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What's up, kids? Just thought I'd put a few things on here worthy of your oh so pathetic attention spans.

• "Spoonboy" Combs is up on Punknews with a new interview. He tells the story behind the Max Levine Ensemble's new 7"/revenge against Ben Weasel.
• I read Pitchfork every day, but I found this hilarious and a bizarre angle of hypocritical: they ranked Andrew W.K.'s I Get Wet one of the top 200 albums of the decade (#144 to be exact), yet their editor-in-chief completely panned it when it came out in 2002 (0.6/10 to be exact). Is "I Get Wet" really this decade's Nevermind? In the sense of it showing critics' whimsy, yes. In every other sense outside of aesthetic awesomeness, no.
• Apparently, the Caps' prospects and General Manager are using OFB to negotiate their status on the Caps' opening night roster in Boston. Or, bloggers tend to work less than thrilling jobs.
• Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Bart forges a drivers' license and takes himself, Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin on a road trip? And Nelson, a huge Andy Williams fan, makes Bart stop at the concert? That was pretty funny. Turns out, Andy Williams is an asshole. "I can think of two things wrong with that title..."
• Make sure to listen tonight to "WGMU Should Be Laughing" tonight at 7pm ET on WGMU outta Fairfax. I'll be on with Courtney and Will, for real this time...

Also, the Caps are opening their season in a little more than 48 hours in Beantown against the B's (now with 100% less Phil Kessel). If you aren't already hype, you'd best get hype. Here is a freebie. More to come on Thoisday, probably. Have a good'un.

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Hey, everyone. Per usual, a confluence of crap has made it impossible for me to write anything big here or share any real opinions about anything, but I did share some opinions about quite possibly the great American rock album of the last twenty years over at ZMEMusic. Pull up a chair, have a read, and enjoy if you don't already own this album for whatever reason. Good night to the rock n' roll era.

I found out today that there's a human being named Steele Boomer. Also, he's a hockey player; he plays Center for the Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League. I really hope he makes it up to the big leagues some day, just to see those "Hockey Night in Canada" graphics with the word "Boomer" on them. Also, if his hockey career doesn't take off, there's always the wide world of porn, or UFC/MMA. This makes me happy, and I don't need to explain why.

Take a few minutes and watch this. Give your coworkers or anyone nearby a Gallagher-tarp to protect their nice new clothes from your brain when it gets blown out of your ears.

Have a great weekend! Go see 3 CHORD COMEDY TONIGHT at the Velvet Lounge on U St! Doug Powell, and other funny people for $2!

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So I've been trolling through Caps blogs and those of some adversaries as well, and for some reason, nothing got me quite as pumped as a couple of shaky minutes of HD video from some Sabres fan of a recent pre-season match in Buffalo.



You don't even know who scores here. Go figure. We do see John Carlson banging some people around, though. He and Alzner had better not get cut.

Anyway, tune into "WGMU Should Be Laughing" tomorrow night at 7PM ET. I'll be making my "big" return to radio sitting in with my good friends Courtney and Will. We'll be talking about life, music, movies, comedy, and whatever else YOU (person reading this) would like to hear about.

LISTEN LIVE HERE, and you can call us in the studio at 703.993.WGMU(9468) or IM us at 'WGMUOnAirStudio.'

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In case you haven't heard, the greatest band of the 1990's (by a hair over Blur) are getting back together to play some shows next year. As co-founder, and one of the five Pavement members who looks like they have no business being in a band, Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg, said recently to Rolling Stone magazine

"We've talked over the years, but the subject never came up. Then our agent asked us about these New York shows, so we went around to everybody in the band, and they said, 'Yeah, the time is right if everybody’s ready to do it, then we'll do it and see what happens.' There was no real impetus-- it just kind of happened naturally."

So, basically, the indie-cornerstone quintet are getting back together to play a few festivals, maybe a couple of headlining shows, and having the laid-back, care-free attitude about it that made their recordings so great over the 90's.

