The Contrarian

So, Yeah. . . Baltimore.

Big stage. Regular-sized Neil.

Got caught up in stuffs yesterday, and didn't get to tell you about my trip to Baltimore to hang out with my singer-songwritin' buddy Neil Cleary, who was opening for British pop-jam-rockers Gomez at Ram's Head.

It was a private show for the attendees of a big organic convention held at B-More's lovely Inner Harbor. Neil and I cruised the food section, eating free samples and drinking thimblefuls of wine, which actually got us both a bit buzzed. My wagoneering has resulted in remarkably diminished tolerance. . . wonder what Neil's excuse was? This booze booth was "manned" by a 16 year-old kid who reminded me of George Michael Bluth at the family banana stand. We really got a kick out of him.

Pre-show was a blast; I've known Neil for over a decade, but we rarely get much bro time. We spent a good portion of the night in the green room, passing the acoustic guitar back and forth, playing and singing everything from "I Wish I Was in Dixie" to Elvis Costello ditties. Actually, the latter were all Neil. I could only half-remember a few Beatles and Stones numbers.

At first glance, Ram's Head seems like an odd venue, at least layout-wise. The main floor is rather small, but this is made up for by a couple of wraparound balconies, each equipped with a bar. It's a pretty decent design; you get a clear view of the stage from just about anywhere. Queens of the Stone Age played the night before; Morrissey will be there there in a couple of weeks.

Neil's set was great, but I ended up zoning out on the the last few tunes. This had nothing to due with his performance, but rather my embroilment in conversation with the General Manager of Music Matters — an organization which, among other eco-friendly activities, "greens up" tours by big-name and developing artists. (They were also responsible for putting together the entertainment for this particular event).

Gomez, well. . . I'm not much of a fan. English acts would be well advised to not imitate American jam bands — it just sounds forced. Their Brit-rockish stuff is OK, but there's a "heard-it-all-before" quality to their material. Neo-hippies dig it, though. Go figure.

After the show, I had a couple more house brews, which tasted the same way going down as one imagines they would coming back up. Now that's consistency.

I also found the bathrooms somewhat distasteful. In the men's room was an aging black porter, working for tips. He was quite sweet, but do I really need a senior citizen squirting soap in my hands, keeping the water running and then toweling off my mitts? I'm sure it's some kind of living, but it smacks of the kind of institutional racism I thought we had put behind us.

Anyway.

Here's the opening cut from Neil's new album, I Was Thinking of You the Whole Time. You can buy it on iTunes or what-have-you.

MP3: Neil Cleary — "The Go Ahead Girl"

Guess what? Me an' Neil found some more creepy "lifelike" sculptures! What is it with Maryland and off-putting statuary?

Neil and his partner read the riot act to a Golden Hippie.

"I'm not holding, Narc!"

"We've got the goods on you, Punk. Just come clean."

"I dunno. . . Maybe he's telling the truth. . ."

"Don't look into his eyes! Oh no — it's too late!"

New Dumb Metal Video.

Got a couple of minor errands to run before I can tell you what went down last night in Baltimore. . .

Until then, feast your eyes on another lyrical reinterpretation of a classic metal song, by the same English nutters who brought you "Fucking Hoff-Style." This one is a riff on Slayer's "Angel of Death." The clip is funny, sure. But the music makes me realize that, even after two decades, "AOD" still, ahem, slays. Courtesy MetalSucks, of course:

PS: If you haven't a;ready watched Mr. Caldwell's footage of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad protest, you really should. Back in a bit. . .

Ahmadinejad: Come to New York! Get Yelled At! — By James P. Caldwell

General Assembly week is winding down here, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is heading back to Tehran after having the proverbial brown carpet rolled out for him in the Big Apple. He didn't even get to see any Broadway shows! Maybe next time. On Monday morning, after Mahmoud stood me up for our date at Ground Zero, I headed up to Columbia University to see how he was being greeted there:

A Pic that Bears Re-Posting.

Found this over at Undead Molly's place. No idea where it originally came from. Funny, and pretty much right on the money:

Linkdump & TV Talk.

Myself or one of my underlings will be back a little later with a more substantive post, but 'til then. . .

The music business is in free-fall. Artists don't make any money. The CD is dead. Blogs have a negligible effect on sales. Time to start a label?

Maybe we can sell lossy, compressed audio via Amazon!

Here's the tracklisting for the third installment of that dumb rock guitar video game everyone loves so much but I can't stand.

Speaking of guitars, check out this adorable little amp!

Onward.

The new TV season is upon us. Snobs, you can stop reading and go whittle yourselves a chessboard.

The rest of the world has already done their fall season previews, but we might as well reveal what we're excited about (and what we can't stand).

Happy to have "House," The Office," Dexter" and "Weeds" back. Don't blow it, kids.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" officially sucks. If you can't recognize this simple fact, you're in denial. Last season was weak, but this one is downright unwatchable. The scenarios are forced and completely out-of-touch with reality, sapping the show of its comedic juice. One-trick-ponies don't necessarily bother me — I like "Little Britain," after all. But I cannot tolerate this degree of laziness. Larry David, methinks it's time to gather your fat wad of cash and go home.

