Filthfiller

In Rotation: Jack White and Battles

Troy Farah — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:51:09 +0000

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.

Besides, Jack White has kept up with plenty of unique material, including that Insane Clown Posse single he helped pen and maybe, just maybe, Meg White actually had better things to do. She’s shy and that’s understandable, but it makes Jack White’s solo career hardly surprising.

In a way, Jack White’s always had a solo career—he’s always done whatever the hell he’s felt like. But his first actual all-by-himself record, titled Blunderbuss, sounds strongly like an apology. Comparing these 13 songs to the White Stripes is pretty inevitable, so let’s just say it’s closest to White Blood Cells, filled with scattered, cutesy songs that don’t really form a whole. They just seemed to come together for White at the right time, as he toldRolling Stone: “I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else …”

As much as White wants to shield his personal life from the limelight, he was divorced last year (going so far as to throw a celebratory party for “breaking the sacred union of marriage”) and his happy-go-lucky angst shows through his tunes. Most ofBlunderbuss is about heartbreak, but a rather sappy, midlife crisis kind.

“Love Interruption” has White vowing to never let affection get in the way of his life again and “Missing Pieces” is a paranoid song about how lovers take parts of you with them when they leave, although White also means literally severing hands and feet. They sound unpolished and amateur, without the fun or humor White is better known for.

The title track on Blunderbuss came to White in a dream, the word for an early muzzle-loading handgun, and like ancient firearms, it’s not well-aimed. “Sixteen Saltines” is the only track that really stays with you and probably won’t be long before it’s remixed by Glitch Mob for the next “G.I. Joe” trailer. Oh, how exciting.

If this is the best Jack White can do on his own, it just further confirms that the White Stripes ended at just the right moment. Yet, Blunderbuss is hardly a disappointment—ol’ Jackie will likely be up to something insane and interesting next month.

Battles – Dross Glop

Rating: 5/5

Reviewing remix compilation albums is normally a giant waste of time. What are you supposed to say? This song sounds like the original, except it’s sort of played backwards; there are different drums and the guitar went bye-bye; it’s 12 minutes longer and maybe you’ll hear it in a club somewhere, but maybe you won’t notice the difference.

Thankfully, with Dross Glop, a remix of their second LP Gloss Drop, Battles delivered differently. These New Yorkers already deserve credit for pushing post-rock into directions yet unexplored by the Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky types. Gloss was like turning on something completely new and magic, but it wasn’t easy to understand at first.

It’s natural for a lot of bands with hard-hitting, difficult-to-grasp music to release somewhat softer remixes. HEALTH did it with Disco 1 and 2 and Death From Above 1979 with Romance Bloody Romance. But Battles took something already tested and made it even more provocative and avant garde. Someone could say this is an attempt at consciousness-expanding music, but even I won’t go that far—it’s just one giant, beautiful showcase of talent.

Here’s the best metaphor for this album—if Gloss Drop had weird pink blobs that looked like ice cream on the album art, then Dross Glop is all that sticky, sugary lusciousness melted into a pile. And it is indeed delicious.

Half of Dross incorporates the abstract tension of a horror movie soundtrack or something by Lustmord, such as Silent Servant’s treatment of “Inchworm” and Kode9’s mixture of house music and chiptune on “Africastle.” Then there are the tracks that are completely bonkers, like how Brian DeGraw of Gang Gang Dance fame demolishes “Ice Cream” and Hudson Mohawke gives “Rolls Bayce” a Ferris wheel spin, then kicks it underwater.

There’s something for everyone on Dross Glop, from hip-hop to Latin drum and bass to krautrock to minimalist techno. It’s far more than a remix album, it’s high art. Too much praise? Maybe, but when nearly everything else so far this year has been cut, copied, pasted and dry, perhaps that’s just how refreshing this is.

Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12

M. Tekel — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:21:04 +0000

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. Lead guitarist Tim DeNardo described this town as a “home away from home,” mentioning the many friends who’ve let them crash on their floor or otherwise helped them on their odysseys through Arizona. Tempe was their first stop on a very short, very packed tour toward the Atlantic, including visits in New Orleans, Brooklyn and Chicago.

“It’s a big drive,” DeNardo explains. “Our label told us, ‘if you’re going to El Paso, we can get you to the East Coast.’ And we were like, well, we can. But do we want to?”