So, music fans all over the country and world are taking one giant collective shit in their pants and running around screaming about getting tickets. Skinny girls with bad self-haircuts that never even knew who Pavement were until their friend mentioned them after they saw "Garden State" in 2004 are ripping each others' hair out and biting each other's ears off.


This guy mentioned he knows where they're playing in Austin and the hipsters are beating him until he tells them all.

Anyway, fear not, fans of music that would be loved and cherished by everyone in the world if said world were a fair place, I've got a few easy steps that you can follow to watch Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich interact awkwardly on stage.

1. SIGN UP FOR EVERY PAVEMENT-RELATED FORUM AND KEEP THEM OPEN, AND HIRE AN ORPHAN TO ENTER THE PHRASE "ANY1 HERD BOUT TIX?" INTO EACH ONE EVERY 15 MINUTES UNTIL YOU GET BANNED.
If you used proper grammar, the web people would get concerned that you'd hired a Korean orphan to do your dirty work while you read Pitchfork in the other room.

2. FART REALLY LOUDLY, BUT IRONICALLY
All of the Brooklyn trustafarians will take notice to your ironic fart and realize that you mean business and deserve their extra tickets instead of giving them to StubHub.

3. KIDNAP SONIC YOUTH AND HOLD THEM HOSTAGE FROM MARK IBOLD
Tell him that if he ever wants to have a music job again after this Pavement reunion thing is over, that he'll play ball. Also, ask Thurston Moore how he's 50 but looks perpetually 33. Then sell his secret to Revlon and cash the fiock in.

Someone help them! I think Lee Ranaldo's been poisoned!

4. MAKE SWEET LOVE TO PITCHFORK WRITER TOM BRIEHAN
He's a pretty good guy; it could work. Granted, he's 7 feet tall (trust me, I went to school with him), and his wife may not be too thrilled.

5. IF NONE OF THAT WORKS, JUST FORM A SHITTY INDIE BAND AND HOPE YOU GET TO OPEN FOR THEM
Seriously, all you need to do is get good and playing the xylophone and some Brooklyn or Portland band will take you under their wing (it helps if you're a girl). Then, convince some bloggers to hype you up, get a decent review from Stereogum, and placate crowds of 50,000 people that are anxiously awaiting to see the band you're ripping off. You may even get to meet Stephen Malkmus and overhear him saying "Christ, I busted my ass for 20 years for THIS!?" as he walks away from you.

Happy Hunting!

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Wait... Kanye West is an egomaniac with a penchant for making an ass of himself in public? Wait... MTV still has the hubris to have a music-related awards show year after year?

I thought this was hilarious. Everyone was so horrified for poor, innocent Taylor Swift. She's going to sell more records because of this and people who aren't soccer moms and pop-country fans are going to find out who she is. Some of the remarkable things I've heard about her from people who've spoken up on her behalf include that she (gasp) writes her own songs and plays her own instruments. Wow. What a cultural dark age we must be in.

If you're in Baltimore, come out to the wonderful Sidebar Tavern tomorrow night at 9pm for the Black and Blue Collar Comedy Show! It's free with good cheap drinks.

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Hi, world. Sorry for the lack of posts on this site this week. Labor Day messed with me a little bit.

I'm writing for ZME Music, debuting my first column with them this Friday. Check it out here. I'll be back next week with relevant things next week.

