By Troy Farah, on May 17th, 2012% 
Jack White’s blah solo excursion and a delicious remix album
Published on 05/10/2012 in Flag Live!
Jack White – Blunderbuss
Rating: 2/5
Of all the band-related breakups last year—among them Bright Eyes and LCD Soundsystem—the White Stripes’ demise was the least disheartening. The duo had a long, steady career and ending it when they did was perfect timing. What if, instead, the band had become saturated with their ego, released a bunch of unforgivable, crappy albums and started an endless tour circuit where they relived the “glory days of the 2000s,” if such a thing will ever exist. Frightening thought.
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By M. Tekel, on May 4th, 2012%  Photo: Wikipedia I saw Anton Newcombe the minute I walked into Crescent Ballroom. At first I wasn’t sure it was really the Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman, because I was stoned out of my mind and he looked shorter than I imagined.
In the bathroom, I also saw Matt Hollywood the guitarist, who I had a dream about getting into a fight with several months ago. I pissed right next to him, thought about telling him about the dream, but decided to say nothing.
Fuck. Here I was at the show of my dreams (literally) and I couldn’t even talk to these guys. Read More
By C. Bass, on May 4th, 2012%  sketch by C. Bass Editor’s note: Magazines don’t typically review chain restaurants, but we’re Filthfiller and we’ll do what we want. This will be a one time deal, but besides, we’re making fun of old people and that’s comedy gold.
I went to Golden Corral earlier this evening, and I had a very bad experience. How bad, you ask? I’ll tell you how bad. Buckle up.
Let me start by saying that every food place within Surprise/Sun City/Peoria/Youngtown is fucking atrocious. The food is little more than excrement from the wild animals they presumably have chained up in the back – it doesn’t matter what you order, they are going to bring you a stinking plate of shit. It also doesn’t matter if it is a franchise or a chain, even a particularly good one, the branch on Litchfield road and Bell is a fucking reeking cesspit. Read More
By C. Bass, on April 27th, 2012% 
Ever heard of sumac? That’s ok, it probably hasn’t heard of you, either. If you have heard of sumac, you might be thinking I’m referring to poison sumac, or its cousins poison ivy and poison oak. I am not. The sumac to which I refer is a spice used extensively in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, like turmeric and mint. Sumac, as you’ll usually see it for cooking, is a dark reddish granulated powder (definitely maroon, almost purple) that has a partly sour, pseudo citrus taste. The best way I, with my limited tongue, can describe the flavor is a cross between tamarind and lemon. Kind of like those Hispanic treats, I guess?
I myself happen to be quite familiar with sumac. I am Mediterranean by blood, and growing up, it has been a constant in the spice cabinet. It still is. However, I never thought I would be presented with an enormous shaker (just like the ones that hold shitty parm and red pepper flakes at your local pizza joint) of sumac, nestled right next to the salt and pepper. Oh, glorious day that I first stepped foot in this restaurant and discovered one of the most perfect of diamonds in the rough!
This diamond in the rough to which I refer is, of course, Haji-Baba.
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By Troy Farah, on March 20th, 2012% 
An American Dream-killing diva and lucid dream pop
By Troy Farah
Published on 03/01/2012 in Flag Live
Lana Del Rey
Born To Die
Rating: 5/5
Let’s talk pop. What’s more American than taking a pretty girl, placing her in front of a microphone and making her sing in between commercials for tampons and beers from Milwaukee? And with all due respect to Whitney Houston, what’s more American than getting said female addicted to narcotics until they destroy themselves, then overplaying how misunderstood and sad their lives were?
Lana Del Rey’s different—she’s still a part of the recent rash of neo-blue-eyed soul singers like Adele or the late Amy Winehouse, but she doesn’t have an issue with self-esteem or a sorority-girl drinking problem. What Rey represents is the death of the American Dream, as odd and perhaps clichéd as that may sound.
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By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012% 
Dark soundscapes and an atmospheric soundtrack to Camelot
ByTroy Farah
Published on 02/16/2012in Flag Live
Chairlift
Something
Rating: 4/5
Raise your hand if you like happy little pop songs that are secretly about violent killing sprees. “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” by the Killers or the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays” are great examples, and by now everyone knows that one Foster the People song is really about a school shooting.
Did you know some people have actually tried to turn “Pumped Up Kicks” into a dubstep song? It sounds terrible, like they had a radio hit they didn’t know what to do with. But “Sidewalk Safari,” off Chairlift’s second LP, Something, would be a great dance floor hit, sounding like the “Sonic: The Hedgehog” theme meets Neon Indian. The infectious little song is clearly about crushing pedestrians with a car, but this isn’t the only surprise off the album. Read More
By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012% 
In Rotation -Sailing the seas of cliché and pandering
By Troy Farah
Published on 01/26/2012 in Flag Live
The Internet
Purple Naked Ladies
1/5
It seems like every three months, some branch of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) releases a new album. It’s getting harder to keep up, but luckily, the Internet’s Purple Naked Ladies can be skimmed over. Like other Odd Future releases, production is kept to a minimum, but it doesn’t have the charm. The opener, “Violet Nude Women,” sounds like what happens when my cat plays with my Roland digital piano, and “They Say” is so sleep-inducing it feels like drinking a gallon of Nyquil.
