Completely Fucking Mystifies Me

Case in point. Her music is unlistenable, her audience snob-ridden and her eyebrows lawnmower-worthy. Other than that, she seems fine. What the hell is she talking about here? Reminds me of Senator Ted Stevens describing how the Internet works. 

This is probably a joke ... but MAYBE not. 

Most Awesomest: Kings of Leon

Those Kings of Leon shaw are perty.  You seen their hair stylists?  Are they fucking wearing eye liner?  Why did this happen?  How did this happen?  PLEASE tell us who we can blame for this atrocity so we can dump nail polish remover over their head and set them alight.  The problem is not that they are handsome devils; it’s that, unlike other handsome fellas (Evan Dando, us) they seem to care a lot about being handsome devils to the point of looking like busted-up-then-hastily-put-back-together pretty girls.  Bret Michaels perfected this look in the 80s and ended up looking like a broke-ass version of Farah Fawcett.  

When I see current pictures of The Kings, I think of Jennifer Aniston with a beard.  It’s enough that I just wrote a paragraph about this.  Are conspiracy theories about their boy band origins starting to be confirmed by their carefully manicured photo shoots?  Are we supposed to care whether they are or are not the sons of nomadic bible-thumping parents?   Too much to consider.  Can you just stop blow drying your hair, fellas?  Can you ease up on the frizz-ease?  Thanks.

Bottom line:  this is the band that wrote “Fans” and “Slow Night, So Long” and about 10 or 20 other awesome songs.  They have made four stellar records, each bringing them to another awesome place within rock n roll and the 1-2-3-4 ball punch of “Crawl”, “Sex on Fire”, “Use Somebody” and “Manhattan” on the new album, “Only By The Night”, is pretty freakin great.  We’re still not really sure how they sold out Madison Square Garden, but, then again, it’s better than watching the Knicks fans cheer while Kobe ices them for 61 points.  

 

How To: Smuggle Whiskey

Put your hands together for She Hate Me's Guide To Smuggling in Booze. If this is not relevant to you, perhaps you should be home watching live music DVDs rather than venturing out and keeping it real. REAL DRUNK. 

The Town Hall is one of our favorite venues in New York City.  It’s a stately old theatre that is cozy and not too large (1,300 capacity) and there is not a bad seat in the house.  They get some very good acts here and the only real drawback with the place is that you can’t bring your cold brew to your seat.  We are getting too old to slam six pints in an hour at some horrible midtown McDrinky’s, so we’ve got a bit of a dilemma on our hands here.  This dilemma is easily solved, however, my industrious friends, by bringing your own whiskey. This too is not allowed, but we are here to help you sneak these libations into the venue so you can comfortably take in the show while keeping your insides warm. You might be thinking that someone too old to do a power hour is also too old to be smuggling whiskey into shows.  Point taken.  Despite your criticism, here are the best ways to smuggle whiskey past suspecting security personnel.  You’re welcome.

1. The Waistband Technique.  For those with extra room in the waistband of their trousers, we recommend this simple method of concealment only at places like The Town Hall, where the staff is civilized, cultured, reasonable and unsuspecting.  This is the same place that hosts the “Broadway by Year” series, during which, SHOWTUNES are performed, so you can guess that they generally don’t have experience in dealing with animals like ourselves trying to sneak a fifth of Jim Beam in the waistband of our trousers.  As such, if you simply make small talk with the middle aged fella at the door while buttoning your red velvet smoking jacket, it should be enough to avoid raising red flags and get your contraband into the venue.

2. The Giant Sando Method.  Any self-respecting establishment (not Yankee Stadium, where fascist goons treat you like a lab rat in Gitmo) within the tri-state area is familiar with the greasy goodness of an Italian combo hero wrapped in white deli paper, taped with masking tape and scrolled with a magic marker price tag (we use the market price of $6.50).  If you substitute the Italian combo with a bottle of Jame-O, you will be rewarded when you get through the door and realize that a bottle of whiskey is A LOT to drink in one evening.  You will offer to share said whiskey with the same friends that just derided you as a degenerate drunk five minutes prior, which will give you great personal satisfaction.  This method has been tried, tested and perfected by my younger brother, who is really the Christopher Columbus of whiskey smuggling.

3. The Diversion.  This method requires the help of a friend and works best when said friend is dressed nattily in a suit purchased from Sy Syms.  Make sure your buddy is a respectable looking chap that could pass as a City Bureaucrat or Abe Lincoln.  The idea here is to have The Great Emancipator go in after you, with the concealed whiskey in his work bag surrounded and buried by work memos and the “Dining In” section of the New York Times.  As you enter first, be sure to be drinking a bottle of Coke, which the doorman will not let you bring in.  You will feign ignorance, chide yourself for being so silly and politely ask if you can just finish your beverage.  He will usually comply with your request.  This entire negotiation generally takes about 10 seconds, which is plenty of time for Abe to half-open his bag, smile, wave at the doorman and enter the venue with little to no scrutiny.