On a brighter note, AMC has renewed "Mad Men," which is possibly the best program currently on television. Well, at least until "The Wire" comes back. Buy it from iTunes or wait for the DVDs, but watch, for chrissakes! A word of warning to those who like crime scenes and 'splosions: nothing happens on this show. But gorgeously.

Ken Burns' new documentary, "The War," is heartbreaking, to say the least. Best thing about the 14-hour series so far? No Shelby Foote! Not sure if the WWII lot are really the Greatest Generation, but I do know this: when asked to make sacrifices for the future of freedom, they did more than just go shopping.

You can feel free to skip "Chuck," on the CW. It blows. Hope "Reaper" (which premieres tonight) is better.

The Season Two debut of "Heroes" was a little wobbly, but there seems to be plenty of room to for the storyline(s) to develop.

Since we're still talkin' TV. . . caught Janeane Garofalo (who has inexplicably been added to the cast of "24") on the most recent episode of "Real Time With Bill Maher." This woman makes me ashamed of my liberal tendencies. She loves making a big production of the fact that she doesn't have a computer and refuses to use e-mail. What kind of stance is this? Listen, sweetie: your Luddite perversions in no way benefit your argument that we're being misinformed by our government. In fact, they undermine it. How am I supposed to trust the political/cultural opinions of someone who gets their information solely from the print editions of newspapers and CNN? And I'm sorry, but The Nation doesn't count.

I also want to chastise Maher for his knee-jerk support of Israel, which flies completely against his usual logic. Maher gets livid when religion is used as the basis for political and militaristic maneuvering, but in Israel's case, he's  OK with it. How is the idea of displacing an entire group of people because God wants you to live on a particular patch of dirt any less absurd than clitoral mutilation to appease the spirits? Maher also regularly speaks out against propping up a democracy (Iraq) in the middle of a hostile region with no such history. Yet he has no problem with our endless suppling of hardware (and intel) to the Israeli government — regardless of the cost in world standing, treasure or Palestinian livelihood. This is definitely mister smarty-pants libertarian's Achilles heel. As Bill himself might say, we still love you — just a little less.

OK, rant is done. Off to fill the universe with boundless compassion.

In the Cross Hairs. . . By Jebson Interlandi

As usual, I discover a soon-to-be-released project whose creation I should have been a part of.  One step behind, I am. . . always.

Unbeknownst to me, Bill Maher and Larry Charles have been hard at work on a documentary called Religulous.The title is quite clearly a fusion of the words religion, ridiculous and credulous. Larry Charles, of course, is well known as the director of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. But, as fans such as myself are aware, he was also a contributing writer/director on "Seinfeld." In fact, one of my favorite episodes, "The Library," sprung solely from Charles' unique mindscape. He's also listed as executive or co-producer of a great many "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episodes. Just don't mistake him for that other Larry. 

But back to the documentary. Religulous aims to examine the phenomenon of belief, or the curious behavior of simply accepting what one is told. Most stories have an element of make-believe, but the world's religious fictions take the cake. The reason these fairy tales are considered more spiritually valid than, say, "Jack & the Beanstock," is because adult believers pass their delusions to their children using fear tactics.

From what I have gathered, the film is peppered with interviews featuring a wide-range of faithful and non-faithful folk alike. The topic of religion will finally be placed under the scrutiny of a big medium-budget scope, in a deservedly absurd context.

I expect it to be an excellent exposé on the arrogance of the world's religious communities — I use that word because to claim infallible knowledge of the supernatural is, to me, the epitome of arrogance. This little picture definitely has the potential to piss off a lot of people. And I'm sure it presents views that many are too afraid of getting killed to openly exclaim. I only wish I could've offered my opinions. [EDITOR'S NOTE: We'll send you to the Iranian premiere].

Looks like Religulous will "rise" on Easter 2008. Anticipation.

While we're on the topic of films, I finally saw Hot Fuzz.  The creators of Shaun of the Dead (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) have made another over-the-top movie with the finest finale I've encountered all year. The highlight was seeing Timothy Dalton getting the "living daylights" splattered out of him after being granted a "license to be killed."  Sweet Juice of Mary, I've been waiting 18 years to make that joke.

Cheers.

Weekend Update.

Dax Riggs. No funny caption.

I've been given the opportunity to contribute to Washington City Paper, DC's long-running alt-newsweekly. It's a fine rag. I just finished my first assignment: performance previews of Thurston Moore and a dude named Dax Riggs. I think it went well.

Thurston's new album is dull as fuck, but Riggs is fun, in a Halloween-y kind of way. The latter fronted a sludge-psych-metal band called Acid Bath back in the '90s — we were contemporaries! He currently resides in Houma, Louisiana, which my wife assures me is a sure sign of mental instability.

