Concert Review - Barenaked Ladies @ Bank of America Pavilion 8/7/10

First, some back story:

The year was 2006, It was my first BNL concert and I was so excited. Halfway through the show I had to use the bathroom and couldn't put it off for another second. After the typical 20 minute wait, I was in the bathroom stall when I heard the band start playing "Call and Answer" with the audience going nuts after the first opening bars. I was wiping when they got the the "I'M WAAAARNIN YOU DON'T EVER DO THOSE CRAZY MESSED UP THINGS THAT YOU DO" part. Suddenly, the audience's screams of joy turned into screams of horror and pain. I finished up, washed my hands as quick as possible, and ran out to see what was the matter. What I saw was both the most horrible and glorious sight I have ever witnessed.

The band had finished playing the song and the entire venue was dead silent. I looked at across the room at the seats, and saw nothing but bloody, charred corpses. Everyone was dead, my parents included. I crawled to their seats on my hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably. "HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN" I whimpered into the pant leg of my dead mother's jeans. "WHY GOD, WHY???" But this was not the work of God.

I looked up and saw a golden hammer, loosing itself from my father's cracked, broken-in skull. It flew into the air toward the stage. I looked up into the sky and saw thousands of the things, all seemingly being pulled to the same spot. I stood up.

Steven Page was standing center stage while the rest of the band packed up their equipment. His unnaturally large mouth seemed to be stuck open as the hammers flew towards him, shrinking as they got nearer and eventually disappearing down his throat. Stunned, I fell back, landing on my mother's body. I heard a snap and her head rolled down into my lap. I screamed and dropped it onto the floor. When it hit the ground, it crumbled into an ashy white dust. I stood up, tears streaming down my face, and stared at Page. Apparently my scream had gotten his attention, because he was staring at me as well. We stood there, looking into each other's mind's for what seemed like an eternity (though realistically was more like 30 seconds). Suddenly, he broke the gaze, turned around and went backstage, maybe to have a glass of water before getting back onto the tour bus.

When he was gone from view I fainted, hitting my head hard on the concrete floor.

I woke up a couple days later in a hospital. It took me months to recover mentally and deal with the trauma of seeing my mother's burnt, severed head grinning up at me from my lap, but I'm fine now.

My therapist always used to ask me if I hated Mr. Page now, after all he's done to me and my family, but my answer is always the same: He may have killed my parents and an entire building full of other people's parents, but hatred is one thing I do not feel for him.

Here is a list of what I feel for Mr. Page:

1. Fear
2. Respect

So 4 years, 153 therapy sessions and 2 foster families after my last experience with Barenaked Ladies in a live environment, I decided that it was time again to face the band that killed my parents. Why now? Well, Steven Page was finally gone and there was no real threat of bodily harm or death to be found in the new four piece. Plus I liked their new album and figured it would be worth the risk regardless.

My foster mother and I were on our way to the venue an hour and a half early when we saw, standing outside a restaurant a couple blocks down from the Pavilion, Ed Robertson in his civilian clothes. I notified my foster mother that we were in the presence of a Music King and she didn't believe me until some other chick told her "YEAH THAT IS HIM TEE HEE" or something along those lines.
Anyway, he was with a friend or something, and when I got closer he looked at me and I could see the hate in his eyes. He leaned down to his friend and whispered "Oh shit, it's that guy who said Steve's single is better than most of All In Good Time. Let's get outta here." I know this because I am a master of lipreading from all the charity work I've done with the deaf. Anyway, I considered approaching him, but thought it best to just leave him alone while he's in such an agitated state. He walked towards the venue with everyone else following. Not in a stalker way, but more in a everyone's-going-to-the-same-place kind of way.

My foster mother did manage to get a picture of his back though. That WAS done in a stalker sort of way. The picture came out alright though. They could probably use it for cover art for a new album or single



He went around to the back of the venue to do drugs or have sex with multiple women or whatever they do to warm up before shows. I thought about following him and when we were all alone demanding either $20 of the ridiculous ticket price back or a haircut. My hair is pretty long and if he didn't have any money on him it would work because a decent haircut is usually somewhere in around $20 anyway. I didn't do any of that though. I entered the Bank of America Pavilion. From the front. Like a Real American Hero.

The first chick who played was alright. Until she did the Radiohead cover anyway. She did a great job and she has a great voice, but goddamn I hate Radiohead. I actually just now found out that she is black. A black person opening for Barenaked Ladies? This must be a first. Progress!

The dude who played next was pretty bad. What's he goin for, some kind of Bob Dylan/Neil Young/Lynyrd Skynyrd thing? Boring as shit. And he just kept going. And going. And going. I felt like running the mile from my shitass seat to the stage, jumping on, and setting his long hippie hair on fire.

