Maps & Atlases – I’d like to get this outfit a map or an atlas so maybe they could set out on the road in search of a clue. There is very little I like about this kind of music and they do it at a more annoying level than most. Hand me the screwdriver point it in the direction of my eardrum please! 1

Imperial Teen – I’m not ready to proclaim that if you don’t like Imperial Teen, there’s the fuckin door and come to think of it, it is probably more appropriate to say if you don’t like Imperial Teen, there’s the fucking BACK door, but, geez, that would be fairly gratuitous swipe. The bottom line (oops, I said bottom – a double double entendre) is that once you can get past some of the….let’s say awkwardness of the overtly gay stuff, this is a simply fantastic pop record. One of my favorites. I’ve always liked guy/girl harmonies and they sound great on this record and they don’t overdo it. I love the overall sound – so much more interesting than the alternative shit coming out at the time and I’ve always said that good songs are good songs and when they are played with enthusiasm and a degree of fun – as they are here – you’ve got a winner. 4.5

Little Stevie – Kind of like a Southside Johnny record sung by someone who really can’t sing. And there-in lies the problem. White man quasi-soul music NEEDS a competent vocalist, not just one with passion. These are listenable, but I just kept thinking how much better it would sound with Johnny Lyon singing on all of it. Stevie gets this type of music, which is a plus, because not all white man quasi soul music sounds nearly this good, but it still only gets a 3

Amy Winehouse – I guess this is great, but I don’t really have a point of reference. She obviously has a pretty good voice, these are mostly catchy, well produced songs, but eventually this bores me. Put a voice like this behind soul music that is a little more aggressive – see Detroit Cobras – and you could have something interesting. As nice as this is, I’m not looking for nice very often. If I was going to review this as a professional, it would probably get something north of a 3.5, but for my tastes, it’s a 2. One point for it not being one of Jenn’s crazy flirtations with modern music and one point for the song Rehab

Poster Children – The frustrating thing about this band, despite the fact that they are, on balance, consistently engaging is that at their best they rock out with great hooks, but too often choose to be engaging instead of great.

Tribute Band Topic

The Clash because they represent a range of styles that makes it interesting for anyone to cover them in any style. Would NEVER allow bands to merely copy the songs, but would demand that bands re-interpret the selections. Name would be He Who Fucks Nuns (those in the know will know why) and why not, as a Clash tribute record will never be popular. Encore Song – Death Or Glory of course.

To Stave off Rioting- Here is the Synopsis

It was expected to be an excellent meeting this October, but then D'Arcy walked through the door and it all went to hell. In spite of that we tried to muster up the courage to forge a C+ meeting rating.

Had a 5 sub 2 rating night. Maps and Atlases received the brunt of the wrath with Lil' Steven seeing a few 1's himself being rated slightly higher than a dial tone. Jen and Monsta had a rhetorical hard on for Amy Winehouse and Greg had the real thing for her. These boners gave Amy the nod as highest rated disc of the month, edging out gay friendly Imperial Teen. Most liked, but not loved, the Poster Children and no one was shown the proverbial fucking door.

It is now a heated battle for biggest dick in the group as Monsta, Mike M and D'Arcy are separated by a scant .03 as the groups high curmudgeon.

The topic was fairly obvious with most picking bands/artist in their sweet spots, except for Monsta who went for the zany world of the Grateful Dead and I who, like the closet fag that I am, picked a musical.








Hey, I 'm starting to see the attraction Greg!

Wait, I've been doing meth for 3 days and I've eaten my eyes.....









Next Month

Meeting November 13th

New- Mike M (yeah the disc without the flippin' song list and the WRONG title)
New- D'Arcy
Old- Ken- Frank Zappa- Chunga's Revenge (mailed out already)
Old- Jen (another Mike Patton project I presume)

Host- Byron (please please please make it a Demon ghits)

Over and out the group's wise ass.

I like Amy

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black – 4.5
Wow! She’s real cool. I love the 50’s style. She’s not hard to look at either, but I do get the feeling that she has more issues that I’d like to deal with at this stage of my life. Now that it’s clear that Amy and I are best as friends, I like this CD a lot. Totally haunting songs and her voice is perfect for her style. There wasn’t a bad song on this cd. This may be my new favorite cd for a week or two. Rehab is a great song that I couldn’t get out of my head, even when I woke at 2:30 AM, it was still playing. I couldn’t shut this off.

