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I have a new music blog!

So go read there now instead of here!


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PLZ N THNX.

xo b

Stupid VH1.

I write about 90s bands often. I read somewhere that your music taste takes shape and solidifies in your teenage years from age 14 to 18, and while that's probably true, I hate to think that everything I like revolves around my Lollapalooza/120 Minutes years...I suppose I can't fight what's obvious.

So, while watching yet another VH1 shit show, Top Greatest Best 90s Songs Ever or something, "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls came up. Yuck, I thought. Who liked that song? Who liked that band? I only remember the wannabe kids wearing Goo Goo Dolls t-shirts at my high school, like they needed to broadcast that they just didn't get it.

They didn't get that there was a waaaaaaay better song from the 90s called "Iris," but it was by one of The Greatest Bands of All Time (in my humble, 90s-saturated opinion,) The Breeders. Hear for yourself:::








Then again, what do I know. When both bands produced debut singles simultaneously, I thought Third Eye Blind was going to be WAY bigger than Matchbox 20.

I'm losing my edge, but bitch, what's happenin'?

What do you do when you SLEEP THROUGH the last minute SUPERGRASS show AND the late night HEALTH show on the same night? I woke up at 3am with waves of guilt and sadness washing over me. I was really looking forward to both of those shows. Fuck. This week, I will be reviewing Feist, Gravy Train(favorite website design ever, by the way) and The Jonas Brothers (if I'm lucky!!) Also, my Girl Talk show review should be posted in the next day or so as well. Read it, along with other reviews I've done at DenverPost.com/Reverb!

Speaking of Girl Talk, it looks like someone finally edited his Wikipedia entry. When I was doing a little background check on Gregg before Sarah photographed him before the show last Friday, his Wiki entry said that he dropped his pants on stage to spread his "Herpes." That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

In some final concert going news, I just discovered that The Pack and Tyga are opening for the Ying Yang Twins next month...possibly the sickest line-up for a show I've seen in a long time. I'm so excited I could puke! I knew Tyga was going to rule when I saw Travis from Gym Class in his video (and not to mention Pete Wentz...and my own personal savior, LIL' WEEZY.)

I think that is something unique about the Fall Out Boy fall out...as a band/label/entity (mostly Pete's label, Decaydance) they seem to operate like rap music does in that, there is this sort of grandfather effect. From Fall Out Boy came Gym Class Heroes, and From Gym Class came Tyga, and so on. I admire that. A bit of an introduction for a new artist gives them instant credibility, and that fact has worked well in rap music for a long time (NWA gave us Dr. Dre, and Dre gave us Snoop...NWA also gave us Eazy, and Eazy gave us Bone Thugs, etc.)

And the Pack, well, hi. Of course I'm going to love these fools. They got popular with a song about Vans, a track that's hella irresistably lo-fi. And (The Hood Internet's?) Crystal Castles/Pack mash-up is so sick. Obviously, white people are going to love them if they have a mix with CC.






And for some reason, ALL Pack videos are emedding disabled. That's a bitch...




I guess I'll watch 27 more Kat Williams clips on YouTube and try to go back to bed...

Tropicali.

It's really unfair that The No Age/High Places/Abe Vigoda tour is coming NO WHERE NEAR THE WESTERN STATES this summer. WTF is that about? I'm so hurt.




On a trip to LA a few weeks ago, Sarah snapped some great photos of Abe Vigoda, and Juan and the dudes we SO NICE! Cali attitudes are hella contagious. We also (via my myspace stalking and bugging) got to meet and shoot Rob Zabrecky, a talented Magician, Actor, Musician and member of The Unholy Three...and former member of one of my Top 5 Favorite/(Most Influential to Me) Bands of All Time, Possum Dixon.

We also took some fabulous photos of our dear friend and room and boarder in LA, the very talented designer, model, photographer, and positive vibe dispenser, Allister. And finally, the band that brought us to the City of Angels in the first place, Gliss. They were very cute, and very 90s (in the good way) reminding me of some of my favorite bands of the past like Lush, Smashing Pumpkins, and newer stuff like The Ravonettes and NYC deathly surf rockers, The Vandelles (another band Cass shot on the roof top of the Domino Sugar Factory offices a.k.a Death By Audio, last fall.) All of these photos will be available for viewing at Sarahcass.com in the up-coming months!


Basically, Los Angeles ruled. I think I may just end up there in a few years. Below is a mix of some of the bands I mentioned above, a long with a few other songs I thought fit the tropical summer vibe...my own little band, Hot Tropics, is on there too, be it a rough(my apologies) version of one of our songs. HT is a collaboration between me and my good friend Joel (aka Warm Ghosts, sick visual artist extraordinaire!) Enjoy, please, please!

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Why I need to stop watching VH1's Nocturnal state.

Uh, what?

I feel like there's something I'm just not getting here. I mean, Duffy's cute and all, but the sexed-up retro lounge act stolen from Sharon Jones was already done in the last three years...by Amy Winehouse. And I think she did it better. Granted Amy has fucked herself sideways with her crack use and forgetting to eat since early 2007, she still sounds better...or more interesting, or something, than Duffy. Maybe it's that Amy twists the retro-ness by injecting honestly modern lyrics ("kept his dick wet, with his same old safe bet" is a favorite of mine), or the fact that she is pretty good at sounding like a black woman. Or, maybe it really is just her train-wrecked persona that attracts me more than Duffy's squeaky clean white girl-ness. I will say that Duffy's better than Joss Stone though. Not that it's hard to be better than Stone, someone who pushes and forces her vocals out with such force that she sounds constipated most of the time.




Yeah, dude. This is when you ruled, Chris.