If you're in DC, see this guy at 930 Friday at 6.

i don't really have time for fancy html coding or image imbedding... okay maybe just one...



ah, that felt good. where was i? oh yeah, Dan Snyder. I know I'm the 249,583rd person to post this sentiment about the Dan Snyder Virus (or DSV for short, to nab from John Joseph Cro-Mag), but this has gotten absolutely pathetic. I don't even LIKE the Redskins. But it's bad when someone with enough pride in his adopted city to root for hockey's (at the time) worst franchise, and baseball's (at THIS time) worst franchise can't conjure enough let's-go attitude to cheer for the one team that has the entire region by the balls. The Redskins have the undivided attention of the local news media after sucking for years. The Caps can't even buy this type of obsession after winning their freaking division and posting a back to back MVP. But oh right, hockey is from up there in Canadia and this just ain't a baseball market. Nothing like a good ol' God's America football franchise that shits enough over its own fans to dump thousands of begged-for tickets on bookies, scalpers, and other scumbags. We're naive if we think we can separate the team from the "franchise" and ownership egos. So that's why, because I love DC, I want to see the Redskins go 0-16 this year. I want the team to be humiliated, and I want to see every sports writer, pundit, and blogger call for Dan Snyder's head. Until the DSV gets run out of town on a rail, we will never have a winner on the gridiron. Because people are stupid, having winners on the ice and the pitch just aren't acceptable enough. We're going to have winners on the hardwood and the diamond, too, before the Redskins resemble a winning team, or even a team that deserves to win. This bothers me even more now BECAUSE I don't really care about the 'Skins one way or the other. It's reached the point where there's nothing that the DSV can do but cut and run.

UNLESS...

He makes it up to me and select other DC sports fans by coming out to one of these great comedy shows this weekend!

TONIGHT! ARLINGTON DRAFTHOUSE GRILL COMEDY FUNTIME! ONLY $5! HOSTED BY WILL HESSLER!7 IN THE PM!

TOMORROW THROUGH SUNDAY! DC IMPROV! HEADLINER ALLAN HAVEY WITH MC JAKE YOUNGGGG! $17 OR SO? I'M TOO LAZY TO CHECK!

SATURDAY NIGHT! BALTIMORE COMEDY FACTORY! HEADLINER JUSTIN SCHLEGEL, FEATURE DOUG "THE THUG" POWELL, AND AT THE 11 IN THE PM SHOW, GUEST SET FROM TYLER SONIXON! POW-POWER.

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Hey, I don't have a whole lot in the way of interesting things to write or Billy Karate videos to post, but I'm am proud to announce the SLAM! Music Project. TDC luminary Ted, who has moved back to New England recently, myself, and groups of our friends from around the country (and possibly world) will be posting their favorite albums and songs of this past decade. It's going to be an interesting confluence of musical tastes and opinions about where we find our culture in 2009. Stay tuned. I'm going to be releasing my top 100 songs of the Oughts (Aughts?) in clusters of 10, starting with #100-91 soon.

Anyway, because I don't want to deprive you all of some quality entertainment, here's a thing about the Misfits.



I wandered into a record shop in New York recently and they were blasting their 1982 album Walk Among Us, which only served as a shot in the arm reminder of how great this band used to be. Now, those of you who are down with this band don't need to hear this, but no Misfits records, songs, or references should be taken seriously without direct involvement from Glenn "Danzig" Anzalone. Think of how Ernest Hemingway felt about Bullfights outside of Spain. The Misfits is a nostalgia act, not unlike the Beach Boys, whose focal member is currently John Stamos.

Ok, applying that parallel, we can think of the Misfits as the Beach Boys or the Beatles of the 80's hardcore underground. Before you run off to wikipedia, what you really need to know is that the Misfit was a project that a group of working class Italian-American kids from Lodi, NJ got off the ground in the late 70's. They pumped out a string of unforgettable "hits" that the group's obsession with B-movie sleaze and subculture bound together. Unsurprisingly, some of their best singles lend themselves really well to any classic Hollywood (or, far from Hollywood) fare. Here are a few of entertaining tributes I found. Not masterfully edited, but they're decent eye candy.

"Hybrid Moments"


"Astro Zombies"


And the quintissential, "I Turned Into a Martian."


After the original/real incarnation of the band dissolved in 1983, Glenn Danzig became the batshit crazy Danzig that we know today, and began to permanently eschew wearing shirts. Here he is talking about his book collection.