sandy

I'm unhappy.

Right now, this very moment, I am listening to Three Days Grace 'The Animal I Have Become'. I guess this style of music is about... 10 years old? Creed's My Own Prison came out in 1997, so I guess this is a birthday of sorts. Perhaps it's the ten long years, but I feel that we've sadly gotten somewhat desensitized to this genre, this post-grunge. Acquainted with, even. It doesn't offend, it doesn't intrude. It just poops noisily out of various Ford Mustangs, and we don't even feel our bile rise anymore. How could this have happened? Guitars distorted and compressed into a gentle pulsating sine wave has never, ever, sounded good to anyone I know. Isn't it a fact that this is a bad sound? How correct does an opinion need to be before it gets promoted to fact? The vocal technique known as 'yarling' (singing with a constant 'r' lurking behind every syllable, consenent and vowel) truly and sincerely causes physical pain. I believe this can be objectively proven in a laboratory, perhaps with rats cowering in the corner as Scott Stapp look-alikes bellow furiously at them.

"I can't escape this hell,
So many times I've tried
But I'm still caged inside"

And as oppressively unlistenable as the music itself is, it serves as a canvas for the kind of poetry that angry and horny young men ooze. It oozes right on out of them, and they grab their shirts and they wring them out and all of the words plop onto the floor, and then they start to yarl them.

And yet... And yet!

Three Days Grace. And Hinder. And seriously, I know it's redundent like calling Hitler evil is redundent, but seriously: Nickelback. Please stop, post-grunge bands. Really, really please stop making music. Or no, rather, keep making music. I don't care. Please, please stop, post-grunge listeners. Stop encouraging these bands. Stop giving them your money. Stop requesting them on radio stations who's morning DJ's have names like Buzz and Blurpo. Don't you have a motor vehicle to fuel-inject or something?

I'm changing things around. I'm removing certain blogs. I'm self-editing. I'm going to use that lint-roller more.

What, did I lose a bet? Yes, but not recently. The reason is that upon rereading certain posts I found that if someone was really clever they could ascertain my current address, my social insurance number, even my hair colour! Ha, nice try identity thieves! What you didn't count on was my sobering up to read what I wrote! What you, the readers, will find now is the same fast-paced drama and quick-witted action that has always been available, but certain important names and dates have been altered. For everyone's safety, I think.

Dear Blog:
Today was okay. I went to the INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT to APPLY FOR A JOB AS A MACHINIST. TED MAHAMAJAM eventually met me for a round of SHAMPOO, and I WALKED PURPOSEFULLY back to my THATCHED HUT in ALABAMA.

Yours,
PAULO MENDEZ

I'm almost certain that Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum know each other. How could they not? I'll bet at this very moment they are in a castle drinking 15 year old scotch (neat, of course) and just looking bug-eyed at each other. They've been doing this for days. Suddenly, Jeff breaks the silence... He suggests that they make a movie together... Sort of a Back to the Future/Jurassic Park mash-up. Christopher Lloyd quietly laments that the true tortured emotion which he brought to Uncle Fester was left on the cutting room floor. Jeff wonders if Christopher even listens to him anymore. And maybe he would if Jeff tried to look nice once in a while. Of course, if Christopher ever took Jeff someplace fancy he might make more of an effort. And then there's the matter of who will take Willem Dafoe for his walk.

I imagine that this castle is in Wales.

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My new favourite guitar player? Robbie Robertson. Although Charlie from Lost has been making some powerful arguments as of late.

Apparently magenta isn't a colour. Just when you think you know a guy.

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So I was in Diagon Alley the other day illegally purchasing Quinzy songs off of some trench-coat'd gentlemen when I realized that bloggy blog blog blog. Does anyone really think that they're interesting enough to warrant a weekly expulsion of their life onto the intertubes? I mean, if they're not me? Anyway, after beating ZombieHitler in an arm-wrestle, I sprinted 20 kilometers back to Austria, built an orphanage and then juggled flaming chainsaws for three straight days.

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Music reviews and this guy have a complex relationship. I am badly addicted and they are like sweet, sweet crack to me and yet they are infuriating, either because of their breathtaking superficialiaty or they're so convulutedly 'meta' and self-referential that they dissolve into a soupy post-modern mess. Moreover, as most music-writers are (surprise!) writers, they focus mainly on lyrics. Which is cool. As I age they do seem to be get more and more important. Yet, wouldn't it be neat if they actually did some shout-outs to a really mind-blowing chord turn-around or subtle rhythm change? If they really dug their hands right into the music and pulled out long steaming entrails of actual musical events to display to the world? I will do a music review right now, albeit a short one:

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

In 'Australia' when suddently a bunch more people sing the last chorus, that's really great. Also it's really great that none of the choruses in the album use the same words each time. That's innovative and makes repeated listens really fun. Good for them. 'Spilt Needles' has a beautiful verse and chorus melody, along with the strongest bridge in the album, but the mellotron-like instrumental section could use less repetition.

See? Direct and to the point, with clear examples. I may do more.