Inappropriate, perhaps illegal...

...but kind of awesome.

Also, everyone knows about this by now, right?
Hopefully this news will be what it takes to put my man over the top.

Uh, oh.

Adjust the volume on your computer, grab a cold beverage, sit down and get ready. Your life is about to change forever.

Now, click here.

Introducing "The Mike Dixon"

My signature sandwich, which I just invented just now consists of:
Two slices of hearty light rye bread (seeded),upon each of which is slathered a sensible amount of creamy peanut butter, with a small handful of Uncle Ray's Jalapeno Flavored Potato Chips between.
++
Try it out!

3 quick reviews

Mark B. - Things Marb (Agent Records)
Even though this cd sounds like Pee Wee Herman singing for Dag Nasty (not much different from regular Dag Nasty - I never realized how similar Mssrs. Smalley and Ruebens sounded), and the lyrics are literally about the wonderfulness of a mall-punk life, I like it. Wait, I've revised my opinion slightly. Replace "Even though" with "Maybe because" and you can quote me on that.
-- Reviewer: mike owens (wichita falls,tx usa) - See all my reviews

Switchblade - Switchblade (Icarus Records / Trust No One Recordings)
"Scary" cover art, no song titles, and unintentionally hilarious lyrics printed on the cd case (ex: "Bring your needles and glasspipes for meditation in contempt / Stone yourself to heaven as another pitstop to Hell") made putting this one a dicey proposition, especially with all those unheard Cheap Trick bootlegs to listen to, but duty called. Not bad at all. I was expecting some pitiful nu-style-metal, but instead, Switchblade brings it heavy and droney with the mathematical, mostly instrumental spider-metal. Nice! Turns out they're from Sweden, which goes a long way toward explaining the lack of ironic b.s. posturing.
-- Rick Pencilman, Rock and Roll Dad

Underminded - Hail Unamerican! (Kung Fu Records)
Once again, I assumed when I shouldn't've, and made an ass out of u and me. I was expecting - I don't know, what I think Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday and all that bullshit sounds like, even though I've never heard any of it. Instead I got whay Metallica should probably be doing these days. Which is what Metallic a used to do. Excellent, precision guided stop-start, boomboom, wheedley-wheedley feats of inhuman crunch and crush. The tunes are nice and short, and boy oh boy do these gents have the chops. My only complaint is that the singers throat-shredding howl sounds a little thin. Guys: promise me next album you'll put a little reverb on the vox. That'd be great.
-- S.B. Sweaty

Old-school file sharing!

The first three people to send email here with their name and address shall receive a free hour-long cd mix of songs selected at random the Reglar Wiglar Super Computer.

The tracklist might look something like this:
Slayer - Reborn
The Afrika Korps - (I Want You) Everyday
Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Cold Blooded
Naked Raygun - I Lie
Pussy Galore - Hang On
Lil’ Keke - Still Tippin’
Killdozer - Funk #49
Crooked Fingers - Sleep All Summer
Scientists - The Spin
The Jesus Lizard - Nub
Lamps - Hot Plate
The New Professionals - I Wish You the Best
Jack-O and the Tearjerkers - Ain’t Got No Money
A-Frames - Galena
Ooioo - Be Sure to Loop
The Woodrows - Chili Finger
Iron Knowledge - Show Stopper
Jodeci - Cry For You
Melvins - Pick It N Flick It
Smog - The Well
Diamond Head - Am I Evil?
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Neu! - Im Gluck
Stains - Get Revenge
and so on for about an hour...

Come one, come all, man!

Mike Wing: crazy balls?

If anyone can verify certain claims stated on this web-page, we'd really appreciate it.

From the classifieds...

Internationally-distributed magazine seeks freelance writers. Perennially marginal publication, based in the midwest U.S.A., couldn't rub two nickels together, nevertheless has ambition to expand content, readership, advertising revenues, etc. Interviews with indie-rock bands (reality-based and otherwise), underground comics artists, "niche" fiction and "experimental" poetry are our stocks-in-trade, but we are desperate for new material. If you've got any better sense of what "the kids" are "into" these days, we beg you to share your information. Contributors are paid generously in the form of artistic freedom and satisfaction for accepted work, with bonus payment of punk cred upon publication. Interested parties should submit samples (pref. two long pieces and three short works), c.v. and contact info to the second stall from the back in the men's room at The Hidden Cove Lounge up on Lincoln. We're usually there on dollar draft night.

Waste more time on the internet!

