Smashing Pumpkins Drummer Is Officially From Beaverton
It’s 100% official now, a 19-year-old Beaverton kid is the Smashing Pumpkins new drummer. I reported the rumor a long time ago but it was only today official confirmed by Billy Corgan that Mike Byrne is his new drummer. I also put out the call on the air for Mike to give us a call to confirm the rumor himself, but I can only assume that when he picked up the phone to call us he was frightened off by the phone ghost moaning in his ear, going all “bwuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.” He undoubtedly tried to communicate with the phone ghost but the series of grunts and hoots he calls a language simply enraged the phone ghost which started it shouting, “AAAH-AAAH-AHH-AHH!” Well Mike, if you’re listening, first stop shaking the radio. There’s no little man inside. Second, seriously, put the rock down. I’m not inside the box. And three, get a friend to help you use the phone. Maybe a guitarist or, OOO! No, ask the bassist. The guitarist is going to be too busy sleeping with playmates to devote the appropriate amount of time to get you through to the studio. Bassists are relatively bright but so butt-ugly and unlovable that there’s no chance they will be swept away by a large breasted fan looking to show their appreciation. Believe me, bassists have nothing but time. Hell, if you have to go play a gig or whatever while the phone is ringing, they can totally just hang on the phone for you. I mean it’s not like anyone will miss the six notes they contribute over the course of an entire concert. Mike was quoted in the press release as saying, “Aaghh! Grrraaggh! Brrrruuuuhhhhggg!!!” Which someone was kind enough to translate from drummer to English as, “I’m super excited to be playing with the band. Dream come true, man.” Byrne has helped Billy with the latest Pumpkins record which will be released before the end of the year with a tour to follow. So congrats to Mike Byrne and could one of you butt ugly talentless bassists help Mike with that whole phone issue. Thanks.
Hear/See New Pearl Jam
There’s a Making of Backspacer short that the band just released to YouTube. You get to hear clips of several new songs as well as some moody band interviews in which you learn that this is the shortest record they’ve ever written, they actually wrote the songs before hitting the studio (which they don’t typically do) and that Jeff Ament thinks this record has the best lyrics ever. Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3m4gvJDrlo
Weezer’s Album Name Is The Best Ever
Last week I told you that Weezer will have another new album coming out in October, which was a surprise to many of you. We’ve all become so accustomed to the make and album and take 5 years off model that the fellas have been working with since the Blue Album that no one was even wondering whether they were in the studio. Turns out they were and now we not only have a release date, but we have an album title AND a new single. The record will come out on the 27th of October. Its name? Raditude.
What would you think if you looked out your front window and saw a disheveled man in sweatpants and a hoody standing in the pouring rain and staring at your house? You’d probably go in the basement and grab a crowbar and prepare for the inevitable cascade of shattered glass as the man dives through your front window. That’s what we’ve been trained to believe thanks to movies and alarm company commercials. That some shifty character is just waiting for the right moment to tug his hoody up over his head and lay a flying kick into your door. So it was act of self preservation on the part of one New Jersey suburbanite when they called the cops when one such shifty individual was seen wandering in their neighborhood. If the homeowner was lucky the sweatpants-wearing juggernaut would still be supping on the marrow from his broken body when the cops arrived and the soggy athletic appareled fiend would be caught before he could leap through anyone else’s door. But when the cops arrived the sweat panty man was not picking bone shards out of his teeth. He was still just aimlessly wandering. The cop stopped the man and asked him his name. The man replied, “Bob Dylan.” Everybody knows that Bob Dylan is some rich, unintelligible hippy so he wouldn’t be wandering the New Jersey suburbs in sweatpants. He’d be eating fistfuls of mescaline and warbling songs about loving your enemy. The cop scoffed and asked, “OK Bob. What are you doing here?” He said something about playing a gig with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. Clearly a loon. The cop said, “I did not know what to believe or where he was coming from, or even who he was. We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn’t sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something.” But she called the clearly insane man in sweatpants’ bluff and took him to the backstage area of the venue where Dylan, Melencamp and Nelson were in fact playing only to discover that people kept calling this would be eater of human flesh, devourer of souls “Bob” and “Mr. Dylan.” The guy was in fact Bob Dylan. No one is sure what he was doing wandering around the suburbs in his comfies, but some people are speculating that he was looking for Bruce Springsteen’s old house.
