Ross Dixon's Blog Thing.

135 Albums/EPs that you should have bought this year

2011-12-23T13:43:00.000-08:00

It's that time once again. Seeing as all the magazines, newspapers and websites in my field of vision are prepping their end of year lists, I felt it was my duty to present one that doesn't have fucking Adele in it. A lot has happened in the music world this year, with bands like Glassjaw, Rival Schools and Blink-182 presenting their first releases in what seemed like 500 years, and a whole roster of fresh-faced new bands showing us what they're made of too. It may seem like overkill, but a top ten would be impossible for me to whittle down, so the following is a chronological list of every album and EP I've purchased this year, and you'd be a fucking idiot not to check any of them out...unless it's the new Sum 41 album, which is shit.

January:

01/01 Glassjaw – Our Color Green (The Singles) (Self-Released)
02/01 Citycop – The Hope In Forgiving & Giving Up Hope (Self-Released)
10/01 Our Time Down Here – Last Light (Self-Released)
18/01 The Aquabats! – Hi-Five Soup! (Fearless)
21/01 Amanda Palmer – Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under (Self-Released)
24/01 Architects – The Here And Now (Century Media)

February:

01/02 Me First And The Gimme Gimmes – Go Down Under (Fat Wreck Chords)
13/02 Glassjaw – Coloring Book (Self-Released)
14/02 Gay For Johnny Depp – What Doesn’t Kill You, Eventually Kills You (Shine Boy Recordings)
14/02 Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Rock Action)
15/02 Chixdiggit – Safeways Here We Come (Fat Wreck Chords)
18/02 Radiohead – The King Of Limbs (Self-Released)
22/02 Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows – D.R.U.G.S. (Sire/Decaydance)

March:

08/03 Dance Gavin Dance – Downtown Battle Mountain II (Rise)
08/03 Defeater – Empty Days & Sleepless Nights (Bridge Nine)
08/03 Rival Schools – Pedals (Photo Finish/Atlantic)
15/03 Rise Against – Endgame (DGC/Interscope)
18/03 Alex Turner – Submarine (Domino)
18/03 The Strokes – Angles (RCA/Rough Trade)
21/03 Random Hand – Seething Is Believing (Bomber Music)
21/03 The Weeknd – House Of Balloons (XO)
22/03 CKY – B-Sides & Rarities (Distant/Mighty Loud)
22/03 Protest The Hero – Scurrilous (Underground Operations)
25/03 Sum 41 – Screaming Bloody Murder (Island)

April:

01/04 Hyro Da Hero – Birth, School, Work, Death (Stereo Bang Media)
01/04 The Kills – Blood Pressures (Domino)
08/04 Young Widows – In And Out Of Youth And Lightness (Temporary Residence)
11/04 TV On The Radio – Nine Types Of Light (Interscope)
12/04 Atmosphere – The Family Sign (Rhymesayers)
12/04 Foo Fighters – Wasting Light (RCA)
12/04 Thursday – No Devolución (Epitaph)
16/04 Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – Telesterion (Rodriguez-Lopez Productions)
18/04 Freeze The Atlantic – Colour By Numbers (Alcopop!)
18/04 Rolo Tomassi – Eternal Youth (Destination Moon)
27/04 Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (Capitol)

May:

03/05 Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop/Bella Union)
03/05 La Dispute / Koji – Never Come Undone (No Sleep)
09/05 Young Legionnaire – Crisis Works (Wichita)
10/05 The Antlers – Burst Apart (Frenchkiss/Transgressive)
10/05 Farewell Atlantic – İHey, Hey Pioneers! (Paper + Plastic)
10/05 The Lonely Island – Turtleneck & Chain (Universal Republic)
10/05 Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math (Favorite Gentlemen)
12/05 Le Butcherettes – Sin Sin Sin (Rodriguez-Lopez Productions)
16/05 The Computers – This Is The Computers (One Little Indian)
16/05 Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi – Rome (Parlophone/EMI)
17/05 Living With Lions – Holy Shit (Black Box/Adeline)
17/05 Weerd Science – Sick Kids (Horris Records)
24/05 Cave In – White Silence (Hydra Head)
24/05 Into It. Over It. / Such Gold – Split (No Sleep/Mightier Than The Sword)
24/05 Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts (Matador)
25/05 Glowbug – Mr. Plastic (Self-Released)
30/05 Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School Of Medicine – Enhanced Methods Of Questioning (Alternative Tentacles)
31/05 Death Cab For Cutie – Codes And Keys (Atlantic)

June:

06/06 Arctic Monkeys – Suck It And See (Domino)
06/06 Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones (Xtra Mile/Epitaph)
06/06 Fucked Up – David Comes To Life (Matador)
07/06 City And Colour – Little Hell (Dine Alone/Vagrant)
07/06 Skrillex – More Monsters And Sprites (Big Beat/Atlantic)
07/06 Touché Amoré – Parting The Sea Between The Brightness And Me (Deathwish)
13/06 Dananananaykroyd – There Is A Way (Pizza College)
14/06 Bad Meets Evil – Hell: The Sequel (Shady/Interscope)
14/06 The Dear Hunter – The Colour Spectrum: Complete Collection (Triple Crown)
14/06 The Swellers – Good For Me (Fueled By Ramen)
14/06 The Wonder Years – Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing (Hopeless/No Sleep)
20/06 Less Than Jake – Greetings From (Self-Released)
20/06 Wolves Like Us – Late Love (Prosthetic)
21/06 Tally Hall – Good & Evil (Quack! Media)
28/06 Set Your Goals – Burning At Both Ends (Epitaph)