It’s certainly a ton of driving and playing, with sixteen shows before May ends. The Donkeys will top off their tour by participating in the Huichica Music Festival in Sonoma, California. Hopefully the foursome will maintain the energy they let loose in Tempe.

Many of the songs played were lifted from their 2011 LP Born With Stripes, such as “Bloodhound” and “Kaleidoscope.” The night had a romantic air as they sang “I Like The Way You Walk,” repeating the line “I love you with all my heart,” to a crowd of eager and receptive dancers. The Donkeys had a special way of entrancing their spectators, mixing the strung-out sounds of Hawkwind with elements of The Grateful Dead, The Eagles, and The Byrds.

They threw in a lot of new material, too, which should have fans excited — after this short tour the band plans to head into the studio.

“The best time to record is after a tour,” DeNardo grins. “We all write, so we’ll all come with something. I love that we keep it fresh in a lot of ways. It’s hard to pigeonhole us because we’re constantly changing. I never know what to expect.”

A small venue with a small set doesn’t usually allow for an encore, but The Donkeys made up for that with their performance of the titular “Born With Stripes.” Their last song expounded on their energy without reservation, the band giving it everything they had. The crowd seemed sent into a spiral, filled with enthusiasm for the quartet.

All this on a Monday night? It didn’t even seem strange. It just seemed like seeing old friends again, and like the convincing eras of music The Donkeys proudly borrow from, it seemed timeless.

Critic’s Notebook:

Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room.

Personal Bias: The sitar didn’t make an appearance, which disappointed me, but when talking to guitarist Jessie Gulati, I learned that he’s professionally trained from India and purchased his instrument from the same store George Harrison grabbed his sitar.

The Crowd: Plenty of drunks that forgot the day of the week and a few stoner poppies that danced the night away.

Overheard in the Crowd: ”Hey man, do you still have a place to crash? I have so many mushrooms…”

Disclosure: New Times music editor Jason Woodbury DJed sets.

Abandoniers! — Disgusting Leftovers from Lone Star

C. Bass — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:19:58 +0000

C. Bass brandishing a shard of glass. Photo by M. Tekel

One fine day, Tekel and I were out driving, looking for an opportunity for adventure. This opportunity was a closed down Lone Star Steakhouse off the I-17. There is no spooky or off-color reason this place was closed — Lone Star was dealt a blow by the recession, and they shut down 27 restaurants around the country, leaving them with 152 godless locations. I can only say good riddance; may the rest of the Lone Stars shut down within my lifetime. Not even Texas wants this lowbrow restaurant, as no locations exist within the “Lone Star” state itself.

Pulling into the dead empty parking lot, I parked the Rod under a tree. We tried the doors, to no avail, and we noticed that no windows had been broken that weren’t boarded up. In fact, aside from some graffiti and a junction box stripped of its copper wire, the place was pretty intact. That, however was only on the outside.

Around the area were a couple oddities, however. The first was the dumpster enclosure had been turned into some sort of miniature hobo jungle. The steel gates were locked into place, the dumpster was long gone, and in its stead stood a jaunty structure manufactured out some cardboard boxes and a dirty sheet. Strewn about this enclosure was junk, presumably of some use to the sub-human that nested there.

Deciding we did not want to enter the enclosure and risk catching Hep C (or worse), we went back to the building. There, we noticed that someone had clearly leaned their back up against the wall and shat. Perhaps this was done many times by one person, or perhaps people seeing the shit marks of the first thought it was brilliant precedent, but needless to say there are shit stains all over the back of the building. Between you and me, judging by the horribleness and the age of the fecal matter, these stains could have come from someone who had just eaten at Lone Star.

Anyways, on to the breaking and entering: I realized that we could probably get in via the roof. Seasoned urban explorers such as us know all kinds of tricky ways to get in the building. Sure, we could have smashed a window, but why break and enter like a common ruffian when you can break and enter in style?

I couldn’t get Tekel to hoist himself up on the roof with me at first, so I went it alone. Using the levers and vents of the busted junction box, I pulled myself up on to a lower outcropping of the roof. After grabbing the top and pulling myself up, I realized that the weird shit I felt under my hands while pulling myself up wasn’t merely debris, it was 15 inch glass shards. Cool. I hauled myself up the next 8 feet all the way on to the roof proper. I looked around a bit, but it had been torn up by meth addicted copper hunters, so I focused on the reason I went up there in the first place – the fire escape. It was a big metal hatch, maybe four by five feet, and upon lifting it, I could see a steel ladder descending 10 feet into darkness.