Cops Make Most Obvious Bust Ever
Speaking of silly old hippies, in what could go down as the most obvious police sting of all time, Hartford police arrested eight people and seized 18 nitrous oxide tanks and dozens of nitrous balloons from patrons at a Phish concert Friday night. How did the police know about this severe breach of law and order in their town? Were they tipped off? Was there a man on the inside? Did a narc infiltrate the drug gang’s organization? Naw. Cops just knew that Phishheads are stoners so they thought they’d go take a walk through the area parking lots. Police sent a detail to the parking lots around the theater to investigate possible narcotics activity. In addition to the tanks and the balloons, police seized several grams of marijuana and $1,190.
Age has its benefits. For instance, I could walk into a bar wearing nothing but a Speedo and a wife-beater and order a beer and never have to remove the ID from my wallet where it’s nicely nestled between my Speedo waist band and the sweat-sticky skin of my hip. I’d like to see you younger guys pull that off. Some 23-year-old guy walks into a bar with a Speedo and a wife beater and he’s gonna get carded. And you younger guys have to pay to have a lady root around in your kiester, but not me boy. All I gotta do is say I’m worried about my prostate and I’ve got a woman in a white coat and latex gloves wrist deep in my dirt pocket. And thanks to my male pattern baldness, if I decide that I want to fill up a swimming pool with boiling marinara sauce and swim laps I don’t have to put on one of those stupid looking swim caps to make me hydrodynamic. Yep. Getting old is pretty sweet. But I’m not the only one getting better with age. Nirvana’s Bleach album is about to get a hell of a lot better as well. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s first record and Sub-Pop plans to celebrate by reissuing the album on November 3rd. Original producer, Jack Endino over saw the remastering of the album from the sessions original tapes so it will maintain its fuzzy sound. The album will come on CD and 180 gram white vinyl because the first run of Bleach was also on white vinyl. But that’s not the really cool part. The best part of this reissue comes thanks to Portland. Along with the CD and record, the Bleach pack will come with a complete recording of a never-before-released 1990 live show at Portland’s Pine Street Theatre, remixed by Endino from original tapes. For those of you too young to remember, the Pine Street later turned into La Luna which hosted just about every epic show in the early 90s and is the namesake of KUFO’s local show Viva La Luna on Sunday nights.
Everyone: quit apologizing. Stop it. The phrase “I’m sorry” is used so frequently (often without even a hint of remorse) that the words have lost all meaning. And most of the time your apology comes, not from regret but from societal pressures to maintain an air of civility. Chances are, whatever you said or did to offend the person was done from a rare fit of honesty but because the subject of your observation is a little too thin-skinned and took offense where none was intended nor could be taken by a rational human being, you felt compelled to make amends. Well stop it. Embrace honesty. And more importantly don’t give into the chronically thin-skinned because when you do it creates an atmosphere of wishy-washiness where people express normal, natural impulses and feel brow-beaten into taking it all back even when there’s no pressure to do so. Like, say, with Mr. Mustaine here. Dave Mustaine was recently being interviewed and started talking about the wide variety of song styles Megadeth has had over the years. That dovetailed into the subject of ACDC. Dave said, “I love AC/DC and I’ve always been a fan of AC/DC. Bon Scott was my frontman. I love and respect Brian, but it’s the same record. They’ve been making the same record for 20 years. I love ‘em, but it’s the same stuff, so you don’t need to buy the record, just go to the concert. With us, it’s kind of like the concert’s always the same but the records change! Because we go out live and what do people want us to do? They want to hear ‘Holy Wars’, they want to hear Rust In Peace, they want to hear stuff off of that record…guys, I’ve got 12 records and I can’t fit all of that stuff into one hour! There’s over 100 songs to play! ‘Hey, play this song!’ Yeah, like I’m gonna just remember that song out of the blue! Do I look like a fuckin’ jukebox?”
Aside from revealing that Dave’s a little on the lazy side and doesn’t keep up on how to play his own songs, there wasn’t anything to get too twisted about there. Regardless, Dave felt compelled to apologize to ACDC. He wrote, “No excuses, I didn’t say what I was trying to say, and what I said is rude and childish. Not my style (well, at least not my style for the last decade or so, thank God), and I am even offended at what I said.”