July:

11/07 Blitz Kids – Vagrants & Vagabonds (Hassle)
12/07 Alkaline Trio – Damnesia (Heart & Skull)
12/07 Incubus – If Not Now, When? (Epic/Immortal)
12/07 Sublime With Rome – Yours Truly (Fueled By Ramen)
19/07 Portugal. The Man – In The Mountain In The Cloud (Atlantic)
22/07 The Living End – The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating (Dew Process)
24/07 Moira Stewart – Whatever We Do Is Love (Baby Serious)

August:

02/08 Mariachi El Bronx – Mariachi El Bronx (II) (ATO)
02/08 NOFX – NOFX (Fat Wreck Chords)
05/08 Little Scout – Take Your Light (MGM)
09/08 Into It. Over It. – Twelve Towns (Topshelf Records)
16/08 Psychostick – Space Vampires VS Zombie Dinosaurs In 3-D (Rock Ridge Music)
18/08 The Weeknd – Thursday (XO)
19/08 Frenzal Rhomb – Smoko At The Pet Food Factory (Shock Records)
19/08 Gotye – Making Mirrors (Eleven)
23/08 MC Frontalot – Solved (Level Up/Nerdcore Fervor)
23/08 Retox – Ugly Animals (Ipecac)
26/08 Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind Of Fix (Island)

September:

01/09 Secret Band – Secret Band EP
02/09 The Drums – Portamento (Moshi Moshi/Island)
06/09 MC Lars – Lars Attacks! (Hollis Records)
06/09 Thrice – Major/Minor (Vagrant)
12/09 Mogwai – Earth Division (Rock Action)
12/09 Primus – Green Naugahyde (ATO/Prawn Song)
13/09 Kevin Devine – Between The Concrete And The Clouds (Razor & Tie/Favourite Gentlemen)
13/09 Me First And The Gimme Gimmes – Sing In Japanese (Fat Wreck Chords)
13/09 Polar Bear Club – Clash Battle Guilt Pride (Bridge Nine)
16/09 Broadway Calls – Toxic Kids (All For Hope/Banquet)
19/09 Scroobius Pip – Distraction Pieces (Speech Development)
20/09 Andrew Jackson Jihad – Knife Man (Asian Man)
23/09 Machine Head – Unto The Locust (Roadrunner)
26/09 This Time Next Year – Drop Out Of Life (Equal Vision)
27/09 Blink-182 – Neighborhoods [Deluxe Edition] (DGC/Interscope)
27/09 Into It. Over It. –Proper (No Sleep)
27/09 Man Overboard – Man Overboard (Rise)
27/09 Zechs Marquise – Getting Paid (Rodriguez-Lopez Productions)

October:

01/10 Glowbug – Covered In Lights Vol. 1 (Self-Released)
04/10 La Dispute – Wildlife (No Sleep)
04/10 New Found Glory – Radiosurgery (Epitaph)
04/10 Transit – Listen & Forgive (Rise)
05/10 Björk – Biophilia (One Little Indian/Polydor)
07/10 &U&I – Light Bearer (Ondryland)
11/10 I Am The Avalanche – Avalanche United (Drive-Thru)
11/10 A Lot Like Birds – Conversation Piece (Doghouse)
11/10 Trash Talk – Awake (True Panther Sounds)
17/10 LYU – Without You Here (Self-Released)
19/10 We Are The Union – Graveyard Grins (Paper + Plastic)
21/10 Tom Waits – Bad As Me (Anti-)
24/10 Close Your Eyes – Empty Hands And Heavy Hearts (Victory)
24/10 A Loss For Words – No Sanctuary (Rise/Velocity)
27/10 Mastodon – The Hunter (Reprise)
31/10 The James Cleaver Quintet – That Was Then, This Is Now (Hassle)

November:

01/11 Angels & Airwaves – Love: Part Two (To The Stars)
01/11 Pianos Become The Teeth – The Lack Long After (Topshelf Records)
08/11 Four Year Strong – In Some Way, Shape Or Form (Decaydance/Universal Motown)
04/11 Animals As Leaders – Weightless (Prosthetic)
15/11 Doomsday Student – A Jumper’s Handbook (Anchor Brain)
18/11 Frank Turner – The Second Three Years (Xtra Mile/Epitaph)
22/11 Such Gold / A Loss For Words – Split (No Sleep/Mightier Than The Sword)
26/11 Roots Manuva – 4everevolution (Big Dada)

December:

05/12 Gallows – Death Is Birth (Thirty Days Of Night)
06/12 The Black Keys – El Camino (Nonesuch)
12/12 That Fucking Tank – TFT (Obscene Baby Auction)
17/12 CityCop – Seasons (Self-Released)
20/12 MC Lars – The Frosty The Flowman EP (Horris Records)
21/12 The Weeknd – Echoes Of Silence (XO)
21/12 Skrillex - Bangarang (Big Beat)

So there you go. If you are yet to purchase any of these, I suggest catching up. So what are your favourite records of 2011? Feel free to share a piece of your mind in the comments section.

Have a just about acceptable Christmas, yeah?

xxx

Drinking from a fire hose.

2011-07-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

I entered a newsagent's in Cheltenham yesterday in search of a newspaper. I scanned the racks of dailies, weeklies and monthlies, eventually picking up my desired paper and coming to a certain conclusion: We have far too many celebrity wank rags on sale.

