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.  

 

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!”  

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.