I descended.

However, like a fool, I left my adventure bag in the car. What the fuck, man? Why have an adventure bag stocked with all your handy shit, like a flashlight and a bowie knife, and not bring it with you into a building infested with crack whores and syphilitic bums? But I’m getting ahead of myself. As I stepped down from the ladder, I noticed that the floor around it was littered with junk – newspapers, magazines, discarded clothes, plain old trash. Looking up, I saw a black hallway. As I mentioned, I didn’t have my bag, so I had no light, and also no weapon but my fists. So I let my eyes adjust for a second, and I entered the hallway at the ready with my mitts. The place was torn apart. I kept knocking my head on tiles and light fixtures hanging by a thread, and plastic tubing that once contained copper wire snaked out in bundles from the ceiling. It was very musty, and also one or two degrees warmer inside – not much, but enough to make the must palpable. There was only one door in that black hallway, as I made my way down.

The door to the deep freezer.

I, being the brave soul I am, determined to open that large, square, steel door. However, I, being the sensible soul I am, looked around at the junk on the floor for something dangerous. I found a piece of pipe about a foot long, and brandishing this in one hand, I opened the door to the freezer. Luckily, no axe killers jumped out, no dinosaurs trapped by kids in the ‘90s jumped out, and I felt a bit silly. I didn’t go in, however, because you never know – maybe that axe killer is waiting just inside the door. Even if there weren’t any axe killers in there, it was blacker than black, and I didn’t want to stumble around and get strung up on the rusty meat hooks no doubt swinging from chains in there.

Moving on. I emerged from the hallway and found a stripped down dining area, and a trashed kitchen. I dropped the pipe, because I was feeling silly, and looked around just a little bit. I then exited through one of the many doors, which were conveniently unlocked from the inside. Tekel was waiting, and he hustled to enter the building by the door I just opened, but I SLAMMED IT SHUT. I told him he had to go in the way I went in. It was the only way – the only way to get the adrenaline flowing, the only way to properly experience this hovel.

So, we scrambled up the same way I had several minutes earlier. We climbed down the ladder and crossed the hallway with the same level of excitement, too. Entering the dining area, we paused and looked around. There wasn’t very much to see. The place had been shut down, the stuff had undoubtedly been sold off, and what was left was rifled through and looted by meth monkeys.

The most grotesque part was probably the women’s bathroom. Well, I should say the cowgirls’ bathroom. This was Lone Star, after all. The floor was strewn with hooker clothing. I mean, Tekel and I had to practically wade through hooker clothes. I’m talking the whole gambit – PVC boots, cheap black lacy things, y’know, hooker stuff.

Why were all these articles of hooker clothing here? If I was a hooker, I wouldn’t discard my threads so willy-nilly. Buying new clothes cuts into profit. Maybe it was just a hooker clothing repository, like a giant dresser drawer. Let’s hope that’s the reason and not something more sinister. Also strewn about the bathroom were meth pipes. The pipes were everywhere – we even inadvertently stepped on a few. The men’s – excuse me, the cowboys’ bathroom — was comparatively clean. By comparatively clean, I mean the walls were kicked in, and the toilets were overflowing with shit, not to mention the mirror which had been clearly head-butted into pieces. But hey, at least we didn’t step on any crack pipes.

Deciding we had enough and finding no good souvenirs, Tekel and I walked out through one of the side doors and jumped in the car and drove off. For an even more bizarre and dangerous adventure, come in the middle of the night, alone. Maybe you’ll surprise a meth freak and her john. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll surprise a meth freak and his john. Only one way to find out!

Read more by C. Bass and be sure to check out his website, which features drawings and things.

Tekel’s Book of the Month Club Returns!

M. Tekel — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:52:55 +0000

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!

As such, the rules have changed a little bit. Any book, even books you’ve read a hundred times before, can be suggested. Send suggestions to fireserphent@gmail.com

We want to keep books in the club modern and somewhat unknown (so The Great Gatsby and Harry Potter aren’t serious suggestions). Why? Because everyone’s saying modern literature is dead, so we want to prove the cynics wrong.

