Wezzul.com - It's the Dinglez

No Iggy and the Stooges, but Madonna? Rock and Roll? Come again? What a load of horse shit. Until The Stooges (and the MC5, for that matter) are inducted into this, it's not even real. The Stooges and Fun House are two of the greatest records of all time. And I mean, come on, they put the fucking Sex Pistols in there, and the Stooges are at least as important as they are in the grand scheme of things...

Meh. I don't get it.

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Ok, I finally worked out my top ten for the year.

1 (tie). Streetlight Manifesto - Somewhere in the Between
1 (tie). Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound
3. The Snake the Cross the Crown - Cotton Teeth
4. Guilty Simpson - Stray Bullets (mixed by DJ Rhettmatic)
5. Blue Scholars - Bayani
6. Ghostface Killah - Hidden Darts Special Edition
7. Sundowner - Four One Five Two
8. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
9. Various Artists - Chrome Children v.2
10. The Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

Biggest disappointments:

Bright Eyes - Casadaga
The Stooges - The Weirdness
Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab

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1. Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound
2. The Snake, the Cross, the Crown - Cotton Teeth
3. Sundowner - Four One Five Two
4. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
5. Blue Scholars - Bayani
6. Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
7. Feist - The Reminder
8. Various Artists - Chrome Children v2
9. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
10. Lifetime - Lifetime

After the first two albums, it's a huge drop off to me. I've gotten 42 albums released this year, so I didn't have very many to pick from.

Current Music: Shellac - End of Radio

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I was checking out the RSS feed of somethingawful.com today, and look what I happened upon! Check out who won Worst Image Makeover of 2006. Funny shit!

linky

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Not going to type out a bunch of thoughts about these albums.

1. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
2. Defiance, OH - The Great Depression
3. J. Dilla - The Shining
4. Oh No - Exodus into Unheard Rhythms
5. Moneen - The Red Tree (very surprised by this album)
6. Murs - Murray's Revenge
7. (tie) Johnny Cash - Personal File & Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
8. The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
9. Cursive - Happy Hollow
10. Mogwai - Mr. Beast
11. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
12. Feist - Let it Die
13. J. Dilla - Donuts
14. Kevin Devine - Put Your Ghost to Rest
15. Feist - Open Season

Biggest Letdowns:
1. Less than Jake - In With the Out Crowd
2. Tilly and the Wall - Bottoms of Barrels
3. Heavens - Patent Pending
4. Saves the Day - Sound the Alarm
5. Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later

Best EPs:
1. Cursive - Dorothy at Forty
2. Okkervil River - Overboard and Down
3. The Mountain Goats - Babylon Springs

Current Music: The Loved Ones - Sickening

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How am I ranking for Davey Havok, on MSN, Yahoo, and Google in the first 30 results or higher. This is amazing to me, seeing as it's not like I've devoted alot of time to that arrogant, feminine danzig rip off.... oh well, let's see if I can get #1 on that shit, really tick some AFI fans off!

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On the sidebar now, there is a link to Music. I wrote a plugin for the best music player ever to write all the songs I listen to to a mysql db. It only writes it when I've listened to the song for longer than thirty seconds, and it writes the time I started the song, the time I ended it, the artist, title, album, and length of the song.

You can view what I have so far up here . This is inspired by some shit that Mike Neir did on his site.

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Just an update on AFI being shitty. Someone hacked Amazon and changed the titles of a bunch of shitty albums and bands. AFI was one of them. Just in case Amazon were to fix their shit, I screenshotted it. Click the thumb to view it.



Current Music: Thom Yorke - The Eraser

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I was recently reading your interview in the awful music magazine I receive once every two weeks (it's a free subscription), and I came upon this little gem:

Did you get drunk once and then realize it wasn't for you?