After he was done douchin it up all was quiet and peaceful once more in the land of the Bank of America Pavilion. There was a projector on the walls with messages from people attending the show. I texted "herp derp" to it, and, unsurprisingly, it never showed up, making room for more important messages such as "I ate an entire raccoon once" and "Hiiiiii =D".

8 hours of Tetris later, Barenaked Ladies took the stage. They opened with "Who Needs Sleep" which is a weird opener, but I'm glad I got to finally hear it. I'm not gonna do some kind of track by track review, but highlights were:

- Easy
- How Long
- Another Heartbreak
- Sound of Your Voice
- Let There Be Light
- Four Seconds (sounds badass live)
- Alcohol

Last song they did was Brian Wilson, and while they do still sound like a BNL cover band on that one, it was pretty good. Not a trainwreck like some other live videos I've seen.

It was a pretty great show overall. Worth the $60? Maybe. But are the BNL sweatshirts they were selling at the merch booth worth $50? Fuck no. And AIGT is $25 on vinyl? I could buy the album 2 1/2 times on compact disc for that much. And what else do I get out of it? Bigger cover art? The cover art is just kind of them standing around looking serious. I don't need that that big for $25.

of Montreal - False Priest

Alright so today I got this thing in the mail. It's an album called False Priest by a band called of Montreal. What is of Montreal other than French-Canadians and their filthy gravy-soaked french fries anyway? Anyway, I opened the box and the first thing I noticed was the album cover. I could tell just by looking at it that this band was gonna be one of those "hey let's just make a giant clusterfuck of noise and call it psychadelic" bands. I wasn't wrong.

The album opens with "I Feel Ya Strutta" which I guess is some kind of wigger slang for something sexual. Not sure, but the song is like some kind of Bee Gees disco shit. There's a reason why disco died, of Montreal, and that reason is BECAUSE IT'S SHIT. I can't stand all these hipster bands trying to revive these demons that their rock n' rolling ancestors managed to finally destroy. Pisses me off.

"Our Riotous Defects" (oooh, wacky song titles! So psychadelic!) is a giant disco clusterfuck with an annoying falsetto chorus of "SHE'S JUST A CRAAAAZY GIRL" with verses that consist of lead singer Kevin Barnum talking like one of those bitches from that Clueless movie (it was on TV one night and I was drunk and couldn't find the remote, OK?). I think it's supposed to be funny, but it's really not. Not at all.

One thing I noticed on my first listen of this album was that Kevin Barnum does not know how to write songs. He lays down obnoxious, funky instrumentals and then talks over them. I'd say it's close to rapping, but that would imply that there is some kind of rhythm in there, which there is not. A good example of this is "Godly Intersex" which has to be one of the most dull things I have ever heard. OH MAN, LISTEN TO THOSE ECHOEY VOCALS. 10/10. Just kidding, you suck.

The highlight of the first half of the album is "Coquette Coquette," a song that, while pretty bad, is better than the rest of the songs because it actually has some guitar in it. Unfortunately, the break from shitty white boy faux-disco doesn't last very long, and you're treated to another delightful forty-something minutes of samey falsettos and synthesizers.

Actually, the whole rest of the album has 0 standout tracks (other than Sex Karma, which only gets a mention because it features the sister of Beyonce, an actually good singer and songwriter on it, doing most of the work).

The worst part of the album is the very last part. The "epic closer" as I'm sure most hipsters will call it, "You Do Mutilate?", ends with about a minute of Kevin Barnum preaching about God and Jesus and how bad religion is like this is some big, shocking news. Like God-fearing Christians and Muslim extremists are going to be listening to incredibly gay indie disco albums. Thanks Kevin Barnum, you really showed them and changed the world with your words and melodies. Shit, did I say melodies? What I meant was BULLSHIT.

Final Score:

4.3/10

(Extra 2 points added for Solange being on it).

MGMT - Congratulations

Holy fuck is that a cat surfing?

Anyway, this is an album by MGMT. What does that even stand for? MOstly Gay Manloving Tfaggots?

I'm listening to this album right now, and it's like, shitty surfgarage rock or something. Because we didn't get enough of that shit in the 60s, right? Give me a fuckin break."Brian Eno" is like this giant clusterfuck of reverb, organ and screeching. I actually had an organ once. I sold it. Because life is hard and you have to make sacrifices. These fuckholes in this shit ass band obviously don't know anything about hard work and sacrifice. They sound like a bunch of spoiled little shits who just learned how to make music. HEY LETS PLAY THE SAME LITTLE BASSLINE OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND WAIL OVER IT."

Did I mention that the singer sounds like the Arcade Fires? FUck that.

Another standout, "Kids" is some kind of techno shit. I bet they thought they were being so diverse, putting these different genres together, but it's just fucking BAD. Doesn't fit with the other songs at all.