In the 1440s when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, did he ever ponder the sheer height of devolutionary mass-print media that would come several centuries later in the shape of gossip magazines? Endless space on the shelves underneath the single pornography and men’s interest section of the newsagents are taken up by magazines with names like Heat, Hello, Look, Stare, Twee and Bum, all of which have pictures of Cheryl Cole, Katie Price, Peter Andre or all of the above slapped on the cover, like shallow, real-world Alfred E. Neuman type caricatures.

The personal lives of the rich and well-known is really none of my business or interest, so I have a real difficulty coming to a conclusion why anybody reads this shit. Especially considering the only reason why two of the aforementioned people still have careers in media, is because they both fucked each other in a jungle once. As far as I’m concerned, Peter Andre should have been ostracised from public thought and executed quietly in, fittingly, a jungle somewhere immediately after the release of Mysterious Girl in 1995.

Other pressing issues the magazines cover include celebrities without make-up, the best and worst dressed public appearances, weight loss/gain, stalker-esque snaps of well known faces walking through town taken by a paparazzi shitehawk, and “real” stories about “real” people that sound more like police rape and homicide reports then actual stories.

There seems to be a certain correlation between these magazines and the recent News Of The World/Murdoch/News Corporation scandals that link to people being obsessed with useless information. The personal details of celebrities, bereaved mothers and dead teenagers don’t have any weight on the way we live our lives unless we are a part of the story ourselves. To suggest otherwise is outrageously stupid.

One of my theories puts simple human progress at the forefront of the blame. The way current events and other media is presented in the modern world moves at such a bewildering pace, that it’s impossible for the conscious mind to keep up with all or any of it. It is because of this, that society decides to distract itself with brightly coloured piffle instead, and big news stories break and die as quickly as they were sprung. Once the worlds most wanted man was executed earlier this year, news of the Royal Wedding was wiped from the headlines faster than you can say Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

Now, I don’t claim to be a feminist, because coming from me that may sound a bit ‘pussy-whipped.’ But I safely assume that magazines like Heat or Gawp or whatever the fuck they’re called, have a majority audience of females. So maybe my female readers can tell me why on earth they buy millions of these magazines every week. Does pointing out the blemishes of high society help you forget your own? Probably. Do you take a genuine interest in what these people are doing at all times? Maybe. Please feel free to let me know. I’m all ears.

In the best of times, keeping up with all of the world’s news can seem like drinking from a fire hose with the constant updates and developments bleeding out of every television, computer and hand-held mobile device. The civil unrest that built up over decades in Libya, Syria, Egypt and other areas of the middle-east seemed to erupt in the blink of an eye once coverage of the first protests broadcast, and an unparalleled feeling of ignorance is only to be expected once something like that pops out on you all of a sudden. But you shouldn’t replace ignorance of important issues of the world with pointless, masturbatory obsessions with the lives of the rich and famous. If you choose to shut yourself off from the news, here’s a list of more rewarding ways you can do so:

Read a book that speaks to you in ways that you never thought possible, or that changes your outlook on life, if even slightly. You remember what books are, don’t you?
Listen to a groundbreaking, revolutionary record that can make you feel angry, sad, in love, ecstatic, or simply alive. At least a piece of music with more meaning than something Will.I.Am thought of on the toilet last week. Better yet, go to a show and connect with the audience in a way that a ‘Like’ on Facebook can never truly convey.
Create something yourself, whether it’s music, poetry, a short story, a painting, or an angry blog post. Not to satisfy or show-off to others, but to gain a sense of excitement or self-fulfilment.
Further connect yourself with planet Earth by exploring it. Why spend your whole life rotting in the same place you were born?
Stop jabbing at your ultimately fragile iPhone for a while and actually have a conversation with someone. We’ve got into a state of knowing so many people, yet knowing so little about them on a human level and keeping little to no close meaningful friendships with our likeminded acquaintances.

Life may be a meaningless, godless chore, but by keeping any of my five suggestions in mind, it doesn’t have to be any less enjoyable. I’m as guilty of picking holes in the aesthetics of others as anybody else, but using that as the main focus of your existence can turn you into a pretty useless individual yourself, maybe even as useless as Peter fucking Andre.

Photo courtesy of the Guardian.

The Worst Show I've Never Seen.

2011-06-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's been little over a week since the first episode of Geordie Shore aired, and according to this BBC News article, the network debut "borders on pornography" as quoted by Newcastle Central MP, Chi Onwurah. Now, looking at two dictionary definitions (In case you were wondering), pornography is a: Obscene writings, drawings, photographs or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit, or b: The depiction of acts in a sensational or sexual manner, so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

There you have it: the show in a nutshell. In the same vein as it's New Jersey originator, the show basically consists of collected scenes of chiseled, large-breasted, loud-mouthed human carrots drinking heavily, vacuously preening about how great they are, lifting weights and fucking each other.

Now, before I go any further, I'd like to quash any assumptions about the show's impact on me by saying that I haven't watched any of it. I haven't watched it and I have no plans on ever doing so. Regardless of this fact, everything I am about to say about the show is accurate, and most definitely true.

It's safe to assume the first episode will consist of (And it did) the human caricatures infinitely overstating their most-loved features to massively embarrassing level, in cheery introductory VTs featuring their charming parents' homes (Where they still probably live) before meeting each other in their hideously decorated central city flat and immediately deciding who they want to have intercourse with, and who the will declare a 'slag.'