Imperial Teen – 2.5
I didn’t review because I thought we already reviewed this. I did listen and liked what I heard for the most part.

Little Steven – Men Without Women - 2
Either Bruce has been stealing Little Steven songs or something fishy is going on here. I have to say that for the time (1984ish) this was good stuff. I guess that because it sounds so much like Springsteen but isn’t that I’d just as soon put on a John Cafferty record. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that it wasn’t good. I just don’t ever see this one going back in my cd player. He’s awesome on the Sopranos.

Maps & Atlases – Trees – Swallows Houses 4
There is some pretty intense musical ability going on here. I have to admit that it was my son who introduced me to this band. Could I listen to them all day? No, but are they as about as original as a band gets these days? Yes. They actually remind me of what a modern day Police would sound like.

Poster Children – Greatest Hits - 3
Because the comment was made that “if I don’t like this band I know where the fucking door is” I really wanted to not like them so I could make a smart ass comment back, but I did like this band. Downwind was my favorite song, maybe because it didn’t sound like the Sex Pistols, but overall the sound was pretty diverse.

Topic:If you formed a tribute band, what band/artist would you pay tribute to? Bob Dylan
Why? I think that I could have a blast with his lyrics
Would you play their music to perfection (meaning, to sound just like them) or would you make it your own? Not even close, the songs would likely be indistinguishable from the originals.
What would you name the band? “Lawless”, Hellllooo?
What would be your final encore song? Tangled up in Blue.

Come hear Uncle Mike's Band...

Imperial Teen – I liked the more reserved tracks like “Imperial Teen” and “Butch” a lot more than the noisier ones (“Water Boy”). Several tracks reminded me of Nirvana and/or the Breeders. Overall, a mixed bag, about half of it worked, and the rest left me uninterested. Seemed like the type of disc that would appeal to the trench coat crowd and other high school misfits. 2.5 stars

Little Steven – At the time this was released, I was a freshman in college. Played it non-stop and was convinced it was a top 10 of all time album. 25 years have tempered my enthusiasm a little, but this still is an exceptional record. Love the big horn section, the songs are well written, and Silvio’s very capable guitar work is more pronounced than on any E-Street Band recording. With his soiree into politics, he never made an album this good again. 4.5 stars

Maps & Atlases – I went to Rhapsody because I thought I needed a new copy since the first track on the disc was skipping. A little surprised to find out its supposed to sound like that. Tried listening to this one on 3 occasions, and it gave me a damn splitting headache each time. The whole Phish meets Zappa thing just grates on me. Vocals sucked. I’m sure they’re great musicians, but I’d just as soon take their word for it next time. 1 star .

Amy Winehouse – The tattoos, those eyebrows, the public displays of drunkenness, and a stint in rehab? Jeesh. In my opinion, Amy Winehouse is a slutty little trash mouth (Hi Ken!) who needs a good spanking. Oh, the music? Fantastic. Yes, its derivative. Yes Ronnie Spector did it all 30+ years ago, and yes it has all the makings of a one hit wonder. So what? The sound is just right, the vocals are yummy and the songwriting is more than competent. Might have been my most played disc of the summer. I know that she’s no good, but damn, is she fine. 4 stars

Poster Children – This one would just not register with me, despite several earnest efforts to “get it”. Sounds like a combo of early Talking Heads and Sonic Youth. The songs I liked didn’t knock me out, but there wasn’t anything I hated. I guess I’ll file it under spectacularly mediocre.

Discussion Question

Part 1: Lead guitarist in a Grateful Dead cover band.

Part 2: First and foremost, Dead cover band = hippie chicks. Hippie chicks + mind-altering substances = lots of free lovin’ for musicians. Cha-Ching. Second, job security. Dead fans are like mosquitoes, every year there’s another new batch and as hard as you try, you just can’t kill them all. C) Money saved on soap, laundry, toothpaste, shampoo, and deodorant compounded over a 10-20 year period makes this a financially lucrative gig. Finally, it’s an easy job. All Dead fans acknowledge that there were nights when the band sucked. Hence, if I’m too tired (say, from scoring hippie chicks) to put on a decent show, I could say, “Hey, remember Indianapolis 8/7/73?? That’s what I was going for tonight”. Most Dead fans will be either A) be too embarrassed to admit they don’t remember it, or b) too young or too brain dead to actually remember anything from 1973.

Part 3: Playing in a Dead tribute band renders this question moot. You can’t play it to perfection, because the band themselves couldn’t play it to perfection. Ingenious, no?