4. The Spicy Brown Method.  Empty the mustard from a Gulden’s new age squirt bottle.  Clean and rinse.  Fill with your favorite whiskey.  Squirt into your mouth, like Hemingway would a bota of Spanish wine. Concealment is clearly more difficult, but putting it in your pocket might actually do it, as very few security personnel will suspect that anyone would sink to such a level just to get drunk.  A shampoo bottle works just as well, but it lacks the kick you get from the residual spicy mustard, as well as the ease-of-use of the squirt bottle container.

 

The Top 50 Best Selling Albums of 2008 Are Horrible

Horrible. That is my statement. 

Why Do You Do This To Me?

See that? It's an example of how to tie a noose. Why is it here? Because I often think of it whenever bands do the things that bands do that are totally annoying and completely inexplicable. Examples to follow, NATURALLY, but these do tend to fill me with rage and/or make me ponder whether my iPod headphone cord would support my weight from the shower curtain rod. 

Uppermost in my mind are these incredibly stupid, fucking awful songs under sixty seconds that are just little snippets of music or even one chord playing over and over. Why would you do this? What is the point? What could you possibly be thinking? No one likes this. It is not going to be something that anyone recalls. No one. It is not artistic, it is not cool, there is nothing awesome or interesting about it. It's selfish, it costs us 99 cents if we buy your entire lousy album, so seriously, fuck off already.

Biggest offender: Spiritualized, clocking in with FOUR GODDAMN SONGS under a minute long. You pretentious pricks, how dare you. Even the names make me want to ring up the Ancient Circle of Ballpunchery and have them pay you a visit: Harmony 1 (Mellotron), Harmony 2 (Piano), Harmony 3 (Voice) and ... wait for it ... Harmony 6 (Glockenspiel)!!! Holy fucking shit are you guys assholes.

This kind of thing makes me completely furious, and these songs automatically get a 1 star rating, meaning they are a disgrace to music. They fill me with intense loathing for the band that has done this to me, and make me inclined to never buy another thing they put out. I am done with Spiritualized, even though their last record was a gift. I am boycotting them on behalf of the girl who bought it for me. 

Other notable recent offenders are Beirut, Okkervil River (funny, they didn't seem like assholes), and Andrew Bird (clearly trying to overcompensate for his regrettable Squirrel Nut Zippers period). This practice goes against all that is holy and if you do it, you are declaring your allegiance to Satan and your hatred of freedom. You are also admitting you stock your album with bullshit and are artistically bankrupt. And you just may cause me to start testing out that shower curtain, and you don't want that on your hands. 

The Most Awesomest: Eddie Money

Our friends in the liberal media inform us that Eduardo Dinero is one the coolest, most down to Earth guys out there.  He’s a guy you can have a beer or ten with – no pretention, just awesomeness.  Consider the following facts: (1) he likes “that new band, The Killahs” (2) he is 100% down with judging hot wing eating contests (“Hell yeah, man, I love chicken wings!!”) (3) Detroit, circa 1991 - he put on one of the best rock concerts ever.  How, you ask?  $5.00 to get in, $1.00 budweisers = two muhfuckin' tickets to paradise; (4) Consider the following dichotomy:  guy is a former New York City cop AND a recovering drug addict; (5) his birth name is Eddie Mahoney.  Can you see the thought process here?  “Hey man, I am opening up for Three Doors Down at the Westbury Music Fair tomorrow and I need a stage name.  Why don’t I just call myself Eddie MONEY!”  

The RIAA: Guys Who Simply Don't Get It

DUMB.

Introducing 'The Most Awesomest Shit Out There'

From the mind of She Hate Me comes 'The Most Awesomest Shit Out There'. This is essentially a list of everything that is awesome and ... that is ... out there. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the criteria for awesome is thus:

1)  Our definition of awesome is that it is awesome.  As usual, this is incredibly biased.  The subject must rock - maybe not literally, but you get the point.  Said band or artist needs to make very good albums or be a great live performer or amuse us greatly or terrify us greatly, etc.  What we say is awesome is awesome.  Them’s the rules.

2) These must be current bands/artists. They can be 'old', too, but they must be relevant. Dylan and The Boss are current – they are still releasing relevant albums.  The Stones are NOT.

3) These need not be artists to watch.  This is not the CMJ Music Festival. This is 'Holy shit, you must know of the awesome contained herein.' Hercules and The Love Affair is not to be seen here.  These bands are awesome and there’s not much debate to it…or is there?  

First up is the guys in the photo upper left. Oh, fuck yeah, it's a punch in your balls, it is ... SLIPKNOT.

Slipknot

Anything that terrifies me this much has to be included in the pantheon of Awesome.  Terrifying, you ask?  Terrifying.  Have you seen these guys?  Look at that picture for 5 seconds.  If eight disaffected white Midwestern dudes in gas masks and dread locks playing speed metal is not the thing of nightmares, I’m not sure what is.  They seem apocalyptic not in the sense of “North Korea could wipe Seoul off the map in five seconds”, but more along the lines of “The Wal-Mart in Sandusky just closed down, the guy from Slipknot is now out of a job and doesn’t have anywhere to buy socks.”  The former scares you when you read the morning papers, but the latter makes you log on to the Live Nation Website to make sure Slipknot is not playing in a stadium parking lot near your home.  