If the trailer is anything to go by, said cunt-estants will be required to exhale regional accents so strong they will appear to be Little Britain parodies of Newcastle locals. The girls are typically skimpy-clothed, two-faced, bitchy sausage-wallets and the accompanying males are fanny hungry borderline date rapists, who talk about nothing but themselves, the gym, clubbing, 'smashing birds,' and fucking football. For face value, MTV may have also inserted an additional male contestant who holds a slight disinterest to aforementioned topics. He will be used as a simple catalyst or nice guy, to make the show look more two-dimensional, even though it most definitely isn't.

Fuck you.

The remainder of the show is likely to consist of the group downing shots, looking into mirrors, vomiting, snogging and making arseing great tits out of themselves (Probably in a jacuzzi) before culminating with their first big night out. During this night out, they will gather in one or more of Newcastle's biggest cock-hives (My money's on Madame Koo's or Riverside) to make further tits of themselves, snog some more, get completely inebriated, vomit some more, fist pump like cave men and start a fight. Eagerly satisfied, one of our male contestants may have left with a female accomplice beer-goggled enough to sleep with him. The gentleman will take her back to the self-proclaimed 'shag-pad,' where they will share several pelvic thrusts before our male protagonist (Probably named Gaz) will unleash a dribbling eruption of gummy translucent plasm onto the face of an understandably physically recoiled female face.

Change location, re-arrange roles, times this by ten and you've got yourself a series!

The first few episodes of Jersey shore hid behind a paper thin veneer of format by giving the proud 'guidos' jobs. After these first few episodes, any idea of format was abandoned as sensationalism took over. 2 years down the line, any suspension of disbelief has been tossed away and the show has been guffed out onto TV screens across the globe in hopes of ruffling as many feathers as possible, capitalizing on a region's most sickening lifestyles (Some of which never belonged to Newcastle in the first place). Getting absolutely trollied and falling face first onto the concrete outside of Tiger Tiger has been well documented in Newcastle, but how many tanned, muscular Geordie Males did you meet before Jersey Shore broadcasted? Close to none is likely to be the answer.

This mass-borrowing of dickhead culture may eventually lead to mankind losing it's identity altogether and watching these insecure vanity machines, armed with a vocabulary they are probably contractually obliged to use, will only lead to the complete downfall of civilization…and you'll all be to blame.

The show doesn't offend me as such, it just angers, disappoints and depresses me beyond all measure. It's the worst show I've never seen.

Adventures in the countryside.

2011-04-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

I've reached the end of week one of my life in the country. For those of you that are not yet aware, last week, I moved away from my hometown of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to the arsehole of Nowhere-Under-Edge.

So far, the vast majority of my time down here has been spent working close to 14 hour shifts, and sleeping in preparation of my next 14 hour shift.

My new home rests within the 30 acres of woodland my new hotel of employment occupies. The small brick country house may look rather small from the outside, but upon entering, one would be surprised to find that it's also rather small on the inside! As not to make it too claustrophobic, only 16 of us reside within the property. To the right of the front door, is the entrance gate to Layhill prison, which is nothing more than comforting to know. My bedroom features a radiator that appears to have malfunctioned to the point of being stuck in the 'on' position. This with the addition of body-heat generated by the others has made for quite a sweatbox of a living environment. With air-conditioning but a pipe dream, I have spent as little time in the Gate House as possible.

On day two, with an empty fridge and nothing but seasonings to keep me nourished, I set out to find a nearby supermarket, whilst nursing a hangover. After walking for five miles over mostly un-paved country roads, I reached Wotton-Under-Edge, which funnily enough, seemed closer when being driven there. The small market town housed a small Co-Op and not much else. One high street lay embedded in what appeared to be a mostly suburban country town. On my journey, I only stumbled across one or two small villages, and vast country land. Gone, are the monolithic billboard adverts, towering structures and the hustle and bustle of the city. Now replaced with widespread greenery, and local wildlife, some more welcome than others (Horseflies are now my sworn enemy).

This journey brought home precisely how isolated I have now become from the outside world I used to live in. On the upside, the quiet country life is comfortingly serene. A long walk outside can take you anywhere. Every day is a new adventure…at least for the first three weeks. At night, with the roads devoid of lampposts, the night sky is perfectly clear. With hundreds of stars scattered above like glitter spread across a large black mattress and the ambiance made up of the chirp of birds and the distant calling of sheep.

Although with this in mind, when I have time to think about it, I still feel a million miles from nowhere. But this year-long Stopgap for me is building towards something much bigger, and as the days, weeks, months and years go by, this brief period of isolation will seem like a quiet fart in a distant corridor, and will be reminisced by myself in happier pastures.

I'll be just fine, so long as the prison doesn't have a mass break-out…

Rebecca Black: A true poet.

2011-03-26T15:22:00.001-07:00

Music is a gift that the entire world shares. One song can push boundaries, move feet, inspire and make one feel that he is not so alone in the modern catastrophe that is life.

Once every so often a song will come along that will change the perspective of millions, and I would personally like to thank Rebecca Black for making this happen once again. I find her lyrics so deep, meaningful and strangely hypnotizing in their metaphoric conceptuality. Before I found this remarkable young lady's entirely natural and original voice, I could never comprehend what seat to choose inside of my automobile, or that on a weekly basis, Thursday precedes Friday. I was no less than enlightened to find out that Friday merges into Saturday, with Saturday bleeding into Sunday following such changing of the fifth day of the week into the sixth. I'd like to pass on my eternal gratitude to Rebecca Black, her talent and intelligence reaches far beyond her years.