In the course of my research, I checked out his MySpace page, and was immediately struck by his top "friends," including Alan Moore, Austin Osman Spare, Aleister Crowley, Diamanda Galas and Carl Perkins. Fuck yeah!

Turns out his stuff is fairly decent. Riggs has a rich bluesy baritone that sounds like Nick Cave swallowed David Coverdale. No kidding.

The music is raw-ish, just guitar, bass, drums and vocals, but it gets the job done. Imagine if Danzig were, say, 25 percent less cheesy... but only 25 percent.

Some may dismiss Rigs as a goth-blooze poseur, but I think he's actually pretty soulful in spots. And how can you argue with winning song titles like "Demon Tied to a Chair in My Brain," "Dog Headed Whore" and "Forgot I was Alive?" Ben from Farm, I'm looking at you.

Riggs is also in a two-piece band called Deadboy & the Elephantmen — a kind of White Stripes-gone-satanic scenario.

Here's a taste of his solo debut, We Sing of Only Blood or Love, on Fat Possum. You dig, you buy.

Dax Riggs — "Night is the Notion"

Dax Riggs — "Deathbryte"

Mr. Riggs plays DC9 on Tuesday, Oct. 2.

New Recordings.

I'm in the middle of working on a bunch of new material. I guess you could consider it a follow-up to Soft Rock, my 3" EP from 2005 or so. I've been recording fairly steadily since then, but I wasn't able to find a compositional through-line to justify another "official" release.

The new stuff is not entirely unlike what I've previously done, but there are a few major differences. This is likely gonna be a concept album (or concept MP3s, or whatever), inspired by a series of fantasy novels. (Can you fucking believe it? I can't.) Additionally, I've forgone electronics in favor of a more traditional rock approach. This means lotsa guitars. For better or worse, I've avoided my typical compositional tendencies — buried vocals, slow tempos and exclusively minor keys — in order to achieve a brasher sound.

I'm getting close to unveiling a few songs here, but if you really want to know what I've been up to, head to The Contrarian's MySpace page and click on the tune "Her Eminence," which sounds like Queen and ELO battling for control of the universe. Or something.

Two other songs are completed; both of 'em have an old-school, woodsy prog feel. You know — acoustic guitars, melloton, celeste, etc. But the next one is gonna have sharper teeth. I'm thinking proto-thrash, even. Been listening to a lot of Budgie.

There's yer update. I'm off to the zoo to hang with some Great Apes.

Filthy Morrocans and the Diseased... By Jebson Interlandi.

Shocking news from abroad, I'm afraid. Native Dutch crime organizations are diminishing in their influence, as a new wave of migrant hooligans are taking over the robbery/theft market. 

This reprobate infestation is composed of young Morrocan males. They are infiltrating our beloved country with their thieving, treacherous tendencies. At the moment, the only hope is that the current police department develops better intelligence to sniff out these thugs, along with acquiring more effective weaponry — i.e., guns.

In other news, the present Dutch health-care system is being looked at as a potential model for US modifications. To be more specific, the Netherlands gives priority to those already affected with illness or chronic disabilities. In the US, insurance companies avoid those with existing illness, like, um, the plauge. My prediction is that nothing will change whatsoever, and the recent article I read on the subject was merely a way to fill column space.

Did you know there's a Dutch group called De Zonnebloem (the Sunflower) whose task it is to combat Loneliness? Social isolation has been a recurring problem for many industrialized nations; the Netherlands' dilemma emerged in 1945, prompting the immediate construction of the Sunflower. I apologize if it seems I'm making light of this subject, for I do admit that many elderly and handicapped persons are unable to maintain friendships as I do, via the internet and post.

But being a seasoned recluse myself, I figured I'd offer a few personal methods for defeating Loneliness.

Firstly, there's nothing wrong with befriending the dead. I have many friends amongst the living whom I rarely get to see face-to-face, so I often depend on the companionship of the deceased. There are a handful of dead writers whose words are a particular comfort, for they remind me that there have been others with temperaments similar to my own. These friendships can be highly meaningful but, alas, conversation is limited.

Secondly, practice martial arts in front of a mirror. Not only does this get you in shape, it also builds your confidence, preparing you for that situation we all fear: being a chef on a battleship overrun by terrorists in search of Tomahawk missiles. Jesus.

Indeed. . . music, television, food, alcohol, books, etc.  These are all excellent substitutes for human companionship. So, if you're feeling lonely, don't call the Anti-Loneliness Squadron. . . just have discussions with yourself aloud. The louder your voice, the more at ease you are with your solitude. If you can make eye contact with yourself in the mirror and prompt yourself to laugh, you're on the right path. 

If any fellow readers have their own suggestions for combating loneliness, please share. Cheers.

In and Out.

My review of drone metallers Nadja is here.

Once again, please welcome our new Foreign Correspondent Jebson Interlandi. We expect great things from him.

Hear and see some weird-ass music over at ProgBlog.

Off to the races, more later. . .