By the way, fuck synthesizers. All these fuckin hipsters thinking they're gonna be so clever and ironic, bringing back cheesy synths to play in their shitty indie rock. There's a reason no one likes '80s music now, and that reason is synthesizers. Stick to guitars like real men you whiny little shits.

Final score:

1.7/10

Baby Giraffes - Fucking Sucks

So I was just emailed a link to this album called Fucking Sucks by a band called Baby Giraffes. This is a good title for this album, and I am going to tell you why: this fucking sucks.

My first thought upon listening to this was "why are Blink-182 selling out and using synthesizers like fuckin Britney Spears? Don't they have any self-respect left?" but then I remembered everything Blink did after that album about getting Enemas, and decided that no, they didn't have any self-respect. But then I heard these dudes rapping and noticed that "holy shit, this band isn't Blink at all."

I dunno what the lyrics are about (not that this ebonics trash is even real English), but this song I'm listening to right now is called "Pine Boys" which sounds like the title of a VHS tape passed around in the mail by shady pedophiles through PO boxes and shit.

These songs are catchy though. At least they have that going for them. "Giraffe Party" being a good example of that, with the brilliant chorus of "DO A LITTLE DANCE AND HAVE LOTS OF FUN, BABY GIRAFFES ARE NUMBER ONE/MAKE A LITTLE NOISE AND HAVE LOTS OF SEX, BABY GIRAFFES ARE THE FUCKING BEST!" What exactly they are the best at is unknown, but they seem pretty confident of this. Maybe they are the best at thinking they're the best? Ha ha ha.

There are some other songs about Yu-Gi-Oh cards or something, I dunno. I asked my friend (aka some random faggot I ran into on the internet) what he/she (I'm unsure of this person's gender) thought of this band, and s/he said "it sounds like Mindless Self Indulgence mixed with Hollywood Undead" and while I'm not too into it, I don't hate it enough to compare it to fucking MSI.

And holy shit, I just got to the song "Magical Sea Donkey" and good God, I'm actually glad for once that I blanked out typing this and started paying attention to the lyrics. This is probably the best educational song I've heard since the Magic School Bus and Reading Rainbow bullshit. I was immersed in the historical storyline of the song, and I'm betting you will too.

I was kind of iffy on this whole thing, but "Magical Sea Donkey" bumps this shit up by a couple points.

Final Score:
7.7/10

You can listen to the whole thing here for free. You can pay to download the mp3s but, like, who actually does that anyway? NOT ME. I'M A BLOG WRITER, MOTHERFUCKER. I GET THIS SHIT FOR FREE. I'm sure this band would use the money for meth and handjobs from 15 year old girls anyway.

Tall Building Box Set

A couple weeks ago, Tall Building dropped an A-Bomb on the indie world: an announcement that the band would be breaking up. Fans worldwide expressed shock and horror, even going so far as organizing protests and rioting. I personally made a trip across the country, from Bethlehem, New Hampshire to Olympia, Washington, the home town of most of the members of Tall Building.

I tried several times to track down the former members of Tall Building to ask them why they would do this to the world. To ask them if what was broken could be fixed, but I got mostly voicemails and some long, confusing directions from family members that took me on a wild goose chase to nowhere in particular. I finally gave up on my quest, but before I left, decided to pay a visit to Birdie McSun's grave to pay my respects and thank him for all the beautiful music he had given us (and for apparently holding the band together for so long).

When I got there, Aspie Lispen was lying on Birdie's grave, drinking something out of a bottle inside of a paper bag. His face was covered in beard and dirt. He told me that he'd been staying here, in this very spot, for weeks now. Apparently he took Birdie's death harder than the other members. He explained that occasionally Twee-Pain, one of the only neutral members of the band (as well as the last of Aspie's remaining friends) would stop by and bring him some veggie burgers so he didn't die of starvation. He wouldn't tell me where he used the restroom. He responded to most of my questions about the band with incoherent ramblings. I eventually decided that I'd had enough of this. I didn't want to see my musical hero at rock bottom, so I decided to leave. Before I could go, he grabbed me by my shirt collar and whispered into my ear. The smell of alcohol was heavy and it was making me sick, but when I heard what he was telling me, I ceased to notice.

I thanked him for this information and ran as fast as I could.

Soon enough, I was where it all started; Exploring the woods behind Kimya Dawson's house. I found the markings the band members left on their nature walks those fateful 2 months ago. Within a few hours I came to the clearing where the band recorded their first two releases, Branches and Sailboats in the Forest. Only it wasn't a clearing anymore. There was a tent pitched there. I approached the campsite slowly, but on one step, I felt a rope tighten around my foot as I was flung upside-down into the air.