Actually, no I've never been drunk in my life. I've never even had like a beer. It never really appealed to me. That culture was just very unappealing and I never wanted to be part of it. I just saw how people acted and treated each other. And I was just like ''that is not for me.'' And I also thought of it as something very civilian. It seemed like the mandatory recreation for civilians. I thought, ''If alcohol makes you do this, I want no part. I want nothing in common with these people.'' That's when I was fifteen

I'd like to respond to a few things, regarding that quote, and other things I've noticed about you lately. First, what the fuck is up with your face and hair now a days. I remember in the video for Total Immortal, you at least looked a little bit tough. Of course, you looked like a direct rip off of Glen Danzig, but I guess if you're going to jack someone's style, at least make it that of one of the best punk singers ever. Now I see this picture of you you (one posted here isn't even it, but this is almost as bad), and you look like one of Good Charlotte's fifteen year old fans. That's a girl's haircut motherfucker, and I'm pretty sure it's a girl's shirt too. You absolutely SHOULD drink, becuase you are the kind of girl any lucky, drunken guy would like to take home and ravage after twenty or thirty cans of random swill. You got the prettiest nails on the block.

And as for the drinking comment, I don't know what you mean by calling drinking "very civilian", but I imagine you meant it to mean that the people that drink are lower than you. Using the word civilian here, though, would imply that you are, in fact, in some branch of the armed forces. I fear for my life, and the lives of my family if this is so. It's sandy in Iraq, bro, so make sure to close your legs. Last thing you need is a sandy pussy.

Lastly, I would like to remind you that your music is awful. It was cute when you did all that halloween shit before (and still do), but you know that isn't yours. It's something ELSE you took from the Misfits. If Glen or Doyle even gave enough of a shit about your band to take notice, they'd probably sneeze on you and blow up your overly sized tour bus for stealing their shit, spreading hair dye and makeup all over the land. The fact is, though, they don't give a shit, and neither does anyone else. You are irrelevant when it comes to music now. Your new single is about suicide. Clever. You guys think of that alone, or is it the team of writers, producers, A&R jerks, and old money white guys who came up with this brilliant and innovative concep. I seriously hope it was you guys, because then my idea of what an awful set of crappy musicians you are is totally spot on.

In closing, I would like to hope for you that your album sells well, lest you be dropped from your label, and have to steal to get by. I hope you don't get caught. You'd make someone in jail a real nice piece.

Current Music: AFI - Total Immortal

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Being September 1st, the summer is now officially over in my head. I always have thought of the summer being June, July, and August. And with the summer being over, I'd like to point out a few things about some of the shows that were attended this summer.

Worst Show

Up until 07/25, there was no doubt in anyones mind what the worst show of the summer was. Unfortunately, most of the usual suspects did not even attend this one. It was me, Adam , and some girl who has since never come around. The show was Gil Mantera. Let me make this particularly clear: we attended the show because of pink spandex. The picture of the band shows one of them in a pink ski suit, one of them in a pink spandex jump suit. This seems like good enough reason to attend a show, right? After two mediocre opening bands (including The City on Film, Bob Nanna from Hey Mercedes' new band), Gil takes the stage. We stay for almost one song. I actually left WITH A BEER IN MY POCKET. I couldn't even finish a beloved PBR. How upsetting.

On 07/25, we attended a metal show. An awful metal show. We should have known something was up when we asked the bounced what band was on, and he wouldn't tell us. The band we had come to see, Heads Will Roll had already played and gone home. What we were left to see was a band that made liberal use of a gong. Give me a fucking break, a gong? We were at this show for less than a half hour. That is $1 for every five minutes we were there. Talk about a fucking rip off. This metal show, however, cleared Jake's name, as Gil Mantera was his idea. (we also came to find out later that Gil Mantera shows devolve into crazy debauchery. Oh, the regret)

Winner: Nondescript Metal Show (07/25)
Runner-up: Gil Mantera's Party Dream (06/29)


Drunkest Show

I would love to say that this is an easy one to pick, but it isn't. There were alot of shows where I was somewhat drunk. The one I recall being the worst was the Streetlight Manifesto show on 06/10. It was about 100 degrees outside. There was no re-entry, and me and Seabass got there way too early. There was one window and one door, at the back of the club. A combination of the profuse sweating and copious amounts of PBR between the hours of 8p and 3a (we hung out after hours) made for a crazy, drunken night. I remember waking up at Seabass' house, my feet covered in some unknown black tar-like substance. I used the decorative soap. His wife got mad. It still makes me laugh that Seabass, the silly motherfucker that he is, has decorative soap in his house. Nancy.

The Diver show had $0.50 PBR's. Nuff said.

Winner: Streetlight Manifesto (06/10)
Runner-up: Diver (07/06)


Funniest Goings-on

The people that I did most of my show-going with this summer like to drink. They like to get rowdy and crazy and stupid (and some of them like to fall asleep at the bar). In any case, I can think of two fairly funny moments of the summer. The first one was on 07/19 at the Constantines show. It was average at best (we were attending as someone compared the Constantines to Fugazi -- give me a break!). We drank some cheap beers and stood around for a while. My friend Angie was at the show, so we were talking with her. A friend of hers came up to be and Dylan and started talking to us like he knew us. His name was Neil. As he was talking, Dylan grabbed his beer and started drinking it. He didn't force it out of his hand, or make some quick move to obtain it; he non-chalantly just took the beer as if Neil was handing it to him. Neil walked away, not seeming too mad. About five minutes later, he comes back over and says "You took my beer!". Dylan replies with "Yeah. I did." and keeps drinking it. Neil comes back with "Do you know who I am?". Now I have no fucking clue who this kid is. Maybe he is important or rich or his parents told him he was more special than the other kids. However, that is no excuse to throw the old "Do you know who I am" around. You just sound like a tool saying shit like this. Neil walks away again, doing nothing. A bit later, we are outside talking to Katie and she mentions that at one point, Neil pushed a girl. Dylan, already looking for a reason to fight this kid, calls him out on it. I break this up. The ridicule of Neil resumes when he walks outside to leave, and his truck won't start. For some reason, he comes back up to the group of people making fun of him, and THEN proceeds to call AAA. Like he wanted us to see just how big of a jackass he actually is.

The other funny event that is clear in my head is from the 07/28 Hard Lessons show at Kraftbrau. It was all going well until Dylan got cut off, and Jeremy got thrown out. I guess Jeremy, from outside, punched through a window and stole a clock. Then he came back in with the clock (this is all vague to me, I didn't know of any of this). When I heard Jeremy got kicked out, I had to let the Kraftbrau folks know that there was better beer brewed across the street . They then threw me out, telling me to go across the street, where my kind belong. I guess my kind, those of us that like good beer, don't belong at Kraftbrau. It makes sense now. In any case, I heard that someone through a pint glass at the Kraftbrau building. I don't know who it was.

Winner: Constantines (07/19)
Runner-up: Hard Lessons (07/28)


Best Show

This one was a hard one. It could have been much harder has Bear vs. Shark played longer on 08/12, and had that show not been during the day. Thinking of seeing sunlight in Mac's still gives me the shakes. However, my favorite show was the first one of the summer, Bear vs. Shark on 06/06. This show was attended by myself, Adam , Mona , and Jake . I was totally blown away by BvS's presence and talent. I had only started listening to them earlier in the day, at the recommendation of Sean . I owe him big time for that now. I listened to them for about two months straight following the show, becoming very acquainted with both their albums.

Winner: Bear vs. Shark (06/06)
Runner-up: Hard Lessons (07/28)


Band of the Summer

For me, no question, Bear vs. Shark. I listened to them most of the summer in my car, I listened to them at work, and on my iPod. I love this band to death, lyrically and musically. I can't wait for them to put something else out.

I was also introduced to the Hard Lessons this summer thanks to Adam and Dylan. They put on an awesome live show, lots of energy, and seem like cool people as well. Easily the best band I know of to have come out of Lansing. I would see them every time they come around, the show is that good.

Winner: Bear vs. Shark (06/06, 08/12)
Runner-up: Hard Lessons (06/16, 07/28, 08/18)

Thanks to all the people that made all the shows fun this summer: Adam , Alia , Dan , Dylan, Jeremy, Mona , Neil, Sam and anyone else I'm forgetting. Leave comments or don't!

Edit: And Jake

Current Music: Turbonegro - Death from Above

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Interesting times as of late. Moved into an apartment that I'll be living in for a month. Boxes are piled up, I sleep on the floor. It's already depressing the fuck out of me, not only because it's cluttered and empty at the same time, but because I don't have steady internet access. I feel shut off from the world.

School is going awful, as predicted. I've failed on class thus far in my life, and it was taught by the prof I have now. To say he is not a good teacher is an understatement. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to seek out a tutor as if I don't pass this, it is going to ruin my entire life, no exageration (sp?).