You have a month (loosely) to finish the book. Then, a short review of the book will be posted with lots of questions. You can provide feedback in the comments, write your own review or whatever you feel like. Paint a some watercolor thing to express how the book made you feel. Who gives a shit.

THIS MONTH’S BOOK IS:

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk.

Synopsis:

“Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison,” declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk’s subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a marijuana overdose—and the next thing she knows, she’s in Hell. Madison shares her cell with a motley crew of young sinners that is almost too good to be true: a cheerleader, a jock, a nerd, and a punk rocker, united by fate to form the six-feet-under version of everyone’s favorite detention movie. Madison and her pals trek across the Dandruff Desert and climb the treacherous Mountain of Toenail Clippings to confront Satan in his citadel. All the popcorn balls and wax lips that serve as the currency of Hell won’t buy them off.

This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.

Why? Palahniuk is possibly the most popular writer of this generation and so a lot of people have already read this novel. That makes it easier to discuss for a first book, anyway. Other selections will be more challenging and obscure. But it’s kind of important to keep on top of trends and while this book wasn’t even close to Palahniuk’s greatest, it’s still somewhat relevant. In fact, some may argue that this book was absolute shit. But let’s wait till the month is over to argue.

Try to have it all read and finished by JUNE 15TH 2012. Discussion will take place then, but since it technically won’t ever close, there is no deadline. There is a high possibility of having a party in Phoenix, however, if enough people participate, which will take place around June 15th. Either at a bar or nursing home or a park late at night. Details will be posted later.

Happy trails and such.

Foto Filth — Pollinators and Fauna

M. Tekel — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:17:39 +0000

All with Canon AE-1.

‘Wormery — The Obligatory Tribute to One Entire Third of the Beastie Boys

M. Tekel — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:47:00 +0000

It’s Monday, so dry your tears — you undoubtedly heard over the weekend that MCA, who made up an entire third (!!) of the Beastie Boys, succumbed to cancer at the age of 47. Of course, reading through the many obituaries and tributes, the focus is more on Adam Yauch’s (as his mother called him) charitable lifestyle, instead of the tumors that ate his face off.

What Yauch died from was called parotid cancer, which affects the salival glands. It’s really rare and no one is really sure of the cause, but it probably isn’t smoking or alcohol consumption. No word on “breath stinkin’” or “glue sniffin’” yet though.

The saddest part is the cancer was likely caught in Stage I or II, where the survival rate ranges from 75% to 91%. But it’s likely (there aren’t any definitive sources on his death yet, but this sheds a lot of light) that Yauch’s situation went to Stage IV, a survival rate of 39%, where the cancer spread into his lymph nodes and sucked the life out of him.

And now for the obligatory tribute, which I’m sure you’re not sick of yet. I personally find the cancer itself more interesting. That, and Yauch’s weird choice to use Tibetan doctors when he had access to the best healthcare anywhere in the world. Yauch went to a nunnery and they prayed for him, as he told the BBC in 2009: ”One nun said to me: ‘We do prayers and then you are better’. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.”

Guess that was the source of his optimism. Too bad it didn’t work out for him.

I hope you don’t think I’m insensitive, but celebrity deaths don’t really phase me. I like to think about what they contributed rather some arbitrary loss to the future of my entertainment.

Anyway, music time. Everyone is talking about their favorite BB songs and you already know what they sound like, so rather than oversaturate you, here’s a bunch of random crap to pay tribute.

“How in the four-letter-word are ya?” And Lionel Ritchie really should release an album about necrophilia…

Futurama was really on to something here. I hope Capitol Records kept Yauch’s head, less as a trophy and more as a science experiment.

I think this was done by the Beastie Boys. It sounds like them.

Sources: Survival rates of parotid cancer.

Daydreams at The Brian Jonestown Massacre Release Party Thing

M. Tekel — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:43:07 +0000

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.

I got a drink with my girl and we stood at a table, watching the stage, listening to Black Mountain on the P.A. and doing some people watching.

Oh god, the crowds at a Brian Jonestown Massacre show are fucking amazing. There was a guy dressed in a sheepherder’s jacket with long, striped white pants. Everyone was wearing weird or really cool clothes. So many weird people, and yes, so many pretentious hipster assholes, but not the kind you’d find at a Starfucker or Arcade Fire concert. This was a crowd closer to vinyl freaks at a Neutral Milk Hotel gig and yeah, there were a lot of aging folks because of that.