A couple minutes later, an old man exited the tent, dressed in silky golden robes. He asked what I was doing here, and I told him what Aspie had told me: that I was here to find the Lost Treasure of Tall Building, and that his tent was right on top of its supposed location. But he didn't seem surprised when I told him this. He smiled. "I know" he said, "that is why I'm here. You see, I am the biggest Tall Building fan alive, and I have been here since the release of Sailboats in the Forest, looking for any scraps the band have left behind to add to my collection. I had zero luck until today. While digging, I hit something solid. I carefully uncovered it and found a box full of tapes. You actually got here as soon as I was playing them back. Would you care to listen with me?" I said yes and entered the old man's tent.

There he played for me the most wondrous musical creations I had ever heard. Some songs were beautiful. Some songs were honest. Some were beautiful AND honest. I was amazed and asked if I could buy them, but he outright refused, saying that these were his and his alone. I could beg and offer money as much as I pleased, but he would not budge. That was when I decided that drastic measures had to be taken.

I removed the cassette tape from my jean pocket. The old man looked at me confused until I showed him the label. It read Neutral Milk Hotel - Runaway Slave written in red crayon by Jeff Mangum himself. This was the lost Neutral Milk Hotel album, recorded before On Avery Island, only heard by Jeff Mangum, a man named Alfred Hybrid (who was viciously beaten and killed when his house was raided for the lost NMH tapes in early 2008), and myself. It was hard parting with this tape, but in the end it was worth it. In fact, I actually feel kind of bad for the old man, because was clearly ripped off.

So now I'm back at home, uploading these songs for you, the deserving public. Tall Building may be gone (for now), but maybe they can live on a little longer in our hearts with help from these recordings.

SO NOW READERS AND LISTENERS, I PRESENT TO YOU, THE TALL BUILDING BOX SET!

Tall Building breaks up

This is probably the worst news I've heard in the past couple years.

From their post on the Elephant Six Townhall:

We are very sad to inform you guys that Tall Building has broken up.

To be honest, it had been coming for a while now. Fights within the band during the recording of our last album were bad, but the VERY disappointing sales for Bermuda Adventure are just too much.

The rest of the members might go on to do other things. I don't even care anymore. I didn't even WANT to make Bermuda Adventure, so if these guys want to continue making their SELLOUT MAINSTREAM NICKELBACK SHIT fine by me. I'm out either way. Birdie would be appalled by what Buncen and Ricky have done to the band.

Thanks for listening,
Aspie Lispen and Tall Building

I've been trying to get some comments from the ex-members, but so far they're not answering. What the hell happened? I think I'm gonna be sick.

KFC - Double Down

To-day I will be doing something in-o-vative and in-spire-ing the likes of which you faygs haven't seen since Apple released the iPad. (There's my relevant, unoriginal joke for the day.) Instead of reviewing cool music for cool guys or unhetero music for unhetero guys, I am going to be reviewing something different entirely. A sandwich.

There has been a lot of controversy over this particular sandwich (called the "Double Down) probably because it sounds like a gay sex move involving three men. In one camp, you have the fucking PETA retards who hate anything good and spread propaganda about fast food saying shit like "It's bad for you" and "Don't eat cats and dogs." Let me ask you this you fucking PETA retards, if I spend a large chunk of my precious fucking time waiting on a WHITE WOMAN to fix my fucking dinner, aren't I retro-actively killing myself the same as if I just ate fast food, only in a different fashion? (Think hipster vs. goth.)

On the other side of this coin are black people, who FUCKING LOVE anything and everything fried chicken. While I wholeheartedly reccommend this sandwich (despite gay sex move name) to white people, black people need to stay way from it at all costs. It tastes pretty good if you're white, so if you're black this sandwich will probably react like fucking crack in your system and you won't be able to stop eating them.

Anyway on to the sandwich.

Basically it's two fucking pieces of fried chicken and some OTHER SHIT I don't care about because I love Fried Chicken. Eating this is like having sex with a woman who is all tits and ass, WHILE WATCHING THE SUPER BOWL. In fact, I would reccommend buying two of these bad boys, stacking them on top of each other and chowing down, just so you'll know what it's like to fuck two women and watch Superbowl 30 and 32 at the same motherfucking time holy shit I just creamed my Rocawear's.

Now if you're worried about negative health effects from eating this then DON'T BE. I found out that this sandwich actually has this cool thing where the more you eat the more weight you lose.

Just try eating seven of these bad boys and you'll puke more than you did the first time you performed a keg stand (probably lose about 20 pounds, see bulimia) I mean shit I'm selling this sandwich so hard KFC should put me in a commercial.

The only real downside is it gives me a headache, but fuck I get hammered every weekend and never bitch about a hang over, so who fuckin' cares?!

FINAL SCORE: