The Reglar Wiglar Record Review of Let the Dominoes Fall by Rancid!

I never knew me too much about this band Rancid, other than a string of major red flags: media-industrial complex backed, relatively mega-selling ska/street/pop punk rawk, presumably popular in malls, performed by living breathing cartoon punk rockers (complete with fake British accents) and shamelessly derivative of better bands that I probably don't care to listen to much anyway. No thanx, I always thought, I'll die listening to god-damn Green Day before I give a second of my time over to this shite. But I'll be dipped in mohawk wax if I'm not kinda going bonkers for this brand new Rancid album.
I wasn't wrong about where these guys are coming from aesthetically, but I was wrong about my capacity to enjoy it. This is a record chock full of toe-tapping, fist-pumping jams (and a handful of tender ones) certain to keep the pits full all summer long.
Rating: two boots straight up in the air!

The Reglar Wiglar Record Review of "Chinese Democracy" by Guns N. Roses

...will be ready by the end of the summer.

D.O.A., cont'd

I witnessed DOA tearing it the m*therfuckin' up down in Lawrence KS in 1990(?)at a place called the Outhouse. Fairly legendary venue, with a shocking array of big names appearing on show fliers throughout the years. Located about 4 miles off the main strip in town, and the size of an... 8 car garage, with lots of country punkers hanging out in the parking lot, not necessarily checking out the bands. It's weird, because that date seems a little late in the game, but it's almost 20 years ago, and D.O.A. is still touring! My experience with and what I hear of most of these older bands who've gotten back together/never completely hung it up has been pretty good, so I'd go see D.O.A. in 2009, sure!
This band called Negazione opened up. They were Italian and reminded me quite a bit of the Scorpions. I never got around to getting a Negazione record, but both bands are on the P.E.A.C.E. comp, which of course, I've got. Meanwhile, back in town, my dad and I went to see the Smithereens at a bar that same summer. They tore it up too.

D. Rider - Mother of Curses: The Reglar Wiglar Record Review

Urbandictionary.com defines 'D-Rider' as "someone who rides dick or is all up on your meat" or alternately, "a dusty kid in your crew". The liner notes to Mother of Curses, the debut record album by Chicago's newest elite music ensemble D. Rider, credits one "Deathrider" as the drummer, vocalist and strings-ist on it's accompanying musical collection. Quite the conundrum. And while we'll have to wait and see if we ever get to the bottom of this, in the meantime we can contemplate the music.

First a touch of background: Tha D, as we shall not call them, are the latest musical manifestation of Todd Allbbertt Rittmann. TAR is known to many as the tall "low" guitar player in U.S. Maple, and he may also be seen fucking around as a member of Chicago supergroup Singer and Northwest Suburban supergroup Cheer Accident. Rittmann (a.k.a. th'forementioned "Deathrider"), once again the tallest member of the band, sings lead and plays all the standard, manly "rock" instruments himself. He is invaluably augmented by Andrea Faught, who also works for Cheer-Accident, on keyboards, coronet and vox, as well as saxophonist/singer Noah Tabakin, of gonzo marching band Mucca Pazza.

Fans of U.S. Maple's singular knotty stumble will find much to like on Mother of Curses. The record represents a clear departure as it eschews USM's small-group naturalism in favor of some tastefully restrained but playful studiobound pot-stirring. As the record opens, the tone and rhythm are set by the sound of a magic marker writing. A minor key electric guitar, stately, not unBonham-ish drums, fuzz bass and a coed duet vocal fall in line one by one - like a tired Skrull regiment marching out to conquer, again. The tension builds but never quite subsides or climaxes. As the record progresses song to song, the sense of resigned dread intensifies. But this is not some sadsack downer bullshit. No it isn't. The assertive nature of the musical and vocal arrangements - there's funky bass, badass horn lines, whawazzat harmonizing, calming spurts of lovelyness, and jaw-dropping axe shredding scattered all over this thing - and the lyrics - vaguely gallows-humorous, mostly impressionistic meditations on war, sickness and isolation - are cut with a celebratory anxiousness.

There's been some talk wherever it is that people 'talk' these days, speculating that the current world reality may well inspire and inform some great musical statements like we saw in previous eras of turmoil. Of course, I'm not sure what's going to happen (major caveat: I haven't heard the new Morrissey album, the one with the cover where he's holding the baby yet), but I am prepared to go out on a limb and throw Mother of Curses on the pile with Blood Visions and Life...the Best Game In Town as an avatar of 21st century visionary rock and roll music.

******

Check for Mother of Curses at your local retailer, your preferred online source, or check with Chicago Independent Distribution.
Consumer note: the 12" vinyl l.p. contains a coupon for a free digital download of the album in mp3 or flac format. The download includes one song that is not on the cd or vinyl edition of the album.

Reglar Wiglar Comic Book Review: Invincible Iron Man #9

Hey, did you hear? Tony Stark is in trouble again, mainly due to the fact that now none other than NORMAN F**ING OSBORN has his old job of having Nick Fury's old job and, for instance, making sure alien shapeshifters don't conquer Earth-616 (or at least the USA part of it), among other things. Imagine if you were fired from your job as a warehouse manager or whatever and your boss says "Sorry my man, but I think it's time for you to move on, and we're going to hand the keys over to this guy who's simply LEGENDARY for terrorist acts against warehouses, because he just moved a big crate on tv." Anyway, I'm happy that Tony looks like Tony again. For a while, he had a goatee like in the movie, and for a while before that, he had a goatee AND he looked like Tom Cruise. Sorry, Stan. Tony Stark a) doesn't have a goatee, and b) he doesn't look like Tom Cruise, because c) he looks like this:





















They say comics aren't for kids anymore, and it's true. They're too expensive, and probably quite boring compared to video games and free online pornography or whatnot. Though they're certainly more engaging than Twitter, which is why kids these days are for shit, and you could do much worse than spending 3 bucks a month on Invincible Iron Man. It's not like Dan Clowes is coming out with a new issue of Eightball before the end of the decade or anything.

Reglar Wiglar Film Review: Tropic Thunder

Selected quote from Tropic Thunder
"I'm a lead farmer, motherfuckers!"

Aside from that, a bad, forgettable movie. Chock full of laffs but ultimately shallow and unsatisfying. It's no The Cable Guy by any stretch. It's also no Anchorman, but it's dangerously close. Terrible script and waste of talent.
Ben Stiller and Jack Black are both extremely overrated, as they are both not quite funny in this movie, just as they almost always are..
Robert Downey Jr., of course, delivers a tour de force performance.
Tom Cruise and Jay Baruchel, both excellent actors, also do quite well with extremely shitty material, but not enough to rescue this pitiful effort.

ANALYSIS: Basically sucks. For comedy completists and Downey-philes (and/or Cruise-o-maniacs) only.

I just fuckin' watched the fuckin' Tenacious D movie

I just fuckin' watched the fuckin' Tenacious D movie from fuckin' beginning to fuckin' end. I'd seen a few fuckin' bits and pieces of it fuckin' before, because HBO runs it like twice every fuckin' day. Sometimes even at like 9 in the fuckin' morning. Anyway, this fuckin' movie is not very fuckin' good. It's pretty fuckin' funny in a few fuckin' parts, but there's just something about the fuckin' dialog that fuckin' bothered me a bit, you fuckin' know what I mean? It was like all the fuckin' characters kind of talked in this fuckin' same fuckin' annoying fuckin' unrealistic manner that tended to fuckin' grate on my fuckin' nerves after a fuckin' while. Like the way every fuckin' character said "dude", too fuckin' much. Also, the way they fuckin' talked about "rock" like every fuckin' five fuckin' seconds. It's called "rock and roll" and Tenacious D fuckin' sucks dog dicks at it. Dave Grohl impresses me slightly less. I'm sure there are other fuckin' examples of the fuckin' tedious nature of the fuckin' dialog, but I'm at a fuckin' loss right now, as my brain has been beaten into fuckin' submission by the tedium of the fuckin' "comedy". One fuckin' thing they did alot was when a character was fuckin' explaining some fuckin' important thing to another fuckin' character, he (there were no fuckin' main fuckin' female characters in this fuckin' movie (I'm not fuckin' sure if that's fuckin' relevant or fuckin' not (just fuckin' sayin'))) fuckin' squatted down and said his fuckin' lines reaaaalll fuuuucccckkkinnn' sloooowww and bounced on his fuckin' knees and held his fuckin' arms out for fuckin' emphasis, I fuckin' guess. Anyway, also fuckin' annoying.
As I said, it was pretty fuckin' funny in some parts, it was pretty fuckin' unfunny in way fuckin' more parts. I mean, fuckin... what a fuckin' waste of Neil Hamburger - one fuckin' half a line, give me a fuckin' fuckin' break - and an even fuckin' worse waste of fuckin' enormous talent was Paul Fuckin' F. Tompkins, the famous fuckin' comedian, and the current funniest fuckin' guy around. And what the fuckin' fuck? Was he supposed to be the fuckin' devil in disguise fuckin' all along, or was that just some fuckin' lazy fuckin' screenwriting?
You know what this fuckin' movie reminded me of? Fuckin' Anchorman - a reasonable time:laugh ratio that, due to fuckin' weak-ass fuckin' character development, and a sloppy fuckin' storyline that fuckin' felt like it took less time to fuckin' write than it did to fuckin' watch - adding up to a fuckin' deeply unlikeable fuckin' movie.
Thumbs fuckin' down! Fuckin' zero fuckin' stars!
-Jack Blecchh

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

There is a new Yo La Tengo album and it has a bunch of songs that start and then go on for a while and then end. The songs are enjoyable, as is the album as a whole. You can buy it on cd or on vinyl lp, or you can even pay to download it from a website. Or I suppose you could even find a place to download it for free, if you don't have an ethical problem with or a fear of being punished for doing that sort of thing. Nevertheless, in addition to the many ways you can get the music, there are even more "places" to find reviews to read. As far as we're concerned here, though, the most important thing about the record is it's cover, and specifically it's artist - the inspirationally indefatiguable Gary Panter - with whom we conducted an exclusive interview, which you can read by manouvering your computer mouse over and clicking this line of text.

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

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