But the great thing is, these people were there to actually enjoy the fucking music. There was a noticeable decrease in camera phones sticking up in the audience like when every idiot with a Tumblr tries to take a shitty Instagram. I hate that. Just enjoy the show without trying to create so many stupid, half-assed memories.

Anyway, there are assholes at every show, but BJM tends to bring out the best in some of them. When BJM took the stage, in front of us was an incredibly wasted pair of fellows that tried to steal beer off the stage, stepped on us a hundred times and spilled drinks everywhere.

One guy, we will call him Short Fucker, started screaming out in the middle of a guitar solo, “Go Matt Holiday! Yeah! Matt Holiday!”

Someone said, “Dude, it’s Matt Hollywood.”

When Joel Gion stepped offstage for a bit, Short Fucker screamed at him, grabbing at him until a stage manager pushed him back. “Calm down guy,” the manager said. “He’s just a guy that works in a record store and plays tambourine a few weeks out of the year.”

Short Fucker again tried to steal some beers off the stage, dropped his BJM shirt and didn’t notice. So we took it and moved.

See, there are assholes at these shows, myself included, but that guy sort of had it coming, I suppose. I think Anton really brings it out in everyone – a few times he yelled at the audience to shut up so he could “think” of a song to play. And twice he yelled at his guitar lineup because they weren’t playing as tightly as he wanted.

“Who wants to play this song? You guys are seriously sucking,” Anton was just digging into them.

But you know what? Despite this highly amusing drama, Anton was a little right. After the band stopped getting yelled at, things picked up and the songs improved if only just a little. Maybe Anton should have used honey instead of vinegar, but honestly, who cares.

Anton had a good sense of humor, too. You see, it was a CD release party for BJM’s latest, Aufheben. Why in the fuck did they choose Phoenix? They could have done San Francisco, Berlin, Iceland, Toronto, fuck, anywhere… It felt like such an unexpected compliment. But it seems it wasn’t much of a choice.

“We wanted to pick a place off the radar. We’re having a release party down the street at Circle K,” Anton said. “Seriously, everyone just go in there and get yourself a slurpee.”

I guess I’m just gushing at this point when I say this was the best fucking concert I’ve ever been to. They played “Wisdom” and “(David Bowie I Love You) Since I was Six” – both of which were romantic songs I put on mixtapes for the girl I had my arms around. They played “Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth” which was so funny and great. But they ended without an encore because they played the 11 minute version of “Straight Up and Down” even adding in some of the chants from “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones and “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. Can you say perfect?

This is the kind of music that really moves me, music that really transforms me and takes me into another place. It’s the kind of experience that really lasts with you. I know that experience isn’t going to be the same for everyone that listens to this fantastic band, but for me it was life affirming.

OK, I really am just gushing at this point, but when we left, I was able to meet Anton out back, smoking a cigarette. Joel was there, but he took off when I started spouting how great the show was.

“You don’t have to say that,” one of the new guitarists said.

“Well, thanks for playing in Phoenix and having a CD release here…” I started.

“Don’t thank us,” Anton said. “Thank the continental drift.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I asked him, “How’s Iceland?”

“Well, I like it but everyone else hates it there,” Anton said. I learned later that he doesn’t even live there anymore, but he resides in Berlin. I felt really stupid because even if this is one of my favorite bands, I haven’t checked up on them since Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

“You should visit,” Anton said. “Get on a flight. Tomorrow.”

I nodded sarcastically. “Oh yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Fuck it, just row a boat there. But be careful, they have crazy waves there.”

I laughed and shook his hand, letting him get back to enjoying his evening. I didn’t want to pester him (asking for autographs or photos was really out of the question – I think that’s rude) but as I walked away I felt completely idiotic. I came off looking just like a cheap hipster that watched DiG! and knew nothing about them currently. And maybe that’s true. But I don’t care. I had the time of my life doing it. Anton once said, “All you is for the song to make you daydream.” And that’s what it did.

Feedbag: The pigs cometh to feast at Golden Corral

C. Bass — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:22:28 +0000

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.