Shelby moves away today. That sucks. He's my best friend in Lansing, and I'm sure I'm gonna miss him. Even if he is a royal fucking jackass.

Another show tonight, it seems. Heads Will Roll. Going to Mac's, lately, has nothing to do with the band, and everything to do with the bar and the people going. I dig it just the same anyways.

Current Music: Heads Will Roll - Concepts

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So check out this list of shows coming up in July and August. This is perhaps the best summer of shows I've seen in a long time:

07/19: The Constantines (Mac's)
07/28: The Hard Lessons (Kraftbrau)
08/07: Lord of the Yum Yum (Mac's)
08/10: Flogging Molly (Intersection)
08/11: Planes Mistaken for Stars (Mac's)
08/12: Bear vs. Shark , HORSE the Band (Mac's)
08/13: Fallopian Dudes (Mac's)
08/17: The Hard Lessons (Mac's)

Wow. This is gonna be fun!

Current Music: Bear vs. Shark - Baraga Enbankment

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Since June 01:

06/06: Bear Vs. Shark (Mac's)
06/10: Streetlight Manifesto (Alvin's)
06/12: Enon, Thunderbirds are Now! (Mac's)
06/16: The Apes, Hard Lessons (Mac's)
06/29: Gil Mantera's Party Dream, The City on Film (Mac's)
07/06: Diver (Mac's)
07/09: MC 3rd Degree, La'Resistance (VFW, Lansing), Bit (Mac's)
07/19: The Constantines (Mac's)
07/25: Some crappy metal show (Mac's)
07/28: The Hard Lessons (Kraftbrau [CRAPbrau])
08/01: The Good Mornings (Vine street fair)
08/02: The Van Ermans, the Cartridge Family (Mac's)
08/09: Flogging Molly (Royal Oak Music Theatre)
08/11: Planes Mistaken for Stars (Mac's)
08/12: Bear vs. Shark, HORSE the Band (Mac's)
08/18: The Hard Lessons (Mac's)
09/07: Ill Gotten Gains, C. Gibbs (Mac's)
09/08: The Sights (Temple Club)
09/09: One Be Lo (Mac's)
09/14: Neva Dinova, Orenda Fink, Tilly and the Wall (Mac's)
09/26: Casionauts, Bit (Mac's)
09/27: Bear vs. Shark, Hella (Mac's)
10/13: Fallopian Dudes (Mac's)
10/19: Boomin' System, Fun Ender (Mac's)

More to come....

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This is my last day of work this week, I have tomorrow off for the Streetlight Manifesto show. Going with Seabass, that should be a fun time. I'm pretty excited, two decent shows in a week, and more good ones coming up at Mac's:

6/17 - Fallopian Dudes
7/17 - Neva Dinova and Mayday
8/11 - Planes Mistaken for Stars
8/12 - Bear vs. Shark

That is FOUR good shows in Lansing. Wow. That's more in that short period of time then the entire time I've been in this city, I think. I'm especially excited to see Neva Dinova here in L-town. They put on a good show, good lazy drinking music.

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So I saw Bear vs. Shark tonight... awesome show.. I would suggest gettting their newest album, Terrorhawk, at your earliest convenience.... awesome band, awesome album...

My PS2 is in decent shape... I need to start burning at 1x.... I think that is my problem with games... however, I'm getting the best DVD's for burning games, we will see how that goes....

Pistons won... here we come, the finals..

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I got Make Believe, Weezer's new album yesterday, and I'm REALLY digging it. I made the statement that you have to look at Weezer as two bands... pre-Pinkerton and post-Pinkerton... but now I'm not so sure about that... this may just be something where I'm really digging the new album too much, but I'm not sure... I am really enjoying This is Such a Pity, Peace, The Other Way and Hold Me of all the songs on the album... track list is as follows:

Beverly Hills
Perfect Situation
This Is Such A Pity
Hold Me
Peace
We Are All On Drugs
The Damage In Your Heart
Pardon Me
My Best Friend
The Other Way
Freak Me Out
Haunt You Everyday

In other news, I left my car on from 4p until about 10p yesterday... the penalties of getting out of my car with my ipod headphones on.. can't hear if the car is on or not...

Going to install OS9 on my "new" PowerMac7500 tonight... should be fun, anyways...

Edit: Pardon Me is my new favorite song

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