Dave, you didn’t say anything that everyone else on the planet didn’t already know or anything that ACDC themselves haven’t said before. No one was offended. Stop apologizing.
New Weezer
Looks like we’ll have new Weezer in a couple of months. According to a post on Weezer’s MySpace, the band’s seventh album is now due October 27. Not sure if we’ll be hearing any of those fan-written You Tube songs on this one.
New Jack White
And I have an audio daily double for you today: First up, new Jack White.
New Radiohead
The new documentary It Might Get Loud profiles Jimmy Page, U2’s the Edge, and Jack White. During filming, the director challenged Jack to write and record a song on the spot. After about 10 minutes, “Fly Farm Blues” was written, played, sung, and set to tape. This is what it sounds like. Not bad considering it was done on the fly, but you probably won’t be hearing it on a record anytime soon.
And finally, there appears to be a new Radiohead song that was just unceremoniously dumped on the internet. I’m not sure if it was an unsanctioned leak, but after yesterday’s story about how there weren’t going to be any more Radiohead albums my guess is that it was just something they wanted to do for fans. The song, called “These Are My Twisted Words,” appeared a Radiohead fan message board earlier today with no explanation. The band has yet to take credit so it’s possible that it’s a sound-alike, but if it is the guy should win a free internet for sounding exactly like Thom York. It’s far more likely that it’s something new and free from Radiohead to you.
Let this be a lesson to you: There is such a thing as too cool for the room. Hipsters, I’m looking at you. You slither into your skinny jeans yank a kid’s size Judas Priest shirt over your head, stuff yourself into a pair 60’s style zipper boots and saunter out into the street only to wonder why the rest of the world rolls their eyes when they see you. You chalk it up to jealousy, that you are simply too cool and that we in the comfort-fit world simply cannot comprehend plains of awesome on which you exist. You are an iconoclast, uncontainable by the strictures of common culture. The reality of the situation is, no. You are but one of millions of kids who wade into the resale shops on the weekends in hopes that someone’s grampa will have kicked it in the last couple of weeks giving you the opportunity for that extra ironic velvet suit. And there is nothing original or shocking or even especially “cool” about the way you dress. You are simply a sheep that has found a different herd. Just like the punks and their Mohawks, the new wavers and their Day-Glo, the grunge kids and their flannel and the Nu Metal dudes and their nose piercings, you are simply a lemming in a different herd. Take it from Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon. Although he didn’t specifically say it, the underlying message of a recent on-stage rant was “you’ll only be cool once you quit trying so hard.” He stopped the show at Lollapalooza over the weekend to berate the people who didn’t like them back when they were hipsters. He said, “A few years ago at traveling festivals, maybe 10 people would be out there to watch us. And we’d walk out with our moustaches and outfits, and those 10 would leave and we’d be f**ked… We know there are a million bands out there who deserve to be where we are. Lots of people have lost faith in Kings of Leon, but f**k it, man. We’re having the times of our lives, right?” Now, I was one of those 10 that saw the Kings play Lollapalooza at Columbia Meadows back in the day and I was one of those 10 that turned around and left because their outfits were ridiculous. They looked like extras in some 70s grind house undercover cop movie. There music was alright, but not good enough to justify those clothes. It was only after they loosened up a bit and shaved the My Name Is Earl moustaches that the world was finally cool being in the same room with them. So hipsters, if you want people to take you seriously dump the velvet sport coat and find some pants that wouldn’t fit my 3-year-old.
No New Radiohead Albums
And Radiohead fans, I have bad news. There may never be another Radiohead album. That’s not to say there won’t be more Radiohead music. They might release a song or two, but In Rainbows will likely be there last full album. The problem is not in the distribution or with not having a label. The problem, according to Thom York is the “creative hoo-ha.” Yes, apparently the band’s inspiration comes from some sort of giant vagina that shoot rays of creativity. Or at least that’s what I think he means because I typically only hear people use the term “hoo-ha” in reference to lady parts. He is from England so it’s possible that they may have some other definition for the term that encompasses the difficulties and process of being creative. But whether he was talking about an inspiration laser-shooting ham wallet or just the process by which musicians create art, either way he says that another album is unlikely. He says In Rainbows only came about because the band had a clear vision for the record and that trying to do that again would “kill” the band.