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By Troy Farah, on December 28th, 2011% 
In Rotation
The very best of the 2011’s musical offerings
By Troy Farah
Published on 12/22/2011
Well, now that he’s almost gone, I can talk all I want about 2011 behind his back. What a long year. I can’t really say it was good or bad, but just somewhere in between. Pretty neutral. The Arab Spring led to some pretty neutral results. Occupy Wall Street, also pretty neutral. The Iraq Invasion is wrapping up, but the War on Terror gets more and more frightening over here. So, pretty neutral.
Although, in the long run we should choose to champion what was exceptional, and few things were as exceptional this year as these album releases. That’s right, it’s Flag Live’s Best Music of 2011.
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By Troy Farah, on December 1st, 2011% 
A visionary director’s creepy side project and sonic spacey narcissism
By Troy Farah
Published on 11/24/2011
David Lynch
Crazy Clown Time
Rating: 3/5
If a director ignores music, he’s hardly a director. It follows that David Lynch, whose films epitomize the phrase “avant garde” as much as they represent the words “[expletive] confusing,” pays so much attention to what melody is going on in the background. It’s not weird (or even news) that Lynch has been expanding his creativity to a different territory, this time with his solo record debut: Crazy Clown Time. Lynch has recorded music multiple times before, several times for the movies “Twin Peaks” and “Inland Empire” and once with superstar producer Danger Mouse.
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By Troy Farah, on November 18th, 2011% 
Wilco’s consoling pity party and too many turntables for DJ Shadow
By Troy Farah
Published on 11/10/2011
Wilco
The Whole Love
Rating: 3.5/5
Like most Wilco albums, their eighth release, The Whole Love, requires multiple listens. Subtle-yet-complex arrangements spattered with bold, but depressing (and occasionally nonsensical) lyrics make this Chicago six-piece at times inaccessible. Yet, for The Whole Love, not all of the love is there.
“Art of Almost,” the album’s opener, would have made for a better record title. “Almost” captures Wilco’s efforts more clearly here—a rather colorless product with themes typical of Wilco, without the heart.
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Specialty Gunk Runner
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Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12
Originally published in Phoenix New Times’ Up On The Sun
It’s hard to tell your friends “I’m going to the Donkeys show” with a straight face. No, not some perverted freak-show in Mexico. I mean the psychedelic San Diegan blues rockers The Donkeys, who tore the Yucca Tap Room apart with their ’60s-inspired pop and ’70s-era jams, a blend that’s earned praise from indie contemporaries like The Mountain Goats and The Hold Steady. The Donkeys treated the bar and lounge like they were regulars, which is pretty close to the truth — this is hardly their first rodeo in Tempe. . . . → Read More: Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12
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Tekel’s Book of the Month Club Returns!
This isn’t some Oprah bullshit. We read kickass books and at the end of it, have a swag party with cocktails, cigars and coke. Most of all, we talk all posh about literature. It’s an incentive to read and discuss ideas rather than what’s on TV or who’s sleeping with who.
Tekel’s Book of the Month Club existed in some form as a weird Facebook group, but now it’s public. Anyone can (and should) join!
. . . → Read More: Tekel’s Book of the Month Club Returns!
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The Filthfiller Interview: Jerking-off, spider dongs and BDSM photographer Natacha Merritt
San Francisco-based photographer, Natacha Merritt, made waves in 2000 with her book Digital-Diaries, an erotic exploration of her excellent sex life as she toured the underground S&M and slut-sex scenes. The book moved over 300,000 copies, featured in everything from The Wall Street Journal to Playboy to Rolling Stone.
So what do you after your pornographic diary becomes a best-seller? Well, for Merritt, she went back to school to study biology. Perhaps that’s an odd choice, but between photographing Cirque du Soleil performers and amateur models, she was getting close and personal with arachnid genitalia. Her passion for sex . . . → Read More: The Filthfiller Interview: Jerking-off, spider dongs and BDSM photographer Natacha Merritt
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Rock Monster: Flagstaff’s Tonsil Yeti gets by (and triumphs) with a little help from their friends
Published on 03/22/2012 in Flag Live
(Author’s note: This article was the blood and sweat of over eight months, where it was post-poned and delayed repeatedly. I feel like I became really close with the band in that time and I’m finally glad to see it in print. Enjoy it uncensored after the break.)
It took a number of beer-pounding sessions before settling on the offbeat name Tonsil Yeti. Other suggestions thrown about were Bronson Johnson, Six Year Old Girls, Konkey Dong, Vagiant (taken, as it turns out), and Bloody Sex. But what exactly is a Tonsil Yeti? To . . . → Read More: Rock Monster: Flagstaff’s Tonsil Yeti gets by (and triumphs) with a little help from their friends
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Phoenix Indie-Rock Band Knesset Is Big in Japan
By Troy Farah Mon., Mar. 19 2012 at 7:00 AM in Phoenix New Times
Released last year, Coming of Age is an appropriate title for Knesset’s first album, as the band is only now starting to step up locally. Pronounced KA-NESS-ET and named after the legislative branch of the Israeli government, these locals have played in the background of Phoenix since 2007.
. . . → Read More: Phoenix Indie-Rock Band Knesset Is Big in Japan
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