Moving on from the general to the specific: the place (Golden Corral) has tiny fucking parking spots. As in those spots made for bikes, except the whole damn lot consists of those microscopic “sub-compact” spaces.

I am a motherfucking American. I drive a motherfucking SUV.

What the fucking shit is this? Eventually we just settled on taking up two spots and having the back end stick out in the lot. Then, practically as soon as I walk in the door, I am blockaded by the elderly and the infirm. I swear to God, it was like the almost-dead-circus was in town- instead of carnies, it was a bunch of fucking skeletons and zombie look-a-likes! To add to the horror, the whole place stank of piss and mothballs.

“But C. Bass, you were in a restaurant near a retirement community!”

Yeah, well, fuck them. Just because you’re over 55 doesn’t mean you have a free ticket to throw all etiquette and decency out the window. I nearly broke some hips in an anti-geriatric rage. They just stood there, chewing their cud like a pack of moronic livestock. Then some lackey of the establishment would put out fresh gruel, and they would practically stampede (as much of a stampede as a bunch of octogenarians could muster) en masse towards the troughs of slop. I think they expected ME to get out of THEIR way. I was already sidling along the walls because no one would let me through. I was like the runt piglet of the litter, trying to get through the masses for my turn at the putrid, decaying teat of the corporate food establishment. Eventually, I just fucking spread my feet, balled my fists and stood there and stared them down hard until they moved. Old codgers.

After a certain point, the place filled up with little kids as well, making half the crowd people above 60, and the other half kids below 10; the two age groups I hate the most. Goddaaaaaaamn.

Anyways, I’m at the plate dispenser, which makes this place seem even more like some horrible joke about how alike citizens are to livestock, and every fucking plate is dirty. Every single worthless piece of plastic I laid my mitts on was fucking filthy. I sat there, holding up the line, looking for a clean plate, while everyone in the restaurant stopped what they were doing and looked at me. The employees stopped working and looked up in horror and mild disgust mingling on their faces: “Oh God, he’s not one of them! He’s on to us! Shit! He’ll never find a clean plate and he’ll snap!”

Eventually I found some cutlery with no bits of food stuck on and no soap spots and the tense silence subsided as the restaurant breathed a collective sigh of relief:

“Thank God, that crazy guy who just HAS to have a clean plate isn’t going to flip out and kill us all. We can continue to fill our digestive chutes with molded nutrient gruel.”

So now that I have a plate with which I can collect some of this slop, I started walking around and looking at the food- no, no, the “food”. The shit that they scraped out of the freezers of good, upstanding, nice restaurants, threw into a broiler, and slapped under a heat lamp, as it were. I finally found some slim pickings to eat – shit or not, I’ll be damned if I don’t get my money’s worth at a buffet.

Besides the poor quality of “food” and the uncleanliness of the tableware and the establishment itself, the fucking building must be built for dwarves. I am only six feet tall, but I managed to hit my head on every single door frame, every stupid fucking decoration they had up for the veterans, consisting mostly of American flag decor. But the fucking nimrods hung the flags upside down! Apparently not only do Anarchists not believe in laws or government, but they also do not believe in running a quality restaurant! I can only hope it was an attempt at a bad sartorial joke, perpetrated by some disgruntled no-neck wannabe who works in the back, pretending to wash dishes. FRIENDLY NOTE, GUY: if you spent half as much time cleaning those damnable plastic plates as you did pretending to be a political activist, I WOULDN’T BE SO FUCKING PISSED.

Moral of the story is: Do NOT eat at any restaurants in any municipality West of Surprise.

God Bless,

C. Bass

Golden Corral

17674 North Litchfield Road Surprise, AZ 85374
(623) 544-0900

In Rotation: The Mars Volta and Broken Bells… er, The Shins…

Troy Farah — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:13:46 +0000

Reviving the Volta and a good kick to the Shins

Published on 04/26/2012 in Flag Live!

The Mars Volta

Noctourniquet

Rating: 4/5

The Mars Volta, infamous for their cryptic lyrics, songs often exceeding 10 minutes and experimental, dissonant riffs, thoroughly define modern prog-rock. Fans of the group want music that’s challenging to understand or appreciate. And, because the group does everything against the rules, they even threatened to break their own and release a pop album.

That threat was realized in 2009 with the band’s fifth album, Octahedron, which was so lukewarm, it felt curdled. It sucked in the same way catfish feed, the same way leeches get your blood, the same way politicians pander to voters.

