Friday, April 29, 2005

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.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

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.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Chinese Pizza

One time in Michigan City, Indiana, a friend and I made a frozen pizza in a wok. Yes, we were wasted. No, it didn't work very well and yes, we ate it. I remember it being not too good. I wouldn't recommend doing this but a) the oven wasn't working and b) that was all there was to eat in the whole house and c) we were drunk and probably stoned.

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!

The Ironic Mustache of Wicker Park (A Poem)

I think I know how it started
Whilst shaving
Creative Facial Hair Games are over
The goatee must be gotten gone
But wait--
Wouldn't it be funny?
A Hitler 'stache? A Chaplin?
Why not leave the whole thing on?
Wouldn't that be funny?
What would people think?
They wouldn't know what to think
And that's how we'll fool them.

But what about the ladies?
Will they get it?
Do they want 1982 all over again?
All over them?
Perhaps they'll wonder, as the t-shirt advertises,
Are Mustache Rides really five cents?

And what about our history?
Our fathers have been wearing mustaches for decades if not centuries
Aren't we just becoming them?
Aren't we just becoming who we really are?
Grow that mustache young hipster
Defy convention by conforming to it
Be as punk as Selleck, as cool as Kotter
Be who you are. Be yourselves!

"Too much mustache in the monitor!" someone shouted to the bass player at the Hot Snakes show
How prescient was that? How right on?

Friday, April 15, 2005

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!

From our mailbag

Dear Reglar Wiglar,

Take your silver spoon, and dig your grave. Heartless challenge: pick your path and I’ll pray. Wake up in the morning, see your sunrise loves to go down. Lousy lovers, pick their prey but they never cry out loud.
Did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love? Is it over now? Do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?
Rock on, ancient woman. Follow those who pale in your shadow. Rulers make bad lovers. You better put your kingdom up for sale
Did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love? Is it over now? Do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?

Rock on,
Gold Dust Woman

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

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.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

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.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

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

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

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

Monday, April 04, 2005

Minimal review upload


Mahjongg - Raydoncong (Cold Crush Records)
The American Boredoms? Their thank you list includes Don Bolles, 'Hot' Doug Sohn, and Tux Dog? They mold complete and utter nonsense into the approximate shapes of Led Zeppelin (to use one example) and Third World (to use another) by sheer force of will? Yes, yes, and yes. And much more. 2005 sure is a much better year for albums so far than a person in my situation has any business knowing. And this here Mahjongg item is another black mark on my permanent record.
-- Fats Domino's

What would you ask King Buzzo?

If you had the chance to talk to The Melvins what would you ask them? Let the Reglar Wiglar know.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Friday, April 01, 2005

Dunc the Punk's Record Reviews!!!

A Faith Called Chaos
Forgive Nothing (Volcom)
The drummer in Dunc's band 'Shit The Bed' is nicknamed Chaos because he's a no-talent shit sack who can't keep time. Dunc only keeps him around because he owns a working slice. Amazingly, these metal no-marks are so bad they make him look like a fucking rock god. Unforgivably wank.

A Perfect Murder
Unbroken (Victory)
Dunc has always thought that hypnotizing someone into topping themselves would be a perfect murder. Although for it to be truly perfect, it'd be best not to reveal the plan in a world-renowned music publication. No problem mentioning it here then.

Cast Aside
The Struggle (Death Wish Inc.)
Dunc's pot and pan Ray always used to say 'if you can't say something nasty, don't say anything at all'. So Dunc will cast this record aside without further comment and head down to his local battle.

Kill Verona
Trauma (Livewire Records)
Dunc would rather catch knobrot off a soap-dodging slapper than sit through another emo album ever again. So, the fact that Dunc had to listen to this record after getting the bad news from the doc was a particularly cruel slice of Donald Duck. Traumatic indeed.

Motion Picture Demise
Rebuild/Reform (Orange Peel)
Dunc's favourite movie death is in 'Wanted: Dead or Alive', where Rutger Hauer shoves a grenade in Gene Simmons' North n South, and pulls the pin. This troop of sod apes are so bad, they deserve at least 5 grenades each, and maybe some dynamite up the ringpiece for good measure.

North Side Kings
Organizing Our Neighborhood (Thorp)
This lot obviously think they are hard as monkeys. Well, if they think that they have a chance of organizing Dunc's neighbourhood, they'll have to take on the Inter City Firm, and that ain't gonna be pretty. Better watch your Fleetwoods North Side Queens.