Are Tom Morello and Chris Cornell really content with their work in Audioslave? Do they like what they do? I feel like they are just wasting their time and talent on this crappy, modern rock sludge that should have never happened in the 90s, let alone now. It sucks when your bands break up, dudes. But it doesn't mean you have to get together and collectively fake it for another decade. We loved you just the way you were.




Snooze.

Thriving Ivory? What kind of a name is that? I guess it's a name your band comes up with when you meet as bros at UC Santa Barbara, you describe yourself as "Modern Rock", and you sound almost identical to Matchbox Twenty...which isn't a good thing. If anything, check out their website (linked above) to see a bunch of dudes with really cool hair. And their hair reminds me of Maroon 5...who I liked when I saw them with Goldfinger, and they were a little band called Kara's Flowers who played on Beverly Hills 90210 at the Peach Pit After Dark...

I love girl bands.

I recently discovered Sun City Girls (I know. Where have I been. Seriously.) and have barely peeked into their catalog, which runs deeper than Zappa’s. I’m still not sure how I feel about them. My natural gravitational pull with music is often more confined that I would like, and wrapping my head around something like SCG is difficult. I figure I’ve embraced The Butthole Surfers (I didn’t know much before "Pepper" and "Jesus Built My Hotrod" until I read Our Band Could Be Your Life) and of course Frank Zappa (but the love I have for him resonates from childhood and my father’s fascination) so I figure with time, Sun City Girls will be all mine.

Then, there is my favorite Denver band of all time, and possibly one of my favorite bands period, Navy Girls. A major influence on my music taste and music-making, Navy Girls were a sort of short-lived project of some boys(friends) of mine, Kyle, Jesse, Sammy, and Adam. Long gone but not forgotten, I don’t think they have anything out there on the interwebs to listen to or watch, but just think if gogogo Airheart and ESG got stoned together and did Augustus Pablo covers. Melodic, jerky in all the right places, they used minimal effects for maximum head room to create sexy, echo-y perfection. I long for the day they reunite. I put a link to a mix of some of their stuff along with track or two from other above-mentioned artists at the bottom of this entry, for your downloading pleasure. If you are interested in the other tracks from the Navy Girls makeshift EP, toss me an email and I will send it your way. It is a really lush 7-song recording, one of those albums you want to go on forever and ever. Kyle has a kick-ass blog where you can download whatever's floating around his head lately at Dudley Dawson. Sammy makes epic tracks that can be heard via Big Swell. Adam (and possibly Jesse, although I'm not sure?) is currently spreading love in the outfit Bad Weather California, and his own project Littles Paia.

And finally, the band that brought me to this train of thought today, Vivian Girls. I wasn’t on to them when I lived in NYC a few months ago (which I am pissed about. I was in a HEALTH daze for far too long), but they are something I really like right now. They make simple beats and drag them through dry harmonies. Vivian Girls display disjointed NYC surf rock in a way that makes me feel jittery for rock n’ roll like The Ravonettes and Von Bondies. Grab “Tell the World” off of their myspace page to see what they’re all about.



And on an unrelated note, my headline is true: I love girl bands, and there’s no denying it. For a long time, I fought the notion that I liked bands just because they had girls in them. But by all accounts (and by my record collection’s current standings) it’s true. I love The Donnas, The Sahara Hotnights, The Plasticines, Red Aunts, that Dog., Magnapop, The Breeders, Nikki Corvette, The Ronettes, Lunachicks, All-Girl Summer Fun Band, L7, Babes in Toyland, Veruca Salt, Matson Jones, Luscious Jackson, Le Tigre, Pony Up!, Eisley, Hole, Au Revoire Simone, Althea and Donna…I’m qualifying bands/groups/loves that aren’t all girls or bands for that matter, so I’ll stop…


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MESOPOTAMIA.

I went to the True Colors concert last night at Red Rocks to see the B-52s and Cyndi Lauper. I have seen Cyndi three times before, and each time, she was incredible. I cry every time she plays "True Colors" and "Time After Time." It's just the gay man in me, but I feel so much in those songs, and I know that she feels the same. She's an honest performer and a true performer; she carries so much love for her audience in her tiny frame. She's So Unusual was the first tape I ever remember owning. I was 5. I wanted to be everything about her; musically, stylistically, attitude-wise. Just everything about her was so tangible to me as a girl.

And now, in my adult years, she is still here. And still inspiring me, but now as a humanitarian too. Her True Colors tour is about raising awareness for the gay and lesbian community regarding their rights as human beings. I myself being straight, but always being an active supporter of the GLBT community, found a new love for Cyndi when she took on this cause.

This year, she brought the B-52's on the tour, a welcome companion to her show. They too were a first for me, being one of the first CDs I ever purchased, and still own. Once I reached high school age and moved past Cosmic Thing, I discovered their debut album and it opened a whole new world, connecting my love for movies like Hairspray and personas like Pee Wee Herman and elevating them to a new level. Kitchy as cool, and kitchy as quality, unique music.

Seeing them perform was pretty unbelievable. Fred, Cindy, Kate, and Keith have all aged as gracefully as Cyndi herself, and sounded so, so good. After seeing the B-52's, I sort of had a come-to-jesus about my love for shitty pop music. How could I love and glorify Miley, and Hilary, and Ashlee, after seeing these people who create complex pop songs perform them in such a way that I my mind was almost blown? I can't imagine what they think about the state of music today; I'm almost ashamed that I like some pop artists as much as I do, knowing how far the 52's had to come to make the music they do.

Never compromising their sound or style to fit the genre confines of any decade, pop "performers" have much to learn from their elders, the B-52's. And, well, Ashlee will be lucky if she looks half as good as Kate does in 30 years. I certainly know her music will have sagged a lot in that time.