...actually scratch that. In fact, forget every single word I've just said.

Ever since the days of yore when our under-evolved ancestors would worship the sun, the human race has been easily impressed. In our current mental state, a few of us have matured beyond wetting ourselves with laughter when an elder acquaintance jingles car keys in front of our eyes, but a large number of people have ceased to mature past this point and have chosen to fill their numb craniums with songs by Justin Bieber, chat shows hosted by Alan Carr and movies starring Adam Sandler.

We've turned into a race that attaches ourselves onto the brightest, shiniest, best looking fads without taking any prior concern as to whether what we're obsessing over is any good or not. It is in this sad world that I take pride that so many of my fellow sentient beings are finally knowing bullshit when they smell it, throwing as much negative feedback at the pipsqueak pictured above as humanly possible. With so many opposing arguments and angles in the world, it may just be impossible to actually calculate what the worst song in existence is. Saying that, it's been so long since a recording has had this much universal hatred that it's hard to argue this time. Even Gary Glitter's music attracts more praise.

Analyzing Friday might prove to be pointless, as the in depth report on the song's concept could probably written legibly on a toddlers thumb, but something this bad has to be discussed at length.

For the first 17 seconds, Rebecca bombards us with a series of needless yeahs, whilst the electronic blurble in the background sounds like a default tune ripped from GarageBand. Second of all the animated flipbook effects and fonts used are atrocious, not to mention that the filter put on Black herself makes her look like a stock character from Tom Goes To The Mayer. 7am rolls around Rebecca rises with messy hair yet untouched makeup and in a nasally whine sings about her morning ritual for eleven seconds without any clear formula to her messy lyrics.

The plot thickens, Miss Black awaits her school bus at the allotted route stop, only to see her 10 year old friends pull up in a very expensive looking convertible that they are definitely driving illegally. She ponders as to whether she should kick it in the front seat, or subject herself to sitting in the backseat. Eventually she sandwiches herself in the back seat and sings a 30 word chorus in which the word 'Friday' is uttered 7 times, 'Partyin'' 4 times, and 'Fun' 4 times in a way that is fun to only her.

Her school day is disregarded as morning turns into evening. Rebecca takes the incredibly dangerous move of sitting without a seatbelt up on the headrests of the convertible's seats, while the car speeds through the night with the top down. She sings the second verse for 28 seconds without actually saying anything while her brace-laden friends sit either side of her looking generally uninterested.

The second chorus takes place at a house party attended by children so young, they're practically fetuses. Afterwards the horrendous bridge sarcastically praised in the preface of this rant takes place. This leads onto a rap performed by Usher that contains absolutely no intellectual value whatsoever, and can't be described any more accurately than fucking shit.

"R-B, Rebecca Black

So chillin’ in the front seat (In the front seat)

In the back seat (In the back seat)

I’m drivin’, cruisin’ (Yeah, yeah)

Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes

Wit’ a car up on my side (Woo!)

(C’mon) Passin’ by is a school bus in front of me

Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream

Check my time, it’s Friday, it’s a weekend

We gonna have fun, c’mon, c’mon, y’all"

There you have it, Usher has lessened even further the artistic value of overtaking a school bus. Fuck you, Usher. Your collaboration with Lil' Jon and Ludacris was nauseating enough. Just give up music, give up on life, and kill yourself. Thank you. This atrocity is followed by a final chorus in which Black attempts some auto-tuned high notes then hey-presto! the song's over!

In conclusion, Rebecca Black is a performer who we can only expect bigger and brighter things from in the future...well she can't do much fucking worse.

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that the Usher lookalike in the video is in fact named Patrice Wilson who co-wrote the song with Black. Apologies for this error. Everything I said about Usher still stands...

An open letter to the online world

2011-02-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

Good evening blogosphere, how are you? That's fantastic.

After almost 21 years, the concept of spending the rest of my life in North East England has grown rather gloomy, so I need your help to emmigrate overseas. I'm selling some stuff on eBay, and I'm giving whoever's reading this wasteland of a website the opportunity to wear some of my old tat. Below is a Slideshow of some of the things I'm selling, with accompanying link to my eBay store.

Look if you want, buy if you want, it's that simple.

Thanks for your interest

-Ross

My eBay profile

Architects - The Here And Now Review

2011-01-24T05:18:00.000-08:00

3/5

Speculation has been floating around for months as to what direction Architects would take on their fourth album. Their first two releases showed promise, but Hollow Crown was their cathartic, abrasive powerhouse, solidifying their status in the UK's hardcore scene. Architects were truly a force to be reckoned with.

That being said, it's all the more surprising that the Brighton quintet have decided to play it safe on The Here And Now, and not by sticking to the same formula but dramatically changing it. The guitars are cleaner and succumb to a lot more noodling rather than the deep chugging of their previous works. The vocals are mostly sung rather than screamed in larynx shredding fashion.

This drastic change from piercing metalcore to cleaner pastures doesn't necessarily make The Here And Now a bad album, but it's major pitfall is making it difficult to distinguish Architects from the crowd of generic post-hardcore that already resides in a scene that they used to stand out in. Around three tracks pass on The Here And Now before one song emerges that sounds remotely like Architects, and the softer, muted songs on the album in An Open Letter To Myself and Heartburn are simply baffling coming from the same band that released Hollow Crown not two years before.