Slipknot’s brutality has to be respected. With a lot of bands that throw out a psychotic, violent vibe, you know they go offstage, take off the masks and laugh about how funny it is that everyone buys into their Broadway schlock. Not Slipknot. I fear that these guys go offstage, demand the souls of anyone within earshot and begin randomly whipping ball-gagged groupies. Anyone this dedicated to rocking is OK in my book.  Much respek to Slipknot.  Marilyn Manson and GWAR think they’ve set the bar for this type of shock rock but they cannot even step to Slipknot.  As with Krampus, The Austrian Santa Claus of your nightmares, we fear and respect these great men. 

I Done Been Ripped Off

I posted my 'What the fuck is with all these animal names' entry on Feb 2nd and then these fuckers did this.

Is It Me or Does Everything Suck Balls?

Is it me? Is it? Or has the stuff released so far this year just been awful? There are a few bright spots here and there but for the most part, things are just flat-out unimpressive. I know I need to start getting out reviews in a more timely and relevant fashion, but I don't want to even give these pieces o' feces full reviews, they don't even deserve that. 

Submitted for your dis-a-fucking-proval:

1) Animal Collective, 'Merriweather Post Pavilion': Like poorly made mashed potatoes, there are undercooked lumps interrupted by a vast mushy over-salted nothing. None of this means anything, it's just a bunch of noise and crap and the sounds of noisy people taking aural craps all over the place. I hate it. It reminds me of modern art: everyone pretends to like it, but see how fast they sign up for a trip to MoMA. Not very fucking fast, I'd say. What shit.

2) Andrew Bird, 'Noble Beast': Beastly. Boring. Pretentious. I liked his last album, but this is too much. You can tell this guy just has Wikipedia open the entire time he's writing songs. Come on, guy. Not since the Decemberists has someone waddled into this kind of absolute and total self-important mullarkey. That's right, youngsters, MULLARKEY. You're full of shit, guy. 

3) Glasvegas: Had to say it again. You're now on the list with Grizzly Bear. You owe me $9.99 for buying this shitshow. I should sooner have smeared shit on my ears and punched myself in the face than listen to this. 

4) Mostly Bears, 'The Ed Mitchell Clinic': Mostly bears? Mostly shit. 

5) Beirut, 'March of the Zapotec': It's Beirut, alright. Beirut in the '80s. 

6) Bruce Springsteen, 'Working On A Dream': So I don't like it that much. Bruce gets a pass if he puts out an album of polka classics set to the tune of bears eating their young. Bruce rules. See the Super Bowl, his life, and everyone else's lack of balls compared to him. Ask me how many times I will link to him sliding his bawwwwls into that camera. Many times. 

Bruce Springsteen, A Man For All Reasons

Whether it's hitting a camera guy with his balls at the Super Bowl or singing in everyone's favorite new President, Bruce Springsteen is the man who can do anything. Why did they even bother having someone else write a poem for Obama's big day when The Boss would have written something to guarantee that a million people on The Mall would be pumping their fists to every word? 

Can you honestly think of one situation at which El Jefe would not be your number one pick to do the talking? Tonight at the gym I tried to think of such a situation, but could not. Shouldn't he just do anything of national significance from now on? Honestly? Can anyone else ever really play the Super Bowl again and not think of his performance without shitting their pants a little? Please let me know if there is something I'm missing but here is a cross section:

1) Your dog just got hit by a car. Who do you want to tell your kids? There is no goddamn way I am telling the kids, either my wife or The Boss is telling them. 

2) You are married. Who do you want giving the best man speech? WHO DO YOU WANT PLAYING THE JOINT AFTER SAID SPEECH?!

3) You are dead. Who do you want giving the eulogy? Oh yeah you do.

4) You have been dumped, again, by that girl Christy, or Shirley, or something, and the shrew did it in your own car. Who is taking you to the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ to talk to you about it and get you good and drunk? 

5) The Berlin Wall has come down. Who should have been playing while all those Germans went to work with pick axes on the thing? 

6) The nation has been torn asunder, the economy is failing, we are either in a war or about to go to one: picture your favorite Presidential words as said by Springsteen and tell me they don't sound twice as inspiring: 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself', 'Ask not what your country can do for you ...', you get the picture. 

What I'm trying to say here is that there is no event you can think of at which The Boss would not be the perfect emcee and I defy anyone to think of one.

What The Fuck Is With All These Animal Names?

No idea why it took me so long to figure this out, but what the fuck is with all of these animal names lately? 

Behold the following names, some awesome, most pretty goddamn lousy. A few are old, but all were purchased by me in the past 365 days:

Animal Collective

Panda Bear

Mostly Bears

Grizzly Bear (You fucking SUCK, Grizzly Bear!)

Deerhoof

Deer Tick

Band of Horses

Jesus H Christ and the Four Horsemen (It references guys on horses. Close enough.)

Fleet Foxes

Vampire Weekend (Vampires are like animals. Yes, they are, dick.)

Dr. Dog

Wolf Parade

The Lovely Sparrows

Blitzen Trapper (Reindeer, brah.)