Look:
Bill T. Miller has fresh pix of DMBQ (of which my favorite is this one)and a bunch of noise bands I've never heard of.
Dixon (no relation) has vintage snapshots of Scratch Acid, The Butthole Surfers,and The Dicks. Bonus: visual proof of a Dicks reunion that went down last month in Austin.
Murray Bowles saw Suicidal Tendencies, Fang,and Black Flag, at Berkeley Aquatic Park twenty two years ago, and today, you can see them there.
Tom Trocolli remembers D. Boon.

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
A year ago, I was so sure no one would top it, I proclaimed The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me to be the best rock album of 2004. In a deliberate attempt to confuse me, Comets on Fire released the most rock album of the year, but I realized the difference and remained confident in my proclamation. The problem was that most of my friends were already tired of me trying to convince them of the genius of Sammy Hagar and Larry Norman, so my endorsement was often just met with raised eyebrows. It didn't help that the most accurate descriptions I could come up with ("they sound like Keith Morris and The Silver Bullet Band parodying Lou Reed's 'New York', but with tons of clever in-jokes") made me sound like an idiot. By now, though, alot of people have heard the record, so I feel somewhat vindicated.
The Hold Steady's new one is called Separation Sunday, and it expands the sound of the first, while staying true to the bands unique vision. The bar-band schlock is way less Beaver Brown and way more E-Street, and the classic rock riffing isn't so much a pastiche - now they manage some genuine invention. Main guy Craig Finn's lyrical onslaught of pop-culture riffing remains, but he's lightened the density and strenghtened his storytelling abilities. On the first number, "Hornets! Hornets!", he winds references to Powell Peralta, Nabakov, and Kate Bush, an ...Almost Killed Me lyric, a St. Paul, Minnesota geography lesson, and an insistent boogie-riff that's half-Rush, half-ZZ Top around the story of a late night hookup that probably shouldn't be happening. While guys like Broooce Springsteen have characters that let it rip on the open road, The Hold Steady's songs are populated by losers in night club parking lots, waiting for a ride to the party where they can get some free drugs. Throughout the album, close encounters with 'killer parties', a crazy drug-runner named Charlemagne and numerous conniving "little hoodrats" (maybe they look like cardinals? I don't know, I never went to church) are peppered with the language of the lapsed Catholic having second thoughts. Some end up bad, some not so bad. There but for the grace of...
-- Mickey Maracas
(here's an mp3 of 'Stevie Nix' by the Hold Steady)

The Priests - Tall Tales

The Priests - Tall Tales (Get Hip)
Totally competent and by-the-numbers. If someone (an alien? The Pope?) asked you what rock music sounded like, you could play them this. This would do. No doubt about that. The Priests have every stock move down pat and show professional courtesy by executing them at each and every exact moment listeners are accostomed to hearing them. They always stay inside the lines of their Seeds Coloring Book. Um.... it's like they've got one of those old-fashioned dance-step diagrams, but it says "garage rock" on top of it. How many more ways should I come up with to say "this is really generic and uninteresting"? The only thing less original and uninspired than The Priests music, is the lame 'Unleashed in the East' send-up on the back cover of their cd. Okay, I'm done.
-- Larry "Burger" King

Om - Variations on a Theme

Om - Variations on a Theme (Holy Mountain)
Truth in advertising, man. The titular ‘theme’ is a “Snowblind” riff played on a drum kit and Rickenbacker bass with the fuzz and volume dialed up to “bulldoze”. The two dudes from Sleep's "classic" line-up who aren’t in High on Fire keep it simple with a perfect single-mindedness which, over the course of just three tracks and a whopping forty-five minutes, hardly changes color, and never gets boring. The vocals are chanted and incanted and the lyrics about…. I dunno, something pseudo-mystical, I’m sure. But who listens to the lyrics for the words? Not me. I'm here for the music bro. Totally sublime. Record of the year? Maybe, my dude, maybe.
-- Snort Johannson

DMBQ - The Essential Sounds From The Far East.

DMBQ - The Essential Sounds From The Far East. (Estrus)
The "Dynomite Masters Blues Quartet"'s a great and nutty heavy psychedelic demolition team from Japan. To my ears, they do a more tightly composed, though no more "in control" sounding, take on whatever it is that Comets on Fire are supposed to be doing. The berzerkest moments of early (but not Rod Evans-early (if you know what I mean)) Deep Purple could be a useful reference point for where these three gents and one lady lift off from. Whew, the sheer gonzo-ness of the band's attack - wild riffs, wandering fuzz bass, wailing he-man vox, and drums that may be operated by an unusually limber octopus - is just alot of fun to listen to. The musical action doesn't barrel forward so much as float above the ground erratically like a hot-air balloon that's lost its captain overboard. While a band this great and uncategorizable may seem a little out of place on the Estrus label, I'm not going to complain or hold it against anybody. More people should make records like this.
-- Country Joe McDonald's