So the release of Noctourniquet, had me, a long-time Volta enthusiast, very uninterested. To make matters worse, the music for the Mars Volta’s sixth record was written alongside Octahedron, partially because Omar Rodríguez-López is just a one-man production machine. Between 2008 and 2010 alone, the man produced 14 solo albums, not including two live albums, or his numerous collaborations and guest appearances.

It’s no surprise that the band demanded a break from his musical slave labor camp, especially lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. It took Zavala two-and-a-half years to writeNoctourniquet’s lyrics and even then he was dragging his feet.

But in the end, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief—Noctourniquet is far from another Octahedron. It’s described by the band as “future punk,” which is a pretty stupid, attention-grabbing label (besides, isn’t that what Muse tries to do?) but it kind of works. It’s still down-tempo and short, lacking the group’s former punch, but if this is just a breather, then we can (hopefully) get some De-Lousedor Amputechture in the future. We’re still left with gems like “Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound,” with guitar riffs that sound lifted from OK Computer or Interpol’s Antics.

Then there’s the backstory on this album, loosely applied to the nursery rhyme, Solomon Grundy and the myth of Hyacinthus, (you know, the little twink who fell in love with Apollo, so the wind god Zephyrus blew a discus into his head, killing Hy and so Apollo turned him into a flower. You know that one, right?) There’s no consensus on what that even remotely has to do with lyrics like “cackling in chloroform this specter will ensnare” or “all the traps in the cellar go clickety clack,” off “The Malkin Jewel.” But that’s the beauty of it—you get to write the narrative yourself, filling in the gaps like a Mad Lib puzzle.

With that said, maybe the Volta have lost their sting for now, but as close as this gets to soothing, it still keeps one on their toes.

The Shins

Port of Morrow

Rating: 1/5

Talk about a scumbag Natalie Portman. In that New Jersey indie film “Garden State,” she grins, saying listening to the Shins will change your life. But it doesn’t. Not in an inspired, “let’s create great art and high society” way, at least, but maybe in a “Gee, that girl doesn’t like me so much, but I’m so into her” way.

It’s not like the Portland-based group is bad, but did anyone even notice they broke up? Or whatever you want to call it. James Mercer kicked everyone but himself out of the jangly, indie-pop band, added some scattered replacement musicians and made it sound exactly like his Broken Bells side-project, minus the needed, urbane touch from Danger Mouse.

That’s exactly what “The Shins’” fourth album, Port of Morrow is—a Broken Bells record. Don’t sugarcoat it. There are many ways in which this is unlistenable (to say nothing of its non-life-changing factor) but let’s start with a few.

It’s not organic. This new sound, after Mercer dropped the subterfuge, revealed nothing at all, not even the Wizard of Oz. Even the lack of subtlety in these metaphors, such as on “For A Fool,” makes this effort seem forced. In the realm of creative writing, they would say this is a lot of “telling, not showing.”

It’s not weird. I have always liked that about people who tout “New Slang” as a sort of anthem. The song is uniquely structured and definitely off, like a skipping Simon and Garfunkel vinyl. People who adore that kind of stuff usually have a quirky side to them that’s refreshing. What are you supposed to do with normal music and normal people? Talk about the normal weather?

It’s not depressing. Some of these songs come across like that annoyingly optimistic clothing line Life Is Good. Oh, please James Mercer, impart your earthly wisdom on our awaiting ears, tell us “It’s Only Life,” and rub the dirt off our rose-colored glasses.

If I’m entirely honest, the only reason I even listen to the Shins’ older stuff lately is because it reminds of being a teen, when I felt all misunderstood and sad all the time. Is that dumb? Probably. I guess it helps me reflect on how far I’ve come. It’s unlikely to seePort Of Morrow leave any memorable mark, and that’s saying something for a group hardly able to do that in the first place.

Foto Filth XI — Days with Dave

M. Tekel — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:57:00 +0000

Dave hates it when I take pictures of him. Hard to see why, right? Well, hey, he’s not totally photogenic, but he is single, so give him a call, guys!

Here he is coning. If you don’t know what that is, try YouTube for a more visual representation.

We got soaked in the rain and he sat in these fancy Scottsdale chairs and assumedly made them smell like wet dog.