Paulson
Variations (Initial)
The cover of this record has a naked bint wrapped in cling film on it. Which reminds Dunc of a website he stumbled across while trying to download the latest Abi Titmuss home movie. In it, some bacardi, who is clearly Patrick Swayze, writes stories about Roy Orbison being wrapped in cling-film (www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/karl.htm). Fuck knows why, but it's infinitely more interesting that listening to
these indie cock socks.

Razorlight
Up All Night (Universal)
Up All Night? Sounds like a Viagra ad campaign slogan or something. You'd need it too, if you wanted to come anywhere close to getting a lob on for these limp-dick Jam rip-off merchants. Razorlight? Razor shite, more like.

Straylight Run
s/t (Victory)
This record is so fucking bland you'd expect to hear it on one of those poxy shows on the KY Jelly where nancy boys over-intellectualize every fucking aspect of their lives in the hopes they might get to cop a feel of a set of carpets. With song titles like 'Existentialism on Prom Night' you won't need Dunc to tell you what tremendous cunts they are, but he will anyway: Cunts!

This Providence
Our World's Divorce (Rocketstar Recordings)
Don't get Dunc startedd on his divorce. The scabby old tart runs off with her boss and then expects to get half of Dunc's crosby. Just Dunc's luck that he ends up with a female garden gate, who buys into the argument that pressuring your missus into wife-swapping somehow constitutes emotional distress.

Reglar Wiglar Guide To Chitty Chitty
Chitty Chitty (Bang Bang) = Cockney Rhyming Slang
Slice (Pan) = Van
Pot and Pan = Old Man, Father
Battle (Cruiser) = Boozer, Pub
Donald Duck = Luck
North n South = Mouth
Monkey's (Tails) = Nails
Fleetwood (Mac) = Back
Bacardi Breezer = Geezer
Patrick Swayze = Crazy
KY Jelly = Telly, TV
Carpets (and Rugs) = Jugs, Tits
Crosby (Stills & Nash) = Cash
Garden Gate = Magistrate, Judge

Minor zine review upload

The Mig
Long-time listeners of Tom Scharpling's 'Best Show on WFMU' ought to know frequent caller and occasional in-studio guest Petey by now, and those who don't (listen or know)... I pity you. For those in the know, there's The Mig. A monthly one-page newsletter, lovingly cobbled together by Petey himself, and printed up on his dad's color bubble-jet printer. Fascinating infos on Zen Buddhism, trancendental art, 'Up With People' quotes, what's happening in gym class, and many more vicarious thrills are yours free of charge when you enter the world of America's only cool teenager. Go to www.suburbanalcuts.com/mig.html to sign up for a subscription.


200 Lb. Underground #4

Apparently returning after a long absence at the urging of Ben Chasny, this hot little 8-page, color xeroxed number is something else you should probably have. A good read, even if the coverage is outrageously obscure: the only names I was familiar with in the review section were Terry Reid, Mike Fellows and The Chiefs. A few pages of defiantly unalphabetized record reviews and a Magick Markers tour diary are sanwiched between a brief intro and a VERY tough 'Hardcore Trivia' contest (ex: "What member did Mutha recording artits FATAL RAGE and CHILD ABUSE share?"; "What Detroit club had the well known peep holes where Tesco Vee and other 'perverts' leered at ladies going wee-wee?"; "BONUS QUESTION - Why are TSOL so lame"). A true bad-ass, Tony doesn't have a web site, but he only wants a buck for the zine. Email him at trettman at hotmail.com to find out where to send it. It's hard to say if and when he'll get around to doing another issue, but 'til then, I'll be keeping my copy of this one safe - tucked between the last page and back cover of my copy of Forced Exposure #18.

For the Clerisy #s 55-59
While I'm totally 'down' with their 'mission', The Believer looks and feels more like a literary zine published by The Gap every time I see it. For the Clerisy, though, is more in line with my aesthetic: cut, pasted, photo-copied, and stapled. Compared to it's Dave Eggers-aligned spiritual cousin, it offers omnivorous readers-for-pleasure a more compact, less grad-school alternative. Each month, Brant K. spins out a roughly-themed 20 pages of encapsulated commentary on books, movies, zines, and eyeglass fetishism. (order it from: Brant Kresovich, P.O. Box 404, Getzville NY 14068-0404 / trade or $2 per issue)

Crippled by Depression #2: Why Don't Nobody Love Me?
by Adam Beebe-Infanticide
I'm sure there are dozens upon dozens of "skinny-ass honky-nerd man-child"s trawling for dates on Craig's List any given week. This one dude, though has done so and published his ads along with the subsequent convos with interested and uninterested parties alike. It's probably about as interesting as 50 pages of bored peoples email can be.
($5 ppd / Mishap Productions 846 Pine Flat rd. Santa Cruz, CA 95060 usa)

-- Mike Dixon