Part 4: Undecided. Possibilities are:
- Bring out your Dead
- Not Quite Dead
- Mimmie Some Dead
- Night of the living Dead
- John Cougar Mellendead
- Jerry’s Kids

Part 5: “I Wanna Be Sedated” (just to fuck with those damn hippies)

Rocktober's Reviews

Little Steven & Disciples of Soul- Men Without Women
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Put Bruce’s vocals on this, and it could be one of his. Little Steven does his best Dylan of the 80’s nasal whine. Heard very little soul or lyrics for that matter in this one. (1 because he is Little Steven for god’s sake)

Amy Winehouse- Back to Black
Sorry Mike H this is a repeat for you…..If Ronnie Spector gave Billie Holiday singing lessons then released a recording produced by Phil Spector- that's Amy. Very interesting for a boozing, hop head tramp. There are a few swings and misses but generally a good, sincere ecclectic throwback disc. (3)

Maps and Atlases- Tree, Swallows, Houses
I’ll be honest. I was very afraid to put this one in after Mars Volta, Faith No More and those Pygmies. By I breathed a sigh of relief after the first song. M&A, I am sure, will not be the favorite of everyone for the month but I enjoyed it. The best way to describe this is to call it calculus music. Very Zappa, very intellectual, textured and very difficult. Each song became augmented but no so abruptly as to lose the songs’ basic structures. These are very adroit musicians. (4).

Imperial Teen-Seasick
Go 90 degrees from M&A and you get Imperial Teen. Very good, gay, fun pop rock. Nuthin’ fancy and that is okay. First half outweighs the second half but the second half is still palatable. “Butch” and “Imperial Teen” are my favorites. Hard to believe that there IS a Mike Patton connection here……(3.5)

Poster Children- GHITS
Not wanting to be shown the fucking door….. I actually enjoyed this punk tinted pop-rock outfit. Liked the newer material over the older but it is definitely a keeper. “Zero Stars” jumped out to me as did “Music of America” and “Dream Small”.


Topics

I believe I am going in a different direction, but it is what jumped into my mind first.

Tribute:
A live rock performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. Since I was a kid this musical (yes I like musicals- let the ridicule begin….now) and I know it verbatim. The movie is downright stupid the stage version is okay, but I always thought this would be great if it was done straight out as a rock show. Hell Deep Purple’s Ian Gillian played the original Jesus and future pedophile Gary Glitter a priest. I would play the part of Judas. There would be no acting or silly pomp, just a rock concert version of show in its entirety. Would be fairly a note for note rendition with a few added solos on the “groovier” numbers (“What’s the Buzz”, “Everything’s Alright” and “Superstar”).The final encore would be an amped up version of the opening number “Overture” to introduce the band and just rock out. The band would be called ‘Jesus Was A Man Not a God’. (for D’Arcy it would be JWAMNAG).

Working Man

“The Mong” – Music Group Commentary: October, 2007

Way too busy this month so my commentary is way short. Again, rejoice!

AMY WINEHOUSE – BACK TO BLACK = 2.5 STARS
Derivative but really well done. Probably won’t listen to it again but glad I heard it.

IMPERIAL TEEN – SEASICK = 3.5 STARS
Fun and fun.

LITTLE STEVEN – MEN WITHOUT WOMEN = 2 STARS
Good enough but not great and the songs were way too long.

MAPS AND ATLASES – MUSIC = 1.5 STARS
Gave me a headache. Not a zero because it is very original and skilled, despite it sucking ass.

G’HITS – POSTER CHILDREN
I love this band and tried to give the mix some variety. I think and extremely underexposed, underrated and under-appreciated band.

Topic: Five-part question:

If you formed a tribute band, what band/artist would you pay tribute to? = RUSH

Why? = Because my goal would be to take it no the road to make money and Rush fans are as ominipresent as Trekers. And because Rush rules.

Would you play their music to perfection (meaning, to sound just like them) or would you make it your own? = Just like them. It is a tribute band, after all. Give the people what they want.

What would you name the band? = Working Man.

What would be your final encore song? = YYZ.

Queen finally finds a replacement for Freddie!

http://www.flabber.nl/archief/021752.php

Hot Stuff

New Mike Patton project.

http://www.ifilm.com/player/?ifilmId=2724134&pg=&skin=askmen&refsite=6183&launchVal=1&mediaSize=default