I'm trying my very best not to nitpick here, the album's first single Day In Day Out is probably the best display of Architect's new sound, managing to be both visceral and melodic at the same time, as does BTN. Delete, Rewind is refreshing as a return to Architects gut-punching old sound and album closer, Year In Year Out is a satisfying mix of old and new.

As good as The Here And Now's best moments are, it's weaker moments crop up more often than not. These weaker moments blend together to make album unfortunately generic and forgettable. I'm sure there are people that will disagree with me upon reading this review, but The Here and Now will surely divide Architects fans. The Here And Now may be a disappointing Architects album, but on the plus side, it does sound like a pretty good Alexisonfire album

Dear Number 8

2010-07-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Dear number 8.

Hello neighbour.
It's me from number 10. I know we've never been properly introduced, but trust me when I say I know you very well. I do believe we have certain matters to discuss.
Now it occurs to me that there are several things about our homes that you don't seem to realise. I for one have long accepted that our walls are paper-thin, and I may be able to hear noise from both you and number 12 depending on which room I'm in, but I can live with that. However, instead of blaming the architect, or the builders who constructed this street many years ago, you immediately assume it's our fault.
You're so very quick to call the landlady at 2 in the morning whenever my flatmate has friends around, or whenever I'm watching television at a reasonable volume with the windows open. It does get a little stuffy in my room sometimes, and a bit of fresh air does me the world of good. Yet you are prepared to deprive me of that because you can hear it from your adjacent window? How about turning on your own fucking TV and seeing if I give a shit? You even find the need to make complaints to my land baron about noise in the street. Let me tell you something woman, I'm not renting the street, the street is public domain. That's not my responsibility.

I've just recently moved into this street from Jesmond. The vast majority of houses in Jesmond are filled with students, and they do make a lot of noise on the weekends. They've had a long week of lectures and coursework, and they like to unwind when it's all over. I can understand that, of course they made noise, but I've developed a little mindset known as patience.
Patience entails not running to the teacher and telling on someone, mainly due to the understanding that said someone has a social life, something that you craggedy old fuckers don't seem to possess. I know it, my flatmates know it, the street knows it, even the fucking police know it. Still on a weekly basis you feel the need to pull them away from patrolling the streets, and keeping the neighbourhood safe to send them over to our house so we can talk with them about how fucking stupid you are.

Maybe you'd get to sleep a lot easier if you didn't spend your evenings standing by the window waiting for something to complain about. If you disapprove of your neighbours making sounds at various points in the night, I suggest moving in next door to a mute, or preferably to the middle of nowhere.

Yours sincerely,
Fuck you.

Musical Cancer

2010-02-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

The three men that you see in this picture, were collectively known at one stage in time as Reuben, one of the greatest bands in the history of English music. These young 3 guys from Aldershot worked as hard as they possibly could to keep putting out fantastic music, touring relentlessly to simply finance their records. They released three fantastic albums in their time, musically eclipsing any of their contempories with jarring instrumentals, fantastic lyrics, and the aggressive force of Jamie Lenman's powerful voice. Even with their relentless touring and loyal fans, things became harder for Reuben, with Jamie working in a local chippy just to keep a steady income, so the band split up.

Reuben could have been huge, they were one of the most talented bands of their time, and their music was ignored by the mainstream, because the British populous is more interested in buying music from these pricks!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, musical cancer. John and Edward Grimes, or "Jedward" as retards insisted on calling them, started out as 2 insufferable little twats who got their big break on Britain's most popular shortcut to fame, The X-Factor, performing songs with less musical prowess than a Butlins staff tribute to Steps. Simon Cowell described their performance the same way he described the first time he saw The Exorcist, continuing with "I thought it was horrible, but I wanted to see it again." Fairly amusing quote there, but I would compare it more to Date Movie, being that their performances were perpetually shit and I would never get paid to sit through it again.

Now besides from the fact that the twins look like malnourished Johnny Bravos twinned with an 8 year old Robbert Pattison, there's nothing else that's really interesting to say about them aesthetically, however it is interesting to think why anybody would want to spend hard-earned money on this appalling excuse for a single. Teaming up with Robert Van Winkle (That's Vanilla Ice to you) they have immediately pigeonholed themselves to one hit wonder status, drafting an over the hill, 42 year old white rappist that lost relevancy almost 20 years ago.

The music video is probably the most disgraceful visual we'll see this year. There's an intense feeling that washes over you once you finish watching their pop promo, the sickening thought in the back of your head that you've just gotten dumber. It's the gut-punch feeling that you've just witnessed something completely devoid of artistic integrity and creative merit. How could somebody ever find enjoyment in two Vanilla Ice wannabes jiving around with Vanilla Ice (Who himself appears to be a Fred Durst wannabe). They're the only kids that can cover a song as stupid as "Ice Ice Baby" and make Vanilla Ice look better by comparison. They're at the bottom of the rap barrel, along with Marky Mark & The Funk Bunch and the Insane Clown Posse, who have reportedly fell through the barrel due to weight restrictions.

Mankind will really need to pull their fingers out to regain the dignity lost by buying this dross. Maybe we should all pitch in a couple of pounds to finance a true alternative music triumph. Maybe something like John & Edward being put into the stocks for a week, whilst The Residents pelt tomatoes at them. That should wipe the shit-eating grin off their faces.

John and Edward will surely fade away in the months to come, but you people in the target market will only be happy to accept another creatively bankrupt piece of musical dirge to fill the black hole in your brain where good taste should be. You'll nod your head in your sickening nightclubs, to the same old bass drum beat you've heard on a million top ten hits before, completely ignorant to all the great music you're missing out on. You will wander round this rock for your whole life, not knowing that you forced bands like Reuben to split up, because you'd rather buy Jedward's single instead.

The Journey Conspiracy

2010-01-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

con·spir·a·cy (kn-spîr-s)
n. pl. con·spir·a·cies
1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

The uttering of said word can lead to several images penetrating your brain like pop up adverts on porn websites. 9/11, JFK, Watergate, Scientology. All widely publicized by the media and paranoid Internet rumour-jockeys. Fire, blood, and explosions are among the sights that attribute to the impact of the word, but most people aren't aware of the effect the group of conspirators below have on the world.

No, this isn't a group of sex offenders, it's Journey! The craprog-rock band that reached the height of their popularity in a far, far away land, known as the 80's. More specifically their psuedo-inspirational song "Don't Stop Believin'" has been coined as an epic anthem by morons ever since.

It is my belief, that Journey have been cutting deals within the media industry, to keep themselves in the charts, and locked into our consciousness until the end of time. Beginning with Family Guy singing Journey Karaeoke, following with the X-Factor's Joe McElderry singing Journey Karaeoke, and finally with American musical TV sensation, Glee, jumping on the last carriage of the High School Musical bandwagon by leeching off 2 pop-culture beasts at once.

Call me, crazy, call me paranoid, call me what you will but I believe that in many years from now, Steve Perry will use the download charting numbers to power a machine that will keep him singing his ball-churning, helium-fueled ballads until the end of time, therefore solidifying the stranglehold on the idiotic masses, and building up his crappy, uneventful, curly-haired dross to be way more than it actually is.

A Truimph For Mankind

2009-12-21T04:56:00.000-08:00

Last night saw history being made, with the X-Factor being pretty much booted off their 4 year long Christmas number 1 throne. Rage Against The Machine's classic protest epic Killing In The Name was used as the vehicle of a Facebook group encouraging users to download the song to compete against the predictable victory of X-Factor geordie lad Joe McEldery. Killing In The Name has been carved into time as the largest selling one week digital download in history (Over 500,000 sold) and first Christmas Number 1 to reach the top spot through download only. Incidentally, it's victory was spawned by the only useful Facebook group on the planet.

Seeing Rage's victory over the X-Factor doesn't just make for an awesome Christmas Number 1, but it also stands as a triumph for mankind in general. Proof that not every person in England is as bland and herded to purchase what Simon Cowell tells them to. The X-Factor is everywhere, with it's winners, previous contestants and judges all with songs in the charts. Cheryl Cole, Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis and JLS all link the X-Factor into the British public's earholes via the charts as we speak.

Almost all of these TV pop contest winners have never got further than one hit wonder status, and those that have survived their initial 15 minutes of fame continue to provide filler for Radio 1's singles countdown. There's no passion brought forth, no emotion, no BALLS! On the other hand, after nearly 18 years, Killing In The Name hasn't lost any of the raw power that made it such a phenomenon in the first place.

The success of this campaign shows that we can still get great music in the charts amongst all the bile. But why stop at Rage Against The Machine? Let's continue to buy music that actually means something, and put The X-Factor's generic, assembly-line horseshit to bed.

The Vocal-tuned Slutbucket

2009-12-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

2009 has been an interesting year for music. We've seen familiar faces from the underground such as The Dear Hunter, HORSE The Band, Every Time I Die, NOFX, Psychostick and many more releasing terrific new material unto a world that doesn't care, as they're too busy watching mainstream pop music crash and burn with very few survivors crawling from the wreckage.

It would be so easy to pick on every popstar I've resented this year, whether it's the vocal-tuned slutbucket Ke$ha, the swaggering, ear-aching wall of Na-Na-Naiis that Dappy from N-Dubz has spewed out, or the physically sickening Jonas Brothers. All that aside, nobody takes the cake for most sickening band of the year than The Jonas Brothers, but I've blogged about them already so I'm going to hurl some shit at The Black Eyed Peas instead.

Aside from getting their management to punch Perez Hilton in the face, the Black Eyed Peas haven't really made much of a positive impact on the world this year. Yet again, for the best part of the 21st Century, they haven't released almost anything worth listening to. Back in the late nineties, Black Eyed Peas only consisted of 3 members, those being Will.I.Am (A name I refuse to pronounce the same way he spells it), apl.de.ap, and Taboo. About a decade ago they were making what some people would like to call 'Real Hip-Hop music.' Their work didn't sound to dissimilar to what Jurassic 5 were releasing at the time, production-wise. It was sample heavy, but mainly from old jazz and lounge music records rather than the stolen Dick Dale riff used in 2003's 'Pump It.' Their debut Behind The Front holds it's place among my favourite hip-hop albums. They brought a certain innocense back to the rap genre, the same light-spirited high-jinx that wouldn't look out of place on an old De La Soul or Tribe Called Quest LP.

The opening track's lyrics state "I see you try to dis our function, by stating we can't rap, is it 'cause we don't wear Tommy Hilfiger or baseball caps? We don't use dollars to represent, we use our inner sense and talent."

Does that sound at all like The Black Eyed Peas we know today? A pop quartet dressed almost entirely in designer gear with a massive sense of their own self-importance.

In 2003 they incorporated Fergie, an hour-glass shaped, duck-faced woman who looked like an alien invader from the planet Formica. They immediately dumbed down their music and lyrical attack for the masses, releasing overly patronising wannabe-political powerhouse 'Where Is The Love?' among other songs that in no way ironically depicted their target audience (*cough* 'Let's Get Retarded' *cough*). Their second album got even worse. Their second full-length release with Daffy Duck included 'My Humps'. Probably the most embarrasing performances by any hip-hop artist since Dee Dee Ramone, and the musical equivalent of an American Pie movie (Not the good ones but the others). Listening to that song is probably more annoying than being beaten over the head with a crying child, and can immediately drop your IQ by simply listening to it.

Now onto this year and the Peas return with a relentlessly stupid pile of electroshit titled 'Boom Boom Pow'. A song that's literally about nothing. Absolutely nothing. The group's voices have been synthesized to the point of sounding like Daleks, especially Fergie. The song was so incredibly horrific, a lot of people were confused by it's horridness and started enjoying it instead, sending it to No. 1 in the charts. Indisputable evidence that pop music turns people into fucking idiots. The same with 'I Gotta Feeling,' a song that doesn't even sound like a song. More like a list of phrases written over a period of about 5 minutes, by a group of cretins that use the word 'Party' as a verb. Most of these phrases are repeated a ridiculous amount of times. 'Tonights gonna be a good night' reoccurs an unimaginable 21 times, implanting itself into your brain like a fucking horrible tumor. It doesn't help that the majority of the populus carries it around on pocket-sized electronics either.

The Black Eyed Peas aren't making music for the people anymore. They've lost their ability to rap, they wear Tommy Hilfiger and baseball caps. They use dollars to represent, without inner sense or talent. It's music made for the lucrative ringtone market. It's music made for brainless idiots in the sickening dance clubs. It's music for the fucking stupid masses.

It's charmless. That's all I'm trying to say, which is unfortunate because music never used to be short of charm.

Facebook Groups Are Useless, And So Are You...

2009-10-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

FAN 1. A person who has interest or likes something, or somebody. Can refer to many things including sports, movie stars, food/drink and so on. Basically anybody that likes something.
"I am a big fan of basketball."
"I am the biggest Star Wars fan ever."

Social networking sites, massive online hubs for living walking eating shitting anxiety machines that aren't entirely comfortable with coming into contact with their fellow man. Every day, millions of these people flock to websites like this to simply look at what their friends are doing or how their feeling without taking the effort to ask them in person through audible conversation (Me included). Having scrolled through vast amounts of pictures of friend-related happenings, just like they want you to, you give them recognition for their everyday actions by commenting the post or simply just liking it. Things would be so much easier in the real world if we adopted the thumbs up or down formula, of course it would make proposing to your sweetheart a lot less eventful.

So what ties this in with the quote you see at the top of this post? Groups. A small or large number of like-minded acquaintances that congregate in the wonderful land of the Internets. Groups usually get together for rather focused reasons, whether it's socialising, helping those less fortunate, playing music together or necking ketamine in a field before being swallowed whole by an unrelentingly horrifying grass monster. Groups have been around since the dawn of time, ranging from a gathering of billions of molecules on the tip of a pre-historic stone to billions of under-evolved fundamentalists praying to unprovable men in the sky. With the sheer amount of groups out there, it comes as no surprise that their reasons for existence have became less meaningful as a whole, which brings me to Facebook.

For the past year or so, Facebook has surpassed Myspace as the Internet's top "LOOK AT ME!" website, and like any other decent social networking website, it has it's fair share of Fan-related groups, but as the amount of groups has grown, the reason of the group's existences have slumped. I get several suggestions per log-in on my homepage for these so-called groups. It's of the utmost importance that I know what my friends enjoy. The worst offenders being things like "17 of your friends are fans of sex." Shouldn't these things seem obvious? As long as my friends have reproductive organs, I shall be quick to assume that they enjoy sex. There's nothing too mysterious about that fact. Next you'll be telling me they've discovered fire.
"50 of your friends are fans of Food." Well thanks for pointing that out. I have perfectly healthy eyes but somehow I couldn't figure out that all of these Food fans weren't malnurished, anorexia-stricken skeletons.
"25 of your friends are fans of Cuddles In Bed." Of course they enjoy cuddles in bed. Who wouldn't enjoy embracing with their significant other in the epitome of comfort, I suppose the other 90 people in your friends list deny this joy just to be 'alternative.'

Facebook has always been a place to express your interests and your enjoyments, but now we are made to point out things that we would obviously find enjoyable. You don't have to glance at a stranger for too long to figure out that he/she enjoys a good drink and a rough shag. These are simple, common, universal human character traits. If you have to come out and announce it then go the whole hog and tell us how much of a fan you are of breathing, standing, sitting and excreting.

Surely it's a rum state of affairs when we have to present such predictable enjoyments to simply prove our existence and similarities to the rest of the world. As if we're that desperate to find things that we have in common with these arseholes. If you're going to start a Facebook group, make sure it's a worthwhile contribution to society, and not just another shitty excuse for a discussion board about how much you love Bacon butties. Facebook groups are useless, and so are you.

First post

2009-09-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

If you don't know this face by now, you're probably most of the planet. Blogging has become a very valuable outlet for me over my years of creating Interweb content. It's a way for me to vent my frustration towards the world around me without physically demolishing everything I see. But no matter how much thought I put into my writings, they seem to go largely unnoticed. I believe Blogspot will provide these ramblings with a bit more substance.

All of my new blog posts will be posted on this site rather than my very lonely Myspace blog. If you like what I'm posting, leave me a comment, if you don't, leave me a comment.

For all prior blog posts click HEEEEEERE!